The Last Place

by Laura Lippman

  “A morbid image.”

  “That line always makes me think about a song we sang as kids. ”Did you ever think when a hearse goes by, that one of these days you’re going to die?“ There’s some line about the worms playing pinochle in your snout. Now there’s an image.”

  Dr. Armistead laughed, which pleased her in some way she didn’t fully understand. “I must say you have a broad frame of references. From the Civil War to Andrew Marvell to pinochle-playing worms. But we’re back where we started.”

  “Which is?”

  “In the grave, which is a fine and private place. Like it or not, Tess, you are going to die. Everyone does.”

  “So far. But I hear they’re working on some solutions to that problem over at Johns Hopkins.”

  Was it a coincidence that the old nightmare returned that night? Tess thought not. She opened the French doors off her bedroom and crept out onto the deck. In her perpetually-under-renovation bungalow, this deck was one of the few finished spaces. Damn Dr. Armistead and all his talk of death. Damn her, for hanging out in graveyards and battlefields, thinking about death. Jonathan Ross had been buried more than two years ago, and it had been a year since she had this nightmare, the one in which she watched him die again and again.

  The April night was cool, and she wore nothing but a thin cotton robe, but it felt good, clearing her head. She leaned on the railing, looked out into the darkness that was Stony Run Park. There was light at the edges of the view—streetlamps from the major streets to the north and the south. But here, with the neighbors’ houses dark, it was inky black and quiet.

  Jonathan had not been her boyfriend, not by the time he was killed. They were something much less and something much more. They had been each other’s first post-college relationship, which had allowed them to mistake one another for adults. They became each other’s benchmarks, former lovers who gauged their progress through life by the other’s achievements. Jonathan had been far ahead of her when he died, a rising star at the newspaper. He was killed for a secret he had not yet uncovered, a secret that fell to Tess to divine and keep. Tess, without a newspaper in which to publish her suspicions, had not been important enough to kill.

  Or so Luisa O’Neal had told her at the time.

  Was Jonathan’s death the catalyst that had changed her life? Tess could never decide. She had been a failure when he died, essentially jobless and loveless. Now she owned her own business and her own house—a house where the world’s best boyfriend was now sleeping. Her adventure with Mickey Pechter had put all those things at risk. She pulled the robe tighter around her shoulders.

  “If you could see me now,” she whispered to the night sky. “I’m doing really good.”

  Then she thought of her case, how she must report to the board before the end of the week and how little she had to tell them, how far she was from developing any information that would help them lobby for new funds.

  “Well, pretty good,” she amended.

  Tess could not leave bed for more than five minutes before Crow awoke as well. He said the temperature dropped when she slipped away, but she thought the real story was that the greyhound sneaked into her spot, and Esskay’s horrible fishy breath would rouse the soundest sleeper.

  “You haven’t had insomnia for a long, long time,” he said, coming out on the porch. He was bare-chested, nothing but baggy sweats hanging on his long lean frame. She knew that men like Crow often fattened up in middle age, but it was impossible to imagine an extra pound on him. Impossible to imagine him in middle age.

  “I had a bad dream.”

  “The usual?”

  Crow knew all about Jonathan Ross, but he begrudged her no memory, which was more than she could say for herself. For a young man inclined toward monogamy, Crow had been awfully generous with his charms before they hooked up.

  Still, she didn’t want to tell him the truth, for fear he would want to talk about it. And talking about it was only going to make the nightmare recur.

  “No, no,” she lied. “One of the flailing dreams.”

  “Who was the target this time?”

  The first lie had seemed acceptable, compounding it with a second did not. So she tried to get back on honest territory by remembering the last flailing dream she had had.

  “My parents. Of course. It’s almost always my parents.”

  “Never me?”

  “Never.”

  “Would you tell me if it was?”

  “Probably not.”

  They laughed, Tess out of relief that she had come full circle, out of a lie and into the full truth. She had never had one of her flailing dreams with Crow. And if she did, she probably wouldn’t tell him. Those dreams were as disturbing, in some ways more disturbing, as the reruns of Jonathan’s death. In them, she windmilled her arms helplessly, crying hysterically, trying to get someone to listen to her. But her blows were puny, weak, ineffectual. And the object of her assault walked away, unimpressed. Clearly, it would make great material for Dr. Armistead. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk about it with him.

  “Hey,” she said, intent on changing the subject. “Did we make love tonight?”

  “You can’t remember? Well, there’s a boost for my self-esteem.”

  “My head is kind of fuzzed. Too much work, too much analysis.”

  “I was at the club late, and you were asleep by the time I got home.”

  “Right.” He was responsible for booking the musical acts that played at her father’s bar on Franklintown Road. This did not make their schedules very compatible, but Tess considered this a good thing. They were less likely to take each other for granted. And if they ever did, he had a scar on his abdomen to remind them how foolhardy that could be. She had almost lost him, too. She was a regular black widow, come to think of it.

  “So let’s,” she said.

  “Okay.” He stood up to go inside.

  “No.” She took off her robe and spread it on the deck like a blanket. “Here.”

  He looked at once surprised and amused. Crow was usually the one who pushed for innovation, while Tess was inclined toward a series of greatest hits.

  “The neighbors might hear us,” he pointed out.

  “Only if you do it right.”

  He leaves when they start making love. He doesn’t need to see that or even hear it. Which isn’t to say he’s jealous. Quite the opposite. He feels sorry for her, sad that she has settled. Her boyfriend is just that, a boy. He knows, once he claims her, they will enjoy a closeness she has never experienced with anyone. Their lives are already intertwined, even if she doesn’t realize it. And she, better than most, respects destiny. She will welcome him, embrace him, be grateful for him. She understands so much—trajectories, physics, probabilities. What she doesn’t understand, he will teach her. Tides, toxins, the number of places that remain uncharted and unmapped in a world ruled by measurement.

  No, he leaves because he has to go to work. Luckily, this job will take him down to Anne Arundel County, and he can go see his mother when he’s done.

  The Western Shore was a compromise. She wanted someplace closer to home, which was totally impractical. They kept the house on the island, leaving it vacant, and he set her up here, near the Severn River. She complained about the lack of a view. She said he had promised her a water view, which he never did. She said he had told her she would get free premium cable, and that the stove would be gas, not electric. He doesn’t know where she gets these ideas.

  Lately, however, she doesn’t complain at all, and he finds he misses her querulous laments. She is shrinking, becoming fearful and small. She isn’t even fifty-five, but she looks much older than her neighbors here. Then again, they had cushier lives. She hasn’t made friends, which is probably a good thing, but it makes him sad and angry for her. She’s a lovely woman, his mother, but her background makes her shy. She’s probably right to be shy around these snobs. Real rich people—and he knows something about real rich people now, has realized in hi
ndsight how rich Becca’s father was—are much nicer than these folks, who made middle class by the skin of their teeth. Real rich people don’t worry about losing what they have.

  His mother doesn’t have to worry about money, at least. He has made sure of that. But she worries anyway. She, who was so brave and calm, is anxious about everything.

  She is sleeping when he lets himself into the house and enters her bedroom. Her hair is thinner but still brown. Does that mean his own hair will never turn white? He smooths it back from her forehead, says her name. Ma. Ma. Wake up, Ma. Ma. Ma.

  She wakes with panicky eyes. “Who—what?”

  “It’s me, Ma.”

  “Oh.” She squints at him, as if to make sure. “What time is it?”

  “Not quite seven. I had a job down this way.”

  “Did it pay well?”

  “They always do.”

  “Don’t be afraid to ask for more.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I mean, just because you’re in business for yourself, doesn’t mean you don’t feel inflation too. And with gas going sky-high—”

  “I do better than most, Ma. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I saw something on the news last night.”

  He sighs, knowing it could be something on the news last night, or a week ago, or a month ago. It’s possible it was never on the news at all.

  “They found bones, in this forest. And they could tell who it was. A woman went out to buy milk on New Year’s Eve ten years ago and never came home. And all they had was bones, but they know she was shot and dumped there. Because there’s a nick, see, on one of the bones. It’s amazing, the things they can do.”

  “Yes,” he says, wanting to be agreeable.

  “No secret ever stays kept. Everything comes up. Nothing stays buried or lost, the way you might think.”

  “Some things do.”

  “But even in your work, you’ve said, sometimes—”

  “Sometimes. But that’s usually someone else’s fault. Not mine. Other folks get greedy, or careless. They think they don’t need me, they try to do it themselves, they don’t take precautions, they don’t realize when a place is tapped out. Those are the ones who get caught, Ma.”

  Her brows knit. She struggles to a sitting position. She won’t travel much farther today. From sitting here to sitting in her little living room. She is willing her body into atrophy. What does it matter if the stove is gas or electric? She lives off prepared food and microwaved dinners. Horrible things, microwaves. He’d never choose to live with one.

  He admires his mother in a way that her doctors can’t, or won’t. Animals know when death is coming for them. Why shouldn’t his mother? But he can never decide if this new fear is for the past, and what lies there, or for the lack of a future. Does she look forward to death because she thinks it will put an end to these fears? She was so strong when he needed her, so capable. He owes her everything. That’s what the doctor could never understand. She’s a good person, sweet and kind. She gave him life twice. How boring it was, how banal, to be quizzed about her. She was not the problem. She was the solution.

  He fixes her breakfast, cereal made hot with boiling water, a sliced banana on top. She has all her teeth but she prefers soft, mushy food. When will he have to feed her a spoonful at a time? Five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty? And then what happens? How can he spare her the final indignities of life? He makes her a cup of Sanka. Hideous stuff. He wonders if she’s ever read the label. Then he gives her some Hydrox cookies, which she will dip into the Sanka until they too are soft.

  Her doctors have told her to watch her fat intake. She has a fierce sweet tooth, and if she can’t bake five-layer cakes anymore, she wants to have her Hydrox. Hydrox, not Oreos, never Oreos. And Hydrox are getting hard to find. He has to go on the Internet, buy them from some Texas company that tracks down disappearing foodstuffs. He rather likes the woman he deals with, so peppy and full of enthusiasm for her job. There are so many needs to be filled in this world, so many people, like her and him, filling them. The Endangered Snack Act, he thinks, that’s what the country really needs. Something to protect Hydrox and Hostess Snowballs and Charleston Chews.

  She holds the cookie down in the Sanka, dunking it until it almost falls apart, then pops it in her mouth. He turns on the television, the program with the silly morning men, the ones who make people sing “Manic Monday” at the start of every week. A small trail of brown saliva dribbles from the corner of her mouth, and he dabs it for her. More and more, she has trouble swallowing, although the doctors say there’s no reason she should. She has perpetual heartburn.

  “Everything comes up,” she says absently, her eyes on the screen. He’s not sure if she’s talking about her food or the past. “Everything comes up.”

  “I know, Ma. I know.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Tess sailed out into Tuesday morning, optimistic about life in general and hopeful about her work in particular. It was the kind of fresh spring day that made everyone but T. S. Eliot feel hopeful. She just felt in her bones that today’s homicide, the one with the skimpiest file, was likely to yield the greatest dividends.

  That feeling vanished when a dead woman opened the door to her home and invited Tess in for tea.

  The brick Cape Cod in far northwest Baltimore County was absurdly small, but so was its tenant. The woman behind the storm door was not even five feet tall. The doll in this dollhouse had long dark hair, wide blue eyes, and pink-white cheeks. She looked delicate and fragile, the type of woman who inspired solicitous feelings in men and women alike.

  But she was undeniably, indisputably alive, so Tess first assumed she must be a relative or friend of the deceased.

  “I’m looking for someone who might know something about Julie Carter,” Tess had begun.

  “I can’t imagine anyone who could know more than I do,” she said, projecting her voice so it could be heard through the door’s acrylic covering. The voice was unexpected, dry as beef jerky. It sounded Western to Tess, not in its accent so much as in its smoky, sun-baked timbre, which was suggestive of mesas and cactus and turquoise jewelry. “But I don’t much care for someone asking questions about me.”

  “About you?”

  “Well, I’m Julie Carter. Seems to me you should know that, if you’re going around and looking into me, asking questions about me. What are you?”

  Not who, but what, Tess noted. That choice told her quite a bit about Julie Carter’s life, the kind of person who was apt to show up on her doorstep.

  “It was my information… my understanding—” There did not seem to be any polite or effective way to tell someone she was included on a list of homicide victims. “I’m a private investigator, looking into some old cases. I was told you were… dead. Clearly, there’s been a mistake.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some days I feel like I’m dead.” She folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. The house sat off by itself, as if it might have been a farm before this part of the county was developed. “You come up from Baltimore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s farther than you think, isn’t it? From Baltimore, I mean.”

  “A bit, yes.” Tess was confused. She had gotten the bum’s rush in considerably less awkward situations. But Julie Carter appeared to be prolonging their encounter, enjoying it.

  “Yeah, I thought it was a real find, this place. Cheap, and it doesn’t look that far from I-83. And it isn’t, as the crow flies, but I’m not a crow. It takes at least an hour if you want to get to Baltimore, have a little fun.” She smiled broadly. “Which I do. Look, you wanna come in, have a cup of coffee?”

  Why not. “Why not?”

  “Cool.” She clapped her hands, the way a little girl might show delight, and unlatched the door. “Except it has to be tea. I just remembered I don’t have any coffee. That’s another thing about living out here in the sticks. It’s not like you can run out and grab something at the corner store. Th
ere is no corner store. There is no corner. ”Course, I guess someone who works at a grocery store ought to always have groceries, right? But when my shift finally ends, all I want to do is get out. So I never have any food in the house. Is that ironic or what?“

  Literal-minded Tess was tempted to say no, this was not irony, merely absentmindedness. But she sensed something needy beneath Julie Carter’s cheerful banter. She must be lonely, a young single woman plopped down in the middle of these middle-class families. “Tea is always nice.”

  “So, someone thinks I’m dead,” Julie said, putting a kettle on to boil and bringing out a basket of teabags, no two alike. “I get ‘em at restaurants. You oughta see my mustard collection. And ketchup. I’ve got a lot of ketchup. How did I die?”

  “You didn’t, obviously.”

  “I know. It’s probably some other Julie Carter. I get that all the time.”

  “Probably. But I did have this address. In fact, your name and address were all I had.”

  “So, was I murdered?”

  Tess was so taken with Julie’s foghorn voice that she wasn’t really listening to the words, just the tobacco-cured vowel sounds. Julie was a heavy smoker. Being inside the house was like crawling into a pack of Marlboros.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Was I murdered?”

  “Your name was on a list of open homicides. Murder is a legal term.” She sounded priggish, but her tone didn’t seem to bother Julie Carter.

  “Gunshot? Knife? Poison?” The teakettle sang, a muted whistle, and her hostess shook a basket of sweeteners at Tess, hundreds of white and blue and pink packets.

  “I don’t have that information. There’s no information to have. You’re alive.”

  “I once thought about being a private investigator. But I think I’m going to open my own flower shop instead.” She laughed as if this were uproarious. “Who am I kidding? If I don’t get my ass in gear, I’m never gonna accomplish anything.”