The Sugar House

chapter 25

IN HER OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, TESS CLICKED HER way to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Internet site and found the story about Hilde’s slaying. It wasn’t played on page one, as far as she could tell, and the juiciest details-the gunfire, Tess and Devon taking cover behind the cheesesteak cart-were missing. Nor was there anything about a possible kidnapping. In fact, Devon’s name didn’t even appear in the story, so the Whittakers must have more pull than Tess realized. According to the Inquirer, the woman killed was a “Swedish nutritionist,” living here on a visa. The landlord said she had a roommate, but the roommate had not been home at the time of the slaying and was not available for comment.

“Not available for comment.” Newspaper-ese for “I fucking couldn’t find her, okay?” Tess sat back in her chair, feeling safe. If the police were withholding Devon’s role from reporters, then Tess’s identity also would remain a secret. There would be no awkward questions to answer from the Philly press, which means it would be unlikely that the story would trickle down Interstate 95 and show up in the Blight. She had escaped being the local angle.

Then she checked her messages.

“Miss Monaghan?” The voice was male and bill-collector polite. “Herman Peters, at the Beacon-Light. I had a tip this morning that you might know something about an incident in Philadelphia yesterday. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Great. Herman Peters was only the sweetest, gentlest, and most indefatigable son of a bitch at the local paper these days. One of the Philadelphia cops must have been checking her out through Baltimore PD and hit one of Herman’s sources, who had then offered this tidbit to him to make him go away.

She gathered up her keys and knapsack, jangling the hook on Esskay’s leash, which signaled the dog to roll from the sofa and follow her out. It suddenly seemed like a good day to work at home, where Kitty could keep unwelcome visitors at bay.

But when she stepped out the door to her office, Herman Peters was getting out of a surprisingly clean Honda Accord, talking on a cell phone.

“Yeah, I heard the fire call for Northwest,” he was saying, as he walked toward her. He spoke rapidly, so rapidly that it was almost as if he were speaking in a foreign language. “Vacant rowhouse. We don’t need to worry about it unless the wind picks up, and it goes to extra alarms. Gotta go-I’m here on an interview.”

“That’s okay,” Tess said sweetly, walking past him and unlocking her car door. “I’m on my way out, anyway. Why don’t we catch up later?”

Herman Peters had brown eyes that Keene would have been proud to paint and bright pink cheeks that brought to mind impossibly wholesome activities, like cross-country skiing. However, Tess knew from her Blight friends that he hadn’t taken more than one day off in the last two years and outside murder scenes provided the only sunshine and fresh air in his life. Cal Ripken’s streak had ended, but Peters hadn’t missed a homicide yet. This had led to a saying around town: If a body drops and the Hermannator isn’t there to hear it, does it make a sound?

He was a crafty son of a bitch, too. Instead of trying to change Tess’s mind, he took a package of Nabs crackers from his pocket and offered one to Esskay. The dog all but dragged Tess back to the man she was trying to avoid.

“So, about Philadelphia-” he said, offering Esskay a second Nabs.

“It’s not a city I know very well,” Tess said. “I used to go there when I competed in crew races, but I haven’t done that for years.”

“Then what were you doing there yesterday? Patching the crack in the Liberty Bell?”

“Davy Crockett,” Tess sang back to him. “I bet you had a little raccoon cap when you were younger and galloped around the yard on a hobby horse, shooting at imaginary Mexicans.”

“Actually, I did have a coonskin cap, when I was a little kid.”

“And that would have been, what, three years ago?”

The Nabs were gone, but Peters was now stroking Esskay’s muzzle and scratching her behind the ears, and the dog was so rooted to the spot that Tess wasn’t sure she could yank her away with both arms. She remembered yet another stray piece of gossip she had heard about Peters: Despite his boyish looks, or perhaps because of them, he was extraordinarily successful with women. He had triple-timed female co-workers at the paper, and then hooked up with some starlet who was making a movie in town.

All this, without ever taking his beeper off.

“I can get the police report from Philadelphia,” he told her. “I’ll have it faxed to me this afternoon. I’ll let them keep back whatever they’re keeping back, as long as I can have the part about you. That’s all our readers care about.”

Tess experienced the kind of disgust and anger only an ex-reporter can feel for the press. Peters had no standing, he couldn’t force her to talk about what had happened. Without her account, she doubted he could piece a story together. But he could make her life hell in a dozen different ways. She had to make a deal, had to persuade him to trade what was in the box for what was behind the curtain.

“What happened yesterday is a tiny detail on a much larger canvas. The Philly paper won’t scoop you because the Philly cops are holding back the most interesting stuff, in order to protect the life of a possible witness.” Slight lie there, but only slight. “I’m really small potatoes.” Her father’s leftover phrase. It tasted like soot in her mouth.

“But you’re the local angle,” he repeated, ever dogged.

“Think big, Herman. If you’re patient, I’ll give you a head start on the story when it finally comes together.” It was an easy promise to make, and it would be an easier one to break if she had to. She didn’t owe Peters anything.

“You didn’t cut me in on the Gwen Schiller story early. We had the Washington media breathing down our necks on that, because her family lives in Potomac. They had us surrounded.”

Ah, so there was the grudge unmasked. Peters was pissed because he had been forced to scrounge for scraps at that feeding frenzy of a press conference, which had come too late in the day to allow the Blight to put together the kind of comprehensive package on Schiller that the Washington paper had been able to churn out effortlessly.

“It was the communications officer’s idea to schedule the press conference on the television stations’ time clock. I’d have much rather given it to you first. You’re the only reporter in town whose work has any nuance.”

Peters’s cheeks bloomed even rosier at this praise and he put his hands in his pockets in aw-shucks mode. Esskay head-butted him, and he resumed petting her.

“Is it a good story?”

“I don’t have all the pieces yet. But so far it has sex and death and civic corruption.”

His brown eyes glowed the way Esskay’s might, contemplating another package of Nabs. “That’s a good start.”

“But just a start. When I move toward the finish line, I’ll call you. Tell me how to get you on that.”

Tess gestured toward Peters’s belt buckle and he looked down, momentarily confused. Once he realized she was talking about his beeper, he gave her the number, as well as his office, home and cell phone numbers.

“You’re on call,” she said. “You’re the first one I’ll contact. I assume you’ll do me the same courtesy if you hear of anyone trying to slip my name into the paper for any other reason?”

“It’s a deal,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Just remember, Peters. Keep thinking big.”

“My beeper,” he said.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It’s the vibrating kind.”

“Well, then you must be one of the happiest men in Baltimore, given how many times it goes off in a day.”

But Herman Peters was already getting back into his car, off to visit Baltimore’s latest ex-citizen.

As soon as he was off the block, Tess retreated into her office and called Martin Tull.

“Thanks for those phone numbers,” she said.

“Did it pan out?”

“No, I guess the kid was lying to me. But I still appreciate the help. Who does that, anyway? I mean, is it one person at the phone company, or do they have a whole department?”

“It’s not like you can do that on your own, you know. You have to have a legit reason for getting phone logs.”

He knew her so well. For a moment, she was tempted to tell him about the prostitution ring at Domenick’s, just as her father had asked her to do. But if vice detectives busted the place, she was even less likely to know how Gwen’s fate was connected to the bar. No, she would do it her way, but quietly, so her father wasn’t on the receiving end of any more calls from Arnie Vasso.

“I know I don’t have carte blanche at the phone company. I’m just appreciative. I was going to send a little Christmas remembrance. You can’t begrudge me the right to try and make friends, to stay on someone’s good side. They did a rush job. I want to say thank you.”

“What kind of Christmas remembrance?”

“A Noël buche, something like that.”

His voice still reluctant and suspicious, Tull gave her the name and number. Then he asked: “Were you in Philadelphia yesterday?”

“Yeah. Divorce case. It got ugly.”

“So it would seem. Philadelphia homicide called down here today, wanted to know if you were legit. Rainer took the call. He said you were okay, for a dope-smoking smart-ass lunatic who always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” A pause. “They say you might have saved someone’s life.”

“They’re much too kind.” One life had been saved, but one life had been lost, too. Tess didn’t know how the Philadelphia cops did math, but she counted it as a wash.

“You telling me everything, Tess?”

“Yeah, sure.” She wished, sometimes, that she didn’t have quite so many people interested in her well-being, paying attention to her moods. “It’s just-I’m tired of dead people.”

“Tell me about it.” But his voice was more sympathetic than she had any right to expect. Tull had seen hundreds of dead bodies and she wasn’t even in the double digits. Yet.

“John Updike, in that book you gave me, he said the dead make space,” Tull added. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“Updike doesn’t know dick about what it’s like to be a homicide cop in Baltimore.”

She laughed, although there had been a time she would have considered such an opinion sacrilegious. Not because it was a smear on Updike, but because it impugned all writers, and writers had been gods to her once. In college, she had read books as if all the secrets of the universe might be revealed in a single line. She had swooned at those moments of communion, when someone so distant from her-someone male, of a different generation and place-had expressed so perfectly what she thought existed in her heart alone. Now she knew writers were no different from anyone else, just humans fumbling with the same questions, albeit with better language skills.

“Hey-” Tull said.

“What?”

“I want a Noël buche, too. Support your local sheriff.”

Name and number in hand, she called Tull’s contact at Bell Atlantic, a woman named Kelly. It took endless twists and turns through a voice mail system to get to her, but a human eventually came on the line.

“Kelly, this is Janet over at Martin Tull’s office. He wanted me to thank you for getting those phone logs out so fast to us.”

The young woman sighed. “Not fast enough for some people, I guess.”

“Did someone at the police department give you a hard time?”

“No, you guys were great. But the guy from the senator’s office gave me fits. He was here first thing yesterday, throwing his weight around. Detective Tull said I could fax the logs, but nothing would do for this guy but to get his photocopies first thing in the morning. He was nice to look at, but he sure didn’t have good manners. Not one ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ in the mix. I guess being that pretty makes a guy kind of conceited.”

Maryland had forty-nine senators. More than one could have a pretty male working in the office, Tess told herself.

“Did you get his name? I’d like to talk to his boss, and remind them that Bell Atlantic is our partner in these ventures, that everyone should be treated with respect.”

“His name?” Tess heard a tapping sound, as if the woman was bouncing a pen on her front teeth. “Alan? Aaron? I just remember that he worked for that nice state senator.”

“That nice state senator,” Tess repeated.

“You know, the one who’s on the television now. Dahlgren.”

“Adam Moss.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Dahlgren.”

“Adam Moss is the man who was rude to you. Indian, with dark hair and skin. Very handsome.”

“Yeah, that’s him. Very handsome. And doesn’t he just know it.”

“Well, we’ll remind him not to be so high-handed next time. I’m embarrassed you had to make two copies of the same record, one for the senator and one for the police department. You’d think city and state agencies could co-ordinate a little better.”

“Oh, I’m used to it,” Kelly assured her cheerily. “You guys never have your act together. The senator’s request came in first, I think that’s why his aide got all huffy.”

“It came in first?”

“Yeah. They called late Thursday. Detective Tull called first thing Friday morning. The requests weren’t exactly the same. The detective asked for November fifteenth only, while the senator’s office wanted the whole week. They said it was for the ethics probe, and they’ll probably need to pull lots more records before it’s all over. Just my luck, huh?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” Tess said. “I think they have everything they want.”

She hung up the phone and rested her head on her desk blotter.

She couldn’t confront Adam Moss or Dahlgren, not without risking the very things Patrick Monaghan had feared. His job, his livelihood. But she couldn’t see how any of this was connected. Dahlgren had cleaned up the liquor board and thrown out the most corrupt inspectors, only to let Gene Fulton stay. Did Fulton have something on him? Did Nicola DeSanti have more influence than Tess realized? How did someone know what she was going to do before she did it?

If she asked any of these questions, her father would find out she had lied to him. If she went to Tull, she risked losing control of the investigation. Besides, bringing the police department into it wouldn’t guarantee her father’s job security. Fulton could still figure it out, and he could still take her father down with him. He would do it, too, just for spite.

Punching Whitney’s various numbers into her phone, she finally tracked her down at a Mount Washington hair-dresser’s. Even over the unsteady line of a cell phone, with the roar of several blow dryers in the background, Whitney’s voice was clear and silvery as a bell.

“What’s up, Tesser?”

“How long will it take them to get that same millimeter of hair cut off that you have cut off every six weeks?”

“They still have to blow me out, but I had a manicure scheduled.”

“Can you come see me as soon as you’re done? I really need your help, Starsky.”

Whitney needed a half beat. “I thought I got to be Hutch.”

“You can be whoever you like. It turns out I do need a partner. But not just any partner. A Valley girl with connections and time on her hands. Someone who would make a very credible, very desirable volunteer for Senator Dahlgren’s fledgling congressional campaign. You know anyone like that?”

“Why I just might,” Whitney drawled. “I might know someone who fits that description to a T.”