A Blossom of Bright Light (11 page)

Chapter 13

“S
o, you guys—you're like
CSI?
The TV show?”

Jimmy Vega tried to look interested in the student standing before him with a North Face backpack slung over one shoulder. He was all of nineteen, bored and entitled-looking, with a pierced nose, orange-dyed hair, and a skateboard under one arm. He was interchangeable with half the community college's student body milling about the campus on Career Day.

“I'm a homicide detective,” Vega explained to the kid. “I personally don't handle the processing of evidence like the people in
CSI
. But we have an excellent forensics unit that does. We also have one of the leading digital evidence labs in the country.”

Vega eased himself into a folding chair behind a table with county police recruitment flyers and refrigerator magnets fanned across it and tried not to look as pissed as he felt about Captain Waring volunteering him for this assignment. Vega wondered if it had anything to do with that time back in September when a couple of the uniforms put up the new
Picture Yourself Here
county recruitment posters above the men's room urinals and Vega laughed about it at the morning meeting. Well, he wasn't laughing anymore.

The kid before him scratched at a straggle of chin hairs that were probably meant to pass for a beard. His backpack looked big enough to transport a bong. Vega was being unfair, he knew. But with Joy here now, he saw the campus through a father's eyes.

“Your department examines digital evidence?” asked the kid.

“That's right.”

“So you guys—you, like, snoop on people's computers and stuff?”

“We only snoop on the bad guys.”

“So, like, how do you know if someone's a bad guy?”

“The police have to show probable cause and then go before a judge to get a warrant.”

“But you have to snoop to, like, know all that, don't you? So it's, like, you're invading someone's privacy to prove you have the right to invade their privacy.”

Carajo!
Vega didn't need this kind of grief this afternoon. His left calf throbbed from the five stitches he'd had to get last night in the emergency room after that damn dog bit him. He was tired from all the paperwork he'd had to do this morning, from writing up Dominga Flores's statement to filing forms to increase the size of the DNA dragnet for the mother of Baby Mercy. They were no closer to finding her or Zambo. He hadn't even seen Joy yet today and she
went
to this school.

He grabbed a promotional magnet off the table and held it out to the kid. “Why don't you take one of these and go visit the Greenpeace booth, huh?”

The magnet read:
Stay alive! Don't text and drive!
The exclamation points were a little over the top in Vega's opinion. Like being yelled at before you did anything. He knew from experience that this was not a good position to take with teenagers.

The kid turned up his lip and reared back like Vega was proffering a pair of used athletic socks. “Don't need a magnet. Keep it.” He dropped his skateboard to the sidewalk and flipped it right side up with his sneaker. Then he pushed off. “Fascist,” he mumbled as he rolled into the crowd.

Fascist? He
was a fascist? He wished the stoners in his old garage band, Straight Money, could hear that. Or his
corillo
—his childhood friends—back in the South Bronx. When did he become a poster boy for all the things he used to distrust? Eighteen months ago, he was still walking around undercover with a diamond chip in his ear, a five o'clock shadow, and the nervous hustle of a narc who just hoped his fellow officers knew enough not to fire on him. Now he wore sports jackets with dark blue polo shirts and laughed too loud in the presence of other cops. Inside, he felt the same.

Some things he got right—like putting that creep Neil Davies out of commission last night and getting Dominga Flores and her baby the help they needed.

Some things he didn't. He could no longer close his eyes without seeing that patch of bright yellow maple leaves and feeling the leaden weight of what he'd done. He still had those pictures of Mercy on his iPhone. He couldn't bring himself to delete them even though his guys in crime scene had taken more evidence photos than any of them would need.

Vega texted Joy again. He wondered if she'd gotten hung up at a tutoring gig. He'd been here for over an hour and hadn't seen her yet. She hadn't even returned any of his texts. In forty-five minutes, all the companies and agencies would be closing down the fair. And not a minute too soon. The forecast called for rain. It had held off most of the afternoon, but the sky now looked like it had been shaded in with a pencil. A strong breeze billowed the pop-up tents lining the quad. Vega massaged his calf. He wanted to go home and put his feet up.

He propped his leg as best he could and stared out at the throngs of students milling about the quad. He'd been to this campus many times over the years as a police officer for training and routine callouts. It was part of the county police's response area. He wished it were prettier. It backed up to a low-rent shopping center off a four-lane highway. Even now, surrounded by a curtain of orange and gold trees that hid the shopping center, the Band-Aid-colored buildings looked like giant shoe boxes. Their glass entrance doors were pockmarked with dozens of faded flyers for concerts and fund-raisers, chemistry tutors and roommates. A sculpture in the middle of the quad looked like a collision between a shopping cart and the innards of a '57 Chevy. Add in the collective tattoo markings and piercings of the student body and the whole scene rivaled a Burning Man Festival. Vega had hoped for a more prestigious start for Joy—something better than the commuter experience he'd had—but she seemed happy here at least. All things considered, Vega couldn't complain.

The career fair attracted plenty of employers at least, from major corporations to various government agencies and nonprofits. The booth organized by the New York State Police in particular had attracted a pretty big crowd all afternoon. Vega could see why. A female trooper had brought along a big tawny German shepherd to show off the dog's search-and-rescue skills. Here was Vega, trying to get students interested in the joys of forensic accounting and the state police had brought a dog. Game over.

“Hey, stranger.”

Vega had been so focused on finding Joy that he didn't see Adele until she was standing in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” His words came out sharper than he'd intended. He could never be neutral with her. He just hoped she wouldn't pull that “let's be friends” crap when she ditched him. His heart was too bound up with hers not to be scarred by any attempt to cut it away.

“I called your office. They said you were instructing coeds on the joys of police work.”

“Who said that?”

“Teddy Dolan. Actually he said you were on punishment detail for illegal possession of a sense of humor.”

“Huh. You got that right.”

He wished some student would come by right now and ask a bunch of dopey questions. He'd even settle for Mr. Fascist again. Anything to divert his attention. He supposed that's what happened when two people built up a layer of unspoken resentment between them. It had been the same with him and Wendy at the end. He jerked a thumb across the quad at the female trooper and the shepherd. The dog had sad puppy eyes and a tongue like bubble gum that lolled to one side. It looked as eager as a new cadet.

“Goddamn ham,” said Vega. “Now everybody's gonna want to work K-9.”

“You should bring horses next time.”

“I would—if we had 'em. The department sold them off four years ago in the budget cutbacks. Only the state police have dog and pony shows now.”

“You don't have anything fun.”

“I'll bring that up at the next meeting. Should be good for another punishment detail.”

Adele played with one of the magnets on the table. Vega had managed to give very few away. They were black and white with exclamation points. What did his department expect?

“Sophia's going to be at Peter's this evening,” said Adele. “Are you free for dinner?”

He couldn't handle a big emotional talk right now—not with his workload and sore leg.

“I can't, Adele. Not tonight.”

“Are you having dinner with Joy?”

“Dunno.” Was he? With Joy, he never knew.

Vega straightened his left leg to take some pressure off of it and looked across the quad to the state police booth. The female trooper was hiding a package inside a box for the dog to find. It was like a giant three-card monte game. That's when he saw her. She was standing near the front of the demonstration dressed in that same shimmering leopard-print shirt jacket. It was too flimsy for the weather and almost made him long for that gaudy Pepto-Bismol pink one she owned, if only because it was a little warmer. She looked over her shoulder, and their eyes met. She lifted an arm full of bangles and gave her father a wave. Vega waved back. Okay, so he wasn't the center of her universe. But at least she knew he was here. At least she seemed happy about it.

“How bad is it?” asked Adele.

“Huh?”

“Your leg. I understand you got bitten by a dog last night.”

“Who told you? Dolan?”

“No. It's not important who told me. Why didn't you call me from the emergency room?”

Vega shrugged. “It was late. You couldn't have come anyway. You have Sophia.”

“I'd still want to know. I
always
want to know.”

He folded his arms across his chest and kept his gaze on the dog demonstration.

“Jimmy? What's going on? You don't call. You don't tell me you got hurt on the job. You do this heroic thing—rescue a mother and her baby—and don't share it with me. You don't even send her to me afterward. You send her to Jenny Rojas, who brought her to me anyway.”

“Aha!” He unfolded his arms and looked at her for the first time. He could do in anger what he could no longer do in love. “So that's what this is about. You're pissed that I didn't bring Dominga to you.”

“I'm not
pissed.
I'm hurt. And confused.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Two students started to approach his table, then caught the vibe and thought better of it. He was in a very public place having a very private argument.
Puñeta!
He didn't want this. But the juices were flowing and he felt powerless to stop them.

“I took Dominga to Jenny Rojas because I know in a month Jenny will still be here to stay on top of her situation. Can you say that?
Can
you?”

Adele blinked at him. A slow dawning worked through the muscles of her face.

“I thought not,” said Vega. He slumped in his chair.

“You want to go wine and dine the power brokers in D.C., be my guest, Adele. But you can't have it both ways. I didn't send Dominga to Jenny out of spite. I sent her there for her own good. Because I know what Jenny doesn't.”

There.
He'd said it. It was out. The helium balloon inside of him sputtered and died. You can only fight when there's something still at stake. And he'd just told her there wasn't. He knew. It was over.

She was quiet for a long moment.

“How did you find out?” she asked finally.

“Like you say, it's not important who told me.”

“Nothing's been decided.”

“Right,” he said without conviction. “That's why you included me in the whole decision-making process.”

“If I had, you'd have told me not to go.”

“Damn straight, I would've. You're needed here. Your clients need you.”

Vega watched Joy maneuvering through the crowd, shouldering a backpack as she ran across the quad toward his booth.

“And what about you, Jimmy? Do
you
need me?” Adele asked so softly, neither of them was sure she'd asked it at all.

Joy ran up to his table before he could answer. She wasn't wearing her jacket anymore, only a short-sleeved sweater and paper-thin bleached jeans tucked into high, rust-colored leather boots with stiletto heels. His ex-wife's, if he'd had to guess. She always favored the good stuff.

“Hi, Dad. Hi, Adele,” Joy panted. “Can you hide me?”

“I'm supposed to hide so Daisy, the dog, can't find me.”

“Where's your jacket?” asked Vega. There were goose bumps up and down Joy's arms.

“With Trooper Sorenson. Daisy needs my scent in order to track me.”

Vega slouched off his sports coat and wrapped it around her.

“Daaad. I'm okay.”

“Indulge me.” The coat skimmed her thighs. The shoulders stuck out like football pads. She looked like she was five again, playing dress-up. She nodded to Vega's hip holster. “Now everyone can see you're carrying.”

“The trooper's carrying, too. What's the big deal?”

“You're my father.”

“Didn't know that was a federal offense.”

Joy crouched beneath the table and dropped her backpack beside her. “Do you see Daisy?”

“The trooper's letting her out of her crate and putting a harness on her now,” said Adele. She was still standing by the table as if frozen in some sort of time warp, their argument unfinished, the heat gone, but not the heartache.

The trooper held Joy's leopard-print jacket under the animal's nose. “
Jowww
,” she said to the dog.