“Oh, this obsession with damage control!” When Julia started to bristle, I cut her off. “Yes, I understand why you’re doing it, but I’m more interested in what the girls know about Miles Wuchnik.”
“Why?” she demanded sharply. “You’re not trying to suggest they were involved in his death, I trust.”
“No. But they knew something, about Wuchnik, or the way the murder was committed. If one of the girls didn’t tell him they were going to Mount Moriah, how did he and his killer know they’d be there?”
“It’s what you just said,” Julia snapped. “You can’t chase down leaks. The girls texted, or one of them blabbed to someone who blabbed to someone. But don’t imply that my daughter went behind my back and talked to a third-rate private eye. Or you’ll find that there are some legal actions the Salanter family is willing to undertake.”
“Squashing a small person, leaving a big one to go on his merry way, you mean?” I couldn’t keep the words back, but it wasn’t surprising that she hung up on me.
10.
POLITICS AS USUAL?
JAKE HAD GONE INTO THE KITCHEN WITH A BACK COPY OF The Atlantic while I was talking to Julia. He put the magazine down when he saw my unhappy face, but didn’t speak, just got up and led me to my bedroom.
Our lovemaking was hard, almost furious, as if we could use our bodies to suppress the demons invading our minds. Neither of us slept well. I finally got up at five-thirty, trying to slip quietly out of bed, but Jake was already awake. He joined me in the kitchen for an espresso, but went back to his own apartment when I left for the beach with the dogs.
Yesterday’s bright, clear day had been a one-shot wonder. It wasn’t seven o’clock when the dogs and I left the beach to come back home, but the sun on the water already had a glare that made the eyes ache, and the air was as thick and sticky as a bowl of oatmeal.
The phone was ringing when I reached my apartment, but it had stopped by the time I got the door open. Caller ID again showed the incoming number as blocked. I carried the handset into the kitchen while I fed the dogs and cut up a mango for myself. Just as I was stirring the mango into a dish of yogurt, the phone began to ring again. I’d been expecting someone from the press, or the Salanter-Durango operation; I’d forgotten Leydon.
“Victoria! Thank goodness. I was starting to think you’d left the country, or that you hated me, which I couldn’t bear, nothing would drive me to the top of the tower formerly known as Sears faster than thinking you didn’t love me anymore. I need you, my little huntress, they’ve sent someone after me, I knew it, I knew it when I saw his weaselly face and now they’ll come after me and kill me or worse.”
“Ley—”
“Not my name, not on a phone, you know how it is when they don’t leave you alone! They’re tracking me. I need your help, you’re such a clever huntress, you’ll be able to think like them and tell me what I need to do.”
“Take a breath, tell me what’s going on.”
“Not on the phone, Iphigenia, darling, it’s much too Gordian for the phone. These days, it’s not just who’s in the room with you, it’s who’s on the scanner or the GPS chip with you. Just go to our old favorite meeting place. I can be there in forty minutes, or thirty if I can retrieve my car. I took it to the garage yesterday, only they said they couldn’t get to it until this morning, but it’s just a leaky gasket, that’s an easy fix. They have loaners, although then you have to sign the paperwork, and you know how it is, as soon as you put your name on something, you’ve got telemarketers, not to mention Uncle Sam and your own brother tracking—”
“Leydon, I have meetings today that I can’t miss—”
She cut me off again, hysterical that I’d said her name. I apologized and offered to meet her at the end of the day.
“I need you now, you need me, this could be a great story for you, this is hot, red hot, hotter than the midday sun on a July day in Chicago. A red-hot photo op, one for the photo shop, but you’d better hop!”
“Leydon, please, I can’t—”
“When did I ever turn my back on you when you needed me?” she cried. “When you left Dick Yarborough, didn’t I put you up for the night? When you started your detective business, didn’t I get my firm to send work your way? Why can’t you do this for me? I know it’s not a little thing, saving someone’s life, but I would do it for you if you asked, I’d be there in a heartbeat, in a half beat, in a half second, I wouldn’t put you second, the way you’re doing to me.”
I could feel my head splintering under her pile-driving chatter. “I have to run. Give me a hint about the problem now.”
“Can’t on the phone, I told you, darling, it’s too Gordian, it’s a Gordian knot, too overwrought for the phone.”
Gordian. That was Leydon’s code when we were young to let me know someone was in the room while she was on the phone. The subject was too personal, too knotty, for her father or roommates to overhear.