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.
I walked all the way down Hamilton Avenue to the end of the street, but didn’t see a phone.
7.
FRIENDS I’D RATHER NOT HAVE
I DECIDED TO SWING BY THE DUDEKS ON MY WAY HOME. Mr. Contreras waited in the car with the dogs, listening to the Sox on the radio, while I spent a fraught half hour with Lucy and Kira’s mother. Since I don’t speak Polish, I had to rely on the girls’ translating skills to discuss what had happened last night. The only reason I had any confidence that the truth was transmitted was the quarreling that went on between Lucy and Kira: Kira was trying to put a spin on the story that Lucy wouldn’t accept.
I also had to tell Kira I hadn’t found her cell phone. This caused some fierce words between mother and daughter that ended with Kira stomping out of the room. I left soon after, without learning how serious an issue Ms. Dudek’s immigration status was. As a matter of form, I gave Ms. Dudek my card, although the language barrier meant I didn’t really expect her to use it.
“How could she be here eight years and not speak a lick of English?” Mr. Contreras demanded when I reported on the meeting.
“I don’t know. The kids translate for her, she’s mostly around other Polish speakers. I suppose she keeps hoping she’ll save enough money to go home. My mother never was truly fluent in English; she always spoke Italian to me. I think in some corner of her mind she kept a dream that she’d return to Italy and sing.”
Maybe dreaming of a triumphal return to Pitigliano was the only way Gabriella could get through those days in South Chicago, with the dust from the mills covering everything, and no one around who cared as passionately as she did about art or music.
“My folks spoke English at home.” Mr. Contreras sounded as though he was ready to start a full-scale rant, but he paused, then added in a surprised voice, “Come to think of it, they had to. My ma came from Messina and my dad was from Naples, and they neither of ’em could understand the other’s dialect. It was like the fighting at Anzio to hear them going at it, which one of them spoke real Italian.”
When we reached home, my answering machine was blinking. So few people call my landline anymore that it was strange to see it lit up so excitedly.
The first message was from a Julia Salanter. “It’s important that we talk today, so please call as soon as you get this message.”