No Good Deeds Part 14

Tess actually understood the police jargon, although it seemed strange for a federal prosecutor to speak as if he were on police radio.

"A black man," Jenkins supplied when she didn't answer right away. "African-American."

"I'm not going to answer that question."

"Why not?"

"I'm not going to provide any identifying information. And I want to point out that I still haven't a.s.signed a gender to the source. You may use "he' and "him' if you like, but I'm not going to do that."

Jenkins rested his hands on his belly in the manner of a beloved uncle settling in after a particularly satisfying Thanksgiving meal. "African-American, that's not exactly a big clue in a city that's sixty-six percent black-and where ninety percent of the homicide victims are black men."

Tess raised an eyebrow. She was conscious of what she was doing-by refusing to give the expected answer, she was making them consider the possibility that the source was white, throwing them off the trail. The main thing was not to say anything untrue, no matter how trivial. That required a lot of self-control for Tess, who was used to lying in work situations.

"So if the source isn't a black man," Jenkins continued, his voice a calm and easygoing drone, "then we can rule out that he's the young man who was staying at your home last week."

Any sense of control she had vanished.

"Collins here canva.s.sed your neighborhood yesterday, asked some questions about you. Your neighbors find you a, uh, colorful personality. Your comings and goings attract more attention than you might realize."

This was news to Tess, who thought she had successfully disappeared into this leafy, quiet neighborhood, taking on the camouflage of seminormalcy, just another working gal. Oh, sure, there were her dogs, especially Esskay, who was notorious for trying to eat the smaller dogs in Stony Run Park, mistaking them for squirrels and rabbits. And Crow, with his handsome face and exuberant personality, was much beloved by the not-so-desperate housewives who swapped recipes with him at the local coffeehouse. There was the time she had come home to find an intruder in the house and had ended up crawling across the yard on her belly, skirt up to her hips, gun in hand. But even this had seemed all so Anne Tyler idiosyncratic, the kind of gentle lunacy on which North Baltimoreans prided themselves. Certainly she was no more notable than Mr. Parrish, with his nightly drunken coasts.

Mr. Parrish. f.u.c.k. And the police report on the incident. What was that fake name that Crow had given?

"Bob Smith," the prosecutor read from a photocopy. "Believed to be age sixteen, of 400 Battery Avenue, an address that would put him in the middle of the harbor. Is Bob Smith the correct name for the young man who was staying with you?"

"If it's the name in the report, then it's the name my boyfriend gave the police. He's the one who brought the kid home."

"Yes, and given that the police decided that fault couldn't be ascertained in the accident and left it to the insurance companies to untangle, they probably don't care if the name is correct or not. But we do. Is this the name of the young man who stayed with you, Miss Monaghan? And is this young man the source you're protecting?"

There's no time limit, she reminded herself, no penalty for not speaking immediately. Think this through, antic.i.p.ate where they're going.

"I should probably have my lawyer with me," she ventured.

"As I said, we can go downtown to wait for him."

She should do that. But she was tired and hungry, two factors on which they were clearly banking, and she didn't want to sit in some uncomfortable chair all evening, waiting for Tyner to return home. The opera, she remembered. He and Kitty had season tickets. Box seats-hardly an indulgence for a man in a wheelchair. She imagined them holding hands, lost in some nineteenth-century melodrama while she was caught up in this twenty-first-century one.

"I can't lie to you," she said, her voice sorrowful.

Jenkins nodded in kind empathy, while the younger men just stared at her, sharp and impatient.

"I can't lie to you-because it's a federal crime to lie to you. If there was anything for the average American to glean from the exhaustive coverage of the Martha Stewart case, it's that it's against the law to lie to federal investigators. So I can't lie to you. I just won't answer that question, if that's okay."

Jenkins's smile vanished. "This is your source," he said, pointing to the photocopy of the police report. "This is your source, and your boyfriend made a false statement to a police officer, and he can be prosecuted for that."

Tess said nothing, focusing all her energy on remaining impa.s.sive. It took an amazing amount of effort, but she imagined herself as the Sphinx. Of course, Oedipus had defeated the Sphinx, but these three men didn't appear to be anointed by destiny.

"We can't find Bob Smith at his nonexistent address on Battery Avenue. But we did find a Bob Smith in the database of people who have been convicted of drug crimes. Can we a.s.sume that's your Bob Smith?"

Sphinx. Sphinx, sphinx, sphinx. The word repeated in her head like a key on a tinny piano, pressed over and over again, or a drip from a faucet. Sphinx, sphinx, sphinx. Plink, plink, plink.

"Okay, we're going to a.s.sume that it is. And given that Mr. Smith has served time for distribution-related charges, we're going to a.s.sume that you're working with him. And given that Mr. Smith had permission to use your vehicles, we can seize those, along with your personal and professional accounts. To keep that from happening, all you have to do is set the record straight and tell us who stayed at your house last week. Once we establish that your Bob Smith is not the convicted drug dealer, we won't have to pursue these charges against you."

Tess did not doubt that they could do everything they said they could. But she was reasonably certain they could not do it this very minute and that they were not prepared to charge her with anything. If they were, they would have taken her downtown at the outset. They were bullies and bluffers-for now. They were trying to do an end run around the grand jury proceedings, bigfoot the case on the sly, and grab all the glory for themselves.

"What's the DOB on your Bob Smith?" she asked on a hunch.

"January thirtieth, 1969," the prosecutor said swiftly, one of those bright boys who can't resist giving an answer he knows, even as the older man frowned at him.

"Well, as you said, you're looking for a teenager."

"Enough," said Jenkins. "Tell us the name of the boy who stayed here. You'll regret it if you don't, Miss Monaghan. I'm sure you think you're being n.o.ble, but your loyalties are misplaced."

"I can't continue this conversation without my lawyer," she said, much the way a polite child might say, The brussels sprouts look delicious, but I happen to be full.

It was the kind of moment that actually deserves to be called pregnant, a full and bursting moment in which it was clear that something was about to happen, but not what or how.

Then Whitney Talbot arrived.

"I was at Video Americain, so I grabbed a movie from the recommended shelf-Funny Bones, have you seen it? I thought we could order in from the Amba.s.sador. Oh, and I picked up red wine and beer at Alonso's, because Indian food is so hit-and-miss in terms of beverages, and I don't trust your taste in wine." She turned to the agents and rolled her eyes. "She still likes merlot."

It was always interesting watching someone meet Whitney for the first time, trying to take in what would have been a sedate, preppy prettiness if she were ever quiet for more than twenty seconds. She made an especially striking impression tonight, dressed in ratty sweats that appeared to date from their college days. Tess must have caught her as she headed home from doing erg pieces at the boathouse.

It was also interesting to see how quickly Whitney could size up a situation. Her own breathless monologue finished, she regarded the three suited men in Tess's dining room, dropped the alcohol and videos on the table, then disappeared into the kitchen and began noisily gathering plates and gla.s.ses as if nothing unusual had happened. After pointedly setting two places at the table, she headed into Tess's office, where she could be heard noisily punching the b.u.t.tons on the phone and demanding Indian food. All for show, Tess a.s.sumed. The Amba.s.sador didn't deliver.

"Where is your boyfriend, Miss Monaghan?" Jenkins asked.

"I don't know exactly."

"Is that the truth?"

"He told me he was scouting bands for the club where he works."

"He told you-interesting choice of words. It almost sounds as if you don't quite believe him."

"They've had a lot of off-and-on moments, those two," Whitney said, coming back into the living room with Tess's digital camera. "Tess, did you forget your ritual?"

"Ritual?"

"Taking everyone's photograph when they cross your threshold. You know, like John Waters does." The local film director did in fact take Polaroids of everyone who entered his home, an obsession he had detailed for several magazines. Whitney quickly shot three photographs of the visitors, not giving them time to protest, then handed the camera to Tess. "Me, too. Remember, you shoot me every time."

Tess followed her instructions, not sure what Whitney was up to, but confident there was, as always, a plan.

"There's only going to be enough food for two," Whitney said, her voice den-mother brisk, her hands on her barely existent hips. She looked as if she were about to start a rousing game of I'm a Little Teapot. "So unless you want to watch us eat-"

"I didn't get your name."

"Whitney Talbot."

"As in the county?"

"As in the congressman," she said. "The one they named the bridge after, on the upper sh.o.r.e? A Republican, but a moderate one in the Maryland tradition. Well, the old tradition. Life is so partisan now. We love Uncle Deucie dearly."

"Uncle Deucie?"

"Trevor Sims Talbot Jr. The second. Therefore, Deuce. Therefore, Deucie."

The three men exchanged a look, and the older one jerked his chin upward, indicating they should leave. It wasn't Whitney's name-dropping that had done the trick, Tess was sure of that much. Whitney's uncle was the kind of gentlemanly pol who had gone out of style in these more strident times, and it was doubtful he had any clout in Washington. No, it was the sheer fact of Whitney's presence, which was what Tess had counted on when she summoned her. They didn't want a witness to this interview, however unofficial, especially someone like Whitney, whose remarkable confidence made her difficult to scare or cow. She was simply too much of a variable to control for.

"Enjoy your dinner," Jenkins said. "We'll get back to you."

Whitney and Tess did not speak again until they heard the car's engine turn over, the crunch of gravel, the disappearing whine of the motor. They sat at the table in silence, poured themselves red wine and sipped-contemplatively in Whitney's case, numbly in Tess's. Minutes later another car pulled up, and Tess tensed, but it turned out to be the Amba.s.sador. Whitney had somehow cajoled them into making this one-time-only delivery. Lamb saag, savory meat samosas-it should have been great comfort food, but Tess was beyond being comforted.

"Project Zeus?" Whitney asked when they were alone again, using the code they had agreed on when Tess realized that Whitney also could be pressured to provide Lloyd's name if anyone guessed her part in this whole affair. Other friends might have used an astronomical reference, but this Roman-to-Greek transposition of Lloyd's surname was a natural for two former English majors.

"Yeah. Feds."

"s.h.i.t."

"What was that thing with the photos?"

"I couldn't be sure who they were. If they weren't official, they would have balked, right? Besides, it freaks people out when you pull a camera on them. When you call me like that, I know it's because you're trying to f.u.c.k with someone. I was just doing my part."

Tess raised her gla.s.s to her friend. "You did beautifully."

"So what do they want? I mean, I know what they want, but why are the feds stepping in? They were content to let Howard County have this investigation when it was a gay pickup gone wrong."

"I guess there's glory in it now, avenging a fallen colleague whose death may have something to do with the drug cases he prosecuted. I don't want to think about it, much less talk about it. Let's hope this movie you brought over is good for a few laughs."

Funny Bones was good for quite a few laughs, although not quite in the straightforward way the t.i.tle had seemed to promise. Things went unexplained-Oliver Reed and those strange eggs-and there was a moment in which everything literally hung in the balance. It was, in fact, one of the few films that Tess had ever seen in which she could not predict the tenor of the ending, could not figure out if she was watching a comedy or a tragedy.

It made for an admirable quality in a movie, she decided, but an unnerving situation in one's own life.

FRIDAY.

20.

Gabe didn't have a photographic memory, although he had a good one. Gabe's talent was that he knew paper, as if it were a language unto itself, an unmapped country. Gabe was good at paper even when it wasn't paper, when it was just a facsimile of a doc.u.ment captured in a computer screen. If files and forms were women, Gabe would have been the Casanova of his time. In fact, if Gabe had been content to play to his greatest strength, he would be a forensic accountant, being summoned to testify as an expert witness in corporate scandals.

But Gabe had disliked the idea of life on the sidelines, waiting for things to happen. That wasn't how he saw himself. So he had chosen the prosecutorial track, hoping that his knack for paper, for details, would pay off.

Finally it had.

"Barry told me that you expect to get a subpoena soon," said the point guy at the bank, a former fed, just as Jenkins had predicted. "Until then we can't give you copies. And, technically, you shouldn't even take notes, so I'll pat you down for pad and paper."

He waved his hands in front of Gabe, maintaining three feet of s.p.a.ce between them. "Nope, I don't feel any thing. Anyway, enjoy yourself."

The files were so straightforward that Gabe didn't really need to take notes. Tess Monaghan maintained only two accounts at the bank, one personal, one corporate, both small. There were b.u.mps of incoming cash here and there, but in amounts that jibed with the nature of her business.

But not for a while, he noticed. She was living pretty close to the margins these past few months. Interesting, but not necessarily of use. In fact, kind of the opposite. He wanted to find some big, mysterious sum, something that he could say looked like it had come from a drug dealer or an individual otherwise involved in a criminal enterprise. But this was just, well, pathetic. He wondered how she could afford that house up in Roland Park. According to the property-tax records he had checked this morning, she had bought it at a bargain price, $175,000. Even accounting for Baltimore's overheated real-estate market and the fact that it was probably a falling-down wreck when she acquired it, that was a suspiciously good deal. City rolls had it a.s.sessed at $275,000 for tax purposes, and that was low, based on his quick eyeballing of the place. She had probably made some of the improvements on the sly. Great, he could get the city to fine her for not pulling the proper permits. Yeah, that would scare her. Given her father's juice as a former liquor-board inspector, she probably had the city types eating out of her hand.

The father-that was another lead. Gabe called up Patrick Monaghan's records, but the old man didn't keep the corporate account at this bank, just the personal ones. Wait, here was some overlap-a check from daughter to father, for $7,000, made out last fall after she had a fairly respectable deposit in her business account, which she then transferred to her personal account. Like a lot of self-employed types, she didn't appear to pay herself a salary per se, just transferred a regular amount to her personal checking every month. Anyway, the father was still worth pursuing. All relatives were good. Even the toughest targets got upset when you started dragging family members into things.

Which brought him to the boyfriend. Gabe pulled out his pad to remind him of the full name-Edward "Crow" Ransome IV. Sounded like some inbred preppie to Gabe, the kind of guy that he had loathed in law school. The type who didn't study, didn't sweat making law review because he had a soft place to land at Daddy or Granddaddy's firm. Barry's preliminary inquiry had established that Ransome kept a brokerage account, but he had his checking at this bank, too. G.o.d bless consolidation. Five years ago they might all have been at different places, but there were fewer and fewer banks these days.

f.u.c.k. He did a double take, counted the zeros again. Oh, this was rich, pun intended. This was fascinating. He should check into this further. No-back up, rethink. He didn't need to know any more about this, not yet. He just had to be there to see the girlfriend's face when she was asked how much she knew about her boyfriend's finances. Gabe had seen how they lived, what they drove, what they owned, and it didn't correlate with this kind of dough-re-mi.

It was going to be sweet, lobbing this little grenade at that self-satisfied b.i.t.c.h.

The last thing Tess felt like doing on Friday was starting a new job, but there it was on her calendar, indifferent to her red-wine hangover and generally jittery state. It wasn't even supposed to be her gig; Crow had agreed to do the undercover work on this one, which would have come much more naturally to him. In fact, it was one of Crow's do-gooding buddies who had hired her. A board member of a local nonprofit had asked Tess to investigate its "public face"-an up-from-welfare success story who had effectively branded the charity with her name and image. Ellen Mars was the charity, the charity was Ellen Mars. She was a beloved figure, an inspirational role model-and the world's shoddiest bookkeeper, putting the organization at risk for an IRS audit. Incompetent or crook, that was the question bedeviling the board member, who didn't dare pursue the inquiry openly. He had asked Tess to volunteer for the organization on a part-time basis. It had been her plan to send Crow in her stead-he was the philanthropist, after all, and would arouse far less suspicion. He also had some context for how a charity should be run, given his work recycling leftovers. But Crow was gone and the client was anxious, so Tess got up Friday morning and reported for her afternoon shift at the Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand.

As soon as she turned off her block, she saw a familiar car idling at the small traffic island on Oakdale, not far from where Mr. Parrish had collided with Lloyd-and Tess's life. The beige sedan followed her, not even bothering to lag back or disguise its intentions. Mike Collins was at the wheel, Barry Jenkins in the seat beside him. Tess gave them a little wave in the rearview mirror, but they didn't acknowledge her in any way. That made it creepier somehow. They were following her yet refusing to concede the fact that she existed, that she was another person on the planet. Tess wanted it to be like the cartoon with the sheepdog and the wolf punching in and out at the time clock. Just a job, nothing personal. But these guys seemed to feel it was extremely personal. She wondered if they had known Youssef, worked with him. How would she feel if she believed that someone was obstructing the investigation into a colleague's death?

Then again, how would she feel if she turned Lloyd over to them and he was charged with a murder he clearly didn't commit or was killed by those keen to obscure their own involvement? If only they could make an arrest without Lloyd. They knew everything that Lloyd knew. Why wasn't that enough? After her second missed stop sign, she reminded herself that she needed to look at the road in front of her, not the car behind her.

A half-dozen volunteers had gathered at the West Side rowhouse that served as Ellen Mars's headquarters, all first-timers, an excellent setup for Tess's intentions, although it gave her a pang to realize how easily she blended with these middle-aged North Side types in their embroidered sweaters and pressed jeans. Ellen Mars was nowhere to be seen, but a younger woman who bore a strong resemblance to the eponymous founder came in and began a.s.signing jobs-someone to sort the donated clothing for the women's shelter, someone to inventory the foodstuffs that had come in the day before, someone to open the mail, helping record the checks and cash- "I could do that," Tess said. "I was an accounting major in college."

The woman-she had yet to introduce herself-led Tess to a beyond-cluttered desk behind the kitchen. Tess couldn't help notice how ratty the little rowhouse was. Upkeep was difficult on those old places, which hadn't been built with the expectation of lasting for centuries. But this place was simply unclean. She watched a roach meandering along the baseboard. It was headed, no doubt, for the food-encrusted dishes in the sink.

"Bills here," the woman said, placing her hand on one stack. "Other correspondence here." She indicated a stack of similar size. "You write down our obligations in one column and the day's incoming receipts on the other."

"Write them...?" Tess opened her empty hands, bereft of pen, bereft of paper.

The woman dug around in the desk's drawers, unearthing a legal pad and pencil.

"I didn't get your name," Tess said.

"Phoebe. I'm Ellen's sister."

"Is Ellen here?"

"She's in Annapolis for Ellen Mars Appreciation Day."

"I'd think you'd want to be there."

"Chil', if I went to every ceremony honoring Ellen, I'd never get anything done. If it ain't the White House or the queen of England, I can't see taking the time. Okay, Verizon-we owe nine hundred and fifty dollars."