Butchers Hill (29 page)

"Jesus, it's like
there's a procedure or something."

"There is, Tess."
Tull's voice sounded like the old Tull, the one who was her
friend. "You think this little girl is the first baby in
Baltimore to have her parents murdered?"

"No, I guess not." With
that, Tess reluctantly passed the baby to the policewoman. Laylah slept
through the exchange, never opened her eyes through what might be the
most momentous event in her young life. Everything that would happen to
her would come back to this night, to the decisions made here. What
would she think, when she woke up in a strange place, with strange
faces all around? How much did babies know, what did they remember?
Would she wait one day for her mother to come find her? Was
Jackie's daughter waiting for her, did she have some primal
memory imprinted upon her that could never be erased? Tess tried to
imagine her life without Judith. Infuriating, maddening, critical,
wonderful Judith, the eternal martyr. And there was no Judith without
Gramma Weinstein.

"Let me give you and your dog a
ride home," Tull urged. "It's dark now, I
don't like to think of you walking back to Butchers Hill by
yourself."

"Esskay looks scary. No one will
bother us." Tess felt as inept as Tull, incapable of allowing
him to show her any kindness. If he hadn't made that crack
about Treasure Teeter, she might have been inclined to take the ride,
to make a move toward making up. But he was the one who had asked if
she was ready to come over to his side, the clear implication being
that his side was right, and hers was wrong.

"Well—call my pager when
you get there."

"Okay," she said,
softening a little. "Is there any way I can check up on
Laylah?"

"Laylah?"

"The baby."

"I'll keep tabs for you,
follow up with Social Services, how about that?"

"Okay, I guess. But what if she
has to go into foster care? What will happen to her then?"

"I don't know, Tess. I
just don't know."

"Yeah."

"I hate to tell you how many guys
would have killed the baby, too, just for the hell of it. These guys
were pros at least. That little girl is lucky."

"Sure. She's poor,
she's an orphan, and she's about to go into the
same system where her brother died. How lucky can you get?"

Two blocks from Keisha Moore's
house, Tess began to regret turning down Tull's offer to
drive her home. It was past nine now, and Fayette was emptier than she
had thought. She picked up the pace, and Esskay trotted happily beside
her, always glad for an outing. Tess listened to their
footsteps—the dog's light clatter, like castanets,
the slightly heavier tone of her nubuck loafers. She thought she heard
another set of footsteps in just the same cadence, but one tone deeper,
suggesting bigger, heavier shoes.

She stopped. Nothing. Probably just the echo
of her own steps.

She started again, stopped again. The noise
stopped with her. If someone was following her, the person was
swallowed up in the shadows behind her, perhaps crouching behind a
stoop right now, and or in the alley she had just passed.

"I have a gun," she
announced to the night air, to the seemingly empty street.

Good for you
,
the night and the street seemed to respond. But no one else had
anything to say.

Had someone watched Keisha Moore walk this
same route last week? She would have been hard to miss, in her red and
green outfit and strappy red heels, not quite the same color as her
blouse, but close enough. And the bright yellow bag, so awful it was
fabulous. What had she carried in that big pocketbook? Obviously not
money, and probably not something worth much money, if she was trying
to shake Tess down for $119. What had Keisha Moore known? What did she
have in common with Treasure Teeter, other than the fact she had talked
to Tess?

Sometimes your own mind manages to give you
a quick goose.
Other than the fact that she had
talked to Tess
. She had talked to three people
in connection with Luther Beale's case, and two of them were
dead. At least two of them.

She started to run then, not bothering to
listen for footsteps, ran as if her life depended on it, and if it
didn't, perhaps another life did. With Esskay setting the
pace, they didn't slow down until she reached her own block
in Butchers Hill.

She looked behind her one more time, gun
drawn, then felt silly. No one was there. She let herself inside the
office, wishing she could simply stick her head in a bowl of water as
Esskay did. Instead, she sat at her desk and tried to catch her breath.
When she had stopped panting, she dialed the number for the Penfield
School.

"Is Sal Hawkings there?"

"Who's
calling?"

"Tess Monaghan."

"Ma'am, we
don't allow our boys to take calls this late unless
it's urgent. And we have strict instructions not to take
calls from you at all."

"Yes, from Chase Pearson. Look, I
don't want to talk to Sal, I just want to know if
he's okay, if he's accounted for."

The voice sounded insulted. "Of
course he is. We are not in the habit—"

"Would you just please fucking
check or I'm going to call Baltimore County police and report
him missing."

There was a long silence. Tess would have
thought the phone had been disconnected, except for the series of
clicks in the background, possibly an old-fashioned intercom system,
and some murmured voices. Finally, someone came back on the line. It
was a different voice, a familiar voice.

"Sal is fine," Chase
Pearson assured her. "Is there some reason he
shouldn't be, Miss Monaghan?"

"Donnie Moore's mother
was killed tonight."

A pause, as if Chase Pearson
couldn't quite remember who Donnie Moore was.
"I'm sorry, but Donnie's mother always
did keep bad company, didn't she? As I recall,
that's how her son ended up in foster care in the first
place. What could this have to do with Sal?"

"I don't know
he—" But Tess decided not to share the news of
Sal's visit with Pearson. "I don't know,
I panicked, I guess."

"Indeed."

"Are you usually at the school,
Mr. Pearson?"

"I'm not sure what you
mean. I'm an alum, I have my ward here, I sit on the
board—"

"I mean, are you usually at the
school past nine o'clock on a Monday night?"

"I was at a country club function
in Phoenix and thought I'd drop by."

A function
.
Whatever she did with her life, Tess hoped it wouldn't take
her in the direction of attending any social event so dreary it had to
be called a function. "You're worried about Sal,
too, aren't you, Mr. Pearson? You're worried that
the person who killed Destiny and Treasure may come for him, and
you're staying close by."

"Miss Monaghan, everyone in
Baltimore knows who killed the Teeter twins. It's only a
matter of time before police find a way to charge him with the crime.
Until that time, yes, I am worried about Sal. It will be harder for
Luther Beale to get to him, but not impossible. He's proven
to be quite a shrewd man, hasn't he?"

"If Luther Beale didn't
kill the Teeter twins, then someone else is coming for Sal, Mr.
Pearson, someone infinitely more dangeous because you're not
looking for him."

"Why would anyone besides Luther
Beale have murdered those poor children?"

"Because they know something. They
saw someone the night Donnie Moore was killed. Perhaps it was a drug
dealer who threatened Sal and the others if they testified, and they
gave him their promise of silence. But if they made such a promise,
it's obviously no longer good enough. With Luther Beale out
of jail and determined to prove his innocence, the real killer has to
get to the only witnesses before he can."

"Miss Monaghan, do you listen to
talk radio?"

The question caught her off-guard.
"Yes, sometimes. But I don't
see—"

"I thought so," Pearson
said, his voice edged in disdain. "You sound just like one of
the paranoid types who call those shows." And with that, he
hung up.

A
week went by, a week in which nothing happened. Oh, the sun came up and
the sun went down, Tess went through her daily workouts and Kitty
finally dumped Will Elam, which provided about five minutes of drama.
He cried, he said he would never forget her, he tried to steal her
first edition of Anne Tyler's
A
Slipping Down Life
and Esskay nipped him on the
ankle. Luther Beale stayed out of jail, and no one else
died—at least, no one that could be linked to Tess. Inertia
was too strong a word to describe the state she was in. All was
waiting. Every time the phone rang, she assumed it would be the
announcement of Sal Hawkings's death, or perhaps the
discovery of Eldon Kane's body, bobbing to the surface in the
harbor or turning up beneath the ice skating rink in Patterson Park.

But when the phone finally did ring, it was
Uncle Donald, summoning her and Jackie to his office, a week to the day
after their meeting with Mr. Mole.

"It has to be good news,
don't you think?" Jackie asked, as they waited in
the lobby of DHR, maybe ten feet from where the Hutzler's
cosmetics counter used to stand.

Tess, who was beginning to buy into the
no-news-is-good-news concept, tried to look optimistic.
"Well, it's too soon to throw in the
towel."

"That's exactly what I
was thinking." Jackie was almost bubbling over in her
excitement. "It's like when you ask for a shoe in a
certain size. The longer they stay in the back room, the greater the
likelihood they don't have it at all. But if they get right
back to you, they always have a box in hand. Not that I'm
comparing my daughter to a shoe. But you know what I mean."

Tess rubbed her forehead. She had a killer
headache, right at the bridge of her nose, sinuses most likely. And
although she didn't want to rain on Jackie's
parade, much about this hastily called meeting bothered her. The
arrangement with Mr. Mole had been covert and unofficial. So why were
they inside the agency, waiting to be summoned to the office of the
general counsel? Uncle Donald had been strangely terse on the phone,
choosing his words carefully. Tess had the distinct impression that
someone was monitoring the call. They had broken the law. Maybe they
were going to be reprimanded and interrogated until they gave up Mr.
Mole.

One of the three elevators opened and a
stout, middle-aged woman beckoned to them. "They're
ready for you."

"They? How many people are we
meeting with?" Tess asked, as the elevator climbed to the
tenth floor.

"Just the general counsel, the
head of the Social Services Administration, your uncle, and some
private attorney, David Edelman."

"Why is there a private attorney
involved?"

"I'm sure I
don't know," the woman said placidly. She was
short, with a broad chest that reminded Tess of a pigeon. The woman
even had something of the same dim, self-satisfied air that such birds
had. "I didn't keep my job here for almost
twenty-five years by asking about things that were none of my business.
But they're agitated, I can tell you that. They've
been dithering around all morning."

This intelligence only made Tess more
anxious, but Jackie was still obliviously blissful. Jackie was allowing
herself to hope again, and she was almost giddy with expectation. And
when they entered the general counsel's office, Tess felt her
own spirits lift slightly. These folks may have been dithering all
morning long, but they were nervous and deferential, as if Jackie had
all the power in this equation. So why did Uncle Donald's
spaniel brown eyes look so sorrowful?

The general counsel was an Asian-American
woman in her thirties, while the head of the Social Services
Administration was a tall, thin black man. They looked at the private
attorney, Edelman, as if to say,
Who goes first
here
? He shook his head.
Not
me. Not us
, they shook back.

"Is anybody going to say
anything?" Uncle Donald demanded. "For
God's sake,
I'll
start. Jackie, you know how sometimes when you're looking for
something, it's right under your nose?"

She nodded, still beaming.

"Okay, so you were looking for
your daughter, but you assumed she had a different name and a new birth
certificate, because that's what happens when a kid is
adopted. But what if she wasn't adopted?"

"I don't get what you
mean," Jackie said, her joy ebbing away.

"There was no birth certificate
that could be traced back to your daughter. My…friend had
the idea to run your name and your daughter's birth name
through the files here, after he came up empty on the original search.
The funny thing was, it kicked out, in no time flat. She was right here
all along, Samantha King."

"She was right where all
along?"

"She's in foster
care," the general counsel said. "She's
in the state's custody and has been for almost all of her
life."

"How can that be?" Tess
could see all the emotions battling inside Jackie—the
exultation at knowing her daughter had been found, her puzzlement that
she was in foster care, her concern that there was another shoe yet to
drop in this conversation. Tess shared the last feeling.

"The adoption never
happened," the general counsel said. "According to
our records, Family Alternatives turned your daughter over to the state
when she was fourteen months old. Whatever arrangements they made fell
through, and they couldn't find another set of adoptive
parents. So she went into foster care."

"Is she okay? Can I see her? Is
she in some group home, or living with a family?"