“Yeah, that too,” Kel admitted. “Mom likes him, but he was as shitty of a husband as he was a dad. When he lived with us, we were the last thing on his mind. Shit, I wasn’t even sure he even knew how many kids he had. I don’t think he really saw us, you know? We just weren’t important to him.”
“There was something Miki said to me,” Kane murmured, trying to catch a stray thought buzzing around his head.
Reaching into his car, he dug through the accordion folder on the passenger seat until he located Vega’s folder, then flipped it open to go through their meager findings. The file was woefully thin. On paper, Vega appeared to live an exemplary life, contributing to charities and fostering unwanted young boys. The photos they found in the dead man’s house told another story.
Staring at Vega’s license photo, it was hard to reconcile the image of the smiling, confident man he saw with the damage he’d done to Miki.
The man looked normal. Forcing aside his knowledge of the man’s activities, Kane wouldn’t have given him a second look. With his broad, craggy face and warm brown eyes, Carl Vega looked like the uncle who sneaked his nephew a peanut-butter sandwich when dinner that night was going to be eggplant surprise. He was the man whom a guy with kids would invite to a baseball game and not think twice about leaving them with Vega while he went to the bathroom in the seventh inning.
He was also the man who stalked Miki’s nightmares, tearing him apart from inside the singer’s soul.
And Kane had to find his murderer.
“Miki said to me… shit, how did he put it? ‘At least he saw me,’” Kane recalled. “That’s what stuck with me. That Carl saw him.”
Kel broke off watching the firemen. “What the hell does that mean?”
“He was talking about Vega,” Kane replied. “And I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t think it was important. This is Miki’s privacy I’m violating here. This stays between us.”
“Not a problem.” Kel crossed his heart with an index finger. “Dude, if it helps us find the bastard, I’ll be willing to listen to my sisters talk about shoes. Hell, I’d try them on.”
“He told me the worst part about the whole… thing… about Shing and Vega was that he missed Vega. Not because of the shit Vega did to him but because that son of a bitch was the only person who ever really gave a shit about him. The only person who saw him.” Kane put his cup down and rifled through the papers. “Suppose we’re going at this all wrong? Suppose the person we’re looking for isn’t one of Vega’s fosters but some kid in the neighborhood? A kid who might have been pissed off because he was replaced. Maybe even replaced by Miki.”
“Even bad attention is attention?” Kel whistled. “Morgan, that’s some sick shit. Who the hell is going to miss the guy who molested them?”
“Someone who has no one but that guy. Miki said he knew it was wrong to feel anything toward Vega but disgust, but even knowing how much Vega fucked him up, some part of him still remembers being that little boy who would do anything to make Vega happy.” Unable to find what he was looking for in the first file, he moved on to the second. “If the guy I ran down was the doer, then he’s way too scrawny to take down someone as big as Vega. That guy topped out at about two hundred pounds. The guy I saw was maybe one fifty. He would need to immobilize his victims.”
“Maybe he was wiry?” Kel offered. “Maybe he’s Welsh?”
“Really?” Kane gave his partner a disgusted look. “We don’t have tox on Shing or Vega, but there was one done on one of the fosters. The cops down in San Luis called the death undetermined. I just have to find it.”
“Undetermined’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” His partner sounded doubtful.
“Fucking A, here it is. This is Doug Zhang’s suicide report. He was one of Vega’s foster kids. Cop house near Vega caught the case. The apartment building’s a few blocks from Vega’s house.” He pulled out the police report and read back the description of the young man’s autopsy. “Deceased’s tox screen came back with high values of barbiturates and benzodiazepine. Cause of death is undetermined due to blood loss deceased experienced following extensive injuries caused by slashes to both arms and legs. Weapon used found on scene and determined to be eight-inch paring knife. Knife found by deceased’s side is a match to set found in kitchen. The injection site was found on the inside of Zhang’s right arm. Doesn’t say if Zhang was left-handed, but odds are good he wasn’t.”