Butchers Hill

by Laura Lippman

  The policewoman had a large diaper bag, packed and ready to go. Apparently she had been able to find the clothes that had eluded Tess. But Tess still wasn't ready to admit she could be more competent than she.

  "What are you going to do with her?"

  "We'll put her in a temporary placement tonight, then figure out if one of her family members can take her in."

  Tess thought of what she knew of Keisha's family—the addict Tonya, the never-seen sister-in-law who had dumped her children on Keisha as the mood struck her.

  "And if they can't?"

  "She'll stay in foster care. Don't worry, we know how to do this."

  "Jesus, it's like there's a procedure or something."

  "There is, Tess." Tull's voice sounded like the old Tull, the one who was her friend. "You think this little girl is the first baby in Baltimore to have her parents murdered?"

  "No, I guess not." With that, Tess reluctantly passed the baby to the policewoman. Laylah slept through the exchange, never opened her eyes through what might be the most momentous event in her young life. Everything that would happen to her would come back to this night, to the decisions made here. What would she think, when she woke up in a strange place, with strange faces all around? How much did babies know, what did they remember? Would she wait one day for her mother to come find her? Was Jackie's daughter waiting for her, did she have some primal memory imprinted upon her that could never be erased? Tess tried to imagine her life without Judith. Infuriating, maddening, critical, wonderful Judith, the eternal martyr. And there was no Judith without Gramma Weinstein.

  "Let me give you and your dog a ride home," Tull urged. "It's dark now, I don't like to think of you walking back to Butchers Hill by yourself."

  "Esskay looks scary. No one will bother us." Tess felt as inept as Tull, incapable of allowing him to show her any kindness. If he hadn't made that crack about Treasure Teeter, she might have been inclined to take the ride, to make a move toward making up. But he was the one who had asked if she was ready to come over to his side, the clear implication being that his side was right, and hers was wrong.

  "Well—call my pager when you get there."

  "Okay," she said, softening a little. "Is there any way I can check up on Laylah?"

  "Laylah?"

  "The baby."

  "I'll keep tabs for you, follow up with Social Services, how about that?"

  "Okay, I guess. But what if she has to go into foster care? What will happen to her then?"

  "I don't know, Tess. I just don't know."

  "Yeah."

  "I hate to tell you how many guys would have killed the baby, too, just for the hell of it. These guys were pros at least. That little girl is lucky."

  "Sure. She's poor, she's an orphan, and she's about to go into the same system where her brother died. How lucky can you get?"

  Two blocks from Keisha Moore's house, Tess began to regret turning down Tull's offer to drive her home. It was past nine now, and Fayette was emptier than she had thought. She picked up the pace, and Esskay trotted happily beside her, always glad for an outing. Tess listened to their footsteps—the dog's light clatter, like castanets, the slightly heavier tone of her nubuck loafers. She thought she heard another set of footsteps in just the same cadence, but one tone deeper, suggesting bigger, heavier shoes.

  She stopped. Nothing. Probably just the echo of her own steps.

  She started again, stopped again. The noise stopped with her. If someone was following her, the person was swallowed up in the shadows behind her, perhaps crouching behind a stoop right now, and or in the alley she had just passed.

  "I have a gun," she announced to the night air, to the seemingly empty street.

  Good for you, the night and the street seemed to respond. But no one else had anything to say.

  Had someone watched Keisha Moore walk this same route last week? She would have been hard to miss, in her red and green outfit and strappy red heels, not quite the same color as her blouse, but close enough. And the bright yellow bag, so awful it was fabulous. What had she carried in that big pocketbook? Obviously not money, and probably not something worth much money, if she was trying to shake Tess down for $119. What had Keisha Moore known? What did she have in common with Treasure Teeter, other than the fact she had talked to Tess?

  Sometimes your own mind manages to give you a quick goose. Other than the fact that she had talked to Tess. She had talked to three people in connection with Luther Beale's case, and two of them were dead. At least two of them.

  She started to run then, not bothering to listen for footsteps, ran as if her life depended on it, and if it didn't, perhaps another life did. With Esskay setting the pace, they didn't slow down until she reached her own block in Butchers Hill.

  She looked behind her one more time, gun drawn, then felt silly. No one was there. She let herself inside the office, wishing she could simply stick her head in a bowl of water as Esskay did. Instead, she sat at her desk and tried to catch her breath. When she had stopped panting, she dialed the number for the Penfield School.

  "Is Sal Hawkings there?"

  "Who's calling?"

  "Tess Monaghan."

  "Ma'am, we don't allow our boys to take calls this late unless it's urgent. And we have strict instructions not to take calls from you at all."

  "Yes, from Chase Pearson. Look, I don't want to talk to Sal, I just want to know if he's okay, if he's accounted for."

  The voice sounded insulted. "Of course he is. We are not in the habit—"

  "Would you just please fucking check or I'm going to call Baltimore County police and report him missing."

  There was a long silence. Tess would have thought the phone had been disconnected, except for the series of clicks in the background, possibly an old-fashioned intercom system, and some murmured voices. Finally, someone came back on the line. It was a different voice, a familiar voice.

  "Sal is fine," Chase Pearson assured her. "Is there some reason he shouldn't be, Miss Monaghan?"

  "Donnie Moore's mother was killed tonight."

  A pause, as if Chase Pearson couldn't quite remember who Donnie Moore was. "I'm sorry, but Donnie's mother always did keep bad company, didn't she? As I recall, that's how her son ended up in foster care in the first place. What could this have to do with Sal?"

  "I don't know he—" But Tess decided not to share the news of Sal's visit with Pearson. "I don't know, I panicked, I guess."

  "Indeed."

  "Are you usually at the school, Mr. Pearson?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean. I'm an alum, I have my ward here, I sit on the board—"

  "I mean, are you usually at the school past nine o'clock on a Monday night?"

  "I was at a country club function in Phoenix and thought I'd drop by."

  A function. Whatever she did with her life, Tess hoped it wouldn't take her in the direction of attending any social event so dreary it had to be called a function. "You're worried about Sal, too, aren't you, Mr. Pearson? You're worried that the person who killed Destiny and Treasure may come for him, and you're staying close by."

  "Miss Monaghan, everyone in Baltimore knows who killed the Teeter twins. It's only a matter of time before police find a way to charge him with the crime. Until that time, yes, I am worried about Sal. It will be harder for Luther Beale to get to him, but not impossible. He's proven to be quite a shrewd man, hasn't he?"

  "If Luther Beale didn't kill the Teeter twins, then someone else is coming for Sal, Mr. Pearson, someone infinitely more dangeous because you're not looking for him."

  "Why would anyone besides Luther Beale have murdered those poor children?"

  "Because they know something. They saw someone the night Donnie Moore was killed. Perhaps it was a drug dealer who threatened Sal and the others if they testified, and they gave him their promise of silence. But if they made such a promise, it's obviously no longer good enough. With Luther Beale out of jail and determined to prove his innocence, the real killer has
to get to the only witnesses before he can."

  "Miss Monaghan, do you listen to talk radio?"

  The question caught her off-guard. "Yes, sometimes. But I don't see—"

  "I thought so," Pearson said, his voice edged in disdain. "You sound just like one of the paranoid types who call those shows." And with that, he hung up.

  Chapter 23

  A week went by, a week in which nothing happened. Oh, the sun came up and the sun went down, Tess went through her daily workouts and Kitty finally dumped Will Elam, which provided about five minutes of drama. He cried, he said he would never forget her, he tried to steal her first edition of Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life and Esskay nipped him on the ankle. Luther Beale stayed out of jail, and no one else died—at least, no one that could be linked to Tess. Inertia was too strong a word to describe the state she was in. All was waiting. Every time the phone rang, she assumed it would be the announcement of Sal Hawkings's death, or perhaps the discovery of Eldon Kane's body, bobbing to the surface in the harbor or turning up beneath the ice skating rink in Patterson Park.

  But when the phone finally did ring, it was Uncle Donald, summoning her and Jackie to his office, a week to the day after their meeting with Mr. Mole.

  "It has to be good news, don't you think?" Jackie asked, as they waited in the lobby of DHR, maybe ten feet from where the Hutzler's cosmetics counter used to stand.

  Tess, who was beginning to buy into the no-news-is-good-news concept, tried to look optimistic. "Well, it's too soon to throw in the towel."

  "That's exactly what I was thinking." Jackie was almost bubbling over in her excitement. "It's like when you ask for a shoe in a certain size. The longer they stay in the back room, the greater the likelihood they don't have it at all. But if they get right back to you, they always have a box in hand. Not that I'm comparing my daughter to a shoe. But you know what I mean."

  Tess rubbed her forehead. She had a killer headache, right at the bridge of her nose, sinuses most likely. And although she didn't want to rain on Jackie's parade, much about this hastily called meeting bothered her. The arrangement with Mr. Mole had been covert and unofficial. So why were they inside the agency, waiting to be summoned to the office of the general counsel? Uncle Donald had been strangely terse on the phone, choosing his words carefully. Tess had the distinct impression that someone was monitoring the call. They had broken the law. Maybe they were going to be reprimanded and interrogated until they gave up Mr. Mole.

  One of the three elevators opened and a stout, middle-aged woman beckoned to them. "They're ready for you."

  "They? How many people are we meeting with?" Tess asked, as the elevator climbed to the tenth floor.

  "Just the general counsel, the head of the Social Services Administration, your uncle, and some private attorney, David Edelman."

  "Why is there a private attorney involved?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," the woman said placidly. She was short, with a broad chest that reminded Tess of a pigeon. The woman even had something of the same dim, self-satisfied air that such birds had. "I didn't keep my job here for almost twenty-five years by asking about things that were none of my business. But they're agitated, I can tell you that. They've been dithering around all morning."

  This intelligence only made Tess more anxious, but Jackie was still obliviously blissful. Jackie was allowing herself to hope again, and she was almost giddy with expectation. And when they entered the general counsel's office, Tess felt her own spirits lift slightly. These folks may have been dithering all morning long, but they were nervous and deferential, as if Jackie had all the power in this equation. So why did Uncle Donald's spaniel brown eyes look so sorrowful?

  The general counsel was an Asian-American woman in her thirties, while the head of the Social Services Administration was a tall, thin black man. They looked at the private attorney, Edelman, as if to say, Who goes first here? He shook his head. Not me. Not us, they shook back.

  "Is anybody going to say anything?" Uncle Donald demanded. "For God's sake, I'll start. Jackie, you know how sometimes when you're looking for something, it's right under your nose?"

  She nodded, still beaming.

  "Okay, so you were looking for your daughter, but you assumed she had a different name and a new birth certificate, because that's what happens when a kid is adopted. But what if she wasn't adopted?"

  "I don't get what you mean," Jackie said, her joy ebbing away.

  "There was no birth certificate that could be traced back to your daughter. My…friend had the idea to run your name and your daughter's birth name through the files here, after he came up empty on the original search. The funny thing was, it kicked out, in no time flat. She was right here all along, Samantha King."

  "She was right where all along?"

  "She's in foster care," the general counsel said. "She's in the state's custody and has been for almost all of her life."

  "How can that be?" Tess could see all the emotions battling inside Jackie—the exultation at knowing her daughter had been found, her puzzlement that she was in foster care, her concern that there was another shoe yet to drop in this conversation. Tess shared the last feeling.

  "The adoption never happened," the general counsel said. "According to our records, Family Alternatives turned your daughter over to the state when she was fourteen months old. Whatever arrangements they made fell through, and they couldn't find another set of adoptive parents. So she went into foster care."

  "Is she okay? Can I see her? Is she in some group home, or living with a family?"

  "She's fine," David Edelman said. "She's doing great."

  Jackie turned to look at him. "What would you know about it?"

  "I'm her foster father."

  Awkward was inadequate to describe the silence in the room. Jackie and Edelman eyed each other. Edelman looked wary and defensive, while something hateful crept into Jackie's face.

  "You look like you're doing pretty well, in your nice suit and your Bally shoes," Jackie said at last. "Why do you have to take kids in for money?"

  "We didn't take Sam in for the money, we took her in because she needed a home. My wife and I wanted to adopt her, but we can't. Policy prohibits a white couple adopting a biracial baby in Baltimore city."

  "Policy does not prohibit it," the SSA director broke in. Robert Draper, according to the name plate on this desk. So this must be his office, even if he had given his desk chair to the general counsel. "Each jurisdiction is allowed to set its own standards on adoptions. In Baltimore City, the social workers elect to follow the recommendations of several prominent groups, that believe such placements are harmful to the child."

  Edelman glanced at the SSA director. "Fine, Robert. So do you want to explain how Samantha King ended up in permanent limbo in my home, or shall I?"

  Draper nodded stiffly, indicating Edelman should continue.

  "Did you ever hear of a lawsuit called LJ v. Massinga?" the lawyer asked Jackie and Tess. Jackie shook her head. Tess thought it sounded dimly familiar, or at least the name Massinga did.

  "Wasn't she the secretary of this agency at one point?"

  "Yes, more than a decade ago, when the foster care program was in a crisis state. Workers were juggling huge caseloads, there was virtually no oversight. It was a catastrophe. Social advocacy lawyers, working with private attorneys like myself, brought a class action lawsuit against the state on behalf of seven children, who had been taken from their own parents only to be placed in homes that were more abusive. LJ was a boy, the lead plaintiff."

  "Was my daughter one of the seven?"

  Edelman smiled at Jackie. "Sam was one of the lucky ones, actually. Not long after the suit was filed, I got a tip that an elderly couple had continued taking in children long past the point where they could really care for them. They had five kids in their house, three of them under the age of five. Sam didn't even have a separate bedroom, she was sleeping in the living room in a little nest of filthy blankets. It was a Frid
ay night, and I couldn't find any place to put her for the weekend, so I took her home. She's been there ever since."

  "Does she think of you as her parents?"

  Edelman was a lawyer, but he wasn't glib. He thought seriously about Jackie's question, taking it apart in his mind and examining each word. "We think of her as our daughter. She calls us Mom and Dad. But she's aware of not being related to us by blood."

  "Has she ever asked about me? About her mother, I mean?"

  Edelman shook his head. "It's always been assumed her mother was dead. That's why we find ourselves in this delicate situation."

  "What situation?"

  Again, that same nervous exchange of looks among Edelman and the other two. You tell. No, you. Again, Edelman was stuck with the short straw.

  "As Ms. Chu said, the state has official custody of Sam, but your parental rights were never terminated. You were thought to be dead and Sam's birth certificate listed no known father. But you're alive."

  "I knew that when I came in here," Jackie snapped. "What I don't know is what you're dancing around here."

  The general counsel sighed. "Samantha King is your daughter. You are within your rights to petition the Foster Care Review board to return her to you. Given the circumstances, there is nothing we can do to keep you from taking the girl from the Edelmans."

  Tess could see Jackie was at once attracted to this idea—and terrified of it. She could have her daughter back.

  "What does—" Apparently she wouldn't allow herself to say her daughter's name. "What does she want? Does she want to stay with you, or would she want to be with me?"

  "I wouldn't presume to speak for Sam. Her biological mother has always been an abstract idea to her, just a name, Susan King, nothing more. We tried to find her death certificate once, but when it didn't show up, we assumed she must have died somewhere outside of Maryland."

  "Then you're inept, as is the state," Tess broke in. "I found Susan King in less than three days. A Chicago Title search would have taken you right to her. You would have found the name change. You're a lawyer, you should have known that much."