Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

Chapter 62

SEVEN TWENTY, bright and early. Sal Argurito’s just getting the inventory office open. He seems annoyed that I’m standing there waiting. Like the federal employees at the post office who always loiter in the back, leaving customer-service windows vacant and avoiding the glares of customers piled up in line, he’s ignoring me.

“Morning, Sal,” I say. He doesn’t answer. Or answers differently—by glancing at the clock, which hasn’t yet hit half past seven.

I’ve known Sal since I was a pup in the department. He had his twenty put in even back then. Nobody knows why he’s stuck around to do this back-office work when he could be sitting on his porch sipping iced tea with his wife. The only thing we can figure is that he doesn’t want to sit on the porch all day sipping iced tea with his wife.

“How ’bout this weather we’re havin’?” I say.

Nothing. He puts some forms up on the shelf and busies himself with something, God knows what, out of my sight.

“I need the personal effects for Dwayne Sears,” I say. “The Moreland homicide.”

He passes by me, stooped and grumpy, with nary a glance in my direction.

“C’mon Sal, I’m on the clock here. I’ll buy you some new body wax.”

“Hold your damn horses,” he mutters.

“I can’t remember which scent you prefer. Lavender or Apricot Morning?”

He doesn’t think I’m funny. “Moreland?” he calls out.

“Yeah, the multiple homicide. K-Town.”

A few minutes later, he returns with a large box. “The one got your name in the papers, you mean.”

“Spelled my name right,” I say.

“Like that’s hard. Try having my name.”

“I tried being Italian once, Sal. I felt an overwhelming desire to eat spaghetti and lose a war.”

“Sign the receipt, you filthy Mick. If you’re sober enough to use a pen.”

I sign out the box and take it to an interview room. The box is half full, but all I want is Shiv’s cell phone. It’s an iPhone like mine, so I assume my charger will work. A tag next to the phone shows the password, which some enterprising officer must have had the foresight to get from somebody, probably LaTisha’s mother. The password is 8474, which after a brief game of word scramble tells me spells “Tish.”

The phone is dead, but with my charger, it only takes a few minutes before the white Apple icon pops onto the screen. I run through the call history to search for the calls Shiv most recently made. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to do drug deals on this phone. He had a burner for that, if he used one at all, but his normal phone is the best bet for what I need.

Most of the recent calls have IDs assigned to them— Mo, Eddie, KJ, Sheila—but the ninth and tenth ones stand out, calls made two days before the shooting. They are longer numbers, both beginning with 01140256, followed by different six-digit numbers.

International calls.

I carry the phone and charger to my desk, where I plug the charger back in and jump online on my desktop. Takes me two minutes on a search engine to confirm that 011 is the US exit code for international calls, and 40 is the country code for Romania.

Evie was using Shiv’s cell to call home.

Chapter 63

AT MY desk, I google the time difference. Romania’s eight hours ahead, so it’s not quite four in the afternoon there. Then I return to the online English-to-Romanian translator for the phrase “Hello. I’m a police officer in Chicago, the United States. I am sorry, but I only speak English.” God bless technology: it spits out a translation, along with a sound icon that speaks the words to me, in robotic Romanian. It seems to be phonetic, so I’ll get by.

Then I call the first number, chronologically, that Evie called in Romania.

A woman answers, speaking quickly, presumably in Romanian.

“Bună ziua,” I say. “Sunt ofiţer de poliţie în Chicago, Statele Unite. Îmi pare rău, dar vorbesc doar engleză.”

“Chicago. American?” the woman says, decent English.

“Yes,” I say, relieved.

“You look…for prisoner?”

“Prisoner? I’m calling a prison?”

“Timisoara Penitentiary,” she says.

I glance at my notepad, the translation from Evie’s piece of paper. He was released three months ago.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m looking for a prisoner who was released three months ago.”

“I give you number to call…for English?”

She gives it to me. I read it back to her for confirmation.

Good. Good start. Now I dial the second number that Evie called.

A man answers—more Romanian I couldn’t possibly understand. I read him my greeting. I’m a Chicago cop: does anyone speak English?

He says something to me I don’t understand, then says, “Wait.”

Thirty seconds feels like an hour. Then another man’s voice comes on the line. “Hallo? You are from America? You are police?”

“Yes. I am from the police department in Chicago. What is your name, sir?”

“My name is Peter Dobrescu. I am the director.”

“The director of what?”

“I am the director of the…facility.” He says the name in Romanian, then realizes I won’t understand it. “Timi’s Children,” he says. “We are…orphanage.”

“An orphanage?”

Right—that would fit. Evie could have come from an orphanage.

“I am trying to identify a young woman who died,” I say slowly. “I am wondering if she came from your orphanage.”

“When was she here?”

I don’t know. But I can’t imagine the traffickers raised Evie from childhood. They brought her over probably, what, a few years ago? I give him my best guess.

“You have her name? Photograph?”

“All I know,” I say, “is I believe her first name was Evie. And yes, I have photographs.”

He tells me to email him. He gives me the address.

Good; this is good. The universe is getting smaller.

“The Jane Doe? She came from an orphanage?”

I look up, turn. Carla is at her desk, her bag over her shoulder. I didn’t notice her come in. And Carla, it seems, didn’t so much as place down her bag, not wanting to interrupt me.

She must have seen me on the phone and wanted to know what I was doing. She came around behind me quietly, while I—dumb shit that I am—was focusing on communicating overseas with a guy who was finally leading me somewhere.

I have to be more careful. SOS detectives don’t have strict hours. We work our cases when we work our cases. Carla’s earlier than usual, here before eight, but I should have had my eyes open, prepared for that. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

“Oh, it sounds like a dead end,” I say, a lame attempt to downplay the whole thing.

“What do you got so far?” She drops her bag and looks over at my desk. It’s all I can do not to cover it up, which of course would give away how much I don’t want her to know what I’m doing.

Especially if Patti’s right and Carla’s got eyes on me.

What can I do? I have a phone charger strung across my desk that’s connected to a cell phone with an evidence tag, plus a pad full of notes.

“I’ll help you,” she says. “You’re right; we should ID her.”

“Yeah. I’m just doing it in my spare time. Not a high priority.”

She gives me a look. I’m forcing this. I’m obviously making this a priority.

And now she’s volunteered to help.

“Hey, we’re on for the canvass this morning.” Soscia, walking in, changing the subject. “We execute the warrant tonight.”

A case Soscia’s been working up. We agreed to help.