white high heel. A white high heel that had managed to cover much of East Baltimore without picking up so much as a single smudge.
Chapter 10
Even from across the street, it was obvious that something wasn't quite right when Tess and Esskay arrived at the office the next morning. The door seemed to sway a little in the summer breeze. Not open, but not quite shut either.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out the lock had been picked. Gouged, really-the deadbolt clawed and hacked from the wood with something sharp, then tossed aside.
'You should get a metal door,' said Luther Beale, waiting in the chair opposite her desk.
'Did we have an appointment this morning?' Tess asked, examining the hole where her lock used to be, while Esskay stepped around her and headed for the sofa.
'No, but I thought I would stop by and see if you had made any progress. The door was like that when I got here.'
Tess propped a phone book against the door, so she wouldn't end up air conditioning the street until a locksmith could arrive. She had been in good spirits, feeling virtuous about her impulse to stop by the office and do little tasks on a Saturday, before meeting Tyner for a workout and late lunch. But the broken lock had drained all the day's potential. She would be stuck here for hours.
'I didn't do it,' Beale added, in the defensive way of a man used to blame.
'I never thought you did,' Tess said, looking up her landlord's number in the Rolodex on her desk. She hoped he would have to pay for the new lock. Perhaps she should call the police and make a report first, then summon the landlord, who could file an insurance claim. A tiny, wizened man, he had known and apparently envied her grandfather. He had a way of bringing every conversation back to the fact that he had prospered over time, while her grandfather had failed after a more spectacular start. 'Slow and steady, slow and steady,' Hiriam Hersh liked to counsel her. 'Your grandfather was a hare, I'm a tortoise. You could learn a lot from me.' No, she definitely wasn't in the mood for Aesop according to Hiriam Hersh.
'No, ma'am, the door was like that when I got here,' Beale said, more to himself than to her.
'I am surprised you just came in and sat here, waiting for me. How did you known I'd be in on a Saturday?' Tess dialed the Eastern precinct, rather than tie up the 911 line. The city had a nonurgent line now, too, 311, but she thought a break-in qualified for a police visit sometime in this millennium.
'I didn't. Just thought I'd drop by and when I saw the door, I decided I better come in and babysit your stuff. This computer wasn't going to last for long, not in this neighborhood.'
The desk sergeant at the precinct picked up and put her on hold before she could even get a single syllable out. Tess did a quick visual scan of the room. Nothing obvious was missing-the computer, the scanner, the printer were all still here. The flying rabbit picture was in its place over the wall safe. Perhaps addicts had broken in, looking for metal to sell to one of the scrap yards. A few of the metal dealers weren't too particular about the origins of the copper downspouts, iron grilles, and old water heaters that came rolling up in shopping carts, day after day. But the old stove was still in place, as were the faucets.
Still on hold, she unsheathed her computer and turned it on. Her files were there, apparently untouched. On a hunch, she enlarged the window, checking the 'last modified' dates-nothing. Then again, printing a file out didn't count as modifying it. She glanced at the printer. There was paper in the tray, and she only put paper in as she needed it, given that Esskay's hair tended to settle on anything left out. Besides, she was stingy with paper. It was one part of her overhead she could control.
'Do you know anything about computers?' she asked Beale skeptically.
'Huh. I know enough not to buy a Mac, like you did. I have an IBM clone, with 200 megahertz and a gigabyte of memory. Did you know you can read almost every newspaper in the country online? I bet I save fifty dollars a month that way.'
'Someone might have made some copies of my files last night.'
'Don't you have a password, for security?'
'No,' Tess said. If Beale were really so computer-savvy, he should know that. Hadn't he seen her use the computer on his first visit here? 'It never occurred to me I'd need one, not in a one-woman office.'
'What was in my file, anyway?'
'Not much. Some leads on the twins. You weren't too good on the names by the way. They're Treasure and Destiny Teeter.'
'Never was good with names,' Beale murmured. 'So where are they?'
'Not sure. According to neighbors, they technically live on Biddle Street, but they're still seen a lot around here.' She wondered if she should tell him that, according to the neighbors' description, neither one was exactly college material. But college tuition was only one example of the help Beale wanted to provide. Maybe he could get Treasure in drug rehab, find Destiny a program, something like the Nelsons' school in D.C., only for girls.
'That all you found? That's not much.'
Tess, still on hold with the Eastern Precinct, hung up and hit the redial button. Again, she was placed on hold before she could utter a single syllable.
'I think it's pretty good, considering how little information you brought me. Four days ago, I didn't even have the names. Now I know where to look for the twins, and I've pinpointed another one, Salamon Hawkings. He's on scholarship at a private school. Eldon Kane is wanted on a warrant and believed to be far from Maryland, so I guess we can cross him off your list.'
'You been to see the Hawkings boy yet? School's almost out.'
'Haven't had a chance.'
'Moving kind of slow, aren't you? If I pay by the hour, I expect you to make the most of every minute.'
Beale was as exasperating as Gramma Weinstein, never pleased, never satisfied.
'I've found it's something of a handicap, having to play Tipton to your anonymous benefactor. Schools don't much like strangers trying to track down their students for reasons they won't divulge. Now I have to come up with a plausible reason to see Salamon Hawkings.'
'That's easy,' Beale said. 'When you get in touch with the school, just tell them there's some money coming to the Hawkings boy, without being too specific. People always go for that.'
'You mean like those unclaimed accounts the state advertises every year?'
'Naw, that's too easy to check. Maybe you could be that place that makes kids' dreams come true. Make-a- Wish, Dream-a-Dream, whatever it's called.'
'I think that's for sick kids,' Tess said. 'Still, it's the right idea, at least.'
Beale stood to leave. He wore the same brown suit from his first visit, only with a blue-and-yellow striped shirt this time. He carried the same yellowing Panama in his hands.
'Just don't lollygag,' he said. 'I am paying you by the hour, as I recall. And that doesn't include sitting here, waiting for a locksmith.' Then he was gone, without a 'thank-you,' without a word of praise for what Tess had done so far. Well, that's what being in business was about. People who paid you didn't have to be grateful, they just had to give you checks that cleared. On that score, Beale was a dream client.
Still on hold at the Eastern Precinct, she hung up and called her landlord instead. Let Hersh deal with the busted door, nattering to the locksmith about how he, tortoiselike, had progressed so far beyond the Weinstein hares. She was going to work out.
Tyner had been unusually nice to Tess as of late. She suspected he felt guilty for forcing her out of the nest of his office and giving her desk away while her chair was still warm. Certainly, she didn't expect his little kindnesses to last. But she was enjoying the temporary benefits of his guilt, the gifts he showered on her, such as the new watch and this free summer pass to his gym, the Downtown Athletic Club, a place she couldn't afford on her own budget.
The DAC, as its denizens called it, was not the grandest club in Baltimore, but it was easily the largest. Built in an old warehouse on the site where Lincoln's funeral train had passed through, it had its own history. The
