Страница 36 из 56
Chapter Eighteen
Dawn came up in gray streaks, followed by rose and gold. Once the sun heaved itself up over the rim of the world, I let out a half-conscious sigh of relief. My pager stayed quiet, and—true to my guess—Galina had spent all night with not only her own diaries but the records of the Sanctuary before her. Huge leather-bound books, each cover stamped with the seal of the Order, stood in stacks on her butcher-block table.
She was covered in dust, her hair held back with a red kerchief, and as ill-tempered as I’d ever seen her. Which was still pretty damn polite.
“Lorelei’s dead?” A line etched itself between her winged eyebrows. She swiped at a smudge on her cheek. “And zombies at Zamba’s? Christ. Try saying that ten times in a row.”
“Tell me about it. No, wait. Never mind. Tell me about the problem Sloane had with the Cirque.” I folded my arms and leaned against the wall. Saul was fiddling with the kettle and her stove. Gray dawn filtered through the skylight and the big box window, touching his shorn hair and wide shoulders.
“I’ve been going back through the records.” She spread her hands. “I was wrong. It wasn’t Arthur Gregory. The trouble started with Sam.”
“Rosehip tea?” The kettle started to chirp, and Saul looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, yes. Yes indeed.” Galina dropped into a straight-backed wooden chair, swept the kerchief off. Her marcel waves were disarranged.
“Coming right up.” Saul didn’t ask if I wanted tea.
I stifled a burp. Now that I’d eaten, I was begi
No rest for the wicked, though. “Sam?” I prompted.
“Samuel Gregory. Arthur’s younger brother. Arthur came to Sloane needing help—his brother had disappeared. The Cirque was in town, and Sloane suspected them, but he couldn’t find the boy. Arthur kept following Sloane around, pestering him. He didn’t get what he wanted, so he went elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” It could mean just about anything.
“He apparently decided that since Sloane couldn’t help him, he’d make a deal with someone who would.”
Not too bright of him. But sometimes civilians make that sort of mistake. “Hellbreed?”
She shook her head. Her earrings—little peridots in marcasite—swung. “Voodoo. Or so I heard. Sloane suspected Lorelei. She wasn’t Lorelei then, she was Abigail Figueroa. It was in the seventies that she switched over to—”
“Hold on.” This may be co
“I don’t know. I do know Sloane suspected that was where Samuel disappeared to, and dug pretty hard to find him. Arthur disappeared, and Sloane went looking for him too. He came across some of the Cirque folk ru
Yeah, that would put a dent in working a case or two. “So it never got wrapped up. And it’s only vanishingly likely it’s co
Of course, a hunter’s suspicion is sometimes good as gold. But you can’t move without proof, or you turn into what you’re hunting. It’s just one of those things.
“The last place Arthur was seen was going into Lorelei’s old shop. She used to be down near Plaskény Square instead of on Greenlea; I can’t believe I’d forgotten that. Anyway, Sloane had a witness who placed him there before he disappeared. There was something else. People who knew the boys turned up dead.”
“Like who?”
“Their father, for one. A real wi
I wondered what my face was saying. “Not so different. So the ‘father’ was a husband, and she had another pimp?” I knew that game, I’d seen it played before, up close. A woman desperate for any kind of attention, selling herself to and for the man who promised to protect her while she nursed bruises from the other man—and when the first one beat her again, she’d go back to the second. It was a vicious cycle.
“Bounced back and forth between them. Poor kids.” Galina’s eyes were dark and troubled. “There were others. A few police detectives—ones on the take, Sloane said—and a schoolkid who hung out with the Gregory boys, was apparently a bit of a bully.”
“That’s a high body count. They can’t have been unrelated.”
“Life was cheap back then, Jill. This was a mining town and a riverport. I remember when you didn’t dare go outside at night if you were a respectable female. At least, not without a man and a gun.” For a moment she looked much older, her mouth pulled down and her cheeks sucked in. “Anyway, the deaths were all the same. Torn into tiny pieces, lots of blood.”
Life is still cheap around here, Galina. At least, if you’re brown-ski
I rolled my shoulders back in their sockets, trying to ease a persistent ache. “Huh. I wonder… I should still have some of Sloane’s records. Can you write down the dates for me?”
“I can do that.” She looked, in fact, relieved to be given a concrete task. I didn’t blame her. Digging through old records can be deadly boring, and for a Sanctuary it was probably even more so. They drive their roots in deep and live a long time, but the things they trade for it… you don’t make a bargain like that without wondering if it’s worth it.
Or at least, that’s what I think about every bargain. The world keeps asking you to peel bits of yourself away, just to keep breathing.
The kettle whistled, Saul flicked the stove off and poured. And as usual, he asked the right question. “So is someone settling scores?”
I stared at the leather-bound books. She must have been excavating all night. “Possible. But why try to kill the hostage? That won’t damage the Cirque. It will remove the constraints that make them behave. And Helene…”
I hate that feeling—when you think you have a lead, and all you get is more questions.
“It was a long time ago,” Galina said softly. “Long and long.”
“Do we have any pictures of either of the Gregorys?” There wasn’t much hope.
She sighed, a flicker of irritation crossing her round face. It wasn’t with me—although heaven knows Galina usually has enough reason. “No, unfortunately. This is so frustrating. I feel like there’s something I should be remembering.” She stared at the books as Saul handed her a mug.
I blew out a long breath. “Well, it was almost a century ago, Galina. It’s not like forgetting what you had for lunch yesterday.”
“It kind of is, though. This is important. It’s just on the tip of my brain. But I should have noted it, and I’ve been all through my official diary and the private one. It feels unfinished.”
“Life is full of unfinished things.” I glanced at Saul, who stretched his long legs out. This is all very historical and interesting, but it sounds like a dead end. There’s nothing to tie an old case to what’s going on now, unless it’s Lorelei. And she had her fingers in so many nasty pies, it’s not very likely she was just now killed for something that happened almost a hundred years ago. No, the co