"I'll go put the newspapers down," Tess said. "Should I tape them or just weigh them down with dishes?"
"Tape the first layer," Judith said, her words muffled by Patrick's shoulder. "Then spread another over the top, so we can gather them up as the tables get full and put them straight into the garbage bags."
Within an hour, the paper-covered picnic tables in the backyard were full and bits of crab shell flew through the air with each swing of a crab mallet. Even crab-aversant Tess couldn't help being impressed by the professional skills her relatives brought to the dismemberment of this non-kosher delicacy. Uncle Jules and Aunt Sylvie had special mallets, of course, wooden heads on sterling silver handles, their monogram engraved along the shaft. They were messy types, sacrificing large pieces of crab meat to greedy haste. Cousin Deborah was neat, but prone to tiny cuts along her manicured nails, painful when the Old Bay seasoning rubbed against them. Little Samuel sat between his grandparents, pounding on the table with his own monogrammed mallet, as if practicing for the day when he could eat more than Saltines and corn sliced from the cob.
Uncle Donald dissected his crab with a knife and was expert at extracting large pieces of back fin, the best part of the crab. But Gramma was the fastest, cleanest picker of all. She had once won a crab-picking contest for local celebrities, thirty years back, when the proprietess of Weinstein's was considered a certain local celebrity. She told the story at every family crab feast. She was telling it now.
"The second-place winner, the woman from the little ice cream store, what's her name, she wasn't even close. Her wrists were strong, from all those years of scooping, but her skin was soft, and she was squeamish." Gramma rotated her wrist, as if scooping something hard from a carton, chocolate chip or Rocky Road. "But that little ice cream business was bought out by Beatrice Foods last year, so I guess she had the last laugh. Her husband knew how to manage a business. She could afford to have soft hands."
Tess, munching unenthusiastically on her butter-and-guava jelly sandwich, studied her grandmother. She understood Gramma's bitterness now, these repeated jabs about Poppa's failures as a breadwinner. Gramma must have known, or guessed, of his betrayal. Then again, Gramma had always been a sour, unhappy person. There was no Jackie around in the early years, when she was monitoring Tess's time on the flying rabbit. Or was there? Was Jackie a one-time thing, or one in a string? She put down her sandwich, what little appetite she had gone.
She got it back quickly enough when she saw Aunt Sylvie bringing out her homemade German chocolate cake. Whatever her other failings, Aunt Sylvie made good cakes. Gramma was standing at the head of the table, tapping her fork on the side of her glass, while Samuel continued to pound at the table with his mallet. Gramma gave him a look. She didn't like to be upstaged, even by the two-year-old great-grandapple of her eye. Both lost their audience when a police car pulled up in the driveway.
"Someone probably complained about all the cars parked out front," Patrick grumbled, getting up to go to the gate.
But it was a county cop car, not a city one, and the two officers seemed tentative and embarrassed.
"Is there a Miss Tess Monaghan here?"
Everyone in the family turned to look at her, their eyes so accusing, so ready to believe the worst of her, that Tess felt just the tiniest bit affronted.
"That's me," she said, putting down the garbage bag of crab shells she had been tying up, brushing her hands off on her jeans.
"You don't have to say anything to them," her father assured her. "Let me go call our lawyer."
"You want I should call the chief of the state police, or Arnold Weiner even?" Uncle Donald asked. "I don't see how the county cops have jurisdiction here."
Penfield School is in Baltimore County's jurisdiction, Tess thought as she walked toward the gate, her mouth dry and ashy. If something had happened to Sal Hawkings, it would be county cops who would investigate, the county cops who would want to question her, the county cops who would want to know about Luther Beale's unvarying alibi.
"How can I help you, officers?"
"We found someone," said the taller cop, a strapping near-giant, his name plate at Tess's eye level. Officer Buske. With his broad chest and shiny black hair, he reminded Tess of the smiling boy in red-and-white checked overalls, hawking burgers at Shoney's Big Boys.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
The big cop, Buske, looked at her strangely. "Dead? He? No, it's a she and she says she's not going anywhere until she talks to you. We found her walking barefoot along the Hanover Pike, up toward the state line. She said she had been kidnapped, but she didn't want to press charges, that you would take care of it. She had your business card in her pocket. We took her down to your office, and when you weren't there, we went over to your apartment. Your aunt said we'd find you here." Buske suddenly blushed. "She sure is pretty, your aunt."
Tess couldn't help imagining this broad-shouldered lad sitting at the breakfast table, wearing the flannel robe that Kitty kept for all her gentlemen callers. Husky Buske.
"Back up a minute," she said. "You found who on the Hanover Pike? Some kidnap victim who wants to speak to me? This doesn't make any sense."
The smaller cop—actually, he was almost six feet, but Buske Big Boy dwarfed him—opened the back door of the patrol car and Willa Mott limped out, her bare feet as red as her perpetually stuffed-up nose, but much more painful looking.
"Willa?"
"I told them you'd take care of me," she said stiffly. "That you worked for my lawyer."
Tess decided to play along, even if she wasn't quite sure just what game was afoot. "Of course. Tyner will be so upset when he hears what happened. Your ex-husband again? Are you finally ready to press charges?"
"I think we should talk about this in private," she said, stumbling forward. Not only where her feet raw and swollen, but her ankles were criss-crossed with tiny scratches and insect bites.
The big cop lowered his voice. "Truthfully, ma'am, we think she ought to go in for psychiatric observation. She was muttering to beat the band the whole time she was riding around in the back seat, using every curse word in the book."
"She has problems, but she's okay as long as she takes her medication," Tess said. "It's the same old story. She starts feeling good, then decides she doesn't need to take the lithium any more. This happens every six months or so."
Willa glowered, but didn't dare contradict her. The officers retreated to the car somewhat reluctantly, called in on their radio, and backed out of the driveway about a minute later. As soon as they were out of sight, Willa turned to Tess.
"That crazy nigger bitch friend of yours did this to me," she screamed. Tess couldn't believe such a loud sound was coming out of mousy Willa Mott. "That crazy nigger bitch kidnapped me, took my shoes, and then put me out on the road in the middle of nowhere."
Tess glanced back at her family. Her mother looked stricken, as if she had always feared exactly this: some white cracker friend of Tess's crashing an otherwise pleasant family gathering, screaming expletives and epithets. Cousin Deborah leaned forward, a hint of delight in her shocked face, while Gramma merely looked impatient. Baby Samuel continued to pound on the table with his crab mallet. "C'azy nigga bit. C'azy nigga bit," he chanted happily.
Tess said the only thing that occurred to her. "Would you like to join us for dessert?"
Willa Mott passed on the cake, although she let Tess's father tend to her feet, whimpering as the hydrogen peroxide bubbled and hissed over her open wounds.
"That just means it's working," Patrick assured her.
"Now tell me what happened with Jackie," Tess said.
They were in the upstairs bathroom, away from the rest of the family, although Judith had insisted on being here, too. It was her house, after all. Willa sat on the closed toilet, Patrick at her feet, while Judith blocked the door. Tess was left with the rim of the tub, wedged in tight by Willa Mott's side, so she was facing her profile. Willa seemed to prefer it that way, makin
g eye contact with Patrick instead of Tess.
"About four-thirty today, after the last of the kids had been picked up, that nigger bitch pulled up in her fancy car, said she wanted to talk to me."
"Jackie," Tess corrected. "Her name is Jackie and if you keep calling her that, I'm going to smack you."
Willa shrugged, as if so much had happened to her today that one more smack wouldn't make a difference. "So then she says, she knows. She knows, and she's going to kill me if I don't give her what she wants."
"Knows what?"
Willa's voice was inaudible.
"Speak up, Willa."
"She knows I have the records from Family Alternatives, and she's going to kill me if I don't turn over her file."
Patrick and Judith were completely bewildered, but Tess had an instant image of Willa walking back and forth through her living room, her arms full of juice packs. The whole operation had taken much longer than it should have, but Tess had chalked it up to Willa's general ineptness.
But it was only after she had returned from the garage that she began to remember the details of Jackie's case. A quick peek at the records had probably done more to freshen her memory than all the twenties Tess had dropped in her lap.
"How did Jackie figure it out?"
Willa shrugged, indifferent. "I don't know. Something I said about the baby's father. Besides, I wasn't in a position to argue with her, the way she was yelling and threatening to kill me. So yeah, I had the records. So what? Those creeps I worked for left in the middle of the night, owing me two weeks' salary. I figured the files could be my severance."
"What good are adoption files for some defunct agency?"
"You think you're the first hot-shit investigator who's tracked me down, looking for one of the babies we placed?"
Yes, in fact, Tess had thought she was. "So you sell the information."
"Only after talking to the adoptive parents."
Now Tess was confused, but her father was nodding. He had seen his share of graft in his years as a city liquor board inspector, and he was a quick study when it came to such schemes. "A bidding war," Patrick explained to Tess and Judith. "She gives the adoptive parents a chance to pay more not to reveal the information. And the parents have to go on paying, right, because you can hold it over their heads forever."
"I never thought of that." Willa looked dejected, contemplating her lost blackmail opportunities. "I just charged them a flat fee of five thousand dollars. That's how I got the money to put down on my house, start my business. But it had been a long while since anyone had come around. Maybe I should have worked with some of those adoption rights groups, let them know what I had. But they would have shut me down."
Something didn't fit. Tess drummed her fingers on the tub's rim, trying to pinpoint what was wrong.
"Jackie's baby wasn't adopted. There were no parents to blackmail in her case. Why didn't you name your price and tell her that the baby had gone back into the system? Why didn't you tell her what we wanted to know when we first came out there?"
Willa lowered her eyes. "The people who took her baby and gave her back, their…privacy meant a lot to them. They wouldn't have wanted that crazy ni—that crazy bitch showing up at their house, asking questions, making a fuss."
Tess grabbed Willa's arm and shook it, quite roughly. "What did you tell Jackie?"
"I told her what she wanted to know." At her best, Willa Mott was plain and ordinary. Angry, her features seemed to shrink, until her eyes almost disappeared and her mouth was as small as a bug's. "I told her the name of the people who took her baby, the people who gave it back—when they found out it was half-nigger. You see, they paid for a white baby, and they said it wasn't enough if it looked white, it had to be white. The agency offered them a discount to keep it, but they said no way. I can't say as I blame them."
Tess leaned to the side until her right temple touched the cool black-and-white tile. It was a big bathroom, but it wasn't built for four people, and it suddenly seemed stiflingly close.
"You didn't tell Jackie that part, did you?"
"I had to tell her," Willa Mott whined. "I didn't have a choice."
"You could have lied, the way you did before. Why did you pick today to become so honest and aboveboard?"
"Because today is the day your fancy friend held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if I didn't tell her everything I knew."
"A gun? Where would Jackie get a gun?" Tess ran downstairs to the front door, where she had dropped her knapsack by the hall tree. Sure enough, her Smith and Wesson was gone. Jackie must have faked her headache, so she could sneak the gun out of Tess's bag and into her purse. She had been planning this all along, perhaps from the moment they had left the Edelmans'. Do you think there ever were any Johnsons who planned to name their baby Caitlin? I guess we'll never know.
"Where did Jackie go after she put you out of the car?" she asked Willa, a little breathless from taking the stairs so fast. "She went to the adoptive parents' house, didn't she? Where do they live? What are their names?"
Willa suddenly looked coy. "Why, I'm not sure I can remember, just like that. What's it worth to you to find that crazy nigger bitch?"
Tess backhanded her, and Willa's head snapped back, hitting the wall was a dull thud. It felt pretty good, probably better than it should have.
"Tess!" her mother shouted. "This is how you do business?" But her father looked impressed.
"You are through making money off your files, Willa Mott. Do you understand that?" Tess held her by the shoulders, the way someone might grip a sullen child, and shook her hard enough to make her head wobble on her skinny neck. "You are never going to sell another piece of information as long as you live. Now tell me what you told Jackie."
"Dr. and Mrs. Becker, Edgevale Road in Roland Park," Willa whimpered. "And that crazy—that woman already took my files anyway."
"So everything you told us was a fucking lie, wasn't it? The name, the location, what the adoptive father did for a living. You were making sure we never got close, so you could milk them instead."
Gramma picked this moment to come upstairs. "Aren't you done in here yet?" she demanded from the doorway. There hadn't been this many people in the Monaghan bathroom since a memorable high school party, in which Tess and her friends had discovered the mixed pleasures of mixed drinks. "You're holding everything up."
"This is kind of important," Tess said between gritted teeth, but too intimidated by her grandmother to just push past her and make a mad dash for her car. "People's lives may be at stake. There's a woman—Jacqueline Weir, you might remember her as Susan King. She worked for Poppa in the Fells Point store, and she's about to make the biggest mistake of her life."
She couldn't help it, she was curious to see what her grandmother's face would reveal, curious to see how she would react to the name. But Gramma looked unimpressed.
"That troublemaker? Wouldn't you know she'd pop up again just now, when there's money to be made. She always did have a nose for money. Well you tell her that she's not getting another penny, you tell her that. Nothing's changed."
Pop up again? "What do you mean, Gramma? When did Jackie—Susan—pop up before?"
"Oh, she came around ten or twelve years ago, asking Samuel for money for college, but I put my foot down. So he got her pregnant, the stupid man, and had to give her money for an abortion. You think someone who owned a drugstore might have had the means to prevent such a thing, might have taken the time to sell himself a prophylactic kit. But he didn't and he had to pay. I accepted that. Once. Were we to pay for his stupidity for the rest of our lives? When she asked for help again, I told Samuel it was out of the question. Otherwise, she'd never be out of our lives. Now you tell me she's back. I can't say I'm surprised. I wonder how she heard about the land sale?"
"You knew? You knew all this time?"
"Of course I knew. Your grandfather could never hide anything from me. Believe me, he didn't stray again. As I reminded him, Ma
ryland is a community property state. First he was too rich to leave me, and then he was too poor. What's half of nothing?"
"Knew what?" Judith asked. "Who's Susan King? Will someone please tell me what's going on?"
"I'd tell you, Mom, but I have to go stop a woman from committing her second felony of the day," Tess said. "Let Gramma explain it all to you. Besides, she's known about it much longer than I have."
"There's nothing to explain," Gramma said, with a wave of her hand that suggested the past was an inconvenience—a fly to be swatted, a smear on a window pane that could be erased with a quick shot of Windex.
"There's a lifetime to explain," Judith said. "A lifetime of secrets and lies, and I'm sick of it. You're not going anywhere, Theresa Esther Monaghan, until you tell me everything."
Tess grabbed her mother's hand. "I'll tell you what I know in the car, if you insist. But I should warn you I'm going to be driving just a little bit above the speed limit."
Chapter 26
Tess's driving proved to be the least of Judith's concerns, even as Tess ran every amber and not a few reds on the way to Roland Park.
"So this woman, this client of yours, she's…connected to Poppa?" Judith asked tentatively. "And Mama knew, she knew all this time, and never told any of us?"
The sign at the intersection said no right on red, but Tess thought it surely couldn't apply to her. After a quick glance to make sure no cops were around, she tore around the corner.
"She didn't know Jackie put the baby up for adoption, because Poppa didn't know the baby was ever born. Jackie told him she was going to get an abortion, and kept the money. She told me when she asked for his help with college, he said the business was too shaky for him to help her. But I guess he couldn't squeeze that much cash out without going to Gramma, and she put her foot down."
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