Goodbye Sister Disco

by James Patrick Hunt

  “Was she contrite?”

  “Not in the slightest. She attacked me.”

  “Physically?”

  “No, not physically. I mean, she attacked me personally. She said I was just a bullshit liberal. She said I didn’t give a fuck about people. I didn’t give a fuck about the poor or the working class. She even told me I didn’t give a shit about my own children. By the way, that’s the language she was using when she talked to me, the managing partner. She said I was the worst sort of hypocrite there was.” Fisher paused. “I tell you, I was kind of shaken up by it.”

  “Why?”

  “I just never imagined she would talk to me that way. It was like she was possessed. No, I take that back. What I mean is, I didn’t know that she had that sort of hatred in her.”

  “She threaten you?”

  “No. But that was pretty much it for her. I told her she was terminated. I had to have her escorted out of the building. It was an awful scene.”

  “You never reported this?”

  “What was there to report? She didn’t break any laws. She told off her boss. All I could do was fire her. And I tell you, I did not enjoy doing that.”

  “I believe you,” Hastings said. “She didn’t threaten you or anyone else at the firm?”

  “No.”

  “Yet,” Hastings said, “you find yourself thinking about her now.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Fisher said. “I’m not sure why, but sometimes you feel things, you know?”

  Hastings nodded.

  “The thing is, no one ever heard from her again. She had friends there. She did when she worked there. And usually, a legal secretary ends up at another firm. Even when they tell a boss to go fuck himself.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, there are some lawyers out there who would have hired her because she told me off. But she sort of … disappeared.”

  “Anyone at the firm know where she ended up?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, people joked about her living on some sort of lesbian commune. But I don’t know where she ended up.”

  “Would she have known that Tom Myers was dating Cordelia Penmark?”

  “Of course. Tom wanted everybody to know that.”

  “And she would have known that he would bring her to your party?”

  “Well, yes. She would have known that he would come. Someone like Tom, he’s not going to skip the firm party. She would have known that.” Fisher straightened and said, “Listen, Lieutenant. This is all very speculative. I mean, we’re talking about a legal assistant who may have been a little unbalanced. She’s wacky, but … to plan a kidnapping, murder … really.”

  Hastings knew that what Fisher was saying was sensible. It was speculative, maybe even silly. But Fisher himself said he had felt something, even though he was now trying to talk himself out of it.

  Hastings said, “You don’t have a forwarding address?”

  “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  Hastings said, “Did she file an unemployment claim?”

  Fisher stopped. He said, “Yes, as a matter of fact. I had to write out a statement to the unemployment office. Her claim was denied.”

  * * *

  Fisher told him he could pull his car into the driveway so that it wouldn’t get hit by another car or investigated by another cop. Hastings moved the Jag and was sitting in it when he reached Murph on the phone. He told Murph about Janet Rusnok and her unemployment claim, which meant that she had to have left an address on some government record. Murph said he would do a quick NCIS search too to see if there was anything on the girl. Hastings, hedging himself, said the girl was probably just a person of interest at this stage, but he had to nail it down before he could move on.

  Murph got off the phone and Hastings sat in the car in the dark driveway. He put his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes. Time drifted off and when he opened his eyes he looked at his watch and saw that almost twenty minutes had passed. He cursed at the lost minutes, then he started the car and drove to a 7-Eleven and bought a large coffee.

  His phone was ringing as he was walking outside.

  He set the coffee on the roof of the car and answered the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “George. We may have something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Janet Rusnok was listed as a witness on a County PD report. She was the roommate of a girl named Gabrielle Bersch. About three months ago, Gabrielle Bersch disappeared.”

  Hastings said, “Permanently?”

  “Looks that way. They haven’t found her yet, anyway. She called her mom one night, crying, said she ‘had had enough’ and wanted to come home. Apparently, she’d started hanging out with a new group of friends. Some bad apples, her mother told the police. And she got scared and called and asked if she could come home. Mama says yes, come on home. Gabrielle Bersch hangs up and they never see her again.”

  “What about Janet Rusnok?”

  “They got a statement from her. She said she didn’t know where she had gone. But the report noted that Gabrielle had lost her hairdressing job about three weeks before she disappeared. Lost her job, quit her family.”

  “You got a copy of the County report there?”

  “Yeah. They faxed it to me. George, it seems the most helpful statement they got here is from her manager at the salon.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s the most detailed, the most thoughtful. The mom was too beside herself to be much help.”

  “Give me the guy’s number.”

  “Okay. His name is Mitchell Raines.…”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Mitchell Raines told the waiter to bring him and his friend Del Glickman another bottle of wine. The waiter, whose name was Robert, asked Mitchell Raines if they were celebrating anything. Mitchell Raines said that Del’s son had just gotten accepted into medical school. Which wasn’t true. Mitchell Raines liked to make things up on the spot, get people to stop and look at him to see if he was serious. Saying he couldn’t read or that he had had a fight with someone while they were in the restroom or that he had been Jeanne Tripplehorn’s first husband. The waiter was used to this sort of joking around from Mitchell Raines. But he was glad that Mitchell and his friend had taken a table in his station because Mitch Raines always tipped well.

  They had just opened the second bottle of wine when Del Glickman called the mâitre d’ over. The mâitre d’s name was Mark, and Del and Mitchell knew him from La Baguette off Brentwood Boulevard. Mark was British and he usually had something for them.

  Del Glickman said, “Mark, tell us what you think of this new French restaurant they opened on Euclid.”

  “It’s … acceptable, I suppose.”

  “What’t the clientele like?”

  “Oh, the usual. Poofs and trollops. They get all a-bother if a fork is dropped on the floor, even though two hours later they’ll go home with a complete stranger and put his cock in their mouth.”

  Mitch and Del loved this. Mark could usually deliver. Droll and British. Fag jokes were okay coming from him.

  A cell phone rang. Rang again and the mâitre’ d said, “You’re not going to answer that, are you?”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said. Then he said, “This is Mitch.”

  “Mitchell Raines?”

  “Yes. Who am I speaking to?”

  “George Hastings. I’m a lieutenant with the St. Louis Police Department.”

  “Oh. What can I do for you?”

  “A few months ago, you gave a statement to the County Police Department regarding the disappearance of one of your employees.”

  “Yes. Gaby.”

  “Gabrielle Bersch.”

  “Yes. We called her Gaby. Have you found her?”

  “No. I’m sorry, we haven’t. You gave a very helpful statement to the police.”

  “Did I.”

  “Yes. It was very comprehensive. But I’m wondering if there was something else.”

  “Like wha
t?”

  “Well, the report said that she called her mother and said that she’d had enough and she wanted to come home.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was wondering if you knew what she wanted to come home from?”

  Mitch Raines sighed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

  “Did she quit or did you fire her?”

  “I fired her.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, she was fucking up. She was preaching to the customers, starting arguments. Liberal shit. I mean, that’s nothing new at our shop. But she was getting militant. And it was putting off the clients. It was too bad because she was a real sweet girl.”

  “Did you know her roommate, Janet Rusnok?”

  “No. Never met her.”

  Hastings said, “You said ‘militant’.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. Radical. Tree hugging. No, wait. Not tree hugging. It wasn’t about the environment. I mean, like communist.”

  “Had she joined some sort of group?”

  “She was into something called— Del?”

  “Yes?”

  “What was that group Gaby used to talk about? The one she said she met up with at Cicero’s?”

  “Liberation … Earth?”

  “Liberation Earth?”

  “No. Not Earth. Fuck.… Front. That’s it. Liberation Front.”

  Mitch said into the phone, “Liberation Front.”

  Hastings wrote it down on his pad. “Liberation Front. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you discuss this with the County police?”

  “I don’t think so. It never came up. I mean, I didn’t think it would mean anything. Half of my staff is into weird shit I can’t keep track of. You know how that is.”

  “Yeah,” Hastings said. “Thanks for your help.”

  * * *

  Hastings called Gabler on his cell phone.

  Hastings said, “Where are you?”

  Gabler said, “Craig and I are at St. Louis PD. Craig’s in the interrogation room with your man interviewing Ernie Shavers. I’m on the other side of the glass. Hey, why did you have Klosterman bring the guy here?” Gabler sounded irritated, suggesting Hastings was trying to scoop him.

  Hastings said, “I’m sorry about that. It was just something I was having them check out. I wasn’t trying to hide it. I had Murph call you.”

  Gabler sighed. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

  Hastings said, “How’s it going?”

  “Lame. No offense, but I think it’s a dead end. The guy’s got an alibi and even if he didn’t, I don’t think he had anything to do with this.”

  “What does Klosterman think?”

  “He think’s the same thing,” Gabler said. “You want to ask him yourself?”

  “No, I believe you. Listen, write this name down: Jan Rusnok.”

  “Jan Rusnok. With a k or a ck?”

  “K. R-u-s-n-o-k. Rusnok. She used to be a legal assistant at Tom Myers’s law firm. She got fired a couple of months ago. She knew that Tom would be taking Cordelia to Fisher’s Christmas party.”

  “So what?”

  “Well, it may not mean anything. But Fisher seems awful nervous about her. She was apparently part of some left-wing radical group called the Liberation Front. And she had a roommate named Gabrielle Bersch who disappeared.”

  “The Liberation Front?” Gabler seemed interested now. “Was that all? It wasn’t the Earth Liberation Front or the Green Front?”

  “No, just the Liberation Front. Why? Have you heard of it?”

  “Yeah, I have actually.”

  Hastings was standing next to his car again. He put his hand on the roof. “You think we got something here?”

  “We might,” Gabler said. “Jesus, we might. Where are you now?”

  “West of the city.”

  “There’s a file on this group at our field office. Can you meet me there?”

  * * *

  Minutes later, Hastings was racing the Jag down the interstate, the speedometer hovering between eighty and eighty-five, the burble of the engine sounding contented as the red police light on the dash flicked on and off. Driving fast because he could feel that they had something now. Not knowing in fact, but feeling that the prey was in sight, was near. The fear in Sam Fisher’s voice as he spoke of Jan Rusnok, not having any proof that she was connected to it, but being scared that she was, the fear that comes from a gut feeling of dealing with a person. Maybe she was just a misfit. A loser who couldn’t hold on to a job at a law firm even when the managing partner was going out of his way to give her a break. A person could be misguided and self-destructive, but that didn’t necessarily make them capable of kidnapping and murder. We’re all misguided and self-destructive at times, but few of us can murder with ease. At least that’s how Hastings saw it.

  But Hastings hadn’t sat across a desk and stared into the hateful eyes of Jan Rusnok. Sam Fisher had, and whatever it was he’d seen, it seemed to have scared him. And Sam Fisher had not seemed, to Hastings, a man who was scared easily. Jan Rusnok had rattled him, though. Enough that he had felt it was important to tell Hastings about it tonight. And then a roommate of hers had disappeared.

  Janet Rusnok. What was she? A loser? Or part of something bigger, scarier? What would the FBI have on this group that she was associated with?

  “Oh, shit,” Hastings said aloud.

  The guy who telephoned Judy Chen had called himself Carl. A pseudonym, right? But there was Karl Marx and there was a disgruntled girl who had joined a radical, left-wing group that the FBI had a file on. Maybe it was just a coincidence. A piece of a puzzle that wasn’t really a piece, but something that Hastings wanted to fit. Deduction, my dear Watson. Deduction, bullshit. What if they were all off the mark? Desperate, well-meaning men grasping at straws because, as Edie Penmark had said, they hadn’t yet found Cordelia.

  They had been concentrating on her. Who was in Cordelia’s life? Who was near to her, near enough to know who she was and track her, prey upon her? Using that premise hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Now, they were presented with a theory that just had a couple of pieces, just a handful that could mean something. And the presumption this time was not that they knew about Cordelia from Cordelia’s world, but from Tom Myers’s world. Tom Myers, a young ambitious lawyer, a social climber who might have been using Cordelia. Not for sex, but for the status she could bring him and for her money. Who at his law firm would not be aware that he was courting Cordelia Penmark? What an accomplishment that was. She wasn’t a raving beauty, but she was one of the richest of the rich, a penthouse away from a young lawyer from a modest background. Being with her gave Tom Myers a pass; a bypass of sorts over the Sam Fishers of this world, over the middlemen. Would Tom Myers have let people know that? If not directly, then indirectly? Cordelia’s roommate had indicated that Tom Myers was a run-of-the-mill toady. Perhaps smarter and better-looking than most, but a toady all the same. He would kiss up to those above him and ignore or bully those below. Kiss up to Sam Fisher, at least for the time being, but treat the legal assistants like field hands.

  To Tom Myers, maybe Jan Rusnok was a field hand. But maybe she was the sort who remembered and wrote down grudges in her own little book.

  The book. Murph had once explained that concept to Hastings. He said it was an Irish thing. If someone wronged you, you didn’t necessarily have to get vengeance right away. But you would remember. It would not be forgotten. “It’s in the book,” Murph said.

  An SUV up ahead caught the flashing police light in its rearview mirror and moved out of the passing line. Hastings pressed the accelerator a little harder. Forest Park passed by on his left now, the Arch coming into view.

  * * *

  Kubiak and Gabler were in a workroom, files and photographs spread out on a conference table. There was something in the air, an anticipation of sorts. A lead that might finally mean something. It was
Kubiak who spoke to him first.

  He said, “Lieutenant, you may have hit on something. You ever hear of something called the Liberation Front?”

  “Not till today.”

  Kubiak slid a photo over to him. It was a picture of Mickey Seften.

  “Recognize him?” Kubiak said.

  “Yeah. He was the man on the train.”

  Kubiak looked over to Gabler.

  Gabler said, “God damn.”

  “What?” Hastings said.

  “These are the jackal bins,” Kubiak said.

  Hastings said, “The what?”

  Gabler said, “It’s an inside joke of sorts. A small left-wing group was formed over the last couple of years. They call themselves the Liberation Front.” He pushed another photograph over to Hastings. “That’s Terrill Colely. The leader. He was arrested for destruction of property and negligent assault last year by the Portland police. Before his trial, he was busted out. They used a journalist to sneak in a couple of gunmen. Two deputies were murdered, and Colely escaped. After it happened, the local sheriff held a press conference and called them Jacobins, but another journalist wrote it down wrong. Jackal bins.”

  Hastings grunted. Hard to laugh now.

  Kubiak handed another photograph to Gabler. Gabler looked at it for a moment, then slid that one over to Hastings.

  “This is Maggie Corbitt. Also believed to have been involved in Colely’s escape. Probably his girlfriend. Colely grew up in Peoria, but has been traveling the country since then. A drifter, living underground. Maggie Corbitt lived here for a time. A runaway from Arkansas, she’s been arrested a couple of times for prostitution and drug possession. Nothing much stronger than that.”

  Hastings thought briefly of Edie Penmark. Then slid her offstage. He said, “What about the other man in the bathroom?”

  Gabler said, “We don’t know. Craig’s suggested that he may have been a Canadian, maybe from Alberta. The Portland police said that there was a lot of drug-running activity over the border in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe that’s why they were up there in the first place.”

  Hastings said, “Who else?”