EZ Clean was packed on a Sunday night. Little children scampered up and down the aisles, playing hide-and-seek while their mothers chattered in Spanish on their cell phones. Groups of young men talked sports while they shoved what looked like every item they owned into dryers. People were at the candy machine and the soda machine. The air was warm and humid—more like July than December.
Carmela wasn’t working this evening. There was another older woman at the front desk, her hair dyed so black that the gray roots looked like snow in her parting. She gave Vega a passing glance because he had no laundry in his hands. Not that that mattered in this neighborhood. People in the Bronx always treated the laundromat as a social club so it was conceivable he was just stopping in to visit a girlfriend. A patron called out to Snow Lady that he was having trouble working the card machine so Vega was able to breeze past without comment.
He used the bathroom at the rear of the building and bought himself a soda at one of the vending machines. Then he unzipped his jacket and settled into a molded plastic chair along a wall where he checked his cell phone to the conga rhythm of wet clothes thumping away in the dryers.
He was hoping for a message from Adele. There wasn’t one. He took that as a bad sign. Should he send her one? No. That looked too pathetic, too much like he was begging for mercy. His pride wouldn’t allow it. He thought about calling Dolan and telling him about Humberto Oliva and Luis. But that sort of conversation was best handled in a more private space than a laundromat. He’d call Dolan about it first thing tomorrow. As for what Father Delgado had told him? Vega had no idea how to handle that. His mother’s murder was under NYPD jurisdiction and nothing Delgado had told him altered the case very much at this point. Vega wondered if he’d do more harm than good if he exposed the old priest’s confession to any sort of public scrutiny.
Vega played a football fantasy game on his phone to distract himself. He stretched out his legs, careful not to trip anyone walking by. At home, he might have lost himself in the game. But not here. His eyes flicked up at regular intervals, scanning the rows for trouble—seen and unseen. It was the cop in him. He could never be totally oblivious to his surroundings. But even so, he still might have overlooked the dark-skinned Hispanic girl with the Asian eyes walking down the center aisle of the laundromat.
If not for her light pink windbreaker.
What was she doing here? Was she running away? He couldn’t think of any other reason why a thirteen-year-old Lake Holly girl, fresh from Honduras, would be wandering around a Bronx laundromat on a Sunday night.
Vega watched her walk into the bathroom with a blue backpack slung over one shoulder. He put away his phone and rose from his chair. He didn’t want to be obvious about following her so he bought a Snickers bar at the candy machine and pretended he’d just seen her for the first time as she stepped out of the bathroom.
“Mija.” My daughter—a gentle endearment. “What are you doing here?” he asked in Spanish. “Do you remember me? I bought you and your brother candy last night at the hospital.”
Yovanna’s eyes flared in surprise for a brief moment, then she looked down at her feet. Vega noticed that her purple canvas sneakers were soaked from traipsing through the snow. She had no hat or gloves. What parent would send a child out in spring clothes on a night like this?
Marcela hadn’t. This was the teenager’s own doing. That much was becoming crystal clear.
Vega crouched down next to the vending machine and held the Snickers bar out to her. He wanted to meet her downcast eyes and make himself as small and unthreatening as possible. “I bought the wrong item. Would you like it?”
Yovanna looked torn. If she was running away, she was probably hungry. On the other hand, she clearly didn’t want to engage him.
“It’s okay,” Vega said softly. “I won’t hurt you, mija.” He didn’t tell her he was a cop. That wouldn’t soothe a Honduran teenager who’d just seen what passed for justice on both sides of the border. So he concentrated on associations. “I know your mother, Marcela. She used to babysit for my girlfriend’s daughter. My name is Jimmy, by the way.”
Vega waited for her to tell him her name. She didn’t. Instead, she took the candy bar from his outstretched hand and settled into one of the chairs along the wall. She sat the backpack in her lap while she unwrapped the bar. She bit off a huge chunk and chewed noisily. She was hungry. Vega sat down in the chair next to her and kept his gaze straight ahead so she would feel less threatened.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” he asked softly.
The girl didn’t answer. Vega had to let Marcela know her daughter was safe but he didn’t have her number. He decided to bluff.
“Okay, Yovanna.” He used her name now to let her know he meant business. “I’m going to have to call your mother. I can’t let you just wander around New York City without your mother knowing where you are.”
“No!” That woke her out of her stupor. She looked at him now. “Please. I have to do this.”
“Do what? Run away?”