I grimaced. “I don’t think he did, if for no other reason than the one he gave—that he’d have left himself open to an endless chain of blackmail, because he’s not physically strong enough to have moved Wuchnik’s body around. But if Salanter didn’t commit the murders, then who did? And why?”
I wondered again about the two lawyers in Dick’s firm. If Louis Ormond and Elaine Napier had worked together, perhaps they could have done it. I couldn’t picture it, though. The murderer was more likely the person who’d sent sixteen thousand to the firm to pay off Xavier Jurgens, for—of course. I’d been an idiot not to see it sooner.
“Xavier killed Wuchnik,” I said.
“What?” Max blinked at me. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Victoria.”
“Xavier Jurgens. He’s the man who died in the Camaro where I found Salanter’s granddaughter. Someone sent my ex-husband’s law firm fifteen thousand in cash to deliver to Xavier. I think Xavier was hired to kill Wuchnik, or at least to play a role in the murder. Fifteen grand was a huge amount to Xavier, practically a year’s pay after taxes. And then, I’m guessing, the killer became worried that Xavier would track him down, or maybe Xavier, or his lover, Jana, did track him down. It’s all so murky.”
“It’s too complicated,” Max complained. “X hires Y to murder Z and then Y blackmails X. This sounds like Agatha Christie, Victoria, which I can never follow even when I’m wide awake, and I’m very nearly in a coma right now.”
“Does it matter? Do you have to know?” Lotty said. “The police, after all—”
“Yes, the police, after all,” I interrupted. “Finchley may put it all together, but if he doesn’t do it soon, I worry about the safety of the girls in the Carmilla club.”
Lotty protested that she didn’t know what I was talking about, so I tried to explain my belief that the murderer had found Kira Dudek’s cell phone with his picture on it. “He used the phone to bring Arielle to the cemetery. I think he probably destroyed Arielle’s phone, or the police or the FBI would have found it through GPS tracking. Unless they’ve stopped paying attention to the attack because they’re assuming it was Xavier Jurgens who lured her there and then killed himself. I, however, think it was a third party.”
“You don’t always know better than the police,” Lotty said crossly.
“I know, darling,” I said gently. “Anyway, Max is right—it’s way too late to try to think about this tortuous business now. If you want to spend the night, I’ll let you into Jake’s place—there are clean sheets on his bed.”
Max and Lotty murmured to each other: toothbrushes, night clothes, all those things they wouldn’t have here. They decided to return to Lotty’s. I walked them down to the corner of Belmont to catch a cab, my gun loose in a belt holster, despite Lotty’s protest: she cannot bear the sight of guns.
When I got back home, Mr. Contreras and the dogs were waiting on the stoop. I had to assuage his hurt feelings at being omitted from tonight’s drama. The conversation took all my meager stock of patience. I knew he deserved some kind of answer—his loyalty and care are not qualities I dismiss lightly—but I also didn’t want to violate Chaim Salanter’s privacy any further.
“Salanter’s granddaughter’s life is at stake, so he isn’t acting like the high-stakes options player—he’s as scared and frantic as you would be if someone was threatening Petra.”
That proved to be the wrong tack: if Petra was being threatened, Mr. Contreras would be out moving heaven and earth to save her, not jauntering around Chicago harassing private eyes. I agreed that he was twice, if not thrice, the man Salanter was, that Salanter might know how to manipulate the stock market but he couldn’t begin to navigate a real fight with real pipe wrenches. Mr. Contreras let himself be persuaded and finally, long after one o’clock, I fell into bed.
As late as the night had been, I still forced myself out of bed at eight the next morning. If my late-night inspiration had been correct, that someone had hired Xavier to kill Wuchnik, and then killed Xavier in turn, I couldn’t lie around in bed waiting for him to do more damage.
Before logging on to my machine, I called the Dudeks’ apartment to check on Kira and Lucy. Their mother answered the phone; after a few linguistic gymnastics, she put Teodoro Martinez on the line. The girls were still asleep, he said. He was keeping a close eye on them wherever they went but couldn’t shake the feeling that now and again, someone was watching them.
“I talked to Gabe Eycks and he agreed to send someone over today to put in a few surveillance cameras,” he said. “You been in this building? It’s a mugger’s paradise. They’ll put a camera on the fire escape outside Mom’s window, one on the back door, and one in the hallway, and I hope that’ll make me feel better about going to bed at night.”