The Sugar House

chapter 28

IT TOOK A MERE TWO DAYS FOR WHITNEY TO SECURE THE privilege of making the Dahlgren campaign’s daily deposits.

“They’re talking about making me a paid staffer before too long,” she told Tess over the phone on Thursday, almost preening. Only Whitney could go undercover and turn it into a career opportunity.

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for you to draw a paycheck from these people,” Tess said worriedly.

“Oh, I know. I told them I was doing this for love, not money.” Her voice lowered, as if she were trying not to be overheard, although she was calling from her snug little cottage. “And there is so much money, Tess. The guy has a real war chest. I know congressional races cost a lot these days, but do you think he might be keeping his options open? Maybe he’s really going to run for governor, or U.S. Senate.”

“Only if it’s an open race. He’d never take on an incumbent. Look, as Deep Throat said to Woodward-”

“Assuming Deep Throat ever existed. I have my doubts.”

“Whatever. Follow the money, Whitney. Find patterns, any patterns-in names, in addresses, in fund-raisers. I’m here in my office with Jackie right now, going over Dahlgren’s past finance reports, but it’s pretty Mickey Mouse stuff. Running for state senate, he was lucky to get $200 from his own father-in-law. It sounds as if he’s now raising more in a week than he did for all his other campaigns combined.”

She hung up her phone. It was late, almost ten, and she was exhausted. Not so much from working-Whitney was doing more than she was-but from all the lying and deception. If her father was to believe that she had dropped her inquiry into Henry Dembrow’s death, then everyone else had to believe it as well.

Even Ruthie Dembrow, who had hot, furious words when Tess told her she was suspending the investigation through the end of the holidays. But it was precisely because of Ruthie’s quick temper that Tess had lied to her. She was counting on her to complain to Pat yet again about his unreliable daughter, how she had started the investigation only to drop it for a second time. So Tess was not only working secretly, but for free.

She had enlarged her conspiracy slightly, however, taking in Crow and Jackie. Crow was her sounding board, she needed him at night, when she chanted the litany of what she had failed to accomplish. Besides, he often had good ideas.

Meanwhile Jackie, who had left political fund-raising for more legitimate work years ago, brought an expert eye to Dahlgren’s financial documents. She also had been willing to go to the ethics office in Towson and make photocopies. Still paranoid about being followed, Tess didn’t want to run the risk of being seen anywhere, doing anything.

The problem was, they weren’t getting anywhere. Try as she might, she could not find the final connection that would link Dahlgren to Domenick’s or Nicola DeSanti. She sat at her desk with a sketchbook in front of her, trying to make the formula work. Meyer Hammersmith was Kenneth Dahlgren’s finance chairman. Adam Moss was Kenneth Dahlgren’s aide. Hammersmith owned a building that housed a gallery, a gallery Adam Moss had visited. Adam Moss had requested the phone list. But she could not find a link to the bar, or even to Gene Fulton, who had been a liquor board inspector long before Dahlgren came on the scene.

“I can’t link anyone to Hilde’s murder except Adam Moss,” she said now to Jackie, “and that makes no sense.”

“Why not? From what you’ve said, he sounds cold enough to do whatever his boss asked.”

Tess picked at the cartons of Thai food spread before them, looking for something to drag through the leftover peanut sauce. They had been working for almost three hours. It felt like six.

“Political aides don’t kill people, except in the movies. Even Gordon Liddy only went as far as burglary and conspiracy, and the bar for political scandal is so much higher now, in the P.L. era.”

“P.L.?”

“Post-Lewinsky. The first rule is still deny, deny, deny. But contrition goes a long way now, if you get caught.”

Jackie rubbed her eyes and sighed.

“Well, I just don’t see anything unusual, Tess,” she said. “Neither here, nor in the photocopies from his ethics file. This guy is so clean he reports the lunches that lobbyists buy him.”

“I thought that was the law now.”

“Doesn’t mean everyone does it.”

Tess walked around the desk and bent over Jackie’s shoulder. “Does the name Arnie Vasso pop up?”

“Sure, yeah. Lunch here, lunch there. But no more than any other lobbyist. Tell me again, what are we looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said, falling back on her sofa with an exaggerated sigh. Esskay, unused to sharing her space, gave her a dirty look and stretched out, trying to push Tess away with her rear legs. “Anything, everything. It’s like I’ve got one piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and it’s a piece of blue sky, only maybe it’s really ocean, or the hem of some girl’s dress. But I only have one piece. If I had a few more, I’d find a way to make it fit, I’d pound it in with my fist. One piece doesn’t do anything.”

“If you found a connection, what would it prove?”

“I don’t know. That I’m not crazy.”

Jackie smiled. “We already know you’re crazy. Look, it’s late. Help me load my things and the baby in the car, and you get out of here, too. Have a drink, let that sweet young boy of yours make you feel good.”

“I’m beyond feeling good these days,” Tess said, lifting a sleeping Laylah from her portable crib. As Tess had told Jackie, she had no generic baby longings. But, oh, how she loved this one, with her chubby arms and legs, her puckish face. She hated to think of the day when Laylah would turn on her own reflection, when she would look in the mirror and yearn for the opposite of whatever she saw there. Yet that day came for every female she had ever known. Look at Gwen Schiller, as exquisite as a china figurine, or Devon Whittaker, her cousin Sarah. Men suffered no such self-doubt, even when they should. What Tess wouldn’t give to stalk through life with just a little of, say, Adam Moss’s arrogance and certainty.

The phone rang, and Jackie and Tess exchanged a glance. Only bad news, wrong numbers, and drunken ex-boyfriends rang at this hour.

“Keyes Inc.,” Tess said, remembering to use the firm’s proper name for once, using the speaker phone so she could continue to rock Laylah.

“Herman Peters.” The young reporter spoke more rapidly than usual, and it took a beat for her to register the name, another beat for irritation to set in.

“I told you, Herman, you’ll get your interview when the time is right. Be patient.”

“I am patient, but-”

“You call this patient, ringing me at my office this late at night, to nag me about the interview?”

“I’m not calling about the story.” He was speaking even faster now, his words tumbling over one another. “I mean, I’m not calling about that story. I’m at the office, working this multialarm fire by phone-we’re right on top of deadline, and the call just went out, so I’m taking feed from another reporter at the scene-and I crisscrossed the address and I saw the name. It’s not an uncommon name in Baltimore, but I had a hunch, and I called Feeney at home and he says yeah, they’re related, so I thought I should call you, as a courtesy, really, before you saw it on the eleven o’clock news-”

“What are you talking about? Who’s related?”

“Patrick and Judith Monaghan, over in Ten Hills.”

“They’re my parents.”

“Their house is on fire.”

Because she was still holding Laylah, Tess did not cry out or rush for the door. Denied reflexive action, she had a moment to think. She wished she hadn’t. Thinking was highly overrated.

“Herman-why all this effort to get a house fire in on deadline? That’s pretty mundane by the Blight’s standards, isn’t it?”

Herman Peters asked questions, he was not used to answering them. She could practically feel him squirming at the other end of the phone line.

“I’m not…It’s just that…”

Her voice low, in deference to Laylah, she repeated herself. “Why are you working a house fire?”

“Because-because it’s a fatality, too. They took a body out. I’m sorry, Tess, but we heard it on the scanner. There’s a body, they’ve called in arson, and they’re saying it’s a suspected homicide.”