A Blossom of Bright Light (16 page)

“Holy—” Vega kicked at the Belgian blocks lining the driveway and cursed. He felt queasy and light-headed.
“No.”

“That's why I'm saying it's not random, man. It doesn't matter whether we found it in Joy's trash. She'd be pretty stupid to stick it in her own trash anyway. We could have found it anywhere and it wouldn't change much about the case. Do you understand now?”

“You found the afterbirth.”

Chapter 19

V
ega barely slept that night and awoke Thursday morning just as the sky was turning from black to bruised. He was scheduled to work this upcoming weekend, so he had the day off. That meant a whole day ahead at his lakeside cabin to stew in his thoughts.

Not good. Not good at all. The only thing he could think about was clearing Joy. But he was powerless to do so. Citing conflict of interest, Captain Waring had taken him off the case entirely.

He made his coffee too strong just to feel the bite of it on his tongue, the sharp warmth as it traveled through his body. He felt lost in every other part of his being, hollowed out by doubts and recriminations. He had a long list of things that could keep him busy at home: a leaky faucet that needed replacing, guitar practice for a club gig with his band. His refrigerator was empty. His laundry hamper was full. He needed to make his monthly call to the homicide detectives in the Bronx—a useless exercise that always filled him with sadness and frustration. His mother's unsolved murder was a wound that never seemed to close. On an index card above the phone, the original squad number grew ever more faded as detectives' names were added and crossed out with each new officer assigned to the case.

He drained the last of his coffee and walked out to his deck. A fog obscured the view of the lake. The air smelled of wood smoke and damp leaves. When he bought this two-bedroom, vinyl-sided cape after his divorce, friends told him he was crazy. It was on a postage-stamp of weeds, almost an hour's commute from his office and a whole county north of his jurisdiction. A former summer cabin, it lacked insulation, decent wiring, or adequate plumbing. His first two winters here were the coldest he'd ever known.

The lake, however, made it all worthwhile. Vega never tired of it—its perfect stillness, the way it caught and held the moods of the sky. In the mornings, from his back deck, he loved to watch herons skate low across the water. There were toads in the spring and perch that broke the surface with a
whoosh
in summer. There were morning mists and evening crickets and red-tailed hawks that hovered like kites overhead in the plenty of time. Here, he could prop his feet on the railing of his deck, play his Gibson six-string, and pretend for just a moment that this was his real life, that he'd never traded the hardened callouses on his fingertips for a gun and a steady paycheck.

He threw a flannel shirt over his T-shirt and jeans and hiked down the steep slope to the edge of the lake. Matted leaves and twigs gathered along the shoreline, and a pearly softness floated like cotton candy in the feathery groupings of dark green hemlocks and eastern white pines that surrounded the water. Somewhere out in the fog, a fish splashed to the surface and a crow cawed overhead. Vega wanted to enjoy this rare moment off the clock, to drink it in, not cross it off like a con marking time. Yet he couldn't stop the meth-addict voice inside his head that played an endless loop of all his worries at warp speed.

Maybe he could have reversed everything if only he'd let Adele go to La Casa Saturday night, if only they'd found that baby in time.
If, if, if . . .

Vega kicked at the rocky mud beneath his work boots, listening for the pleasing crunch of gravel. His left calf where the dog bit him was healing at least. The skin wasn't quite so tender and the stitches itched less. He grabbed a flat piece of shale at the lake's edge and skipped it across the water. It nicked the surface four times before disappearing into the gray depths. Vega watched the concentric rings grow in the pebble's wake, each one blooming and spreading, seemingly of its own volition.

Vega found another stone and skipped it, marveling at how such a small object applied at just the right angle could create all this turbulence and motion. Everything leaves a mark, he supposed. He didn't want to think about the parallels to his own life, the way he'd carelessly cast things out only to realize the repercussions of his decisions when they were too late to call back. He had missed all the warning signs, all the clues.

Vega thought about the dead teenager. She'd carried her baby in her womb for nine months—given birth to her, if not in Lake Holly, then somewhere close by. How was it possible that no one but a mentally disabled car-wash attendant had ever noticed her?

Vega wiped his muddy hands on his jeans and straightened. He watched the morning sun poke through the clouds, dissipating the mist on the lake. And all of a sudden, everything came into focus. Vega saw tiny cabins like his that had lately started to get year-round owners. There were curtains on new dormered windows; stacks of fresh-cut wood for the winter, newly erected swing sets and flower boxes. He just couldn't see it before. But it was there all along, right beneath the fog.

Someone had to have seen that pregnant teenager, just as people saw Dominga Flores. They saw, but they didn't see. What was he missing?

He thought about Dominga in that huge, fortresslike house giving birth. Even she hadn't been entirely alone. She said a midwife—a Spanish woman—had helped.

Vega took a deep breath and felt a sharpness travel down his lungs as though the air were infused with peppermint. And all at once, he saw what he'd been missing. He ran back to the house, bounding up the steps of his deck like he was in a marathon. He opened the sliding glass door, grabbed his cell phone on the counter, and scrolled down his contacts list until he found the cell number of the Wickford detective who was in charge of Neil Davies's arrest.
Hammond. Detective Sergeant Mark Hammond.
Vega remembered him from Monday night. He had a square jaw and big white teeth that reminded Vega of the Kennedys.

Vega dialed Hammond's cell. It rang and rang. Just when Vega thought it was going to go to voice mail, Hammond picked up.

Vega reintroduced himself. He could hear voices in the background. Wherever Hammond was, he wasn't alone.

“Quick question on the Davies case: Did your guys ever track down the midwife or whatever she was who delivered Dominga Flores's baby?”

“Still looking,” said Hammond. “Flores claims she doesn't know her. Davies claims Flores called her in. So far, we've had no luck finding her. I think Flores may be covering for her because the woman's probably unlicensed and illegal.”

Vega's thoughts precisely. “Any chance I can swing by the station house and get a copy of what you've done so far?”

“What we've done is gone through the available lists of licensed midwives
thoroughly—
”

“I'm sure you have—”

“Then any further checking on your part would be unnecessary, Detective.” Cops and turf. Vega wished just once everybody would cooperate.

“See—the thing is—it's for a different case.”
Shit.
Vega didn't want to have to say that. If Captain Waring found out what he was trying to do, he'd get charges for sure.

“In that case,” said Hammond, “I can probably pull something together for you tomorrow. Not today. Flores has gone back to living with the Reilly family if you want to contact her and ask her yourself. I'm in the field right now. Two hikers just called in a 10-47 in the woods off Route 170. That'll take up all our extra manpower for the day.”

A dead body on the two-lane that connected Wickford to Lake Holly. Hammond didn't seem too broken up about it.

“Something you want help from our guys on?” asked Vega.

“Negative. It's not a homicide. Just a local homeless mutt who drank himself to death.”

Vega gripped the phone tighter. “You get a description of the decedent?”

“Male. Hispanic. Approximately five-foot-three. One hundred and forty pounds. He was found lying facedown about two hundred feet from Route 170, a quarter mile from the border of Lake Holly.”

Vega's mouth went dry. He didn't want it to be true. And yet some part of him already knew that it was. That mutt could barely stay sober long enough to find his way to Wickford. No way was he going to make it two thousand miles to Guatemala.

“Any ID on the guy?”

“Negative. But he was well known to the uniformed patrols. They recognized the body as soon as they saw his bowed legs.”

“Zambo.” It wasn't even a question.

“Yeah. That's him,” said Hammond. “From what the uniforms tell me, he was a real pain in the ass. Kept our guys and Lake Holly's guys hopping with petty nonsense for years. Nobody's gonna be all that broken up that he's gone.”

Vega just breathed on the line. Their only witness. The one person who might be able to exonerate Joy. Hammond was wrong when he said nobody was all that broken up that Zambo was gone.

He was.

Chapter 20

T
he Serrano family was scrubbed and dressed and in their best church clothes by five past nine that Thursday morning. Luna paced back and forth by the front window of their apartment, watching for Señora Gonzalez's black Escalade at the curb. Papi packed the last of the dishes in the kitchen before slipping on his lucky red tie. For once, Mateo and Dulce weren't fighting. They were both glued to their father's sides—so much so that when Papi went to dry his hands from the sink, he accidentally elbowed Dulce in the eye. She wailed uncontrollably, and Papi fell all over himself to make her stop.

They were all exhausted and wound tighter than a bunch of spinning tops. None of them slept last night. The
last
night.
La última noche.
None of them referred to it like that. To say it was to make it true. They'd spent it in Papi's bed, curled around him like newborn puppies. At one point in the night, Luna heard him get up to go to the bathroom. He didn't turn on any lights, but she heard his choked sobs through the door. When he came back, she closed her eyes tight and pretended to be asleep. She didn't want him to know she'd heard him. Her father was so strong. A meat slicer amputated part of his finger and he went back to work in two days. Meningitis took Mami and he became both father and mother. A fire burned out their apartment and he found a new place to live and made it home. She couldn't believe after all this that he could be broken by a piece of paper.

Her father had called their schools to say they couldn't come in today. Then he made them breakfast, but none of them could eat. And now they waited for the señora's car, surrounded by the contents of their apartment packed away in cardboard cartons—all except for Mami's pink begonia plant. It sat on top of the cartons in the terra-cotta flowerpot Luna had painted all those years ago.

Luna looked at her watch. “Señora Gonzalez is late.” Papi gave her a sharp look, though she knew he was checking his watch too.

“You must remember to call her Doña Esme now, Luna. And the señor Don Charlie. They deserve those terms of honor.”

Luna knew her father was right that she should be grateful and do as they'd asked. But it was awkward to suddenly pretend that this balding little man with the sweaty palms and his no-nonsense young wife were anything but strangers. Luna didn't know her father's cousins Alirio and Maria José very well, but at least they were family.

Besides, she didn't think Doña Esme liked her very much. The woman was okay with Mateo because he was a playmate for her sons. She responded to Dulce because she was young and needed a mother figure. But Luna? Doña Esme seemed to have no idea what to do with a teenage girl in her house. Luna got the sense that taking all of them in was the señor's idea. They were a burden she had to carry because it went against her husband's honor not to. Doña Esme had told her more than once that she was only two years older than Luna when she got married. Did she expect Luna to take a husband at seventeen? Not that Doña Esme would even be in Luna's life by then. Papi will be here. He has to be.

Luna's stomach was tied in knots by the time Doña Esme drove up. She felt like she had to use the bathroom again, but there was no time. Papi wasn't driving to the courthouse. If the worst happened today, he couldn't drive back. Another adult had to be there to sign the guardianship papers and take custody. Otherwise Luna, Mateo, and Dulce would end up in foster care and could be separated.

They hustled out the door and put on their most hopeful faces for the drive to Broad Plains. None of them spoke in the car. The señor couldn't get out of work today, so it was just Doña Esme and them. Her father's lawyer, Mr. Katz, was supposed to meet them at the courthouse.

There was a lot of slow-moving traffic on the roads. Luna could tell her father was getting nervous that he'd be late and make the judge angry. Papi scanned the rearview mirror, looking for opportunities to change lanes and speed up the journey, but he knew he couldn't tell Doña Esme how to drive, so he just sat holding it in until they were off the highway. They passed the lawyer's building they visited last Sunday, and Luna saw and smelled the warm, cheesy pizza parlor where Papi had bought those slices. It seemed like an image already frozen in her memory. Luna would grow up. Papi would grow old. And they'd have only that day at the pizza parlor to hang onto. She could feel the tears coming on and she sucked them back. But she wasn't the only one holding everything in. As soon as Doña Esme parked the car in the courthouse garage, Mateo got out and vomited on the cement.

“Eeew, gross!” squealed Dulce.

Mateo started to cry. “I'm sorry, Papi! I'm sorry!”

Papi rubbed his back and murmured in Spanish: “It's okay. You're going to be okay.” Doña Esme handed Luna a bottle of water and some tissues, and she helped her father clean her brother up. Fortunately, he'd vomited on the cement, not in the car or on his clothes. They were able to make him look presentable and wash most of the mess away from the cars.

“Are you okay now, Mijo?” asked Papi. Mateo nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak, but at least the color was returning to his face. Luna checked her watch. Papi's court date was for ten a.m. It was almost ten-thirty. She wondered if Mateo's throwing up had already sealed her father's fate.

They took an elevator to the lobby and walked outside and across a big cement plaza with a fountain and some statues and flags in the center. The fresh air seemed to do Mateo good. It was a bright sunny day and not too cold. People hustled past with shopping bags from Macy's and Nordstrom's. A teenager on a skateboard rolled along the sidewalk, the rap music from his earphones loud enough for all of them to hear.

They followed Doña Esme and their father into another office building, where they lined up to walk through a metal detector. From there, they took an elevator to the fifth floor, where they got off and looked for Papi's lawyer, Mr. Katz. He was nowhere to be found. Luna wondered if he'd grown tired of waiting for them and had left already. Or perhaps they were in the wrong place?

This didn't feel like a courthouse at all. Luna pictured polished brass and white marble with high ceilings and gleaming wooden benches where black-robed judges looked down from on high. The corridor they walked along had low ceilings and dingy white walls that were covered in scuff marks. The air smelled of sweat and coffee. There were people everywhere—black, brown, Asian—leaning up against grimy windows, sitting on hard wooden benches scattered along the wall. Some were talking on cell phones. Others were holding crying babies. Still others were sitting silently with their eyes closed and heads bent as if in prayer. There were even a few young children sitting with women who didn't look like their mothers. The children looked scared and anxious, and the women were checking their cell phones like the children weren't even there. Luna had thought they were the only ones going through this nightmare. But she saw now that they were just one family of many, not all of them even Spanish.

Papi excused himself to see if he could find Mr. Katz. Luna waited with Dulce, Mateo, and Doña Esme and watched the crowd swirling around them. She noticed that the other people waiting had no one who looked like a lawyer with them. Some of them were pregnant women. Some were families with young children.

“Are all these people Mr. Katz's clients too?” Luna asked Doña Esme.

“I should hope not!” Doña Esme sounded irritated by the question.

“It's just that”—Luna tried to explain herself—“I don't see any lawyers.”

“You think everyone can afford a lawyer to help them through a deportation proceeding? Chica, you
are
naïve.”

Doña Esme nodded to a fidgety Spanish-looking boy of about five years of age sitting with a white woman. The boy's sneaker shoelaces were undone. His shirt was inside out. The tag was poking out beneath his chin. He must have dressed himself. “Even little children like that boy must go before the judge without anyone to speak for them,” she said. “That's the harsh truth of the world. Every day at the border, there are hundreds of children just like him crossing alone. You have no idea. Your Papi has sheltered you from it.”

“But when people in the U.S. are charged with a crime,” said Luna, “they're entitled to legal representation.” Her words sounded condescending as they left her mouth. Luna wanted Doña Esme to know she wasn't stupid. But she was stupid enough, she supposed, to want to prove otherwise.

Doña Esme pulled out a mirrored compact and reapplied her bright pink lipstick. “This is immigration court, chica
.
Not criminal court. The law provides nothing. Most people with a prior deportation order like your father just get swept off the street and deported back to their home countries without any hearing at all.”

She pressed her colored lips together and studied her reflection. When she was satisfied, she slipped the compact back into her bag. Her cool indifference made her words that much more chilling. Luna was angry, not just at what was happening to them but at the fact that no one else seemed to care.

“That's so unfair,” said Luna.

Doña Esme shrugged. “That's life, chica
.
These four months you've had with your father while lawyers worked on his case? They were a gift—an
expensive
gift.”

So Doña Esme thought she was haughty and ungrateful. Luna wondered if she could ever set things right between them.

Her father reappeared now with Mr. Katz in tow. The lawyer was dressed in a crisp gray suit and maroon tie. He didn't look angry at their lateness.

Papi took a deep breath, as if trying to gather all the parts of himself. He addressed them in stilted English.

“Mr. Katz says always immigration court has delay. So we did not miss.” Mr. Katz smiled confidently at Luna and her siblings. He could afford to be confident. He was going home tonight. Still, as Doña Esme said, they were lucky to have him at all.

Mr. Katz pushed up the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and checked the time. “Our case is next, so the wait shouldn't be long now.”

Papi gestured to the benches. “Luna—you and Dulce and Mateo will stay out here with Doña Esme. I will be in there.”

Luna peeked into the room behind her father. There were some chairs and tables facing a raised wooden desk with flags on either side. The lighting had a sickly yellow tint. There were no windows or polished brass or white marble.

A white woman with frizzy gray hair and glasses on a chain around her neck sat behind the desk. She looked less like a judge and more like Luna's high school librarian, like she was going to fine her dad for overdue books. A young black woman with long beaded braids sat at a keyboard on one side of the desk. A Spanish-looking court officer with a shaved head leaned over the black woman's shoulder, muttering something. Luna could tell they liked each other by the way the woman kept trying not to smile.

At a table facing the judge, a blond woman in a dark blue suit opened her briefcase and thumbed through some papers. Across the aisle was another table with two empty seats. Luna guessed the woman in the blue suit was the prosecutor who wanted to deport her father back to Mexico and the two seats across the aisle were for her father and Mr. Katz to tell the judge why he should stay. The judge slipped on her glasses, perhaps to read something about Papi's case. Then Luna noticed that she wasn't looking at paperwork—she was texting on her cell phone. Luna wondered if at the end of the day, she'd even be able to recall her father's name.

Mr. Katz patted her father on the shoulder. “Let's take care of business, Manuel, shall we?”

Papi gave Luna, Dulce, and Mateo a quick nervous glance. “Will I”—he ran his thumb and forefinger down his mustache—“will I get to see my children after?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Katz.

“Ahh—either way?”

“Yes.”

Papi forced a smile and gave them a quick thumbs-up before disappearing with Mr. Katz through the courtroom doors. They closed behind him, and Luna and her siblings were left in a hallway with too few benches and too many people.

Esme staked out a corner of a bench, crossed her legs, and whipped out her cell phone to check her messages. She didn't say a word to any of them, not even to Dulce. Luna wasn't sure what she expected, but this wasn't it. Dulce reached for Luna's hand. Her grip was tight. Mateo stood close by her other side. Luna could feel their fear. She understood for the first time the responsibility that had been placed on her shoulders. Dulce and Mateo were all that could be left of her immediate family when this was over. Whatever else happened, she had to take care of them.

All the things that used to matter—classes, grades, the summer science program, the talent show—Luna couldn't imagine caring about any of that ever again. They were in a war here, her family and she, even if no one else could see the bullets whizzing by or feel their terror as they curled themselves tightly and searched out every crevice for protection. Her friends were on the other side of an uncrossable divide, consumed as they were with dates and gossip and midterms. Everything seemed petty and insignificant—everything except for her father, brother, and sister. Luna felt a sense of great purpose and great despair at the same time. She wanted to be up to this challenge. She feared she was not.

Luna put her arms around Mateo and Dulce and inched them all toward the windows. Doña Esme didn't look up. Luna pointed out the hot dog vendors in the street. Mateo, who loved cars, tried to guess the models of each one that drove by. They played I-spy with the people below. It kept them busy. It did nothing to ease the churning she felt inside or the great weight that pressed on her chest.