No Good Deeds Part 10

That earned a shake of the head and an even more contemptuous snort. Tess didn't take it personally. Tyner was grouchy with everyone but Kitty, his wife of almost six months. (He insisted on calling her his "bride" with a kind of starry-eyed, gooey devotion that Tess found far more alarming that his usual cantankerousness.) But his mood was particularly dark today, a fact that Tess chalked up to her choice of lunchtime rendezvous, the Club 4100. She had picked the old bar in the Brooklyn section of Baltimore for its twin advantages of cheeseburgers and an off-the-beaten-track location. No one ever ended up in the Club 4100 by accident. She also loved the decor, which had been built around Baltimore sports in general and Johnny Unitas in particular. Alas, the restaurant did have a habit of serving red wine chilled, and she hadn't warned Tyner off the cabernet in time. The icy grape wasn't improving his mood.

"Outside a grand jury setting, I can't be compelled to tell the cops anything, right?"

"No."

"And it's not illegal to lie to cops in an interview?"

"It depends, but no, it's not like with the feds-only why would you even think of trying to lie at this point?"

"I could give them a fake name or say I honestly don't know the kid's name, that I met him through someone."

"They'd want to know who made the introduction, then."

Tess shrugged. It would be ironic if the cops used the same trick on her that Marcy had played on them, asking her if they would be wrong to a.s.sume the source was the kid who had stolen her car. Of course, cops didn't need to play such games. They could jack her up now, apologize later. After all, that's what Lloyd said had happened in the wake of Youssef's death. The drug dealers had been arrested and held on whatever pretense the investigators could manufacture, then let go when a different scenario emerged.

Seemed to emerge. That's what intrigued Tess. Youssef's murder had been a mise-en-scene, an elaborate play. Yet the multiple stab wounds still struck Tess as awfully personal. Thirty-nine stab wounds wasn't an act. The scenario had been faked, but the rage had been real.

She reached for the scar on her knee, remembering the night she had used far more bullets than strictly necessary to defend her own life. She had fired until the gun was empty, and she would have done that if the weapon had held ten, twenty, a hundred bullets. If she could dig the man up and shoot him again, she would.

"I wish I could talk to the widow."

"I hardly recommend that course of action." Tyner was cupping his hands around the frigid gla.s.s of red wine, but not the way a wine lover might. He was rubbing them back and forth like a Boy Scout making a fire from twigs, trying to bring his drink to room temperature.

"No, no, of course not," Tess agreed automatically. "Why not?"

"Because to Mrs. Youssef you're the woman who's shielding someone who could help police solve her husband's murder. Besides, what would that accomplish?"

"Lloyd told us everything he knew. He's done as a source of information. Whatever happened to Youssef, Lloyd was at arm's length from the origin of the plan, an errand boy, a.s.signed to use the card and create an alternate reality."

"So he claimed. Did it ever occur to you that Lloyd might have been directly involved in the murder and that he's spinning the story to deflect suspicion?"

The question caught Tess off guard. She was so sure she had considered every angle of Lloyd's story, processing it through what she thought of as her cynic meter.

"No," she said. "He didn't recognize Youssef's face. Lloyd's not sophisticated enough to lie on that many levels. How can you be an accessory to murder if you don't know what the guy looks like?"

"By helping to cover up the crime," Tyner said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, which always troubled Tess more than his usual rages. "Which is what Lloyd did, Tess. Don't lose sight of that. He helped someone conceal a murder and create a chain of evidence designed to confuse investigators."

"But until he met me, he didn't even know that the two things were related."

"So you say. So you believe. But you can see why homicide detectives might be a little more dubious. It's not unreasonable to think that Lloyd is now trying to cover his a.s.s, distance himself from a crime."

"Sure, if they had him on another charge and he offered up this story to save his own neck. But no one had any leverage over Lloyd."

"You did. You could have turned him in to the police for stealing Crow's car. Which, with Lloyd's record, meant more time inside."

"Only, what he told us checked out. The police have confirmed now that they always knew about the ATM charges but had been sitting on them because they thought it was something that only Youssef's killer could know."

Youssef's killer-Tess heard the echo and made the same argument in her head that she had been making to Tyner. Lloyd didn't know what Youssef looked like, so he couldn't be directly connected to his murder. Youssef was dead in a state park when Lloyd bought his sandwich, while Youssef's car was crossing into Delaware. He couldn't have been there. Right?

Tyner took a sip of his wine, frowned at the taste and the temperature but pressed on. "Even if you're not going to cooperate with Howard County police, I think you should go down there-with me of course-and pretend to be a good citizen. Okay? Maybe we can argue that Lloyd was a client who made an oral contract with you to keep his ident.i.ty secret and that you expose yourself to a civil lawsuit by breaching that promise."

"But no contract ent.i.tles me to shield criminals, right?"

"True."

"And Lloyd has broken the law. In fact, on just the first ATM withdrawal, I think he might be in felony territory. Or some kind of fraud."

"Yes, it's a serious charge. Why don't you introduce me to Lloyd, let me take him on as a client? I can't make your deal with him privileged after the fact, but I can help him."

"I made a promise-" she began.

"Yes, but you didn't know you could face jail time for it. Crow will understand, Tess. Lloyd has to speak to the police. I'll get him immunity, if possible, protect him every way I can. But this can't go on."

"I guess not." Tess pulled out her cell phone again. "Crow and the dogs will be glad to have me home. You know, it's not that I gave my word to Lloyd so much. It's the promise to Crow that I would keep my promise to Lloyd. That's the one I can't break."

"I'm sure the Howard County detectives will be very moved by that sentiment," Tyner said, but Tess hardly heeded his sarcasm. The phone was ringing unanswered at home, kicking into voice mail after the usual five rings. She tried Crow's cell. It went straight to voice mail, which indicated it was off. Should she try the Point? No, he didn't work Tuesdays. She felt a little clutch of panic, silly, she knew. But he was usually so accessible. If not at her beck and call, at least at her call. She was the one who forgot to check in, neglected to say where she was going to be. They had spoken-when had they spoken? Last night. A sweet, easy call. He said he missed her but he understood why she couldn't say where she was. She a.s.sured him that she didn't think he would ever tell anyone where she was. She just wanted him to be able to claim ignorance of her whereabouts with a clear and sunny conscience.

Privately, she thought Crow a rotten liar. But she hadn't told him that. No, their last encounter had been nothing but pleasant.

"Tyner, you have my permission to set up the meeting with Howard County for tomorrow. But if you don't mind, I'm going to throw some money down and run home."

Jenkins knew he should just leave the Howard County cops alone, let them do their jobs. But they were such incompetent mopes. Nice but ineffectual. When were they going to find the broad and drag her in? He couldn't keep from calling just one more time, checking to see if they had made any progress.

"So," he said, knowing that small talk was neither expected nor welcome. "You got the name yet? You got the broad?"

"No," admitted the detective, a feeb named Howard Johnson, poor guy. Worse yet, he had hair as orange as the old restaurants and eyes the same blue color as the trim. It was like his parents had peeped into the ba.s.sinet and said, Let's make his life h.e.l.l! "The PI has dropped out of sight. Not at home, not in her office, not answering her phones."

"You sitting on her house?"

"Not yet."

Rubes.

"But her lawyer just called. She's willing to meet."

Really. But then he had expected as much. Still, he gave an impressed whistle, as if he chalked all this up to Johnson's formidable skills. "Huh. Look, Howard, I know I promised to keep the fed's collective nose out of this, but can I come to the interview? Not partic.i.p.ate," he added hastily, sensing even over the phone line that he had pushed a little too hard. "Just watch, through the gla.s.s."

"Sure, but...why do you want to watch some stupid woman PI stonewall her way to the grand jury?"

"Just got a feeling about this one."

"Me, too. But my feeling is that it's the kind of red ball that's going to sink me. I almost wish you guys had taken over this one."

Jenkins hung up. He did have a feeling, a literal one in his gut, which was cramping from nerves. He poured himself a tumbler of Jameson and forced it down, reasoning that his stomach and his throat would just have to get over it and live with the burning reflux, because the rest of his body needed it bad. Take one for the team, esophagus. Take one for the team.

It was dusk when Tess came home to two strangely exhausted dogs. Still, they were never so tired that they couldn't greet her properly-Esskay doing the little vertical jumps that Crow called leaping and posturing, Miata circling Tess's shins.

"Where's Crow?" she asked, but the dogs just kept up their welcome-home dance.

The house had a too-neat look, as if it had been picked up in antic.i.p.ation of something. Newspapers were in the recycling bin. Crow's breakfast dishes had been rinsed and placed on the drain board. Her heart clutched a little, for the scene reminded her of the other times Crow had left. But no, when he left her left her, he did it with more obvious ceremony. Crow had a weakness for the grand gesture. Besides, his cell was on the kitchen counter, plugged into its charger.

She checked the cell phone she used for incoming calls. The technology was still quirky; calls were received and dropped into her voice mail without the phone ringing. Wait, she had placed it on vibrate while working from a coffeehouse in South Baltimore that afternoon. Still, there were no familiar numbers on the log and only one message, which had came from the home number.

"Lloyd's in danger," Crow said, his tone as light and uninflected as if he were telling her to pick up milk at the store. "The guy who gave him the ATM card was killed, and Lloyd is sure it's because of the story. Yeah, he lied about being the only one involved. So I've taken him somewhere he'll feel safe-and I'm not telling you where we are, so you'll be able to claim ignorance without lying. We'll keep in touch via disposable cell phones, changing every few days so we can't be tracked. You should get your first one tomorrow or Thursday."

Lord, he sounded cheerful, as if this were some Hardy Boy adventure. Crow and Lloyd, a Frank and Joe for the new millennium, a postmodern variation on all those black-white buddy movies of the 1980s: 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon.

Weapon-s.h.i.t. Tess went to check the gun safe in her bedroom. She had her Beretta with her, as always, but she still owned the Smith & Wesson that she'd used before trading up last summer. The safe was empty, which almost made her weep in frustration and anger.

But it was the handwritten note on her pillow-I love you! Trust me on this!-that did the trick. She sat on the neatly made bed and cried. In frustration, in anger, but more in loneliness and fear.

If Lloyd was in danger, then it followed that anyone with him was, too. Crow had thrown himself on a very live grenade. Didn't he realize that? Now she was in an impossible position. If she gave up Lloyd's name without knowing where he and Crow were, how could she protect either of them?

If she didn't, then how could she protect herself?

WEDNESDAY.

15.

Crow had thought he would find it easy to spend a night in a homeless shelter-after all, he'd been working with various soup kitchens and shelters for the past three months-but he was wholly unprepared for the difference between life as a come-andgo-as-you-please volunteer and the lot of a client. Or guest, as this Southeast Baltimore shelter called the twenty-odd men it took in every night. It wasn't so much the smells or the sounds that threw him, although those were plentiful and strange. It was the lack of autonomy, from when the lights were turned out to when the men themselves were turned out onto the streets the next morning. As a benefactor Crow had power. As someone in need of the shelter's services, he felt at once meek and surly.

It was a safe haven, however, and he had planned to return there for a second night until the director pulled him aside after breakfast.

"Look, I'd do anything for you," said Father Rob, short for Roberto. A Lutheran minister, he had convinced his church to let him use the parish hall as a shelter as the congregation's neighborhood members dwindled over the years, replaced by yuppies who thought churches were only good for condo rehabs. "But if you're trying to hide, this isn't going to work for you."

"Why not?"

"You stick out, Crow. I mean, Lloyd-sure, we could keep Lloyd forever and no one would give him a second look, although he's a little young. But Lloyd's not going to put up with that. He's going to go back to his own neighborhood the minute he gets bored or frustrated."

"His life's in danger. He's the one who came to me, the one who sought my help."

"I know Lloyd, Crow. I've known him a lot longer than you have. You think this is the first time he's slept here?"

"I thought you didn't take teenagers."

"We don't-officially. What would you do if a kid showed up on a snowy night?"

Buy him a meal, Crow thought. Take him into my own house. Wreck my girlfriend's life.

"Anyway, Lloyd's ideas don't have a lot of what I'll call staying power. Yes, he's scared now. But the fear will pa.s.s. It has to pa.s.s. His part of East Baltimore might as well be the Middle East. There's so much violence he's numb to it. This isn't his first friend to be killed. It won't be the last. He'll persuade himself that Le'andro's death doesn't have anything to do with him after all. Or that he's cool as long as he doesn't talk to the police. Once out of your sight-and he'll try to lose you, sooner rather than later, no matter how many good meals you buy him-he might go to the very drug dealer he fears, beg for some kind of clemency."

"So I should take him to the police."

Rob hesitated. "The good-citizen part of me says yes. The part of me that knows this city-Crow, a man was beaten to death in jail this winter. By the guards. So if I'm honest, I can't tell you there's a way to guarantee Lloyd's safety. Yet you definitely can't control him as long as he's in Baltimore. Two days from now, he'll be chasing a sandwich or a girl, forgetting all about how scared he was. You need to get him out of town for a little while, figure this out from a safe distance."

Crow studied Lloyd, slumped in an old plastic chair in the shelter's foyer, his posture and att.i.tude radiating the typical adolescent sullenness. What would Crow do with him all day in Baltimore? He'd thought they could go to the library, a prospect that had filled Crow with joy. A day to read and think, hidden away in the gracious main library's nooks and crannies. Then down to the harbor for lunch, maybe a long walk for exercise, back to the library until closing time, dinner somewhere in Canton, and here to sleep. Given the circ.u.mstances, Father Rob had even agreed to hold two beds for them, waiving the usual first-come, first-served rule out of grat.i.tude for the favors that Crow had done the shelter.

But Crow saw now how delusional he was. Lloyd would never spend a day in a library, much less see the point in taking a long walk on a cool spring afternoon. He would fight Crow every step of the way.

"Where should we go?"

"I don't know, Crow." Father Rob gave him a rueful smile. "I really shouldn't know, should I?"

"If anyone comes here asking after us, even someone who knows me-"

"Crow who? Lloyd who? Vaya con Dios."

Before Tess's father had taken over the Point, it had belonged to Tess's uncle, Spike. At least she called the old man Uncle Spike. The nature of his relationship to the family remained vague. No one even seemed sure if he was a Monaghan or a Weinstein. There was also the hint of some scandal about Spike, a criminal past that the usually voluble Tess skirted in conversation. Whatever Spike had been, whatever he had done, he was now a proper retiree, living in a condo in South Florida and going to the greyhound tracks. Not to bet but to monitor the treatment of the dogs. It was Spike, in fact, who had rescued Esskay, although he always insisted that Esskay had rescued him.

From a sub shop in South Baltimore, a place with a video game that would keep Lloyd occupied as long as there was a supply of quarters, Crow called Spike on the cell phone he had just purchased, a twin to the one he'd overnighted to Tess.

A man of few words, Spike listened to Crow without comment or interruption, reason enough to be fond of him.

"There's a man," Spike said. "Friend of the family, will look after you for a while. Edward Keyes."

"Isn't he the former cop who signed off on Tess's paperwork so she could get licensed?"

"Yeah. Good people. He lives down the ocean." Spike may have retired to South Florida, but his Baltimore accent had not diminished at all and he p.r.o.nounced this phrase with the cla.s.sic Baltimore o sounds: Downy eaushin. "I'll call him. I'll also call a guy in Denton, who will swap out cars for you. Give you something nice and legitimate, put yours on a lift for the duration. But look, Fast Eddie-"

Spike, despite being Spike, did not approve of Crow's nickname and had settled on "Fast Eddie" as a suitable subst.i.tution.

"What, Spike?"

"You got enough cash? "Cuz I'll front you, wire some to Keyes."

"I have all the cash I need, Spike," Crow said, knowing that Spike would not ask how that could be, bless him. Spike was a great respecter of secrets, having had a few himself. "Enough to last for weeks, if necessary, especially with the accommodations you're arranging."

"But what you're doing, it's short-term, right?"

"Probably no more than a week or so. Just until we figure some things out."

Even over the telephone, Spike was capable of eloquent silences. This one was skeptical.

"I need Lloyd to trust me," Crow rushed to explain. "Once he trusts me, he'll understand that I have his best interests at heart, and he'll come in voluntarily, do what he has to do."

"You don't think he's told you everything." Said flatly, a question and a statement. Spike had his opinion, but he still wanted to know what Crow thought.