“Did you see anyone in the club threaten Nadia tonight?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t seen anyone threaten her tonight. Earlier, that was another story. But my years as a public defender had taught me to answer only the question asked.
“Did you come here tonight because you thought there would be an attack on someone?”
“It’s a club. I came because I wanted to see the acts.”
“You’re a private investigator. They tell me you’ve been involved in a lot of high-profile investigations.”
Someone had ID’d me to the police. I wondered if it was the club’s owner, out of malice. “Thank you,” I said.
Milkova pushed her short hair back behind her ears, a nervous gesture—she wasn’t sure how to proceed. “But don’t you think it’s a strange coincidence, you being here the night someone got shot?”
“Cops have days off. Even doctors. And PIs have been known to take them, too.” I didn’t want to throw Petra to the wolves, and that’s what would happen if I said anything about wanting to keep an eye on where my cousin worked.
No one had bothered to turn off the Body Artist’s computer, and the plasma screens on the stage kept flashing images of flowers and jungle animals. It made a disturbing backdrop to the interrogation.
“Vic, what are you doing here?”
I looked around and saw Terry Finchley, a detective I’ve known for a long time.
“Terry! I might ask you the same question.”
Finchley’s been out of the field for five or six years now, on the personal staff of my dad’s old protégé, Captain Bobby Mallory. I was surprised to see the Finch at an active homicide investigation.
He gave a wry smile. “Captain thought it was time I got my hands dirty again. And if you’re anything to judge by, they’re going to get mighty dirty indeed on this investigation.”
I looked again at my stained hands. I was beginning to feel twitchy, covered in Nadia’s blood. Terry climbed the shallow step to the stage and told Milkova to get him a chair.
“What have you learned, Liz?” Finchley asked Officer Milkova. So the E stood for Elizabeth.
“She’s not cooperating, sir. She won’t say how she knew the vic or why she was here, or anything.”
“Officer Milkova, I’ve told you I didn’t know the victim,” I said. “It makes me cranky when people don’t listen to me.”
“Pretty much any damned thing makes you cranky, Warshawski,” Finchley said. “But, out of curiosity, how did you get involved?”
“I was leaving the club. I heard gunshots. I ran across the parking lot and saw a woman on the ground. She was bleeding; I tried to block the wounds, so I didn’t take time to follow the shooters. But on the principal that no good deed is left unpunished, I’m being treated as though I had something to do with the dead woman’s murder.” My voice had risen to a shout.
“Vic, you’re exhausted. And I don’t blame you.” Terry’s tone was unusually gentle, the sharp planes in his ebony cheeks softening with empathy. He’d felt angry with me for a lot of years. Maybe I was finally forgiven. Then his voice sharpened. “The techs are annoyed because you took evidence from the crime scene. And, for that, I not only don’t blame them but need you to turn it over to them.”
Okay, not forgiven. He was just doing good cop–bad cop all in one paragraph.
“It wasn’t evidence. These were my personal belongings that I dropped when trying to administer first aid. I picked them up when Officer Milkova told me to leave the scene. I think your techs would be grateful to have extraneous items removed. Although I did abandon my coat.”
My throat contracted, and I looked involuntarily at my hand, my right hand, which had been pushing my coat against Nadia’s bleeding back. “You can keep the coat,” I said. “I’ll never wear it again.”
Finchley paused briefly and decided to let my handbag ride.
“Did you know the dead woman?”
“No.”
“Why were you here?”
“It’s a club. You can come in if you want a drink and want to see the show. I was doing both those things.”
Finchley sighed. “You know, anyone else in this town, I’d nod and take your name and phone number and urge you to wash the blood off and try to forget the horrors you witnessed. But V. I. Warshawski chooses to come to a club the one night of the year a woman gets murdered at the back door? You know what the captain’s going to ask when he hears that. Why were you here tonight?”
Also by Sara Paretsky
Body Work
Hardball
Bleeding Kansas
Fire Sale
Blacklist
Total Recall
Hard Time
Ghost Country
Windy City Blues
Tunnel Vision
Guardian Angel
Burn Marks
Blood Shot
Bitter Medicine
Killing Orders
Deadlock
Indemnity Only
Photo Finish (9781101537510) Page 4
