The Finishing School

57

MELANIE PLOPPED DOWN at her desk with her coat still on and called home. Sandy told her Maya was fine. No fever, no vomiting, sleeping peacefully. So Melanie heaved a sigh of relief and dialed into her voice mail. She still hadn’t bothered to remove her coat, which was a lucky thing, because otherwise she would’ve just had to put it right back on again.

The message was only twenty minutes old.

“Mel, Stew Steinberg. This is the type of call you know I don’t make lightly, but a young Latina woman’s safety is at stake, so I’m considering cooperating a client. I’m sure that comes as a shock to you. Defendant’s name is Juan Carlos Peralta, a hardworking kid from the projects, wrongly accused. He says you were trying to pin those rich-bitch ODs on him. Let me emphasize, Juan Carlos knows nothing about the OD case. But he does have some information about a girl named Carmen Reyes, who got herself mixed up in some type of embezzlement scheme that may have led to her abduction. He thinks he can help you find her, if you’re willing to drop charges. Give a call so we can get over to the MCC and proffer him ASAP.”

Embezzlement? The more Melanie thought about that one, the more she scratched her head. But who was she to quibble at this point in her investigation? Carmen and Trevor were still missing. Every moment that passed left her feeling more hopeless and desperate about their fates. Jay Esposito, her most promising target, was lost to the silence of the grave. The circumstances of his death further convinced Melanie that somebody else was out there pulling the strings. In short, she was desperate for a fresh lead. Juan Carlos and embezzlement would have to do.

But it was a snowy Friday afternoon. Christmas was Tuesday, so nobody was around, and whoever was, wasn’t doing any work. After several messages the receptionist at Legal Aid finally called back to tell her Stewart had last been sighted heading to the chief judge’s Christmas party. Melanie paged Stewart five times to no avail, then decided to go out looking for him. She wandered around the near-deserted courthouse for a while and dropped in on a few Christmas parties that Stewart had been at but just left. Eventually she found him eating a late lunch at the mob diner. She had to wait for Stewart to finish his meal, walk over to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, wait for the CO on duty to decide to help them, and wait endlessly for the guards to bring Juan Carlos Peralta down to the claustrophobically tiny interview room. Hours had passed already. Finally Juan Carlos appeared on the other side of the wire-mesh screen, clad in a bright orange prison jumpsuit, looking none too happy.

“What the fuck, Stew, pullin’ me outta general population at three o’clock on a Friday! Looks bad. All the MS-13 guys gonna think I’m telling,” Juan Carlos complained.

“Talk to her,” Stewart replied, waving at Melanie. “Believe me, I’d rather be home now myself. She’ll dismiss your charges if you help locate this Carmen Reyes person, but she wasn’t willing to wait.”

“Yo, Ms. Vargas, you messing with my shit here.”

“Tell them it’s a defense-attorney visit, Juan Carlos,” Melanie said. “No reason to think you’re talking to the law.”

“Right before Christmas? Who gonna believe that? Ain’t no defense lawyer in this town working this afternoon.”

“Stewart is Jewish. He doesn’t celebrate Christmas. This is a convenient time for him.”

Juan Carlos paused, then nodded. “Oh, okay. My shorties stupid enough to buy that one.”

“Are you ready to proceed?” Melanie asked Stewart.

“One thing I need to clear up. My client believes you view him as a suspect in the Holbrooke ODs case,” Stewart said.

“The investigation has progressed significantly since I last spoke to Juan Carlos. I can represent to you that he’s no longer a suspect,” Melanie replied.

“Okay, good. We’re under standard proffer-agreement terms, I take it?” Stewart asked.

“Yes. I have the agreement right here.”

Melanie removed a piece of paper from her briefcase, signed it, and handed it to Stewart, who signed as well.

“Very well. Juan Carlos, I’m recommending that you speak to Ms. Vargas.”

“Yeah, awright. What you wanna know?” Juan Carlos said to Melanie.

“Your lawyer says you have information about Carmen Reyes being involved in an embezzlement scheme. Tell me about that.”

“She ain’t involved herself. Somebody trying to use her.”

“Who’s trying to use her?”

“Peoples at her school. Carmen work in the office there.”

“How did you find out about this?”

“A few days before she go missing, me and Carmen meet at a Star-bucks near her school for our regular tutoring. She real upset, so naturally I’m concerned. Carmen good peoples. I don’t like to see her low.”

“When exactly was this? Do you remember?”

“Last Thursday. We always meet on Thursday afternoons. That’s why I tell Stewie here to call you yesterday, because I remember it Thursday. It make me think of her, and I’m gettin’ real agitated for her safety, you feel me?”

“You did the right thing. So you’re meeting with Carmen, she’s upset, and what does she tell you?”

“Well, at first she ain’t tell me nothing. She just say she got problems at school or whatever. But then I say, ‘When it come to trouble, girl, I got life experience you ain’t got, so maybe I be of assistance.’ And that musta convince her, because she look over her shoulder and all around, then she tell me real quiet-like what be going down.”

“Which was?”

“Okay, Carmen working in what she call the development office at the school, right, where they keeping track of all this money rich peoples be donating. Carmen original boss get fired by the head of the school, a real nasty bitch named…uh, Andrew, Landau, wait a minute-” He snapped his fingers.

“Andover?”

“Yeah, that it. Mrs. Andover. Anyway, this Andover bitch trains Carmen on some spreadsheet programs and shit so she can do the fired lady’s job, right? But she think Carmen too stupid to get what going down, because little by little this Andover be telling Carmen skim off money and send it to funny accounts. At first Carmen think she imagining it, so she start making records and keeping real careful track. Pretty soon she convinced this Andover bitch be robbin’ the school big time.”

Melanie stared at Juan Carlos in utter astonishment. Whatever she’d thought Patricia Andover might be up to, she’d never imagined something like this.

“Are you sure, Juan Carlos? Because that’s a serious accusation.”

“Sure, I’m sure. I’m sure that what Carmen say anyway, and she ain’t got no reason to lie to me.”

“So what did Carmen do with this information?”

“Well, that what she trying to decide when she talk to me.”

“Did you tell her to go to the police?”

Juan Carlos grinned. “Not exackly.”

Melanie sighed. “What did you tell her, Juan Carlos?”

“Look, Carmen say they millions of dollars in those accounts, and ten million more due to come in. Come in sometime today, if I remember right. What normal person not gonna be tempted by some Benjamins like that?”

“Ten million today,” Melanie said under her breath. She looked at her watch, saw again that today was rapidly waning.

“Natural response, you feel me?” Juan Carlos said.

“So you told Carmen to steal the money.”

“I suggest it. It was already gonna get stolen anyway, right? I jus’ point out she could win big, get a payday, and she maybe give me a commission to help her figure shit out.”

“What did she say?”

“She say no. That’s Carmen. She honest as a motherfuckin’ nun.”

“So then what?”

“Then I drink my chai latte and be on my way. I ain’t pressure her or nothing.”

“That’s it? You just dropped the subject of the money?”

“Carmen say she got somebody she trust, that she gonna tell about it and ask for help.”

“Who’s that?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t give me no names. But somebody legit. Important, like.”

“Did she say anything else about this person?”

“I know it a man because she call him a ‘he.’ But that it.”

“Do you know whether she went through with it and confided in this guy?”

He shrugged. “After I left the Starbucks, I ain’t heard from her no more.”

Melanie fell silent, her mind reeling with all of this new information. As far as she could tell, none of it had anything to do with the deaths of Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers, or the use of Holbrooke girls to mule heroin, or anything else they’d been spending law-enforcement resources on investigating for the past week.

“Let me ask you something, Juan Carlos,” Melanie said. “Did Carmen ever mention any drug smuggling going on at Holbrooke, or a guy named Jay Esposito, or anything like that?”

“No, never.”

“Huh.” Melanie was totally confused.

“Are we done?” Stewart Steinberg asked, looking at his watch.

“Just a minute, I’m thinking,” Melanie said. “Juan Carlos, what makes you think the embezzlement scheme is linked to Carmen’s disappearance?”

“Whoever want this money need Carmen, or at least they need her fingers,” Juan Carlos said definitively.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because. The accounts got what they call biometric protection. Ain’t no money goin’ nowhere without Carmen fingerprints to verify the transaction.”