She gave me a sober look. “My dad taught me to not make promises I couldn’t keep. I promise not to reveal anything said in this room. And I keep my word, Ms. Bonaparte. Does that suffice?”
I could sense her commitment, not only from her words but also from her reverting to my surname and honorific. “Absolutely. And thank you.” I paused to check that she was not offended and could see only interest in her face. “The man was a local metal artist. I’d arranged to meet him to pick up panels he designed and fabricated for me. I found his body in his shop. So far, the police don’t have any suspects and very few clues.”
“So you’re investigating?” Lily asked.
“Not really.” I turned to Sophia. “I was seeing a homicide detective a couple of years ago, but we involuntarily separated for a time.”
“Oh!” Her eyes rounded and I thought how impossibly young and fresh she looked. “You do look familiar. It was something about the MPD and, uh, Mafia connections?”
“It was ostensibly about that, but I can assure you that, despite allegations to the contrary, neither Detective Wukowski nor I are involved in that organization.” Except tangentially, through Papa, but I didn’t want to sidetrack the conversation. “I’m not officially on the case, but I knew the victim and noticed a slight oddity in his speech that made me think he wasn’t a native English speaker, so I want to get an opinion on where his speech pattern might have originated.”
“I see.” She turned to Lily. “Ms. March, you were right, it is exciting to be in on this.”
Great, I thought, another PI groupie. But I couldn’t complain since she and Lily were willing to offer expertise and assistance. “Mick—that was his name, Mick Swanson—pronounced the word black like the Scottish word loch, but it was barely noticeable.”
“Other than that, he sounded like a typical American?”
“Yes, like a Midwesterner. Although I noticed a slight lilt to the cadence of his speech. I asked him once if he was Irish, considering his name, but he brushed it off.”
“Hmm. So he was a very good, but likely non-native, speaker.” She quickly pronounced black, sock, and kitten. “Like that?” she asked me.
“Too broad,” I said.
“So probably not Scottish. How about this?” She repeated the set of three words.
I bounced slightly in my chair from excitement. “Exactly like that!”
“It’s called a voiced velar fricative, sort of like clearing your throat. We don’t have it in American or British English, but the Scots do, as well as the Germans. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian, Kazakh, or Tajik are also possibilities. Or it could be Serbian, Bulgarian, or Macedonian. Hebrew is a remote option.” She eyed me. “Any of those help you with the case?”
“There might be a Russian connection,” I confirmed. “It’s very tentative.” I glanced down to the papers spread across the workroom table. “I’ve taken enough of your time, Sophia, but let me give you a business card. If anything else comes to mind, would you call me?”
She flipped the card back and forth in her fingers, staring at it. “A real PI. Like Kinsey Millhone.”
“Well, I’ve got a few years on Kinsey and I own more than one black dress. But she is a favorite of mine, and I think we share a certain gutsy outlook. Sue Grafton’s death hit me hard, and I’d never even met her.”
“I know,” she said. “But we have twenty-five novels to reread and enjoy.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“I will definitely call you if I can think of anything else. And I’ll keep my lips zipped.”
“Good woman,” I told her.
Lily and I went downstairs, where a student stood waiting at her desk. “Guess I need to attend to business, Angie. Thanks for letting me in on the case, and please let me know if I can help—with research, that is. You know I’m too faint-hearted to face real danger.”
“I will certainly turn to you, Lily, if anything comes up that you can help with. Let’s get together for a meal soon.”
With that, I exited the library. Remembering an attack on me in the large commons area between the building and the street, I carefully scanned my immediate environs. Although I tended to be hyperalert as a general practice, walking through a place where someone had knocked me out notched my senses into high gear. With a little sigh of relief, I reached the Audi, settled in, and motored home.
Once inside the condo, I left Wukowski a voice mail with the information that Sophia provided. “Lots of possibilities and no definites,” I said, “but Russia wasn’t ruled out. Hope you’re getting close.”
Benjamin Franklin wrote that “he who can have patience can have what he will.” Mine was stretching mighty thin. I did a quick mental calculation, suddenly aware that I’d stopped counting the days with my morning coffee. Nine hundred and forty-six days since we’d been together, outside of the official meetings yesterday. Way, way too long. I hoped Ben was right.
Chapter 15
To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless.
Woodrow Wilson
Two days had passed since the killing. Artur parked the stolen car a block away for fast access in case someone spotted him inside Metal Works. After more than an hour cruising the area of the Arts Galleria to assess potential police presence and the possibility of other observers, he felt convinced that no one would interrupt him this time. The cops were gone, and at one in the morning, there was no street or foot traffic.
Once again, he made his way to the loading dock, reflecting that this time his task was simpler. No violent confrontation, simply a search of his cousin’s files and computer. To ensure his own freedom, he must find what Mick had stolen from him all those years
