Irena said, “Is there a question in there?”
“Tell me why I’m not supposed to think you two killed those three men, set the fire, and stole the car.”
Ariana said, “Because we didn’t do that. We never killed anybody or started any fires. We don’t know anything about any fire or any murder.”
“Then you’re very unlucky. You’re the only ones who can be positively placed at that beach house that night. The BMW was seen parked there before the killings, but wasn’t there when the firefighters arrived and found the bodies.”
“We have an alibi” Irena said. “We were at a party all evening.”
“Where?”
“At my friend’s house, in Echo Park.”
“What’s the friend’s name?”
“Maria.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know her last name. But she stays around there, near Echo Park.”
“What time did it start?”
“Like eight o’clock.”
“And it went until two,” Irena said.
“Maybe later,” Ariana said.
Lieutenant Slosser took a blank piece of paper from the folder and a pen from his pocket and set them down on the table. “Write down the names of some of the people at the party.”
“Who, me?”
“Either of you. Both of you.” He watched as the two whispered and added names. When they seemed to have run out of names, he pointed and said, “Who is this one to you?”
“A friend.”
“This one?”
“My sister.”
“This one?”
“A cousin.”
Irena said, “Are you going to tell us that they don’t count because they’re friends and relatives?”
“No. That wouldn’t be fair. But if you can please write down all the addresses and phone numbers you can remember, we’ll be able to use them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll have to have police officers go and pick them all up and bring them down here to prove your story before I can let you go.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure. We just keep you in this room, and we’ll put them in another and ask them where they were between eight and two last night.”
Irena took the pen and began to write for a few seconds, then crumpled up the paper and held the ball in her hand. “All right. It wasn’t a party. We just hung out together at Wash in Hollywood, but it got too crowded, so we left.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Because we were afraid, and we wanted to be sure we didn’t get arrested. We didn’t kill anybody,” Ariana said. “All we did was borrow a car, drive it to our neighborhood, park it, and go home.”
“So you didn’t steal the car from Alvin. You just borrowed it from him.”
“Yes.”
“You were at this house in Malibu and he just handed you the keys and said you could take it home?”
“No,” said Irena. “We were at Wash. We were hot and tired and it was crowded, so we asked, and he gave us the keys.”
“So you dropped him off at Rogoso’s house in Malibu, and then drove straight home?”
“No. We didn’t go to Malibu.”
“Then how did he end up there?”
“I don’t know. We were gone. Maybe he went there with a friend, or maybe he took a cab. Maybe anything. But he wasn’t with us, and we didn’t go near Malibu.”
“Okay, so how did you know Alvin Tatum so well he would lend you his fifty-thousand-dollar car?”
“We met him at a club. It might have been Adder or the Room. I don’t remember. Once in a while we’d see him again, and he would come over and talk to us. If it was late, he might ask if we needed a ride home.”
“Do you know what he did for a living?”
“No.”
“I do. I read his rap sheet. He started out selling cocaine on the street, but pretty early he learned that what he was really good at was taking care of the people who didn’t pay or the ones who were trying to work the same neighborhoods, or people who weren’t afraid enough of him or his boss, Rogoso. By the time he died, he had been a full-time bodyguard and killer for at least five years.”
“We didn’t know about any of that,” said Irena.
“This is odd. I assumed that my detectives would have told you what we know about you already. We know that you’ve been working for Rogoso for a year or more, because your names have been mentioned by people we’ve talked to for that long. You carry drugs to the sellers and money back to Rogoso. You were in Malibu last night. Either you killed Rogoso and Alvin and Chuy, or you were there and know who did. Which is it?”
“Neither,” said Irena. “We know nothing.”
“I’d like you to think about things for a while. You could be convicting yourselves of three murders. Or you could be putting yourselves in front of a lot of guns. Whenever a guy like Rogoso dies, there are a lot of people who believe there must be a lot of money hidden someplace. You don’t want them to think you’ve got it. There are also relatives of Rogoso who just lost a lifetime of living off him.”
“Are you going to make sure they know about us?”
“My job is to try to keep people from dying, not get them killed. If you get charged with murder, though, there’s no way it won’t be in the papers.”
Ariana was hugging herself and rocking back and forth, staring straight ahead. The sight of her seemed to weaken Irena. “How do we avoid that?”
“I’ll tell you what I need from you. I need the name of the man who pulled the trigger. I don’t know why you haven’t told us yet. Maybe he paid you to set those three up, maybe you just happened to be there when it happened, and you owe him because he let you leave. I don’t know. But if you tell me, I’ll try to keep you from being charged as accomplices. If you don’t, then the DA may decide to charge you with the shootings. One of the things that will strike him is that you both had brand-new guns in your purses. You must have thrown away the old ones on the same night. I’m going to give you a chance to think.” He stood up, beckoned to Detective Serra. “We’ll be back.”
As soon as the door closed, the two girls moved closer, leaned together. “He means it,” said Irena.
“I know. Shh!”
“He really does. You want to go to trial for murder? We don’t have any money for good lawyers. They’ll lock us up forever.”
Ariana had tears in her eyes. “But we can’t.”
“Why not? We met the man once. We don’t care about him.”
“But we owe him” Ariana said.
“We do not. There wouldn’t be any problem if it weren’t for him.”
“He didn’t do anything. They were about to kill him. He didn’t even bring a gun with him. All he did was fight back. He had to, and then he let us live. We were the only witnesses, and he knew we worked for Rogoso. If he had killed us there wouldn’t be anybody left to tell on him. But he didn’t. He even gave us the keys to the car so we could get away.”
“They weren’t his to give. And maybe he was smarter than we were and knew the car would turn out to be a curse. Maybe he set us up on purpose so we’d be blamed.”
“You know that’s not true. He even waited and gave us time to get far away before he set the fire.”
“He’s an old man, not a little boy. He knew what he was risking. Nobody made him do it.”
Outside the room, in the smaller one that was marked “Cleaning supplies,” Lieutenant Slosser and Detective Serra watched the television monitor and listened to the voices, amplified by the microphones all over the room. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say the name.”
Ariana said, “It was my fault more than yours. He took the gun out of my purse. I’ll take the blame.”
“I don’t want either of us to take the blame. Why should we throw ourselves away, especially for a man we don’t even know? And he’s a pig. He got rich by making women strip and then turn tricks in those private rooms.”