Breakdown (9 page)

“But, Mom, we weren’t trying to hurt your campaign,” Nia said. “It’s just—Carmilla, she’s so cool! We thought—we hoped—we wanted it to be true. And the chanting, the full moon, it made us feel like we were part of her!”

“You girls thought you could turn into ravens?” Sophy Durango was so dumbfounded she couldn’t figure out anything else to say.

“I know what they’re saying about Grandpapa on the news,” Arielle said. “I want to peck their eyeballs out!”

Julia sat on the couch next to her daughter. “Darling, we all know the horrible hate that they’re spewing out about your grandfather, and about Aunt Sophy, and we agreed we had to ignore it, to pretend it isn’t happening. But last night’s escapade is going to make things worse, you know. I don’t know how Helen Kendrick got Nia’s name, unless Jessie Morgenstern or one of the other girls talked, or put it on Facebook, but Kendrick already attacked Aunt Sophy on her show this morning. We need the truth before Wade Lawlor starts in on your grandfather.”

“Can you back up a minute?” I said. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Jessie Morgenstern—she was one of the girls who was with you at the cemetery last night?”

The two girls nodded cautiously, wondering if my questions would lead to further trouble for them.

“Her father is the one who gives money to politicians?” I said. It had been Tyler, or maybe Kira, who had said that in our early-morning conversation.

“Yes, yes,” Julia Salanter interrupted me impatiently. “He’s a hedge-fund manager who dabbles in politics. Jessie goes to Vina Fields with Arielle and Nia. Her parents hired a PR specialist to help their lawyer coach Jessie through her police interview, but they promised me they didn’t tell the specialist or the lawyer that Ari and Nia were with Jessie. Sam Morgenstern owes a chunk of his success to tips that—well, never mind that.”

Julia added wryly to Sophy Durango, “I can see Lawlor’s headlines:
Nazi Supporter’s Granddaughter Sucks Christian Blood. Is This Who You Want Advising Your Next Senator?”

Durango made a face. “If I’d known they were going to attack Chaim in such an ugly way, I’d never have let him sign on to my campaign. Ms. Warshawski, you didn’t leak news about last night’s escapade to the Kendrick campaign, did you?”

“Dr. Durango, I had quite enough on my hands with the remnants of your daughters’ group without getting involved in a political campaign as well.”

“Don’t get on a high horse with us, Ms. Warshawski: we don’t know you, so we don’t know what you might or might not do,” Julia Salanter said. “We need to do some damage control before the damage gets worse. Someone fed Helen Kendrick the news that Nia was at Mount Moriah last night, but didn’t make the connection to Chaim. Either they didn’t know Arielle was there, or they didn’t realize she was Chaim’s granddaughter—Zitter is her father’s last name.”

“I certainly didn’t know that,” I said. “Chaim—Mr. Salanter—he’s running Dr. Durango’s campaign?”

“Heading my finance committee,” Durango said. “Why don’t you tell us what you saw last night.”

“Ms. Salanter mentioned my cousin on the phone,” I said. “She’s worried that she’s going to be in hot water, either with you or with the cops or both. And I, of course, am concerned that she not be held responsible for last night’s events. She did what she could to look after the girls in her group, but she had no authority over them.”

Salanter nodded, her face grim. “We know that. Just tell us what happened.”

I went through my spiel: Lucy, Kira, the full moon, stumbling on the girls by chance, finding Wuchnik’s body, trying to get the girls to wait for me at the Dudek place while I ran interference with the police. “As to what lies the girls told to leave home in the first place, and whether they were really sticking needles into each other’s bodies—you’ll have to get that from your daughters. By the way, where did Nia and Arielle go when they left the cemetery? Petra kept trying to text them but they went blank on her.”

“They went back to my house,” Durango said. “They knew I was at an event downstate last night, and hoped they could con me into believing they hadn’t gone out. I didn’t know anything until someone called me from Chicago for a comment on the accusations Kendrick made this morning. I was
not
happy.”

Nia and Arielle looked at their feet.

“What’s this about needles and sucking blood?” Salanter demanded.

“It was our ritual,” Arielle whispered, after a glance at her friend. “Tyler was such a crybaby, we shouldn’t have let her take part, then this wouldn’t—”

“I told you, I don’t want to hear you shifting your responsibilities onto someone else!” Durango’s voice was a whip.

“There’s another problem,” I said to the mothers. “A murder took place near them. Tyler being a crybaby meant that we all came on the body, but I think the murderer was still there when the girls got to their chosen spot. Someone claimed she’d seen a vampire; I think she caught a glimpse of the murderer. Arielle and Nia are going to have to talk to the cops, and the sooner you make that happen, the easier controlling your damage will be.”

“Which girl saw the murderer?” Salanter asked.

“No one,” Arielle said. “Tyler thought she saw a vampire, but she couldn’t have, she wasn’t even initiated yet.”

This new grievance made Arielle bunch up her fists and pound the cushions. She was on that tightrope between childhood and young adulthood—like young Kira, hoping to fly off to her father in Poland, Arielle and Nia still hoped magic might really happen.

“Tyler?” Julia said. “I don’t remember her name from your Malina book group.”

“She isn’t in it. Lots of kids at Vina Fields want to join our Carmilla club. Jessie and Tyler hang out; Jessie persuaded us to let her join, but now—we told Tyler it would hurt, but I guess she didn’t believe us.”

“Or she wanted friends badly enough not to mind—although I don’t suppose anyone is prepared for a needle in the palm,” I said. “When she ran away from you, after you’d stabbed her, she said she didn’t care if you didn’t speak to her for five years. What was that about?”

Arielle flushed but didn’t speak.

“Did you threaten her with ostracism?” her mother demanded.

“Not like that,” Arielle stammered. “It’s a vow. Before you can be initiated you have to swear that you won’t reveal the secrets of Carmilla, and if you do, no one else in the group will talk to you for the rest of the time we’re at school together.”

Arielle saw her mother’s shocked face. “Mom! It’s the only way we can keep our club a secret!”

“How did you choose your ritual?” I asked, before the conversation devolved into a mother-daughter battle.

“We tried to bite each other, but it’s really hard, you need extra-sharp vampire fangs, otherwise you’re just catching up a fold of skin, and then, oh, you know, Aunt Sophy, she’s always doing needlepoint, so we started experimenting with her needles.”

“You stabbed each other?” Julia said.

“Of course, Aunt Julia,” Nia said. “We had to do it first; we couldn’t ask someone else to go through it if we hadn’t seen what it was like.”

The two mothers looked at each other again. Some wordless communication passed, because they nodded, and Salanter spoke.

“The Vina Fields Carmilla club will go on without you from now on. Arielle, you and Nia will not see each other or text each other for two weeks.”

The two girls started shrieking in protest, promising endless good behavior; Salanter raised her voice. “There’s plenty of work for you to do, either for the foundation or the campaign—that will be your community service. Grandpapa’s lawyer will come tonight to prepare you for your conversation with the police, which will be happening tomorrow morning, if we can arrange it.”

Dr. Durango turned to me. “We’ve spoken very frankly in front of you, Ms. Warshawski. I want to know whether we can rely on your discretion.”

“Oh, yes, I’m discreet as all get out,” I said impatiently. “But I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously. A man was murdered last night, stabbed through the heart in a way that looked like a movie-style vampire slaying. How did he happen to be where your daughters were prancing around? Did you know him?”

Julia flushed. “Of course we care that someone was killed. As to whether we knew him—what was his name?”

“Miles Wuchnik,” I said, my voice tight. “Maybe you are the good guys in Illinois politics, but this focus on damage control when a man was killed, it doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I don’t think
you
understand,” Salanter said. “My father is under constant attack, as is Dr. Durango. What our daughters did was ill advised, but we don’t have the luxury of dealing with them privately: their behavior isn’t just public property, it will be taken up as part of a relentless media attack machine. So I won’t apologize for focusing on damage control.”

I responded mechanically to her words: my attention was caught by Arielle, whose eyes had widened at hearing Wuchnik’s name.

“Did you know him?” I demanded.

“Of course not!” she cried.

“You spoke to him on the phone?” I persisted.

“My daughter says she didn’t know him. It’s extremely offensive of you to imply that she was lying,” Julia Salanter said.

“Maybe he was a genie,” Nia said.

She and Arielle giggled at each other, but stopped instantly when they saw their mothers’ angry faces. “I just meant, maybe he appeared out of smoke or a bottle or something.”

“Not funny,” Sophy Durango said.

I looked at Arielle. “You didn’t care enough about the body you stumbled on to watch the news? Miles Wuchnik has been at the center of every news outlet all day long, whether on TV or online.”

“I don’t watch the stupid news. I hate it; there’s always some hate story about Grandpapa or Aunt Sophy. And, anyway, I was trying to protect Grandpapa.”

Julia blinked in bewilderment. “Why would boycotting the news help Chaim?”

Arielle bit her lips, keeping a wary eye on me. She had some connection to Wuchnik, I was sure of it.

“It troubles me that Wuchnik was stabbed in a way that echoes the ritual the girls were involved in,” I said slowly. “It’s as if the murderer knew what the Carmilla club was up to and wanted to make a public statement about it. How could that have happened, Arielle?”

“Who knew you were going to the cemetery yesterday?” Sophy Durango asked.

“Me and Arielle,” Nia answered her mother. “Jessie, Nolan. We didn’t tell Tyler because she wasn’t initiated.”

“What about Kira and Beata?” I asked.

Nia and Arielle shook their heads.

“I thought they were initiated,” I persisted.

“They are. But they’re not our real friends.”

“Right. They’re immigrant kids, their moms scrub toilets for a living. Hard to be real friends.”

“That’s unfair,” Salanter said. “Arielle knows better than most girls what immigrants go through.”

“Ms. Salanter, lots of girls have parents or grandparents who came here in poverty. Most of us, including me, have parents and grandparents who never had the mix of luck and drive that gave your father the ability to swaddle his grandchildren in luxury.”

“Don’t attack my daughter for my father’s success!” Salanter snapped. “We get it hammered into us constantly on GEN as it is.”

“If anything, I envy her, and the GEN commentators probably do as well. But his success does put a wall between her and a woman who cleans hotel rooms on the night shift.”

Durango changed the subject. “You’re an investigator. Could you find out who leaked the news to Kendrick?”

I shook my head. “These girls text everyone. They may have sworn a vow of silence, but they were videoing each other with their phones last night; someone put it on Facebook, or sent it to her friends in a text. Anyone with an axe to grind about the election could have picked it up and sent it to Kendrick. Anything else?” I turned to leave.

Julia followed me back up the hall. “And you will keep our conversation to yourself.”

“Oh, yes. I don’t want to add to Dr. Durango’s woes with the public, but someone does. Even though I don’t think you could trace the leak, someone got the news to Kendrick fast—she had Nia’s name before the police knew it, because the cops only got it after one of the parents took his daughter into Area Six this morning. And then, the way the murder was committed—it was horrible, rebar through the heart. I think grounding those girls until the murderer is caught might be a smart move.”

Salanter stared at me. “You think someone would try to hurt Arielle?”

“I don’t know.” I sat on her father’s scrap metal relic to put my sandals back on. “I hope not, but if you have a security detail, I’d keep an eye on her. On Nia, too. There’s an ugly mind behind this murder.”

Salanter’s face, tight and white with worry, stayed with me as I rode the L back north.

9.

CABLE NEWS

O
VER DINNER AT
L
OTTY’S, CONVERSATION WAS MOSTLY ABOUT
music, or, more accurately, musical personalities. Jake was leaving for Vermont in a few days: he’d been invited to serve as an artist-in-residence at the Marlboro Festival. I’d put aside the last week of the festival to spend with Jake, a real vacation—from Marlboro, we would drive up to Canada, where we would hike the Laurentian Mountains.

Lotty and Max were planning to go in August, when some of their old musician friends from London would be in residence, and they joined Jake in dissecting conductors and performers with a happy disregard for slander laws.

It wasn’t until we were sitting on the balcony with our coffee that Lotty brought up the body in the graveyard, and that was because she worried about how it might affect the Malina Foundation.

I told them about my meeting with Durango and Salanter, at least the parts that wouldn’t violate their privacy: the girls’ participation in the full-moon ritual was pretty much public knowledge.

Max’s lips were tight with anger. “Malina has been under attack for years; this is going to add fuel to a fire that’s almost out of control.”