Butchers Hill

Chapter 5

Somewhat to her chagrin, Tess found herself humming a Garth Brooks song as she finished up her row along the Patapsco early the next morning. One of her beloved routines, and how she had missed it when injuries kept her off the water earlier this year. Her mind was a screen on a rain gutter, she couldn't help what got caught there-but Garth Brooks, for God's sake, the synthetic poseur with the big hat. Still, her parody fit nicely with the movements propelling her Alden through the murky water. I have low friends, took her from the start to the top of the stroke, while in high places brought her to the finish. Four verses, each a little faster than the last, were enough to power her from the Hanover Street Bridge to the boathouse.

She did, in fact, have a handy supply of friends and relatives in the city's key institutions. Uncle Donald had worked in virtually every state agency over the years, while her dad's job as a liquor board inspector had earned him an interesting assortment of indebted types across Baltimore. She also knew a reporter who, unlike Dorie, didn't charge for his services. A reporter who was running a real favor deficit on Tess's ledgers. Magnanimous Tess decided she would give him a chance to settle his account simply by pulling the file from Luther Beale's court case and finding the list of witness names. She'd leave a message on his voice mail as soon as she got home and by the time she finished her shower, her work would be done.

The Clarence Mitchell Courthouse had a head start on the summer doldrums. No satellite trucks outside, which meant no hot trials inside. The air trapped inside its dim hallways was cold and stale, like your refrigerator after two weeks at Ocean City.

'Who's that tap-tap-tapping at my door?' a voice growled when Tess knocked at the press room.

'It's the littlest Billygoat Gruff, you troll. May I cross your bridge?'

'Not by the hair on your mother's chinny-chin-chin.'

'You're mixing up your fairy tales. That's what the three little pigs said to the big bad wolf.'

'Eat me. Oh, I'm so sorry, that's what Hansel and Gretel said to the witch.'

The door swung open. As usual, Kevin Feeney hadn't even bothered to get up to open it, just rolled across the floor in his office chair, phone cradled to his ear, then rolled back to his desk, berating someone all the while.

'You useless sack of shit. I've known that for weeks.' A source, Tess decided. If it had been a boss, Feeney would have been much harsher. 'Yeah, well tell me something I don't know. Really? Well, I hear there's breaking news out of Spain the world is round.'

As he spoke, he pawed through a pile of papers on his desk, then handed Tess the printout she had asked him to pull from the court computers. Yes! Easy as that, there were the names. Destiny Teeter. Treasure Teeter. Salamon Hawkings. Eldon Kane.

'Amazing. Beale was one for four.' One name right out of four, and it was the one who mattered least to him, the girl, Destiny. He had been right about the 'El' name, too-that must be the little chubby one he had spoken of.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' Feeney muttered into the phone, motioning to Tess to stay put. 'Why don't you call someone who gives a shit? I am so tired of this crap. You know I don't write the fucking editorials or the goddamn headlines. You want to jaw at me about delivery, too? Are we getting the paper right on your porch, or do you have to walk all the way out to the sidewalk?'

A pause, while his caller murmured something. 'Lunch? Sure. Next Wednesday is good for me. Let's go to the noodle place in Towson. Noon? Make it twelve-thirty.'

'Your latest girlfriend?' Tess asked when he hung up the phone.

'Your mama. Only she likes to go to those cheap motels over on Pulaski Highway for nooners.'

'I wish. I might respect my mother more if I thought she ever lost control. Or learned to just say no to my grandmother. Gramma's throwing my mother a fiftieth birthday party tonight, which really means she's making my mother put on her own birthday dinner at Gramma's apartment.'

'Not that I'm not absolutely fascinated by the ins and outs of your wacked-out family, but I've got some more stuff for you. I ran all the kids' names through the newspaper's electronic library in case one of them grew up to be a National Merit Scholar or a cabinet member. I even tried Nexis, although it was a long shot, but I like spending the paper's money on frivolous shit. Two came up. I'm pleased to be the first to tell you-Eldon Kane, just eighteen, has graduated to the adult justice system. Don Pardo, why don't you tell the folks at home what Eldon has won.'

Feeney switched to the smooth tones of a television announcer. 'Well Bob, Eldon has qualified for a bench warrant on car theft charges, because he didn't show up for his arraignment. He's now a wanted man and is probably no longer in the state.'

Tess, who was beginning to hope Feeney had done more of her work than she even dreamed, slumped. 'Great. If the cops can't find him, how will I?'

'You've got another shot, though. Another name came up in the Beacon-Light's files. The Hawkings kid won some statewide forensic contest three years ago, while he was an eighth-grader at Gwynn's Falls Middle School, just over the city line. Only a list, in agate type yet, but there he was.'

'That's something,' Tess said, making a note on the printout. 'Maybe the middle school can tell me where he went on to high school.'

'You got parents' names? Sure would help.'

'Hey, I didn't even have their names until you handed me this. What about the foster parents, though? Anything on them?'

'Yeah, George and Martha Nelson. They're in D.C. now. Privatization and the current political climate has been very, very good to them. During the last spasm of back-to-the-orphanage chatter, they picked up a big grant to run a combination home-boarding school for ‘at risk' young black men. The Benjamin Banneker Academy. Got glowing write-ups just two months ago in both the Washington Post and the Washington Times, probably the only thing those two papers have ever agreed on. But neither article mentioned what happened in Baltimore five years ago. Chances are the reporters didn't make the connection and the Nelsons didn't volunteer it.'

'Maybe they figured they might not get such big grants if they admitted a kid got killed in their care.'

'Look, they didn't exactly give him permission to go out at two a.m., breaking windshields.' Feeney flipped through the pages of his reporter's notebook. 'I dug up an address on Donnie Moore's mom-she tried to file a civil action against Beale while he was in prison, figuring she could attach his pension and Social Security. Here it is- she's in those projects they're about to blow up, over on the west side.'

Tess made another note on her legal pad, copying the address scrawled on the inside cover of Feeney's reporter's notebook.

'What happened to her lawsuit?'

'She settled. It was sealed, but word around the courthouse was she ended up with less than five figures after her lawyer took his cut. It's a little ugly, how they do the math in these cases. Donnie Moore's worth was calculated on his future earning potential.'

'Damn, I wonder what I'd be worth according to that formula.'

'Hell, Tess, they'd get more for you if they sold you for parts.' Feeney cackled at his own joke.

'Thanks. You want to get together for dinner sometime soon?'

'Maybe later this summer. I'm taking four weeks off. I've got so much vacation banked they're ordering me to take some of it.'

'Where you headed?'

Feeney looked embarrassed. 'California. My sister lives in Long Beach and I haven't seen her daughters for three years. We're going to do some family junk together. Go to the zoo down in San Diego, stuff like that, then I'm going to head into Baja by myself, sit on the beach and drink. You ever been there? Beautiful, beautiful place.'

Tess wasn't distracted by his babbling about Baja. 'Feeney, are you going to Disneyland with your