The Sugar House

by Laura Lippman

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s there. I just wish you’d tell me more about what’s going to happen.”

  “Go with the flow, Hermannator. Show’s starting.”

  A mediocre jazz band had been playing standards, interspersed with the inevitable Christmas music, on a stage at one end of the hall. They broke after a particularly funereal version of “A Christmas Song,” and Whitney came out in the WASP seasonal uniform—long velvet skirt and white silk blouse. At least she didn’t have on one of those embroidered Christmas sweaters that so many otherwise sensible women donned this time of year.

  “If I could have your attention for a moment, ladies and gentlemen.” Between her vowel sounds and golden hair, she had it immediately. “This fund-raiser was to have been a joyful event, celebrating the fact that the campaign has already passed the $1 million mark in contributions. But I’m afraid it has been overshadowed by a tragedy, the apparent death of Senator Dahlgren’s legislative aide, Adam Moss.”

  The crowd dutifully murmured in shock, although Tess sensed they were merely being polite. If anything, the party-goers seemed a little annoyed that someone had the bad taste to cast a pall over what was to have been a festive event.

  “State police found Adam’s car this morning in Sandy Point Park, along with a note, indicating he planned to jump from the Bay Bridge,” Whitney continued. “A motorist had reported seeing a man walking on the southern span about three A.M., but Adam’s body has not yet been found. The senator thought about canceling the fund-raiser, but the letter police found in Adam’s car specifically requested this event go on as planned.”

  Herman Peters unsheathed his notebook with one hand, and began dialing his cell phone with the other. Tess put a hand on the notebook. “Not yet,” she whispered. “There’s more.”

  Dahlgren walked up on the stage now, his face arranged in a suitably somber expression.

  “The fact is,” Whitney took two sheets of paper from one of her skirt’s deep pockets, “Adam cared so much about the senator that his note details how Meyer Hammersmith has tainted the campaign by making illegal contributions. Apparently, Hammersmith tried to skirt the federal limits by using dead people and the employees of a Southwest Baltimore bar owner, Nicola DeSanti, to pour his own money into the campaign.”

  This earned the gasps and scandalized whispers that Adam Moss’s mere suicide had failed to incite. Dahlgren stopped and stared at Whitney, forgetting to close his mouth. Tess could imagine her father saying: Once a backbencher, always a backbencher. Thinking about her father still stung. They had not spoken since the fire.

  “Adam indicates in his letter that Hammersmith’s betrayal of the senator may have been the result of a love triangle. It appears the two men had quarreled over someone. Who, it’s not clear, but Adam seems to take personal responsibility for the rift. He asks the State Police not to prosecute Dahlgren, whom he describes as a man of integrity”—Whitney squinted at the letter as if reading it for the first time—“the only man I ever…Hmm. Well, Adam probably didn’t want that part read out loud.”

  Tess had kept an eye on Hammersmith while Whitney was speaking. He had been backing up steadily along one wall of the banquet hall, until he was at the rear. She watched him slip away now, through the kitchen doors. Herman Peters saw it, too, and started after him, but Tess held his arm.

  “The story’s here. Don’t run after him for a ‘no comment.’ You can get as much by phone later. I have his number.”

  Dahlgren, a pale man to begin with, looked ghastly now, his broad forehead sweating, his eyes taking on that Dan-Quayle-in-the-headlights glaze. He tried to nudge Whitney away from the podium, but she didn’t yield. He pushed her more overtly. She held her ground, smiling sweetly. In desperation, Dahlgren yanked the mike from the stand and stepped around her, trying to get the crowd’s attention back.

  “It’s Christmas time, a joyful time of year for all of us,” he said. “And Hanukkah time, too, of course, as well as Kwanzaa for many of our friends here tonight. But it’s not April Fool’s Day, a fact my staffers seem to have forgotten. I’m sorry for this ill-advised practical joke. It’s not at all funny.”

  “No, it’s not funny,” Whitney agreed. She could be heard even without the mike, because everyone in the vast room had fallen silent. “You see, Hammersmith made those illegal contributions only because you blackmailed him into becoming your finance manager, according to Adam. Murder and extortion and illegal campaign contributions and arson—it’s all here, in great detail. Would you like me to read the rest of it?”

  At this point, Dahlgren bolted from the stage, looking as if he were going to be sick. Det. Martin Tull was waiting for him at the stage’s edge.

  “Senator, I’m arresting you for withholding evidence about a homicide in the city of Baltimore, a felony crime.” A friendly state’s attorney had agreed to let Tull take Dahlgren in, knowing the charge would never stand. The real case against Dahlgren was in the campaign records, and the only punishment the state would ever exact was the end of his political career. But Tess had been adamant—she wanted a public perp walk for this very public perp. She had even called the television stations she hated so much, and instructed them to wait outside Martin’s West. “Good visuals?” the weekend assignment editors had all chirped. “Superb visuals,” she had promised.

  “Now you’ve got your story,” she told Herman Peters, who wore a rapt expression, like a little boy regarding his first bicycle on Christmas Day. The end of his homicide streak was clearly forgotten now.

  “Do you think she’d give me her copy of the suicide note?” He was nodding toward Whitney, who still held center stage.

  “Take mine,” Tess said. “I’ve got a photocopy she gave me when I came in. It’s very complete, it explains how everything fits together—Hammersmith, Dahlgren, the death of Gwen Schiller. But grab Whitney now if you have any questions. We’re meeting my boyfriend for a late supper at the Brass Elephant bar.”

  In the end, Herman Peters never got that comment from Meyer Hammersmith. No one did. Meyer went home that night, lay down on his chaise longue, and slit his wrists. He didn’t leave a note, but the velvet-lined box of tattoo implements that police found next to him told Tess everything she needed to know. That was Peters’s second page-one story, leading the paper on Monday.

  The third one explained how Whitney had infiltrated the campaign at Tess’s behest, and how she had already been on the trail of the illegal contributions when Adam killed himself, distraught over Dahlgren’s cynical reaction to Gwen Schiller’s murder. Then the state police revealed the trunk of Adam Moss’s car contained all the documents the state attorney general and the feds needed to proceed with an inquiry into the Dahlgren campaign’s fund-raising. That was page-one story number four.

  But now it was Christmas Eve, and the Dahlgren saga had petered out. Or maybe it was just on hiatus, while the Blight fell back on the old newspaper trick of running feel-good holiday stories. Lord knows, Tess was sick of reading about it.

  She sat in her office, reconciling her books for the end of the year, trying to prepare her state taxes before she took a friend to the train station. She was determined to take the last week of the year off, whatever happened. She had earned it. She sorted through receipts, pondered whether she should try to bill Ruthie for the work she had done when she was pretending not to work. Probably not. Ruthie had hung up on her the last time they spoke. She was furious at the deal Tess had cut, letting Nicola DeSanti off the hook for Henry’s death in return for giving up her own grandson and great-grandson. Ruthie wanted more. She would always want more, Tess now realized. If Nicola DeSanti went to jail, Ruthie would just focus all her anger and grief on the inmate who had carried out the contract. Henry’s death had left her perpetually unfinished and dissatisfied.

  Tess also couldn’t decide where to file her copy of Adam Moss’s suicide note. It didn’t seem to belong in her Gwen Schiller file. Adam didn’t seem to belong anywhere. She had an image of his body c
oming to rest on some far shore of the Bay, a ravaged, waterlogged John Doe, impossible to identify. Those were pearls that were his eyes.

  But that was not to be his fate, of course, not just yet.

  “Who are you, Adam?” she asked the man sitting across from her, waiting patiently for her to finish her accounts.

  “The first man,” he said. “Why do you think I chose the name Adam?”

  “No, who are you, really?”

  He shook his head. “That’s mine, the only thing I ever really owned, the only thing I’ll never give away or sell.”

  “Where will you go? What will you do?”

  “West,” he said. “I’ll find a campaign. There’s a senator who’s already thinking about the next presidential race, a governor who wants to be a senator. There’s even a Hollywood actor who wants to run for office. I’ll find a way. I may have to start as a volunteer, but I’ll make staff in a matter of weeks.”

  “Are you that good?”

  “I’m that good. In fact, I’m better at politics than I ever was as trade.”

  “I doubted you, you know,” she said. “Even when you told me what you wanted to do, I didn’t think it would work. Never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy. You left Dahlgren with a dead boy, and all the innuendo that goes with it. He’ll never recover.”

  Adam gave her his full, radiant smile. You could rule the world with a smile like that, Tess thought. But all Adam wanted was to advise the people who ruled the world. She couldn’t decide if this made him more dangerous, or less.

  “I prefer being underestimated,” he said. “But then, so do you, right? It’s always an advantage.”

  She handed him an envelope. “Spike got you the IDs—I don’t know how, and I don’t want to. You’re Joseph Kane now. You have a Maryland driver’s license to prove it, and a new Social Security number, courtesy of a little boy named Joseph Kane who died last year and never got to use it.” She produced a second envelope. “You also get the petty cash from Domenick’s.”

  “How did you arrange that?”

  “Oh, didn’t you hear?” Tess said blandly. “There was a horrible mix-up at housing. A demolition permit was issued for a vacant rowhouse one block over, but there was a typo on the work order. Nicola DeSanti showed up for work one morning and her bar was gone.”

  “You took her bar?”

  “She took my parents’ house. Look, it’s only three thousand dollars. It won’t last long.”

  “You’d be surprised at how long I can live on how little,” he said, tucking the money into a thin leather wallet.

  “No, I wouldn’t. One more thing.” This envelope was larger, a little thicker. “Dick Schiller gave me Gwen’s remains, to distribute among those who tried to help her. I already gave Sukey her part, we spread them at Fort McHenry earlier today.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Only if you get caught. I’ve put aside another portion for Devon Whittaker, when she returns from Guadeloupe. This is yours.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” He folded it in half, and stuck it in a pocket of his topcoat. A new cashmere coat, Tess noticed, one that fit him perfectly.

  “You ready to go?”

  “I can take a cab, you know.”

  “Not on Christmas Eve. You’ll never get one to come get you over here.” He still looked reluctant. “I promise I won’t notice which train you board. I won’t even get out of the car at the station.”

  Adam regarded her speculatively. His beauty was still astonishing to her, she could not imagine what it must be like to be at large in the world with that face. To be a woman with such a face, or an about-to-be-woman, as Gwen had been, must have been more terrifying still. Had Meyer Hammersmith thought his “ownership” of these beauties made him beautiful by association?

  “I’ll let you drop me off,” he said at last.

  “It seems only fair,” Tess said. “Since I’m the one who convinced you to leave your car at Sandy Point Park, and now it’s impounded by the State Police.”

  As she promised, Tess stayed in the car when they arrived at Penn Station. She let Adam Moss get out, watched Joseph Kane disappear into the Christmas Eve crowd.

  She then parked her car on St. Paul Street and walked inside, studying the tote board. There was a Northeast Direct to New York in fifteen minutes. But Adam had said he was going west. So he must be on the Chicago train, which left an hour later.

  He came out of the newsstand. He was not happy to see her.

  “Are you spying on me?”

  “Not exactly. But it’s Christmas Eve. No one should get on a train on Christmas Eve and not have someone to see him off. It’s not as if there’s someone waiting for you.”

  “You don’t know where my journey will end, or who might be there for me,” he said.

  “Well, I also want to give you a Christmas gift,” Tess said. “Wait right here.”

  She went into the souvenir shop and returned with a small bag. “Turn your back,” she said. “I have to make a slight adjustment.”

  He complied, sighing.

  “Okay, I’m done. Turn around.”

  She handed him a snow globe. The shop had carried a variety of scenes—the Inner Harbor, the city’s skyline. But Tess had chosen the one of the Bay Bridge, and made a small alteration with a marking pen, inking a large red X toward the bottom.

  “Remember, that’s where you are.”

  “Where Adam Moss is.”

  “Where Adam Moss is,” she amended. “How you’re going to keep from being recognized is beyond me. You don’t have a forgettable face, you know. One photograph of you and the new candidate—”

  “I’m not the kind of operative who ends up in photographs, or yakking on CNBC. I’m from the old school. I stay in the background.”

  The tote board’s tiles began turning, and the Northeast Direct showed “All Aboard” at Gate E. To Tess’s surprise, Adam began walking toward the stairs.

  “I thought you were heading west—”

  “I am. But I have someone to see in New York first.” Mysterious to the end. Adam Moss may change his name, but he’d never change his ways. Tess walked with him to the staircase, and down to the tracks, into the icy night air. She wanted to see him get on the train, wanted to know he was safely away. The train swept in, already full of holiday travelers. Intent on getting a seat, Adam pressed forward, not even saying goodbye.

  “Hey, Joe—”

  He turned at his new name. Good for him.

  “Pick a better candidate this time, okay?”

  “I couldn’t find a worse one, that’s for sure.”

  epilogue

  THE MOST SURPRISING THING TESS RECEIVED FOR Christmas was an eviction notice.

  “I’m so sorry, Tesser,” Kitty said, after breaking the news at their holiday dinner. It was a small affair, just her, Tyner, Tess, and Crow. Tess’s parents had decided to go away for the holidays, given that it would still be months before their house was rebuilt. “But when I got the permits for the elevator construction, they found out about the apartment on the third floor and reappraised the property. My tax bill has gone up so much that I’m going to have to start charging a fair market rate for the apartment. To justify that, I have to make some improvements. You’re welcome to move back in, after the renovations, but I’ll understand if you think you can do better.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Tess said, suddenly glad that Crow had remembered to put some dope in her Christmas stocking. It more than made up for his failure to find a local beauty supply store willing to part with its “Human Hair” neon sign.

  But when Crow saw her rummaging for rolling papers after lunch, he proposed taking a drive instead.

  “We can start looking for a new place for you to live,” he said. “Check out other neighborhoods. You’ve got to treat this as an opportunity.”

  “On Christmas Day?” But there was nothing else to do, except digest turkey and sauerkraut, so she put on her coat, pulled Esskay’s
new Christmas sweater over the dog’s head, and piled into Crow’s Volvo.

  It quickly became apparent that the drive was much more targeted than Crow had let on. He headed north, into the funky little neighborhood they had found when trying to get to Thirty-fourth Street all those weeks ago. They never did make it to see the lights, she realized, feeling wistful for the holiday season that had passed her by. Next year, she resolved, work was going to be less consuming. There were worse things than divorce work and dumpster diving.

  Crow turned up what appeared to be an alley, although it was marked with a street sign. East Lane. One side was bordered by the long, wide backyards of the large houses one street over, while the other side was a deep slope, with smaller houses and cottages hugging the hillside overlooking a wooded park.

  “Stony Run Park,” Crow said. “Named for the creek that runs through it.”

  He stopped at a small dilapidated bungalow, which looked more like someone’s abandoned fishing cabin than a real house. Built into the side of the hill, it was virtually a tree house, with decks and screened porches taking up more square footage than the proper living quarters.

  “Who lives here?”

  “No one anymore. It’s for sale,” Crow said, taking a key from under an old milk box.

  “I don’t see a sign,” Tess said.

  “The real estate agent hasn’t listed it yet. He’s a friend of Tyner’s, said he’s going to put it on the market at the beginning of next year.”

  “So Kitty has been planning to kick me out all along, and you knew it, and Tyner knew it, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “We thought it would soften the blow if you had a place to land,” Crow said, letting her into the empty house. It had the feel of a place where no one had lived for a very long time. She liked that feel. It also had a neon sign that said “Human Hair” hung on the wall. Crow really did pay attention, she realized. He not only listened to her stated wants, he was capable of anticipating her desires as well, desires she had yet to form. She tried to find a downside to this, but failed utterly.