'Sexual abuse.'
'As in rape?'
'You may call it that, yes.'
She made a scoffing noise. 'Come now, Mr. Bolitar. Isn't that a tad extreme?'
'No.'
'It is not as though Pavel forced himself on her, is it? They had an affair. It's hardly unheard of.'
'You knew about it?'
'Of course. And frankly, I was quite displeased. Pavel showed poor judgment. But my daughter was sixteen years old at the time – maybe seventeen, I'm not really sure. Anyway, she was certainly of legal age. Calling it rape or sexual abuse, well, I think that's being a tad overdramatic, don't you?'
Maybe both medication and booze. Maybe even mixing them. 'Valerie was a young girl,' he said. 'Pavel Menansi was her coach, a man of nearly fifty.'
'Would it have made it any better if he was forty? Or thirty?'
'No,' Myron said.
'So why bring up their age difference?' She put down the tea. The smile was again toying with her lips. 'Let me ask you a question, Mr. Bolitar. If Valerie was a sixteen-year-old boy and he had an affair with a beautiful female coach who was, let's say, thirty – would you call that sexual abuse? Would you call that rape?'
Myron hesitated for a second. It was a second too long.
'I thought so,' she said triumphantly. 'You're a sexist, Mr. Bolitar. Valerie had an affair with an older man. It happens all the time.' Again the playful smile. 'To me even.'
'Did you have a breakdown after it was over?'
She raised an eyebrow. 'So that's your definition of abuse?' she asked. 'A breakdown?'
'You entrusted your daughter to this man,' Myron said. 'He was supposed to help her. But he used her instead. He tore her down. He destroyed and discarded her.'
'Tore? Destroyed? Discarded? My, my, Mr. Bolitar, we are out for shock effect, aren't we?'
'You don't see anything wrong with what he did?'
She put down her tea and took a cigarette. She lit it, inhaled deeply with her eyes closed, and let it all out. 'If it makes you happy to blame me for what happened, fine, blame me. I was a lousy mother. The worst. Is that better?'
Myron watched her calmly smoking her cigarette and sipping her tea. Too calmly. Did she really buy this crap she was peddling? Or was it an act? Was she just deluding herself or…
'Pavel bought you off,' Myron said.
'No.'
'TruPro and Pavel are paying-'
'That's not it at all,' she interrupted.
'We know about the money, Mrs. Van Slyke.'
'You don't understand. Pavel blames himself for what happened. He took it upon himself to remedy the situation in the only way he could.'
'By paying you off.'
'By providing us with some of the funds Valerie may have earned had her career continued. He didn't have to do that. The affair wasn't necessarily the cause-'
'It's called hush money.'
'Never,' she said in a near-hiss. 'Valerie was my daughter.'
'And you sold her for cash.'
She shook her head. 'I did what I thought was best for my daughter.'
'He abused her. You took his money. You let him get away with it.'
'There was nothing I could do,' she said. 'We didn't want to make it public. Valerie wanted to put it behind her. She wanted to keep it confidential. We all did.'
'Why?' Myron said. 'It was just an affair with an older man. Happens all the time. To you even.'
She bit down on her lip for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was softer. 'There was nothing I could do,' she repeated. 'It was in everyone's best interest to keep it quiet.'
'Bullshit,' Myron said. He realized he was pushing too hard, but something inside of him wouldn't let him back off. 'You sold your daughter.'
She was silent for a few moments, concentrating only on her cigarette, watching the ash grow longer and longer. In the distance they could hear the low rumble from the funeral crowd. Glasses clinking. A polite titter.
'They threatened Valerie,' she said.
'Who?'
'I don't know. Men who work with Pavel. They made it very clear that if she opened her mouth she was dead.' She looked up, pleading. 'Don't you see? What option did we have? No good could come from talking. They'd kill her. I was afraid for Valerie. Kenneth – well, I think Kenneth was more interested in the money. Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but at the time I believed it was the best thing.'
'You were protecting your daughter,' Myron said.
'Yes.'
'But she's dead now.'
Helen was puzzled. 'I don't understand.'
'You don't have to worry about her being hurt anymore. She's dead. You're free to do as you please.'
She opened her mouth, closed it, tried again. 'I have another daughter,' she managed. 'I have a husband.'
'So then what was all that talk before about protecting Valerie?'
'It… I was trying…' Her voice churned to a silence.
'You took the hush money,' Myron said. He tried to remind himself that the woman who sat before him had buried her daughter today, but not even that fact could slow him down. If anything, it seemed to fuel him. 'Don't blame your husband. He's a spineless worm. You were Valerie's mother. You took money to protect a man who abused your daughter. And now you'll keep taking money to protect a man who might have killed her.'
'You have no proof Pavel had anything to do with her murder.'
'The murder, no. His other crimes against Valerie – that's a different story.'
She closed her eyes. 'It's too late.'
'It's not too late. He's still doing it, you know. Guys like Pavel don't stop. They just find new victims.'
'There's nothing I can do.'
'I have a friend,' Myron said. 'Her name is Jessica Culver. She's a writer.'
'I know who she is.'
He handed her Jess's card. 'Tell her the story. She'll write it up. Put it in a major publication.
'I'm sorry.' She lowered her head. 'I can't do it.'
She was crumbling. Her whole body was slumped and shaking. Myron watched her, tried to muster up some pity, couldn't do it. 'You left her alone with him,' he continued. 'You didn't look after her. And when you had the chance to help her, you told her to bury it You took money.'
Her body racked. Probably from a sob. Attacking a mother at her own daughter's funeral, Myron thought. What could he do for an encore? Drown newborn kittens in the neighbor's pool?
'Perhaps,' he went on, 'Valerie wanted to tell the truth. Maybe she needed that to put it all behind her. And maybe that's why she was murdered.'
Silence. Then without warning Helen Van Slyke raised her head. She stood and left without saying another word. Myron followed. When he reentered the living room he could hear her voice.
'Good of you to come. Thank you for coming.'
Chapter 32
Lucinda Elright was big and warm with thick, jiggly arms and an easy laugh. The kind of woman that as a child you feared would hug you too hard and as an adult you wish like hell she would.
'Come on in,' she said, shooing several small children away from the door.
'Thank you,' Myron said.
'You want something to eat?'
'No thanks.'
'How about some cookies?' There were at least ten kids in the apartment. All black, none over the age of seven or eight. Some were using a paint set. Some were building a castle out of sugar cubes. One, a boy about six years old, was sticking his tongue out at Myron. 'Not homemade, you understand. I can't cook worth spit.'
'Actually, cookies sound good.'
She smiled. 'I do day care now that I'm retired. Hope you don't mind.'
'Not at all.'
Mrs. Elright went into the kitchen. The little boy waited until she was out of the room. Then he stuck his tongue out again. Myron stuck his tongue out back. Mr.
