In a Strange City Read online

  "In Fiestaware and porcelain? No—wait, he did say something hypothetically, about a rare teal-colored gravy boat."

  The man shook his head, sad for Tess's ignorance. "Teal is one of the new colors, you can buy it at Hecht's."

  She walked up to Fleet, where the Antique Man, as he was known, kept a shop devoted to local items and curiosities. A giant ball of string, purchased for eight thousand dollars from Sotheby's, had the place of honor in the window. Fashioned from the bits of leftover bakery string used in Haussner's restaurant, it had gone on the auction block when the famed German eatery had closed a year or two back. The restaurant also had owned a world-class art collection, which had fetched millions. But Tess, like most Baltimoreans, had cared only for the ball of string and was happy when it found a home not far from its Highlandtown origins. Just looking at it made her hungry for Haussner's specialties, potato pancakes and cherry pie.

  But the Antique Man was out, on this snowy day. "We got a tip that the Beacon-Light beacon was found in someone's garage," said his helper, drawing out the last word so it rhymed with barrage.

  "No way," Tess said. As someone repeatedly denied employment by the city's last newspaper, she wouldn't have minded owning that particular artifact, a Bakelite replica of a beacon that had once sat on a small pedestal above the Beacon-Light's front doors and then disappeared when the building was remodeled in the 1980s. "How much would something like that go for?"

  "Thousands," the helper said sagely. "If it's the real thing. We've had false alarms before, and this one sounded a little funky. Still, he had to check it out, you know? It's a civic duty, you know, like the iron pig."

  "The iron pig?"

  "From Siemiski's Meats, the sign that hung over the door. They were going to throw it away, practically, so he bought it. Now people come in here all the time, offer him big money for it, but he won't sell. Some things belong to the city, not in a private home or museum."

  "Very civic-minded," Tess said, and meant it.

  Back on the street, she saw the flag flying above a rowhouse bookstore, Mystery Loves Company. One of the owners, Paige Rose, knew everything about everybody in the city, and she wasn't shy about sharing her information. She was especially good on local politics, but she cut a broad swath through Baltimore, and it was plausible she knew or had met the Porcine One.

  "Kennedy?" Paige furrowed her brow and stroked the cat perched on her lap. The cat was named Nora, and those customers who couldn't figure out her brother was named Nick were probably in the wrong store. Paige was on a high stool behind the counter, keeping an eye on an odd-looking man more interested in the store's warmth than its wares. He appeared to be sleeping on his feet, his nose almost pressed into the spines of new books in the "H" section—Hayter, Haywood, Henderson, Hiaasen, many of Tess's favorites.

  "John P. Kennedy," she repeated. "Boy, the name sounds familiar, although I couldn't tell you why. But I don't remember meeting anyone who looks like the man you're describing. I'm not much in the market for bracelets once owned by Bonapartes. I can barely afford the jewelry we sell."

  Tess's eyes drifted upward, to a piece of felt where small brooches and earrings had been pinned. These were decoupage images of Holmes, black cats, and, of course, Poe himself, such an unhappy-looking man. But that might be projection. People hadn't been so grinny in the nineteenth century; that was not the way they wished to be immortalized. For all she knew, he was the life of the party. It occurred to her that most of what she knew of Poe had been gleaned from the morning paper, and she didn't trust the Beacon-Light to get even yesterday's events right.

  "Do you have any of his books?"

  "I thought you said he was an antiques dealer."

  "Not my mystery man, Poe. I'd like a good biography perhaps, or an omnibus of his work. I don't think I own anything, although I must have read him in college or high school."

  The store was small and cramped. But some sort of order was at work, for Paige had a way of finding things customers could not. Dumping the cat from her lap, she made her way to the rear of the store, where a small office overflowed with papers and catalogs and the increasingly strange freebies that publishers bestow on booksellers—caps, jackets, posters, even a life-size cutout of a handsome man in a Hawaiian shirt. Paige patted him affectionately on his blue-jeaned hip as she squeezed past.

  Five minutes later, Tess staggered out of the store with not only two Poe biographies and an anthology of his poems and stories but several new hardcovers. The publishers were right to woo Paige; she was nothing if not a formidable hand-seller.

  Tess would have to shed this load somewhere, if she wanted to continue working, and she knew exactly where to go. She may have been evicted, but the welcome mat was always out for her at the corner of Shakespeare and Bond streets. It was hard to hold a grudge against a former landlord who happened to be your favorite aunt.

  Chapter 5

  Tess's aunt was the most beautiful woman in Baltimore. This was not filial loyalty but a matter of public record, as evidenced by the framed certificate awarded by the City Paper last year. In point of fact, it said Baltimore's "most beautiful bookstore owner," but Kitty was the rare Baltimore commodity that could live up to local hyperbole.

  "Tesser!" she cried, using the childhood nickname that Tess had bestowed on herself, because she could not say Theresa Esther. What little girl could, or would want to?

  "I literally was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by," Tess said. "I miss seeing you."

  "And Tyner?" her aunt prodded. "You miss Tyner too, right?"

  "If you insist." It was only then that Tess saw the lawyer, Tyner Gray, low in his wheelchair, scowling at her from behind the horseshoe-shaped soda fountain that Kitty had kept when she converted Weinstein Drugs into Women and Children First. If Tess had known he was there all along, she would have said something far ruder.

  "As the old country song goes," Tyner said, in his perpetually hoarse, perpetually loud voice, "how can I miss you if you won't go away?"

  "I could vanish from your life, if you like, but then I'd take the easiest chunk of income you make, those no-brainer referrals that go back and forth between our offices. Speaking of which, did you send a guy named John P. Kennedy to me? A short man, with a face like a glazed ham? He paid too much for some old bracelet. Ring any bells?"

  "No, I haven't sent anyone to you in weeks, come to think of it, nor you to me. How's business, anyway? I hope you're not allowing yourself to be distracted by your newfound domesticity. Kitty tells me you walk around with paint samples, asking strangers' opinions about which shade of pale blue is right for your bedroom. And that you asked for a subscription to Martha Stewart's Living for Christmas, as well as a gift certificate from the Restoration Company. I hear you've been spotted spending hours mooning over the furniture at Nouveau on Charles Street."

  "Lies, vile lies," Tess said evenly. The part about the subscription was, at least. She did have a yen for one of Nouveau's Art Deco bedroom sets, but there was no way Tyner could know this. "You and Kitty are the domestic ones, here in your cozy nest. Have you forgotten it was your presence here—your decision to "shack up," as disapproving radio scolds call it—that forced me out into the cold streets to fend for myself?"

  Their banter was good-natured, and so familiar in its rhythms and references that even Esskay grew bored and wandered toward the rear of the store. Esskay's memory was hit-and-miss, but she recalled that the kitchen was in the back and that good things formerly happened there: Sunday-morning brunches with bacon, slices of cheese for the asking, and, oh, that one glorious day the roast beef was left unattended.

  "Anyway, business is fine," Tess said, conveniently omitting the fact that she had spent an entire day on a case for which she had no client and therefore no income. "How are things here?"

  "Pretty good, for January," Kitty said. "Did you notice the alcove?"

  "Alcove?"

  "I finally went ahead and opened the dead white men sectio
n I've been talking about all these years, just by rearranging shelves and creating the illusion of a new space. Gives me an excuse to stock some of the classics."

  "And how do you justify the living male authors you've been selling all along, in defiance of your own name and mission?"

  "Oh, I created a section for them too." Kitty's chin lifted toward a poster of a Chippendale-type dancer, gyrating happily in a G-string, his oiled bicep decorated with a Magic Marker Don DeLillo rules tattoo. The narrow cul-de-sac of shelves reminded Tess of the way local video stores stocked their pornographic wares, safe from children's prying eyes. "See? That's live boys live. I've pretty much got all the bases covered."

  "Speaking of dead white men"—Tyner rolled out from behind the counter—"what do you think of this murder at Poe's grave? Interesting stuff, no?"

  "I haven't really been following it," Tess said, attempting nonchalance, grateful that her purchases from Mystery Loves Company were hidden within the folds of a plain grocery sack from the Giant. Tyner fancied himself a second father of sorts, a role he had taken on long before he moved in with Kitty. He would not approve of Tess's decision to withhold information from the police. He also would not be persuaded by her rationalization that she was trying to protect a maybe-innocent man from an inept cop and a media onslaught.

  "It's a fascinating case," Tyner continued, as if he could read her mind.

  "If you say so." Casual indifference was the best way to draw Tyner out on a subject, any subject.

  "I talked to someone I know in the state's attorney's office this morning, and he said the police have an ID but they haven't released it. The man who was killed was a waiter who had worked in a lot of the city's best restaurants. They're all but positive he's not the regular Visitor, because he's only lived in the area for the past five years. Letters left at the grave site over the past few years indicate that the individual who carries on the tradition is connected to the man who started it. No one can think of a reason anyone would want to kill him."

  Oh, at least one person could, Tess thought. The killer. But she decided to play along, to allow Tyner to think he knew more about the case than she did.

  "So is the real Visitor a suspect or just wanted for questioning?"

  "Wanted for questioning, according to my sources. After all, he was closest to the scene. The homicide cop assigned to the case went on one of those silly Saturday no-news news shows this morning, pleaded with him to come forward, even promised to protect his identity. So far, no luck."

  Tess had a mental image of Rainer, with his too many teeth, his shiny-slick hair and coarse Jersey accent. He couldn't coax a cat out of a tree with a can of tuna fish.

  "The story's growing cold," she said. "The media will move on, if there aren't any new developments within the next day or two."

  "But there might be a new development," Kitty said. "The Beacon-Light's Web site hinted the police were withholding information."

  "That Web site is a piece of shit. It's not even staffed by real journalists. Besides, the police always withhold information. Not telling everything is basic to police work." Tess realized her presence might be the very thing they were omitting from their public accounts, although someone had tipped the Norwegian radio reporter. Rainer, it had to be Rainer.

  She hoisted herself up to the soda fountain and perched there, swinging her legs. In her down-and-out phase she had worked in Kitty's store, met Crow here, rebuilt her life here. The place was dear to her; she hoped Kitty would stay in business for forty-fifty years, so she could keep coming back. Since her parents' house had been so extensively renovated over the past year, she needed all the touchstones she could find.

  Tyner wasn't ready to let the subject drop. And if Tess hadn't enjoyed a front-row seat, perhaps she would have shared his ghoulish fascination.

  "Did the Web site have any more information?" he asked Kitty. "Perhaps the Visitor's identity is the very thing the police are hiding, and the television appearance was intended to throw people off the scent."

  "It was pretty sketchy," Kitty admitted. Somewhere in her forties—Tess had known her age once but had trouble recalling it once they moved from aunt and niece to just grown-ups—her skin was still translucent and her red curls needed only the tiniest chemical boost. Other women might be spoiled by the power that their good looks confer. But Kitty's beauty had made her nice, in the same way some people's inherited millions made them philanthropists. Before Tyner had come along, she had believed in sharing the wealth, taking on new lovers with an alacrity that had stunned her niece.

  Kitty and Tyner had passed the one-year mark last fall, and Tyner was the only one who wasn't surprised. He was too conceited to realize the great fortune that had befallen him, but smart enough to cherish Kitty. He loved her, and not for her red hair alone. She loved him, and Tess had decided she would master string theory before she deconstructed this particular puzzle of the universe.

  "Well, I'm sure they'll treat it like the red ball it is," Tess said. Red ball was the local jargon for a case given top priority by the department. " "Once upon a midnight dreary…‘ It's a tale worthy of Poe himself, I suppose. Death of a doppelgänger."

  "Tess"— Tyner's voice was sly, probing—"what brought you to Fells Point today anyway?"

  "Oh, I had to check some antiques stores for a hot item. A one-in-a-million shot, but the police weren't going to do it."

  "John P. Kennedy and his bracelet?"

  Tyner was in his sixties. Was it too much to ask that he start having a senior moment, here and there, and not remember everything she said? She shrugged noncommittally.

  "John Pendleton Kennedy was his full name, as he kept reminding me. But he was just a little gadfly of a man, of no importance."

  "John Pendleton Kennedy. I think I know that name," Kitty said now, moving around the store, setting things straight. She was a very proprietary proprietress.

  "You're the second person to say that to me in the last hour. Have you met him?" Tess spoke casually, or so she hoped. "He has the most annoying laugh; you wouldn't forget it once you heard it. It sounds like a hyena having an asthma attack."

  "No, it's the name that rings a bell, but I can't say why. As if I read about him somewhere. I'm probably just thinking of a sound-alike—John Kennedy Toole, the writer, or one of the Kennedy-Kennedys. Or maybe it's the simple fact of hearing three names, which makes me think of Arthur Gordon Pym, who's been on my mind as of late, for obvious reasons."

  "Who's he?" Tess said.

  "Who's he?" It was Tyner who queried her. "Good lord, Tess, you allegedly majored in English."

  "Yes, and I had a piece of paper to prove it, once upon a time, but it's lost to the ages. What of it?"

  "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," Tyner said, "was a Poe novella. I remember reading it when I was eleven. I still have nightmares about Dirk Peters. I'm surprised you don't know it."

  "I'm not." Tess was seldom surprised or embarrassed by her ignorance of anything. She wondered, for a moment, if there could be a connection. But her mystery client's middle name had been Pendleton, not Pym.

  Of course, if his name was false, his story might have been false, too. Why hadn't she considered that possibility? There probably never was a bracelet, never was a business deal gone sour, never was a forged set of papers. He had lied about his name, he had misled her about Fiestaware. How could she have assumed anything he said was true? And here she was, gullible Tess, trying to protect the little weasel.

  Suddenly, it seemed silly to canvass any more antiques shops, and the snowy day was no longer serene and peaceful. The streets had turned to gray slush, and cars made horrible whirring noises as they plowed through it down Bond's brick surface. Tess called Esskay—once, twice, three times before the dog emerged from Kitty's kitchen, looking guilty and triumphant—and hooked her to her leash. Kitty was keen enough to sense the change in her mood, and sensitive enough not to inquire after it.

  Oblivious Tyner didn't realize she
had gone through any changes at all, and he looked surprised by her abrupt leave-taking.

  "See you later," she said, bestowing a kiss on her aunt, flapping a hand at Tyner. She gathered up her bag of books and made her way back to the office, a walk that was virtually all uphill. The sidewalks were slippery, and careless cars splattered her with slush when she tried to walk in the street. By the time she turned onto her block in Butchers Hill, the handles of the grocery sack had made painful grooves in her fingers. She was trying so hard to juggle the heavy books, while holding on to Esskay and searching for her keys, that she did not notice at first the snow-etched items waiting on her doorstep.

  Three red roses and a half-full bottle of cognac.

  Chapter 6

  "Why half empty? I don't get that part." Whitney Talbot, Tess's oldest friend, was staring skeptically at a dirty martini in the bar at the Brass Elephant. The specialty drink was the only thing that stood between Whitney and her lone New Year's resolution—to try every one of the martini concoctions now offered in the restaurant's refurbished bar—but the flakes of blue cheese floating in the glass were testing her resolve. She tucked a lock of blond hair behind one ear and narrowed her green eyes as if she were in a poker game with the drink. This was a dirty dirty martini, a filthy martini, platonic proof that one could take two wonderful things—good gin and blue cheese— and make something truly awful.

  Tess, feeling uncharacteristically girlish, had ordered a Cosmopolitan. The pink drink was no longer fashionable and thus was enjoying a huge vogue in Baltimore just now.

  "I don't know why the bottle is half full," Tess began.

  "Hey, you said half full, and I said half empty. I guess we know which one of us is the optimist and which is the pessimist."

  Tess smiled wanly. Whitney had a terrifying self-confidence that made optimism superfluous. She assumed everything would work out for her. So far, everything had.

  "Anyway, the Visitor, the Poe Toaster, brings a half-full—or half-empty—bottle of cognac to the grave site every year. From what I've been able to determine in my crash course in Poe, there's no real significance to the drink. Scholars are bitterly divided on whether Poe could even tolerate alcohol in any quantity. And cognac, in particular, doesn't figure in any of Poe's stories. It's not amontillado, after all. The best explanation is that it's a toast, a form of tribute."