“I’d ticket you, Vega. But I think you’ve got enough troubles already.”
Diablo strained at his leash, jumping and whining until Lake Holly Detective Louis Greco walked around to the curb and gave the animal a scratch. “Is this a therapy dog?” Greco eyed the steaming pile of fresh doggie doo next to the tree. “Or are you just offering up a public statement on your current predicament?”
“So you’ve heard.”
“The whole freakin’ country’s heard thanks to that mail-order professor with the Orville Redenbacher bowties. How he gets this shit so quickly, I’ll never know. I got a friend on the Bronx detectives’ squad who called me as soon as it went viral. Seems the perp you shot was from his neck of the woods.” Greco shoved the rest of the licorice stick in his mouth. He rubbed two gloved hands the size of baseball mitts together. Everything about Greco was big. His wide, jowly face. His gut. His opinions. He delivered the last with gusto.
“I figured maybe Ruben Race-Hysteria would give you a pass, you being Puerto Rican and all. But I guess being a cop trumps every other allegiance. That’s probably the one thing that media whore and I can agree on.”
“Glad to hear you two are in such cozy agreement,” Vega said dryly. He wasn’t in the mood to hear Greco’s take on Ruben Tate-Rivera, the shooting, or the state of police work in the United States today. Besides, he already knew what they’d be. He and Greco had worked a few cases together over the past year and although Vega had initially been put off by the man’s gruffness, he’d come to like and respect him. Even so, Louis Greco was a townie cop nearing retirement. His whole career had been spent in tiny Lake Holly handling small-time burglaries, car accidents, drug arrests, and domestic abuse complaints. The most deadly thing Louis Greco had probably ever done in his entire career was eat the two-week-old leftover potato salad at the back of the station house refrigerator.
Diablo tugged on his leash. “I’ve gotta get going,” said Vega.
“I’m not out here looking for jaywalkers, you dope. I came to find you. Adele told me you and the dog had both taken off so I figured, follow the fire hydrants.”
“I can’t talk, Grec. Not to you. Not to anybody.”
“I know that.” Greco opened his front passenger door. “But Adele tells me your truck’s in the county police lot and you need a ride to fetch it. Hop in. We’ll drop the Poop King at her house and head over.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Consider me a taxi service.”
“Look, I appreciate the offer,” said Vega. “But I’d rather be on my own right now.”
“Bad idea, buddy.”
Couldn’t this guy take a hint? “Listen, Grec,” said Vega. “I know you mean well. But you’ve got no idea what I’m going through right now. And don’t hand me that ‘thin blue line’ shit.”
Greco was a head taller than Vega. He stared down at him. His eyes got dark and deadly serious. “You tried to drink yourself to sleep last night and it didn’t work, did it? Next you’ll start popping Ambiens like they’re breath mints. They won’t work either. That little film inside your head will just keep playing until making a cup of coffee feels like too much mental effort. You’ll explode at everything and anything. Your relationships will fall apart. Friends will start to back off—or you’ll back off, thinking everyone’s better off without you. By the time they hand you back your service weapon, you’ll start thinking that’s just about the neatest and easiest solution. One bullet—no more pain.”
Vega blinked at Greco. There was only one way he could know all that.
“How come you never—?”
“Like you said: How could anyone understand?” Greco rapped a knuckle against the open door. “Get in.”
Greco kept the pearl-gray brushed velour interior of his Buick spotless. Vega was sure he had it detailed once a month. Which made Vega all the more embarrassed when Diablo licked the rear windows and muddied the seat with his paw prints.
“Sorry,” said Vega after they dropped Diablo back at Adele’s. “I owe you for a car cleaning.”
“I’ll put it on your tab.”
Greco nosed the car along the highway, following the train tracks that zigzagged south through the county. They breezed past small, picturesque villages where nothing stood taller than the church steeples. All around them were bare gray trees and rolling hills dotted with deer and flocks of wild turkeys. The sun was trying to break through. The day looked far too promising for Vega’s mood. His cell phone dinged. He took it out of his pocket and frowned as he scrolled through text messages and emails he had no intention of answering.
“Ah, social media,” said Greco. “You can’t take a leak these days without the whole world commenting on it. That was one thing, thank God, I never had to deal with.”