Butchers Hill

When Jackie spoke again, her voice was soft and tentative. 'I was hurt and I wanted to hurt someone else. You know, I started off by wanting to hurt you.'

'Hurt me?'

'Why do you think I hired you in the first place? I wanted to get back at you for being the girl on the other side of the soda fountain, the one who had the real childhood, while I had to work my way through high school, then college.'

'Poppa meant to pay for your tuition. Gramma was the one who wouldn't let him.'

'She knew?'

'So it seems.'

'Poor woman.'

'Poor woman? She forced Poppa to renege on his promise to you.'

'Well, how would you like to be the woman whose husband comes home and says, ‘Remember that eighteen-year-old girl I knocked up? I think we should send her to college.''

Jackie had a point. For all her anger, she could always see the big picture, see things outside herself. Tess should learn to do the same. She smiled. Truth be told, it cracked her up, the image of Jackie sitting across from the Beckers at her little extortion tea party, reeling off her facts and figures about the welfare system. Only Jackie would make a revenge scheme so didactic.

'Hey, that stuff you said about the economics of the system. Was that made up, or was it true?'

'Oh, I may have been off on the actual numbers, and everything's different since welfare reform. But the proportions were right. People pay thousands to adopt babies, welfare mothers get pennies to keep them.'

'And the foster parents receive bigger stipends than the mothers?'

'Oh yeah. But they also have to meet higher standards than the welfare mothers-separate bedrooms, stuff like that. Remember, that's why they took Sam away from those folks. Why are you suddenly so interested?'

'Just doing some math in my head.'

Chapter 27

Chase Pearson's office in Annapolis was far grander than Tess would have expected. His was an insignificant job, after all, an appointed position that would evaporate like the dew once the current governor was gone. The special secretary for children and youth. But how foolish of her, how naive. There were no insignificant jobs in the state capital. No small parts, no small actors.

And no small crimes.

'Miss Monaghan,' Pearson said. She didn't even rate a flash of his bad teeth at this point in their relationship. Whatever his future plans, he had apparently decided he could get by without her vote. 'I thought I had made it clear that I did not wish to hear from you again.'

'You made it clear I'd be arrested if I tried to go to Penfield, so I came to see you here. That's okay. You can answer far more of my questions than Sal ever could.'

Pearson leaned back in his chair. 'Speak,' he said, in a tone suitable for addressing a dog, or a trained seal. Seeing as Tess was neither, she roamed his office, inspecting the plaques that lined the wall, checking out Pearson's view. It wasn't very good, just some Annapolis rooftops, not even a sliver of the Chesapeake Bay.

'‘To Chase Pearson,'' she read from one of the largest mounted certificates. '‘In honor of his work for Maryland's children.' Now was this award for your current do-nothing job, or the one before, the do-nothing task force on young men and violence?'

'I don't consider saving the next generation a matter of insignificance.'

'Neither do I, neither do I,' Tess assured him. 'But don't you think you accomplished more as a front-line social worker?'

'Beg pardon?'

'A social worker. That is how you started, isn't it? I had a friend pull your resume this morning from the Beacon-Light's files, and there it was. Eighteen whole months in the trenches. Very noble, in the Pearson tradition of community service, but your generation really couldn't afford to be so civic- minded, I gather. About five years ago, just before the mayor appointed you to that task force. What was it that you did for DSS, exactly?'

'I was in the Social Services Administration.'

'Right, the division that oversees foster care.' Tess smiled at Pearson's discomfort. 'As it happens, I've recently had a crash course in the various divisions at the state Department of Human Resources. I know all the acronyms now. DHR, SSA, DSS, CAP, AFDC. This morning, I even learned the wiggly words you guys use for abuse and neglect investigations. ‘Indicated' and ‘Unsubstantiated.' I have to say, those are the best CYA words I've ever heard, and I've heard a lot in my time.'

'CYA?'

'Cover Your Ass. The worker can't be faulted either way, you see. Indicated or unsubstantiated. If the child turns up dead, the worker isn't held accountable.'

Given that Pearson always looked vaguely disdainful, it was hard to say that his expression was responding to anything specific Tess had said. But a corner of his upper lip seemed to lift slightly. 'Such half-baked cynicism often tries to pass as sophisticated policy analysis. Did you go to Baltimore City schools, Miss Monaghan?'

'Yes, but I can still do math in my head and pounce on the occasional dangling modifier. Or, in your case, the dangling fact.'

'Dangling fact?'

'Donnie Moore's mother, Keisha, she would have been ‘indicated' for neglect, right?'

'I wouldn't know.'

'That's funny, because you knew exactly what I was talking about the night Keisha Moore was killed. ‘She always did keep bad company.' That was never part of the public record, how Keisha lost Donnie. But Donnie's social worker would know all about the company Keisha kept.'

Pearson's chin moved. It wasn't even a nod really, just a slight tilt of his chin, a sign that he was still listening.

'You placed Donnie in the Nelsons' home, didn't you? Donnie, Destiny and Treasure, Eldon and Sal. Five kids in a three-bedroom house. Five kids who never had nice clothes and looked as if they didn't get enough to eat. Except Eldon. The Nelsons made at least twenty-five hundred dollars a month on that arrangement, possibly more if any of the children were classified as ‘special needs.' Where did the money go, Mr. Pearson?'

'You'd have to ask the Nelsons that question.'

'Now see, this is where I get confused. Because I'm pretty sure it was your job to ask the Nelsons that question. You were in charge of making sure these children were cared for properly. You were one of those reform-minded young workers recruited by the system after the lawsuit. Why would you ignore the rules to put five kids in a run-down house in a terrible neighborhood? What was in it for you?'

Pearson's desk was devoid of props. His hands crept across its surface, looking for something to occupy them, then retreated to his lap.

'The Nelsons were loving, caring foster parents,' he said. 'Do you know how hard it is to find young, vigorous foster parents still in their thirties? The Nelsons believed they could provide a setting few foster parents could, even if they didn't have much in the way of material things. I believed in their vision.'

'How much did they pay you for that particular belief?'

Pearson was cooler than she thought he would be, much harder to rattle. 'You're dreaming up conspiracy scenarios again, Miss Monaghan. It's an interesting theory, I grant you. Social worker places children in home in return for kickbacks. I can see how it might happen. In theory.'

'It's not that complicated. A fourteen-year-old could figure it out. A fourteen-year-old did figure it out. Sal Hawkings put the pieces together and shook his old worker down until he arranged for a scholarship to Penfield. Of course, you wouldn't pay for it out of your own pocket. Even now, when you're making good money, you're still kind of tight, aren't you?'

She could hear Pearson's knee knocking at the underside of his desk as he jiggled it. 'Go on,' he said. 'I want