by Lena Bourne
“Do you?” she asks sarcastically.
“I’d just like to know the basis of all the conclusions you’ve already made,” I say.
“You’d like to check my work, you mean,” she says with a very defiant look in her eyes.
When we first started working together she was in awe of me because of my reputation, and it made me uncomfortable. That has worn off now, but this sarcastic defiance isn’t much better. She is definitely on some sort of ledge in this case and should take a step back, but I’m not about to tell her that right now.
“Just talk me through it as you see it, Brina.”
Saying her name had the desired effect of deflating the hard, defensive look in her eyes. At least a little bit. She looks down and pulls her thick notebook from one of the oversized pockets of her coat that’s hanging on the back of the chair.
“A lot of people have tried to stop me digging into this,” she says. “I hope you won’t be one of them.”
“Like I said, I trust you.”
The waiter comes with the next course of our lunch—pork roast, fried potatoes, and a garden salad. He looks annoyed that neither one of us finished our soup yet but hides it with boisterous talk of how he’ll just set up the rest of the food off to the side so we can get to it when we get to it. I let him talk, even say a few friendly things back. As soon as he leaves, Brina pushes her plate of soup aside and lays the notebook in its place.
“I am certain that Leskovar and his two best buddies, the brothers Ivan and Vasko Derganec, ran an illegal prostitution ring for decades,” she says. “They bypassed having to import girls illegally by simply snatching them away from the competition. They’re so well connected in this country that it was easy for them to do it.”
She pauses to take a breath and looks at me defiantly again. “You’re already doubting me, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. “Just go on.”
“Well, do you think just being a small-town mayor or the CEO of a couple of former socialist businesses paid for Leskovar’s fancy house and stables? Not to mention all the land around it. I highly doubt it. Plus he has two apartments in Ljubljana, one in Piran and Vrhnika, a house in Croatia, and a cabin in the mountains. And the Derganec brothers are the same. The younger one, Vasko, even owns a Lamborghini.”
That sounds like a lot, on the face of it. But Eva explained all about the managerial takeovers that took place when Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Apartments, cabins, houses, and land were part of those deals, along with ownership of large communist companies. It wasn’t legal, strictly speaking, but few of those who benefited from that particular brand of de-nationalization of wealth were held to account. But Leskovar owning all those properties does not necessarily mean he had to engage in organized crime to pay for it all. I explain all that to Brina and she gives me another very defensive, sarcastic look.
“He also owned a yacht and took extravagant vacations to exotic places. Plus, just the upkeep on all those properties adds up to a fortune,” she says. “He was shady. And if all that wasn’t enough to convince me of it, the amount of pushback I got when I started asking questions did. When I first started looking into Leskovar’s affairs, a man in a balaclava waited for me in the stairwell of my apartment building. He grabbed me, hissed, “Stop digging, if you know what’s good for you,” and punched me in the stomach. I knew I was on the right track then.”
“Are you sure the warning came from Leskovar?” I ask, wondering if maybe she’s putting two and two together to equal five in this instance. I mean, her work with trafficked women must have put her on the wrong side of more than one criminal enterprise.
“No, not entirely. But my boss had told me to leave Leskovar alone until I had more proof, and I didn’t listen. A few days after the incident, I was offered a job with Europol in Vienna and strongly urged to take it.” She pauses to draw and shuddering breath. “So I took it. And kept my inquiries into Leskovar more hush-hush.”
“Alright, it makes sense up to now,” I say, since it seems like she needs to hear it. “What else?”
“Get comfortable,” she says and opens her notebook seemingly at random. But the heading at the top of the page reads Leskovar in bold capital letters.
“I’ll present the Anita-Leskovar connection as I see it and then you can decide if you want to hear the rest.” She smooths down the page and looks at me. I move aside my plate of soup to get a better look at her writing, but it’s too cramped and illegible for me to read, especially upside down.
“After Anita’s body was found, I tracked down everyone who knew her,” she starts. “Including the owner of the strip club that Jana said her father rescued her from. That place was actually more of a brothel and it’s true that Anita owed the owner money. She stole it from him, but he caught her and was making her work it off, keeping her there more or less like a slave. Really sick stuff. I’ve managed to have the place closed down since and he’s currently in jail. But I digress…”
She clears her throat and glances at me. I nod for her to continue.
“This is the only part of Jana’s story that rings true,” she says. “But what actually happened between Anita and Leskovar is that he paid off her debt.”
She pauses to take a sip of her water and turns the page in her notebook.
“The strip club she worked at was near Bled, and Leskovar brought her to Ljubljana first. She connected with her brother, who was working in construction there at the time,” she says. “I don’t know exactly what they talked about, since her brother died in a work accident the day after they met. But I spoke to his friend, who had seen Anita and him talking at a café, and he said it looked like they were arguing about something. Anita was in tears as she ran out of the café. The brother didn’t want to say much about the argument, but the guy I talked to was under the impression that Anita asked her brother for money so she could run away, and he refused. Apparently, Anita was always asking for money and never paid any of it back.”
“What about the other brother?” I ask. “The one who lived in Austria?”
She nods and flips a few pages in her notebook. “I tracked him down too. He was surprised that I was even reaching out, since he felt so little was being done to find Anita’s killer. I encouraged him to keep asking for the case to be investigated properly, and he did. But nothing much came of that. He called me a few times, asking for updates but when there were none, he stopped. I got the feeling the whole thing was very difficult for him. I mean, at that point, his whole family was dead.”
“I’d want answers in a situation like that,” I say. And I wouldn’t stop until I had them. But then again, I was never in a situation like that.
“So anyway, to get back to Anita,” Brina says. “Her brother died the day after they met up at the café, and Anita’s body was found two days later. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of her head, and the beating that destroyed her face was administered after she was already dying.”
“The ME’s report was inconclusive on that point,” I interject. “They couldn’t say whether the blow that killed her wasn’t part of the beating she took.”
She smiles coldly. “Not officially. But off the record, I was told that the wound on the back of her head had already begun to heal, while the injuries to her face were all fresh when she died. Talk about a cover-up.”
“Indeed,” I say, leaning back in my chair. My plate of food still smells delicious, but I’m seeing that poor girl dying a long, painful death now, and eating is the furthest thing from my mind.
“Vasko Derganec owns a massage parlor in Vrhnika,” she goes on. “But the neighbors say that it’s never open and that a lot of young, pretty, and foreign women hang around the place.”
“Another brothel?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I couldn’t get close enough to find out. I went by the place a couple of times but was never able to speak to anyone there. It’s a miracle I was even able to find out wh
o the actual owner was since the info was so buried.”
“I staked out the place twice, and saw Leskovar come and go both times,” she asks. “I’m guessing he’s part owner, but I wasn’t able to find the proof for that. I strongly suspect they were using it as a sort of halfway house for the girls before they shipped them out of the country.”
“You suspect they kept the girls in the parlor while they arranged to sell them on?” I ask.
“That seems the likeliest explanation,” she says. “And I think Anita somehow got away, told her brother all about it and they both died for it.”
I just sit there for a couple of moments, letting it all sink in. It’s definitely a plausible theory.
“And what’s more, the Derganec brothers owned that massage place for over twenty years,” she adds. “So they must’ve been at it for a very long time. I’m fairly certain Jana doesn’t know anything about it, but the ex-wife does, I’m sure.”
I lean forward, interlacing my hands on the table. “Why did I have to drag all this out of you, Brina?”
She looks down at the notebook. “Simon told me to let you make your own conclusions before we go after a prominent man with all these accusations.”
“And we listen to Simon now? We let him dictate how we investigate?” my sharp tone makes her look up at me with a startled fear in her eyes.
“No, of course not. But I don’t have much by way of actual evidence for any of this,” she says.
“Then we’ll get some,” I say.
“So you agree with my conclusions?” she asks hopefully.
I nod slowly. “There’s definitely enough there to warrant a good look.”
“We’ll be hindered at every step,” she says.
“I’ve been hindered by two-star US Army generals before,” I say, chuckling softly. “I never let it get in the way of finding the truth.”
She cracks a little smile too. “Leskovar has friends in some very high places.”
I lean back again and run my fingers through my hair. A part of me wishes I could discount her theories out of hand. It’d be easier. But my job was rarely easy, and I knew working for this task force could prove to be worlds more challenging than working for the military ever was. Besides, a much bigger and louder part of me wants to solve this poor girl’s murder and bring whoever let her die slowly and in pain to justice.
“What are you thinking?” Brina asks me.
I grin at her. “I’m thinking I should’ve let you take the lead during today’s interviews.”
She gives me a wider smile at that, just as the waiter comes over to check on us. This time he’s not even trying to hide his displeasure over the fact that we haven’t touched our food, and keeps grumbling about it even after I assure him it was just because we needed to talk and ask him to wrap it up for us.
But his words barely register anyway, because I’m already planning and plotting on how to best come at this case, so we don’t ruffle too many feathers too soon. Though I fully intend to ruffle as many feathers as we need to in order to get to the truth.
Leskovar’s dying words—Anita forgive me—don't quite fit with him being a cold-blooded human trafficker though. Nor does the fact that he involved his daughter and the NGO she worked at in what they believed was helping the women find better lives.
But it’s not out of the question. Maybe he just wanted to confess before meeting his maker. Maybe it meant that he was the one who actually killed Anita.
A steady stream of cars is passing along the old road connecting Ljubljana and Vrhnika by the time we left the restaurant. The early shift workers returning home, no doubt, and I’m sure the congestion will be there all the way to Vrhnika.
No one’s letting me make a left, so I’m forced to make a pretty dangerous turn out of the restaurant parking lot to get to the side of the road that will take us to the highway. A chorus of honking accompanies my maneuver, but I never had much patience for gridlocks or rush hour traffic.
“We’re going back?” Brina asks as I make the turn onto the highway ramp, giving me a puzzled glance.
“Might as well check out the massage parlor now, since we’re already in the area,” I say and grin at her. “You have the exact address, right?”
Her jaw is hanging open as she nods.
“I didn’t think you’d take my findings so seriously so quickly,” she says breathlessly. “I mean, the Derganec brothers are just as well connected as Leskovar was—“
“You want to run it by Simon first?” I ask in a totally innocent tone and watch her jaw drop even lower from the corner of my eye.
“No, I don’t,” she says. “I just didn’t expect this, that’s all. I mean, my investigative work is solid, but—”
“No need for buts,” I say. “I have faith in your work and that’s why we’re following it up. You’re a good detective.”
I glance at her sideways and see her cheeks redden. It’s the first color I’ve noticed in her face in a while now. I pretend to be focused entirely on the road to spare her feeling self-conscious. One thing I’ve noticed about her is that she’s not great at taking compliments. They embarrass her. Eva is kind of the same way too. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, since neither my grandmother nor grandfather, who were both in their thirties, when they emigrated from Slovenia to the US, were very big on compliments—neither giving many nor taking them graciously.
Since the highway was indeed almost completely traffic-free, the ride took us less than ten minutes. We’re parked by the curb of a nearly empty residential street at the edge of town. The street is lined with identical, squat, four-story apartment buildings with grey walls and small balconies with metal railings overlooking the street and a good-sized park and playground.
The massage place is on the ground floor of the apartment building at the very end of the street and its sign looks like it’s been there for decades—faded blue letters outlined in red against a background that was once white, but is light yellow now. The sign is propped against the inside of the window and dark brown blinds are lowered behind it. Blinds are also lowered on the rest of the windows in the apartment, including the ones covering the balcony door.
“You think we should just go in there, badges flashing?” Brina asks.
I shrug and open my door.
“I think it’s high time someone rattled their cage, don’t you?” I step outside and slam my door shut.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone in there,” I say once she joins me on the sidewalk. “But we can go around and ask the neighbors some questions.”
There’s a spring in her step as she walks beside me, one I hadn’t noticed in a while.
To the left of the apartment building’s metal and mottled glass front door is a double-column set of doorbells. I press the one that has Massages written next to it in faded black letters on a grayish piece of paper. Nothing happens the first time, so I press it again, stepping back from the door to see if I can detect any movement in the apartment.
“Let’s try some of the other apartments,” I tell Brina and walk back up to the doorbells.
The rest of them have regular last names written on them, but they’re all just as faded as the tag of the massage parlor. I ring the one right above it. No answer. I try the next one up. Same result. I ring a few more, though I’m already pretty sure I’m not getting any answer from any of them. It could just be the hour. Maybe the occupants are all still at work. But I doubt it.
“I tried that before,” Brina says. “I couldn’t get anyone to answer the door then either.”
Female voices talking float to us from the street—Albanian, or maybe Romanian. A moment later, two tall, black-haired women come into view. They’re both wearing nearly identical white tracksuits and red trainers. One of them visibly shakes as she sees us, but the other one grabs her by the arm and pulls her forward along the sidewalk. Before that, I was certain they were making for the door we’re standing in front of.
“Excuse me,”
I call after them in English. “Can I ask you a question?”
The only indication they heard me is that they start walking faster. I jog over to intercept them, cutting off their path with a big smile on my face.
“This won’t take long,” I assure them.
One of them is looking at me with abject terror in her black eyes, the other one just looks pissed off.
“No English,” this second one says.
“German then?” I ask in that language. I’m pretty sure they both understand, but the angry one shakes her head.
“We just walk here,” she says in heavily accented English. “No can help.”
“So you don’t live in that apartment building?” I ask, pointing at the one that houses the massage place.
They both shake their heads, a little too aggressively to be completely believable. They’re both in their early twenties, judging by the lack of permanent wrinkles on their faces. But their eyes are haunted like they’ve seen decades of hard times.
“We just visit,” the scared one says.
Brina is standing next to me, smiling at them. “You’re not in any trouble. You can talk to us.”
She is somehow managing to sound reassuring, comforting, and friendly at the same time. But it’s clear from the women’s faces that it’s not working.
“You police?” the angry one asks.
Brina nods, but I say, “No, we’re more like private investigators.”
I don’t like lying about these things, but if it gets me the answers I need, I’m not above it either. “We won’t make any trouble for you.”
They look from me to Brina and back. Then the angry one shakes her head. “Let us walk. We know nothing.”
Her English is improving with every sentence she speaks, but this time she means it. She grabs the other one’s arm again and starts pulling her away.
“Do we follow?” Brina asks but I shake my head.
“I doubt we can make them talk,” I say.
A man clears his throat directly over our heads. I look up to see a bald man leaning over the metal railing of a second-floor balcony. He’s at least eighty years old, wearing a baggy pair of purple sweatpants pulled high over his belly, an off-white dress shirt, and a grey wool, sleeveless cardigan. His light blue eyes are twinkling and seem to belong to a man half his age.