Baltimore Blues Page 24

  Ava dropped the glass of wine in her lap, spilling the dark red burgundy. Tess had been wrong: The wine and the dress were not the same color. The wine made a satisfyingly dark stain across the skirt of her dress, then ran down the sofa to the rug. Yes, that color did look nice next to the green.

  “You know, my mom always uses plastic slipcovers on the good furniture,” Tess told Ava. “You might want to try that, given your problems holding on to wineglasses.”

  Chapter 25

  Tess did not have to dig far through her file of Abramowitz clippings to guess the identity of the twisted fucker. The “nickname” was a play on the man’s real name—Tucker Fauquier. During his trial his name had become a spoonerism of sorts, with would-be wits calling him “that fuckin’ queer.” Times had changed. “Fucker” was more acceptable, “queer” less so. Fauquier had, wittingly perhaps, provided the alternative. In one of the clips from the newspaper file, he called himself “one twisted fucker.” Actually, Tess saw, he had called himself “one twisted f——-,” but even a child could have solved that puzzle.

  “I was lucky to have a lawyer like Michael Abramowitz,” he had told the reporter. That was after his conviction for the one killing with a witness, after he had pleaded guilty to the other murders, receiving so many sequential life sentences he would have to top Methuselah’s 900 years before he would qualify for release.

  Why had his gratitude metamorphosed into rancor? Tess slumped back in her chair and tried to find an answer. Was it simply because death seemed more likely now than it had ten years ago, when it appeared Maryland would never again execute someone? Was it the result of time alone, time to think up new grievances? She studied the old photo of Fauquier, his arm slung around his lawyer’s neck. It was Abramowitz who looked unhappy, staring down at his feet. Abramowitz, the man who was glad to receive mail from his other clients in prison, could not bear to be with Tucker Fauquier. Was it because he had lost the case? Or because, as a man grappling with his own sexuality, he could not bear the touch of someone who raped boys, then killed them so no one would ever know?

  Fauquier had been Jonathan’s source. Fauquier had been Abramowitz’s client. Both men were dead. Did she dare go see him, too? She felt she had no choice. It was as if she were in a boat, a boat rushing forward of its own momentum along an unfamiliar route, with no coxswain to steer or warn her about obstacles in her path. Of course she could always stop, give up, go to the police or Tyner, tell them everything she knew. Or she could keep going.

  She dialed her uncle Donald’s number at work. He answered on the third ring, as he always did, hoping to seem busy.

  “Tesser! Where were you last week? I had to write those damn things myself. How could you let me down like that?”

  “I couldn’t come back after Mom told me who was really paying my ‘salary.’ I never wanted a handout, Uncle D. I don’t need money that badly.”

  “Neither do I. And after doing this job on my own, I’m ready to double the price. Anything. Just come back to me.” He sang the last line, adding: “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. It was on cable the other night. If I sing like Yves Montand, will you take your job back?”

  “No deal. I need a big favor from you. In all your state jobs, did you ever pass through the Department of Corrections? I have to get in to see a condemned inmate as quickly as possible.”

  “I did a DOC rotation a few years back. Deputy director of prisoner relations. You write a letter, the inmate has to give his consent, and the lawyer has to agree. It can take a long time, though. Tell you what: You write the letter and fax it to their office first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll call someone I know over there and tell ’em—what will I tell ’em? Wait, there’s a Monahan in Maryland who gives the governor a lot of money. Spelled without the ‘g,’ but who’ll notice? I’ll call a guy I know, whisper in his ear you’re Monahan’s granddaughter, doing a sociology thesis. They’ll have you in by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Tesser, if they believe you’re Ed Monahan’s granddaughter, they’ll probably let the guy leave the prison with you on a one-day pass. Ed Monahan is the daddy of a thousand redheaded Eskimos. Half the laws on the state books were written exclusively to benefit his seafood company. The governor would do anything for him.”

  “You’re the best, Uncle D. I’d do anything for you.”

  “They can’t take my pension away from me for spreading bad gossip. The worse they can do is transfer me again. You know, the only department they haven’t stowed me in yet is Employment and Economic Development. Which is too bad, because I definitely have expertise on how to stay employed. And our arrangement showed a real flair for economic development.”

  Tess thought of her uncle’s bare office, the clean desk, the legal pad with his mock bets scribbled on it. He had never married, never had any interests outside politics and the track. Since the fall of his onetime employer, he had been living in a kind of exile, his talents wasted.

  “Is it hard, Uncle Donald, doing nothing?”

  “Hey, it’s a gift.”

  “No, seriously. I know you’re grateful for the check and the pension you’re going to get. But isn’t it hard, filling your days?”

  His answer did not come quickly. Tess knew he was not thinking about her question, only how to say out loud the truth he had hidden so long from everyone, even himself.

  “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Tess. If I had been younger maybe I could have found a different job, not a job I loved as much, but one that used a few brain cells.” He sighed. “Oh, hell, I was lucky I wasn’t indicted, too. Of course, if I had been indicted maybe I could’ve become a lobbyist. If you get indicted and beat the rap, it gives you a lot of credibility.”

  “True. But the best lobbyists are the ones under constant threat of indictment. They have an edge the others lack.”

  Donald laughed appreciatively. “You’re a smart one, Tess. Maybe you should go into politics. Don’t be like me. Don’t let losing your first love keep you from finding a second.”

  She hung up, stunned he had assumed her questions had been prompted by her own situation. She had been thinking only of Abramowitz. Hadn’t she?

  The next morning Tess typed the letter as Donald had instructed, sending it to the Department of Corrections over Kitty’s fax machine as soon as the state offices opened at 8:30. She simply stated her request, letting Donald tell his lies behind the scenes. Later, if someone found out she wasn’t the right kind of Monaghan, Donald would simply say: “Who knew? I guess the grapevine had it wrong.” The approval of her visit was faxed back within forty-five minutes. Theresa E. Monaghan could see Tucker Fauquier that afternoon.

  Crow arrived for his shift, bearing pastries, fancy ones in a box. Napoleons, éclairs, turnovers, quite a splurge on his meager salary. In the past few days he had begun showering on Tess the attentions he had bestowed on Kitty. He gave Tess the looks she had once coveted, brought her gifts of food, tried to talk about James M. Cain, and composed little songs. But she was tired of discussing Cain and too numb to feel anything more than a dull, sisterly affection toward Crow.

  Today, in addition to the pastries, he also brought her a glass of fresh lemonade from the Broadway Market. Tart, with lemon slices. She sat on the old soda fountain and drank it slowly, savoring it. Neither of them spoke, but it was a companionable silence. As Crow had once said, the light here was lovely in the morning, fresh and clean. Kitty, in cowboy boots and a fringed skirt, dreamily rubbed lemon-scented furniture polish into the library table. The Everly Brothers sang about devotion over the store’s speakers. Crow took out his guitar and played along, looking at Tess when he thought she couldn’t see.

  A sharp rap on the glass door interrupted his song just as Tess was becoming uncomfortable with his steady gaze.

  “Go away,” Kitty called cheerfully. “We open at ten.”

  But Tess recognized the tiny figure at the door. It was Cecilia, holding a she
af of papers to her chest.

  “I need your help,” she said when Tess let her in. She was getting better and better at jumping into her assertive mode, with fewer stammers and downcast glances with each encounter. “I thought I could do it by myself, but I can’t. I need to know what you know.”

  So many possibilities flooded Tess’s mind, she couldn’t begin to sort through them. What special knowledge did she have? To what was Cecilia confessing: Abramowitz’s death? Jonathan’s hit-and-run? Why had she come back to Tess, whom she had dismissed as of no use just last week?

  “What kind of help do you need from me, Cecilia?”

  “Documents.” She shoved her armful of papers at Tess. “It took me six weeks to figure out how to find the charter for VOMA. You told me you went and looked it up after our meeting. So you know how these things work, and I don’t. I want you to help me. I’m tired of wasting time on wild goose chases.”

  Tess took a step back. Cecilia’s energy, concentrated as it was in such a small person, was a little frightening, uncontrollable. She wanted to be safely out of arm’s—or foot’s—reach.

  “Who do you think I am, Cecilia?”

  “Well, at first I thought you worked for the Internal Revenue Service.”

  Everyone laughed at that, but no one harder than Tess. She laughed so hard her legs became weak and she had to sit on the floor, still laughing. She laughed until she remembered how long it had been since she had laughed—not since Saturday night.

  “Cecilia, I’ve been called a lot of things, but no one ever thought I was the tax man. What put such an idea in your head?”

  “You know how when something’s on your mind, you forget it’s not on everyone else’s mind?” All too well, Tess thought. “Well, when you tried to sneak into our meeting, it never occurred to me you were interested in Abramowitz’s death. I mean, he got killed, they arrested the guy who did it, end of story. To me, there’s no mystery, no reason anyone should care. Even after I realized that’s what you were after, it didn’t bother me. I knew no one in our group did it.”

  “But what would an IRS agent want with you, Cecilia? Did you forget to report a scholarship? Claim a few extra dependents on your tax form?”

  Cecilia shook her head impatiently. She was speeding along and wanted Tess to catch up. She was almost vibrating with tension. Too many coffee bars for this young woman, Tess thought.

  “Not me. VOMA.”

  “What about VOMA? I assume it’s a nonprofit.”

  “A nonprofit that asks its members to kick in a lot of money. We pay fifty dollars a year in dues and we’re always holding fund-raisers. Bake sales, silent auctions, walkathons. Pru is always dreaming up another one. Then we turn in our money and we never see it again, and we never get anything for it. No one else seemed to care, but when I asked Pru, she got hinky about it. Said we were funneling a lot of money to NARAL and NOW, and we had to pay rent for the room.”

  “So you got suspicious and went to find the charter.”

  Cecilia nodded her head in the affirmative this time, shaking it so hard she looked like a toy dog in the back of someone’s old Chevy. “Yes, after six weeks of calling virtually everybody in state government, in between school, studying, and working at my pop’s bar. They don’t make it easy for regular citizens, let me tell you. I got to the right person about once out of every ten calls, and then that person was usually on break. But I finally found the charter. When I asked for tax forms, the incorporations office sent me to the attorney general’s office. But they didn’t have any record of VOMA under either name. Dead end.”

  “More like a wrong turn,” Tess said, but Cecilia was too caught up in her breakneck recitation to hear her.

  “Then you showed up. I knew after I talked to you the second time that you weren’t an IRS person, you were too clueless—”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you did mention you had looked up the charter. And this was just two days later! It took me six weeks! Can you find the tax forms that fast? Our annual meeting is next month, and I want to see where the money went before we elect Pru to another year.”

  Tess could tell it had never occurred to Cecilia that she might not help her. For her, the only issue was how fast Tess could solve her problem. Free of charge, of course. She didn’t understand the code of the full-time freelancer, who never traded time without receiving money. Still, it was an easy enough job, and one that wouldn’t result in anyone getting killed.

  “You were on the right track, but in the wrong office. The attorney general’s office is for foundations, the folks who give away the money. If you want to see the files on charities, which raise money, you need the secretary of state’s office in Annapolis.”

  “OK, let’s go.” Cecilia actually grabbed Tess’s arm and started hustling her toward the door. She was not only quick but strong.

  “Hold on a minute.” Tess shook her arm loose with some effort. “I’m not exactly in a position to head off to Annapolis right now. I have an appointment later. But I may be able to help you out with a quick phone call.”

  Covering the United Way had finally paid off. Tess found an old friend at the secretary of state’s office who agreed to fax VOMA’s latest tax statement. Within minutes the 990 forms were peeling off Kitty’s fax machine. Cecilia grabbed each one as it arrived, staring at them uncomprehendingly.

  “Here, let me show you what to look for,” Tess said, taking the facsimiles from her. “In its last tax year, 1992, VOMA received almost $35,000. Most of it, about $30,000, appears to be from a grant. The rest is presumably from your fund-raisers.”

  “But why are we having fund-raisers if we get $25,000 a year? Pru acts as if we’re always broke. She didn’t even want to have that party last week. Everyone had to kick in, and the chips came from Price Club.”

  “Got me.” Tess flipped through the pages. “Strike that. Got Pru.”

  She held out the page on which all compensated officers had to be listed. Prudence Henderson, according to the form, was receiving $30,000 a year for her services as president-treasurer.

  “Is that legal?”

  “As long as the board agrees, and Pru is the board. Under state and federal law all VOMA has to do is file these papers. It’s outrageous, paying most of a charity’s proceeds to one person’s salary, but VOMA is a one-woman show. Besides, anyone can look up what we just looked up. Pru is betting they won’t. After all, the salary doesn’t look exorbitant—unless you know she pulls down another full-time paycheck. She does, doesn’t she?”

  Cecilia nodded. “At an accounting firm.”

  “Which means she can do VOMA’s tax disclosures herself, saving a few more dollars—for herself. It’s sleazy as hell, but I think she stayed within the law. If you took it to the newspaper, someone might write about it. But if I were you I’d just tell the other members what you know. I’m sure, as a group, you can reach a consensus about what to do with Pru.”

  Cecilia didn’t seem to be paying attention. She beat Kitty’s desk with her tiny fists, making the fax machine and phone jump alarmingly. “Dammit. Goddammit to hell.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. This is arcane stuff. Not many people know how it works.”

  “You don’t understand. I wish Abramowitz were still alive so I could ask him. He filed the charter, he may have known something. I went to see him—”

  “You went to see Abramowitz? What did he say?”

  “Not much. He was dead.”

  In her astonishment Tess unwittingly did a very good imitation of Joey Dumbarton. “But you weren’t on the sheet. No one goes up without signing the sheet.” Or bribing the guard.

  “Look, when I want answers I want them now. I tracked Abramowitz down at his office, and he said I could come see him, although ‘client privilege’ might keep him from telling me anything. The guard let me up in exchange for my phone number. Not a real one, of course. But when I got up there, Abramowitz was on the floor, with blood everywhere, so I left. Wh
en I got home I called 911, but they had already been notified. If the police hadn’t caught the guy the next day, I might have told someone what I saw. But they had him, so I figured it wasn’t important. And I didn’t want to explain to anyone why I was there. I never want to testify in court again. And I wanted to keep VOMA out of it. Even if Pru is a crook, it’s a private matter. I don’t want to hurt the group.”

  Tess pinched the bridge of her nose. She had a feeling she was about to get a tension headache. “Do you remember the time you went up to his office? I mean, more or less.”

  “Ten-twenty, ten twenty-five.”

  Great, they had lost fifteen minutes. Rock said he had been outside by 10:10, according to the Bromo Seltzer tower. Frank Miles had called the guard at 10:35. That had given them twenty-five minutes. Cecilia’s visit meant someone else had to enter the office, kill Abramowitz, and leave in less than fifteen minutes. Maybe ten.

  “You know I work for the…suspect. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “I figured that out. Give him my thanks.”

  She got up to leave, gathering the fax papers together.

  “Are you going to confront Pru? Or tell the rest of the group what was going on?”

  “I think I’ll give Pru a chance to explain herself first. She was a good friend to me once. She did run the group; maybe she deserved a little money for it. Besides, being greedy’s not the worst thing in the world. Not even close.”

  As Cecilia strode through the store, Tess saw Crow’s eyes following her appreciatively. She sensed a new crush forming and immediately wished he were staring at her again. She hadn’t expected much from Crow, but she had expected his adoration, from a comfortable distance, to warm her a little while longer.

  The bookstore’s door, as if bewitched by Cecilia’s overabundance of energy, slammed shut behind her with a heavy thud. Tess jumped at the unexpected noise, then turned to Crow.