I went to my bedroom to tell the Dudek girls they could come out. They’d used the time to dress the dogs again, putting a straw hat and scarf on Peppy and one of my silk blouses on Mitch. They’d also painted his toenails red. He looked at me, and then dropped to his belly in mortification. I was about to protest their raiding of my wardrobe, but Mitch’s face was too much for me. I was laughing so hard my sides hurt when Gabe Eycks showed up with his bodyguard.
Eycks’s years with Arielle had given him a good sense of what kids respond to: the guard, Teodoro (everyone calls me Teddy) Martinez, was young, peppy, nice-looking without being in love with himself. Mr. Contreras, who came out to inspect him when the doorbell rang, had a rare moment of bonding with another man. I didn’t know if that should be a warning sign, since he’s bristled at every guy I’ve ever dated.
I quietly searched my databases for Teodoro while Kira and Lucy conferred in Polish. By the time I’d rejoined the group, confident that Teodoro was the guard he claimed to be, without any noticeable criminal record, the girls had apparently decided he was a status symbol; they would love showing him off in their neighborhood. They got into his Jeep, after some snivelly farewells to Peppy and Mitch.
When the Jeep was out of sight, Mitch pawed at me to undress him. “I don’t know, boy. If putting clothes and makeup on you calms you down, maybe we should keep you gussied up.”
“Come on, doll,” Mr. Contreras began. “Oh, you’re teasing. I was glad to have those girls here, they livened up the place, but you take that dress off Mitch. I’m going down to watch the last race at Arlington.”
I got Mitch out of my flowered blouse without tearing more than one armpit seam and losing a button. And still had time to drop in on Nia Durango before my six-thirty appointment with Dick.
40.
LAWYER FEES: IMPRESSIVE!
NIA WAS PACKING FOR A MONTH IN ISRAEL, SO EXCITED AT HER pending adventure that she didn’t bristle at my questions in a way that she might have if I’d asked them while Arielle was still missing. Diane Ovech, the Durangos’ housekeeper, sat in on our interview in the Durangos’ living room, since Sophy was campaigning in Rockford this afternoon.
“Nia, you and Arielle laughed at the thought that Miles Wuchnik might have been a genie. Did that mean you thought he was interested in Arielle’s genealogy search?”
Nia sucked in a breath. “How do you know about that?”
“The websites Arielle visited,” I said. “She was trying to learn something about her grandfather’s boyhood during the Second World War. Did she ever actually meet Miles Wuchnik?”
Nia was a tall girl, almost my height, but she looked very small and vulnerable right now. She started drawing a circle in the living room rug with her big toe.
“If Arielle confided in you, you’re carrying a load you need to share with us,” I said.
“You must answer, Nia.” Diane’s voice was calm but carried an authoritative weight.
“I wasn’t trying to make a joke about a dead person,” Nia said miserably. “I know that’s rude and mean-spirited. We were nervous, that’s all, but, see, one day Ari got this text message, it was from this guy who said he worked at Global News. He said he was really fed up with how the network talked about Grandpapa Chaim, and if we’d get him the truth about what happened during the war, then he’d put it on the teleprompter in the middle of one of Wade Lawlor’s rants, and Wade would find himself reading the truth to the whole world!”
I felt the hair stand up on my neck. “That must have seemed like an exciting idea” was the only response I could come up with.
“We thought it was awesome,” Nia said, her face flushed. “You know the kind of horrible garbage he says about my mom and Ari’s grandpapa, we wanted to pay him back!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Diane said. “Or talk to your mother?”
“We knew you’d say not to do it, and we wanted Wade Lawlor to look totally stupid and wasted on TV!”
“Is that when Arielle started doing all that genealogy research?” I said.
“First we tried to ask Grandpapa Chaim, because that was the simplest way to find out. We talked to him at the cottage one night—in Michigan, you know, where he’s the most relaxed he ever gets. We said, like, he was our age in the war, and how did he make it without his folks, because we couldn’t imagine it, it’s hard enough for Ari and me, not having our fathers, but if our moms disappeared—and he just got really quiet, and looked at us, like—I can’t even say what his face looked like.”
She looked up at me, her eyes big in her narrow face. “We were so frightened; we thought we’d be in horrible trouble if we ever told another soul. And then, when Ari disappeared, I was really scared, because I thought it was something about Grandpapa Chaim, about what he did in Europe during the war, you know. But when you found Ari in the trunk of the car, I knew Grandpapa Chaim would never hurt her, I mean, he might’ve gotten cross about her asking too many questions, but he wouldn’t leave her to die in the trunk of a car.”
I wondered again about the human heart, Chaim’s heart.