“What did Arielle and the others say when they left you?” I asked the girls.
“This one girl, Jessie Morgenstern, her dad gives a lot of money to, like, politicians. She said her dad would get someone who works for the mayor to take care of things with the police,” Kira said. “But me and Beata, we can’t talk to the police, our moms could get deported, so Beata, she went back to her place, she just lives two blocks from here. Her mom and mine work at the same hotel.”
“Enough for tonight.” I got up. “Tyler, are your parents really out of town? Where were you going to spend the night?”
“I thought maybe Arielle—or even Nia—but I asked them before they ran off, and they—they were mean, they said I was a coward and a crybaby and they wouldn’t ever talk to me again and they’d see no one at Vina Fields ever did, either—” Tears rolled down the sides of her face.
“She can’t stay here,” Kira said stonily. “Me and Lucy, we share a room, and my mom has a bed, and that’s it.”
“I’ll take her,” Petra said. “Your folks coming back tomorrow, Tyler? I’ll take you home in the afternoon and tell them you were meeting with my book group.”
I blew my cousin a grateful kiss. Before she left, I went over to inspect the place on Tyler’s palm where Arielle had stuck her. There was a small puncture hole, covered with a thin crust of dried blood. I told Petra to clean it with peroxide when they got to her place.
“If it starts swelling, or you find any red blotches on you, you get to a doctor on the instant,” I warned her. “You can make up any story you like for your dad, but you ladies are playing with plague, poking each other with needles like that.”
Petra put her arms around Tyler and led her gently into the night. I stayed behind to tuck Kira into bed, in the room she shared with her little sister. A map of Poland hung between the two beds, with Tarnow circled in red on the southeast side.
The wall above Lucy’s bed was covered with pictures of horses. She had fallen asleep in a nest of toy horses of all sizes and colors. Kira had a poster of the jacket art for Carmilla, Queen of the Night, by Boadicea Jones, on her side of the room. On it, a raven grew out of the body of a young girl; behind her, just visible in a syrupy palette of browns and greens, were the tusks and gleaming red eyes of a boar.
I waited outside the bedroom door while Kira undressed. I was dozing against the wall when I heard her give a howl of anguish.
“Now what?” I was too tired for a new crisis.
“My phone,” she wailed. “I must’ve dropped it in the cemetery. My mom will be so mad, we can’t afford—”
“I’ll go back tomorrow and look for it,” I promised hastily. “Try not to worry about it now, just get some sleep. You’re sure you don’t need me to stay here until your mother gets back?”
“We always stay by ourselves,” she snuffled, climbing into the narrow bed. “Promise you’ll go look for my phone? Can you make sure the door is locked when you go? The key is on a hook next to the door, so can you just lock it from the outside and push the key under the door?”
I pulled a sheet over her, but left the coverlet folded at the bottom of the bed—a window fan did feeble duty, but it was hot in the room. Lucy, worn out by her own histrionics, slept through her sister’s new crisis.
On my way out, I left the key on its hook, using my picks to turn the deadbolt into place. The rain had cleared, but the moon was setting and the streets were dark. I walked slowly back to my car, wondering again what had brought the girls to the very spot where a man was being murdered. Not just murdered, but pierced through the heart, as if the killer thought he was a vampire. A vampire murder on the spot where the girls were hoping to become shape-shifters. It seemed like a mighty big leap to think that had happened by chance.
4.
CHARMS—OR SOMETHING
AS I WALKED ALONG CHICAGO AVENUE, A COUPLE COMING out of a bar tried to offer me a dollar for a cup of coffee. Their gift made me realize just what a bizarre vision I must present—in my running shoes and bedraggled evening gown I was an avatar for homelessness.
I’d started the evening looking like I belonged in a limo, or at least in the grand ballroom at the Valhalla Hotel, which is where I’d been headed. I’ve never been fond of big glitzy events, and you go to the Valhalla only if glitz is your middle name. I especially wasn’t fond of them when they celebrate the life and work of people I despise: in this case, Wade Lawlor.