AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That sounds like something they told her to say before letting her speak to us, but I’ll let it slide, because that’s not what we’re investigating now. Plenty of time to raid this place and see what’s what once we catch this killer.
“Were you and Tara close?” I ask, glad that Sojer is holding back and letting me take the lead. He seems to still be seething from how long they made us wait on that sidewalk and it’s better he doesn’t ask these questions.
“We shared a room here,” Smila says. She has an accent like Slovene isn’t her first language, but she’s speaking it very fluently despite that. “She wasn’t a big talker, but I know that she was running from her ex-husband. She has no family around here, since she was from Prekmurje and all her family is from there. They didn’t speak. Or help her out when she needed it. She was suffering from some mental illness.”
“What kind? Depression?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Something worse, I think. She’d sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and claiming a man was in the room with us when there clearly wasn’t. Then she’d just curl up in the corner and sit there on the floor shaking all night. Creepy stuff. But I felt bad for her. I think maybe this illness of hers is the reason everyone abandoned her.”
That sounds a lot like what Ana Kobe was suffering from. Despite her high heels and short legs, she’s setting quite a pace and we’re almost at the river.
“Was she ever institutionalized, do you know?” Sojer asks.
“I think so,” she says. “I think her ex had her committed, and that’s why she was running from him. Maybe her whole family was in on it. But I don’t know that for a fact. It’s just something I read between the lines of what she was telling me. She’s not much of a talker, but I talk so much that people sometimes feel like they have to compete with me. So she opened up about a few things.”
She laughs at that but cuts it off abruptly just as the river comes into view.
“She was found right around here, wasn’t she?” she asks in a much quieter voice. “I think I heard the sirens.”
“Yes,” I say. “Do you know why she was out last night?”
“She’d go out at night whenever she couldn’t sleep. Said she was safer outside than in because of her nightmares. In the summer, I’d sometimes go with her.”
She stopped in the middle of the bridge over the river and is gazing into the distance in the direction of where the body was found. The exact spot isn’t quite visible from here, but she seems to somehow see it anyway. She points directly at it. “That’s where we’d sit and talk, sometimes sharing a bottle of wine. And that’s where she went when she was alone too. She always said it was so peaceful here and that it reminded her of home.”
She turns to me sharply, with fire and anger in her eyes. “You’ll get this sicko who killed her, won’t you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Sojer answers instead of me. “Did any of the johns back at that brothel where you live have a special obsession with her?”
She narrows her eyes at him, the look in them pure venom. “I told you, nothing like that goes on there. We’re free to do what we want. And no, Tara had no such problems. She was a very pretty woman, but much too distant and reserved with everyone.”
“Was she seeing someone?” I ask. “Or meeting someone at the river?”
She shakes her head. “She kept herself to herself. I don’t think she even wanted friends, let alone a boyfriend. She only spoke to me as much as she did because I talk so much. Like I already told you.”
“But she attended church, right?” I ask and the look I get tells me clearly that she has no great opinion about my mental faculties.
“Church? No, never,” she says. “Her folks were very religious, that’s why she got married so young. She said they were all a bunch of hypocrites and I’m pretty sure they tried to treat her illness using the Bible, if you know what I mean. So no, she did not attend church.”
But she might have if that’s how she was raised. Despite what Smila here is claiming, I’m certain they’re living in that house under some sort of sex for money arrangement and I’m also certain that kind of thing would’ve made her illness worse.
“Do you know where we can find her ex-husband?” Sojer asks.
She shakes her head. “His name was Karl, that’s all I know.”
“Do you have any more questions?” she adds “Because I really should get back.”
“We’ll walk you,” I say and she scoffs derisively.
“I’m fine on my own, don’t worry,” she says. “You just get the bastard who killed Tara.”
“It would really help if we could take a look at Tara’s room and her stuff,” I say and she rolls her eyes at me.
“They’ll never let you into the house, not without a warrant or something,” she says. “But I can bring you her things if you want. Tomorrow.”
“That would be great,” I say and hand her one of my cards, which I remembered to bring with me after I didn’t have one to give to the nun earlier.
“I’ll call you,” she says, stuffs it into her pocket and walks away, her heels clicking rhythmically against the asphalt. Until they stop.
