“Like I’m not alienating them now, huh? You see the Internet this morning? I’m being compared to the Gestapo.”
“It’s going to get bad for a while, I’m afraid,” said Greco. “That’s where stage two—the anger—comes in. Everybody’s Monday-morning quarterbacking you. Colleagues. Superiors. The media.” He grinned. “Ruben Tweets-his-errors.”
Vega allowed a smile.
“Meanwhile,” said Greco, “your department’s distancing itself from the whole mess. The victim’s family is filing suit. It starts to feel like the entire world is running its mouth off while you’re just standing there with your thumb up your ass, a bystander to your own life. The only people you’ll have to take your anger and frustration out on are the people you love. But you do that”—Greco wagged a finger at him—“and it’s over, my friend. You’ll lose every significant connection in your life. Believe me, Joanna and I came close to divorcing during this period. It’s going to be even harder for you and Adele. She’ll be under pressure to distance herself from you.”
Vega slumped in his seat. “She probably should. This will kill her career.”
“Why you couldn’t just date a nice nurse or schoolteacher, I’ll never know.”
“I’ve got a thousand good reasons.” Vega shrugged. “But if you were to reverse the question and ask how come she’s with me? I can’t think of one. And that was before this.”
Greco tossed off a low-throttle laugh. It sounded like a furnace kicking in. “I can think of one.”
“You can always think of one.”
Greco pulled off the highway and turned into the county police parking lot. Several camera crews were already setting up near the front doors.
“I have a feeling those guys aren’t there to film the latest budget talks,” said Greco.
“My department’s holding a press conference this morning to talk about the shooting,” said Vega. “A bunch of brass who weren’t there are gonna tell the world how I fucked up. And I can’t even be there to defend myself.”
“There should be a special circle of hell reserved just for the bureaucrats in our job,” said Greco. “Which reminds me: Where does that Ricky Ricardo guy fit into all of this?”
“You mean Ricardo Luis?”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
Leave it to Greco to turn every Latin singer into a knockoff from I Love Lucy. “He was a homeowner protecting his turf. His gun was legit. He called nine-one-one.”
Greco frowned. “A Mexican entertainer? From Miami? And he doesn’t have a bodyguard with him twenty-four-seven? You believe that and there’s some swampland down in Florida I’d like to sell you.”
“Nobody outside the Latin community knows who he is,” said Vega. “And besides, he didn’t kill Ponce—remember? I did.”
Greco grunted as he pulled up to Vega’s truck. Fortunately, from this vantage point, the building blocked them from the camera crews. Vega could make an exit without being spotted.
Greco put the Buick in park, pulled out a scrap of paper, and copied a phone number off his cell. Then he handed it to Vega.
“Who’s this?”
“Dr. Ellen Cantor.”
“A shrink?”
“She’ll help you, Vega. She helped me. Call her.”
“I don’t know—”
“Your department’s gonna make you do it. Why not get someone good?”
“I’d rather talk to you.” Vega rolled his eyes. “Jesus—did I just say that? I must be in bad shape.”
Greco grinned. “Nobody said you can’t talk to me. Even in the middle of the night. I’ll curse your unborn descendants. But I’ll try to help you through this. That said however, I still think you should call her.”
“I’ll think about it.” Vega tucked the slip of paper into his wallet. He put his hand on the door then hesitated.
“Hey, Grec?”
“Yeah?”
Vega sat back in his seat. He didn’t know how to formulate the question that was swimming around in his brain.
“You’re still a cop,” he said finally. “You’re still married to Joanna.” Duh.
“And you want to know how I got through it. You want a road map. Is that it?”
“Yeah.”
Greco was silent for a long moment. Then he let out a long slow breath like the last vestiges of that terrible day had finally been expelled. “Make something good happen.”
“Huh?”
“Something really bad happened here. You can’t deny it. Can’t run away from it. So? You gotta make something good come out of it.”
“How?”
“In my case, I started reading up on how to handle mentally ill people. I pushed for department-wide training on how to de-escalate situations involving the mentally ill. A few years after the shooting, I talked a schizophrenic man out of taking his life and his girlfriend’s life. If I’d quit the job, I’d never have done any of that. I found my good. And when I found it, it saved my life.”
“What’s my good?”
“I can’t find it for you, buddy. You’ve got to find it for yourself.”