In a Strange City Read online

  In A Strange City

  A Tess Monaghan Mystery

  by

  LAURA LIPPMAN

  In Memory of Dulcie (1993-2000) and Spike the Elder (1984-1997)

  And with gratitude for Spike Jr., who makes the unbearable bearable.

  Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

  In a strange city, lying alone

  Far down among the dim West,

  Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.

  Edgar Allan Poe, "The City in the Sea"

  Prologue

  He begins on January 1, always January 1, playing with his body's schedule until he is increasingly nocturnal, staying up until dawn. Sometimes he finds an all-night diner, although he has learned not to rely on the crutch of caffeine to get through this. He takes a book, sips water or juice, eats plain things: a soft-boiled egg, whole wheat toast, rice pudding. It takes almost three weeks to prepare, another three weeks to recover, but preparation is crucial. He learned that the first year.

  The first year. How long has it been now? He doesn't want to count. How naïve he was, how unthinking. How young, in other words. He did not stop to consider the enormity of the commitment he was making, how quickly it would begin to feel like a prison sentence. He did not know how the cold settled in one's bones for days. He did not realize the cape would rip and unravel and he would have to learn to repair it, for he could not risk taking it to the seamstress at the dry cleaners. He did not work out the logistics of buying roses at this time of year, how he would have to move from florist to florist and buy more than he needed, lest someone put it together.

  The cognac was easy, at least. He bought it by the case, at a 10 percent discount, at Beltway Liquors.

  What's the difference between a ritual and a routine? It's a question he asks himself almost every day. Are rituals better than routines, more elevated? Or do rituals invariably slide into routine, until we forget why we started and why we continue? Another good question, but he's afraid pondering the answer will only tempt him to sleep, and he is determined to see the sun rise today. Once upon a midnight dreary… ah, but such allusions are unworthy, the sort of obvious unthinking wordplay one expects from the newspaper hacks who write about him. Even in print, they cannot capture him.

  He would not say it out loud—for one thing, he has no one to whom to say it—but he has begun to feel a kinship with Santa Claus. Who knows, Saint Nick was probably real once. A man decides to put on a red suit, visit a few houses in his village, and leave gifts behind. The first year, it was a lark. The next year, it was an obligation. And then the next, and the next, until he could never stop.

  But in that case, the tradition outgrew the man, so others had to step forward and preserve it. He cannot count on this happening here. He had been chosen, and soon he must choose.

  The room is cold. The landlord turns the heat down at night. He stirs the embers in the dying fire, tucks a stadium blanket around his legs. He knows this blue-plaid blanket. It was his father's; it came in a plastic bag that zipped and had been used exclusively for its named purpose. He remembers being beneath it at Memorial Stadium, watching the Colts, drinking hot chocolate from an old-fashioned thermos, the very thermos that now sits on his desk, dented here and there and full of herbal tea, not chocolate, but still going strong.

  "He takes such good care of his things," he overheard his mother say once, admiringly, to a friend, and he was so unused to this prideful tone in her voice that he determined he would always be known for this. He takes such good care of his things. He still has his train set, his Lincoln Logs, a silver bullet presented to him by Clayton Moore, even the blue Currier & Ives plates from his mother's kitchen. The Museum of Me, that's how he thinks of his place here in North Baltimore, where every item has a history. It's a charming image: his apartment behind Plexiglas, hushed visitors trooping through, as if this were Monticello or Mount Vernon. Ladies and gentlemen, this thermos was present for the Colts' loss to the New York Jets, as was this plaid blanket.

  Actually he remembers the blanket better than the games; it was scratchier then, for it was still new, and they could never fold it so it went back into the case. Mother always had to do that for them when they got home. He wonders what happened to the case, how the blanket survived when the case did not.

  But it's the same thing with the body, is it not? The case cannot survive, yet it may leave something behind. He has no children, no money to speak of, and his things—his books, his various collections—will go to his alma mater, déclassé as College Park might be. His only legacy is this secret, and he can give it to only one person. Yet it seems increasingly possible that no one will have it. No one wants it.

  There would have been more possibilities a generation ago, he's sure of that. More men like himself from whom to pick. These days, he does not meet many people, like himself or otherwise, and this saddens him. There was one, encountered by chance in the all-night diner on Twenty-ninth Street—but no, that young man was clearly not what he seemed. He finds himself loitering in used-book shops and antiques stores, where young women go into ecstasies over old green-handled potato mashers and pastry cutters. He feels as if he is not much different. An odd tool, prized for its quaint, decorative quality but of no utility.

  He did not think people could go out of style, but apparently he has. The vocabulary used to describe a man like himself, once full of solemn dignity, has been reduced to the simperingly ironic. Bachelor. Sometimes, meeting a new person, he pretends to be a widower. If the new acquaintance is a woman, her face lights up in a way she may not realize. A widower! It means he was capable of living with someone, at least once. But that was the one thing of which he was never capable, no more than he could end a sentence with a preposition. He needs solitude, craves it the way some people yearn for food, or sex, or drink. Is it so freakish to want to live alone?

  His head tips forward from its own weight; he jerks it back and fixes his gaze on the view. A rim of light is on the horizon. No clouds, which means it will be even colder today than it was yesterday, and colder still tomorrow. The appointed night has never been less than freezing; he has not once caught a break with the weather, and there have been times—sleet sharp as knives, streets impassable with snow—when he wondered if he would make it at all. This year promises to be no different. Why January? he thinks, not for the first time. Why not October, the day he died? The weather is so much more reliable then.

  The ghostly glow in the east expands; the sky's hem is pink. Ten more minutes, and he will let himself sleep. Perhaps if he recited something. He remembers a game he and P played, where someone picked a single word—dream, night, midnight, soul—and then recited in turn, until their knowledge was exhausted. P had always won, but P is long gone. He has to play by himself.

  Let's see, "Night." The night—tho‘ clear—shall frown. "Soul." There is a two-fold silence—sea and shore—body and soul. One dwells in lonely places. "Heaven." Thank Heaven! the crisis—/The danger is past,/And the lingering illness is over at last—/And the fever called "living"/Is conquered at last. "Dream." Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream?

  Which makes him think of yet another line: I have been happy—tho‘ but in a dream/I have been happy—and I love the theme.

  One dwells in lonely places. The fever called living. Isn't he morbid tonight? Then again, it's not as if there were many cheerful lines from which to pick. We do not choose him, P had said; he chooses us. Oh, P had been seductive as a vampire in those early days, and his aim was not much different. But it was not the poetry that reeled him in, or the tales. For him, it was the discovery of the house where three men had met, bestowed a prize, and changed the course of litera
ry history. That such a thing had happened, here in Baltimore, was wondrous to him.

  He had been fifteen then, sure of the prizes awaiting him—not for writing but for acting or directing. When the prizes and the expected accolades did not come, he accepted his lot in life. He realized some were made to create, others to appreciate. He became a first-class appreciator; he apprenticed himself to P and the rest was—he grins, refusing to finish the cliché. Besides, it's not even accurate. How can one be history if no one knows who you are?

  The sun is up, which means he may lie down. His body is almost ready, but for how many more years? And what if something unexpected happens—an accident, an assault? That man he approached… there was something unsettling about him, now that he considers it. Maybe it was for the best when the man declined to come home with him that night, that he so misunderstood the invitation. A man was beaten in his home not far from here, just before New Year's. A single man, living alone. A bachelor. A man with an opera subscription and membership at a certain health club and a summer house in Dewey Beach. Things he has too—well, not the summer house and not box seats. How funny it would be, how ironic, if he were to complete his mission this year only to die on the way home, beaten by some lunatic.

  I'll find someone this year, he promises P—and himself. Somehow, some way. He must. Nevermore will be forevermore, but not for me. This will be my last visit to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Chapter 1

  His card said he specialized in porcelain, but Tess Monaghan couldn't help thinking of her prospective client as the Porcine One. He had a round belly and that all-over pink look, heightened by a rashlike red on his cheeks, a souvenir of the cold day. His legs were so short that Tess felt ungracious for not owning a footstool, which would have kept them from swinging, childlike, above the floor. The legs ended in tiny feet encased in what must be the world's smallest—and shiniest—black wing tips. These had clicked across her wooden floor like little hooves. And now, after thirty minutes in this man's company, Tess was beginning to feel as crotchety and inhospitable as the troll beneath the bridge.

  But that had been a story about a goat, she reminded herself. She was mixing her fairy-tale metaphors. He seemed to be a nice man, if a garrulous one. Let him huff and puff.

  "I don't have a shop, not really," he was saying. "I did once, but I find I can do as much business through my old contacts. And the Internet, of course. A good scout doesn't need a shop."

  "Of course."

  He had been chatting about Fiestaware and Depression glass since he arrived. It wasn't clear if he even knew he was in a private detective's office. That was okay. She had nothing else to occupy her time on a January afternoon.

  "Those auction sites are really for-amateurs-only if you know what I mean. That's where I go when I want to unload something that doesn't have any real value but which people might get emotional about. For example, let's say I was going to try to sell a Fiestaware gravy boat in teal, which is a very rare color. I'd have to set the reserve so high that people would get all outraged and think I was trying to cheat them. But put a Lost in Space lunch box out there, and they just go crazy, even if it's dented and the original thermos is missing."

  Tess glanced at her notes, where so far she had written the man's name, J. P. Kennedy/antique scout, and not much else. She added gravy boat/teal and Lost in Space— no thermos.

  "Now, you have some nice things," the Porcine One said suddenly. "This Planter's Peanut jar and the Berger cookie jar. I could get you good money for these. And the clock. Especially the clock."

  He stared almost hungrily at the Time for a Haircut clock that had once hung in a Woodlawn barbershop. Tess wondered if he would be similarly impressed by the neon sign in her dining room at home, which said "Human Hair." That had come from a beauty supply shop, one where the demand for human hair was no longer so great as to require solicitation.

  "Look, Mr."—she glanced covertly at her desk calendar, having blanked on his name—"Kennedy—"

  "Call me John. No relation." He giggled; there was no other word for it. A cheerleader or a sorority girl would have been embarrassed to emit such a coy little squeal. "I'm JPK, I guess you could say. That's why I sometimes use the full name, John Pendleton Kennedy, to avoid confusion, but it only seems to add confusion. You may call me John."

  "Mr. Kennedy," she repeated. Being on a first-name basis was highly overrated, in Tess's opinion. "I was under the impression you were interested in hiring me, not scouting my possessions for a quick buck."

  "Oh, I am, I am. Interested in hiring you." But he was looking at her Planter's jar now, where she stored her business-related receipts until she had time to file them. He even held out a pudgy pink hand, as if to stroke the jar's peanut curves. On the sofa across the room, Tess's greyhound, Esskay raised her head, ears pointed straight up. The Porcine One's hand was dangerously close to the Berger cookie jar, which held Esskay's favorite treats.

  "People rush so, these days," Mr. Kennedy said. Yet he spoke as quickly as anyone Tess had ever known, his words tumbling nervously over each other. "No pleasantries, no chitchat. I suppose we'll stop saying "How are you?" before long. I can't remember the last time someone said "Bless you‘ or even "Gesundheit' after a sneeze. Again, I blame the Internet. It creates an illusion of speed. And E-mail. Don't get me started on E-mail."

  Get him started? All Tess wanted to figure out was how to get him to stop.

  "It's a hard time to be an honest man," he said, then looked surprised, as if caught off guard by his own non sequitur. A good sign, Tess thought. He had inadvertently veered closer to the subject of why he was here.

  "How so?"

  "Dealers such as myself, we are expected to go to great lengths to make sure the items we buy and sell are legitimate. Yet there is little protection afforded us by the law when we are duped. When I buy something, I do everything I can to ensure I'm dealing with someone reputable. Then it turns up on some hot sheet and I'm expected to give it back, with no recompense for my time and money."

  Tess had no idea what he was talking about. "You bought something that was stolen and you had to give it back?"

  "Something like that." He folded his little hands across his round belly, settling into his chair as if Tess were a dentist, the truth an infected molar she was preparing to extract. No, he was more like a patient in therapy, one who enjoyed the endlessly narcissistic process of paying someone to figure out why he did what he did.

  But she had no patience for this form of Twenty Questions, although she had played it with other clients. It was one thing to coax a woman into confessing that she feared her husband was having an affair or to help a tearful mother admit she was looking for a runaway daughter, driven out of the house by a stepfather's inappropriate attentions. This man, the Porcine One, Mr. Kennedy, was interested only in objects. Which he called, perhaps inevitably, objets.

  "Please, could we cut to the chase, Mr. Kennedy?"

  "John. Or Johnny, if you will." The same high-pitched giggle came geysering out of him.

  Tess pointed to the Time for a Haircut clock. "I hate to be strict, but in five minutes, if you haven't explained why you're here, my hourly fee is going to kick in. And I don't charge in increments. In other words, you're soon going to be paying me the equivalent of several place settings of Fiestaware."

  He looked thoughtful. "What color?"

  "Mr. Kennedy."

  He held up his hands, as if to ward off a blow, although she had not spoken in a particularly loud or forceful voice. The greyhound hadn't budged during the exchange.

  "You may think it's a petty beef. A man did me wrong in a business deal."

  Did me wrong. It struck her as an odd phrasing, better suited to a blues song than fenced goods.

  "You underpriced something and someone took advantage of your ignorance?"

  He shook his head, which made his chins wobble. He looked so soft he might have been sculpted from butter. She imagined him melting, à la the
Witch in The Wizard of Oz. Then she imagined cleaning up the greasy little puddle he would leave behind.

  "No, he sold me an item that was not what he said it was. The authenticity papers were forged."

  "And the item was—?"

  "That's not important." He saw this was not going to satisfy her. "A bracelet. It had belonged to a young woman from a prominent family, or so he said. That was the part that proved to be a lie."

  "So? Caveat emptor applies to you, does it not?"

  "He cheated me." Mr. Kennedy squeezed his little hands into an approximation of fists, but his fingers were so short he could barely hold on to his own thumbs. Tess, five foot nine since age twelve, found small men amusing.

  "Then sue him."

  "Litigation would bring no remedy and might do much harm." He paused, waiting to see if she was following him. She wasn't, but then, she wasn't trying very hard. She could use a job, but she didn't need this job.

  "Any financial recovery I might make would be overshadowed by the damage to my reputation. It was a sophisticated forgery, quite cunning, and the best appraisers are caught from time to time, but still… my business depends on word of mouth. Besides, there was not a lot of money involved. I paid only one thousand dollars for the bracelet."

  Tess caught a little flash of daylight. "And how much did you think you could sell it for?"

  The question irritated Mr. Kennedy, who huffed and puffed indignantly. "Obviously, one has to make a profit… If one wants full value for an item, let one take it to the marketplace himself and absorb all the costs, all the risks. I am not a currency exchange, I am not—"

  "How much did you think it was worth, Mr. Kennedy?"

  He sighed. "If the letter had been real, I would have taken it to auction in New York. Handled right, it would have brought in a nice sum—although not so much as if Princess Diana had worn it. Strange times we live in."