By a Spider's Thread

by Laura Lippman

  "Who else is on the list?" she asked her uncle's DOC contact, curious to see if Natalie had gone behind Mark Rubin's back and continued to visit her father all these years.

  "His lawyer, his wife, and someone named Lana Wishnia."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, but she hasn't been to see him since he was moved to the Eastern Shore six months ago. Probably too far for her to go."

  "I guess inmates learn who really cares about them when they end up on the Eastern Shore."

  Petrovich had been transferred to Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset County. It was a long trip, made longer by the lack of an interstate past Annapolis. And because it was an autumn weekday, as opposed to a summer weekend, Tess didn't even have the consolation of grabbing a barbecue sandwich or buying fresh produce from a roadside stand. Not that she had much appetite this morning. Her stomach had clutched while crossing the Chesapeake, but she reminded herself that neither the bridge, the bay, nor the islands it contained were the source of her troubles last spring, just the routes she had taken to find them.

  The orange DOC jumpsuit is unkind to most Caucasian complexions, but Boris Petrovich looked particularly yellow, as if he had liver trouble. Uncle Donald's state contact said Petrovich had been transferred here after abusing the privileges granted those inmates in a special program for older prisoners at Jessup, which fit with what Tess knew about the man. His foxlike face even looked shifty, with its flat cheekbones and narrowed eyes. Most likely he had agreed to meet with Tess because he was curious to see how he might manipulate her toward some end, even if he hadn't figured out what that end might be.

  "So my daughter has run away and my son-in-law suddenly wishes my help. Interesting."

  "He doesn't want your help," Tess said. "He didn't even want me to meet with you, but I insisted. He said everything you say is a lie, so it's useless to speak to you."

  "Well, not everything. What would be the point in that? If you always lie, it's the same as always telling the truth. You have to mix it up to be effective."

  Although Petrovich was serving a twenty-year sentence for second-degree murder, he was not in a maximum-security cell block, and he was allowed to meet visitors in an open area, sitting across a table instead of on the other side of a glass. So he was able to lean forward and place a finger on Tess's nose, the way a man might playfully chide a curious child. She tried not to flinch, but it was hard for her to succumb to a stranger's touch, especially a man. Especially a man with this sour, tainted smell.

  "You're not just a liar, you're a would-be blackmailer, too."

  He wasn't an easy man to insult. "I didn't see it that way. All I was trying to do is make sure my daughter didn't forget me, that she put some money away for me when I get out of here. After all, she made this wonderful match because of me, right? You think she would be grateful. Right? Or at least willing to pay a finder's fee? Right?"

  The question was mocking in a way that Tess couldn't quite analyze. The repeated "right"s suggested the opposite, that something was quite wrong.

  "Do you want to tell me what it was that Natalie was so desperate to keep from her husband?"

  "No."

  "What if I offered to pay you? Put money in that account that means so much to you? Plus, my uncle has pull with the state. I might even be able to get you back to Jessup."

  "No."

  "No?"

  He grinned at Tess's surprise, showing teeth as yellow as his skin. "Everyone thinks I'm so crooked. But I have ethics, too, you know. I can't sell you what you want to buy because I've already promised it to another buyer."

  "Is it Natalie?" Tess asked, thinking of the flurry of withdrawals Natalie had made in the week before she left.

  He shook his head, pleased with himself.

  It was Tess's turn to score a point, however small. "Lana Wishnia?"

  "You know Lana?"

  "Oh, yes. I know she's on your visitors' list, and I've spoken to her at length."

  "But not at such length that you found out what you want to know. Or maybe not at all. Maybe you lie, too, to get what you want?" The last was asked with admiration, as if Petrovich could not respect someone who told the truth all the time.

  "Sometimes. Lying's the only way to level the playing field with liars. But I do know Lana, and I believe she's a link to Natalie's disappearance. Does she know Natalie's secret as well?"

  "I'll tell you this much: The person who bought my silence did it on a promise. I haven't been paid yet. And if the money doesn't come soon, maybe I will put that information back on the market, and you and I could still make a deal."

  "Does this have anything to do with the man you killed?"

  "That one? No. Trust me on this, no one's ever missed that man, not even his own mother." This matched what Tess had been able to learn. Boris Petrovich's victim had apparently been an unsavory type, a small-time criminal who had quarreled with Petrovich.

  "I can always go back to Lana, ask her what's going on."

  "She's tough, tougher than any American girl. She won't answer your questions."

  Tess had a moment of wanting to impress Petrovich with just how tough this particular American girl was. She couldn't show him her gun—the prison had been quite adamant about holding that for her—but she could yank up her pant leg and display the scar on her left knee, still purplish and a little swollen three months after she fell on that broken bottle, the night she was almost killed. She could tell him what she had found the will to do, when she had to choose between her life and someone else's, the reserves of strength and violence she had discovered in herself. The nightmarish memory had faded somewhat over the past three months, so it was now bearably surreal—a flash of silver finding its target, her victim almost robotic in his agony, like a machine run amok. But the image was never far away when she was angry or upset.

  Instead of saying or doing any of these things, however,

  Tess willed her adrenaline to ebb. Her instinct had always been to run straight at things, but her instincts were far from reliable. That, too, she had learned the hard way. She needed to be quiet, still, disengaged. Direct questions wouldn't work with Petrovich.

  "Hey, do you miss the other men?"

  "What other men?"

  "The ones from the group."

  "I wouldn't call them friends."

  "Still, they're back in Jessup right, and now you're here. That's kind of a burn."

  He shrugged, indifferent to the topic, seeing no profit in it and therefore no point. "Most of them are gone from Jessup anyway, their time served."

  "Right. I hadn't considered that fact. After all, there were only five or six."

  "Eight to begin with."

  "Right, eight. And you're the only one still inside."

  "Me and Yitzhak. The others are all long gone."

  "Yes," Tess said. "The others. Remind me of their names. There was you, and Yitzhak, of course, and Abraham."

  "Amos, you mean."

  "Amos and… Andy?"

  Petrovich scowled, furious that she had tricked him into yielding any information for free. "I won't tell you the others' names."

  "I don't need you to. Someone—the DOC or the Associated—has to have a record because Mark Rubin and my Uncle Donald were put on a visitors' list, just as I was with you today. Or Mark will remember their names. It simply never occurred to him to connect anyone in the program to Natalie's disappearance—and it didn't occur to me until you said you had another buyer. Thanks a lot, Boris. You've been a huge help."

  "You don't know anything. You haven't learned anything. You're on the wrong track."

  Perhaps because he was frustrated and angry, Petrovich stood abruptly, and the guards stationed throughout the room took notice. Tess was reminded that the man before her had committed a crime of passion, killing another man in a quarrel. But she wasn't scared.

  She wasn't scared. The realization was akin to noticing that a toothache had disappeared, or that one's head had finally
cleared after a long, miserable cold. She stood, too, feeling as if she had reclaimed a piece of herself—the chunk of skin carved from her knee, the long braid sliced from the nape of her neck the same night. Her "noive," as the Cowardly Lion would have it. There was no reason to have recovered those things here, in the drab visiting room at ECI, yet she had. Seeing through Petrovich had reminded Tess how much of the world was run on bluff and bluster. She might not be as strong as everyone she met, or as fast, or even as smart. But she could bullshit with the best of them. Combine that quality with a license to carry, and a girl could more than get by in this life.

  "It's been a pleasure not doing business with you, Mr. Petrovich."

  "You know nothing," he called after her. But Tess knew enough.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-one

  STEREOTYPES PERSIST FOR A REASON, TESS DECIDED ON her way back to Baltimore, and it wasn't wrong to rely on them when they were helpful. On her cell phone, she called the Associated, a nonprofit umbrella group of Jewish charities, assuming it was far more likely to keep complete, accessible records than the state Department of Corrections was. Perhaps this was unfair to state government workers, but her generalization paid off in this case. The names and addresses Tess wanted were arriving at her office via fax machine before she crossed the Bay Bridge.

  Eight men had been given permission to participate in the prison outreach program when it started twelve years ago, and—give Boris credit for telling the truth here—he and Yitzhak were the only ones who were still guests of the state. Of the remaining six, four had Baltimore addresses, while one was in Grantsville, and the sixth, Nathaniel Rubenstein, had no address at all listed with parole and probation. Still, it was the Grantsville address for Amos Greif that puzzled Tess. The town in far-western Maryland was best known for its model Amish village and the blueberry pancakes at the local restaurant. It seemed a strange choice of residence for a Jewish ex-con who specialized in grand theft auto.

  "Amos was from Cumberland," Mark Rubin said, studying the list. He had come straight to Tess's office from work, so he was wearing his usual dark suit, although the days continued almost Indian-summer warm. Tess recalled he had been wearing a crisp white shirt and khakis with a knife-sharp crease while hanging around the house Saturday night. She wondered if he even owned a pair of blue jeans. Was his formal dress the result of his religion or his work? Could God really care what anyone wore? Adam and Eve had started out naked.

  "Cumberland, Grantsville, it's still more West Virginia than Maryland. And it's not a place you expect to find a Jewish car thief."

  "Cumberland had a… I wouldn't say thriving, but important, close-knit Jewish community going back to the nineteenth century. The local department store, Rosenbaum Brothers, was the biggest store of its kind between Baltimore and Pittsburgh."

  "You're kidding me."

  "We didn't all live in crowded ghettos, Tess. The joke about Jews in small-town Maryland is that they settled wherever the mule died. Remember Louis Goldstein, the former comptroller? When Louis was born in Prince Frederick, the mohel had to travel to the bris by ferry from Baltimore."

  "Point taken," she said, trying not to yawn. "You can find Jews anywhere in Maryland. In small towns and big cities. In prisons and the state's highest political office. Hey, thanks to Marvin Mandel, we know that Jews can achieve both in the same lifetime."

  "Marvin was pardoned," Rubin said, a slight defensiveness creeping into his tone. "And he was no more a crook than the governor before him, that Greek Agnew."

  "Well, maybe someone will get around to pardoning these gents one day, and then they, too, can find new careers as lobbyists and lawmakers. Meanwhile, I'm more curious to know if you think there's one man on this list that I should be focusing on for any reason."

  Rubin perched on the corner of the office sofa that Esskay was willing to allot him. The dogs had begun to warm to him, a somewhat reliable assessment of a person's character. Of course Esskay was a biscuit slut, falling for anyone who gave her a treat, but even the more reserved Miata perked up when Rubin came around.

  "Amos was an interesting case. He was born to Jewish parents but orphaned as a teenager and raised by a local farmer. No religious education whatsoever, but a real head for business. If he had applied his corporate model to more legal forms of revenue, he'd probably be running a Fortune 500 company today."

  "You talked about business?"

  Rubin shrugged. "It's a great commonality for men. That and baseball. Now, Larry Kirsch was a drug addict who ended up dealing. Another guy with a head for the wrong kind of business. Very shrewd, always working an angle. Mickey Harvey—that was a sad one. He was a civil engineer, rear-ended another car, killing a child in the backseat. He left the scene in a panic—he had been drinking at the baseball game—and the judge decided to make an example of him. Just a normal guy otherwise."

  "A normal guy with a drinking problem." Despite her affection for a nice glass of wine and the occasional martini—or perhaps because of it—Tess was sanctimonious when it came to drinking and driving.

  "Now who sounds all Old Testament?" Rubin's tone was light, almost teasing. "I felt bad for the guy. He wasn't a drunk, he probably wasn't even legally intoxicated when he had the accident. He drove an SUV, and the car he hit was one of those flimsy sedans with virtually no rear end. Change a single variable in the scenario—one less beer, a longer game, different vehicles, a different route home—and he may have gone the rest of his life without hurting anyone. Every time I saw Mickey Harvey, I was reminded how life can change in a single moment."

  Rubin broke off, perhaps remembering how quickly his own life had changed because of variables that no one could identify.

  "What about the others?" Tess pressed him, if only to distract him.

  "They're less vivid to me. Scott Russell ran one of those fly-by-night home improvement companies, specialized in ripping off little old ladies. This generation's version of a tin man, a run-of-the-mill gonif. Danny Katzen was a burglar who beat up an old woman who had the bad luck to be at home when he broke in. An unrepentant thug, just a waste of space and protoplasm. I liked him the least."

  "And Rubenstein?"

  "Doesn't matter."

  "How so?"

  "He's in federal prison. That's why there's no address listed. He served a state sentence for receiving stolen goods, then ended up with federal time for a sophisticated fraud operation. Besides, although he signed up for the group, he never participated." Rubin allowed himself an exasperated sigh, shaking his head at the memory of Nathaniel Rubenstein. "A bright man, too. If only he had been a patient one."

  "What does patience have to do with it?"

  "He ran a small chain of clothing stores. It was a great idea, although a little ahead of its time. You know those Scandinavian stores that sell trendy clothing at low prices?"

  Tess didn't, but nodded anyway, so Rubin would finish his story and get back to the subject at hand. The guy was clearly queer for the retail business in all its forms.

  "Nat tried something similar fifteen years ago, but he was undercapitalized and he expanded too quickly. He took shortcuts, taking some shipments he knew were of dubious provenance. And when he had cash-flow problems, he used his access to credit records to scam people with bad credit. He'd tell them he could get them a card with a thousand dollars limit for a service fee of a hundred and fifty dollars. Then he mailed them an application and some coupons and pocketed the fee. That's how he ended up doing federal time."

  "How do you know so much about him if he didn't participate in the group?"

  "Baltimore's Jews live in a small village, especially those of us in the clothing business. There's lots of gossip we keep to ourselves, so people in the city at large won't cluck their tongues. It was shocking, seeing Nat go to prison."

  "Did you know him before he went in?"

  "After a fashion." Rubin gave her a lopsided smile. "The pun was unintended."

  "Only it wasn
't really a pun," Tess said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "It was a play on words, but it wasn't a pun, which involves changing a word in some way so it takes on a double meaning." It was fun, correcting Rubin for once. "You know, Mexican weather report—chili today—"

  "Hot tamale. Groucho Marx." He moved his eyebrows up and down, wiggling an imaginary stogie. "I'm a huge fan. I tried to get Isaac to watch the films with me, but they didn't seem to resonate with him. He has trouble relating to black-and-white films. He asked me once if the world used to be black and white."

  His voice caught then, as it always seemed to do when he spoke of his children.

  "Anyway, this list gives me something concrete to do," Tess said. "Your father-in-law was clearly upset when I suggested that one of these men might be an important link."

  A consistent man—the word "rigid" came to mind—Rubin had not yet asked Tess a single question about her interview with his father-in-law.

  "So you'll find them, talk to them—and then what?"

  "You always want to be told the future, but I won't pretend to know what I can't know." Tess hesitated, reluctant to put Rubin on the offensive. "The men on the list—do any of them resemble the man with Natalie in French Lick?"

  The question clearly pained him. "Yes and no. Truth is, they all resemble one another. Except for Amos, who was huge. Not fat, just enormous, built on a different scale. The others are neither tall nor short, neither fat nor skinny, and they all had darkish hair. It's been almost ten years since I've seen them. Who knows what they look like now? Who knows what I looked like then?"

  "Why did you stop volunteering in the prison anyway? I know you were on the outs with Boris, but what about the other men? Wasn't there a way you could have continued with them?"

  "Natalie asked me to stop going. Once she was pregnant with Isaac, she was adamant that I must not visit the prison anymore. She said it worried her, that it was a dangerous place. Funny, she had been there all those times, as a beautiful young girl, and yet she worried about me. I have to admit, I was charmed. I was so young when my mother died. My father was wonderful, but he always treated me like a little man. No one had ever worried about me before."