In A Strange City

Chapter 27

Gretchen had three keys made at a Southwest Baltimore convenience store where the owner was surprisingly blasé about such a request, so early in the day. One for Tess, one for Gretchen, and one that Tess put in an envelope and left in a mailbox at a certain Bolton Hill town house, with nothing more than a typewritten note providing the address for the door the key would open and suggesting the right time to use it.

She left a similar note-with no key, of course, for he would not need a key-at the Stone Hill home of Arnold Pitts.

Tess was not unaware, as she crept up to their doors in the winter twilight, looking around to make sure she was unobserved, that her behavior was no different from her own stalker’s. There was a dirty little thrill in skulking, in leaving anonymous notes. She didn’t want to feel it, but she did.

They had decided to leave the notes about 6 p.m., just before the two men returned home from work. This gave them a window of an hour, an hour in which no end of things could go wrong. Gretchen had suggested trying to put a contingency plan in place, involving Crow and Whitney, but Tess felt strangely confident.

“I don’t want to work with a net,” she told Gretchen, when they stopped for dinner at Baltimore ’s last surviving Roy Rogers to form their plan.

“It’s not a net, it’s common sense. If Pitts decides to go somewhere else-if he decides to flee-we’ve lost him.”

“He won’t.” Tess dredged a fry through her own mix of barbecue sauce and ketchup, feeling in control of events for the first time in days. “The note promised him something he really wants. He won’t be able to stay away.”

“I just hope you’re right.”

“I was right about following him, wasn’t I? Now it’s time to make this little piggy go wee-wee-wee all the way to Central Booking.”

Dinner finished, they returned to the house in Southwest Baltimore -and waited. There was nothing left to do now but to wait. It was strangely peaceful. They didn’t listen to the radio or make conversation, just sat in the front seat of Gretchen’s rental car and watched the night deepen around them. The street had the sodium vapor lamps used in high-crime areas, but most of them were burned out. Vagrants began making their way to the abandoned buildings, toting small paper bags and greasy sacks of take-out food, not that much different from other workingmen heading home at the end of the hard day. Shoulders slumped, heads down, they looked exhausted. Perhaps being a drug addict really was the hardest job in America.

Ensor arrived first, but then he had been told a time fifteen minutes earlier than Pitts. He drove a Mercedes-Benz, an older model the color of a robin’s egg.

“What an ugly old pile,” Gretchen said.

“But not old enough to have that charming retro thing going for it,” Tess agreed, then realized they could have been describing the car’s driver as well.

Five minutes later, Pitts’s van took the corner on two wheels and squealed to a stop.

“The whole time we were following him, I couldn’t help thinking that thing looked like a bladder,” Gretchen said.

“Really? I thought of it as a stomach,” Tess said, surprised that literal-minded Gretchen was capable of such whimsy.

Pitts jumped out and, with a quick furtive look around him, went up to the door. When he found it was already unlocked, he hesitated, his hand on the knob as if he were frozen. He must have inhaled deeply, for Tess saw the cloudy smoke of his exhale. Finally, he squared his shoulders, marching inside with a convincing air of determination.

“No guns, right?” she asked Gretchen. “You checked the permits with the state police.”

“No legal guns. There’s no way to know if one of those fuckers is carrying an illegal weapon.”

“Did you recognize Ensor? Have you seen him before?”

“No, the only one I ever dealt with was Pitts, and he never said anything about a partner. It was all between him and the Visitor, to hear him tell it.”

“Ensor and the Visitor are about the same height,” Tess said thoughtfully. “And the man who killed Yeager was tall, too.”

Gretchen had her Glock out. “Are we going in loud or quiet?” she asked.

“Quiet, I think. And remember to block the hallway to the kitchen. I don’t want either one running past us toward the rear stairs and that window in the back. If I got in that way, one of them could get out.” Although Pitts, rotund as he was, would probably get stuck if he tried to go through and would have to wait there, suspended like Pooh Bear in Rabbit’s front door.

“You ever done anything like this before?” Gretchen asked.

“Not really. You?”

“Nope.” Gretchen grinned. “I was a patrol cop. Never fired my weapon once in two years.”

“Did you take long dinner breaks?”

“I ate on my dashboard, like a real cop.”

“Coffee?”

“I prefer tea.”

“Maybe that’s why they forced you out. You clearly didn’t have the right stuff.”

Gretchen frowned, and Tess realized it was not possible to joke about this chapter in Gretchen’s history. Not now, perhaps not ever. Or perhaps simply not for her. Gretchen O’Brien was a very angry lady. It was interesting, to say the least, to be reminded of the gaps in their partnership at the precise moment they needed to trust each other, work as one.

Pitts had locked the door behind him, an interesting choice to Tess’s mind. Was he trying to keep Ensor inside? Or hoping to keep someone else from entering? No matter, she and Gretchen had their keys. They opened the door as quietly as possible, not sure where the men would be in the house.

The light was on in the foyer, and the sliding doors to the parlor were open. Tess noticed cloths had been pulled from several items-not just the Beacon-Light beacon but an old mahogany sideboard, a black velvet portrait of Johnny Unitas, and a large sign advertising Pikesville Rye, a local brand. Good, Ensor had used his head start just as they had anticipated. She and Gretchen stood as still as possible and listened, waiting for a sound that would help them close in on their quarry. They heard voices upstairs, an area they had explored all too quickly on their last visit, but it appeared to be where Pitts stored more fragile goods- antique clothes, hatboxes from the old department stores, silver from the defunct Stieff Company. She and Gretchen exchanged a look and nodded. Tess headed to the back staircase, while Gretchen crept up the front.

As she neared the top of the stairs, Tess crouched and listened. The voices appeared to be coming from a middle room, whose door was shut. Gretchen approached from the front and they stood outside the door, straining to hear. It wasn’t hard, as the voices were rising in volume with every sentence.

“I’m not blind, Arnold, I see what’s here. You’ve been holding things back, saying they couldn’t be found or substituting fakes. You betrayed us. Was Shawn beaten at your instruction? Did you rob me and pretend to be burglarized so no one would suspect that you were stealing back all the things you stole in the first place?”

“I didn’t.” Pitts sounded frightened, with no trace of the sly arrogance he had brought to his last encounter with Tess. “I wouldn’t. You can search here; I don’t have your things. Yes, I have things you wanted, you and Shawn, things I told you I couldn’t find. You used me as a procurer, but you wouldn’t share them with me. We were supposed to be a co-op, yet I never got my turn. So you can’t blame me if I wasn’t quick to turn over everything I had.”

“You were paid to find the items and obtain them, by any means possible. You were paid handsomely.” The word handsomely was ominous in Ensor’s mouth. “You were never a full partner in this enterprise. You were a contractor, plain and simple. You could not have afforded these things on your own.”

“And you couldn’t have found them without me! Now, where’s my bracelet? You promised to give me my bracelet.”

“I am so tired of hearing about that goddamn bracelet! You’re obsessed, you know that? We’ve lost priceless items because you trusted some cheap little hustler, and all you can talk about is that worthless mass-produced piece of no distinction. You think you’re so damn clever, but you’ve only increased our exposure with every one of your schemes.”

“It’s not worthless.” Pitts could not have sounded more aggrieved. “It was a limited reproduction put out by Hutzler’s upon Baltimore ’s sesquicentennial, and it belonged to my mother. It helps to have a grain of truth when you lie; it gives the lie its punch. Besides, how could I tell a private detective-or anyone-that we wanted to find the Visitor because Bobby Hilliard claimed he had passed the things to him? Not even that sleazy O’Brien woman would have taken the job.”

Tess shot Gretchen a look of sympathy. It was hard to outrun a bad reputation, even one you didn’t deserve. Especially one you didn’t deserve.

“Where’s the pike, Arnold? Did you stash that here or somewhere else? I hope you thought to have it cleaned first. I’m sure Shawn’s blood is all over it. And perhaps your own, too? Did Bobby Hilliard really steal the items from Shawn that night, or have you had them all along? Was all this an elaborate plan to persuade me that you didn’t pocket the items yourself?”

The pike? Gretchen looked at Tess, who shook her head. All she could think of was the sign downstairs, the one for Pikesville whiskey. But clearly Ensor meant something else entirely.

“I didn’t attack Shawn Hayes. And why are you so sure it was the pike, anyway? I think you beat him that night and killed Bobby when he showed up at the grave site because you realized you’d been duped, that he had the things all along. And maybe you killed the other man too, that television reporter. What was in his little black book, Jerry? What were you afraid he would find, if he looked hard enough? Maybe you and Bobby were lovers and conspired to double-cross me and Shawn. Anyone as conspicuously hetero as you claim to be is usually compensating for something.”

Tess heard a soft whooshing sound, as if someone was plumping a pillow with vicious strokes, followed by an almost inhuman squeal from Pitts. Ensor must have punched him in the stomach. She and Gretchen nodded, and she let Gretchen do the honors. She kicked the door open with a short, swift jab and screamed “Freeze!” with all her might.

The two men complied, at least for a moment, and it was a strangely comic tableau: Pitts on his back, limbs weaving like a beetle’s, Ensor’s hands on his throat.

And then it was as if they had confused their roles, as if Ensor was the victim and Pitts the aggressor. For Ensor looked relieved to see them, while Pitts’s lower lip began to tremble in fear.

“I didn’t do it,” Pitts cried. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Are the police on the way?” Ensor asked, standing and dusting his palms, as if they were soiled from touching Pitts’s neck. “I hope so. I’m ready to tell them everything I know.”

“Everything?” Tess asked.

“Everything,” he said with a somber nod, stepping forward.

And with that, he calmly backhanded Gretchen across the face, knocking her to the floor. Her head hit hard, with an all-too-solid sound, and although she somehow held on to her gun, the blow appeared to have knocked her out.

“Gretchen!” Tess yelled, and started toward her, giving Ensor the opportunity to bolt. Pitts wasn’t far behind.

“Grab one, for God’s sake,” Gretchen moaned. “I’m okay, but I’ll kill you if they both get away.”

Tess wanted Ensor, wanted to pay him back for hitting Gretchen, but he had a formidable head start. Pitts, however, had scrambled clumsily to his feet, only to hesitate at the top of the front stairs. True to the proverb, he was lost. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Tess closing in, and turned back to the stairs intent on his flight. His shiny shoes slipped on the top step, however, and his legs flew up in the air, so his descent was much swifter than he had planned. A toboggan on an ice-encrusted hill couldn’t have gone much faster.

Although a toboggan, in all probability, would have executed a smoother landing. Pitts ended up on the landing, his left leg twisted in an angle that mankind’s creator, whoever it was, had never intended. Then again, Tess thought, standing over the moaning man, mankind’s creator had probably never envisioned a specimen quite like this.

“Please,” he said, “please-” and he extended a hand toward Tess as if he expected her sympathy.

“What?”

“I must tell you, you must know-”

“Yes?” This should be good.

“I-I want to go to Johns Hopkins or University, not Bon Secours.”

Tess kneeled next to him. “How about if I give you a bullet to bite on while I set it myself?”