Butchers Hill

Chapter 4

At the Daily Grind, Tess insisted on paying for Martin Tull's latte and chocolate biscotti.

"I take it you want a favor," he said dryly.

"How crass. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want to treat for once, instead of having you grab the check as if I were a charity case?"

"And maybe you want a favor."

"Maybe," she said, stirring a little sugar into her cappuccino. No reason to rush. Tull's curiosity would eventually get the better of him. He had an avid interest in her little business, in part because he had played matchmaker between her and his retired colleague, Edward Keyes. Tess suspected the switch to private detective was a change he might make himself one day, if the commissioner ever made good on his threat to rotate him to other departments. Homicide was Tull's calling. As long as he was allowed to practice his vocation, he wouldn't leave.

But he was distracted just now, his eyes sliding over to the recreation pier across the street from the coffeehouse.

"They're not there," Tess said.

"Who?" His voice was all innocence, as if he hadn't glanced at the pier several times already.

"Your alter egos. They're on hiatus. I always forget, which one is based on you? The blond one whose eyes are too close together or the bald, smoldering one?"

"He's not bald anymore and he's leaving the show, even if it gets picked up for another season."

"Thought you didn't watch."

"It's in the papers, sometimes. I read the articles to make sure the show isn't going to be a shoot in my neighborhood. They close streets and everything, it's a real hassle. They like Hamilton, I guess. There's a lot of variety in the houses up in Northeast District. Looks good on TV."

Tess smiled. Leave it to Baltimore, usually so finicky about its national image, to embrace a television program that spotlighted its murder rate. The network television show about Baltimore homicide cops was such a part of the city now that a robber had once surrendered to the actors by mistake. True, production could be something of a pain, especially here in Fells Point, where the recreation pier stood in for police headquarters. But the show got the city right, and after all those years of being force-fed Los Angeles and New York locations, it was thrilling just to hear some pretty boy say "Wilkens Avenue" and "Fort McHenry Tunnel" on national television, as if they were real places.

"But it's why we always meet here, isn't it? Because you like to sneak peeks at the actors."

"I like coffee, and I don't like bars," Tull said. "You live in Fells Point. Where else are we going to meet?"

"Another coffeehouse?"

A blonde at the next table was trying to catch Tull's eye, with no luck. He never noticed women. Well, almost never-an ex-wife lurked somewhere in his past. Then again, maybe that's why she was an ex, because he hadn't paid any attention to her. Tull was maddeningly reticent on the subject. Meanwhile, women were always heaving and sighing in his presence, practically falling at his feet, but this ace detective just couldn't crack the case of his own intriguing looks. Inside, he was forever a short, skinny kid with bad skin, not to mention those comically small hands and feet.

Tess didn't have any romantic yearnings toward him. She would remain under her self-imposed dating ban until she figured out why her judgment in these matters had been so historically wretched. Of the last three men in her life, one was dead, one was in jail, and one was in Texas. She wouldn't wish any of those fates on Tull the teetotaler.

"Do you have a drinking problem?" she asked suddenly.

"Now that would be a cliché, wouldn't it?" replied Tull. "The alcoholic cop."

"A cliché is merely a truth that's become banal through repetition."

"What if I told you I think you drink too much, so I make you meet me here, where you can't abuse anything but caffeine?"

Tess considered this. Such personal observations fascinated her, even unflattering ones. Did she drink too much, or was Tull simply trying to deflect her question? She followed H. L. Mencken's tips for responsible alcohol consumption: Never drink before sundown and never drink three days in a row. Well, she more or less followed those rules. Obviously, you weren't supposed to wait for evening once daylight savings time kicked in. And an occasional glass of wine at lunch was merely civilized.

"I'd say you were trying to change the subject on me," she said. "Besides, talk about clichés. Everyone thinks I do everything to excess. I can go cold turkey on anything, any time. Just try me."

"Like men. Which means I can't try you." He was teasing her. Tull would have run for the exits if he thought she had a romantic interest in him. Tess was suddenly aware of Nancy LaMott's voice on the sound system, rubbing against them like an affectionate cat. It was one of those uncanny moments when background music suddenly became a suitable soundtrack. "Moon River" in this case. Two drifters. Huckleberry friends, whatever the hell that meant.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's," Tull said.

"Great story, crappy movie." Tess sobbed every time she saw it.

"Did I ever tell you how George Peppard got me through insomnia? Some station was showing ‘Banacek' reruns every night. Cleared up my problem in no time."

"When was this? After your divorce?"

"I don't remember." So near, so far away. She had run smack into another one of Martin Tull's internal firewalls. He could remember the details of every homicide he had worked in the city, but he always claimed virtual amnesia when asked a personal question.

"So, I actually had clients today," she said, knowing this was a subject he would welcome.

"Yeah?"

"Two clients in one day. One very direct, slam-dunk missing persons thing. God bless Autotrack."

Tull snapped his biscotti in two with his small, very even white teeth. "A lot of that computer stuff is illegal, or should be. I don't want to know too much about how you do what you do. Puts me in a difficult position."

"I don't do it personally, if that's any comfort. But it's the other case I want to ask you about. It involves finding minors, possibly in foster care. The computer is useless, or so I'm told."

"In Baltimore?" Tull drummed his fingers against the table, instantly engaged.

"Maryland. I think. I hope. I don't even have their full names."

"Who wants to find them? Why?"

She sidestepped the first question. It was none of Tull's business who came to her door, but the why, if finessed, might be enough to get the help she needed. "They testified in this court case several years back. My client feels indebted to them, and he wants to make good on it."

"Car accident?"

"An accident of sorts. These kids were the only witnesses. He doesn't remember their last names, though, and isn't sure of their first names."

"Tess, that's a no-brainer. I mean, it's so easy, you should be ashamed of yourself for not knowing how to do it."

She pretended to pout. "Okay, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm totally lost. What do I do? Where do I start?"

"These kids were witnesses in a court case, right? So all you have to do is put the case name in the court computer, and the witness list will pop right up. Even minors have their full names on file if they're called as witnesses. Even in a civil case."

Tess sipped her cappuccino, feeling smug. "Of course, I didn't say it was civil. That was your supposition."

"Civil or criminal, same difference, but you said-" Tull looked at her. "You yanking my chain, Tess? Who is your client, anyway? Someone on my side of the street?"

"The names of my clients are confidential, Detective Tull, as you know."

"Criminal, criminal, criminal," he muttered to himself. "Homicide?"

"None of your business."

"Homicide it is. A homicide with kids as witnesses." Tess could almost see Tull riffling the mental files of his mind, processing each of the two thousand-plus cases the city homicide squad had handled in the past seven years. "Kids, kids, kids. The one who was shot by the guy in Cedonia, for bringing his daughter home too late from the movies?"

"If I told you the name of my client, Tyner could be disbarred. Besides, you couldn't be further off."

"The one where the guy shot the fourteen-year-old for jostling his car when he walked by, setting off the car alarm?"

That caught her off-guard. "How did I miss that one?"

"No, that can't be it. The kid was killed, the witness was an old woman sitting on her porch." Tull snapped his fingers. "Dead kid. Kid witnesses. Beale. Luther Beale. That crazy motherfucker."

"I don't know about crazy. A little odd, but then who wouldn't be, given the circumstances?"

"Then it is Beale." In his delight, Tull actually slapped himself five, high and low. "Man, I can't believe you're gullible enough to believe anything that old bastard has to say."

Tess stood up abruptly, angry at how easily he had tricked her into confirming his hunch. Tull took one look at her face and said, "Why don't we pour our coffee in togo cups and take a walk?"

Fells Point was crowded and rowdy on a Friday night, but Tess and Tull knew how to leave the drunken throngs behind. They walked down Fell Street, a narrow block of newer townhouses and condominiums jutting into the harbor on a long spit of land. There wasn't enough parking for cars to be prowling for a space here, and the only bar was a relatively sedate place. They made their way to the dock and sat on its edge, staring out across the water to Locust Point. Tess could see the remains of the Procter and Gamble plant where Beale had once worked, alongside the Domino's plant. The "Sugar House" to the locals, with a blazing neon sign that had written itself across a thousand Baltimore memories.

"Luther Beale is trying to make amends for what he's done," she said. "Is that so hard to believe? Do you have to be gullible to think someone might want to do the right thing?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have used that word. But Luther Beale-Jesus, Tess, he's the devil. His name should be Lucifer Beale."

"The devil? That old man, in his brown suit? Oh, Martin, I know he killed a little boy, and it sickens me, but he's not evil. He's an old man who made a terrible mistake. He wouldn't be the first guy with a gun to do that. At least he wants to make amends, or try."

"That's the problem. He's still a vigilante at heart, making up his own justice system as he goes along. First he was the judge and executioner, now he wants to be the jury, allocating the punitive damages."

"He made a mistake. One horrible, terrible, tragic mistake. I'm not saying it's defensible, but it's not what you're making it out to be."

"One mistake? One mistake?" Tull's voice rose almost to a shout. He stopped himself, fighting for control. "I bet he told you he didn't have a record, right?"

"He said there was a rap on him for doing home improvements without a license-"

"Run his name, Tess. You'll find an agg assault arrest from fifteen years ago. If the other guy hadn't been 250 pounds and six-foot-six, that probably would have been Beale's first murder charge. He got PBJ-probation before judgment."

"I know what PBJ is," Tess snapped. "I also know it's the legal equivalent to having a clean record, so Beale told me the truth. If I ran it, I wouldn't find anything."

"Yeah, Beale learned something important from that encounter," Tull continued, ignoring her. "Pick on someone your own size. No. Someone smaller, a kid. An eleven-year-old kid, Tess, who weighed maybe seventy-five pounds. He had some rocks. Luther Beale had a.357 Magnum. It wasn't exactly a fair fight on Fairmount."

"I met him," Tess objected. "I talked to him. He's genuinely contrite. If anything, he feels he hasn't paid enough for what he's done. That's all this is about. He was quoting the Bible. He wouldn't be the first criminal who found God in prison."

"Yeah, and he wouldn't be the first one to lose him again once he got out." Tull looked up at the moon, a full one rising over the harbor, fat and sickly green-yellow. "Tell me, Tess, didn't you feel anything weird, anything off about this guy? I've got a lot of faith in your instincts. I met you over a dead body, and I trusted your feelings about that."

"Not at first," she reminded him. "Not until I almost died, too."

Good, her little barb had hurt him, although it really hadn't been his fault. He had hurt her, too, questioning her judgment.

"Yeah, okay, point taken. But didn't Beale give you the creeps?"

"No, not really," she said. "Kind of annoying, in that attention-must-be-paid, listen-to-your-elders kind of way. Abrupt to the point of rudeness. Truth be told, talking to him wasn't much different from talking to my grandmother."

"Rude doesn't begin to describe it. Word around the courthouse was that he wanted to take the stand, claim self-defense or some other crazy-ass scenario. His lawyer talked him out of it, which didn't improve Beale's disposition any. Donnie Moore's mother came to that courthouse every day, sat through every minute of that trial. All she wanted was for Beale to say, ‘I'm sorry.' You know what he said to her, when they finally met in the hallway?"

"No," Tess said, even as her memory began retrieving all those soundbites from five years ago. "I don't need to know."

"I'll tell you, anyway." Tull leaned closer, lowering his voice the way an old woman might if forced to repeat a vulgar epithet. "He said to this woman, grieving for her only child, ‘if you had been a good mother in the first place, Donnie wouldn't have been living in my neighborhood, and he wouldn't be dead now.' Nice guy, huh? Real sweetheart."

Tess said nothing, just stared at the man in the moon. All her life, she had looked to the moon when it was full, hoping to see the smiling face you were supposed to see. But she always saw a sad one, the mouth formed in a tiny rueful O, as if he were whistling a sad tune.

Tull put his hand over hers, a strange gesture for him. A strange gesture for them, newly minted friends that they were, and neither one a touchy-feely type. "I'm going to tell you one more time, Tess, and you can ignore me one more time if you like, but it's true: Luther Beale is bad news. Drop him."

"Did you work the case?"

"No, but I knew the guys who did-"

"So this is hearsay on your part."

Tull nodded reluctantly. "I guess you could say that."

"You really hate vigilantes, don't you? Is it a cop thing? Is it because you honestly fear for what will happen if people start taking the law into their own hands? Or is it because every Luther Beale is evidence of the police department's failings? If the cops had stopped those kids, he wouldn't have been driven to do what he did."

"That's not fair, Tess."

No, it wasn't. But friends got to disagree, piss one another off, forgive and forget. Even in her anger, Tess realized she and Tull had passed a little milestone in their relationship. They had fought, and now they were making up.

"What is it that bothers you so much about Luther Beale? I really want to know."

Tull took his time answering. "I don't like vigilantes because their sense of justice lacks proportion. They take lives for property. They value themselves more than they value anyone or anything. We're close enough to anarchy as it is. We don't need any more Luther Beales to rush us there."

"But he was right, wasn't he? As cruel as he was, he was right."

"Right to kill Donnie Moore?"

"He was right that Donnie Moore wouldn't have been on Fairmount Avenue in the middle of the night if his mother had done her job in the first place."

"You're harsh, Tess."

This time, she didn't bother to defend herself.