No Witness But the Moon(57)

“So can I drive there at least?”

“Your truck stays here for the night. I told you, you’re getting a ride. Detective Greco should be here any minute.”

*

“Do they have a word in Spanish for ‘world-class jerk?’ ” Greco asked Vega on the fifteen-minute drive back north to Lake Holly. “You’re just lucky it was Wilson and Duran who came into that diner tonight or you’d be spending this lovely December evening in the county lockup kissing your career good-bye.”

Greco fished a Twizzler out of a cellophane bag on the console next to him. He’d signed out an unmarked dark blue Ford Focus for the drive so he could keep in radio contact. The car smelled faintly of cigarettes the officers weren’t supposed to smoke but did so anyway. It was better than the pieces of junk Vega’s department usually stuck him with. Vega reclined his seat slightly so he wouldn’t chance being seen by anyone who might know him. He knew he looked a mess. His left cheek felt like tenderized meat. He was too old for fistfights. With age was supposed to come wisdom. But with him, all that seemed to come were stiff joints and slower reflexes.

“I don’t want to go to Adele’s,” he said.

“And I don’t want to take you, so we’re even. I don’t even return your phone calls. They give me too much agita. Not to mention watching that footage of you and your fan club on YouTube.”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Last time I looked, it had ten thousand hits.”

Vega waited a respectable five seconds before asking a question he knew would send Greco’s blood pressure through the roof.

“Did you ever get ahold of any contact numbers for those NYPD detectives, Brennan and Renfro, from your friend Carlucci?”

“Jesus, Vega!” Greco hit the steering wheel. “Your problems are multiplying faster than freshmen at a keg fest. And you’re still on about Ponce and your mother?”

“There was a security camera in my mother’s building. Brennan wrote in his notes that the camera wasn’t working because of a loose wire.”

Greco shrugged. “It happens.”

“Yeah, but the DVD was blank. I spoke to a storeowner who has a similar camera and she said a loose wire wouldn’t result in a blank DVD. A loose wire would only affect the current recording—not whatever was on it before.”

“So?”

“The only way that DVD could have been blank was if somebody switched it with the one that was in there before. The only person with that sort of access would have been Ponce.”

“So Ponce switched DVDs—maybe. It’s also possible he never hooked up the camera,” said Greco. “Or he accidentally erased all the images. There’s no way to know.”

“It sounds to me like he was covering for something. Or someone.”

“Or he was incompetent. Either way, he’s dead,” said Greco. “Whatever he did or didn’t do, it’s over, man. You’ve got to let it go.”

“In other words, you never asked Carlucci for Brennan or Renfro’s contact numbers.”

“I did. Brennan retired to Florida. He doesn’t have the paperwork and says he barely remembers the case. You’re not going to get anything there. As for Renfro? He’s on a joint task force out of Brooklyn now. Carlucci said there’s nothing he’s likely to be able to tell you anyway. He didn’t work your mother’s case except for a few odds and ends. He knew her as a complainant, not the deceased.”

“What do you mean, ‘a complainant?’ ”

“Apparently, your mother made an appointment to speak with Renfro before she died. She never told him what it was about so if it was related to her death, the evidence died with her.”

“My mother made an appointment to speak to a homicide detective? As in, she suspected someone of murder? Were you planning on sharing this with me at some point? Or were you just going to slip it into my Christmas stocking?”

“There’s nothing to share, Vega. Renfro doesn’t know any more than I’m telling you right now.”

They were in Lake Holly now. Greco made several turns and headed up Pine. Adele’s street.

“Duran and Wilson aren’t going to know if you just circle the block and drop me somewhere,” said Vega. “I can take a cab back to my truck.”

“No can do. That wasn’t the deal.”

“Screw the deal! Look, Grec—Adele doesn’t deserve this. The farther I am from her, the better.”

“You really think you can go this alone?”

“At least until this thing is over.”

“This thing, as you call it, will never be over, Vega. Ever. The paperwork and procedures will end. The whispers and rumors will die down. But taking a man’s life? That’s always going to be a part of who you are from this moment forward. You think it’s not a part of me? It’s been two decades and it’s still a part of me. Every single day. That’s why I gave you that therapist’s name. Don’t you get it? You’re different now. You’re going to have to find a way to live with that. And if you think you can do it alone, then God help you, buddy.”

Greco’s words pierced something inside of Vega. He’d been holding himself together until now, trying to sooth himself with the notion that if he could just hang on, this nightmare would have a back end to it. And now suddenly, here was Greco telling him that there was no back end—not now. Not ever. He could never wash the stain from his skin. It was his skin now. And he’d wear it until the day he died.