We started driving. Katarina insisted on taking the fold-down seat in the back. That left Rachel and me in the front. For a few minutes, nobody spoke. We were, I think, decompressing.
“What Verne said,” Rachel began. “About getting the secrets out of the way and wiping the slate clean.”
I kept driving.
“I didn’t kill my husband, Marc.”
She didn’t seem to care that Katarina was in the car. Neither did I. “The official word is that it was an accident,” I said.
“The official word is a lie.” She let out a long breath. She needed time to gather herself. I gave it to her.
“It was Jerry’s second marriage. He had two kids from his first. His son, Derrick, has cerebral palsy. The expenses are ridiculous. Jerry was never good with finances or anything like that, but he did his best there. He even set up a large life-insurance policy in case something happened to him.”
In my peripheral vision, I could see her hands. They didn’t move or tighten into fists. They just sat primly in her lap.
“Our marriage fell apart. There were a lot of reasons. I mentioned some before. I really didn’t love him. I think he sensed that. But most of all, Jerry was a manic depressive. When he stopped taking his medication, it got worse. So I finally filed for divorce.”
I peeked over at her. She was biting her lip and blinking.
“On the day they served him papers, Jerry shot himself in the head. I was the one who found him slumped over our kitchen table. There was an envelope with my name on it. I recognized Jerry’s handwriting right away. I opened it up. There was just a single sheet of paper with one word written on it. ‘Bitch.’ ”
Katarina put a comforting hand on Rachel’s shoulder. I concentrated hard on the road.
“I think Jerry did it like that on purpose,” she said, “because he knew what I’d have to do.”
“What was that?” I asked
“A suicide would mean that the life insurance wouldn’t pay. Derrick would be financially devastated. I couldn’t let that happen. I called one of my old bosses, a friend of Jerry’s named Joseph Pistillo. He’s a big deal in the FBI. He brought down a few of his men, and we made it look like an accident. The official line was, I mistook him for a burglar. The local cops and the insurance company were both pressured into signing off on it.” She shrugged.
“So why did you leave the bureau?” I asked.
“Because the rank-and-file never bought it. They all thought that I must be sleeping with someone powerful. Pistillo couldn’t protect me. It would look bad. I couldn’t defend myself, for that matter. I tried to tough it out, but the FBI is not a place for the unwanted.”
Her head dropped back against the pad. She looked out the passenger window. I didn’t know what to make of the story. I didn’t know what to make of any of this yet. I wished that I could say something comforting. I couldn’t. I just kept driving until we mercifully arrived at the motel in Union City.
Katarina approached the check-in desk, pretending to speak only Serbian, gesturing like mad, until the clerk, figuring that it was the only way to settle her down, told her the room number of the only other person on the premises who seemed to speak that language. We were in business.
The pregnant girl’s room was more a low-end efficiency unit than something you’d find in a normal highway motel. I refer to her as a pregnant “girl” because Tatiana—that was what she said her name was—claimed to be sixteen. I suspected that she was younger. Tatiana had the sunken eyes of a child who’d just stepped out of a war newsreel, which in this situation, may have literally been the case.
I stayed back, almost out of the room. So did Rachel. Tatiana did not speak English. We let Katarina handle it. The two of them talked for about ten minutes. After that, there was a brief silence. Tatiana sighed, opened the drawer under the phone, and gave Katarina a piece of paper. Katarina kissed her cheek and then came over to us.
“She’s scared,” Katarina said. “She only knew Pavel. He left her yesterday and said not to leave the room under any circumstances.”
I glanced over at Tatiana. I tried to give her a reassuring smile. It fell, I’m certain, way short.
“What did she say?” Rachel asked.
“She doesn’t know anything, of course. Like me. She only knows that her baby will find a good home.”
“What was that piece of paper she gave you?”
Katarina lifted the slip of paper into view. “It’s a phone number. If there is an emergency, she’s supposed to call and dial in four nines.”
“A beeper,” I said.
“Yes, I believe so.”
I looked at Rachel. “Can we trace it?”
“I doubt it will lead anywhere. It’s easy to get beepers using a phony name.”
“So let’s call it,” I said. I turned to Katarina. “Has Tatiana met anyone else besides your brother?”
“No.”
“Then you make the call,” I said to her. “You say you’re Tatiana. You tell whoever answers that you’re bleeding or in pain or something.”
“Whoa,” Rachel said. “Slow down a second.”
“We need to get someone here,” I said.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean, then what? You interrogate them. Isn’t that what you do, Rachel?”
“I’m not a fed anymore. And even if I was, we can’t just bulldoze them over like that. Pretend you’re one of them for a second. You show up and I confront you. What would you do if you were involved in something like this?”
“Cut a deal.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’d just clam up and ask for a lawyer. Then where would we be?”
I thought about that. “If the person asks for a lawyer,” I said, “you leave them alone with me.”
Rachel stared at me. “Are you serious?”
“We’re talking about my daughter’s life.”
“We’re talking about a lot of children now, Marc. These people buy babies. We need to put them out of business.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“We page them. Like you said. But Tatiana will have to do the talking. She’ll have to say whatever to get them here. They’ll examine her. We check their license plate. We follow them when they leave. We find out who they are.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t Katarina make the call?”