Free Breakdown by Sara Paretsky

asked Salanter if she needed his help with our meeting. I was interested to note that he called her by her first name.
    “No, thanks, Gabe: Sophy and I have our script prepared.”
    My hostess led me down a hall along a wood floor so polished it could have served as a skating rink. My sweaty feet squeaked as I trotted after her. We passed paintings, a couple of sculptures that seemed to be more twisted pieces of scrap metal, and a dress made out of metal mesh, but Julia was moving at such a clip that I caught only glimpses of the art, as if seen from a fast-moving train.
    We landed in a small side room. Unlike the gleaming hallway, this was occupied space. Newspapers were spread across a low rattan table, a plate with half-eaten sandwiches was on another stand, and the floor was strewn with cushions so that people could lie on the thick carpet and read or dream or whatever seemed right at the moment.
    It was chaotic, but reassuring, a nest where you could curl up and feel safe. And curled up in the middle of a white wicker couch was an urchin with a mop of curly hair. In the daylit lounge, she bore a striking resemblance to Julia Salanter.
    I stopped to stare at her. “Arielle Zitter. What are you doing here?”
    “I live here. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
    The tall girl who’d led the chanting last night was sitting on a stool near Arielle. She was drumming her middle fingers against her knees.
    “And Nia Durango. Where did you girls go when you left the cemetery last night?”
    “So your friend Jessie was telling her parents the truth. When her dad called me this morning, I didn’t believe him.” A woman I hadn’t seen at first spoke from the windows behind the couch. “Nia, Arielle, you have a lot of explaining to do.”
    The Senate candidate was a tall, slender woman, whose hair, pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck, accentuated the severe lines around her mouth.
    Nia and Arielle spoke almost in the same breath. “It was her idea!”
    “You two blaming each other makes you sound like street criminals. I’m ashamed to hear you behaving like a couple of crooks caught with your hands in the till.”
    That was Sophy Durango; Julia Salanter added, “I’m not interested in apportioning blame between the two of you and your friends. I want to know what you thought you could gain by lying to us. Aunt Sophy and I trust you girls, because we’ve always believed you were mature enough to understand the fishbowl we all swim in. We trust you to behave responsibly in public. To find out you both lied to us last night is a source of grief. And you have also created opportunities for Aunt Sophy’s opponents to attack her.”
    “But, Mom, we weren’t trying to hurt your campaign,” Nia said. “It’s just—Carmilla, she’s so cool! We thought—we hoped—we wanted it to be true. And the chanting, the full moon, it made us feel like we were part of her!”
    “You girls thought you could turn into ravens?” Sophy Durango was so dumbfounded she couldn’t figure out anything else to say.
    “I know what they’re saying about Grandpapa on the news,” Arielle said. “I want to peck their eyeballs out!”
    Julia sat on the couch next to her daughter. “Darling, we all know the horrible hate that they’re spewing out about your grandfather, and about Aunt Sophy, and we agreed we had to ignore it, to pretend it isn’t happening. But last night’s escapade is going to make things worse, you know. I don’t know how Helen Kendrick got Nia’s name, unless Jessie Morgenstern or one of the other girls talked, or put it on Facebook, but Kendrick already attacked Aunt Sophy on her show this morning. We need the truth before Wade Lawlor starts in on your grandfather.”
    “Can you back up a minute?” I said. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Jessie Morgenstern—she was one of the girls who was with you at the cemetery last night?”
    The two girls nodded cautiously, wondering if my