No Witness But the Moon(92)

“Does your mother know you’re here?” he asked softly.

The girl didn’t answer. Vega had to let Marcela know her daughter was safe but he didn’t have her number. He decided to bluff.

“Okay, Yovanna.” He used her name now to let her know he meant business. “I’m going to have to call your mother. I can’t let you just wander around New York City without your mother knowing where you are.”

“No!” That woke her out of her stupor. She looked at him now. “Please. I have to do this.”

“Do what? Run away?”

“I have to meet a man.”

Vega felt sick. No man who wanted to meet a thirteen-year-old girl was up to anything good. Vega pumped her for information. “So this man—he’s supposed to meet you here?”

“No. In front of a dollar store a few blocks from here. He’s picking me up in an hour. But it’s cold and I needed someplace warm to stay until then.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No. I just have a phone number for him.” Probably a burner, thought Vega. These sorts of low-lifes have dozens of disposables they use once and throw away.

“Do you know what he looks like?”

“No. But he said he will know me.”

“Yovanna, getting mixed up with some rastrero who will abuse you is not the way.”

Yovanna frowned. “But I’m not. I’m just giving him something. Something that will fix all of my family’s problems.”

“You are thirteen years old, mija. If your family is having problems, it’s not because of you.”

“But it is! If I weren’t here, my grandfather would still be alive. My mother said so. I heard her!”

“Ay.” Vega dropped his head in his hands. He felt terrible that this poor girl had to carry this burden at such a tender age.

“My mother said she wished he’d stop calling and the situation would go away,” said Yovanna. “So I got his phone number off her cell. I can handle this myself.”

“And what exactly are you supposed to give this man that is going to fix all of your family’s problems?”

“Just this.” Yovanna unzipped her backpack and pulled out a shiny silver disc—a CD or DVD—wrapped in a single sheet of newspaper. The grooves caught the overhead lights and sparkled. Yovanna flipped the disc over to the cover side. Someone had scribbled numbers across it in black magic marker. A date.

Vega’s heart froze.

He was never good at remembering birthdays. He and Wendy once had a terrible fight because he forgot their anniversary. He had to write down every date on his calendar for the littlest thing or it slipped his mind. But he knew that date: it was branded onto his heart.

That was the date his mother was murdered.

This was the missing DVD. And on it, most likely, was video security footage of his mother’s murderer. Vega snatched the DVD out of Yovanna’s hands.

“Hey! That’s mine!”

Vega got to his feet and held it out of her grasp. “Where did you get this?” he demanded. He forgot for a moment that he was talking to a frightened thirteen-year-old child.

“Give it back! If I don’t hand it over, he’ll hurt my family!”

“And if you do, he’ll kill you. The man you’re meeting with is a murderer, Yovanna.”

“Give it back!” She started to cry. Loudly. Loud enough that even over the rumble of washers and dryers, people heard her. Three young Hispanic men in the adjoining aisle walked over, forming a wall between Vega and the front door.

“Are you messing with this girl?” the stockiest one demanded. He had a snake tattoo running down the side of his neck. His buddies were behind him. Vega could feel the machismo radiating off their bodies. They were already priming themselves to throw a punch in defense of her honor. Co?o! He’d had enough fistfights in the last twenty-four hours to last him a lifetime.

Vega slipped the DVD into the pocket of his jacket and flashed his badge. “I’m a police officer and this girl and her belongings are part of a criminal investigation.”

Snake tattoo thrust out his chin at Vega’s badge. “What the hell is that? That ain’t NYPD. You some kind of mall cop or something? That don’t count for shit here, man.”

Snake tattoo’s words emboldened the dozen or so people beginning to gather around Vega and Yovanna. “Give her back her stuff!” yelled an obese young woman in a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. She flung a wet towel at Vega. He ducked.

Yovanna clawed at Vega’s pocket for the DVD. He grabbed her by her arms and began maneuvering her out of the store. “Help me!” she cried to the onlookers in Spanish. “This police officer shot and killed my grandfather. And now he wants to hurt me, too!”

The crowd pressed in as Vega half dragged, half carried Yovanna and her backpack out the door. “Let her go!” they began chanting. Vega knew he had to act fast before they cut off his exits.

“You are coming with me,” he told Yovanna in Spanish. “You are thirteen years old, your family has no idea where you are, and whether you believe me or not, your life is in danger if you turn over that DVD.”

He thought the people inside EZ Clean would give up once he hit the street. He thought the cold and snow would be enough to keep the two dozen or so patrons inside. But they were worked up now. And the crowd was getting bigger. The commotion had attracted the attention of two guys drinking outside a bodega on the opposite corner. Soon several more people from the bodega joined in. Word had started to spread that Vega wasn’t just any cop. He was the cop who’d shot a dishwasher from the neighborhood. “Let-her-go!” was soon replaced by the chant, “Kill-er-cop!”