No Witness But the Moon(97)

There was a small murmur of polite but nervous laughter from the crowd. Adele saw no point in pretending that they wanted some canned speech or that they didn’t know exactly who she was and how she was connected to the shooting. They thought they knew her—just as they thought they knew Vega. But they didn’t. To go forward, she would need to summon the courage to look back. Publicly. It was something she never did.

“When I was a little girl,” she began, “I was terrified of the police.” Her voice sounded shaky to her ears but she needed to explain her position. If that meant walking off this stage and out of this line of work, so be it. She could not flinch.

She spoke about her childhood, living in fear that the police might one day break down her door and haul her parents away. Or that her parents might go to work cleaning offices one evening, get caught in a raid, and never come home. Blue uniforms terrified her. Sirens terrified her. She learned early not to talk too much about her family. If someone stole from her or cheated her, she quietly accepted it rather than chance anyone in authority asking questions that her parents couldn’t answer.

“I was born right here in Port Carroll, New York. I’m an American citizen,” said Adele. “And yet I’ve never felt that sense of birthright.” She went on to confess how she learned early to shut down her emotions and not speak about things she couldn’t change. She didn’t go into all the silences she was asked to endure. Some were too deep to ever speak about and certainly not here.

She described her father’s one visit to the police, when she was fourteen, after a neighbor stole her parents’ business from them—and the ridicule the officers subjected him to.

“My father died two years after that incident,” said Adele. ”The doctors said it was a heart attack. But I think it was a broken heart.” She had the audience spellbound now. She didn’t really notice. She was lost in her own raw memories.

“My mistrust of the police only deepened after I became a defense attorney,” she continued. “I saw cops lie. I saw them mistreat my clients. My fear and anger turned to cynicism. You could say I’d lost all faith.”

She paused. “And then, one day, I met a police officer who changed all that. Not because he was perfect. I saw him make mistakes. Again and again, I saw it. But for the first time, I also saw behind the shield. I saw a man trying hard to do the right thing. Sometimes an impossible thing. In a world that is rarely fair or helpful, I saw a man get up every morning and try to be both.”

Adele took a deep breath. “Does that exempt him from explaining his actions or having them scrutinized? No. But it does mean that we need to give him and all police officers the benefit of the doubt. We need to be as fair as we ask them to be. If the forensic evidence warrants a grand jury investigation, then I’ll be the first to call for it.”

She caught Tate’s scowl from the audience. “Or maybe the second, since my esteemed colleague, Ruben Tate-Rivera, will probably be the first.”

That got a laugh. The audience was with her even if Tate wasn’t.

“I do believe, however, that if we truly want to heal our divided nation, then we need to step away from the actions that divide us. We need to meet emotion with logic, hatred with justice. I would rather whisper my conscience to the wind than scream my fury with the mob. Thank you.”

The applause was long and generous as Adele stepped down from the stage. Had she done it? Had she dodged a bullet and saved Vega from it as well? She wondered where he was right now. At a police station explaining why he’d grabbed Yovanna against her will? On his way back home? She felt too wired to stay for the dinner. Too light-headed and dizzy. She needed to hear his voice on the other end of a phone line. She walked out of the auditorium and found Gloria Mendez to apologize that she couldn’t stay for the meal. Ruben Tate-Rivera caught up to her.

“Enough.” She waved her hands in front of her face as he walked over. “I’m leaving.” She backed away.

“Good thing you’re a defense attorney,” Tate hissed. “Your boyfriend’s gonna need one. That is, if he survives at this point.”

“Excuse me?”

“The NYPD just got a nine-one-one call from the principal of that charter school. Vega’s holding him hostage.”

“No!”

“It’s coming over the police scanner,” said Tate. “One of the reporters just told me. Your boy’s finally gone over the edge, Adele. Nobody’s going to defend him now. Or you, either. Don’t let that polite applause fool you. You talk about whispering your conscience to the wind? That sounds a whole lot like spitting into it to me. And you know what happens when you do that.”





Chapter 39


Two options. That’s all Vega had: jump or get shot. Torres was a highly respected community leader and school principal. Vega was a disgraced cop with a pattern of emotionally unstable behavior. It was a no-brainer whose story the police were going to believe. Cop or not, Vega was the one the police would be gunning for. He didn’t even have the DVD anymore to prove that Torres was lying. It lay shattered at their feet. Not that Torres was going to wait around to let Vega prove his case anyway. He planned to dispatch him long before that.

Vega had to get control of the situation. What he needed was a weapon. He spotted the pile of metal joists for the roof fencing. They were blanketed by snow. But still—if he could just get to one. He needed to keep Torres talking. He slipped back into the vernacular of the neighborhood, hoping to lull Torres into a false sense of security.