Breakdown (7 page)

How had Helen Kendrick gotten hold of the news that Durango’s daughter was at Mount Moriah in time for her Sunday-morning show? If parents of one of Petra’s girls had gone to their tame Rottweiler in the mayor’s office, their kid might have given him all the names of the girls in their Carmilla club, but that still made it a mighty fast data transfer to Helen Kendricks and Wade Lawlor. The officers at the 13th District wouldn’t have known, because I hadn’t known last night.

Of course, Global Entertainment probably had a dozen sources in police departments and mayoral offices all over America. It was GEN’s mission to spread embarrassing news about centrist or left-leaning public figures; sometimes the reports they put out were even true. When I’d showered and had some breakfast, I’d watch the Internet replay of Helen Kendrick’s show.

6.

LEAKS EVERYWHERE

A
S IT TURNED OUT,
I
DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO LOOK AT
K
ENDRICK
, let alone call Murray back. In fact, I barely had time to shower and make an espresso before Sergeant Anstey arrived, with Elizabeth Milkova. I’d met Milkova on a murder inquiry last winter, when she’d been part of the Area Six detective squad attached to Lieutenant Terry Finchley.

“Officer Milkova! Is Terry working this case? Or have you moved on to bigger and better things?”

“Lieutenant Finchley asked me to accompany Sergeant Anstey, since he’s tied up this afternoon.” Milkova had short, dark hair, which she played with nervously, pushing it behind her ears every few minutes. When I asked heartily after Finchley’s health, her hands automatically went to the sides of her head.

Anstey glared at me, hands on hips. “Finchley warned me that you think of yourself as some kind of one-woman show, but I’m not a customer. You lied to me last night.”

I didn’t have a witty one-woman comeback to that, so I merely sipped my espresso.

“I knew that story about you hearing some screams inside Mount Moriah was bull-hockey. I should have locked you up last night until you told the truth. Instead, I get to hear it from my watch commander, who brings me in on my day off.”

I wondered if I should put him in touch with Murray: two guys who felt I’d blindsided them with their bosses. They could get drunk together and think of horrible names to call me.

“Tough,” I commiserated instead. “I don’t like working Sundays myself, but here we both are.”

Anstey narrowed his eyes into an expression that was frightening enough to make me glad we weren’t alone in an interrogation room. He glowered for a second, waiting to make sure I wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire, before continuing his tirade.

“I was taking my boy to Burr Oak Woods to play softball, and thanks to you, one of my few days with my kid is completely fucked.”

Never explain, never apologize, at least not when facing an angry cop. I spread my hands in a placatory gesture but didn’t say anything, which didn’t really matter, because Anstey was speaking for two. Maybe for three, since Officer Milkova was standing mute by the windows.

It wasn’t clear where the police had gotten their version of what the girls were doing in the cemetery last night, but the story had been garbled out of recognition as it flowed down the chain of command: after getting most of his grievance off his chest, Anstey demanded to know why I’d led a group of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds into an abandoned cemetery to perform Satanic rituals.

“That’s a serious charge, Sergeant. I’ll call my lawyer and you can talk to him, because I am asserting my right to remain silent.”

“You’re not under arrest. Yet.”

“I always have the right to remain silent.”

We were in my living room. I turned on the radio and went down on my hands and knees to do some core strengthening moves.

Anstey hit the off button hard enough to shake my stereo. “This isn’t helping, Warshawski.”

I didn’t say anything. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the right to silence had alarming implications for anyone who said anything during an interrogation. I rolled over on my back and began a sequence of abdominal presses. I could see that my toenail polish was chipped. Time to give myself a pedicure.

Anstey squatted down so that his face was directly over mine. “Why did you take the girls to that cemetery?”

I shut my eyes and lifted my butt off the floor. I could feel his breath on my face, and it took a major act of will to hold the pose for a count of thirty. I slid away from his breath, sat up, and reached for my cell phone.

I was just typing in my lawyer’s phone number when my downstairs neighbor arrived, along with the two dogs we share. Mitch and Peppy were ecstatic to see me, and barked energetically at Sergeant Anstey. Mitch tried to jump up on Officer Milkova.

I got to my feet and forced Mitch to sit. “These aren’t friends, and even if they were, you’re not to jump on people.”

Mitch grinned at me but sat, slowly, to show it was because he wanted to, not because I said so.

Mr. Contreras looked at the cops. “I didn’t know you had company, doll, but what’s this about you being at some cemetery last night with a bunch of vampires? I just got off the phone with Ruthie, and she says it’s all over the TV and the Internet and everything! She says you’ve become a devil worshipper, which of course is a bunch of crap, pardon my French, but what’s with you finding a corpse in a cemetery and I hear it from Ruthie first?”

Ruthie was Mr. Contreras’s daughter. She had inherited his gene for nonstop talking, but not his gruff charm, which might explain why her husband had decamped when their two sons were in elementary school.

“You are the third person who’s attacked me in the last half hour for learning about my business from their bosses instead of me,” I complained. “Murray woke me up all hot and bothered, then these cops burst in on me, and now you. Cut me some slack! Sergeant Anstey here”—I sketched a wave in his direction—“even thinks I took the girls to the cemetery. He and Officer Milkova would prefer not to have any facts thrown their way, but to you, my beloved friend and neighbor, I will confess all. Around eleven last night, I got an SOS that some kids were out after curfew. I tracked them down to an abandoned cemetery in Ukrainian Village.

“The kids were acting like you and I did when we were their age, meaning they have more enthusiasm than sense. They got it into their heads that they were going to dance under the full moon, and nothing, not even a thunderstorm, was going to deter them. Unfortunately, they picked the same spot that a murderer had chosen. I was protecting the girls from the police until they had a chance to talk to their parents, and I didn’t get home until past three, so I didn’t have a chance to tell you sooner. Also, I haven’t had breakfast. I don’t suppose you have any leftover French toast or anything?”

“Why couldn’t you tell me that?” Anstey demanded.

“Because you started with the wrong question,” I said coldly. “If any of the girls, or their parents, are claiming I took the group to the cemetery, they are lying.”

“Who was in the cemetery with you?” Anstey said.

I shook my head. “Wrong phrasing. You might ask whom I found in the cemetery.”

“Don’t push me, Warshawski.” His voice dropped to a growl.

“Sergeant, you know as well as I that semantics is everything in a courtroom. I have every right to push you into not framing your questions in ways that make it sound as though I abetted the delinquency of a group of minors.”

“The Morgensterns said that a Petra Warshawski was with the girls.” Milkova spoke for the first time.

“Again, Officer, your language is misleading.”

“We need to get in touch with her.”

“Not if you’re going to harass her, you ain’t. You heard Vic here, you can’t go around accusing people of stuff with no evidence and no reason. You got a dead body in a cemetery and you want to take the easy way out and pin it on someone, well, you ain’t pinning it on either of my gals. Some man gets stabbed through the chest, you go look for someone who uses knives. You got databases, you got brains, go use them and don’t come harassing—”

“We’re not harassing,” Anstey said, patches of color showing in his cheeks. “But your ‘gal’ here lied to me last night. I have a right to the truth.”

“You do, Sergeant, and I gave it to you. Is there anything else?”

“I have the names of most of the girls who got together ‘to dance under the full moon.’ ” He gave the phrase a sarcastic emphasis.

He flipped open a notebook and read the list of names. He had all the girls, but he didn’t have last names for Tyler, or for the two Polish girls, Kira and Beata.

“And we know Arielle Zitter and Nia Durango were there but made it home somehow on their own. You involved in that?”

“Sergeant, who told Helen Kendrick that Dr. Durango’s daughter was at the murder site last night? I haven’t seen Kendrick’s show myself, but a reporter just called to tell me about it. Her show goes on live at ten a.m. At that time,
I
didn’t know the names of the kids I found in the cemetery last night. How did Kendrick get them?”

“I don’t know where journalists get their information. I only know that trying to keep an investigation secret is like trying to hide an elephant inside a convertible
.
”

“She didn’t get Nia Durango’s name from you, did she?”

The red patches reappeared on his face, but he kept his temper in check. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I need you to give me some names, though—surnames for Beata, Kira, and Tyler.”

“If I could help you, I would,” I assured him. “But, as I keep saying, I don’t know these girls.”

Anstey smacked the top of my piano. “Goddamn it, Warshawski, stop lying—”

Mitch got to his feet, growling. I grabbed his collar but couldn’t stop Mr. Contreras, who said, “You got no call to start swearing, young man. You got two ladies in here with you, case you hadn’t noticed, and just because one of them’s a public cop and one’s private, it don’t mean you can’t watch your language.”

Anstey’s expression—compounded fury and astonishment—made me start to laugh. I doubled over in a coughing fit before he could see my face.

Anstey was off balance but he wasn’t stupid. He told me we weren’t finished, that he’d be back after he spoke to Petra, and I’d better not have plans to leave town. He took Milkova and left, with a heavy stomping of shoes on the stairs.

As soon as they were gone, Mr. Contreras started to fret about “what trouble you got Peewee into now.”

I put my arms around him. “Don’t start on me, darlin’, it was a late night with a lot of worry involved. Shoe’s on the other foot, anyway.” I gave him the unedited version of last night’s events.

At the end, although he wouldn’t admit he’d misjudged me, he did say Petra was lucky she had me to turn to in a crisis. And he offered to make me breakfast.

While Mr. Contreras happily puttered around his hot kitchen, frying up French toast, I called Petra to warn her that the police wanted to talk to her.

“Call your boss at Malina today . . . Yes, I know it’s Sunday, but call her as soon as we hang up: the one crime that bosses don’t forgive is being the last to hear bad news from their staff. So far, no one has ID’d the two Malina girls. If anyone asks you, don’t volunteer Beata and Kira’s last names—if their moms have immigration issues, you could get them in hot water. Maybe your boss can get the foundation’s lawyer to help you with your police interview, because you shouldn’t go into it naked.”

“Gosh, Vic, this is really scary.” Petra’s voice was subdued.

“We’ll figure it out together, babe. Do you know if your other kids made it home? I just got up and I’ve had the police here, so I haven’t made any calls.”

Petra had gotten texts from the girls but hadn’t spoken to any of their parents. “See, I only have the girls’ cell phones on my cell. The moms’ numbers are at the office, but maybe I should have my boss call them?”

By tomorrow, the parents would likely all be calling the foundation, screeching about their kids’ safety. I didn’t want to add to Petra’s fears by saying that, so I merely reiterated my advice that she call her boss as soon as possible. “Today, kiddo. Where’s Tyler, by the way?”

“I just dropped her off about ten minutes ago. Gosh, her dad is a creep. I told them I was driving Tyler home because I was chauffeuring some of the girls from the book club, and I hoped Tyler would join. She and her mom squeaked and said, oh, only if Daddy thought it was a good idea. He made my skin crawl, the way he was looking at them and me. A total reptile.”

When I’d finished with Petra and eaten my breakfast, I set out for the cemetery. Mr. Contreras and the dogs came along to help look for Kira Dudek’s phone. There was police tape across the gate, and a patrol car nearby, but we walked on up Leavitt until we were out of surveillance range and found a gap in the fence big enough that Mr. Contreras didn’t have to crawl to get through it.

The slab where Wuchnik had died was covered with a tarp to protect any evidence in case the techs decided to revisit the scene, but there weren’t any officers around. We searched the square where the girls had been dancing and didn’t see the phone. Of course, if Kira had dropped it there, the evidence techs would have picked it up, but in that case, Sergeant Anstey would have been able to get her last name from the phone company.

I’d try to retrace the path the girls and I had followed to the wall. I took off one of my sandals and held it under Mitch’s nose. “Find the scent, boy, find the scent.”

Mitch roared off happily into the overgrown bushes after a rabbit or a snake—certainly not after my scent—with Peppy in pursuit. However, I didn’t need a bloodhound to discover last night’s route. I followed the trail of lost scrunchies, dropped water bottles, even a rain jacket—the evidence techs hadn’t gone very far from the crime scene. I got all the way to the wall without finding a phone, so I hoisted myself up the crumbling brickwork and jumped off on the other side. Mr. Contreras protested mightily, mostly because he couldn’t follow me.