Baltimore Blues

by Laura Lippman

  She left the building, heading south to the greatest library in the free world.

  Well, not anymore. Probably not ever. But the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library still was a place of wonders to Tess, even if the book budget had been slashed and the hours cut. Her parents had made a lot of mistakes, a fact Tess compulsively shared on first dates, but she gave them credit for doing one thing right: Starting when she was eight, they gave her a library card and dropped her off at the downtown Pratt every Saturday while they shopped. Twenty-one years later, Tess still entered through the children’s entrance on the side, pausing to toss a penny in the algae-coated fish pond, then climbing the stairs to the grand main hall. If she could be married here, she would.

  She found a seat in the business and technology section, between two homeless men researching the Voting Rights Act, and pulled out a small, spiral-backed notebook and her sheaf of lists, all the names she had been able to link to Abramowitz. She started with the current phone book and worked backward, using the old directories on microfilm to find numbers and addresses for those not in the most recent book. It was boring detail work, the kind of thing she had always done well. Too well. Tess had a talent for the small stuff. It was the big picture that often eluded her. In another time, another place, she would have been bent over a large quilt, sewing away at her one tiny block of fabric, the pattern so close to her eyes it had blurred.

  But there were few rewards today. Most of the names on her list were not there, or too common to track. People had left Baltimore, disappeared, or died.

  Except for Prudence Henderson, on University Parkway in the current directory. Tess was familiar with the area, a place of old apartments and co-ops, with a few rambling brick houses thrown into the mix. Of course, she could have found the same information by just looking it up in her phone book at home, but the discovery still pleased her. Heartened, she checked for a Cecilia Cesnik in Highlandtown, only to find too many Cesniks with East Baltimore exchanges. Did Cecilia say she still lived with her father? He could have been anyone from Anthony to Zachary.

  She looked through her lists again. Who was missing? Oh, the mystery man, the disgruntled plaintiff with the Louisville Slugger. No one at the library could help with that, but she had an idea about someone who could. She gathered up her papers and went to one of the old pay phones, shutting the folding glass door and dialing a number to an office only blocks away.

  “Feeney,” a bored voice answered. It was a low, gruff voice, a voice that choked off all pleasantries. Kevin V. Feeney, the courthouse reporter for the Beacon-Light, worked out of a small pressroom in the courthouse, the better to escape his editors.

  “Hey, Feeney, it’s Tess Monaghan. Saw you in court the other day, but I didn’t see your byline on Sunday’s story. I bet you did a lot of legwork for Jonathan’s story.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, I did all the scut work. As usual. But you know Jonathan. At least, that’s what they say.”

  Tess let the last remark go. Feeney needed to get his shots in.

  “OK, I’ll admit it, I’m calling for a favor. Did one judge handle most of the asbestos cases before consolidation? I’m trying to track down a plaintiff, but all I know is how much he was awarded and that he’s still pretty feisty for someone who’s dying.”

  “Those cases go from judge to judge. It’s a real dog assignment. And I can’t see any plaintiff standing out from the crowd. They’re just a bunch of sick old men.”

  “That’s the thing: This old man was healthy enough to chase someone around with a Louisville Slugger not long ago.”

  Feeney laughed. “Well, unless he chased the judge, he’s not going to have made much of an impression. But drop by some day—not today, because I have a hearing in fifteen minutes—and we’ll play with the Beacon-Light’s library, see what it can kick out for us.”

  “Thanks, KVF.”

  “See ya, Tess.”

  She hung up and left the library the way she had come in, and headed to Tyner’s office, ready for a day of photocopying and answering phones. Tyner had started sneaking all sorts of work on her plate, things that had nothing to do with Rock’s case. The secret tasks, the ones she assigned herself, made those dull jobs tolerable. In fact she loved sitting in Tyner’s office, knowing she had done an end run around him.

  At dinner that night, Tess had Kitty to herself, a rare thing. She adored Kitty, but even thirty years after junior high her aunt still threw herself into her affairlets with a single-minded vigor that left everyone else behind. Tess missed Kitty when she was in love, and she was almost always in love.

  Kitty topped off their wineglasses. “You’ve got the Monaghan constitution, Tesser, despite that unhealthy obsession with exercise. I’m not sure it’s such a blessing, though. For one thing, it costs more to get a buzz on.”

  “I don’t know. I think my high tolerance for all things comes from both sides. The Weinsteins probably were all addicts, back when they had the drugstore. I bet Poppa had pharmaceutical cocaine and the Weinstein women scarfed down speed to keep their weight down.”

  “Cocaine wasn’t Poppa Weinstein’s vice,” Kitty said, then clapped her hand over her mouth as if she had given something away.

  “What? What? What are you talking about?”

  Kitty shook her head, her hand still cupped over her mouth, her green eyes wide, little tears of laughter at the corners.

  “Tell me. We never have secrets.” It was a lie, for Tess had always hoarded a few, but the lie worked. Kitty left the room and came back with a wooden box stamped TUXEDO SHOE POLISH.

  “As you know this place was the Weinstein Drugs flagship. Well, I found this in the third-story storage room, the one that became your apartment, when I bought the place,” she said, flipping up the lid and revealing a blinding flash of cleavage. The box was filled with skin magazines. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, in nightgowns and bathing suits and nothing at all. But the overwhelming impression was of breasts, in hues ranging from creamy white to coffee brown.

  On closer inspection, which Kitty and Tess were glad to make, the twenty-year-old magazines seemed almost wholesome by today’s standards. No S and M, no single-theme issues dedicated to big rear ends or freakish chests. Just lots and lots of naked women. Oh, Poppa Weinstein, Tess thought, and we assumed all you cared about was real estate and competing with Rite Aid.

  “Are you sure they were his?”

  Kitty shrugged. “It was pretty well hidden near an old safe. I don’t think they belonged to Rachel.” That would be Momma Weinstein, whose only known passion was for her beloved springer spaniels. If Tess had been married to Rachel Weinstein, she might have had a similar stash.

  “Why did you keep them?”

  “I thought I could use them for a censorship display one day, or one on pornography. They’re so retro it’s almost innocent. No AIDS, no condoms, and the pill was still a godsend. I was in my twenties when these magazines came out. I could have been in one of these magazines.”

  Kitty and Tess drifted into their discrete musings. Kitty appeared to be thinking about her glory days, which Tess doubted were one-tenth as glorious as her current life as Fells Point’s resident goddess-merchant. Tess was mulling over Poppa Weinstein, her dirty old grandpa. At first she felt the way one does after making the connection between one’s conception and one’s parents. But after the initial queasiness subsided, Tess decided it was sweet. Well, not sweet, but OK. At least he wasn’t luring little girls behind the soda fountain, just curling up with the very magazines he refused to sell.

  She hoped.

  The phone rang in Kitty’s office, a narrow room between the kitchen and the bookstore proper. “That should be Thaddeus.” She floated to the phone, ever the teenage girl, but was back in a few seconds.

  “The thrill is gone?” Tess asked.

  “No, it’s for you. Since when do you give the store number out?”

  “Tyner put it on my ‘business’ cards because he knows I don’t alw
ays answer upstairs. Sorry—it didn’t occur to me anyone was going to use it.”

  In the office Tess picked up the sleek, modern phone on Kitty’s desk. A deep voice, hesitant and sweet, spoke softly into her right ear. “Miss Monaghan? It’s Frank Miles, the custodian from the Lambrecht Building.”

  “Mr. Miles.” She imagined him, girth squeezed into his easy chair, scarfing down a whole bag of Hydroxes. A black Santa Claus on his throne. No beard, though. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was thinking—I have so much time to myself, to sit here and think—and I remembered something. There was a man, Miss Monaghan. An angry man.”

  “Where, Mr. Miles? At the office?”

  “Yes. He came to see Mr. Abramowitz a few months ago and said horrible things, ugly things. It was after hours, so I heard them. He wanted money. He said he would kill Mr. Abramowitz if he didn’t get his money.”

  “Was it a man with a baseball bat? The man written up in the paper? Do you remember what month this was?”

  “No—maybe spring, maybe summer.”

  “With a baseball bat?”

  “A baseball bat? I think there was. Or maybe I just heard about it later.”

  “Did you catch his name, Mr. Miles? Did you see him?”

  A long, sad sigh. “No. No. I’m sorry.” He sounded hurt and defensive, as if he regretted disappointing her.

  Tess wanted to sigh, too, with frustration. He hadn’t told her anything she didn’t know. But he had kept her card. He had called. Maybe he would remember something worthwhile.

  “I am going to check into it, Mr. Miles,” she reassured him. “It’s a good tip, a really good tip. I bet there’s something there.”

  That cheered him up. “He was an angry man, Miss Monaghan. Angry over money. Isn’t that a shame? He was mad because they hadn’t paid him for dying, the way they promised. Who needs money for dying?”

  “It’s a good tip,” Tess repeated. “And I think I know who it was.” I just don’t know his name.

  “You’re good at your job, Miss Monaghan. You’re very conscientious, a good, hard worker. I noticed that right off. Good night, Miss Monaghan.”

  Conscientious. Good at her job. When had Tess heard that last? She couldn’t remember. The words almost made her want to weep, to thank Mr. Miles profusely, to make her parents proud of her, to get an MBA or go to law school.

  But all she said was, “Good night, Mr. Miles.”

  Chapter 16

  Tess woke up the next morning with an unfamiliar pleasant feeling. She sat up in bed, trying to figure out what it was, this fluttery sensation deep in her stomach. She was eager to begin the day, the real day beyond her workout, before she had to show up at Tyner’s office. Of course. This was what it felt like to have something to do, a job to which one wanted to go. After her conversation with Mr. Miles last night, she was more sure than ever it was essential to find the man with the baseball bat. She couldn’t wait to go see Feeney at the courthouse.

  But Tyner had other plans. He was waiting when Tess docked at 7:30.

  “I need some help around the office today. What’s your schedule like?”

  “I owe Kitty a few hours this morning. And I had some stuff I wanted to do on my own this afternoon.”

  “Work for your uncle?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Still in her shell, Tess bent over her shoes and untied them slowly, with great concentration, more than the task required. When she looked up again Tyner was giving her the hard glare usually reserved for a novice who was dogging it, or an experienced rower who caught a crab—rower jargon for putting one’s oar in at a wrong angle, so the entire shell lurched. A single crab could lose a race or overturn a four.

  “I hope you’re not playing detective, Tess. You come to my office this afternoon. You haven’t even earned back all that money Rock paid you. Maybe you can do some typing for me.”

  “On Rock’s case? Or some of your other cases?”

  “Whatever I tell you to do, you’ll do, when I tell you to do it. That’s our arrangement.” And he rolled away while Tess sat in her shell, nonplussed.

  Feeling mildly defiant, she did not dress up for her afternoon at the law office, prompting a stern look from Tyner when she arrived at 2 P.M., an hour late, in black jeans and a white T-shirt. She bet the jeans bothered Tyner more than her tardiness. Tyner was something of a dandy, obsessed with clothes.

  Today, at least, he didn’t insult Tess by making her perform tasks that had nothing to do with Rock’s case. That was the adoring Alison’s job when she wasn’t finding endless excuses to leave the anteroom and bustle into the office.

  “She has a crush on you,” Tess said after the third interruption.

  “Not at all,” said Tyner. “She just loves her job. I don’t really need her, but her father owns the building, and if I have a bad month, he’ll let me deduct her salary from the rent I pay.”

  “Whatever you say, Tyner. I’m sure a girl whose father owns a Mount Vernon town house has nothing better to do than answer your phone and fetch you coffee.”

  She was reviewing the statements collected to date, including police reports and a preliminary autopsy, and noting any contradictions. Using Tyner’s color-coded system, she marked every mention of time, separating out “good” and “bad” testimony—i.e., what favored their version of things (red), and what could undermine Rock’s case (blue).

  “How’s the autopsy look for us?” Tess asked.

  “Well, it doesn’t jibe with Rock’s story. Abramowitz was choked, and Rock’s fingerprints are all over his office. But he also has a skull fracture, and the medical examiner ruled the cause of death was blunt force trauma—a repeated beating against the corner of his desk. It wasn’t pretty, Tess. Whoever killed him was in a rage. Half his skull was on that desk. They were picking the rest of it out of the carpet for days, I bet.”

  No wonder Frank Miles had been so worried about cleaning up. “What about Rock’s clothing? Did they find any of Abramowitz’s blood on his stuff?”

  “Now that’s one of our few breaks. Rock’s clothes appear to be missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Rock was wearing a fresh T-shirt and a pair of jeans when the cops picked him up. They went through his laundry basket and found no shortage of soiled shirts, but not a single one with blood on it.”

  “So Rock didn’t do it.”

  “Or he thought quickly enough to get rid of a piece of incriminating evidence. He could have pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into a trash bin on Howard Street. But that’s for the prosecutors to wonder about, and prove.”

  Tess bent back over her work, uncomfortable with Tyner’s train of thought.

  Her notes now. Joey Dumbarton—a “good” witness, for Tyner could confuse him easily, especially after a few more interviews. Frank Miles—he would testify for the state, but Tess made a note of last night’s conversation. It wouldn’t hurt for Tyner to ask him about the mystery man, to plant in the jury’s mind the idea of an angry man, furious at being denied his money, enraged enough to kill for it.

  Of course, killing Abramowitz wouldn’t have accelerated the payment, quite the opposite. Who, besides Rock, had a motive for Abramowitz’s slaying? Tess stared out the window at the tiny park in the shade of the Washington Monument. Ava might. Her sexual harassment claim, which couldn’t be refuted now, may have boosted her bargaining power with the firm. She could have held them up for money, or for unlimited chances at the bar exam. Then again, she had recanted her story awfully fast. Perhaps she had been counting on Abramowitz to pay her off to keep her from telling the other partners? His private practice was thought to have been a lucrative one, and his estate should be entitled to some of the profits the Triple O made this year, up until his death.

  “Hey, did he leave a will?”

  “Abramowitz? No, surprisingly. Or perhaps not so surprisingly. Some doctors don’t get physicals; some lawyers put off writing their wills. He left a sizable est
ate—almost one million dollars in investments and real estate—but he has no living relatives. It’s in probate at orphan’s court, where all estates go when there are no wills.”

  “Is that what orphan’s court is for? It always sounded to me like something out of Dickens, a place where orphans were auctioned off to pay their parents’ debt. Perhaps I should feel sorry for Abramowitz, the poor little orphan with no one to leave his millions.”

  “When we get through with Abramowitz in court, the one thing I can guarantee you is that no one will feel sorry for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s simple. We’re going to try the victim. An ugly strategy, but an effective one. If you can convince a jury someone deserved to die, the jury might acquit. It’s not supposed to work that way, yet it does.”

  Tess lowered her eyes, and the reports in front of her blurred and shimmied. She wasn’t naive; she knew a legal defense had little to do with innocence. It was a game. The state had to prove its case, and if it failed then one was “not guilty.” Not too long ago, a man on Death Row had been released when DNA testing proved he had not raped a little girl who was murdered. “He’s not guilty,” the prosecutor said, “but I’m not ready to say he’s innocent.” Tyner was accustomed to those semantic realities. Tess wanted to be able to declare, with all her heart, that Rock was innocent. For only Rock’s innocence could establish her own.