Breakdown (32 page)

Last night at ten-thirty, Arielle had written,
Surprise message from one of our Ravens. Very mysterious, she wouldn’t ID herself. Got to go out, call the landline if you get this message before one a.m.

Nia and Diane were reading over my shoulder.

“One of your Ravens?” I asked. “Would that be Nolan or Jessie?”

Nia’s oval face was scrunched into a circle of worry. “It could be them, or Tyler.”

“Anyone in your Carmilla group except you and Arielle, in other words.”

Nia nodded.

“Any idea what this was about?”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s the first time I even saw the message. Mom woke me up to tell me about Arielle, and I didn’t log on or anything before Diane and I left home.”

I looked back up through the messages but didn’t see anything from the other girls in the Carmilla book club. “How would she have gotten the message?” I asked Nia.

“On her cell phone. It was only my number that Aunt Julia blocked, just while we did our punishment for breaking curfew and—and lying, and stuff.”

“I’ll call my cousin. She might have heard from another girl in the group and not connected the dots when I woke her this morning. And even if no one called Petra, she can help us reach all the girls in the Malina club to see who contacted Arielle. But we really need the police involved,” I added to Diane. “They can get a log of calls to Arielle’s phone fast.”

“I’ll go down and tell Julia,” Diane said. “I don’t know why she’s dragging her feet on this. Nia, you come with me: you need to tell Julia everything you just said to us. At least we know Arielle wasn’t coerced into leaving.”

We didn’t know that: we knew only that Arielle had left the house under her own steam, but the video footage already told us that. Anyone could have texted her, pretending to be part of the Malina group. I didn’t say this to Nia—she was too scared already.

I phoned Petra and explained what I wanted.

“I’m all over it,” Petra said. “I’ll call them all until I find which one contacted Arielle. I’ve been feeling totally useless and scared.”

“You and me both, babe,” I said. “You and me both.”

32.

TRUNK LINE

W
HILE
I
WAITED TO HEAR BACK FROM MY COUSIN,
I
TROLLED
through Arielle’s computer, looking for any mention of Miles Wuchnik. I went back two months but didn’t see e-mails from or about him. Nor had she gone to his website. The only messages she’d sent yesterday had been to Nia. Any other friends she could still have reached by text.

I realized I’d only gone as far back as early May, around the time Wuchnik had first visited Ruhetal. My unconscious mind was insisting on a connection between Arielle and Wuchnik, despite Mr. Contreras’s suggestion that Wuchnik might have been horning in on a drug ring out at Ruhetal.

I conscientiously scrolled through Arielle’s e-mails all the way back to the first of the year. I didn’t see anything of interest, except Arielle’s efforts to interview the author of the
Carmilla
novels. She’d done a school project on the
Queen of the Night
books, and Boadicea Jones, or an assistant, had sent back answers to Arielle’s questions—gracious of a writer who was probably deluged with fan mail.

I felt agitated and immobile at the same time; going through websites was treading time, but I didn’t know what else to do right now.

The sites Arielle had visited repeatedly dealt with genealogy and the Holocaust. She had spent a lot of time at the Holocaust Museum site, and had even e-mailed them, careful not to trumpet her connection to vast wealth.

My name is Arielle Zitter. I am twelve years old and I am trying to discover my roots. My grandfather’s family is called Salanter and they came from near Vilna in Lithuania, but he won’t tell me anything about his history. I think my grandfather’s mother’s name was Judith because my mom is called Julia after her. Everyone but him died in the Holocaust, I think, but I don’t know if it was at Ponar or somewhere else. I think his mom died in 1941 but maybe it was 1942. Can you help?

The museum had written back, suggesting that Arielle and her parents make an appointment with a museum archivist if they were coming to Washington. They also gave her a list of recommended resources, including some of the books I’d seen on her shelves.

I wondered if Arielle’s interest in her grandfather’s history came out of Lawlor’s attacks on him. It made sense: Global was accusing Chaim Salanter of terrible atrocities; Arielle wanted to know the truth.

My cell phone rang. Not Petra, as I’d hoped, but Gabe Eycks, asking me to join the team in the library. “On the second floor, just below Arielle’s room,” he instructed.

Julia and her lawyer had been augmented by a tall woman with cool hazel eyes, who eyed me narrowly—I wasn’t surprised to find she was with the FBI.

“Special Agent Christa Velpel,” Gabe said. “Fortunately, Thor called the Bureau as soon as he got here.”

Mercifully, unlike most cops I meet, Special Agent Velpel didn’t waste time by demanding an accounting from me on why or where or what I’d been doing. She’d already heard about Arielle’s early-morning e-mail to Nia from Nia and Diane, and had sent them back to the family room.

“Nia may know something she doesn’t think is important; I’ll talk to her again in a bit. The same thing is true of your cousin Petra, so let me have her phone number and so on.”

I explained that Petra was already phoning all the girls in the book club to see who’d been in touch with Arielle.

“Have her call me. A skilled investigator will think of questions that may elicit information she doesn’t think she has. And if
you
think of something, let me know. I understand from Ms. Salanter that your main interest has been the death of this private eye, not the girls?”

I tried not to let my hackles rise at Velpel’s bland assumption that I wouldn’t know how to elicit information, from myself or my cousin. This conversation wasn’t about me, it was about saving Arielle, after all.

“It’s true I’m looking into Wuchnik’s death,” I said, “but it’s an odd coincidence that he was killed in the same time and place they were having their full-moon ritual. Maybe the Bureau has the skilled interrogators to find out if there’s a connection there. His phone and computer and so on were all taken from his home within two days of his death. And his sister in Danville, who’s his heir, doesn’t have them.”

“Oh, leave that alone!” Julia begged. “
You
may care about some dead slimy investigator, but I only care about my daughter.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” I said soothingly.

Velpel frowned. “It’s an oddity, and we’ll follow up on any oddities right now.”

She pulled a small notebook from an inside jacket pocket and scribbled a note. The movement lifted the skirts of her jacket, revealing the bottom of her shoulder holster, and her Armani label. My eyebrows went up: the Bureau must pay its senior agents well.

“Right. Thanks, Ms. Warshawski. I don’t think we need you any longer this morning.”

Despite the brusqueness of the dismissal, I was relieved: the atmosphere at the Schiller Street mansion was so full of distress and secrets that it was wearing me down.

When Gabe said he’d take me down to the garage to let me out, Velpel shook her head. “I’ll go with Ms. Warshawski. We don’t know whether anyone’s watching the house from across the street, and I’d like to see if we provoke special interest when the garage door is opened. Your cameras pick up the sidewalk outside the house but not buildings across the street.”

Velpel called another agent who was outside, watching the street, and told him what she wanted him to focus on, then escorted me to my car. She walked up the ramp in front of me when the garage door opened. I didn’t stop to see whether she’d spotted anyone—she didn’t need my help for that kind of operation, and I wanted to get to my cousin.

It was as I was bouncing through the potholes on my way to the Kennedy that the word “genie” suddenly hit me, so much like a blow between the shoulder blades that I pulled abruptly off the road. Cars honked; a passing driver gave me the finger.

Genie. Genealogy. When I questioned Arielle about whether she had met or talked to Miles Wuchnik, Nia had said, “Maybe he was a genie,” and both girls had giggled.

Had Arielle gone behind her family’s back and hired Miles to investigate Chaim Salanter’s history? Should I race back to the Schiller mansion and demand an answer from Nia? I was trying to imagine how to guide such a conversation when my cousin called.

“Vic, I’ve talked to everyone in the group except Tyler and Kira. Tyler’s away at summer camp, some place down in Texas, her mom said, where the kids have to keep their phones off during the day. Kira’s in town, but she lost her cell phone that night in the cemetery and I don’t have her mom’s phone number. Do you want me to drive over to her place?”

“No, I’m only a few blocks away. I’ll make sure she’s okay and get back to you.”

It took me only a few minutes to reach the Dudek apartment on Augusta. My heart was beating uncomfortably as I rang their doorbell. When no one answered after the second ring, I ran to my car to get my picklocks from the glove compartment. I reached the front door again just as Kira, carrying a large bag of groceries, arrived with Lucy.

Kira eyed me warily. “Are you here because of the book club? My mom doesn’t want me to go back.”

“Yeah, she got painted on, she got egged on, she can’t be in such a stranger-danger place,” Lucy chimed in.

“I’m here to make sure you’re okay.” My voice was thin with relief. “Arielle got a message from one of the Ravens and disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. I wanted—never mind. Did you ever find your cell phone? Did you cancel the service?”

Kira shook her head. “It’s a pay-as-you-go phone, so if someone found it, they can use up my minutes, or they can buy some more minutes. What happened to Arielle?”

“We don’t know. Look, just to be on the safe side, can you stay home with Lucy today?”

“We’re going to the park,” Lucy said.

“I’m not one of those rich Vina Fields kids who has a nanny and a private boat and all that stuff,” Kira snapped. “My mom cleans hotel rooms all night, she sleeps during the day, and it’s better for her if I take Lucy out for the day.”

“So you’re bringing home breakfast and then taking off? Clouds are building, looks like rain. I don’t think you’ll be able to spend much time outside. I’ll help you get these bags upstairs and then you can spend the day at my home, with a couple of friendly dogs and a wonderful old man to protect you. Petra will drive you there.”

“Dogs?” Lucy said. “Do you have a horse?”

“Nope. And I don’t have a boat, either. But my neighbor will let you watch horse races on television.” And he would feed them spaghetti and ice cream, and basically do all the things that are supposed to be bad for you, but he would shower them with affection, which is always good for you.

I took Kira’s big sack, and the smaller one Lucy was clutching, and followed them into the building. Their mother was in the front room, with breakfast bowls and glasses laid out on the eating side of the small table. She was still wearing the beige uniform of the Hotel Beaumont’s housekeeping staff, with her name badge (“I’m Ivona. How can I serve you?”) clipped to the breast pocket.

She looked at me in astonishment and rapped out a question in Polish. Kira and Lucy started answering her in unison. I walked over and put down the groceries. I had met Ivona Dudek two weeks ago, after I’d searched the cemetery for Kira’s phone, but I wasn’t sure she remembered me.

“
Pani
Dudek?
Mam
V. I. Warshawski.” That was the extent of my Polish, but the fact that I knew any words in her language, or maybe the reminder of my connection to Petra, seemed to calm her down. With the girls chiming in as a chorus, I explained my wish to have them in a safe place until we knew what had become of Arielle.

The three Dudeks had an animated conversation, with the word
“miliarder”
popping up—close enough to the Italian
“miliardario”
that I knew they were discussing the billionaire grandfather. They also talked about the
“Fundacja Malina.”

“My mother is upset that we have to suffer for the problems of a billionaire,” Kira explained. “But she knows you took care of me when we were attacked last week at the foundation. And she knows she can trust Petra. She’ll let Petra take us up to your home.”

I called my cousin again. Her energy vibrated over the line: yes, she’d be at the Dudeks’ place at once, well, at least as soon as she’d shaved her legs, she’d been in the middle—I thanked her and hung up. When I called Mr. Contreras, he, too, was delighted at the prospect of a visit from the girls. Like Kira and Lucy, he doesn’t get many adventures, or changes of pace in his life. Besides, as I’d expected, the chance to play protector appealed to his romantic vision of himself.

By the time Ms. Dudek had helped her daughters pack what they would need for a day, and perhaps even a night, away from home, Petra had arrived. Ms. Dudek kissed her on both cheeks, and said—through Kira—that she was happy that she could go to work tonight without worrying about her girls.

As I helped Petra pack the girls into her Pathfinder, I told her I was still worried about Tyler. “I’d better talk to her mom, get the number at that camp in Texas. If anyone actually saw the killer, it was Tyler—she’s the one who screamed that she’d seen a vampire, right as I found the girls in the cemetery.”

Petra pulled out her phone to text me Tyler’s mother’s details. Rhonda Shankman, real estate agent and part-time media escort, whatever that was.

I told Petra to take Ashland Avenue north, instead of the expressway, so I could check for tails. After a mile of cutting in and out around her, when I was pretty sure she was clean, I turned south again, to Leavitt Street and the entrance to Mount Moriah cemetery. Kira had dropped her cell phone there. I hadn’t found it the day after the murder, but maybe the murderer had. He (she? I thought of Helen Kendrick or Eloise Napier) saw himself in the photographs, looked for old text messages, and found Arielle’s number.