The cops came for Luther Beale late that afternoon. They had a search warrant, but he wasn't being officially charged, not yet, just taken in for questioning. Tyner suspected they had waited until late in the day hoping Beale would be tired, presumably easier to wear down during the interrogation. Tess thought the cops should know Luther Beale better than that.
"But this is good for us," Tyner told Tess, when she telephoned to say they had taken Beale away and started searching his apartment. "I bet they don't have any physical evidence or eyewitnesses to link him to the twins' deaths."
"They want my files, though, and they want to interview me. The homicide detective in charge of the case tried to tell me my files aren't privileged because Beale hired me before he was a suspect. When that didn't work, they brought back Tull, who went all moral on me, saying he just wanted me to do the right thing for myself, so my conscience could be clear."
Tyner laughed. "Good effort. But we have my paperwork to show that Beale came to you as a referral. I'll be at police headquarters if you need me. Luther Beale and I have a long night ahead of us, but I'll have him out eventually."
Tess had her own long night waiting for her. Given that she felt about three weeks had passed since that morning, she was less than enthusiastic about meeting Jackie at her office. But a promise was a promise, and a client was a client, even if the search for Jackie's daughter now seemed mundane alongside the Butcher of Butchers Hill, the Sequel.
Jackie met her at the office with a current telephone directory, a criss-cross directory, a sheaf of photocopies, and a brown bag of little cartons.
"Chinese food?" Tess asked, her spirits lifting a little bit.
"Fresh Fields," Jackie said. Tess made a face, although she had never actually been inside that earnestly good-for-you grocery. Fresh Fields was too far afield for her. Besides, she had heard it specialized in healthy stuff, low-fat and organic. She boycotted the place on general principle, on the grounds that grocery stores should not be in picturesque old mill buildings with a Starbucks next door. Still, Jackie's haul of containers looked pretty good.
"Vegetable pad thai, sushi, chicken curry salad, smoked couscous, focaccia, pasta salad," Jackie said. "Eclairs for dessert."
"Pad thai? Isn't that a fish thing? And sushi is a raw fish thing. I might have to eat both eclairs." Tess peered into the empty bag. "No wine?"
"We're working, remember? You can't afford to have any of the edges blurred."
"What are we doing, anyway?"
"We're going to do an easy little telephone survey, not unlike something I'd set up for one of my clients. You take the Johnsons, A through M, I'll take Johnson N through Z. Then we'll move on the Johnstons. You check the current phone book, then cross-reference it to these pages I photocopied from a thirteen-year-old phone book. If the name doesn't show up on the photocopy, put an asterisk next to it, then move on. If it shows up, you call."
"There are almost a dozen pages of Johnsons in the phone book. This will take forever."
"Not once you control for longevity and location." Jackie patted the county criss-cross. "Remember, we know our Johnson-Johnston lived in North Baltimore County. Call only those listings that show up in the old phone book with an address in that area. That should narrow it down considerably."
Tess was impressed, but determined not to let Jackie know it.
"So we're just going to call this people and say, ‘Yo, is Caitlin home?'"
"No, because then there's a chance we'd get a Caitlin who's the wrong age, or whose parents don't fit the profile. Caitlin was the WASP name of choice for a while there. Instead, we say we're doing a survey about popular children's names, specific to the Baltimore metro area. In exchange for the person's time, tell them they might win a twenty-seven-inch color television in a drawing. Ask how many kids they have, what their names are. Then ask the ages. If we find a thirteen-year-old Caitlin, zero in, ask for the exact date of birth. By the time we're finished, we should have at least a few possibilities."
"Assuming they haven't moved. Assuming Willa Mott was right."
Jackie's world held no room for doubt. "Let's not concede defeat before we've started, okay? Now eat your supper, then we'll start calling about seven-thirty so we won't catch people at their dinner tables."
"You mean I finally get a chance to be a telemarketer and I'm not going to interrupt people while they're eating? They're going to know we're imposters."
Jackie was setting up work stations for the two of them, arranging piles of photocopied phone lists alongside two maps, so they could cross-reference each listing. Apparently, she was going to work from her cell phone, while Tess would use her office phone. But two maps, Tess thought. Couldn't they share the map at least?
"Part of the reason I'm so good at what I do is that I don't call people at supper," Jackie said. "I also stop promptly at ten o'clock. People don't like to hear a phone ring after ten. They always think it's going to be bad news, and you never get past that first little buzz of fear they feel."
Tess, who had started with the eclairs and planned to work backward to the couscous, didn't say anything. Her mouth was full.
Jackie had written a script, which she stuck to with almost grim determination, rattling off her lines into her cell phone. "We're not trying to sell you anything…just doing a survey for a local publisher on Baltimore's favorite baby names…for answering our questions, your name will be entered into a raffle for a twenty-seven-inch color television set…May I ask what you and your husband do for a living? Do you have any children? Their names are? Their ages?…Thank you. Have a nice night."
Tess tried to vary the pitch, partly to keep herself interested, partly because she didn't want to admit even to herself how clever Jackie's plan was. But she quickly learned it was inefficient to try the spiel extemporaneously and resorted to the script Jackie had made for her. But where Jackie had a talent for making each call sound fresh and spontaneous, Tess's voice became deader and deader as the evening worn on. How did anyone do this for a living?
By ten, Jackie's witching hour, they had worked through about half of the names. And Tess, despite her slow start, had ended up reaching a few more families than Jackie. They had found a five-year-old Caitlin, an eleven-year-old Caitlin, and even one thirty-two-year-old Caitlin, a woman whose parents obviously were ahead of their time. But not a single thirteen-year-old Caitlin, not in North Baltimore County.
"You may have a future at this," Jackie said, studying Tess's list. "If the private detective thing doesn't work out, you could always come work for me. Although then you really would have to ask people for money, and that's a different skill altogether."
"Can I have a drink now, boss, as it's quitting time?"
"Sure, but I didn't bring anything like that."
"We can always go down to the Korean's. He sells beer. ‘The Korean's.' Listen to me. I'm beginning to talk like everyone else on Butchers Hill."
"I'm not much of a beer drinker," Jackie said, wrinkling her nose. "I prefer wine."
"Now that's a problem. Mr. Kim stocks more kinds of Doritos than he does of wine. I know, we'll go over to Rosie's Place. It's around the corner from here."
"Aren't these neighborhood taverns kind of rough?"
Tess laughed. "Not Rosie's. You'll understand when we get there."
From the outside, Rosie's looked like any of the corner bars in East Baltimore. A neon sign advertising Budweiser on tap, a pair of porcelain fisherman in one window, two of the Marx Brothers in the other, Harpo and Chico. The inside was nothing more than a long bar, with a television set turned to some sitcom, and a set of pale green booths along the far wall.
"People are looking at us," Jackie whispered to Tess as they seated themselves in a booth. "Is it because I'm the only black woman in here?"
"Well, you're better dressed than everyone else. They don't see a lot of Chanel suits in Rosie's. But they probably don't see many interracial couples, either."
"You mean…?"
"You were quick to notice it was all-white, but you missed it's all-female as well," Tess said. "Can you imagine a more tolerant group than working-class lesbians? I think I'll have a mixed drink, after all, something different. You know what I want? A mint julep."
"Do you think they have white wine?" Jackie was still whispering.
Tess whispered back. "Of course they have white wine. They even have decent white wine. But have a julep with me. The bartender makes the syrup from her own mint plants, which she grows out front. They're fabulous."
The juleps were served in ten-year-old Preakness glasses, commemorative cups used at the track, usually with a vile concoction of vodka, grapefruit juice, and peach schnapps known as black-eyed Susans. The bartender at Rosie's was wise enough to keep the glasses and avoid the drink.
"Spectacular Bid, Sunday Silence," Jackie read from the side of the glass. "You know, I've never even been to a horse race."
"It's fun, as long as you keep it in perspective." This batch of juleps was syrupy, and served over so much cracked ice that it was like a snowball with an alcohol kicker. "You can't go to the track expecting to win, not unless you're willing to do the time to become a real handicapper. I got lucky my first few times out, hit an exacta and a dollar triple, total beginner's luck. Then I got cocky and thought I could make real picks, began trying to calculate speed figures and use the past performance charts in the Racing Form. I lost every time. Now when I go, I think of it as an interactive entertainment, like a play in which I have a vested interest in the outcome."
"A kind of performance art."
"Exactly. I make goofy bets, but educated goofy bets. If it's not too crowded at the betting windows, I like to watch the post parade, pick out the horse who looks like he's ready to run a good race."
"How can you tell a winner, just by looking?"
"Well, as I said, nothing's foolproof. But I like the ones whose ears are straight up, and look kind of prancey. My favorite race of all is the very last one on Preakness Day."
"Isn't that the Preakness?"
"Uh-uh. Preakness is the penultimate race. The last race is just a little stakes race, no big deal. Half the paid attendance has already left. But I've always had good luck at that race. Hit an exacta there just this year."
"I thought you said the exacta was a sucker's bet."
"It is."
Jackie actually smiled, although she tried to hide it behind the rim of her glass.
"So you do have a sense of humor."
"Who said I didn't?"
"You don't laugh at most of my jokes."
"Did it ever occur to you that most of your jokes aren't very funny?"
Tess pretended to clutch her heart. "What perfidy."
"Truthfully, it's good to hear you cutting up the way you usually do. You seemed a little distracted this evening. Is everything all right? What was the deal with that guy who wanted to see you this morning?"
"I've had some…unexpected developments on another case."
Jackie hesitated, then said as if reciting a phrase from a foreign language handbook: "Do you want to talk about it?"
"It wouldn't be ethical. You wouldn't want me chatting about your case with another client, right? Besides, if the cops do come after me, I can't maintain I'm entitled to client-attorney privilege if I've been blabbing about the case all over town."
"Could that really happen?"
"It's possible."
"Could it happen any time soon?"
Tess had to laugh at Jackie's worried face. "Don't worry, Miss Weir. I'll be here tomorrow night, ready to continue the survey of Johnson-Johnstons of North Baltimore County."
She signaled the bartender for another round, but Jackie covered the rim of her glass. "I have too long a drive home."
"Not me," Tess said. "Did you know James M. Cain had a snowball machine and used it to make mint juleps? I bet they weren't half as good as these, though."
Some people she knew could have talked about that single detail for hours. But Jackie's imagination wasn't engaged by long-dead writers, not even ones who knew the secrets of every hash house waitress and insurance man.
"You always want more, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"I was thinking of that photo back in your office. More juleps, more rides on the flying rabbit, more chocolate malts."
"I did love malted milkshakes. I always asked for an extra teaspoon of malt. Poppa would give it to me, Gramma wouldn't." Suddenly, the second julep didn't seem so delicious. Second helpings never did. "Gee, isn't it shocking that I developed an eating disorder, what with one grandparent urging all those treats on me, and the other one always trying to take them away?"
"An eating disorder. Now that's real white-girl craziness. Anorexia?"
"No, just a little garden-variety bulimia. An occasional binge, followed by an occasional purge with the help of Ipecac. Exercise was my coping mechanism. I was running ten miles a day when I was in high school, doing endless sit-ups in my room. By the time my parents finally figured out I wasn't even on the track team, I had shin splints like you wouldn't believe."
"Then you just stopped?"
Tess was thinking about the food they had left in her office. She had eaten quite a bit, yet there was still so much left. They had wrapped it up and put it in the refrigerator, except for the pad thai, which Jackie would take home. There was a time when even that would have been too risky. She would have thrown it away, or forced Jackie to take it. She wouldn't have trusted herself to behave responsibly around so much food.
"Overeating is like alcoholism, except that you don't have the option of going cold turkey. Everyone has to eat, right? On top of that, I have to exercise, because I'm addicted to the endorphin rush. I just brought both activities into almost-normal limits. I started rowing, which isn't as hard on the knees, and I alternate my runs with weight workouts. I also resigned myself to life as a mesomorph. Women think I should lose ten pounds, men think I'm fine the way I am." She grinned. "That's better than the obverse, isn't it? Unless, of course, you're a regular customer here."
"You look fine. As I said before, white girl craziness."
"Really? Then why did you get so upset when Willa Mott kept saying you were fat?"
Jackie made a face, as if repelled. It wasn't clear if the face was intended for Willa Mott, or the girl she used to be. "When I got pregnant, I spent the first four months eating like crazy, thinking no one would notice I was carrying a baby, they'd just think I was fat. It wasn't the most inspired plan, I admit. By the time I accepted what was going on, there was nothing to do but carry the pregnancy to term."
"You look so different now." Tess was seeing the photograph again, the shapeless girl with the flash of camera caught in her myopic eyes.
"Not so different."
"You do. It's not just the weight. It's the glasses-"
"I wear contact lenses now. You've heard of them?"
"And the hair-those two little tails sticking straight out from your head, the ends looking as if someone chewed on them."
"Hey, not everyone can wear the same hairstyle for their entire life. As I said before, you haven't changed much. You have one of those faces that will never change. When you're fifty, people will be able to match you to that photograph. Is that something in the genes, you suppose, having a face that never changes?"
"I've never thought about it much, but I guess it is, at least on my mother's side. The Monaghans start out with these round little marshmallow faces that get sharper and frecklier every year. Not too long ago, I was walking downtown and someone I went to fourth grade with recognized me and said, ‘You haven't changed a bit.' I wasn't exactly flattered."
"You should be," Jackie said fervently. "To have that kind of continuity in your life, to have people know you that way-that's a wonderful thing."
"An interesting observation from a woman who changed her name, ran away from her family, and did everything she could, short of going to a plastic surgeon, to alter her appearance."
Jackie said nothing, just played with her empty glass, running her fingers over the painted surface.
"Ready to go?"
"Absolutely."
Outside, the night air was muggy, as if a storm might be near. Tess and Jackie were moving slowly up Collington Street, when a skeletal woman pushing a baby carriage approached them. Although the woman looked as if she hadn't eaten in weeks, the sleeping baby was pink-cheeked and healthy looking.
"Ladies, ladies, do you have any spare change tonight, ladies? My baby needs a prescription, and the food stamps are late this month, and the doctor says I have to start on this new medication, and my husband, he just wrote from Georgia that he can't find work-"
Jackie started to reach inside her purse, but Tess laid a hand gently on her wrist.
"We're down to living on plastic until our next pay day," she told the woman, politely but firmly. "Sorry."
The woman looked at them resentfully, muttered something under her breath, and pushed the stroller forward, accosting a group of people gathered on a stoop several houses down.
"She had a baby," Jackie said. "She's not some druggie or alcoholic trying to get money for a fix."
"It's not her baby and that's exactly what she is."
"How do you know that?"
"She's famous in the neighborhood. You see, she kept coming back. Some people tried to help her, get her a place to live. They found out that she volunteers to babysit when she's hard up, then wheels the baby around, using him as a prop to get more contributions. One of the Blight's columnists wrote about her. The details give her away. Lies demand details, lots of them. People pay her to shut up as much as anything. She's one of the women who walk."
"Who?"
"The women who walk, the lost souls of Baltimore, the ones who talk to themselves and wander through the city. I see them on buses, down in the harbor, even up at the Rotunda shopping center. Some of them panhandle, some don't. Not that long ago, I used to worry I was going to become one of them."
"Bullshit," Jackie said softly.
"What?"
"I said bullshit. You were never really in danger of falling through the cracks like that. You have parents, family. There was always someone to catch you if you really fell."
Tess wanted to argue, but Jackie was right, she had caught her in her lie as surely as she had caught the woman with the stroller. Oh, she might have felt as if she were scraping bottom at times, but there had always been family to help her out. When she had lost her job, Aunt Kitty and Uncle Donald had rallied, finding work for her. And if she hadn't been so proud, her father would have squeezed her on the city payroll somehow.
"You're right, I was being glib. I always had support. I guess you really didn't."
"I had one person. Now I don't have anyone. I'm all I have."
Tess wanted to contradict her, say something soothing, but what was there to say in all honesty? Her mother was dead, her daughter was someone else's daughter. Jackie Weir was about as alone as anyone could be in this world.