My name is Arielle Zitter. I am twelve years old and I am trying to discover my roots. My grandfather’s family is called Salanter and they came from near Vilna in Lithuania, but he won’t tell me anything about his history. I think my grandfather’s mother’s name was Judith because my mom is called Julia after her. Everyone but him died in the Holocaust, I think, but I don’t know if it was at Ponar or somewhere else. I think his mom died in 1941 but maybe it was 1942. Can you help?
The museum had written back, suggesting that Arielle and her parents make an appointment with a museum archivist if they were coming to Washington. They also gave her a list of recommended resources, including some of the books I’d seen on her shelves.
I wondered if Arielle’s interest in her grandfather’s history came out of Lawlor’s attacks on him. It made sense: Global was accusing Chaim Salanter of terrible atrocities; Arielle wanted to know the truth.
My cell phone rang. Not Petra, as I’d hoped, but Gabe Eycks, asking me to join the team in the library. “On the second floor, just below Arielle’s room,” he instructed.
Julia and her lawyer had been augmented by a tall woman with cool hazel eyes, who eyed me narrowly—I wasn’t surprised to find she was with the FBI.
“Special Agent Christa Velpel,” Gabe said. “Fortunately, Thor called the Bureau as soon as he got here.”
Mercifully, unlike most cops I meet, Special Agent Velpel didn’t waste time by demanding an accounting from me on why or where or what I’d been doing. She’d already heard about Arielle’s early-morning e-mail to Nia from Nia and Diane, and had sent them back to the family room.
“Nia may know something she doesn’t think is important; I’ll talk to her again in a bit. The same thing is true of your cousin Petra, so let me have her phone number and so on.”
I explained that Petra was already phoning all the girls in the book club to see who’d been in touch with Arielle.
“Have her call me. A skilled investigator will think of questions that may elicit information she doesn’t think she has. And if you think of something, let me know. I understand from Ms. Salanter that your main interest has been the death of this private eye, not the girls?”
I tried not to let my hackles rise at Velpel’s bland assumption that I wouldn’t know how to elicit information, from myself or my cousin. This conversation wasn’t about me, it was about saving Arielle, after all.
“It’s true I’m looking into Wuchnik’s death,” I said, “but it’s an odd coincidence that he was killed in the same time and place they were having their full-moon ritual. Maybe the Bureau has the skilled interrogators to find out if there’s a connection there. His phone and computer and so on were all taken from his home within two days of his death. And his sister in Danville, who’s his heir, doesn’t have them.”
“Oh, leave that alone!” Julia begged. “You may care about some dead slimy investigator, but I only care about my daughter.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” I said soothingly.
Velpel frowned. “It’s an oddity, and we’ll follow up on any oddities right now.”
She pulled a small notebook from an inside jacket pocket and scribbled a note. The movement lifted the skirts of her jacket, revealing the bottom of her shoulder holster, and her Armani label. My eyebrows went up: the Bureau must pay its senior agents well.
“Right. Thanks, Ms. Warshawski. I don’t think we need you any longer this morning.”
Despite the brusqueness of the dismissal, I was relieved: the atmosphere at the Schiller Street mansion was so full of distress and secrets that it was wearing me down.
When Gabe said he’d take me down to the garage to let me out, Velpel shook her head. “I’ll go with Ms. Warshawski. We don’t know whether anyone’s watching the house from across the street, and I’d like to see if we provoke special interest when the garage door is opened. Your cameras pick up the sidewalk outside the house but not buildings across the street.”
Velpel called another agent who was outside, watching the street, and told him what she wanted him to focus on, then escorted me to my car. She walked up the ramp in front of me when the garage door opened. I didn’t stop to see whether she’d spotted anyone—she didn’t need my help for that kind of operation, and I wanted to get to my cousin.
It was as I was bouncing through the potholes on my way to the Kennedy that the word “genie” suddenly hit me, so much like a blow between the shoulder blades that I pulled abruptly off the road. Cars honked; a passing driver gave me the finger.