It was meant to be a weak joke but Hammond’s response gave Vega pause. “Take as long as you need to get your thoughts together, okay, Jimmy?” The detective’s smile had too many teeth in it.
Hammond’s unmarked Toyota smelled of peppermints and Lysol, but it calmed Vega down to be encased in this tomb away from the murmurs of other cops. He felt certain everyone was judging him. How could they not? He would.
Hammond got in the driver’s side and radioed a request for the medical examiner and the county crime scene unit. The uniforms began cordoning off the area with yellow police tape. Vega felt like he was watching it all unfold underwater. Voices and sounds came at him disconnected from their sources. The dispatcher’s voice over the radio provided a constant update of all the additional vehicles and agencies that were now being directed to this tiny lane in Wickford. All because of Vega. Because of what he’d done.
When Hammond left the car to go back up the hill, Vega took out his cell phone and dialed Adele. He could barely get the words out before he started to choke up.
“I just shot and killed a man.”
“What? Oh my God! Mi amado, what happened? Are you okay?”
Vega’s head was pounding. His eyes burned like someone had rubbed them with sand. He took a deep breath and heard it catch in his lungs. He hadn’t felt the urge to cry this strongly since that day nearly two years ago when a Bronx detective called to tell him his mother had been found beaten to death in her apartment. At least then, no one would have blamed him if he’d broken down. The crime was brutal. It was still unsolved. But now? This was different. The police officers on the scene would take it as a sign of weakness. Worse, they’d take it as a sign of guilt.
Whatever you do, stay strong, he told himself. If he stopped believing that he’d had no choice about what he’d done, why would anyone else believe it either?
He tried to steady his voice and state the facts as dispassionately as possible. “Dispatch reported a home invasion and shots fired at a residence here in Wickford. I was nearby so I took in the call. The suspect refused to surrender and turned on me.”
“Oh, Jimmy, how awful. Are you hurt?”
“No.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that the man he’d killed probably wasn’t armed. He needed time to wrap his head around that one. He still didn’t want to believe it was true.
A silence hung between them. It was just a moment’s worth but Vega felt the sting. Was she judging him? Or was he judging himself so much that he read every hesitation as a criticism?
“It’s going to be all right,” she cooed softly. “Where are you? Peter was going to drop Sophia off after he took her to the movies.” Peter was Adele’s ex. “Maybe I can get her babysitter Marcela to come over.”
“There’s no point,” said Vega. “They won’t let you within a hundred feet of me.”
“Have you given a statement yet? Spoken to counsel?” Adele had been a criminal defense attorney before she started La Casa. It was still in her blood.
“No.” Vega squinted through the windshield. Already things were heating up. On the other side of the yellow crime-scene tape were civilian onlookers, news cameras, and more police cars. A lot more police cars. “It’s going to be a long night,” said Vega. “Can you call Joy and let her know?” Vega’s eighteen-year-old daughter was a freshman at the local community college. She lived with Vega’s ex-wife.
“Of course. I’ll do that now.” Adele hung on the line for a moment without speaking. “A delicate question,” she said finally. “The uh—suspect. Was he white? Black?”
“Hispanic. He spoke to me in Spanish.”
“Good.”
“Why good?” asked Vega.
“Well, you’re Puerto Rican,” said Adele. “So you’ll probably get a pass on the race issue.”
Vega couldn’t contain himself. “There is no race issue, Adele! I wasn’t thinking about the color of his skin or the color of mine. My only thought was not getting shot!”
“Calm down, mi amado,” she said softly. “I understand. I’m just trying to think ahead.”
Ahead? Vega couldn’t think through the next hour. “I don’t need you to be my lawyer, nena. I’ll have lawyers up the yin yang soon enough.”
“Sorry.” She exhaled. “You’re right. I’ll get in touch with Joy and check in with you later, okay? I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Vega hung up just as the driver’s side door opened and Hammond slid in.
“Hey, Jimmy”—Hammond patted his shoulder and gave him a big, fake smile that was all pink gums and white teeth—“how you holding up?”
Vega wasn’t interested in small talk. “Did you find a gun?”
“Not yet.”
“A knife? Any sort of weapon?”
Hammond ran a finger along the pleats in his slacks without looking at Vega or answering his question—which was answer enough, Vega supposed.
“So that photograph?” asked Vega. “That was all that you found in his hands?”
“At the moment.”
“How about accomplices?”
“The homeowner says he only saw one man.”