In a Strange City Read online

  A glorious understatement, Tess thought, her eyes still dazzled by the room.

  "I can't help wondering," she said, "how you would even know if anything was missing. Or how a burglar could choose what he wanted here. You have so many things, I would think a form of paralysis would set in."

  She also couldn't help thinking how tempted Bobby Hilliard might be, if he stood in this room. He had stolen at least one item from the Pratt, if not more, and this town house was full of the sort of pretty-pretty things Daniel had said were his former colleague's weakness.

  "I'm afraid the burglar knew all too well what he wanted," Ensor said. "My stereo, my video camera, and a television set in the kitchen. He was a strong fellow, I'll give him that, hardworking and very methodical. It was almost a relief to have a professional at work, instead of someone who throws a rock through the window and reaches in to grab whatever is handy, like one of those Boardwalk crane games." He paused as if he had been about to say something more, then laughed. "Actually, I have one of those too, upstairs. From Ocean City."

  "How did this burglar gain entry?"

  "The back door was unlocked." He offered this without apology and without embarrassment. What an idiot, Tess thought, then remembered her conversation with Tyner and felt guilty. No one deserved to be a victim.

  "Did you have a security system?"

  "I do now. I decided the third time was the charm. But, really, you're not part of the Bolton Hill neighborhood until you've been burglarized at least twice. It's sort of like joining the Tennis and Swim Club."

  "And all that was taken were electronics."

  "Yes. As I said, the things I collect have no value— except to me. You know, it's something of a comfort, having things no one else would want."

  Tess had once based her whole life on a similar philosophy. Choose to be miserable, and no one else can make you unhappy. It hadn't proved to be a satisfying way to live, but it seemed to be working for Ensor.

  "Have the police mentioned to you that your burglary may be connected to other crimes?"

  Ensor shifted in his seat. He seemed at once bored and wary. "Burglaries often are. People who steal keep stealing."

  "No, I was thinking about the attack on Shawn Hayes and the shooting at Poe's grave."

  "What an interesting idea. Is it yours?"

  Not ludicrous, not surprising, she noted. Just interesting.

  "No. I believe it's the police department's. Has anyone there told you of this?"

  "Oh, yes," he said, with a tight little smile. "But they have asked me not to speak about it. To anyone. Not to the press and particularly, the homicide detective emphasized, not to a female private detective with her hair in a pigtail down her back."

  "Oh."

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, until he resembled a praying mantis. "But I will tell you this much, for your own edification. I'm not gay. In fact, my three ex-wives will be happy to tell you how not-gay I am. So much for the hate-crime theory. Now, shall I call Rainer and tell him you were here? For that is what he asked me to do. Or would you like to offer a defense on your own behalf? I'm amenable to being persuaded."

  He was toying with her, enjoying her discomfort. What he didn't know was that her discomfort was caused by the implicit sexual boast about his ex-wives. Really, sex with someone who looked like Jerold Ensor would qualify as necrophilia.

  "I don't think I can persuade you."

  "Ah, I am very susceptible to a woman's charms. One could even say it's my primary weakness."

  Did he really expect her to pout or plead? She would not have been surprised to find out that, somewhere in this overstuffed town house, Jerold Ensor had a collection of pinned butterflies in a glass case. Now it came to her why his house seemed so creepy: It reminded her of the Gnome King's sitting room in her favorite Oz book, Ozma of Oz. There, all the items were really people and animals, transformed by the king into permanent objets d'art until a particularly bright chicken broke the spell. It was one of the most literal tales of possession that Tess had ever read, and it scared her more today than it had twenty years ago. She had learned from a man, now dead by his own hand, to be wary of people who took too much pleasure in owning things. They sometimes tried to own people as well.

  "Did you know Bobby Hilliard?"

  "Not that I know of. But I ate out a lot, perhaps he knew me. The police asked the same question. I understand the source of their interest. What's yours?"

  "I'm not sure," Tess said honestly. Since the Pig Man's visit to her office, she felt she had been drawn into a game of blindman's bluff against her will and she was wandering, eyes covered, in a circle of snickering children. Everyone was in on the joke except her.

  "Did you—" she began.

  Ensor sat back in his chair, crossing his long legs, resting his narrow face on the tips of his index fingers. "I'm not supposed to talk to you, and I'm not going to unless you make this more fun."

  "I don't think I want to know what your idea of fun is." Without bothering to say good-bye, Tess left, her only backward glance for her reflection in the mirror that had borne witness to the death of Francis Scott Key. Really she was going to cut that damn braid off one day. Then how would anyone know her, how would she be described?

  If Ensor had been warned to watch out for her, the second burglary victim, Arnold Pitts of Field Street, would be prepared as well. So what? At least Rainer would know she was thorough. Besides, B-and-E-victim number two couldn't be anywhere near as creepy as Ensor. Stopped at a traffic light on Mount Royal, she checked the map and called her house, only to find Crow completely absorbed in his cabinet-stripping.

  "I've got one more stop on my way home tonight," she said. "I'm still trying to figure out why the cops think these things are connected."

  "Hmmm," was all Crow said, although it was a very supportive "hmmm." She wondered if the fumes were getting to him.

  "What do you want to do for dinner?" She was being her worst passive-aggressive self, hoping Crow would volunteer that he had taken care of dinner, made a winter-suitable meal of, say, beef stroganoff and hot bread.

  "I'm not really hungry," he said, "so it's up to you."

  Damn, wrong answer. "Okay, I'll figure something out. It will probably involve cardboard containers."

  "Fine with me." His voice, which had been absent-minded and dreamy, found a momentary focus. "Any more gifts from your secret admirer?"

  "No. I guess we've broken up. He doesn't call, he doesn't write…"

  "I'm not sure how I feel, knowing another man is giving my girl flowers."

  "How do you know," Tess countered, "it's a man?"

  Crow had fallen back into his fume-induced reverie. "Do you think we should get funky with the kitchen cabinet handles, put on those brass starfish they have at Nouveau, or keep the original handles? They have a kind of retro charm."

  "I'm not having this conversation, I'm not having this conversation," Tess chanted. "My parents talk like this. In fact, I am coming home tonight with the kind of food suitable for slathering bodies and we are going to have cheap, nasty sex and the only thing that will be off-limits is any discussion of home decor. You wanna talk drapery cords, it better be in the context of bondage. Okay?"

  "You mean if I say your skin reminds me of that wonderful new synthetic material that you can't distinguish from real marble, you'll object?"

  Laughing, she hung up on him, happy to be going home to flesh-and-blood Crow and sorry for any woman who had to tolerate the attentions of Jerold En-sor, the walking corpse.

  The map book placed Field in the heart of lower Hampden, which mystified Tess. She was no snob, but this was an area where burglars were more likely to live than to plunder. She happened to know a high-placed lieutenant in a local crime ring had once lived along this stretch of Keswick, until his conscience had gotten the better of him and he turned his best friend in for murder. He had been able to leave his door unlocked, Tess remembered, and no one had ever dared to bother hi
m.

  She found the sign for Field Street, but it was a stretch of pavement shorter than most driveways, dead-ending into a vacant lot. After a quick look back at the map, Tess backtracked on Keswick, turning onto Bay Street, which appeared to go through.

  Making a right-hand turn had never so transformed the world before. One minute, Tess was in the narrow dark ravine of Keswick, banked with row houses. But here the landscape was open, and the houses were small stone duplexes set back on large lots. Field Street was literally a field, she realized; that's why it didn't run through. She knew little about architecture, but she could tell such housing had to be a hundred, a hundred and fifty years old. The neighborhood had a rustic Brigadoon-like charm. It was the kind of place she would have wanted to live in if she had not found her cottage in the trees.

  She parked outside Arnold Pitts's house, dark and seemingly empty. Trouble beckoned, but she was determined to resist it. There was no gain, she told herself, in trying to get into that house. Then she would be Gretchen O'Brien, breaking and entering, and Rainer would finally have a reason to come down on her like a ton of bricks.

  The strange thing was, she could almost see Rainer's point of view as she sat here in the early dark, mulling her options. Why was she here? She had no client, no leads, only her own curiosity. She had begun her investigation for what seemed to be a logical, almost honorable reason: Find the mystery client and learn what he really wanted. The roses and the cognac had seemed to signal she was on the right track.

  But maybe these tokens were really just handmade signs from Wile E. Coyote, advising the road runner to take the washed-out road up ahead. Sighing, she started her car's engine and headed back down the block.

  Idling at the corner, waiting to make the turn, she glanced back at the dark house in her rearview mirror. To her amazement, someone emerged from the rear, stopped to put a plastic bag in an old-fashioned metal garbage can, and then lugged the container to the curb. He made a comic silhouette, for he was not much taller than the can, and his arms were short pudgy things, barely long enough to reach past his own formidable stomach and hook onto the handles. He moved with tiny mincing steps, the way a woman in high heels walks on ice, although the sidewalks were clear and smooth, the weekend's snow having melted within hours of falling.

  I know that walk, Tess thought. I know that silhouette. She slammed her car into reverse, sliding into someone's parking pad, and rolled down her window, calling out, "Arnold Pitts?"

  At the sound of her voice—or perhaps it was his real name that startled him so—Arnold Pitts, the Pig Man, aka the Porcine One, aka John Pendleton Kennedy, dealer in fine porcelain, made the most fitting little squeal, threw his trash can in the street, and began trotting away as fast as his little legs would carry him.

  Chapter 15

  For a moment, Tess was so amazed by Pitts the Pig Man's flight that she couldn't do anything except watch him trot down the street, his garbage can rolling behind him. Then she wondered if she should even bother to give chase. He'd have to come home eventually, right? And it seemed almost unsporting to run after a man whose legs needed five steps to do what hers could accomplish in two.

  This uncharacteristic pang of fairness passed and she took off, catching up with him as he puffed and panted his way up Keswick, where the 7-Eleven and its bank of pay phones appeared to be his goal. When he saw she was behind him, he was almost gracious in defeat, stopping abruptly in the small park across from the convenience store and throwing open his arms, as if he expected Tess to run into them. "How did you find me?" he demanded petulantly.

  It was her turn to mislead him. "It wasn't hard. It wasn't hard at all."

  This seemed to scare him. Good.

  "We need to talk," he said.

  "No kidding."

  "But not at my house. How about—" He pointed to a bar across Keswick, Ben's, a place that Tess knew only for the pit-beef stand it ran in the summer and early fall. "How about we go over there?"

  "I'd prefer your house. After all, you came to mine."

  "I came to your office," he said, drawing himself up to his full height, which might have qualified him for the scarier rides at local amusement parks.

  "Your house," Tess repeated.

  "I don't like to have people in my home. They touch things."

  Tess began to laugh, only to see Pitts was serious, and aware of no irony in his self-righteousness. "I promise I won't."

  "They all promise," he said resignedly. "Then they all break their promises. You will, too, you'll see. But, what the heck, let's go."

  Tess drove him back.

  "Interesting neighborhood."

  "These were mill houses," Pitts said, unlocking his back door. "This area is known as Stone Hill."

  "I've lived in Baltimore my entire life. I live less than two miles from here"—she immediately wished she had not volunteered that particular piece of information—"and yet I've never heard of it."

  "Yes," her host said. "That's why I chose it, for privacy. Also, it's close to the freeway, and I travel a lot for my business."

  "Your porcelain business?"

  "I do deal in antiques, actually. I'm a scout, and I specialize in glassware, china, figurines. I find things people want. I find buyers for things people no longer want. Restaurants that are interested in pursuing a certain theme, people who are missing a few bread plates in their old china pattern—they come to me."

  You're a few bread plates short of a place setting, she thought. "A dealer I consulted said you didn't know much about Fiestaware."

  "Fiestaware. Ugh—I wouldn't have those garish things in my house. Not my era, not my taste. But I know enough about it. I have to, in my line of work. I misspoke to gauge your knowledge of the subject. Or lack thereof. And I was not disappointed."

  They had entered the house through the kitchen, which struck Tess as being at odds with the quaint house. At first glance, it appeared to be an older kitchen that had yet to be remodeled. But the harvest-gold appliances were too shiny, the white linoleum with red fleur-de-lis accents was too fresh to have been walked on for fifty years. The Formica-topped yellow table was probably a knockoff too. The real things cost upward of five hundred dollars now. Tess knew, because she had priced one for her own kitchen, while in the throes of a short-lived flirtation with retro.

  "This is an exact duplicate of the kitchen in my parents' house in Cockeysville," Pitts said proudly, mistaking her confused silence for awe. "It wasn't easy, finding working versions of the appliances. The old dishwasher, which is the kind you have to roll out and attach to the sink, was really hard to get, and I don't know what I will do if the hose breaks. But this is what our kitchen looked like, down to the terry-cloth curtains over the window, although my mother's table was red. Of course, we didn't have the cookie jars."

  "Of course," Tess murmured. On the far wall of the kitchen, custom-made shelves groaned under the weight of what appeared to be fifty, maybe a hundred, cookie jars. Many were commercial containers, made to advertise or commemorate a certain brand of sweet—Oreos, Fig Newtons, Mallomars—while others were old-fashioned receptacles in various shapes: fat women, contented cats, cars, houses, a caboose with a smiling face. She noticed a hopelessly non-PC Aunt Jemima figure, but it was tucked into a corner on the lowest shelf, as if even Pitts knew it wasn't a nice thing to have on display.

  He led her into a combined living room-dining room, which gave Tess an odd feeling of déjà vu. Over the river and through the woods—why, it was her grandmother's house, right down to the nesting end tables and the porcelain cigarette lighter on the coffee table.

  "Let me guess. This is a replica of your parents' living room."

  "I wish." He sniffed. "This is the living room I wanted growing up. I even took my mother down to Levenson and Klein, to show her what we should get. Instead, she picked out a plaid sofa."

  He had taken a seat in the dining area, an alcove that was too small for the sturdy mahogany pieces Pitts had crammed into t
he space. A huge curio cabinet loomed over them, filled with—Tess needed to look closer.

  "What are those?" she said.

  "Don't touch!" he squeaked reflexively, as if her extended finger might poke through the glass doors. "They're salt cellars. Mother collected them."

  Tess hoped "Mother" wasn't sitting in a rocking chair in the basement, a withered corpse waiting for Vera Miles's hand to tap her on the shoulder, à la Psycho. She reminded herself the Pig Man's name was Arnold Pitts, not Norman Bates, and this was an old mill house in a crowded neighborhood, not the isolated Bates Motel and homestead.

  Actually, a few pieces of taxidermy might have been a nice addition to the decor here.

  "So, Mr. Pitts. It is Pitts, right? Arnold Pitts of Field Street. As opposed to John Pendleton Kennedy of no known address."

  He smothered a pleased-with-himself giggle in his hand. "I guess you know even less about the life of Poe than you do about Fiestaware."

  "But I'm learning," Tess said. "And if I had taken your job, I wouldn't have been confused by the monument, gone on the wrong date, and missed everything."

  Pitts's merry mood vanished. "What do you mean?"

  Tess sat in one of the dining room chairs, stretched out her legs, and folded her arms across her chest, in no hurry to speak. She was trying to figure out if Pitts was surprised that she knew about Gretchen O'Brien or startled to learn his private detective had fallen down on the job.

  "I'll satisfy your curiosity when mine is satisfied. So, do the cops know?" she asked.

  "Know what?" His voiced scaled up on the last syllable.

  "There was a burglary here last summer. For reasons I can't fathom, the police believe that incident is connected to the shooting at Poe's grave. But it might help the police out if someone told Detective Rainer how you were scurrying around town before the murder, trying to find someone to stake out the visit and identify the Visitor. I imagine you'd prefer that information didn't get back to him."