By a Spider's Thread

by Laura Lippman

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  LANA WlSHNIA BALANCED TESS'S HANDS ON HER fingertips, clearly unimpressed. No rower has pretty palms, but even the tops of Tess's hands were unattractive, with short, nicked nails, ragged cuticles, and a few random cuts that she couldn't recall inflicting on herself. After a few moments of stony inspection, Lana took Tess's left hand and flipped it over, touching it the way one might handle a dead animal brought home by a faithful cat. Here the damage was far worse—a corporal's stripes of hard yellow calluses. Still, Lana said nothing, her face impassive.

  The only consolation was that Lana's hands, while nowhere near as damaged as Tess's, were not spectacular. Her nails were blunt cut and unpolished, her fingers stubby and plump. Manicurist, file yourself.

  "What do you do?" she asked, dropping Tess's hands into warm, soapy water. They were the first words she had spoken since they were introduced. Her accent was quirky—American, with a hard, aggressive edge, more New York than Baltimore. She had a broad, unsmiling face, and her heavy makeup made her look older than she was, assuming she was Natalie's contemporary. A single pockmark on her forehead indicated a poor complexion or a bad case of chickenpox, but heavy foundation covered any other telltale marks.

  "Do?" Tess echoed. She preferred not to lie outright, but she also wasn't ready to tell Lana that she was a private detective, not just yet.

  "To your hands. What do you do, that they're so beat up?"

  "I row."

  "What?"

  "Row. On the water—I row a single scull." Tess couldn't use her hands, as Lana was now holding them both in the water, pushing them down as if they were a pair of kittens she hoped to drown. She rolled her shoulders and jerked her elbows, attempting to mime the movement, and succeeded only in looking as if she were having a convulsion.

  "For exercise?"

  "Yeah." It was easier to agree than try to explain that rowing was more for her head than her body or heart. There were a dozen activities Tess could do for endurance and strength training, but rowing was the only thing that brought her close to the kind of Zen-like state that others claimed to find in yoga and meditation. She had never loved it more than this summer, when she'd had to give it up for a few weeks. Sidelined after cutting open her knee, she had needed it more than ever.

  "Weird. I oughta do something." Lana's complacent voice made clear that she had no intention of doing anything. Was she married? She didn't wear any rings, but perhaps a ring would interfere with her work. "I should tell you—if you go out and row again, it's not going to last. Just so you know."

  Tess nodded, but the judgment stung a little. She didn't go in much for beautifying routines, but she liked to think that she wasn't beyond hope.

  Lana removed the shallow basin of water and began massaging Tess's hands. This felt heavenly. Tess thought about Deborah, wrapped in seaweed, abraded with kosher salt, covered with pale green cream. Did she really think she needed all these treatments, or did she come just for the touching, to be massaged and rubbed?

  "There's a reason I asked for you today," Tess said, deciding they were far enough along in the process that Lana couldn't abort, or walk away.

  "Yeah, I was in Baltimore magazine's 'best of issue three years ago, and people still call."

  She nodded toward the wall behind her station, where a framed certificate attested to her honor. Invited to look, Tess also took in the photographs and personal mementoes that Lana had put up there. There was a stuffed bear in a T-shirt that said MARDI GRAS, and a photograph of Lana with a dark-haired woman, the Inner Harbor in the background. It was small and a little blurry, but Tess recognized Natalie. Younger and more tarted up than in the photo Mark Rubin had given her, but definitely Natalie.

  "I heard about you from someone else—Natalie Rubin's mother."

  Lana didn't miss a beat in her ministrations to Tess's hand, and if there was a change in her expression, Tess couldn't see it. "That was nice of Vera, to send me a customer. She's a nice lady."

  "When did your family come over?"

  Lana looked up, squinting at Tess as if it were impolite to mention that someone was not a native. Perhaps it was, in these paranoid times.

  "Twenty-eight years ago. I was a year old." So she was twenty-nine, a year younger than Natalie.

  "Where are your parents from?"

  "Sheepshead Bay." She gave Tess a crooked smile. "Now, I mean. They were originally from Belarus. They moved to New York, but they sent me down here to live with my aunt because… well, because they hoped I'd be more dutiful in Baltimore. Also, they thought Baltimore was more American. They figured they had come all this way, so I should live in a real American place. You could walk down our block sometimes and not hear a single word in English."

  "Do you ever think about going back, to see where you came from?" The question was born of simple curiosity. Tess had no experience with exile. If she wanted to visit her roots, she could walk from her office to the old East Side Democratic Club, where her parents had met. But as soon as Tess spoke, she saw a horrible possibility: If Natalie had gone back to her homeland, she and her children were beyond the reach of Keyes Investigations, the SnoopSisters Digest, and even most legal authorities.

  "There's no one there to see," Lana said. "Maybe some distant cousins, but I never knew them."

  "How do you know Natalie?"

  "The usual way."

  "The usual way?"

  "School, the neighborhood. You know, you need to push back your cuticles."

  Tess knew what a cuticle was, but she had never understood what was meant by pushing one back. With what? The flat of her hand, a stern word?

  "When did you come to Baltimore?"

  "They sent me here when I was in junior high. How do you know Natalie?"

  "I don't. I know her mother." Tess waited a beat. "And her husband."

  Lana didn't respond.

  "In fact, her husband hired me to find Natalie and their children. They've disappeared."

  Still no comment, as Lana concentrated on shaping Tess's nails, which should not have required so much attention. There wasn't much there to file.

  "Has she been in touch with you?"

  "If she has, I wouldn't tell you."

  "But you know she's gone, because you don't seem at all surprised by the information."

  Lana was good at skipping past comments she didn't want to address. "She's my friend. Whatever she's done, I'm for her, not for her husband. I never liked him much."

  "Do you even know him?" It was hard to imagine that Mark Rubin would withhold information about his wife's friend.

  "No, but Natalie tells me things. He's not right for her."

  "Why would you say that?"

  "Do I have to have a reason?"

  "Yes, and it must be a pretty profound reason if you're willing to keep a man from finding his children."

  Lana paused, her emery board poised over Tess's nail. "He's full of himself," she said at last.

  "Because he's rich?"

  "No, not so much because he has money, although that's part of it. He's just so… well, Jewish."

  That odd prejudice again. "You're Jewish."

  "It was just what we were, not what we did." Lana's parents may have succeeded in creating an American girl, but her shrugs were Old Country through and through. Put her in a head scarf and Lana would have looked at home in a New York Times photo of Russian women, circa the year of her birth, lined up for bread and toilet paper.

  "What about Natalie?"

  "What about her?" Lana turned her back on Tess, taking a long time with her wall of nail polishes, as if there were dozens of variations on the shade of "clear" that Tess had chosen when they first sat down.

  "Was she also indifferent to Judaism? I mean, before she married Mark?"

  "She didn't go to synagogue, if that's what you mean. Most of the Russian families around here didn't, not regular."

  "So why did she marry an Orthodox man and agree to lead an Ort
hodox life?"

  "Love," Lana said, her back still to Tess. "Women have done weirder things for love. And it's not as if—" She stopped herself. Tess waited to see if she would finish the thought, but she didn't.

  "Still, Natalie knew she was marrying an Orthodox man. Mark Rubin didn't convert one morning and make Natalie go along with him. I'm sure he was very clear about what he expected from his wife."

  "Oh, yeah, Mark Rubin was always very clear about everything." Lana seemed to be smothering a laugh. "But I have to say, boring as he was, he was at least a little fun, before. You know? I was married once, for all of six months. But the marriage wasn't as good as what came before. Things change. It's like, before I came to Baltimore to live, it was a place I visited and had fun. Then it was the place I lived and went to school, and now it's the place I work. It's not all going out to eat and the aquarium anymore."

  Tess had to admit that Lana's definition of marriage matched her own views. It transformed love into work, and who needed another job?

  "So Natalie decided to take a vacation?"

  "I'm saying she had reasons. They're hers, and they're private, but they make sense to her, so who are you to get involved?"

  Lana was now applying polish to Tess's fingers with quick, easy strokes, always the right amount of fluid on the brush, a perfect drop of translucent lacquer. The talents of Baltimore's best manicurist were obviously wasted on this mundane assignment.

  "She doesn't have any money, though."

  Lana stroked, face impassive.

  "And then there are kids, kids who should be in school."

  "Only Isaac," Lana said. "The twins would have started kindergarten this year, but no one learns anything in kindergarten. Isaac is smart. He'll catch up—" She caught herself.

  "When? When will Isaac catch up? How?"

  "When he goes back to school, of course. I mean, I just assume Natalie won't keep him out forever."

  "She has a plan, doesn't she, a plan she shared with you? She's going to settle somewhere, raise her children. Has she called you from the road? Do you have any idea where she might be?"

  Lana started on the next hand, her movements now a little less precise.

  "A woman has no right to keep a loving father from his children. Whatever problems Natalie and her husband have, what she's doing is wrong."

  Stroke, stroke, stroke.

  "If she tries to get in touch with you, I'll know."

  But it was too big a bluff, she couldn't carry it, and Lana was already on her pinkie. "She has no reason to get in touch with me."

  Tess glanced back at the photo: Lana and Natalie, on some sunny, long-ago day at the harbor, big, overdone hair blowing in the breeze. They had their arms around each other, and their mutual affection was unmistakable. While Natalie looked straight into the camera, eyes sparkling, Cupid's bow mouth stretched into a huge smile, Lana was looking at Natalie, mesmerized by her pretty friend, basking in her happiness.

  "You must miss her," Tess tried.

  Lana placed Tess's hands beneath an air dryer. "Wait at least five minutes, or you'll smudge," she said, setting a timer. "Ten is better. When you leave, your check will be up front. Our tip envelopes are up there, too. You'll excuse me, but I have another appointment."

  She opened her drawer wide, ostensibly to put something away, but also so Tess could see the fives and tens stacked there. She then all but ran away, and Tess couldn't follow her—not unless she was willing to smear the clear polish on what the slip would claim was a twenty-five-dollar French manicure.

  She tipped lavishly despite Lana's rip-off. There was nothing to lose in overtipping. Come to think of it, that was another life lesson from her father, a little Irish karma: Be generous with your tips when you are flush, because they are returned to you in ways you didn't expect when you go bust.

  Tess wasn't flush these days, but Mark Rubin was. Besides, she suspected that he could use a little help in the karma department, too.

  Lana Wishnia emerged from Adrian's about an hour later, finished for the day. Squinting at the light, she made her way to a bright green Dodge Neon at the far end of the parking lot, then pulled out onto Reisterstown Road, heading north.

  Tess was right behind her. Following Lana had been a last-minute impulse, inspired by a quick stop at Sutton Place Gourmet. The sheer novelty of a different grocery store had seduced her into silly purchases—coconut macaroons, a kiwi, a slab of tomato-rosemary focaccia. These spur-of-the-moment choices reminded Tess that all humans were creatures of impulse. If Lana was upset or disturbed by Tess's visit, she might feel compelled to act as quickly as possible. If she had a coconspirator, she could seek his or her counsel.

  And if Natalie were actually in the Baltimore area—a long shot, but not entirely implausible—Lana would take Tess straight to her.

  Instead Lana left one strip mall only to lead Tess to another, about two miles up the road, a shopping center with a Giant grocery and several smaller shops. Okay, so Tess's hunch was off. The manicurist was just stopping to pick up some food on her way home, and she didn't make Sutton Place Gourmet wages.

  But Lana walked into a Mail Boxes Etc. store. She was inside for perhaps two or three minutes, nowhere near enough time to send a package or a fax, and came out empty-handed.

  At least she was empty-handed as far as Tess could tell. Lana's purse, a bulging shoulder bag of dirty beige leather, was so big that it could easily conceal a sheaf of letters, or even a box. Tess made a note of the address and continued to follow Lana north.

  Lana's next stop was a town-house complex called Camelot Hills. It was fairly new, yet already careworn. Even the banner advertising move-in specials was limp and bedraggled. Lana parked and went into one of the middle units on Lancelot's Way, and Tess decided to wait awhile to see if she would head out again. The flow of people returning home from work was frenetic enough for her to sit in her car without drawing attention to herself, the setting sun bright enough to excuse the sunglasses that covered much of her face.

  She had assumed that Lana would choose to live among other single folks, but there were plenty of families scattered throughout the complex, and the children were out in force on this crisp evening, riding bikes, playing the eternal games, such as four-square and hopscotch. Most, however, were caught up in a sport of their own invention. It appeared to be called "jump out," and it was a combination of hide-and-seek and capture the flag.

  The two smallest boys, pretending to be police officers, walked up and down until they would suddenly leap at a clutch of children loitering on a corner. The goal was to arrest as many kids as possible, while the others fled to a safe house on the steps of the sliding board. Those who were caught were placed in the jungle gym, clearly the jail. The larger girls and boys ran away over and over again, squealing in delight, while the two little boys demonstrated a heartbreaking familiarity with the gray-area brutality common to such police actions, flailing at their captives with fists and makeshift batons.

  Ah, well, Tess had once played Mugger in the shadows of Ten Hills, and she had turned out to be a decent enough citizen. Such games were all about having a reason to run and squeal, night air filling your lungs, adrenaline soaring through your body. She studied the children carefully, but there was no miniature Mark Rubin among them, no fox-faced boy-and-girl twins. When the darkness became so complete that parents started calling children to homework and bed, Tess headed for her own.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  THE TWINS SAT ON THE EDGE OF ONE OF THE DOUBLE beds, backs ramrod straight, hands folded in their laps, although Efraim absentmindedly put his left thumb in his mouth from time to time. Television had been rationed in their old life, by their father's insistence, and the twins still treated it with a kind of nervous awe. They didn't laugh, or even smile much, just stared at the cartoon channel with unblinking attention. Perhaps they thought if they showed no sign of enjoying it, no one would think to take it away from them.

  Isaa
c, too, had liked the unlimited cartoons at first, especially Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. But now he was getting bored. He wished he had a book, a new one. His mother had allowed him to pack only one, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and he hadn't argued because he thought they were going away for a long weekend, not forever. He had finished it the first two days on the road, before they met Zeke. He could reread it, but the book made him sad. If you were going to run away from home, you should have an adventure, do something important and thrilling, like the brother and sister in the book. You shouldn't just drive from town to town, sitting in motel rooms that looked alike and watching the same television shows you could have watched back home. That is, if you were allowed to watch all the cartoons you wanted back home.

  Teachers were always saying Isaac had a vivid imagination, but it certainly had never occurred to him that he might have a life without books. In his "before" life—his real life was how Isaac thought of it—his father never said no to anything involving a book. Whether it was buying one, staying up late to read one, or even trying to read what everyone else said was a grown-up book, Isaac's father always said it was okay. It would have been easier to imagine a world without food, or a house. Even if a person was very poor, there were always libraries. But you couldn't have a library card when you drove to a new town almost every night, because how would you take the books back on time?

  Isaac would like to ask his mother if they were poor now, but not in Zeke's hearing. Because if they had lost all their money, that would be a private thing. His father wouldn't want other people to know about it. His father was very proud. But it would explain a lot, if they were poor. It might even explain why they had left. In the story of Hansel and Gretel, the father and the stepmother took the children to the forest because they didn't have enough to eat. Maybe his mother had been planning to let them go in the forest, then decided she couldn't do it. Or maybe that was Zeke's plan, although he wasn't a stepparent. He was mean enough to be a stepparent.