“Whatever,” the kid said.
“I need a yes or no, please.”
“Yeah, all right.”
“Make your mark, please.”
She passed him the forms, and he signed them again. Next to his signature, she noted the time and the fact that they’d been read aloud.
“Okay, so Carmen is your literacy coach. And what else?” Melanie asked.
Juan Carlos looked back and forth from Ray-Ray to Melanie, his forehead wrinkled, like he was struggling to understand.
“Well, seems to me Carmen ain’t popped her cherry yet, and I’m thinking about gettin’ in her pants. I like virtuous girls. More of a challenge, you feel me? But we ain’t never do nothin’ much about it. I try to kiss her once, and she get scared and run away. But she sixteen, so why you care? That ain’t statutory rape, is it?”
“I don’t do those cases, but I think the age of consent is seventeen in New York,” Melanie said.
“I don’t think so,” Juan Carlos said, shaking his head. “My shorty Bathead got locked up for statutory-raping some bitch who fourteen. I remember he say two more years and he wouldna had no trouble.”
“Bathead, you said?” Ray-Ray asked, looking up from his note taking.
“Yeah. Call him that because his head got, like, a dent from where somebody smash him with a bat. He talk real slow from it, too.”
“Can we focus, please?” Melanie said. “We don’t have all day. Tell us about giving the drugs to Carmen.”
“What drugs?”
“The heroin.”
“Carmen told you I give her heroin? Why she say that?” He looked very confused.
Melanie turned to Ray-Ray. “What was the stamp again on the decks we found in his sock?”
“WMD,” Ray-Ray said.
“We’re not interested in WMD. Tell us about Golpe,” she said to Juan Carlos.
“I don’t know Golpe,” he replied. “¿Es una marca de drogas? ”
“I can’t feed you the answers, Juan Carlos. You tell me what Golpe is.”
“You talking about a stamp? Ain’t nobody use Spanish stamps in New York. Jersey neither. Only place I heard of Spanish stamps is Puerto Rico, the DR, some shit like that.”
“Tell us about the two girls who OD’d. Whitney and Brianna. Did you ever meet them?” Melanie asked.
“The girls who OD’d last night, you mean?”
She and Ray-Ray exchanged glances. Now they were getting somewhere. “Yes,” she said.
“Yeah, I heard about it on TV.” As Juan Carlos looked at Melanie, his eyes suddenly went wide. Sweat began to collect on the dark fuzz of his upper lip. “The shit that OD’d ’em, it was WMD?”
“What?” Melanie asked.
“You sayin’ those girls OD’d on WMD? You know, weapon a’ mass destruction, the stamp I be moving?”
“Did you sell drugs to them, Juan Carlos?” she asked, avoiding his question.
His breathing got heavier, and he looked ready to cry. “I don’t know what Carmen tell you, but that ain’t me. They put WMD in every spot from here to Jersey City, okay? Hundreds of mu’fuckers movin’ that shit. Coulda been anyone who sold it to them girls. It ain’t me. I swear.”
“Did Carmen ever introduce you to Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers?” she asked, slowly and clearly.
“Why she tell you that? Why she say something that ain’t true?” he asked, an edge of hysteria in his voice.
“I’m not asking you about what Carmen said. I’m asking you about what happened. Did you ever meet Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers?”
Tears stood out in Juan Carlos’s eyes. “No more questions. I want a lawyer,” he said.
13
MISS HOLBROOKE’S SCHOOL occupied several adjoining town houses on the south side of an expensive block in the East Seventies. Ray-Ray Wong double-parked in front of the main doors and slapped a police placard into the window of the G-car. Melanie climbed out, picking her way carefully through the slush to the curb. Their government sedan looked incongruous among the glamorous vehicles jockeying for position there. Navy and black Mercedeses and enormous, sparkling SUVs, driven by dark-skinned chauffeurs, all wearing blazers and cell-phone earpieces. Even if Melanie could’ve afforded to buy a brand-new Range Rover and garage it in the city-which, needless to say, she couldn’t-it would never have occurred to her to hire a driver and ride around town in the back.
It was the last day of classes before holiday recess, and a few girls trickled in late. They varied in age from kindergartners to high-schoolers, but all sported an identical look. Long hair, long limbs, beautiful faces with bored, careless expressions. Melanie and Ray-Ray followed the gazellelike creatures up the ice-slicked steps and into the lobby.
The space was dominated by a tall Christmas tree decorated with ornaments of scarlet and gold, which, judging from various banners hung around the room, were also the school colors. A plump, middle-aged woman in a dark dress sat behind the reception desk.
“Good morning,” the receptionist said in a British accent, looking them up and down. “Are you here for an admissions tour?”
“No, we have an appointment with Patricia Andover, the headmistress, regarding a legal matter,” Melanie said.
“Ah, very good.” The woman appeared relieved, and judging by the crew of skinny blond moms parading through the reception area with furs tossed casually over their gym clothes, Melanie understood why. She and Ray-Ray hardly fit the profile for membership in the Holbrooke parent body.
“So Mrs. Andover is expecting you?” the receptionist asked.
“Yes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Vargas and DEA Special Agent Raymond Wong.” Melanie flashed her creds and nodded at Ray-Ray, who did the same.
“Very well, then. Have a seat, why don’t you, and I’ll let her know you’ve arrived. She should be back from chapel by now.”
“Chapel?”
“Every morning she leads the girls in prayer and announcements in the old chapel. It’s a Holbrooke tradition, but perhaps a bit more solemn than usual this morning.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
Melanie and Ray-Ray took seats on a chintz-upholstered bench across from the reception desk. Portraits of former Holbrooke headmistresses lined the walls, the ladies’ attire varying by decade. As a rule they were severe-looking but attractive, with steely expressions, of middle age. Above the portraits, beneath a heavy crown molding, the school motto repeated around the room in gold script intertwined with green vines: PULCHRITUDO VERITAS EST.
“Huh,” Melanie said.
“What?” Ray-Ray asked.
“Holbrooke’s motto. ‘Beauty is truth.’ I think it’s from Keats.”
“Oh.” He nodded, obviously uninterested.
“You know what we should do?”
“What?”
“Get a list of the faculty and staff and run criminal-history checks. Just to cover our bases. Who knows? Maybe somebody has a narcotics record.”
“Sure thing. No problem.”
The receptionist put down her phone and looked at Melanie. “Mrs. Andover will see you now.”
THE HEADMISTRESS OF HOLBROOKE was a petite, handsome woman in her forties, meticulously groomed, with a helmet of highlighted honey blond hair. Clad in a trim skirt that showcased her excellent legs, a cashmere twinset, Hermès scarf, and pearls, she radiated a cold, almost Stepford-like perfection. She also received them with the school’s lawyer standing beside her, which struck Melanie as more than a little defensive. Was Holbrooke worried about something?
“This is a delicate situation, so I wanted my adviser present,” Patricia Andover explained. She took a seat behind a dainty inlaid-wood desk and indicated that Melanie and Ray-Ray should sit opposite her. A tiny Yorkshire terrier that had been resting on a plaid dog bed leaped up and settled into her lap.
The headmistress put her nose right up to the dog’s and spoke to it as if it were a baby. “We have guests, Vuitton. Mommy needs impeccable behavior, yes, yes I do,” she said. Then she turned to Melanie with a studied smile, her glance seeming to note every imperfection, every hair out of place, and calculate the value of Melanie’s clothing and jewelry in the process.