The Sugar House

chapter 22

SHE FOUND SUKEY IN LATROBE PARK, READING THE latest issue of Teen People.

“Do you think I could ever look like this?” she asked Tess, pointing to a photo of the latest teen sensation, female variety, a toothpick girl with absurdly large breasts on her bony chest. She reminded Tess of the drawing of the boa constrictor in The Little Prince, the one that showed the snake with a pig halfway through its digestive system. Put this girl on her back, and she was more or less the same shape.

“No,” Tess said. “Because no one actually looks like that, not even her. Jesus, those can’t be real.”

“Oh they are,” Sukey assured her. “She says right here that she’s never had plastic surgery.”

“Sukey, do you always tell the truth?”

The girl looked down at her feet, hurt. “Most of the time.”

“Which is what everyone does. So why would you assume she’s telling the truth?”

This seemed to cheer Sukey up. “Hey, can you keep a secret?”

“Sure.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

Uh-oh. “Why does it have to be a secret?”

“Don’t worry, he’s not one of those old guys you warned me about. I mean, he’s older ’n me, he can drive and all. His name is Paul.” Sukey paused. “He’s not a boyfriend-boyfriend. He has a girl. But he likes to talk to me, when she’s being a bitch.”

“Sukey-” Tess didn’t know what to say without sounding as if she were forever contradicting herself. True, she had told Sukey to avoid the boys who wanted girls for their parts. But the talkers could be dangerous, too, in another way. They usually came so much later in one’s life. She had known one in her twenties, a man who dropped by to “talk” late at night, after his fiancée had gone to sleep.

“Go on,” Sukey said.

“What?”

“Tell me he’s using me. Tell me he’s using me to make his girlfriend jealous, that he’ll always go running back to her. That’s what my mother says.”

If Mrs. Brewer had been briefed, then Tess was off the hook, freed of feeling she had to be in loco parentis.

“He does sound a little, well, confused, but I didn’t come here to talk about our love lives.” Sukey beamed at the implication she and Tess were equals, two girlfriends with the same set of problems. “I’m here because we never finished our conversation the other day, the one about the girl I was looking for, Gwen Schiller.”

“I figured you didn’t need me anymore, once you knew who she was.”

There was a sad, lonely note in Sukey’s voice. It wasn’t reproachful, but it was a reminder to Tess that there were infinite ways in which to use people.

“I never would have found her without you. I said your name on television, didn’t you hear?”

“Just my first name,” the girl said sulkily.

“As if everyone in Locust Point didn’t know who Sukey Brewer was. Besides, I thought your mom might not like it, if I used your full name. She certainly wasn’t happy the day she found us talking,” Tess said. “She interrupted us, remember? I thought maybe there was something else you were going to tell me, something more about Gwen.”

“She didn’t look like a Gwen,” Sukey said thoughtfully. “She should have had a more flowery name, like Heather. Or Shania.”

“Sukey, have you told me everything you know about Gwen?”

For a girl known as a liar, Sukey wasn’t much good at hiding her emotions when she was interrogated directly. She made things up, but only for fun, Tess realized. Give her a piece of paper, and she’d just be another novelist.

But for now, she squirmed, refusing to make eye contact.

“Sukey?”

“She needed to make a call. She asked if she could come to my house, but I couldn’t let her. My mom would kill me if I let someone in. But I told her there was another way to make her call-” she stopped.

“What, Sukey?”

“You can’t tell this part. I’d be banned.”

“I won’t tell.”

She rolled her magazine into a tight log, pressed it against her mouth, muttering into it as if it were a bullhorn. But she ended up muffling her words, not amplifying them.

“I can’t hear a thing you’re saying, Sukey.”

“She didn’t have any money, and I sure didn’t have any. But she really needed to make this call. So I swiped a phone card. Off the counter, at the mini-mart. From Brad, which made me feel awful, but she needed it so bad. It was only a five-dollar one, and it was a rip-off, the way it counted the minutes. One call, just to leave a message, and it was almost used up. She used it at a pay phone. She made a call, and she said someone would be here to get her in a few hours. She was sure of it. She said she’d have to wait in the park, because Fort McHenry closes at sunset. She said she was going to be okay.”

Sukey was close to tears. Tess looked away, letting her use whatever tricks she had mastered to keep them from coming. Why was it so important not to cry when you were a child? She couldn’t remember the logic, but she knew the feeling, knew Sukey would feel she had lost face if Tess saw her tears.

“It’s not your fault, Sukey. You tried to help her. In fact, you might be one of the few people who ever tried to help Gwen Schiller. There are a lot of people who should feel guilty about what happened to her. You don’t happen to be one of them.”

“It’s so strange,” the girl said, sniffling. “Knowing someone who died. I mean, a someone who wasn’t a grandmom, or an old person.”

“I know,” Tess said. Boy did she know. “Let’s go to the mini-mart.”

“You’re not going to make me confess, are you? My mom did that once. She made me go into this store and tell I boosted gum. I couldn’t ever go back. I only did it the once.”

“Only once?”

“Only once in that store,” Sukey confessed.

“I’m not worried about your shoplifting. You should stop stealing, though. You’re going to get caught, and there will be consequences.”

“I might not get caught.” Offered cautiously, as if she were curious to see if Tess would contradict her.

“Maybe not. But you probably will. Everyone gets caught.”

“Everyone? Then there’d be no unsolved crimes, I guess.”

“One way or another, everyone gets caught,” Tess amended. “If not in this world, then the next. Now let’s walk down to the mini-mart.”

At the mini-mart, Sukey bought a fan magazine and a bag of Utz cheese curls, but she found what Tess was doing far more intriguing than the latest news about the pretty-boy band of the moment. Sitting on the curb, her orange-coated fingers dipping in and out of the bag, she watched Tess as if she were a television program, although Tess thought even C-span would balk at airing something this boring. She wrote down the numbers on the three phones outside. Like a lot of the city’s pay phones, they were programmed not to take incoming calls, but by calling her own cell phone and using the Caller ID function, she was able to verify each number.

“Is the phone company going to give you a list of the outgoing calls from there on the day before she died?” Sukey asked.

“Not me,” Tess said. “But a certain police officer I know will be able to get the numbers. He owes me a favor. I think.” Actually, she had lost track on who owed what in the Martin Tull-Tess Monaghan favor exchange. She might have to ask for credit.

“Cool,” Sukey said. “You know, I think I want to be a private investigator when I grow up.”

“Oh lord, Sukey. Please try to find a real job.”

“What’s a real job?”

Tess thought about this. “One with paid medical, and a lunchroom with a microwave, maybe even a cafeteria with hot food. Better yet, free long-distance phone calls and co-workers to waste time with. One with United Way drives and employee-of-the-month contests and a company newsletter and endless requests to kick in five dollars here and ten dollars there for Susie in accounting who just had a baby or a wedding or a divorce or a new filling.”

She warmed to the subject. “One with a cubicle and a desk that snags your panty hose and endless memos about the right way to dispose of recyclables. And lots and lots of petty intrigue and small-minded politics, all intended to distract you from the fact that you’re getting two percent raises from a company that’s returning twenty percent to its stockholders. That’s a real grown-up’s job, Sukey. Not what I do.”

Thank God, she thought. Thank God.

“So what are you going to do when you grow up?” Sukey smiled, pleased with herself at being able to turn that dreaded question on someone else for once.

“I’ll worry about that when the day comes.”

“Don’t be so impatient,” Crow said, rubbing the knot that had taken up residence at the base of her neck. “You can’t rush the phone company. It’s like poking a sleeping dinosaur with a twig.”

“I know, I know,” Tess said. “But I had hoped to hear from them before the weekend. Waiting is much less tolerable when no one is footing the bill for it.”

She took a sip of her eggnog, the sensible kind that was almost all brandy. They were at an open house held every year by one of the old Star columnists, who built an elaborate Christmas garden in his basement. In his version of Baltimore, it was still the 1970s, with all the old stores open for business-Read’s Drugs, Hutzler’s, Hoschild’s. He also had learned how to make it appear as if the Beacon-Light were on fire.

“The little figures, screaming in the windows?” he told Tess and Crow. “Those are all the editors who refused to hire me when the Star folded. The bastards.”

“Cool,” Crow said.

“Tull says I’ll probaby have it first thing Monday morning,” Tess said. “It’s hard to wait, though.”

“I guess it is,” Crow commiserated. “Hey, is that supposed to be the governor tied to the train tracks?”

Tess looked closely. “No, it’s the senator who blocked the gay rights legislation last session.”

Crow wrapped his arms around her from behind, rested his chin on her shoulder. “Now this is my idea of a Christmas tradition. What do you want for Christmas, anyway?”

“A neon sign that says ‘Human Hair.’ How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Funny, that’s exactly what I want.”

What I really want, Tess was thinking, is a resolution to this mess before the end of the year. She wanted to look at the log of numbers called from that pay phone on November fifth, and find-find what, exactly? Gene Fulton’s home number would work. A call to Domenick’s. Then she would feel comfortable telling her father what she knew about his co-worker. He would be outraged, shocked, surprised.

That was what she really wanted for Christmas. She wanted her father to be shocked, truly shocked that there had been gambling in Casablanca.

The list came crawling off her office fax machine the next day. Tull had wanted to bring it by in person-“The numbers are so small, you might not be able to read them from a fax”-but Tess had told him her eyesight was still pretty good.

A day in the life of a city pay phone was more interesting than she would have guessed. There were dozens of outgoing calls, and most were made with some sort of calling card. Tess focused on the local ones first, checking each number against the bound crisscross directory, then using a reverse directory on the Internet if that failed to turn up the number. She ended up calling most of them anyway, just to be sure. It was slow, tedious work, and she found herself wishing that Sukey could see her now. Heigh-ho, the glamorous life.

She concentrated on the local calls, the 410 ones, ignoring the 301s, 202s, 302s, and 215s scattered among the listings. Gene Fulton’s number was not among those she checked. Neither was Domenick’s. Nor was Eric Collins one of the listings she checked. If there was another name, another number, that Tess thought she might find, she didn’t admit it, not even to herself. At any rate, if that number came up, she wouldn’t need a directory to identify it.

But so many of the numbers fell outside the listings. She called blind, using different stories to cajole names from the skeptical, harried women who snatched up the phones on the fifth or sixth ring. It was slow going, but by midday, she had hit most of the local numbers on the list.

And she had nothing. Except for a reddened left ear.

She moved on to the 301 numbers, which covered the Washington suburbs and the western part of the state. The Schillers lived in that area code. More nothing. She had not contemplated this much nothingness since she tried taking a philosophy course in her freshman year at Washington College, and discovered it made her head hurt. All these numbers, all these codes, all these calls. How could so much life emanate from three pay phones in Locust Point? Drug dealers preferred the illegal pay phones around the city, which actually outnumbered the legal ones. The calls made here were probably much more mundane. Car trouble, what was the name of that guy, again, and I’m stopping at the market, do you need anything? All those calls and one of them, just one of them, was Gwen Schiller’s call for help.

A call for help.

Damn, she was stupid sometimes. Why would Gwen, alone and scared, reach out to the very people she presumably was running from? Why would she call Gene Fulton, or Domenick’s, or anyone in the DeSanti family? Tess had been so intent on finding a link that she had not thought this through properly. Gwen was waiting for someone, someone who had to come to her and find her in a very public, accessible place, Fort McHenry, a place that any out-of-towner could find, a place where no one could sneak up on you. She checked the long distance calls again: There were seven to the D.C. suburbs, four to 202, which was D.C. proper. Two to Delaware, 302. And one to 215, which was Philadelphia.

Philadelphia. Where, as Tess knew, Gwen did have a contact. A contact who said she hadn’t heard from her since leaving Persephone’s Place.

Tess dialed the number. It rang five times before Devon Whittaker’s cool, dry voice assured her that she was so sorry she had missed her call, but please leave a message and she would get right back to you.

Tess wondered if Gwen Schiller had listened to the same message, a little over a year ago.

It was not a day for trains, to bend her schedule to anyone else’s. Tess was in her car within five minutes, stopping only to drop Esskay at Kitty’s store.

“Do you think this is what it would be like if we had a baby?” Crow wondered. “You handing it off to me in a Snugli, while you strap on your gun and head out into the world?”

“I’m not strapping on my gun,” she said. “I’m just carrying it in my knapsack. And don’t talk about babies, okay? One day at a time.”

“As long as there’s a tomorrow,” Crow said, watching Esskay as she climbed into one of the store’s easy chairs and made herself at home. Tess was already out the door, her mind racing ahead of her as she sped across Eastern Avenue and then up I-95.

Devon had said she didn’t know Gwen that well, but she had known she had left. At the time, she said she had heard it from one of the other girls, but the clinic maintained no one else who was there knew Gwen had escaped. They had kept it quiet.

Besides, why would Gwen call someone who was in? Only someone who was out, and on her own, could help her. Devon was out by then, starting her freshman year at Penn, living off campus. Perhaps Gwen, not knowing about Devon’s watchful bodyguard, had expected her to take her in, or at least come to Baltimore to bail her out of whatever trouble she was in. She was waiting for someone, Sukey had told her. The someone never came, so Gwen was still in the park the next day, ready for fate when it arrived in the shape of Henry Dembrow.

It took a solid two hours to make the 100-mile trip to Philadelphia. Tess burned up another 45 minutes in wrong turns before she found her way back to Devon’s apartment. She found a space halfway down the street, rang the apartment from the foyer. No answer. She bought a pretzel from a street vendor and took it back to the car. She couldn’t remember when she had eaten last.

It was almost dusk when Devon turned down the street. She moved self-consciously-shoulders hunched beneath the weight of her knapsack, eyes on the pavement, her body hidden in the voluminous folds of a man’s vintage cashmere coat.

Tess stopped her just outside the apartment building.

“Devon.”

She needed a second. Maybe it was the dim light. “The private detective. The one who was looking for Gwen.”

“She called you, didn’t she? The day before she was killed, she called you.”

Devon’s eyes returned to the sidewalk, then slid to the right. “I wasn’t home. She left a message, but I wasn’t home, and I didn’t know what time she called. There wasn’t anything I could do. Until you came here, I thought she was alive.”

“We need to talk about this. Can I come inside?”

Devon nodded, then shook her head. “Hilde’s there.”

“Are you saying you can’t talk about this in front of Hilde? We can go sit in my car if you like.”

“No. She’ll give us privacy, if I ask.”

“Then ask,” Tess said. She shouldered her own knapsack, followed Devon into the small vestibule of her building, watched her fumble with the keys at the inside door, which was even balkier than the last time. Tess noticed the veneer around the lock was scratched, which struck her as a seedy note in such a nice building. The stairwell was dark, too, as if the landlord were too cheap to turn on the lights one minute before dusk was complete.

Later, forced to recount the events that followed-and Tess was forced to recount them several times-she remembered feeling as if she had left her body, that she was standing outside herself and what she was seeing. “That’s funny,” Devon was saying, “the lock doesn’t want to-oh, there it goes.” Devon flipped a switch, but the stairwell light didn’t come on. “Burned out,” Devon said matter-of-factly, and began climbing the stairs.

It was then that Tess grabbed her arm and dragged her into the street. She wasn’t sure how her gun came to be in her hand, safety off, but she must have opened her knapsack because Devon was holding her cell phone. She heard a voice, her own voice, above the dull roaring in her ears. Call 911. Call 911. Even as Devon was trying to make the call, Tess was dragging her across the street, looking for someplace safe, untouchable.

She settled for the Philly cheesesteak cart, stationed behind someone’s very nice and very white BMW. Time was out of sequence for Tess. It seemed to her that she threw Devon to the ground before the shots were fired, but that didn’t make any sense. The phone bounced from Devon’s hand, even as the call was going through. Tess could hear the operator’s voice buzzing from the sidewalk, increasingly impatient. “911, may I help you? May I help you? Are you there?” She hoped the 911 operator could hear them, could hear the panicked screams on the street around them.

“Yell out the address,” she shouted to Devon. “Scream as loud as you can.” A second round of shots, and although Tess did not dare look up, she knew they were coming from Devon’s apartment. Luckily, whoever was waiting there had assumed they’d be doing their work at much closer range. They didn’t have the guns, or the target skills, for this distance, although Tess heard a few shots ringing into the BMW. The cheesesteak vendor abandoned ship, running down the block. The first wave of sirens started, not too far in the distance. The shots stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

“Is there a back entrance to your building?” Tess asked Devon.

She nodded, looking a little dazed. “And a fire escape. Do you want me to show you?”

“No, I just need to tell the police when they get here. My guess is whoever was in your apartment will leave that way. But we stay here until the cops arrive.”

Slowly, Tess was returning to her own body. She became aware of the cold air, the rough sidewalk beneath her cheek, the fact that her left arm was around Devon’s narrow waist. People had begun to move in the street again, but no one would come close to them, although a teenage boy kicked Tess’s cell phone so it skittered back to her. Maybe it was the gun in Tess’s right hand. Maybe it was because no one saw any percentage in cozying up to the targets.

“The cheese and onions are making me sick,” Devon said. “The smell, I mean.”

“There are worse smells,” Tess said.