Tickner continued toward his car. “Not a clue,” he said.
Katarina had her hands in her lap. “Is he really dead?”
“Yes,” Rachel said.
Verne stood, fuming, his arms folded over his chest. He had been that way since I told him that Perry had been the child I saw in the Honda Accord.
“His name is Pavel. He was my brother.”
We waited for her to say more.
“He was not a good man. I always knew that. He could be cruel. Kosovo makes you that way. But kidnapping a small child?” She shook her head.
“What happened?” Rachel asked.
But her eyes were on her husband. “Verne?”
He would not look at her.
“I lied to you, Verne. I lied to you about so much.”
He tucked his hair behind his ears and blinked. I saw him wet his lip with his tongue. But he would still not look at her.
“I didn’t come from a farm,” she said. “My father died when I was three. My mother took any job she could. But we couldn’t get by. We were too poor. We’d steal rinds out of the garbage. Pavel, he stayed on the streets, begging and stealing. I started working in sex clubs when I was fourteen. You can’t imagine what it was like, but there is no way out of that life in Kosovo. I wanted to kill myself, I can’t tell you how many times.”
She raised her head toward her husband, but Verne still wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Look at me,” she said to him. When he didn’t she leaned forward, “Verne?’
“This ain’t about us,” he said. “Just tell them what they need to know.”
Katarina put her hands in her lap. “After a while, when you live like that, you don’t think about escape. You don’t think about pretty things or happiness or any of that. You become like an animal. You just hunt and survive. And I don’t even know why you do that. But one day, Pavel came to me. He told me he knew a way out.”
Katarina stopped. Rachel moved closer to her. I let her handle this. She had experience with interrogation and at the risk of sounding sexist, I thought that Katarina would have an easier time being drawn out by a fellow female.
“What was the way out?” Rachel asked.
“My brother said he could get us some money—and to America—if I could get pregnant.”
I thought—check that: I hoped—I’d heard wrong. Verne whipped his head toward her. This time Katarina was ready. She looked at him steadily.
“I don’t understand,” Verne said.
“I’m worth something as a prostitute. But a baby is worth more. If I get pregnant, someone can get us to America. They will pay us money.”
The room went silent. I could still hear the children outside, but the sound suddenly seemed far away, a distant echo. I was the one who spoke next, reaching through the numb. “They pay you,” I said, hearing the horror and disbelief in my own voice, “for the baby?”
“Yes.”
Verne said, “Sweet Jesus.”
“You can’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” Verne said. “Did you go through with it?”
“Yes.”
Verne turned away as if he’d been slapped. His hand reached up and took hold of the curtain. He stared out at his own children.
“In my country, if you have a baby, they put it in a horrible orphanage. American parents, they want so much to adopt. But it’s hard. It takes a long time. More than a year sometimes. Meanwhile, the baby lives in squalor. The parents, they must pay government officials. The system is so corrupt.”
“I see,” Verne said. “You were doing it for the good of mankind?”
“No, I did it for me. For me only, okay?”
Verne winced. Rachel put her hand on Katarina’s knee. “So you flew over here?”
“Yes. Pavel and I.”
“Then what?”
“We stayed at a motel. I would visit a woman with white hair. She would check on me, make sure I was eating okay. She gave me money to buy food and supplies.”
Rachel nodded, encouraging. “Where did you have the baby?”
“I don’t know. A van with no windows came. The woman with white hair, she was there. She delivered the baby. I remember hearing it cry. Then they took it away. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. They drove us back to the motel. The woman with the white hair, she gave us our money.”
Katarina shrugged.
It felt as if my circulation had stopped. I tried to think this through, get past the horror. I looked at Rachel and started to ask how, but she shook her head. Now was not the time to make deductions. Now was the time to gather information.
“I loved it here,” Katarina said after some time had passed. “You think you have a wonderful country. But you really have no idea. I wanted so much to stay. But the money started running low. I looked for ways. I met a woman who told me about the Web site. You put your name and men write you. They wouldn’t want a whore, she told me. So I made up a biography with a farm. When men asked, I gave them an e-mail address. I met Verne three months later.”
Verne’s face fell even farther. “You mean the whole time we were writing . . . ?”
“I was in America, yes.”
He shook his head. “Was anything you told me the truth?”
“Everything that mattered.”
Verne made a scoffing sound.
“What about Pavel?” Rachel asked, trying to get us back on topic. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He went back home sometimes, I know. He would recruit other girls to bring over. For the finder’s fee. Time to time, he would contact me. If he needed a few dollars, I’d give it to him. It was really no big deal. Until yesterday.”
Katarina looked up at Verne. “The children, they will be hungry.”
“They can wait.”
“What happened yesterday?” Rachel asked.
“Pavel called late in the afternoon. He says he needs to see me right away. I don’t like that. I ask him what he wants. He says he’ll tell me when he gets here, not to worry. I don’t know what to say.”
“How about no?” Verne snapped.
“I couldn’t say no.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t answer.
“Oh, I see. You were afraid he’d tell me the truth. Isn’t that it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Yes, I was terrified he’d tell you the truth.” Again she looked up at her husband. “And I prayed he would.”