Part 4 (2/2)
Was she taking any drugs during the show?
Do you know who she was seeing?
She ducked her head. ”I really can't answer any questions right now.”
They repeated the same ones, making such an effort not to be in her way that they were completely blocking her from getting home. All she cared about was finding out what the police were doing at her house, so she barreled through, which caused them to make stronger efforts to follow, which, again, put them squarely in her way.
She recognized Akiko Kamichura more by voice than face and heard the question loud and clear. ”Did you know the police think there was foul play involved?”
She stopped short, truly shocked. ”No.”
”Were you with Ms. Wente right before the show?”
Her exhaustion and stress boiled to the top of her consciousness. She took a step toward Kamichura, forefinger raised, the picture of aggression. ”That's completely over the line, lady. Who the h.e.l.l do you think you are? Do you have a badge? No? You don't? Oh, that's right. You have a second-rate journalism degree and enough silicone in your body to fill the kitchen utensil aisle at Target. It is not your place to ask me about my alibi. Do you understand me?”
Kamichura had taken a step back, but her expression was pure satisfaction. ”Any theories on why-”
”I asked if you understood.”
”... she might have been killed?”
”Did you understand?”
”She knocked your sister off a runway in the Jeremy St. James Fall show.”
The horrible woman was trained to bulldoze her way to the most dramatic on-the-spot interview she could muster. She had no skin in the game. It had already been a win for her, and another emotional outburst wouldn't make the reporter look stupid; it would get her a promotion.
Laura smiled and said, ”Excuse me,” right into the microphone, then stepped toward her house.
Kamichura moved, but not really enough. The reporters shouted questions and shone their lights, but they could not trespa.s.s past the gate. She looked up at the stoop, which led to the middle and top floor where she and her mother lived. The door was closed. The lights were on, but she detected no activity in the windows.
”Hey! You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!” The voice came from the top of the adjacent stoop, and she knew right away that it was Jimmy, their landlord. He lived next door and had bought the buildings on each side during the last housing depression. Standing above them with a crowbar and a voice so loud it ripped the time-s.p.a.ce continuum, he was the picture of psychosis. ”Get the h.e.l.l away from my gate or your eyes are gonna be lookin' out both sides of your head!”
Kamichura pointed her cameraman, a guy in his fifties who stood at six-five and weighed in at about three hundred pounds, to shoot the nut at the top of the stairs.
When Jimmy came to meet them on the sidewalk, in the light of the camera, they saw he had a weapon more dangerous than the crowbar. He had a phone to his ear. ”They're restricting access and blocking a fire hydrant,” he said.
Kamichura indicated her van, which had enough satellite dishes for a Presidential dinner on the roof. ”It's legally parked!”
Jimmy held his hand over the mouthpiece. ”They don't give a rat's a.s.s.”
Laura interjected, ”Retired cop. PVB comes if you wave a stick at an illegal s.p.a.ce.” She rolled her eyes as if it annoyed her.
”Why don't you tell the dozen cops in the house?”
”Those goons can't call a tow truck,” Jimmy said. ”You leave my tenant alone, and I go back inside.”
Kamichura took a step back. Laura knew she hadn't seen the last of the reporter, but next time she'd be prepared. ”And my sister is ten times more gorgeous than Thomasina Wente, even when she's flying off a runway.”
Kamichura and her cameraman exchanged glances, and he lowered his camera. She pointed at Laura. ”I'll see you at work tomorrow.”
Ruby's downstairs apartment, which she'd begged for, was private with its own kitchen and backyard access. Down a couple of steps, the door was open, and the flas.h.i.+ng lights and hubbub of activity drew Laura in.
”Carnegie,” Cangemi said. ”Welcome.”
”It's my house. I'm supposed to be welcoming you.”
”Fat chance of that happening,” he said. And he was right. The apartment, huge by New York standards, was dwarfed by the sheer number of people wiping surfaces, flipping cus.h.i.+ons, and generally poking around where they didn't belong.
”Where's my sister?”
”In the bedroom with your mother. I need to ask you a few questions.”
She ignored him. He was more pleasant to be around when he wasn't fighting with his girlfriend, but his recent lack of humor forced her to keep the observation to herself.
The apartment was a railroad, meaning one had to walk through either the bedroom or the bathroom to get to the kitchen, so both bedroom doors were open to allow people in NYPD bunny suits to get through. They had a wonderful view of Ruby crying on the bed where Mom mult.i.tasked by rubbing her daughter's back while talking on her cellphone.
”No, I know for a fact she has nothing to worry about, but I won't have her caught short because you need to be hit over the head with a disaster to get your a.s.s moving.” The tone of Mom's voice betrayed nothing. The long sentences told her Mom was mad.
She continued, as if the person on the other end didn't get a word in edgewise. ”I have never asked you for a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. Even when I was raising two kids by myself in a G.o.dforsaken ghetto, I never asked you for a dime or a favor, but I made your girls Halloween costumes and taught them how to sew doll's clothes, which was wonderful. I love them. And I need you to get your a.s.s out of wherever you are, get down to Midtown South, and get me some answers with the same pleasure I had helping your kids.”
Ah. That would be Uncle Graham, the cufflink lawyer.
”I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it!” Mom had graduated from long, rambling, calmly voiced sentences, to her prep.u.b.escent relations.h.i.+p with her brother. Fantastic.
Laura s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone.
Uncle Graham was already speaking. ”... charged with something.”
”Uncle Graham? It's Laura.”
”Can you calm her down?”
”Probably not.”
”If I get involved before Ruby's charged, it's going to look like she's hiding something.”
She looked at her sister, who was falling apart in no uncertain terms, and Mom, who was trying not to, and felt as alone as she ever had. ”Maybe you can come around after the cops leave and explain what just happened? Or maybe you have a contact in the NYPD you can prod a little? It doesn't have to be a big thing. Just, you know, let them feel like they're not swinging in the wind?”
”I heard you got into some trouble a few months back and didn't call me.”
”I had it under control,” she lied.
”Don't tell your sister,” he said, ”but you were always my favorite.”
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