No Good Deeds

by Laura Lippman

  "No." Listened to his voice mail less than an hour ago, but not spoken to him.

  "Heard from him?"

  "He left a message, said he was safe."

  "Safe?" Shit. "Unusual choice of words, don't you think? Why wouldn't he be safe?"

  "It's what he said. I didn't think about it."

  "Safe," Jenkins repeated. "Safe. Is it dangerous, what he does?"

  "I don't really know."

  "Of course, he's got five thousand in cash on him, so maybe that's why he's worried. See, the deposit was for a hundred and fifty K, less five thousand."

  Five thousand? Five thousand dollars? Crow didn't have enough money to fix the muffler on his Volvo.

  "You and your boyfriend ever use illegal drugs?"

  Tess glanced at Tyner. "She doesn't have to answer that question. Self-incrimination."

  "Okay, your boyfriend ever use illegal drugs?"

  Tess sat, stony-faced.

  "Your boyfriend dealing in illegal drugs? Because I have to tell you, that's the only thing that makes sense. The cash, the road trip. I bet he deals out of your daddy's bar. Lord knows that business needs all the help it can get, too."

  "He would never do that."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "I know him."

  "Yet you didn't know he had all this money."

  "I never said that."

  "Did you? Did you know?"

  Again there was the not-lying problem. The federal rules seemed so unsporting. "His parents are very well-to-do."

  "I guess we'll have to put them on our list."

  "List?" She hated the way her voice squeaked, making the word two syllables.

  "Yeah. We've already started checking into your finances, your father's. I mean, when there's a drug dealer in the family, who knows how far it goes?"

  "You keep saying that as if you've established the fact." Tyner spoke, as Tess was having trouble with complete sentences. "I know the young man. He is not a drug dealer."

  "We think he is."

  "Based on?"

  "Information that we've gathered."

  Tess's mind felt as if it might split in two. One part was stuck on this stupid accusation, trying to shoo it away, but wondering maybe, what if, did he…? The other part was trying to be heard over these shrill fears, signaling to her urgently. You can't lie to them, but / You can't lie to them, but / You can't lie to them, but…

  They can lie to you.

  "It's illegal for me to tell you anything that I know to be untrue, right?"

  "Yes," Jenkins said, leaning forward on the table, hands clasped as if in prayer. So friendly, so kind, so inviting.

  "Then why is it legal for you to lie?"

  Jenkins's mask of collegiality slipped then. Just for a moment, but Tess saw the angry man behind the warm and fuzzy façade. "We haven't said anything that's demonstrably untrue," he said.

  "But you can, right? You can say anything you want to get me to talk, but if I say the least little thing wrong, you'll pounce on me. It hardly seems fair. If you've got proof my boyfriend is a drug dealer, then show me. Get a warrant to search my house." She remembered belatedly the phone buried beneath her dirty underwear, as well as the minuscule amount of marijuana concealed in her unicorn box, and regretted the offer, but there was no turning back. She was on a roll. "Show one iota of evidence that he's done anything but turn up with a lot of money in his checking account. If he deposited it in one lump sum, the bank has to report it, right? Hardly seems like the work of a criminal mastermind trying to launder money. And where did the funds come from anyway?"

  "That's for us to know," said the young prosecutor, sounding for all the world like a peevish eight-year-old. He might as well have added, "and for you to find out."

  "You don't have anything," Tess said. "You're just bullies."

  Collins stiffened, the first time Tess had seen him show any unwilled reaction. Gabe Dalesio looked as if he wanted to fling himself on the ground and drum his heels until Tess did or said whatever he wanted.

  Jenkins, however, was back to playing nice.

  "Look, I have a daughter about your age. I know how things happen. You meet a fellow, you're in love, you don't look too closely or ask too many questions. You know what I mean? Or there are those girls, the ones who get, like, life sentences in federal prison because they took a bag on the train to New York, no questions asked, and it turned out to be heroin. I'd hate to see that happen to you."

  Tess widened her eyes, so ingenuous as to be disingenuous. "What's her name?"

  "What?"

  "Your daughter."

  He paused just a beat. "Marie."

  "You got a photograph of her?"

  "What?"

  "Your daughter. I figure you must have one, you being so loving and all. So concerned."

  Jenkins leaned back, no longer making a pretense of affection and concern. "Okay, so I got two sons. But we're not talking about me. Where the hell is your boyfriend?"

  "I don't know," Tess said, never happier to be ignorant. "I just don't know."

  They kept her for another hour, then released her, reminding her that she was making a grave mistake, that she should demand Crow's whereabouts the next time he checked in, that they were far from finished prying into her life. In front of them, she was at once blithe and resolute, but she began sagging as soon as she got into the elevator and felt strangely dizzy by the time she and Tyner reached the street level.

  "Are they lying?" she asked Tyner as they made their way into the parking garage, where homeless men slept on the steaming grates. "Could Crow really have this kind of money?"

  "I don't know, but it would shed some light on his happy-go-lucky nature. Easy to be a blithe spirit when you don't have to worry about making a living."

  "He was stone-cold broke when I found him in Texas. He's always refused his parents' attempts to help him out. Where does he suddenly come up with a hundred fifty grand? And why would he keep it secret from me?"

  "You can ask him when he calls," Tyner said. "But just remember—anything you know, these guys will make you tell eventually. I wouldn't ask any question just now if I wasn't sure of the answer."

  Ed made Crow and Lloyd wait until after dinner to test the bumper cars, delivering a rather ponderous lecture about how they worked. And while Lloyd took great pleasure in ramming Crow's car from every angle, Ed delighted in gliding around and away from them, demonstrating a level of control that would do a NASCAR driver proud. "Try to catch me," he yelled over his shoulder, and the younger men happily gave chase, futile as it proved to be. At one point Lloyd even demonstrated with an unmanned car exactly how the accident with Mr. Parrish had happened, and Crow could see that it had indeed been Mr. Parrish's fault.

  He knew he would sleep particularly well that night, and Lloyd didn't even complain about the cool, salt-laden breeze that came in through the open window. Sleeping with the windows open had been an ongoing contest between them since they first arrived.

  "Crow?" Lloyd said, his voice drowsy.

  "Yes?"

  "What we gonna do tomorrow night?"

  It was almost eleven when Tess, just on the edge of sleep, heard her laundry hamper ringing. She could have reached the phone before it switched into voice mail, but she didn't even try. She lay in bed, listening to the burst of music, one of the few classical airs she recognized, the beginning of Madama Butterfly. Had Crow programmed that into the phone for her before he slipped it into the FedEx pouch? Puccini gave way to the double beep indicating that a message had been left. She got up then, but not to retrieve the phone. Suddenly wide awake, she decided she would need a hit of pot to recapture the unconsciousness that had been so close just a few minutes earlier.

  Do you or your boyfriend use illegal drugs? You betcha, Mr. FBI man. Especially now that you showed up in my life.

  The unicorn box was gone. Had Crow taken it in anticipation that the house might be searched? Where did Crow buy the little bits of pot he
brought into the house anyway? Where was Crow? Who was Crow? She had met his parents, seen the house where he had grown up. He was no drug dealer. If he were one, he'd be the world's worst, extending credit to junkies, declining to maximize profits by cutting the purity of what he sold. Where had the money come from? Why had it popped up in his account on the very day he ran away? Was Crow with Lloyd, truly?

  The only thing worse than having so many questions about the man she loved was being afraid of the answers. Not so much because she feared that Crow had done something nefarious, but because Tyner was right: Knowledge was dangerous in this case. The three caballeros were going to come back to her, again and again. Right now the only thing Tess had going for her was ignorance. For Crow's own good, she should avoid speaking to him directly. She wasn't even sure she should listen to the voice mail he had left.

  But in the end she could not maintain her resolve that strictly. She pulled the cell from her laundry hamper and, after a few fumbling missteps, retrieved the new message.

  "I miss you," a familiar voice said. "I love you. Call me on this number when you get a chance."

  She meant to press 2 to save it, but she hit 3 instead, erasing it forever.

  Check yes or no. Wasn't there a country song by that title a few years back? Not that Gabe listened to that shit, but that lyric had somehow wormed its way into his consciousness, one of those songs you want to forget but can't. Check yes or no. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, another country song. My wife ran away with my best friend, and I sure miss him. Okay, he watched CMT sometimes late at night when he couldn't sleep. So sue him. He liked the female singers, that kind of big-hair denim-and-lace femininity—like Jersey girls but softer, more pliant. Better than counting sheep and quicker, too, because it just took one. Robert Bork laws be damned, Gabe wasn't going to have a pay-per-view porn bill come back to haunt him. Besides, who needed porn when regular cable went as far as it did? Proud to be an American, yes siree, because at least I can say that I'm free—free to have my mortgage application pulled, along with tax returns for the past five years, and never be the wiser for it.

  Gabe was back in his office, his real one, not the fake-o one they had used to interview the Monaghan woman. He had thought that was pretty sly on Jenkins's part, taking her to the offices that theU.S. attorney had so recently vacated for this plusher joint across the street. The courthouse had an ominous vibe after hours, a real ghost-town feel. Plus, it meant no snooping colleagues would see what they were up to. But he could do the paperwork at his own desk late into the night, and no one would ever notice. It was going on 1:00 A.M., and here was the bull's-eye, all he needed.

  Gabe found it ironic, the ultimate proof that what you didn't know could hurt you. People were running around, all steamed because the Patriot Act let authorities examine one's fuckin' library records, and they had no clue what the government already had the power to do. Of course Gabe was for the Patriot Act. It was an essential tool. It didn't go far enough, to his liking. That civil-liberties crap killed him. He wouldn't blink an eye if someone wanted to open up his life. He had nothing to hide. But he didn't need the Patriot Act for most of the penny-ante idiocy he pursued, not even in this chick's case.

  The boyfriend's cash had been interesting, but it hadn't done the job, had it? He had tried to tell Jenkins and Collins that was the risk of jumping on it so fast. They should have let him find something else before they threw that one at her, but they were so impatient. They had stretched and come up empty. If they had waited just a few more hours, he could have delivered this whammy to them. They called it the head shot. Once you had this on a person, they had no wiggle room. He was still going to go through the dad's files, because bars were such sleaze magnets, but it was all gravy now. He had her. Pops was going to be the bonus.

  Gabe had wanted to go after the reporters, too, but Jenkins had shot him down. At first, Gabe didn't see why. The state shield laws didn't apply in federal cases. And the press had no public support these days anyway. The reporters would probably fold in a second. But Jenkins had been adamant, said going after the newspaper would tip their hand. He was probably right. The too-many-cooks approach had spoiled this broth in the beginning. They needed to keep things close, keep the team lean and mean.

  Gabe looked at his notations again. So simple, so lethal. A photocopy of a form that thousands of people filled out every day. Three checks—one from her father, two from her. Put it all together and it added up to thirty years in the federal system.

  SATURDAY

  22

  "Salisbury?" Lloyd said, making a face. "You taking me to a club in Salisbury?"

  "Where did you think we were going to go?"

  "I dunno. Philly. Wilmington, even. A city."

  "Salisbury's a city."

  "Sh-it."

  They were driving along U.S. 50, the route they had taken east three days earlier, which now felt like a lifetime ago. It was the weekend of daylight savings time, so what was today's nine o'clock would be tomorrow's ten o'clock. The sky was inky black, with just a few stars poking through, like rips in a scrim. Crow enjoyed the quiet and the darkness, which reminded him of the countryside close to his hometown of Charlottesville. But Lloyd was too busy pouting about their destination to notice the world around him.

  "A club?" Ed Keyes had echoed when Crow consulted him, scratching his red-stubbled chin. "I might could get you in my VFW lodge, although I don't think they allow minors."

  "You belong to the Veterans of Foreign Wars?"

  "Vietnam," he said. "I only joined to get access to the lodge parking lot. It's near a good clamming spot, but you can't park there unless you're a member. They tow."

  "Lloyd wants to go hear music, be around people his own age."

  "Shit, I don't know. Ask the cashier over to the Shore Farms. I think she's got family down there."

  The bright-eyed young woman did know of a club, which she described in rushed, excited tones, clearly hopeful of an invitation. Crow felt almost guilty not taking her elaborate hints, but it would have complicated things, getting too close to anyone over here.

  The club, such as it was, was in an abandoned bank in downtown Salisbury. From the outside there was little sign of the activity that marked the hot Baltimore clubs—a valet parker for the high-end SUVs, dolled-up women teetering on their high heels, the occasional gunshot—but the Shore Farms cashier had sworn by the place.

  "Doesn't look like much," said Lloyd, every inch the world-weary connoisseur. But how much experience could he really have in clubland? He wasn't of legal age, and he wasn't someone who could pass for older than he was, even with the best fake ID. They wouldn't have been able to come here if it weren't for the fact that it was "Teen Night," an alcohol-free evening for the high school set.

  Lloyd pimp-walked toward the door, determined to be unimpressed. But when the second set of doors opened, revealing a packed room of girls in filmy tops and tight jeans dancing to a hooky hip-hop song that Crow recognized from listening to WERQ, Lloyd couldn't help smiling just a little. 'Twill do, his expression seemed to indicate, 'twill do.

  "Sorry." A bouncer's thick arm came down, a swift and certain barrier, blocking Crow from the club.

  "But I'm with him."

  "Teen Night," the man said. "No one over nineteen admitted."

  "But—"

  "You can come back and pick up your…son at midnight."

  "Today's midnight or tomorrow's midnight?" Crow asked.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Look, I need to keep a watch on my friend. I promised his, um, people that I wouldn't let him out of my sight."

  "He somebody?" Asked with 90 percent skepticism, 10 percent hope. Lloyd could be some on-the-rise rapper, up from Atlanta, passing through.

  "You could say that." Crow tried to load his voice with subtle insinuation, as if anyone who was anyone would recognize the young man who had just entered the club.

  "And you're, what? Like his bodyguard?"
r />   Crow gave the slightest of nods. It was true, in a fashion.

  "Tough shit," the bouncer decreed, folding his arms across his chest. "See you at midnight. Tonight's midnight."

  Crow waved frantically at Lloyd, who was disappearing into a group of teenage girls, but he paid no attention. Crow would simply have to sit outside the club for the next three hours. Ah, well, it was an opportunity to find a convenience store, pick up new phones. He wondered why Tess hadn't called as instructed or at least left a message. Maybe he had chosen a provider that didn't work too well in her area. He'd try a new one this time. It was strange, not speaking to Tess directly for almost a week. She must be up to her eyeballs in work. Shit—the Ellen Mars case. He had forgotten that he was supposed to help Tess with that. But she had to understand that nothing was as urgent as keeping Lloyd safe.

  While part of Lloyd felt superior to the teenagers dancing to what was an outmoded song back in Baltimore, a tired old thing that had been at the height of its popularity last fall, the girls were as pretty as any he'd seen back home. A stranger in their midst, he wasn't getting much play, but when he started cutting up, doing his trademark comic moves, they began to notice him. He set his sights on a dark-skinned shorty with processed hair and a juicy body. She didn't seem to be with anyone in particular, and she let him dance closer and closer to her. Now he had her eye, and she was smiling at him, matching her moves to his. He was smoothing it out now, toning it down so he looked serious about what he was doing but keeping his face clownish because she seemed to respond to that.

  Thing was, he didn't have anything to tempt her with. Crow had paid his admission fee but neglected to give him any spending money, and he didn't want to go in search of him now to ask. That would be weak. He didn't have a car he could take her to, although he could always get one. That's why he had started learning to steal cars in the first place, to impress girls. But that would probably be a bad idea here. Country police didn't have enough work to fill their days. And the cracker types around here would probably come down hard on his black ass. No, he couldn't invite her outside for a ride.