by Lena Bourne
“The last time I spoke to Anton was when he wished me a Happy New Year,” she says. “We’re barely acquaintances nowadays.”
“The case we’re investigating is an eight-year-old murder,” I say. “As I understand it, you two were still married eight years ago.”
“But already separated,” she says loudly, causing the waitress who was just depositing our coffees on the table to shake from being startled. I hand her a ten euro bill to pay, mostly to prevent Mrs. Kolar from getting into her stride. I’m getting the sense that she only agreed to meet with us so she can vent her frustrations and anger at Leskovar. And I’d like to know the source of that anger.
“Your ex-husband met Anita Rajić, the murdered girl, at a strip club,” I say. “Did he frequent those kinds of places?”
Nothing like direct questions to get to the heart of the matter. Her cheeks turn rosy and her thin, yet perfectly outlined lips are shaking, but not in sadness or shock, but anger, which is also shooting from her light blue eyes.
“Yes, among other things,” she says speaking like every word hurts her as it leaves her mouth. “I have no idea who this Anita is, so I doubt I can help you.”
“Was he dating Anita?” I ask.
She inhales deeply and loudly through her nose. “I don’t know. Maybe. He liked them young.”
“So he had other mistresses too? Is that the reason for your separation?”
She looks about ready to blow up at me, so maybe I better take it down a notch. The anger she’s exhibiting is probably answer enough to my questions. She inhales sharply, then seems unable to exhale.
“He mentioned Anita right before he died,” I say, wondering if I just made my worst mistake yet as her eyes narrow to slits.
“Anton and I lived largely separate lives for the last ten years of our marriage and since our divorce,” she says through gritted teeth. “We’d stayed married to keep up appearances given his political aspirations. But even that didn’t stop him from divorcing me when he met that uppity woman who shot him yesterday. Maybe she was less willing to put up with his love for young, vulnerable women. You know, the kinds he met at strip clubs.”
“Your husband was in regular contact with your daughter though, right?” I ask.
She exhales sharply through her nose. “Yes, they had a good relationship. What’s the point of your question?”
“Do you know where we could find her?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Beyond what I told your colleague yesterday, I wouldn’t know. She does that sometimes, just goes off without telling anyone. It used to drive Anton crazy with worry. I texted her that I’d like to see her, but so far, she hasn’t called back.”
“And you’re not worried?” Brina asks sharply, speaking for the first time. Mrs. Kolar fixes her with a deadly look. “My daughter is an adult and she just lost her beloved father. She probably needs some space, I would think.”
Something just isn’t clicking for me here. Leskovar was respected by his two co-workers I met, he had a good relationship with his daughter, and yet is supposed to be a dirty old man preying on vulnerable young women. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But like with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Mrs. Kolar finishes her cup of coffee and slams it down against the saucer so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break. “Do you have any more questions or can I go?” she asks and checks her watch. “I’m meeting a client in ten minutes.”
“Just this,” I say. “Who’s the man to talk to if I want to find out more about the strip club side of Mr. Leskovar’s life?”
She knows exactly, I can tell by the sideways glance she flashes me. I’m getting the feeling that this woman uses anger and snappishness as a shield against answering my uncomfortable questions directly and truthfully. And that she thought it would work better.
“Is this going to end up on the news?” she asks in a level voice.
“They won’t hear it from me,” I say.
“Or me,” Brina adds, right on cue.
“Talk to his old friends,” she says. “Vasko Derganec and his brother Ivan. There are a few others. They’ll be easy to find, since they’re the ones he keeps around, and gets them positions at whatever company or job he takes.”
Brina is jotting down the names in her notebook, but I just keep looking Mrs. Kolar in the eyes.
“They’ll know his secrets,” she adds. “I never did.”
Something makes me doubt the truth of that very much. It’s not in her eyes, or her face, or her tone for that matter. But I think this woman knows a lot more than she’s willing to tell me. She asks if she can leave for a second time and this time I let her go, telling her we’ll be in touch if we need anything else. She barely acknowledges that.
But I know that going head to head with her is useless. At least for now, until I come up with some better questions to ask her. After all, she’s also one of the people Leskovar has kept in his life since childhood.
8
Mark
Jana Leskovar, the mayor’s twenty-eight-year-old daughter, works for an NGO called Carpe Diem. The name alone tells me it’s not a very focused type of organization, and pulling up in front of the headquarters, which is inside a shabby but once grand townhouse near the main bus station in Vrhnika, further solidifies that opinion. The little garden inside the wall that surrounds the property hasn’t been cared for in years. The grass is a yellowish-green, the single apple tree is dry and needs to come down and the linden further in is going that way fast.
I can smell the incense burning inside the house as soon as I step out of the car, along with the softer, more pleasant scent of marijuana underneath it. A tall young man, half his head shaved and the other half sporting the longest dreadlock I’ve ever seen comes out of the wide-open door of the house as Brina and I approach. He’s wearing all black, shapeless clothes, except for the checkered, black and white Royal Lace Arab scarf around his neck. The sign above the door, bearing the name of the NGO, is painted in what looks like children’s paint, in rainbow colors no less, on cardboard, or possibly scrap metal. It looks like it might have been done by this guy when he was on something stronger than ganja.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
“We’re looking for Jana,” I say. “Is she here?”
“Who wants to know?” he asks and moves to stand square in the middle of the doorway.
I introduce us and show my badge for good measure. He blinks at it a couple of times before meeting my eyes again. His are so bloodshot I see no white in them.
“Is this about her father?” he asks and I nod.
“We need to ask her a few questions, but she’s not answering her phone. Is she here?”
He blinks at me a few times before shaking his head. “I haven’t seen her in days.”
He’s stoned and I have no idea if he’s telling the truth or not.
“Look, man, it’s important, OK?” I say in a much friendlier way, sounding like he’d be doing me a huge favor if he just told me how to reach her.
“I’m not lying,” he snaps defensively. “I’m kinda worried about her too. I mean her dad just died and now you’re telling me you can’t find her.”
He sounds genuinely distressed, his voice becoming more and more high-pitched the longer he speaks. A second figure appears behind him, this one a tall woman with close-cropped bleached blonde hair.
“Who are they?” she asks. “What do they want?”
The guy with the dreadlock turns to her. “They’re saying Jana is missing. They’re trying to find her. I hope she’s OK. Have you seen her?”
“Well, obviously she’s not fine,” the woman says as she shoulders past her co-worker to stand in front of me. “Are you from the police?”
“Europol,” I say just as Brina says, “Yes.”
“So which is it?” the woman snaps, looking at us with bulging, borderline manic eyes. Clearly she’s the one who runs things around here. Or at least thinks she does
.
“Both,” I say and show her my badge, motioning Brina to show her detective ID as well.
“Do you know where Jana is or not?” I ask, in a stop-wasting-my-time type of tone.
She bobs her head up and down looking from me to Brina and back.
“Yes,” she finally says. “She’s staying with me. “But she doesn’t want to speak to anyone. “The press has been hounding her all day yesterday and she’s scared.”
“Of what?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Not sure. She won’t say.”
“Then we really have to see her,” I say. “Take us to her now.”
“You think she might be in danger?” she asks breathlessly.
I actually have no reason to think Jana is in danger, but I nod anyway. “I’m afraid so.”
The guy with the dreadlock lets out a sound that is very close to a whimper. Brina gives me a shocked look too, but I keep my eyes fixed on the blonde woman’s.
“Come on, I’ll drive us there,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I live a couple of minutes away. Better we walk.”
“OK,” I say. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Lina,” she says, omitting her last name, which I always find suspicious. But in her case, I don’t think it is. She probably goes by her first name in the circles she moves in.
“Lead the way, Lina,” I say and she strides out of the yard.
As we follow, Brina shoots me a slightly lost, puzzled look. I got those looks a lot on our last case and I know what they mean. She thinks I’m barking up the wrong tree. I might very well be. Is this just one more example of how I’m not cut out for this work anymore? I hope not, because I’m getting seriously sick of constantly doubting myself. I didn’t used to. Not before going head to head with the Fairytale Killer and almost losing. And I’m beyond ready to turn the page on all the self-doubt and second-guessing.
Lina leads us down Vrhnika’s main avenue, which is a two narrow lane affair with a well-tended line of greenery running down the middle. As soon as we’re past the bus station, which also has buses parked on the sidewalk in front of it like Ljubljana, only that here it looks neater, she turns left into one of the narrower side streets and towards a modern, square apartment building.
The facade is painted the same pale yellow color as the old townhouses surrounding it, so it doesn’t look quite so out of place in the rural, old-town setting, but it’s still jarring. As is the magnetic keycard she uses to open the front door instead of a key. Old eventually meets new everywhere, I guess.
Once inside, she leads us past the elevator to one of four doors on the ground floor, where she does use an actual key to unlock the door.
Music is blaring inside, some heavy rock I don’t recognize.
“Jana, it’s me,” Lina yells over the noise.
A moment later, the music cuts off and a woman’s face appears in the doorway at the widest end of the small anteroom.
“Sorry—” she says and then her eyes get very wide and very fearful. Jana has the same color hair as her mom—a deep wheat blonde—and it’s the same length too. But where the mother’s hair was meticulously curled, Jana’s is greasy and scraggly. She’s wearing a pair of pajama pants that have seen better days and a stretched-out white t-shirt.
“Who are they?” she snaps at Lina.
“Some sort of investigators, or detectives,” Lina says. “They said they must speak to you urgently.”
I take the cue to introduce myself and Brina, smiling as I walk towards Jana to show my ID.
“What do you want?”
“I’m sorry about your father,” I tell her. “I understand you two were close.”
A sob tries to escape her chest, but she fights it. Up close it’s evident she’s spent most of the hours since her father died crying. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and there are traces of salt on her cheeks from the tears.
“We were,” she says. “What do you want?”
She walks back into the living room, which is a small room, with a huge dark purple, l-shaped sofa that takes up most of it. One wall is covered with a white bookshelf so stuffed with books it looks in danger of falling over. The TV is on mute, showing a rock concert of some sort, the guy on the mike yelling into it, but no sound coming out of his mouth.
“We have a few questions about a woman your father once knew,” I say. “Anita Rajić. Did you know her too?”
She was already as pale as the walls, but she somehow turns even whiter.
“Never heard of her,” she says in a hoarse, quiet voice, and I just know it’s a complete lie. But accusing her of lying won’t do us much good, especially if her temper is anything like her mother’s.
“Come on, Jana,” Brina says in a fed-up voice, but I shake my head at her to keep her from continuing in this vein.
“Your mother told us your father knew her well,” I say. “I’m guessing you know that too.”
She sits down on the edge of the sofa and looks down at the floor, her shoulders shaking. I’m sure I’m about to hear her start crying, but instead, she snaps her head back and glares at me. She looks exactly like her mother, right down to the angry flashes in her blue eyes. Uncanny.
“My mother tells lies to make herself feel better,” she says. “One of them was always that my father was sleeping with young women and that’s why she left him. Truth is, dad left her because he couldn’t handle being with her anymore. She’s bossy, mean, manipulative, and a liar.”
“So he didn’t meet Anita at a strip club and start a relationship with her?” I ask.
Jana shakes her head. “Yes, he met her at a strip club. But he was helping her get her life back on track. Like he’d done with many other young women, before and after. She wasn’t his mistress and her death hurt him very much.”
I look at Brina to see if this is something she’d heard before, but she looks as surprised as I feel.
“Is this just something he told you to make you feel better?” Brina asks in a confrontational, accusatory tone that makes me wince.
Jana flies to her feet, her face regaining color rapidly, going from white to pink to red in the space of seconds.
“What exactly are you saying? Huh? That my father was a dirty old man and a liar?” she screeches. I’m guessing we don’t have long before she starts crying uncontrollably.
I give Brina a sharp look, and she seems to understand I want her to stop talking. She takes a step back and looks down at her feet.
“That’s not what we’re suggesting,” I say in a light tone. “We just want to understand the role Anita played in your father’s life. And he in hers.”
“I told you,” she says. “He was trying to help her find a normal job and an apartment. I think she was the one who talked about wanting to be a beautician. Or a hairdresser. He would’ve helped her with that too. He helped many others.”
I feel Brina looking at me, so I glance at her again. The look in her eyes is clearly telling me she thinks what Jana is telling us is complete bullshit. But I can also tell that Jana believes it one hundred percent.
“Do you know the names of any other women he helped?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “I even know where some of them live. He has an address book with their names and phone numbers since he’d often check in with them to see how they were doing. My father was a good man.”
She’s breathless by the time she finishes speaking. I give her a few more moments. Her friend Lina is standing in the doorway, looking at Jana like she’d never seen her before. Clearly, all this is news to her. But does it mean Jana is lying? I’m not sure and it’s annoying. Though if I had to take a guess, I’d say Jana is telling the truth.
“Could we see that address book?” I ask. “It would really help our investigation.”
“I don’t have it,” she says. “I think he kept it in his safe at home. Or maybe the office.”
“And what else can you remember of Anita?” I ask.
She shakes
her head. “Not much. I was studying in Spain the year he met her. I only spoke to her twice before she was murdered. But I do remember that my father was worried about her. He’d gotten her out of the strip club she was working in, which wasn’t easy, since she apparently owed the owner a lot of money. He also thought she might have been addicted to drugs, but—“
“She wasn’t,” Brina says. “At least not according to the pathology report.”
I can still detect her conviction that Jana is lying to us, and I’m pretty sure Jana can too, going by the dark look she just flashed Brina.
“So how did it work? Did you help your father with this?” I ask to get Jana’s attention back on me and away from Brina.
She shrugs. “Yes, it’s one of the things we do via Carpe Diem. Like if one of them was especially wary of men, my father would ask me or Lina to talk to them and bring them in. A lot of them were like that. Poor women.”
“I never knew your father was the one referring the girls,” Lina says in an awed voice. “I never even suspected.”
Jana looks at her, her bottom lip shaking. “It’s how daddy wanted it. Some of his more shady business partners wouldn’t have liked what he was doing.”
“So you have records of these women at the NGO too,” Brina says accusingly. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”
“Because we don’t,” Lina says. “A lot of them are here illegally, and some never tell us their real name. We keep no records of them because it makes it harder for them to be found. We are just respecting their right to privacy.”
I’m not entirely sure that falls under the right to privacy, but what she’s saying makes sense.
“Did Anita go through Carpe Diem?” I ask.
They both shake their heads.
“That was before the NGO was established,” Jana says.
“And do you remember anything else about her?” I ask.
Jana shrugs. “All I remember is that she was very eager to leave the country and change her name. She kept asking me if I know how to get that done. My father told her it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted. So he explained to her that she could only do that in Bosnia and even offered to drive her there to do it, but she refused. And then a day later she disappeared. And three days later her body was found.”