Polkacide (28 page)

"Geez." Peg crossed her legs
and stared up at the porch roof. "Who
is
the killer, if not Eddie
Sr.?"

I was still focused on Eddie
Jr.'s woes. After all, he
was
my ex-boyfriend. "I should go meet him at the
police station. Help him get through this."

"Did they find anything at the crime
scene?" said Peg. "Any clues?"

I gave up trying to talk
about Eddie Jr. with her. "They think he was shot somewhere else
and dumped at Polka Central. There were no shell
casings."

"What else?"

"Not much. Otto threw me out." I
grunted disgustedly. "But I did find a phone in the bushes
first."

"Eddie Sr.'s
phone?"

"I guess so." I shrugged.
"It was ringing. Someone named Adrianna was calling. Otto took it
away before I could answer."

"It figures." Peg shook her
head and sighed. "I guess you're on his crap list too, now. Guilt
by association."

"However, I
did
get the number before
Adrianna hung up." Reaching into my pants pocket, I pulled out my
phone. "It's in my contacts list."

"Adrianna." She frowned as she said
the name. "I never heard Lou mention any Adrianna."

"Maybe she only knew Eddie.
Or maybe it was a wrong number."

"But the name
sounds
Polish." Peg
uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again with the opposite leg
on top. "Let me see the number."

I accessed the entry in my
contacts list and showed her the screen. She squinted at it for a
long moment. "I think it's an international number. Maybe the
call
did
come from
Poland." She held out her hand to me, palm up. "Give me the phone,
Lottie. We need to get in touch with this woman."

"Maybe you should go see
Otto, first. He said he wanted to talk to you about Eddie Sr." I
cleared my throat and looked to one side. "I, uh, mentioned you'd
gotten a death threat."

"He probably wants to pin
the murder on me." Peg rolled her eyes. "But I've got an alibi. I
was here with Eddie Jr. all night."

I felt relieved just hearing
her say it. When she'd gone missing and Eddie Sr.'s body had turned
up, she'd looked like a pretty good murder suspect. "He'll still
want to talk to you about it."

"Phone." Peg waggled her fingers. "I
need to talk to this woman."

I hesitated, then gave her my cell.
Immediately, she dialed the number from the note.

We waited while the phone
rang twice, then three times. On the sixth ring, we heard a woman's
voice from the little speaker. The same first name as before
appeared on the screen:
Adrianna
.

And she was speaking a foreign
language.

Peg and I looked at each
other, then stared at the phone. The woman's voice stopped, then
said something else, then stopped again. I leaned in closer, almost
certain I recognized the language; an occasional word sounded
familiar, and the accent rang a bell. If only I could pin it
down...

"Polish." Peg whispered it to me as
the woman kept talking. "That's Polish."

I whispered back. "What's she
saying?"

Peg shrugged. The voice stopped
suddenly, and the phone's screen went dark.

This time, I didn't whisper. "Why
didn't you say something? Why'd you just let her hang
up?"

Peg pursed her lips. A blush crept
into her cheeks. "I don't speak the language."

I couldn't believe my ears.
"Seriously?" I gaped at her. "But you speak it on
Kocham Taniec
."

"Lou taught me a few words." Peg shook
her head. "Just a handful. Not enough to carry on a
conversation."

"So what now?" I reached for
the phone.

She handed it to me and sighed
heavily. "Now, I go see Otto before he hunts me down and shoots me
for being a fugitive murder suspect."

Chapter 42

Down at the police station,
Peg and I had to wait our turn. Sitting on a bench in the outer
office, we drank coffee and watched quietly as Otto finished with
Eddie Jr.

Though we couldn't hear a
word they said, we could see their body language clearly through
the windows of Otto's office. Otto sat behind his desk, watching
expectantly, jotting down notes. Eddie sat stiffly across from him,
stone-faced and stoic, putting on a good front.

As they talked, I let my
mind roam, trying to process all that had happened. I dug deep for
some clue to whoever had killed Eddie Sr. and Dad. Also rifled my
memory for the possible whereabouts of the missing recording they'd
made.

In between all that, for the
first time since the night before, I thought about losing the club
and being dumped by Luke. So much had happened since, it felt
strange to consider it again...surprising, unreal. I'd forgotten it
a little in the midst of all the madness.

But there it was again. All real, all
true. My life in L.A. was ruined.

All the things that had
given it meaning were gone. I no longer had a boyfriend, a
business, or a place to live. My possessions were in storage, my
finances in bankruptcy. My future, which had once seemed so clear,
was immersed in swirling fog.

Only my past offered any kind of
clarity. The home town and family I'd taken for granted for so many
years had turned out to be my only safe harbor.

"Safe" in a manner of speaking. Not
counting the murderer who was striking down people around
me.

"What's wrong, hon?" Peg was staring.
My inner turmoil must've been churning a little too close to the
surface.

I shrugged. "If someone had told me a
year ago that things would turn out like this, I never would've
believed them."

"Me, either." She smiled sadly. "But
it's not all bad, is it?"

I laughed nervously. "Pretty much,
yeah."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Peg put
her arm around my shoulders and squeezed. "I can think of one good
thing to come out of all this."

She was right, though part of me still
couldn't admit it. I'd badmouthed her for so long, I couldn't
switch over to singing her praises overnight. "I just keep
wondering what's next. How much worse can things get?"

Peg squeezed my shoulders
again. "Like they say, hon, if it doesn't kill you, it just makes
you..."

"Peg? Lottie? Come on in." Otto was in
the doorway of his office, waving us over.

Eddie Jr. smiled up at us
half-heartedly when we walked in. There was a blank look in his
eyes, a false calm concealing what had to be some powerful
turbulence.

I touched his shoulder for a
second, trying to transmit some kind of comfort his way. His smile
became an odd frown, like he couldn't figure out what reason I
could possibly have for being concerned.

"Glad you could make it," Otto said as
he shut the door. "This makes my life a good deal
easier."

I looked at Peg and could
see the gears turning. She opened her mouth to say something--after
all, he'd just set her up for a good zinger--but then she closed
it. Maybe she'd decided the time wasn't right for ex-husband
bashing.

"What a day." Otto squeezed
his giant girth around the desk. "A terrible day for all of
us."

No one said a word. What could we
add?

Otto bent down and shuffled papers,
scanning them through his wire-framed glasses. "A real
nightmare."

Peg cleared her throat and tapped a
corner of the desk with her index finger. "Any leads
yet?"

Otto stopped shuffling and
looked over his glasses at her. "
You're
in the clear, if that's what
you mean. Eddie Jr. here vouches for your whereabouts.

"That wasn't what I meant." Her voice
was low, almost a growl. "I was asking if you've come up with any
leads."

Otto went back to shuffling papers.
"I'm not at liberty to say. It's an active
investigation."

Peg sighed. I could see she
wanted to go after him hammer and tongs but held back...for Eddie
Jr.'s sake, probably. "So why did you ask to see us? What can we do
to make your life easier?"

Otto seized a single page
from the jumble on his desk and held it up. "Paperwork, actually. I
need you to sign off on something."

"What's that?"

"An exhumation order," said
Otto. "For the body of your boyfriend, Lou Kachowski."

Peg blinked. Then blinked again. She
seemed to be at a loss for words.

So I took up the slack. "I
thought you weren't interested in exhuming my father. I thought you
said he died from natural causes."

"The situation has changed." Otto
shrugged. "The murder of someone in his circle, coming so soon
after Lou's death, has forced me to reevaluate."

I folded my arms over my
chest and scowled. "So it wasn't enough for
us
to ask you? Back when maybe you
could've found the killer before it was too late?"

Otto lowered his bulk into
the black leather chair behind his desk. "Do you know how many wild
goose chases we go on around here? How many so-called leads are all
up here?" He tapped the side of his head with one thick finger. "We
have to be selective. We have to use our judgment."

"Wait a minute." Eddie Jr.
was up out of his chair, and he looked angry. "Do you mean to tell
me you
knew
there
was a murderer in town? And he killed Polish Lou?"

Otto held up a hand, palm
facing Eddie Jr., trying to slow him down. "Whoa now. We knew no
such thing."

Eddie Jr. stared at me. I
could tell from the look in his eyes that his collected façade was
starting to crumble. "But isn't that what you just said, Lot? That
you requested an exhumation?"

I wasn't sure what to say. I had an
idea where this was going, and it wouldn't be good. "Yes. We did
ask for one."

"Oh my God." Eddie's eyes
widened. He reached up to scratch the back of his head, then ended
up scrubbing it furiously. He spun to face Otto, and by then, he
wasn't holding back the rage. "You could've
saved
him? You could've saved
my
father
?"

Otto was holding up both
hands now. "We can't Monday-morning quarterback this, Ed. We
don't
know
how
things might have turned out if we'd done it
differently."

Suddenly, Eddie Jr. swept
his arm across Otto's desk, sending his lamp, framed photos,
Rolodex, and pen set flying. "
How could
you?
"

I grabbed for Eddie's arm, and he
swung it out of reach. Otto leaped to his feet behind the desk, one
hand going automatically to the holster on his belt.

A feeling of pure panic raced through
me. I felt the situation spinning out of control, as if anything
could happen.

Then, in a heartbeat, it
stopped spinning. Two arms wrapped around Eddie before he could
make another move. He jerked one way, then another, but they held
on tight.

Peg held on tight.

Eddie let out a cry of rage,
roaring at the top of his lungs. I was vaguely aware of deputies
running toward us, and Otto waving them off.

The next cry out of Eddie
was one of anguish, not rage. "
Why
?" His eyes locked with Peg's.
"Why didn't you
warn
me?"

"Because we didn't know for
sure, Ed." Peg said it in a soothing voice. "I'm sorry. I am so, so
sorry."

With that, Eddie collapsed sobbing
against her shoulder.

I cried a little myself as I
stood back and watched. I cried for him, and I cried because of
what he'd said.

What if he was right? If Peg
and I had tried harder, could we have saved Eddie Sr.? If we'd
treated him as a potential victim instead of a suspect, would he
still be alive?

As Eddie kept sobbing on
Peg's shoulder, Otto sat down. He looked around on his desktop for
something, then leaned over and squinted at the stuff Eddie had
swept to the floor.

"Lottie?" He pointed at the scattered
objects. "Could you hand me my Rolodex, please?"

I nodded, then crouched to
retrieve it. Luckily, though the Rolodex had hurtled off the desk,
the dozens of business cards it contained were still attached to
the spool.

Rising, I placed the Rolodex
on the corner of Otto's desk. "Thank you, Lottie." He smiled and
started flipping through it.

"Sure." I glanced at Eddie
Jr. and Peg, but nothing had changed. Eddie was letting it all out,
and Peg was patting his back and rocking him softly from side to
side.

In years gone by, when her name had
been strictly mud to me, I'd never guessed she could be so caring.
I'd never imagined she had it in her to reach out to another human
being except in a selfish, destructive way. I couldn't believe how
wrong I'd been.