No Witness But the Moon(68)

Luis. Vega straightened. “Luis said he shot Ponce.”

“So?” asked Greco. “Luis wouldn’t know who he shot until the police told him the guy’s name.”

“Yeah, but unlike me, Luis saw the face of the man he shot. In good light. At close range. Ponce’s picture was all over the news. If the man Luis shot wasn’t Ponce, why didn’t he say anything?”

“Luis probably never gave the guy more than a passing thought except as to how it might affect his career.”

Greco’s phone dinged with a text. “My guys just brought Marcela in.” Greco sighed. “I hate telling people their loved ones are dead. And I really hate delivering that news twice.”

Vega left Greco and returned to the emergency room waiting area. It felt like hours had passed but it had only been twenty-five minutes. Adele still hadn’t come out. Vega was glad. He couldn’t tell her any of what he’d just found out.

He pulled out his phone and played a game to distract himself. He never felt normal hunger anymore, only sudden waves of intense desire for sugar or caffeine. He walked back to the vending machine, bought a Snickers bar, and another weak cup of coffee, and sat at a small table in the snack area trying to eat slowly and feel the food travel from his mouth to his stomach. The sweetness soothed him. He brought the cup to his lips—and froze.

Two uniformed police officers walked by. Between them stood Marcela and her husband, Byron, both of them looking grim-faced and cowed in the presence of so much authority. Vega ducked his head. He felt the cup shaking in his hands. It was only a few weeks ago that he’d driven Marcela home in the rain. He remembered walking her to her door, both of them huddled under his umbrella. How could he have guessed their lives would become entwined under such horrible circumstances?

Marcela didn’t see Vega, thankfully. She was too focused on her little boy, who looked like he’d just awoken from a deep sleep. The child was still wearing his pajamas and clutching a stuffed dog. Marcela handed him off to a young teenage girl accompanying the family. Yovanna? The teenager took the sleepy child in her arms and started heading for the vending machines.

Vega felt trapped, as if he’d been caught spying or shoplifting. He shoved the rest of the candy bar in his mouth and threw the wrapper in the garbage. He picked up the coffee to leave when the teenager walked into the small snack room with the little boy in her arms. The child was fully awake now. He’d spotted the candy in the machines.

“Quiero caramelos!” the boy whined. He wanted candy. The teenager shushed him. “I have no money,” she told him in Spanish.

Vega fished some change from his pockets and held it out to the girl.

“Here,” he said in Spanish. “For you and the little boy.” Vega couldn’t remember the child’s name. But he wouldn’t have used it anyway. It would have frightened the two children to think this stranger knew who they were.

The girl shook her head no and kept her eyes on the floor. Adele had said she was thirteen but she looked much younger than that. She had her mother’s dark skin, wide face, and Asian-looking eyes. Her clothes looked too small on her and more suited to spring than winter. She wore only a light pink windbreaker. Vega wondered if this was all Marcela had had on hand for her when she arrived.

“Candy! Candy! Candy!” the boy cried again in Spanish.

The teenager bounced the boy on her hip. “We’ll get candy later maybe,” she offered. But the boy kept up his chant.

Vega took the money he’d offered her and fed it into the vending machine. “Please,” he said to her. “Have what you want.”

The girl regarded Vega from the corner of her eye. She lifted a skinny little hand to the machine but it just hung there. Vega realized she had no idea how the machine worked.

“Would you like this?” He pointed to a Snickers bar. “It has peanuts and chocolate. Or maybe this?” He pointed to a Mounds bar. “It has coconut. Or maybe this?” He pointed to a Milky Way.

She pointed to the Mounds bar. Vega pushed the buttons and the bar spiraled forward and down into the delivery tray. The girl just stood there. Vega reached into the tray, pulled out the candy bar, and held it out to her.

“Here. Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” she said in a voice so tiny, it was as if she hadn’t spoken at all. Not once did her eyes leave her feet. Vega tried to think back to what Joy had been like at thirteen. She giggled. She gossiped with her friends. She spent hours playing with her hair in mirrors. She was afraid of spiders, sure. And scary movies. But she walked through the world like she owned it. This girl looked so frightened and diminished by comparison. She seemed both younger and older than Joy had at the same age. Vega thought about the terrible stories he’d heard of undocumented minors traveling through Central America and Mexico. The life-and-death rides atop freight trains. The brutal desert treks where death by thirst or snakebite were common. The shifty-eyed coyotes who routinely beat or raped their charges. No wonder she looked so cowed. Vega felt the same way right now. Traumatized. Angry. In despair. He wished he could give her Dr. Cantor’s phone number. She’d probably make better use of a therapist than he would.

“Jimmy?”

Vega turned at the sound of Adele’s voice. He drained the last of his coffee and switched to English.

“How’s—?”