Goodbye Sister Disco (25 page)

*   *   *

Later, he and Murph stood by their cars talking it out. Hastings glancing from time to time at the Penmark house, apprehensive that Gene would come out and ask him what it was all about.

Murph said, “George, she doesn't know what she's talking about.” He was referring to her last comment, Hastings looking for someone to blame.

Hastings himself wasn't so sure. That she was involved in such things had offended him in ways he could not quite explain. He kept thinking, But you have money. Why would you do this if you had money? It all seemed so pointless and destructive.

Murph said, “She's upset. We all know you've done everything you can.”

“Not really,” Hastings said. “Klosterman's still interviewing Shavers?”

“Yeah. They've got him down at the station. Rhodes is helping him.”

Hastings said, “I'm going to call Agent Gabler. He'll probably want to be there. Or Kubiak will.”

“Okay.”

It was getting colder. Away from the city and the city lights, starshine lit up the cars. It was quiet.

Hastings said, “Murph?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you hear her say that she didn't know her sister was going to the party?”

“Yeah. You asked her if she told Shavers about it. And she said, no, she didn't even know herself.” Murph put his hand over his jacket pocket. “I wrote it down. Why?”

“I'm not sure yet,” Hastings said. “Go back downtown, tell Joe about what we found out here. If the feds want to question you, give them your full cooperation. I'm going back to Ladue.”

THIRTY-THREE

Hastings rang the doorbell until the lights came on and he could see a man looking at him through a window. It was Sam Fisher and Hastings could see that he had gotten the guy out of bed. Sam Fisher opened the door, looking cross in his bathrobe and pajamas.

Sam Fisher said, “What do you want?”

“I'm sorry to get you out of bed,” Hastings said, though he wasn't much. “But it's very important that I talk to you.”

Fisher said, “Tonight? Can't it wait till morning?”

“I'm afraid it can't. The Penmark girl, the kidnappers still have her. They've got their ransom money, but she hasn't been released.” Hastings waited.

“I don't understand,” Fisher said.

“They may kill her soon.”

“You think.”

“Yeah, I think. Can I come in?”

Fisher sighed and backed into the house. Hastings followed him in and Fisher closed the door. He said, “What is it I can do?”

Hastings said, “I've been thinking that the kidnappers knew about your party in advance. That they planned on taking Cordelia when she left here.”

“That they knew about this party in advance?”

“Yes.”

“But that could have been anybody. It could have been somebody she told.”

“I've thought about that,” Hastings said. “But there doesn't seem to be any evidence that she tipped anyone off.”

Fisher crooked his head, lawyer skepticism on his face. “You think it was someone Tom Myers told?”

“No, not directly. Maybe it was someone from your firm.”

“My firm?” Sam Fisher laughed. “The kidnapping was masterminded by someone at my law firm?”

Hastings sighed. Athletes retire from competition, but lawyers never do. He could stipulate to Sam Fisher that Fisher was smarter than he was, and maybe that would move things along. Hastings said, “No, not exactly. What I mean is … well, how many people are employed by the firm?”

“About two hundred lawyers with at least as many staff.” Fisher was still looking at him like he was slow or something. Like,
You really want to continue this line of questioning?
He was a bully, this one. But that wasn't the point.

Hastings said, “Are you the managing partner?”

“Yes. I'm senior managing partner.” His tone was almost defensive then, Hastings having hit some sort of nerve.

Hastings said, “Do you have any employees, perhaps recently terminated, that have been in trouble with the law?”

“Well…”

“You do?”

“Well, we don't make a practice of hiring criminals, if that's what you mean.”

“That's not what I mean. You know what I meant.”

Hastings was looking at him directly now. A high-powered lawyer to be sure, but no match for an experienced con when it came to lying. Sam Fisher was worrying about something now. Something was bothering him and he was too smart a man to be able to put it aside.

“Well,” Fisher said, “yes, there was someone that we had to let go a couple of months ago. But I really don't…”

“You seem to be concerned about it.”

“I … I really doubt that she, that she would…”

“Tell me about her anyway.” Hastings was sensing the lawyer morphing into a witness, seeming almost frightened now because he was afraid of his instinct being correct.

Fisher said, “Her name was Jan Rusnok. Or Janet Rusnok. She went by Jan. We hired her about a year and a half ago. Legal assistant. She worked in the employment litigation department, which I used to run. She was a good worker, most of the time. About a year ago, she got arrested for possession. She told us about it. And I went to bat for her. It was just marijuana. I'm from the Baby Boomer generation and most of us had—well, you know. It was just a misdemeanor and I said we should give her a second chance. No big deal. She stays with the firm and for the next couple of months, everything's fine. Then she starts getting … weird. Political. Like left-wing political. Well, that's nothing new at our firm. We've got plenty of liberals, myself included. I say shit about Bush all the time. But this wasn't just some tree-hugger bullshit. This was something more. She was getting radical. Which is fine, but the bottom line is, we're a corporate firm. We defend the big corporations when they get sued by the little guys. Me, I don't apologize for it. Corporation's entitled to a fair trial and a defense as much as anyone else, right?”

He was looking for reassurance and Hastings saw no reason not to give it to him. At least, not now. “Right,” Hastings said.

“Well, Jan gets to where she doesn't see it that way. I mean, she was starting fights with her bosses over what sort of things we should turn over in discovery. Not just mild disagreements. I mean fights. Screaming matches.” Sam Fisher sighed. “So, I called her in to talk to her about it. I didn't want to fire her. I really didn't. I'd gone to bat for her before and I thought … well, I thought she might be having some sort of breakdown.”

“Was she?”

“I don't know. It was like she was … under some sort of spell or something. Like a cult.”

“You called her in.”

“Yes. I told her what the firm was about, that she had always known what it was about. That we valued her as an employee, but that she had to get back in line. I'll tell you, I was expecting an apology. Contrition. I've met with plenty of employees over the years and that's what usually happens.”

“Was she contrite?”

“Not in the slightest. She attacked
me
.”

“Physically?”

“No, not physically. I mean, she attacked me personally. She said I was just a bullshit liberal. She said I didn't give a fuck about people. I didn't give a fuck about the poor or the working class. She even told me I didn't give a shit about my own children. By the way, that's the language she was using when she talked to me, the managing partner. She said I was the worst sort of hypocrite there was.” Fisher paused. “I tell you, I was kind of shaken up by it.”

“Why?”

“I just never imagined she would talk to me that way. It was like she was possessed. No, I take that back. What I mean is, I didn't know that she had that sort of hatred in her.”

“She threaten you?”

“No. But that was pretty much it for her. I told her she was terminated. I had to have her escorted out of the building. It was an awful scene.”

“You never reported this?”

“What was there to report? She didn't break any laws. She told off her boss. All I could do was fire her. And I tell you, I did not enjoy doing that.”

“I believe you,” Hastings said. “She didn't threaten you or anyone else at the firm?”

“No.”

“Yet,” Hastings said, “you find yourself thinking about her now.”

“Yeah, I do,” Fisher said. “I'm not sure why, but sometimes you feel things, you know?”

Hastings nodded.

“The thing is, no one ever heard from her again. She had friends there. She did when she worked there. And usually, a legal secretary ends up at another firm. Even when they tell a boss to go fuck himself.”

“Really?”

“Oh, there are some lawyers out there who would have hired her
because
she told me off. But she sort of … disappeared.”

“Anyone at the firm know where she ended up?”

“I don't think so. I mean, people joked about her living on some sort of lesbian commune. But I don't know where she ended up.”

“Would she have known that Tom Myers was dating Cordelia Penmark?”

“Of course. Tom wanted everybody to know that.”

“And she would have known that he would bring her to your party?”

“Well, yes. She would have known that he would come. Someone like Tom, he's not going to skip the firm party. She would have known that.” Fisher straightened and said, “Listen, Lieutenant. This is all very speculative. I mean, we're talking about a legal assistant who may have been a little unbalanced. She's wacky, but … to plan a kidnapping, murder … really.”

Hastings knew that what Fisher was saying was sensible. It
was
speculative, maybe even silly. But Fisher himself said he had felt something, even though he was now trying to talk himself out of it.

Hastings said, “You don't have a forwarding address?”

“I don't. I'm sorry.”

Hastings said, “Did she file an unemployment claim?”

Fisher stopped. He said, “Yes, as a matter of fact. I had to write out a statement to the unemployment office. Her claim was denied.”

*   *   *

Fisher told him he could pull his car into the driveway so that it wouldn't get hit by another car or investigated by another cop. Hastings moved the Jag and was sitting in it when he reached Murph on the phone. He told Murph about Janet Rusnok and her unemployment claim, which meant that she had to have left an address on some government record. Murph said he would do a quick NCIS search too to see if there was anything on the girl. Hastings, hedging himself, said the girl was probably just a person of interest at this stage, but he had to nail it down before he could move on.

Murph got off the phone and Hastings sat in the car in the dark driveway. He put his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes. Time drifted off and when he opened his eyes he looked at his watch and saw that almost twenty minutes had passed. He cursed at the lost minutes, then he started the car and drove to a 7-Eleven and bought a large coffee.

His phone was ringing as he was walking outside.

He set the coffee on the roof of the car and answered the phone.

“Yeah?”

“George. We may have something.”

“Okay.”

“Janet Rusnok was listed as a witness on a County PD report. She was the roommate of a girl named Gabrielle Bersch. About three months ago, Gabrielle Bersch disappeared.”

Hastings said, “Permanently?”

“Looks that way. They haven't found her yet, anyway. She called her mom one night, crying, said she ‘had had enough' and wanted to come home. Apparently, she'd started hanging out with a new group of friends. Some bad apples, her mother told the police. And she got scared and called and asked if she could come home. Mama says yes, come on home. Gabrielle Bersch hangs up and they never see her again.”

“What about Janet Rusnok?”

“They got a statement from her. She said she didn't know where she had gone. But the report noted that Gabrielle had lost her hairdressing job about three weeks before she disappeared. Lost her job, quit her family.”

“You got a copy of the County report there?”

“Yeah. They faxed it to me. George, it seems the most helpful statement they got here is from her manager at the salon.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It's the most detailed, the most thoughtful. The mom was too beside herself to be much help.”

“Give me the guy's number.”

“Okay. His name is Mitchell Raines.…”

THIRTY-FOUR

Mitchell Raines told the waiter to bring him and his friend Del Glickman another bottle of wine. The waiter, whose name was Robert, asked Mitchell Raines if they were celebrating anything. Mitchell Raines said that Del's son had just gotten accepted into medical school. Which wasn't true. Mitchell Raines liked to make things up on the spot, get people to stop and look at him to see if he was serious. Saying he couldn't read or that he had had a fight with someone while they were in the restroom or that he had been Jeanne Tripplehorn's first husband. The waiter was used to this sort of joking around from Mitchell Raines. But he was glad that Mitchell and his friend had taken a table in his station because Mitch Raines always tipped well.

They had just opened the second bottle of wine when Del Glickman called the mâitre d' over. The mâitre d's name was Mark, and Del and Mitchell knew him from La Baguette off Brentwood Boulevard. Mark was British and he usually had something for them.

Del Glickman said, “Mark, tell us what you think of this new French restaurant they opened on Euclid.”

“It's … acceptable, I suppose.”

“What't the clientele like?”

“Oh, the usual. Poofs and trollops. They get all a-bother if a fork is dropped on the floor, even though two hours later they'll go home with a complete stranger and put his cock in their mouth.”