Baltimore Blues (17 page)

Tess gave Kitty a look and she evaporated, gesturing to Crow as she retreated to her office that he should take over the cash register. Tess led Cecilia to one of the old library tables.

“At first I felt bad about the other night,” Cecilia began, her eyes studying the grain in the oak table. “We shouldn’t be in the directory—almost no one who shows up meets the criteria—and we always end up turning people away. For some of them there’s not always another place to go.”

“Well, no harm done,” Tess said brightly.
Apology accepted. That’s that. Please leave, as I have no memory of what I told you about myself the other night
. “I’m not holding a grudge.”

“I said ‘at first.’” Suddenly Cecilia had no trouble making eye contact. Her transformation was swift and sure, much faster than it had been Monday night, when she had metamorphosed more gradually from little Cece to Cecilia. “But then I realized you weren’t really interested in joining the group. You were there to spy on us.”

“What makes you say that?”
Other than the fact that it’s true
.

“You went to all this trouble to find VOMA and made a big stink when you couldn’t join, presumably because you needed to talk about what happened to you. But in the coffee
bar, when I asked you about your rape, you didn’t want to talk at all. I could tell from the questions you asked me that you didn’t know what it was like. You were too tentative, too polite.”

Tess said nothing.

“I want you to tell me why you were there.”

“You tell me something first. Is there a woman named Mary in your group? A woman whose rapist was represented by Michael Abramowitz?”

Cecilia smiled oddly. “No, no Marys. But we have lots of women who know Abramowitz’s work.”

“How many?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to.” Tess felt an odd power. She wasn’t sure why, but she sensed Cecilia feared her. It was a novel experience, and an exhilarating one. “How many, Cecilia?”

Cecilia looked to the ceiling and ticked the names off her fingers, as if calling roll. “Well, there’s Pru, Meredith, and Maria—but not Mary. Joan and Melody. Cynthia. Stephanie. Susan. Nancy and Hannah. Leslie, Jane, Ellen, and Lisa. Me—is that everyone? That’s the nucleus. A few others come and go, but those fourteen are always there.”

“I guess that’s not a coincidence,” Tess said. “That others come and go. You seem intent on keeping it private.”

“It makes more sense if you know the real name.” Cecilia leaned across the table, as if to take Tess into her confidence. Her mood seemed lighter, more carefree. Whatever brief power Tess enjoyed had now vanished. “Victims of Michael Abramowitz. Monday, of course, was our final meeting, our own little wake for the late, great lawyer.”

“Nice try. But I saw the group’s charter, remember? You left it behind at the coffeebar. Its official name is Victims of Male Aggression, and Abramowitz filed the papers. Why would he help set up a group of women who hated him?”

Cecilia gave her an appraising look. “Good question. It’s the one I asked Pru three weeks ago, when I looked up the charter. She told me it was her own little joke. She asked
Abramowitz to file the charter when he was in private practice, playing on the do-gooding instincts he carried over from the public defender’s office, where he made a career out of putting rapists back on the streets.”

“So Pru put the group together and keeps everyone else out?”

“You got it. It’s not enough to be a rape victim. You have to have had the singularly unpleasant experience of watching your tax dollars at work, as Public Defender Abramowitz got your rapist acquitted.”

“But that was his job,” Tess objected. “What would you rather have—public defenders who just throw their clients on the rocks, or people who really try? He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He was trying to help poor young men. It wasn’t personal. Besides, he left the public defender’s office years ago. Isn’t it time—”

“To get on with our lives? Actually, for a while, I was getting on with my life. Then his face started showing up everywhere, and his voice. I saw him on television, heard him on the radio. I drove by his billboards on my way to work. That’s when the group started—when all these women saw that face again, heard his voice. It brought it all back.”

“Wouldn’t it have been healthier to stop watching those UHF channels? Switch to NPR? Find a new route to work?”

Cecilia slumped in her chair, as if worn out by the conversation. “You’re just proving Pru’s point. Other people don’t understand. I never thought I’d have to say this to another woman, but you just don’t get it.”

No, she got it. She understood their anger and frustration. But she was uncomfortable around people who based their identities on being victims—even if she herself had done it from time to time. It was counterproductive. Instead of healing, these women ended up tearing off their scabs every week. Their idea of rebellion was to serve cupcakes at a wake, celebrating the fact that someone else had carried out their pathetic revenge fantasies.

Assuming it was someone else.

“So did VOMA ever talk about killing its raison d’être?”

Cecilia rolled her eyes. “We’re victims of violence, not perpetrators. Most of these women are scared to go out alone after dark.”

“Well, let me ask you this: Did the group discuss the murder? Do you know where everyone was that night?”

“I know Pru was at the ball game, with two dozen kids on crutches and some other people from the accounting firm where she works. The other women were probably doing what they do most nights. Sitting up in bed, with all the lights on, afraid to go to sleep.”

“What about you?”

“Home alone. The classic alibi, right? My rapist planned to use it if the case hadn’t been thrown out of court. That’s the beautiful thing about a defense—it doesn’t have to be consistent. ‘I wasn’t there.’ ‘I was there, but I didn’t do it.’ ‘I was there, but she wanted it.’”

“How consistent is
your
story?”

Cecilia recited back in a bored monotone, “I was home alone. I was there, but I didn’t do anything. I was there, but he wanted it.”

Tess remembered—her bruised rear end remembered—how Cecilia had taken her on in the coffee bar. Abramowitz was shorter than she was, and he probably didn’t spend two hours a day rowing and lifting. Yet life was unfair. A short, fat, out-of-shape man was still stronger than she was. Cecilia wouldn’t have had a chance—would she?

“So what’s the point of this visit, Cecilia? All you’ve done is convince me VOMA’s members should be deposed in Abramowitz’s murder case.”

“I thought you knew something. I thought you wanted something. Now I’m not so sure.”

“About Abramowitz?”

“No. Actually it couldn’t have less to do with him.” She got up to leave. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but we’re not really happy he’s dead. At least I’m not.”

“Maybe you can set up a support group for him. VOMAINSOMA: Victims of Michael Abramowitz in Support of Michael Abramowitz.”

For a second little Cece, scared and vulnerable, appeared in Cecilia’s eyes. She raised her hand, and Tess was glad she had a heavy oak table as a buffer between them. But Cecilia was reaching for her missing hair, looking for a strand to wrap around her finger as she thought.

“It must be nice to be so strong and to think it’s because you’re good, that you live right and eat right, so you deserve your health and happiness,” she said, almost as if she was working this out for herself for the first time. “But there is such a thing as luck, and there’s more bad luck than good in this world.”

With that she walked out of the store. She was tinier than Tess remembered. Prettier, too, especially when anger swept over her features and she found the courage to make eye contact. A man looking at her might be a little slower than usual off his reflexes, especially if someone had just finished banging him around. By the time he saw that little foot heading for his ear, it would be too late.

C
ecilia’s visit bothered Tess—and not only because there had been some truth in her parting words. It made no sense for Cecilia to seek Tess out, only to tell her more about VOMA than she had ever known, and then insist it had nothing to do with Abramowitz’s death. Then again Cecilia obviously had taken to heart the maxim that the best defense was a good offense. She might have miscalculated, thinking a preemptive strike would end curiosity rather than inspire it.

Still, Tess couldn’t see a killer in that group. Whatever VOMA stood for, being a victim was the one constant. These women had built their lives around passivity and inaction.

She could feed the story to Jonathan—support group formed around slain lawyer celebrates his death with Hawaiian Punch and homemade cupcakes—and see what happened. Although leaks and balloons were the common metaphors, Tess had always thought placing a well-timed newspaper story was like testing a griddle: Toss a few drops of water on it and see if they pop. But she didn’t want Jonathan to turn his attention back to the Abramowitz story. Besides, he wouldn’t be interested now that he was happily frying bigger fish. Perhaps she could feed this morsel to Feeney or one of the lesser mortals at the
Blight
.

“She doesn’t know what you’re doing.” Crow, interjecting again. She had forgotten he was there.

“What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t know you work for Rock, or that you’re interested in the murder. She knows you’re not a cop, so she’s not worried about anything criminal. She thought you were checking her out for something else.”

“How do you know so much? How do
you
know I’m working for Rock?” He was right, though. Cecilia had never mentioned Rock or Tyner. Tess had steered the discussion toward Abramowitz’s death, but anyone who read a newspaper might have done that. Cecilia only knew Tess wasn’t the victim she pretended to be. She hadn’t figured out who she was, or what she wanted.

“I listen a lot. It helps when you forget I’m here—the way you did just now. The way you do all the time.”

He smiled, pissing Tess off. It seemed as if everyone was a step ahead of her today—Feeney with his computer, Donna Collington with her long red nails, Kitty with her not-so-secret reservations about Jonathan, Cecilia with her mysterious mission. Now Crow had joined the gang. It didn’t help that he was right.

It also irritated her to notice how fair Crow’s complexion was. His skin was blue white, like milk, which made the dreadlocks framing his face seem even darker. The skin of someone who stayed out at night, prowling.

“Do they call you Crow after that robot on ‘Mystery Science Theater,’ or because you look like that singer from Counting Crows?” Actually he was better looking, with good cheekbones and a broad forehead. If he stopped slouching he would have six inches on Tess.

“I was Crow long before either came along. Back in my native Virginia. If you’re nice to me I’ll tell you the story some day.”

“Sorry, that’s too high a price to pay.” But he had gotten her to smile.

Tess finished her shift, then spent the rest of the evening trying to call Abner Macauley’s number, a Dundalk exchange. Each time she dialed, a woman answered and re
fused to put Mr. Macauley on the phone unless Tess identified herself. Each time Tess refused.

The impasse continued through the evening and into the next morning, after she had returned from rowing. Rock had been at the boat house, looking confused and distracted. The Head of the Ohio was in two days, and Tess knew from looking at him that he wasn’t even close to being ready. He didn’t look as if he could even complete the course.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I am. Ava still won’t talk to me.” He looked guilty. “I know, I know—I’m not supposed to talk to her. But I don’t understand why her story changed. She tells me—tells you—one thing. Then she tells some newspaper reporter it’s all a figment of my overheated imagination. Why would she do that?”

Because she’s a louse
. “I have a hunch she had to choose between you and the law firm. Given her credit card situation, she had to go with the law firm or risk losing her job.”

“Maybe. All I know is I’m not going to row well until this is cleared up. Tyner says I’ll be lucky to go to trial by January.”

Rock looked so low, so discouraged, she wanted to hold out some hope. “Look, this is kind of premature, but I’m working a lead. I think I might find the guy who really killed Abramowitz, or at least someone with a good motive.”

“Tyner didn’t say anything about that.”

“He doesn’t know yet. Let’s keep it this way for now, OK? Just between us, I have a feeling I’m on to something.”

“Just between us.” She tensed, waiting for the inevitable punch, another black-and-blue mark to add to the collection of marks Rock’s affection left on her. To her surprise he kissed her brow instead.

By Friday morning Tess had still not been able to get past the hound of hell guarding Macauley’s telephone. She had to be on the right track. Then she remembered she was an investigator, not a reporter. Time to lie again. She put on a
thick Baltimore accent and dialed the number, which she now knew by heart.

“Excuse me, ma’am, could I speak to one Abner J. Macauley?”

Her long Os and nasal tones worked like a mating call on the woman, presumably Mrs. Macauley, whose Bawlmer accent Tess could have been parodying.

“He’s here, hon, but can I ask who’s calling and why? He don’t get around that well, you know.” No, just occasional forays downtown armed with baseball bats.

“Oh sure,” she said. “I’m from O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill, and we wanted to talk to him about his settlement.”

The woman squealed with excitement. “Oh hon, he’s taking a nap, but I know he wants to hear about that. Can you call back in a half hour?”

“Actually we’d like to send one of our people out to talk to him in person. Could he see someone in an hour?”

“Well, that’s during the noon news, but I guess it would be OK. You tell him just to come on out. You know the way? We’re off Holabird Avenue, past Squires, the Italian restaurant?”

If Tess had not lived in Baltimore all her life, she would not have had a clue what the woman was saying. “Holabird” came out “hahlaburd,” while Squires was “squi-yers.” Italian, of course, was pronounced with a long “I.”

“Sure,” she replied, almost slipping into her normal voice. “By the way, it’s a girl who’s coming out, not a gentleman. But she’s OK.”

“OK, hon. See ya!”

Despite Tyner’s repeated exhortations to dress like a grown-up, Tess sensed the Macauleys would be more comfortable with someone who looked as if she had gone to Catholic school with their daughter or dated their son. She paired a plaid skirt with a white blouse, then added a man’s navy vest.
To do the Catholic girl bit properly
, she thought,
I should put on knee socks and roll my waistband up until the skirt barely covers my ass
. That had been the parochial school look of her era. Instead she slipped penny loafers onto
bare, tanned feet and braided her hair. Fetching, she decided, sort of like a field hockey player on her way to church.

In her Toyota she headed east past Canton, past the quaint row houses of Greektown and Highlandtown, leaving the city limits and heading into Dundalk. On a map East Baltimore County looked promising. It sat on what should have been prime real estate, the meandering coastline of the Chesapeake Bay, with tiny points and inlets. And perhaps it was gorgeous, once upon a time, a time before Bethlehem Steel. But there was no Dundalk before Beth Steel, which had built the community in 1916 to house its workers. In the 1950s, when steel production was at its height, red dust from the mills had fallen steadily over the community, sifting over everything. Cars, clothing on lines, the rooftops and windowsills. They called it “gold dust” and were grateful for it, because it meant the shipyards were busy and jobs plentiful.

There was still gold in Dundalk, but not so much for those who lived there as for the men who represented them in court. Few households had been spared asbestosis or one of the other degenerative diseases associated with the onetime wonder fiber. One lawyer alone had built an empire on asbestos, earning more than $250 million in a single class action suit. Now he owned the Orioles. Some of the widows of Dundalk were doing pretty well, too, but none had a sports franchise, not yet.

But, as Mr. Miles had, Tess wondered why Mr. Macauley was so focused on money. Technically he was one of the lucky ones. There were thousands of men throughout Baltimore who had been diagnosed with asbestosis, or the related cancer, mesothelioma. Asbestosis—white lung—was said to be a particularly horrible way to die. The lungs collapsed slowly, until you felt as if you were suffocating. And it wasn’t enough to prove asbestos had done it. You had to know which brand of asbestos was poisoning you if you wanted to collect.

Yet Abner Macauley had won in court, one of eleven plaintiffs in the last of the preconsolidation trials. He was due $850,000, and he had won it before he died. The other
rewards ranged from $900,000 to $2.1 million, according to the clip Feeney had found, for a total of $15 million. How had the jury decided the costs of eleven men’s lives? Macauley had worked a relatively short amount of time—a mere eight months during World War II—and had been able to show he was never exposed again. Someone who could enjoy the money should get more, Tess decided, not less. The scale of suffering seemed inverted to her.

The Macauley house, off Holabird Avenue as promised, was a hideous 1950s-era ranch, a sprawling structure of brick and sea green trim that looked as if it had crawled out of the bay and died on this lot.

Small yappy dogs threw themselves at the Macauleys’ storm door when Tess rang the bell. They didn’t seem particularly vicious, but she wouldn’t have turned her back on them. After almost two minutes, which seemed longer with dogs panting and snarling, a short, chubby woman came to the door. She wore cherry red pants, a red and white striped jersey, and toilet paper rolls in her tinted strawberry blond hair. Tess knew the look. It was one of the favorite local methods for preserving a salon-made beehive.

“You must be the girl!” the woman said cheerfully. “Just let me get this last bit of paper off my hair. One of those mornings, I guess you know.”

“Sure,” Tess said, feeling agreeable now that she was on the threshold of an important discovery. On the drive over she had convinced herself Macauley had to be involved in Abramowitz’s death. She hadn’t figured out the details, but her intuition was practically buzzing.

Inside, the house was early Graceland, decorated with ceramic monkeys and kittens. Mrs. Macauley led her to the family room at the end of a long dark corridor. Here, two recliners sat side by side, facing an old-fashioned console television whose color had taken on a distinct lime tint. TV trays stood in front of both chairs, and two hot microwave dinners waited next to sweating cans of National Bohemian. It was how the O’Neals might have lived if their fortune had been a hundredfold less.

“We always eat lunch in here,” said the woman, presumably Mrs. Macauley, although she had never introduced herself. “Abner loves his programs.”

“Where
is
Mr. Macauley?”

“He’ll be out directly,” Mrs. Macauley said, eyes fixed on the television screen. Her beehive, now unwrapped, was remarkable, a towering structure whipped from hair normally as thin and runny as egg whites. It wasn’t a look to which Tess aspired, but she admired its defiance of nature and gravity.

She stared at a door at the end of the corridor, eager to lock eyes with Macauley. In her imagination everything would be revealed in a glance. Her only fear was that her earnest face would inspire an inadmissible confession on the spot.

Finally a door swung open and Macauley stepped out, dragging a reluctant animal on a thin, pale yellow leash. She saw him give the leash a yank, swearing under his breath. A
sadist
, she thought with some satisfaction as he started down the hall, practically dragging the poor animal.

He moved deliberately, with the measured tread of someone quite sure of himself, a hideous yellowish smile frozen on his face. As Tess’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light, she realized he didn’t have a pet with him, but something on wheels. Squinting into the dark hallway, she saw the yellow leash was a tube, leading to some contraption at his feet.

“Sweet Jesus Christ,” she said under her breath.

What she had taken for a grotesque smile was a breathing tube stretched across his face. The “pet” was his portable oxygen tank. Macauley came down the corridor as slowly as a debutante bride moving across rose petals at the cathedral. And when he finally arrived in the family room, Tess was the one ready to burst into tears, equal parts frustration and pity.

“I’ve only been on the tank a month or so,” he said by way of introduction. “Takes some getting used to.”

“Certainly,” Tess said, bobbing her head in inane affir
mation. She was still trying to reconcile this frail old man with the wrathful monster she had imagined.

“Vonnie says you have news of my check.” Each syllable was breathy and measured, a sibilant wheeze. “I was glad to hear of it. I had begun to think I might not live long enough to see my money.”

“Yes, the check.” She was mesmerized by his face and the tube, staring like a little kid who didn’t know any better. “Of course. I’m afraid…it’s not good news. You see, Michael Abramowitz’s death has only complicated things.”

Mr. Macauley flushed, but it was an anemic, blue-tinted rush of blood to his face, so he looked more as if he were choking. In his disappointment he couldn’t form any words at all, only a faint hiss.

“Abner! Abner!” Mrs. Macauley cried, looking up from the television, and Tess remembered how Donna Collington and the judge had laughed over her cries in the courtroom. “Control your breaths! Remember, the doctor says you have to control your breaths.”

He waved his hand in front of his face, miming he was fine. It was several seconds before he spoke again.