“Those women around the pool knew something, but what? About Aguinaldo’s escape, or her injuries, or her relations with Robert Baladine? We’re no closer to having anything on Aguinaldo’s private life than we did this morning,” I said, so severely that Peppy flattened her ears in worry.
“And that smirk Mina Attar gave, when her mother said Nicola had no time for men, it could have concealed anything—the other kids implied Mrs. Attar had plenty of time for men, so Mina might have been smirking at her mom. Or maybe Mina knew something about Nicola that she wasn’t saying. It was the look of someone who felt she knew someone else’s guilty secret, that’s for sure.”
And what about this guy Morrell whom the kids had mentioned, the one interviewing people who had escaped from prison? Could he have played some role in Aguinaldo’s escape, or in her death?
Who had claimed Aguinaldo’s body? Abuelita Mercedes, the neighborhood grandmother? If so, how had she learned that Nicola was dead? From Morrell? Who was he—a social worker? A journalist? I didn’t think he could be from INS. And I didn’t think he was a cop—he’d been coming around before Nicola’s death.
I jerked Peppy away from a dead gull. I wished Vishnikov had done the autopsy when Nicola’s body arrived on Wednesday. If she’d gone to the hospital in Coolis for an ovarian cyst, maybe that had caused her internal problems, although the Beth Israel surgeon thought she’d been hit or kicked. The external injuries had been fresh when I found her, and that broken arm looked as though it had just occurred, as if she’d been struck by a car. If so, was there a boyfriend who beat her up? My mind circled back to Robert and Eleanor Baladine.
I could imagine a lot of scenarios where a man might have sex with the live–in nanny, from unregulated desire through hostility toward his wife or rivalry with his son. But would he have prosecuted Nicola for theft as a way to protect himself? Would she have turned to him for help when she escaped from prison? And then—and then what?
He was clearly friends with Edmund Trant, the head of Global Entertainment’s media division, or at least the two wives were friends. Along with the wife of the Illinois House Speaker. That was cozy for a couple of important businessmen, to know their wives schmoozed with the wife of the state’s key power broker.
I wondered what Murray knew about relations between Edmund Trant and Robert Baladine. Or Trant and Speaker Poilevy, for that matter. I bundled Peppy into the backseat of the Buick and went home.
11 Clean—On the Outside
I caught Murray at home. “Murray, hi, V. I. here. Quite a job you did Tuesday night—I saw even The New York Times condescended to notice Chicago and give you a couple of lines.”
“Thanks, Vic.” His tone was cautious.
“Even I got a little mention,” I persisted. “Was it you who talked to Regine Mauger about me? Crumbs from the Global table would sure be tasty. Maybe it would only take one Global crumb to replace my car.”
“Christ, Vic! Give me a break. Do you think I suggested something like that to Regine? Someone gets under her skin and she goes after them like a horsefly. I don’t know what you did to annoy her—maybe you called up and persecuted her in her own home. She huffed up to me at the Glow, demanding to know who you were and who got you an invitation.”
“I wonder who told her about that eons–old fling you and I had.” I sounded earnest and puzzled; when he stammered over a response, I added, “Sorry, I didn’t call to tease you. I’m glad you got a good response to your gig. I really called because of something odd I stumbled on—just about literally—on my way home from the party.”
I gave him a brief summary of my accident. “I haven’t seen a mention in the papers, even though she broke out of Coolis on Sunday. But I learned something curious today. She was an illegal Filipina immigrant. Who used to be Robert Baladine’s nanny—his kids’ nanny, anyway—before she went to jail. Don’t you think that’s worth a line or two of type, Baladine being head of Carnifice Security and all?”
“Illegal immigrants who escape from prison and die aren’t the kind of story I cover, Vic. I can mention it to the City Desk, but if it happened Sunday—well, today’s Thursday, after all.”