they were alone every night when they inserted the key into the lock of their cheerless room and every morning when they hit the sidewalk and passersby averted their eyes at the sight of them.
When I stopped to withdraw cash from a bank on Broad Street, it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Bree how I could identify her, but she made it easy. She was sitting at a table by the window, and when I came in, she jumped up and waved as if we were old friends. She was an anorexic with patchy white-blonde hair and she was definitely high on something other than life. Her long fingers never stopped fluttering and her pale feral eyes darted as she talked. “I’m having pie,” she said as I took the chair opposite hers. “They have really good saskatoon berry pie here. Do you want some? I can order it for you. I know the manager.”
I settled back in my chair. “I’m a big fan of saskatoons,” I said. “But I don’t want to take too much of your time.”
“My time is your time,” she said. She slipped her hand under the table. It took me a moment to realize she was waiting to be paid.
Over drinks at a rival firm’s holiday party, Zack had articulated his rule of thumb: “Pay an informer four times what they ask for and they’re yours.” I knew I needed Bree on my side, so I opened my wallet and took out four fifties.
When she saw the bills, Bree’s pale eyes took on a hectic glitter. Her white halter top hadn’t been constructed with room for a deposit, and her studded shorts were skin-tight, but she knew how to handle her finances. She scooped up the money, and either out of habit or hope of more, when she stood to slide the money into her back pocket, she thrust her pelvis at me.
“Now tell me exactly how you came to send out those cards,” I said.
Bree’s pie arrived and she took a spoon and began digging into it, moving the pieces around. “I have this page on MySpace – do you know what that is?”
I nodded.
“On my page, I say I do odd jobs for money. Most of the jobs I get are sex-related. I don’t care. At least it’s not boring.” She forked a piece of pastry loaded with saskatoons and licked the berries. Several of them fell on her halter top. She swept at them, smearing them on the shiny material covering her small breasts. “Turning people on gives me a rush,” she explained. “But that’s not why you handed me all that money. You want information, so here it is. What happened was I got a hit a few days ago from someone who said they would pay me big for doing a practical joke. I wrote back saying my life was a practical joke, and this person said everybody’s life was a joke, and if I sent them my home address, everything I needed would be sent to me.”
“You sent a stranger your home address?” I said.
“Why not?” Bree said. “Strangers come to my home all the time.” She stared at her nails meditatively. “My French manicure looks like shit. Anyway, the package was delivered. Everything was there – the condoms, the pictures, the envelopes, the addresses of the people I had to deliver to – and there was a note telling me what I had to write on the girl’s picture.”
“You delivered the envelopes by hand?” I said.
“By taxi,” she said. “It was easy. I had the addresses, so I just had the taxi take me from house to house. Boy, that dead girl must have had some client list – those houses were all mega expensive.”
“Was I the only one who called you?”
“So far.”
“How much did the person give you for the deliveries?” I asked.
“Five hundred, but I had to pay for the taxi out of it.”
“Didn’t all this strike you as a little weird?” I asked.
“No. Weird is the guy who comes to my place every Sunday afternoon and asks me to peel a hard-boiled egg and stick an old-fashioned pen into it while he jacks off.” She was starting to twitch. Clearly, money burned a hole in her pocket. “Anything else you need to know? I’ve got to motor.”
“You haven’t eaten your pie.” I said.
She looked at me with her glittering eyes. “The fun was in knowing that I could,” she said.
I touched her arm. “Bree, did the person who hired you tell you his name?”
She arranged her features in an approximation of thoughtfulness. “Maybe yes. Maybe no,” she said.
I slid another fifty-dollar bill across the chrome table. “That’s all I have,” I said.
“The person’s name was Jason. It was written on the instructions,” she added helpfully.
My heart was pounding, but I tried to stay cool. I reached into my bag, removed one of my university business cards, and wrote my cell number on the back. “You can get in touch with me at that number if you hear from the person who hired you.”
“I’ll give you my number too,” Bree said.
“I already have it. Remember, I called you?”
“Then I’ll give you my MySpace address.” She took a piece of paper from her pocket, borrowed my pen, and laboriously wrote out the url.
Isobel was playing with the cats and Zack was helping Taylor with her math when I got home. He held out his arms, and I was grateful to fold into them. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said.
“Me too,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Downtown on an errand,” I said. “We can talk about it later. How’s the math going?”
“Better,” Taylor said. “Zack showed me how to figure out square roots and cube roots. So I’m ready for
“I could use a little escape myself,” Zack said. “It’s been a while since I studied pre-algebra.”
“Why don’t you put in the DVD, and the girls and I will get the drinks and popcorn.”
“Can we watch ‘Scattered’?” Taylor asked.
Zack scowled. “Isn’t that the one where Kara and Helo try to find a way to bring the
Isobel stuffed her homework into her backpack. “Yes. How come you know?”
“Because we’ve watched that episode four times,” Zack said. “Why don’t we watch another one?”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Because ‘Scattered’ is the episode with all the dreamy close-ups of Tahmoh Penikett.”
It had been a long day for both of us, but that night as we got ready for bed, Zack was buoyant. His meeting had gone well, and his client had flown low over the big lakes so Zack could see the islands. He’d taken dozens of pictures, and he was eager to share.
After I’d looked through them, I handed his camera back. “It really is spectacular country.”
“Gary says he’ll fly us up there any time you say the word.”
“Is Gary aware of the fact that I spent every spare moment today praying that you’d come back to earth?”
“And here I am,” Zack said. He lifted himself from his chair into bed. When he was settled, he patted the place beside him. “Come and tell me about your day.”
“The good part was that Taylor found the perfect outfit for the Farewell.”
His eyes bored into me. “And the bad part…?”
“The bad part was an adventure in bizarro world,” I said.
Zack winced when I handed him the peach envelope that had been dropped in our mailbox. But he listened without comment as I described my encounter with Bree. When I was finished he said. “Pretty stupid of Jason to give Bree his name, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“Do you think someone’s setting Brodnitz up?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He could have just slipped. We’ll have to wait until we hear from Bree again.”
Zack sighed. “It won’t be long. Whoever hired her has found a trustworthy courier.”
“So you think there’ll be more messages.”
“Sure. And I’ll bet if I turned my cell on right now, we’d discover that you weren’t the only one who got a Mother’s Day card.”
“Zack, this isn’t about money, is it?”
“No,” he said. “I think it’s about something a lot uglier than money.” He reached over and turned out the light. “Jo, why did you go downtown tonight?”
“Because Taylor could easily have been in the room when I opened that envelope. I don’t want this filth
