Broken Angels by Richard Montanari

lent her five hundred dollars as part of what she needed for security deposits with the utility companies for her new apartment. I think she may have spent it on clothes. She always bought clothes. I got mad. We argued.”
“She was moving out?”
Natalya nodded. “We were not getting along. She moved out weeks ago.” She reached for a tissue from the box on the end table. She was not as tough as she wanted them to believe she was. No tears, but it was clear that the dam was about to burst.
Jessica began to amend her timeline. “You saw her four days ago?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“It was late. She was here to pick up a few things, then she said she was going to do laundry.”
“How late?”
“Ten or ten thirty. Perhaps later.”
“Where did she do laundry?”
“I don’t know. Near her new apartment.”
“Have you been to her new place?” Byrne asked.
“No,” Natalya said. “She never asked me.”
“Did Kristina have a car?”
“No. Her friend would drive her usually. Or she would take SEPTA.” “What is her friend’s name?”
“Sonja.”
“Do you know Sonja’s last name?”
Natalya shook her head.
“And you didn’t see Kristina again that night?”
“No. I went to sleep. It was late.”
“Can you remember anything else about that day? Where else she might have been? Who she saw?”
“I’m sorry. She did not share these things with me.”
“Did she call you the next day? Maybe leave a message on the answering machine or voice mail?”
“No,” Natalya said, “but we were supposed to meet the next afternoon. When she did not come, I called the police. The police said there was not much they could do, but they would put it in the system. My sister and I may not have been getting along, but she was always punctual. And she was not the type to just...”
The tears came. Jessica and Byrne gave the woman a moment. When she began to compose herself they continued.
“Where did Kristina work?” Byrne asked.
“I’m not sure exactly where. It was a new job. A receptionist job.”
The way Natalya said the word receptionist was curious, Jessica thought. That was not lost on Byrne, either.
“Did Kristina have a boyfriend? Someone she was seeing?”
Natalya shook her head. “No one steady that I know of. But there were always men around her. Even when we were small. In school, at church. Always.”
“Is there an ex-boyfriend? Someone who might be carrying a torch?”
“There is one, but he no longer lives here.”
“Where does he live?”
“He went back to the Ukraine.”
“Did Kristina have any outside interests? Hobbies?”
“She had it in her mind to be a dancer. It was her dream. Kristina had many dreams.”
A dancer , Jessica thought. She flashed on the woman and her amputated feet. She moved on. “What about your parents?”
“They are long in their graves.”
“Any other brothers or sisters?”
“One brother. Kostya.”
“Where is he?”
Natalya grimaced, waved a hand, as if swatting away a bad memory. “He is tvaryna. ”
Jessica waited for a translation. Nothing. “Ma’am?”
“An animal. Kostya is a wild animal. He is where he belongs. In prison.”
Byrne and Jessica exchanged a glance. This news opened a whole new set of possibilities. Maybe someone wanted to get to Kostya Jakos through his sister.
“May I ask where he is incarcerated?” Jessica asked.
“Graterford.”
Jessica was going to ask why the man was in jail, but all of that information would be on the record. No need to open that wound now, so soon after another tragedy. She made a note to look it up.
“Do you know of anyone who might want to do your brother harm?” Jessica asked.
Natalya laughed, but it was without humor. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t .”
“Do you have a recent picture of Kristina?”
Natalya reached onto the top shelf of a bookcase. She retrieved a wooden box. She shuffled the contents, produced a photograph, a shot of Kristina that looked to be a head shot from a modeling agency—