In a Strange City Page 28

  Six o'clock came and went, then six-fifteen and six-thirty. Thirty minutes made a profound difference in the neighborhood, and Tess was beginning to lose that comforting end-of-workday bustle she had so counted on. At six-forty-five, she was ready to get out her cell phone and tell Whitney to abort when she saw a tall figure coming toward her, up the steps that led from the law school construction site. The man's head was down, but he held his hands to his mouth in a gesture she remembered. He glanced at her, slowed his stride for a few steps, and then his gait quickened again. He was rushing, trying to get by her without breaking into an out-and-out run.

  "Wait," Tess called out. "Please wait. I must speak to you."

  The man glanced over his shoulder and then began running in earnest, heading for the Greene Street gate. Tess punched the speed dial button for Whitney's cell phone and yelled "Greene Street," even as she took off after the running man.

  It was unclear if Whitney, who had been roaming the perimeter, heard the hoarse shout over the phone or cutting through the night air. She appeared at the side gate within seconds. In her long black trench coat, her blond hair blowing in the wind, she could have risen from the pages of a Poe short story. The running man veered off course, heading for the old catacombs. He had to duck so low that he was practically on his hands and knees. Whitney started to follow him, but Tess called out, "Go around, go around! Cut him off on the other side; I'll go under."

  She had to bend almost double to work her way through the catacombs, and she stumbled a few times, then bumped her head when she tried to right herself. The man had reached the church's front yard ahead of Whitney, but she beat him to the front gate. His way to Fayette Street blocked, he turned sharply to the right and ran straight toward the spiked iron fence. With one look back at Tess, he jumped on top of an old crypt so he could gain a handhold on the fence's spires. He was almost over when Tess caught him by the belt and pulled him back to earth. It had not been her plan to let him land on her, knocking the wind out of both of them, but it worked.

  After several stunned seconds, he rolled off, covering his head as if he expected blows to rain down on him.

  "Don't hurt me," he yelled. "Please, please, don't hurt me."

  "Why'd you come, just to run away from us?" Tess said, her lungs burning from the frigid air.

  The man was young, with pitted skin, matted hair, and the pallor of an overworked graduate student. "Jesus," he said, almost weeping in fear. "I won't do it anymore, okay? I didn't think it was such a big deal, but if you're going to be like this—"

  "You're going to stop coming to the grave? But that's the last thing I wanted."

  "I only did it because it's a good shortcut to the parking garage over on Eutaw. I know the cemetery closes at dusk, but I never saw the harm, cutting through here when I was trying to get to my car. Jesus, couldn't you give a guy a written warning or something? Did you have to go straight to deadly force? The city cops are nicer than you rent-a-goons!"

  Tess was still sprawled on the ground, pressing her midsection in various spots to see if the groveling graduate student had done any serious damage when he had fallen on her. Whitney looked appalled, although it was hard to tell if it was because they had assaulted a shortcutting graduate student or because the student had mistaken her for a campus cop.

  "I'm sorry," Tess said. "It was a case of mistaken identity. But you are tall, and you did have your hands up to your face."

  "What does that have to do with anything? I lost my gloves last week," he said, holding up hands that were almost blue. "I was blowing on them to keep them warm. That's part of the reason I cut through, so I won't have to walk so far in the cold."

  Whitney took off her black suede gloves and threw them to the student. "Fleece-lined," she said. "Probably big enough, too, given how large my hands are, and styled in such a way no one will ever know they're women's gloves. But you ought to get a hat. It's true what they say about the body's heat escaping through the head."

  The student hesitated for a moment, but then put the gloves on and—with one last, bewildered look at the always-bareheaded Whitney, who was backlit by the pinkish glow from one of the sodium-vapor streetlights—took off through the Fayette Street gate.

  "Why did you do that?" Tess asked.

  "I figured it would keep him from going to the school or the police and making an official complaint. You did attack him, after all. Besides"—Whitney arched a single eyebrow—"I'd give up a lot more than a pair of suede gloves to watch you yank a two-hundred-pound guy on top of you. Funniest thing I've seen in weeks."

  Later, in the Owl Bar, of which Crow was growing inordinately fond, Tess found that almost anything was funny after a few drinks. Whitney had already spun the story into a lengthy monologue, and Tess realized she would be hearing it again and again. Being the butt of a joke didn't bother her.

  The abject failure of her mission was a different matter.

  "After all," Crow said, trying to console her, "the Visitor can't know for sure that it's you who's leaving the note. Even if he saw your index cards or the ad, he was probably too scared to come forward."

  "He has to know the ad was from me. That's why I restored the missing lines from the poem. Only he and I know about that."

  "He, you, and Rainer," Daniel corrected. "You turned all that stuff over to the cops, right?"

  "Right," Tess said. "But do you think any Baltimore cop ran out and got a copy of Poe and looked up the missing lines?"

  "It doesn't matter what I think," Daniel said. "Your Visitor doesn't trust you. Maybe it was Ensor, after all. I thought this was a good plan, but I'm convinced now that nothing is going to flush this guy out."

  The four stared glumly into their drinks. They were seated along the bar, under the watchful gaze of the carved owls, and Tess felt mocked by their blinking amber gaze. She preferred the stained-glass owls, who were not so superior-looking.

  " "The less he spoke, the more he heard,"" she murmured. "I wish I knew how that finishes up."

  ""Which is what makes him a wise old bird,"" Daniel said.

  Tess looked at him. "You didn't know the end of the poem the last time we were here."

  "I looked it up," he said. "What's the point of being a librarian if you don't know how to look something up?"

  "On the Internet?" Whitney asked.

  "No, not on the Internet," Daniel said, his tone dismissive. "I'm no Luddite, but half the stuff there is urban myth, linked and relinked, until you can't be sure what the source is. I found this in a database from the Beacon-Light."

  "A newspaper?" Whitney's hoot was perfect for the Owl Bar. "You don't trust the Internet, but you think a newspaper gets things right? You are an innocent."

  "Maybe," Daniel said. "But the newspaper computer databases have the corrections appended. That's why I rely on them."

  "You're assuming every error is corrected." Whitney, never shy under any circumstances, leaned across Crow and wagged a finger in Daniel's face. "Half the time, people don't even bother to call, they just take it. Readers are the first to accept this "first-draft-of-history‘ crap; they figure the first draft always has a few errors."

  "It wasn't just the newspaper." Daniel defended himself. "I found a travel guide about Baltimore that verified it."

  "Oh, a book," Whitney said, sniffing. "That's only marginally better. What if the book depended on the newspaper article? Books make mistakes, too. Give me primary documents every time."

  "The boooooks," Tess said, giggling to herself, for the others weren't in on this private joke. Only Gretchen knew about the video at the Poe House. And only Gretchen could say that word so disdainfully. "Look for me in the boooooks, Michael."

  Her laugh stopped as suddenly as it started, prompting a concerned look from Crow. He probably thought she had been drinking too much. Tess didn't know how to tell him that her senses had never been sharper, her mind more acute. She should have figured it out long ago. All the answers were in plain sight. All the answers
were in the books.

  Chapter 32

  Outside the Belvedere Hotel, Tess took Daniel aside.

  "The titles that Bobby stole from the Pratt—could you get me a list?"

  He needed a second to understand what she wanted. "There is no list, remember? Bobby would never admit to stealing the books, only the pillbox. Over the years, the staff has discovered that some rare titles are missing, but it's not like we catalog them. What would be the point? They can't be replaced."

  "Didn't the library director ever make a report to the board? I assume the trustees would have had to be informed."

  "Maybe." He rubbed his chin. "That never occurred to me. I guess I can poke around and see if there's such a thing. When do you want it?"

  "As soon as possible."

  "It's bound to be a confidential document, for obvious reasons. I'm not sure I can just hand it over to you on the main floor of the Pratt."

  "I'll come to your house tomorrow night. Then we can go over the titles together."

  "You think there's a clue in the titles of the books Bobby stole?"

  "Something like that."

  She returned to Daniel's little carriage house shortly after eight the next night, bringing takeout from the Helmand, an Afghan restaurant, and a bottle of Chilean white wine. Daniel struggled to look brave, like a well-reared little boy who knew he must not make faces at the strange food on his plate. Tess had thought the meatballs of lamb and ground beef were a good compromise between his plebeian tastes and her need for something exotic.

  "I told you I'd provide the food," he said.

  "Nonsense. You're doing me a favor. Now let's see the list."

  He looked embarrassed. "I couldn't get it. I didn't want to ask anyone for it, because it's a confidential document and I couldn't figure out where such things are kept. Probably in the director's office."

  "I guess I could file a FOIA," Tess said, sampling the aushak, raviolis filled with leeks. "But that would take forever."

  "A foya?"

  "Freedom of Information Act. The library can't sit on a document just because it's embarrassing. We could force the board to release the list of the missing books, but that would take weeks."

  "You can't do that," he said, a nervous edge creeping into his voice. "They'd fire me. They'd know I was the one who told you."

  "But you told the cops, too, right? I mean, I could have learned about the list from someone else. And I'd have one of my newspaper friends put the request in. I think regular citizens can file FOIAs, but it packs more punch coming from a newspaper."

  "The thing is"—Daniel seemed calmer, now he knew the story of Bobby Hilliard's thefts couldn't be traced to him so easily—"the thing is, the existence of a list was pure conjecture on your part. Don't you need to know a document exists before you can"—he paused, enjoying the new bit of jargon—"before you can FOIA it?"

  "Good point." Tess sipped a little of her wine, which Daniel had poured into an old jelly glass. He was drinking a Yuengling out of the bottle. She hated to be finicky, but the right stemware did help wine reach its full potential. What she really craved was a glass of water. Daniel had built a fire, but it was almost too hot; the small house felt ovenlike. Perhaps it was her imagination, but the spines of the books all around them seemed to swell slightly from the heat, which made the room feel that much smaller.

  "You know what? I don't need the list anyway. I'll just start writing down the names of all the titles in your library here, then take them back to the Pratt and check to see how many of them were stolen."

  Daniel's piece of aushak fell into his lap. "Excuse me?"

  "I mean, I assume some of them really are from flea markets, while others were stolen from the library. But is it half? Only a third? It will take a while to put the list together, but I have plenty of time."

  A pounding sound filled her ears and she was tempted to believe it was Daniel's telltale heart, the beat rising in a sudden, wild panic at the realization he had been found out. But the pounding was her own heart, her own blood. Daniel, if anything, had grown eerily calm, pushing away the plate of barely touched food and taking another swig of his beer.

  "The last thing you have," he said, "is time."

  Now it was her turn to say, "Excuse me?"

  "You don't have time. I would give you four hours at the outside, maybe three. After all, it's not an exact science, burying someone alive."

  Tess stood up so quickly she knocked her chair over and backed away, her gun out of her trench-coat pocket. That was part of the reason she was so hot. She hadn't dared remove her coat, because she might not have been able to get to her gun.

  After all, she had known all along she was making a date with a killer. As the movie at the Poe Museum said, you could always find the answer in the books. Daniel had paraded his stolen goods, making them appear legitimate.

  "You're not burying anyone, alive or otherwise, Daniel. You're going to go to your phone, call nine-one-one, and say you want to turn yourself in."

  He looked up, his boyish features as mild and bemused as ever. "Too late."

  "It's not too late, it's your only choice. People know I'm here, Daniel. I wouldn't have come here without telling someone what I suspected."

  "No, I mean it's too late because I've already buried her. I had to take the day off—I called in sick, because I knew you were on to me, or going to be—and put her someplace where she should keep for a few hours. She's my insurance policy."

  "Who?" Tess had visions of a small child, snatched from the streets in some urban neighborhood where such a disappearance wouldn't merit the attention it might receive in more suburban climes.

  "Cecilia. I would have preferred Crow, or even Whitney, because I think you care more for them. But I needed someone I could overpower. Besides, I liked Cecilia the least. I don't much like noisy people, people who call attention to themselves. Never have."

  Tess continued to hold her gun on him, wishing her experience at bluffing was based on more than card games with her family. "There's nothing to be gained by harming someone else, Daniel. You're flirting with the death penalty now. I told Rainer and Tull that I think you killed Yeager and Bobby. You attacked Shawn Hayes, too, didn't you? Like the purloined letter, you left everything in plain sight. The books you stole—not Bobby, you—even the weapon used to beat Hayes. It's over there, in the corner, and I bet anything Shawn Hayes's blood is still on it. I thought it was a walking stick the first time I was here."

  They both looked to the corner, where the six-foot pike leaned against the wall, as innocent as any object could be—considering it had almost killed a man.

  "A six-foot walking stick with a point on one end? I thought you were smarter than that, Tess."

  "But that was your intention, wasn't it? Put a Winans pike next to your cross-country skis and your bicycle, and it takes on the cover of its companions. Put your stolen goods on display, and everyone assumes they must be yours. A lawyer once told me that drunks work in bars, child abusers work in day-care centers, and elephant fetishists join the circus. I guess book thieves inevitably are drawn to libraries. Then again, you said as much, the first time I met you."

  Daniel clasped his hands and leaned forward. Tess reflexively took a few steps back.

  "I'm not silly enough to wrestle you for your gun," he said. "As I said, I have my insurance policy. I went over to the Medical Arts building, where Cecilia keeps an office. I told her I wanted to talk about some discrimination issues at the Pratt and asked her to come outside with me so I could show her the documentation I had in the trunk. It was so easy to push her in and then to take her—well, to take her to the place I had prepared for her. I wonder if her girlfriend has started to miss her yet."

  There was something in the way he said "girlfriend"—a tone of sneering distaste—that hit Tess's ear hard.

  "You don't much like gay people, do you?"

  "I don't mind them, as long as they leave other people alone. But they don't, do they?
They're always trying to… recruit."

  He seemed to be speaking from personal experience, or his twisted version of personal experience.

  "Bobby?"

  "No, Bobby was okay." Daniel's face was tight with some memory, and color rose to his face.

  "Shawn Hayes." Not a question this time.

  "Look, you don't have much time," Daniel said impatiently. "Don't waste it talking. This is what I need from you. First of all, I need money, a lot of it. I'm guessing your bitchy friend Whitney can put her hands on quite a bit of cash, even at this time of night. And I need that damn dog, Miata."

  "Miata?"

  "Well, not the dog, just her collar." He laughed, and the sound was startling precisely because it was so hearty, so natural sounding. "Talk about things in plain sight. I have to give Bobby his props; he managed to pull one more double-cross before he died. He hung the locket on Miata's collar, then passed the chain and the bug to the Visitor. It's white gold and he turned it backwards, so it looks like just another ID tag. Why do you think I was so buddy-buddy with Crow? I kept looking for a chance to get that locket off the collar, but Miata would never sit still long enough. I don't think she likes me much."

  "You tried to kill her master," Tess pointed out.

  "The dog doesn't know that. Bobby had taken her for a walk. Remember, I offered you that scenario just the other day? I couldn't bear to hear you nattering on about the whole thing anymore, when it should have been obvious what happened. Jesus! I don't know how you make a living, doing what you do."

  "What did happen, Daniel?"

  He pointed to an old-fashioned mantel clock. "You don't have time for this. Or, I guess I should say, Cecilia doesn't have time for this. You need to get me money, and you need to bring me the locket. I'm resigned to never having the gold bug, and I understand I have to leave most of my things behind, but I'm not going without the locket. I'll have something to show for all I've been through."