“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.”