“Yeah, well, it’s my ticket.”
“I must have full knowledge of—” Lywyckij began.
Chantale cut him off again.
“What do you mean, ‘work with the police’?” My vague allusion hadn’t escaped her. The ambassador’s daughter wasn’t stupid.
“I’m with the medico-legal lab,” I said.
“The coroner?”
“That works.”
“They do stiffs in G City?”
“I was invited into a murder investigation down there.”
I debated leaving it at that, decided on a dose of reality.
“Both victims were women your age.”
At last the vampire eyes met mine.
“Claudia de la Alda,” I said.
I watched for signs of recognition. Nothing.
“Her home was not far from yours.”
“Ain’t coincidence grand.”
“Claudia worked at the Ixchel Museum.”
Another shrug.
“The second victim hasn’t been identified. We found her in a septic tank in Zone One.”
“Rough neighborhood.”
Chantale and I were in a stare-off now, testing wills.
“Let’s try another name,” I said.
“Tinkerbell?”
“Patricia Eduardo.”
Corneal hardball. Her eyes didn’t waver.
“Patricia worked at the Hospital Centro Medico.”
“Bedpan bingo. Not my game.”
“She’s been missing since last October.”
“People take off.”
“They do.”
Whack. The table jumped.
“Your name came up in the investigation.”
“No way,” she snorted.
Whack.
“Like, why?”
“Too many grand coincidences.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Chantale’s eyes flicked to Lywyckij. He turned his palms up. They came back to me.
“This is bullshit.”
“The Guatemalan police don’t think so. They want information.”
“I don’t care if they want a cure for the clap. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was staring at me with high beams.
“You’re the same age, lived blocks apart, hung out in the same neighborhoods. They find one link, one ladies’ room where you and Claudia de la Alda both took a pee, they can have you hauled back down there and put through a grinder.”
Not true, of course, and Lywyckij knew it. The lawyer said nothing.
“There’s no way you can force me to go back to Guatemala.” Chantale’s voice sounded a little less confident.
“You’re seventeen. That makes you a minor.”
“We won’t let that happen.” Lywyckij jumped aboard as Nice Cop.
“You may have no choice.” I continued as Mean Cop.
