In my gut, I knew who it was. But it still felt like I’d been punched when the woman turned, and her familiar, perfect elegance stared back at me through the screen.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “Nina?”
Derek said nothing. He didn’t officially know about my connection with Nina Gardner, but of course had his suspicions, which he’d voiced before.
Nina walked across the sidewalk, looking nervously in both directions as she approached a chain-link fence in front of one of the peeling rowhouses. Derek and I both watched her pass through the gate, up the steps, and knock on the door. A few seconds later, the door opened. It looked as though whoever was on the other side invited her in, but she shook her head.
“Good girl,” I murmured, ignoring Derek’s inquisitive look. The idea of Nina disappearing inside a house like this made me want to jump through the screen and yank her out of there.
The door closed, but Nina waited on the porch, moving back and forth from heel to heel while she peered around the neighborhood. A few minutes later, the door opened, and this time a man exited to stand next to her on the porch. He was tall with graying hair and a mustache, and wore a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt that I could tell was badly stained under the arms even from this far away.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“That,” Derek said. “Is Ben Vamos.”
“The guy you found on the census?”
Derek nodded. “Yeah, we got another break, Zo. Some of the Newark department stepped up to help. Turns out Ben Vamos is a known entity around there. Slumlord, low-level crack dealer too. This video is theirs. Weird story, actually. Hungarian immigrant, but he grew up running for the Russian mob here and there before he started his own enterprise. In 1990, right before the census count, his wife was killed during a raid when his relationship with the Russians went south. She had a daughter from her previous marriage.”
“Little Katarina Csaszar, whoever she is,” I said, following along.
“That’s right,” Derek said. “According to the Newark boys, he brought Sara Berto, his wife’s cousin, over from Hungary to help with the girl. They think Károly Kertész—otherwise known as Calvin Gardner—was Sara’s cousin but he was already here. They all moved into Ben’s house like some Hungarian Brady Bunch.”
“Here’s the story…” I added, but Derek just kept going.
“Ben got Calvin wrapped into his business. Small-time shit, mostly. Meth deals, maybe a car jack here and there. Then, from what I can tell, Ben got lucky. Another relative died of cancer and left him everything he had, which included a shitty house in Pompton Lakes, plus the remains of a hefty settlement from Dupont.”
I raised a brow. “From the chemical spill?”
Derek nodded. “Looks that way.”
I turned back to the video, which now showed Nina chatting with the man. As Vamos chain-smoked two cigarettes in less than three minutes, she kept pushing a nonexistent piece of hair behind one ear. Though I couldn’t hear the conversation, it was clear she was uncomfortable. I didn’t blame her. He was the last person I’d ever expect to be standing next to someone like Nina, much less someone she would seek out.
“So what happened to the money?” I asked, wishing I could hear the conversation. Or maybe not. From this perspective, I could only see the back of Nina’s head, but Vamos was leering openly at her. I didn’t like it. At all.
“He took that money and started investing it in real estate,” Derek said. “He owns most of that block right there, and loads like it all over New Jersey. He’s a slumlord, Zo. One that makes a nice chunk of change.”
I stifled a growl. The mustachioed gorilla had just stroked Nina’s arm. In the video, Nina laughed nervously. She tried to step back from Vamos, but every time, he kept taking steps into her personal space. It was just a video, but I wanted to punch him in the face anyway. Leave her the fuck alone.
“Any family left?” I asked. “Sara, maybe?”
Derek shook his head. “Sara went back to Hungary, remember? The Newark guys think she did take Katarina with her. No records of their return.”
I grimaced. “So Calvin names a woman on the other side of the fuckin’ world as his ‘known person.’ Go fuckin’ figure.”
Derek nodded. “Yeah. It looks like that might be the case. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Because look.”