Breakdown by Sara Paretsky Page A

and nothing, not even a thunderstorm, was going to deter them. Unfortunately, they picked the same spot that a murderer had chosen. I was protecting the girls from the police until they had a chance to talk to their parents, and I didn’t get home until past three, so I didn’t have a chance to tell you sooner. Also, I haven’t had breakfast. I don’t suppose you have any leftover French toast or anything?”
    “Why couldn’t you tell me that?” Anstey demanded.
    “Because you started with the wrong question,” I said coldly. “If any of the girls, or their parents, are claiming I took the group to the cemetery, they are lying.”
    “Who was in the cemetery with you?” Anstey said.
    I shook my head. “Wrong phrasing. You might ask whom I found in the cemetery.”
    “Don’t push me, Warshawski.” His voice dropped to a growl.
    “Sergeant, you know as well as I that semantics is everything in a courtroom. I have every right to push you into not framing your questions in ways that make it sound as though I abetted the delinquency of a group of minors.”
    “The Morgensterns said that a Petra Warshawski was with the girls.” Milkova spoke for the first time.
    “Again, Officer, your language is misleading.”
    “We need to get in touch with her.”
    “Not if you’re going to harass her, you ain’t. You heard Vic here, you can’t go around accusing people of stuff with no evidence and no reason. You got a dead body in a cemetery and you want to take the easy way out and pin it on someone, well, you ain’t pinning it on either of my gals. Some man gets stabbed through the chest, you go look for someone who uses knives. You got databases, you got brains, go use them and don’t come harassing—”
    “We’re not harassing,” Anstey said, patches of color showing in his cheeks. “But your ‘gal’ here lied to me last night. I have a right to the truth.”
    “You do, Sergeant, and I gave it to you. Is there anything else?”
    “I have the names of most of the girls who got together ‘to dance under the full moon.’ ” He gave the phrase a sarcastic emphasis.
    He flipped open a notebook and read the list of names. He had all the girls, but he didn’t have last names for Tyler, or for the two Polish girls, Kira and Beata.
    “And we know Arielle Zitter and Nia Durango were there but made it home somehow on their own. You involved in that?”
    “Sergeant, who told Helen Kendrick that Dr. Durango’s daughter was at the murder site last night? I haven’t seen Kendrick’s show myself, but a reporter just called to tell me about it. Her show goes on live at ten a.m. At that time, I didn’t know the names of the kids I found in the cemetery last night. How did Kendrick get them?”
    “I don’t know where journalists get their information. I only know that trying to keep an investigation secret is like trying to hide an elephant inside a convertible . ”
    “She didn’t get Nia Durango’s name from you, did she?”
    The red patches reappeared on his face, but he kept his temper in check. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I need you to give me some names, though—surnames for Beata, Kira, and Tyler.”
    “If I could help you, I would,” I assured him. “But, as I keep saying, I don’t know these girls.”
    Anstey smacked the top of my piano. “Goddamn it, Warshawski, stop lying—”
    Mitch got to his feet, growling. I grabbed his collar but couldn’t stop Mr. Contreras, who said, “You got no call to start swearing, young man. You got two ladies in here with you, case you hadn’t noticed, and just because one of them’s a public cop and one’s private, it don’t mean you can’t watch your language.”
    Anstey’s expression—compounded fury and astonishment—made me start to laugh. I doubled over in a coughing fit before he could see my face.
    Anstey was off balance but he wasn’t stupid. He told me we weren’t finished, that he’d be back after he spoke to Petra,