Butchers Hill (13 page)

"The play is called
‘Fresh Lake Trout.' It's an August
Wilson-style drama about a local family scraping by with a produce
stand. Lots of tension between the father and son, over whether
he's going to stay and help the business, or go to college.
How's that?"

"Not very original, but I guess it
will have to do. So Arena Stage is putting on ‘Fresh Lake
Trout,' and it needs a teenager who can handle lots of
dialogue."

"Right, and you remember hearing
about Salamon Hawkings from one of your cousins, whose daughter
competed against him in the state finals."

Jackie looked as if she didn't
know whether to be impressed or disgusted. "This is what you
do for a living? Make shit up?"

"The truth may set you free, but
it doesn't get you much in the way of information. Trust me,
when we start looking for your daughter, you're going to
appreciate what the right lie can do."

Children were pouring out of the
tired-looking school. Tess scrunched down in the passenger seat of
Jackie's car, waiting. She didn't want to risk
being seen by the principal, who was sure to make good on her threat to
have Tess arrested. As it was, the woman was sharp enough that the
Arena Stage story might not fly. Tess wished she could be at
Jackie's side, ready to provide the additional lies such a
situation might demand. Despite the elaborate ruse Jackie had used on
her, she didn't seem to have any innate ability for
spontaneous prevarication. Successful lying required a certain amount
of joy in the act itself. If you focused only on the results, you
missed the hang-gliding sensation of simply getting away it. You were
out there, high above the landscape where most people lived, feeling
the wind on your face. Besides, the Arena Stage story was one of
Tess's more inspired lies; she would have liked to deliver it
herself.

Fifteen minutes had gone by. The school had
emptied quickly and now seemed desolate. Jackie had parked in the
shade, but it was hot in the car, the leather seat stickier than a
cloth one would have been. Tess rolled down the window, stuck her head
out, and panted a little bit, imitating Esskay. She had wanted to bring
the dog with them. After all, she had to go all the way back to
Columbia to pick up her car, and she could have used the company on the
ride back. But Jackie had been appalled at the idea of a dog in her
pristine car. Tess wasn't sure she was that keen on having
her
in it.

"That's
attractive," Jackie said, coming up behind her.

"I think dogs are on to something.
I actually feel a little cooler. How'd you do?"

Jackie walked around the car and slid into
the driver's seat. "It was so easy, it was
embarrassing. I stayed and chatted with the principal just to ease my
conscience about fooling a perfectly nice woman. Turns out Salamon
Hawkings got himself a scholarship to some ritzy private school, the
Penfield School, up in Butler." She paused.
"I'm not even sure where that is."

"The heart of WASP country. You
can tell because Butler has exactly two businesses, a saddlery and a
liquor store. All the WASP needs."

"What's a black boy
doing in a place like that?"

Tess shrugged. "These private
schools do care about diversity. Every one I know has at least a few
inner-city kids on scholarship. And if Salamon really is a good public
speaker, I bet several schools came after him."

"Or maybe they just needed a
little black boy to stand at the end of the driveway and hold out a
lamp, like one of those old lawn jockeys."

They were passing through Woodlawn, caught
in the first waves of Social Security traffic. Tess wished she had
noticed what route Jackie was taking; she would have steered her away
from this daily snarl of traffic and onto the empty ghost road known as
I-70, one of the few interstates in the country that came to a
dead-end. People who didn't know Baltimore's
shortcuts and back roads made her impatient.

"You still see those jockeys in
some parts of Baltimore, I've noticed," Jackie
continued. "They painted the faces white, as if that fools
anyone."

"Yeah, and you still see ceramic
kittens scampering up brick houses. There's one over there.
Oh my God, call PETA."

"It's not the same
thing," Jackie said stiffly.

"It is in the sense that
it's not worth expending energy. Some people are idiots. At
least the ones with those lawn jockeys announce themselves to the
world. You know what kind of moron you're dealing with up
front."

"According to that logic, you must
support the special license plates for Sons of Confederate War
Veterans. Or do you think that's a freedom of speech
issue?"

"I think it's trivial.
It's like getting upset over those truckers who have the
mudflaps with those big-breasted women on them. What am I going to do,
take them to court for hurting
my
feelings?"

"The state didn't issue
the mudflaps."

"Maybe they should. They could
make a lot more money than they did on the Confederate tags. Look,
Jackie, you're my client, I'm your employee. I
don't want to argue over stuff I don't even care
about."

"I wish I had the luxury of not
caring, but I don't. It's my life, it affects
me."

Tess sat quietly for a minute. There were a
lot of things she wanted to say, a lot of things she was scared to say.
Jackie was a client, after all, even if they had acted as partners this
afternoon. Besides, such conversations were dangerous under any
circumstances. No one, not even best friends, had ever had a truly
honest conversation about race. Tess decided to play possum, tilting
back the passenger seat and closing her eyes. Reality overtook the
pose, and the next thing she knew they were in the parking lot at
Jackie's condo. It seemed as if weeks had passed since Tess
had arrived here this morning, feeling so cocky about tracking down one
Jackie Weir,
née
Susan King.

"The Adoption Rights group meets
Monday night," Jackie reminded her, as Tess stretched, stiff
from her nap. "You're going with me,
right?"

"That was our deal. What kind of
person would renege after all you've done for me
today?"

"You'd be surprised at
what kind of people don't honor their promises."
Jackie sounded almost dire. If it were someone else, Tess would have
thought the comment an odd joke, but Jackie had made it clear that
humor was not her strong suit.

"Another tip for the small
businesswoman?"

"A tip for life. One
I've known for a long, long time." With that,
Jackie was gone, still favoring her left foot in its white high heel. A
white high heel that had managed to cover much of East Baltimore
without picking up so much as a single smudge.

E
ven
from across the street, it was obvious that something wasn't
quite right when Tess and Esskay arrived at the office the next
morning. The door seemed to sway a little in the summer breeze. Not
open, but not quite shut either.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out the
lock had been picked. Gouged, really—the deadbolt clawed and
hacked from the wood with something sharp, then tossed aside.

"You should get a metal
door," said Luther Beale, waiting in the chair opposite her
desk.

"Did we have an appointment this
morning?" Tess asked, examining the hole where her lock used
to be, while Esskay stepped around her and headed for the sofa.

"No, but I thought I would stop by
and see if you had made any progress. The door was like that when I got
here."

Tess propped a phone book against the door,
so she wouldn't end up air conditioning the street until a
locksmith could arrive. She had been in good spirits, feeling virtuous
about her impulse to stop by the office and do little tasks on a
Saturday, before meeting Tyner for a workout and late lunch. But the
broken lock had drained all the day's potential. She would be
stuck here for hours.

"I didn't do
it," Beale added, in the defensive way of a man used to blame.

"I never thought you
did," Tess said, looking up her landlord's number
in the Rolodex on her desk. She hoped he would have to pay for the new
lock. Perhaps she should call the police and make a report first, then
summon the landlord, who could file an insurance claim. A tiny, wizened
man, he had known and apparently envied her grandfather. He had a way
of bringing every conversation back to the fact that he had prospered
over time, while her grandfather had failed after a more spectacular
start. "Slow and steady, slow and steady," Hiriam
Hersh liked to counsel her. "Your grandfather was a hare,
I'm a tortoise. You could learn a lot from me." No,
she definitely wasn't in the mood for Aesop according to
Hiriam Hersh.

"No, ma'am, the door was
like that when I got here," Beale said, more to himself than
to her.

"I am surprised you just came in
and sat here, waiting for me. How did you known I'd be in on
a Saturday?" Tess dialed the Eastern precinct, rather than
tie up the 911 line. The city had a nonurgent line now, too, 311, but
she thought a break-in qualified for a police visit sometime in this
millennium.

"I didn't. Just thought
I'd drop by and when I saw the door, I decided I better come
in and babysit your stuff. This computer wasn't going to last
for long, not in this neighborhood."

The desk sergeant at the precinct picked up
and put her on hold before she could even get a single syllable out.
Tess did a quick visual scan of the room. Nothing obvious was
missing—the computer, the scanner, the printer were all still
here. The flying rabbit picture was in its place over the wall safe.
Perhaps addicts had broken in, looking for metal to sell to one of the
scrap yards. A few of the metal dealers weren't too
particular about the origins of the copper downspouts, iron grilles,
and old water heaters that came rolling up in shopping carts, day after
day. But the old stove was still in place, as were the faucets.

Still on hold, she unsheathed her computer
and turned it on. Her files were there, apparently untouched. On a
hunch, she enlarged the window, checking the "last
modified" dates—nothing. Then again, printing a
file out didn't count as modifying it. She glanced at the
printer. There was paper in the tray, and she only put paper in as she
needed it, given that Esskay's hair tended to settle on
anything left out. Besides, she was stingy with paper. It was one part
of her overhead she could control.

"Do you know anything about
computers?" she asked Beale skeptically.

"Huh. I know enough not to buy a
Mac, like you did. I have an IBM clone, with 200 megahertz and a
gigabyte of memory. Did you know you can read almost every newspaper in
the country online? I bet I save fifty dollars a month that
way."

"Someone might have made some
copies of my files last night."

"Don't you have a
password, for security?"

"No," Tess said. If
Beale were really so computer-savvy, he should know that.
Hadn't he seen her use the computer on his first visit here?
"It never occurred to me I'd need one, not in a
one-woman office."

"What was in my file,
anyway?"

"Not much. Some leads on the
twins. You weren't too good on the names by the way.
They're Treasure and Destiny Teeter."

"Never was good with
names," Beale murmured. "So where are
they?"

"Not sure. According to neighbors,
they technically live on Biddle Street, but they're still
seen a lot around here." She wondered if she should tell him
that, according to the neighbors' description, neither one
was exactly college material. But college tuition was only one example
of the help Beale wanted to provide. Maybe he could get Treasure in
drug rehab, find Destiny a program, something like the
Nelsons' school in D.C., only for girls.

"That all you found?
That's not much."

Tess, still on hold with the Eastern
Precinct, hung up and hit the redial button. Again, she was placed on
hold before she could utter a single syllable.

"I think it's pretty
good, considering how little information you brought me. Four days ago,
I didn't even have the names. Now I know where to look for
the twins, and I've pinpointed another one, Salamon Hawkings.
He's on scholarship at a private school. Eldon Kane is wanted
on a warrant and believed to be far from Maryland, so I guess we can
cross him off your list."

"You been to see the Hawkings boy
yet? School's almost out."

"Haven't had a
chance."

"Moving kind of slow,
aren't you? If I pay by the hour, I expect you to make the
most of every minute."

Beale was as exasperating as Gramma
Weinstein, never pleased, never satisfied.

"I've found
it's something of a handicap, having to play Tipton to your
anonymous benefactor. Schools don't much like strangers
trying to track down their students for reasons they won't
divulge. Now I have to come up with a plausible reason to see Salamon
Hawkings."

"That's easy,"
Beale said. "When you get in touch with the school, just tell
them there's some money coming to the Hawkings boy, without
being too specific. People always go for that."

"You mean like those unclaimed
accounts the state advertises every year?"

"Naw, that's too easy to
check. Maybe you could be that place that makes kids' dreams
come true. Make-a-Wish, Dream-a-Dream, whatever it's
called."

"I think that's for sick
kids," Tess said. "Still, it's the right
idea, at least."

Beale stood to leave. He wore the same brown
suit from his first visit, only with a blue-and-yellow striped shirt
this time. He carried the same yellowing Panama in his hands.