“It was after he sent me that one that he drove down here in person, to tell me about his idea for sending me the money in books,” she said.
“And that would have been about when?”
“May seventeenth. I got in from church and he was waiting for me on the doorstep, with the first book.”
So six cash deliveries in all. I got up from the stool in front of the painted white desk, but there was one more topic I wanted to bring up before I left. “Did he ever mention Chaim Salanter?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Shame Salanter.” She mispronounced the name in the manner of Wade Lawlor. “Miles said it was terrible what rich people get away with in this country.”
At last there was something we could genuinely agree on: the free ride America gives its hyper-wealthy. I started to say as much, but Iva’s outrage with Chaim Salanter burst out of her.
“You see Salanter on television all the time, how he wants to fill the country up with illegal immigrants, probably just so he can get his garden looked after for nothing with Mexican workers. That isn’t right.”
“Did Miles have a plan for stopping Salanter?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything, but a smile lurked at the corners of her mouth. She knew something, but what?
“It would take a lot of courage to go up against a powerful billionaire,” I said, coaxing. “It doesn’t sound as though your other brothers had the moral fiber that Miles possessed.”
“You’re right about that. Sam and Pierce always called Miles a loser, because he didn’t own his own home or drive a fancy car, like they do. But he was going to show them. That’s why he was giving me the money to keep for him; it all had to be a secret, from the FBI and everyone.”
“You mean the IRS?” I couldn’t figure out what the FBI had to do with a stash of cash.
“Oh, them! No, Miles said the FBI was on his trail, along with Shame Salanter, so we couldn’t talk until the whole operation was finished, and then we’d be on Wade Lawlor’s show, and be national heroes and everything for exposing Salanter.”
“Maybe you can keep up the good work,” I suggested. “Miles must have shared some of his strategy with you.”
She stopped in the doorway between her bedroom and the living room. “Why are you really here? Are you trying to horn in on Miles’s business?”
“No, ma’am! I have no interest in the kind of business that gets you a spike in the chest. But if I don’t understand what he was working on, I’ll never get close to finding his killer. He never told you who hired him to investigate Chaim Salanter?”
“No. Clients’ business stayed confidential with Miles. Didn’t you say you were a PI, same as him? You should know that.”
“Of course. It’s just, someone suggested that your grandparents and Chaim Salanter’s family might have known each other in Europe, before they all came to America. I wondered if somebody doing genealogy research might have hired your brother to look into that.”
“Who told you that? Who said we might be related to a—a liar and a cheat like Shame Salanter?”
“Oh, Ms. Wuchnik, you know how it is: like your brother, I have to protect the confidentiality of my clients.” I moved past her into the furniture showroom. “If you think of anything at all that you want to tell me, please call. I’m leaving my card on your table here.”
The July heat swallowed me as soon as I walked into the hall outside her apartment, but it was a relief to be away from the dusty room. It wasn’t until I started down the stairs that I saw my hand was bleeding again, too freely to drive comfortably with it. I didn’t really ever want to see Iva Wuchnik again, but maybe she could slip me a few Band-Aids across the length of the chain lock on the door.
Her phone rang as I was lifting my fist to knock. Some Miles-like impulse made me wait, my ear to the door. At first I couldn’t hear anything except her husky voice muttering the conventional greetings, brief answers to questions, but then she gave out a sudden protesting squawk.
“I didn’t tell her anything because I don’t know anything. Who is this, anyway? Miles protected me. He didn’t want me to get hurt, and—”
She was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “No. Of course not . . . I understand.”
I crept down the hall again. I could wrap my hand in the T-shirt I’d packed in my overnight bag.
Someone had been tracking me. But who, and why? I thought of Jana Shatka, going off in a taxi yesterday to talk to someone. As I got into my car, I shivered, despite the heavy summer air.
30.
LOST DAUGHTER