The Sugar House

falafel.”

“You mean you’d rather have a falafel, don’t you?”

“No, I use falafel as a verb. Let’s go to Cypriana, I’ll falafel, then we can have coffee, after. My sandwich card is filled up, and I’m entitled to a free one.”

“Falafel, it is. Hey, can you gyro, too? Or souvlaki?”

“Don’t be silly,” Tess said. “Obviously, those don’t work as verbs at all.”

Cypriana’s was housed in the old lobby of one of Baltimore ’s many defunct newspapers, the American. Tess had worked down the block at the old Star, now an Inner Harbor parking lot. She wondered if the city’s sole surviving paper, the Beacon- Light, might one day fold, too, if its lobby would become a series of small shops, or an avant-garde art gallery. A world without newspapers seemed increasingly possible to her-and perhaps not that tragic. She had survived the transition. Others would as well.

She ordered the “ultimate,” chicken, falafel, and feta cheese wrapped in a pita, drenched in a sauce whose ingredients were zealously protected. Garlic, however, was clearly part of the mix. Tull opted for a small salad, dry. They found a table next to one of the large windows overlooking Guilford. Tull cast a longing glance across the street, where his Peet’s coffee waited for him. The homicide detective was one of those odd people who didn’t care about food, who considered it nothing more than fuel. He probably wouldn’t bother to eat at all, but his stomach needed some lining for the ten-plus cups of coffee he drank every day.

“So, Henry Dembrow,” he began.

“Henry Dembrow’s victim,” Tess amended. “His sister thinks her brother was killed in prison for a reason.”

“Which lies in the identity of Jane Doe.” Tull chewed on a forkful of greens. “She’s wrong, of course.”

“Agreed, but I can’t see how it would hurt anyone, trying to find out who the girl was.”

“No, it’s a good exercise for you, in fact. The question is, how do you, without access to all the tools and databases we have at the department-”

“Without official access,” Tess said, smiling at him. Unattached, she had never allowed herself to flirt with Tull. Now that she was back with Crow, it seemed perfectly safe to flutter her lashes a little. Tull was fine-boned, an inch or two shorter than she was, with even, perfect features thrown into sharp relief by his acne scars. It was those little scars that made him so attractive, not that Tull ever seemed to notice. “I was married once,” he liked to say, in a tone suggesting it was a childhood communicable disease, like measles or chicken pox. Once you had it, you had it.

“Without access,” he repeated now, in a firm tone. “So, what can you do that we didn’t do?”

“Not give up.”

“Don’t be rude, Tess.”

“I’m not, but it’s true, isn’t it? With Henry’s confession in hand, it had to be less urgent to identify Jane Doe than it was to close your other cases. You’re supposed to catch the killers, not identify their victims.”

“You’d be surprised how a case like this eats at a detective. I was the secondary. The primary on the case, David Canty, took it very much to heart. He did everything possible, even planted a few stories in the Blight, hoping to stir up some leads.”

Tess couldn’t help smiling at this. Newspaper reporters liked to think they used people. They hated to acknowledge how they were used and manipulated. But it was a two-way street, this avenue paved with rationalizations about the public’s right to know and the public good.

“I noticed she had a tattoo, a fresh one, a line at the ankle-” Tess began.

“We checked,” Tull said. “I personally called every goddamn tattoo parlor in the city and the county, to see if anyone remembered a girl like her coming in just before she was killed. No one did. Although if she had a tattoo, she was at least eighteen, or had a fake ID. It’s not legal to tattoo a minor.”

“Could have been a do-it-yourself job.”

Tull shook his head. “Too professional looking.”

“I assume you tried to match her with missing persons reports, too?”

“Yeah. That’s the worst. Families coming in, looking at a dead body to see if it’s their dead body. They’re relieved when it’s not, but they’re also frustrated, because it means all they can do is go home and wait.”

Tess’s sandwich was long gone, but Tull was still picking at his salad. From here, she could see the corner of Baltimore Street, the Block-the Tick-Tock club, the sad little sex shops and peep shows. Once, all runaway girls had ended up here. Now there was so much competition.

“Someone, somewhere must miss her,” Tess said. “Every death has to alter the world in some way, don’t you think?”

Tull gave her a fond smile, the kind Tess hated. “Most people get tougher, the more death they see. But you, you’re still all squishy and sentimental. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me you’ve found religion, and you’ll start lugging your little piano down to the Block, playing for the passersby. Sister Tess Monaghan, in her black orthopedic shoes, running her own mission of mercy.”

The image made Tess laugh. She knew those women; she had tossed coins in their cups on Friday afternoon, glad someone wanted to save a few souls. “If I find religion, I’ll have to embrace the Muslim faith so both parents can be furious with me.”

Tull surprised her by leaning forward and wiping a piece of feta from her cheek. His touch was a father’s touch-well-meaning, but too gentle to get the job done. Mothers knew how hard to rub a stained cheek. “You know, if you plan on any more human contact today, you might consider a breath mint.”

Tess took over, cleaning her own cheek. “I think I’m just going to go back to my office, read these files, and canoodle with Esskay, whose breath is always much worse than mine.”

“And someone pays you for this? Man, I want a gig like that someday. You need a partner?”

“Everyone wants to be my partner these days.” Tess thought about Whitney’s similarly facetious offer just the other night. At least, she hoped it was facetious. “Why is that? Does my life really look so cushy from where you sit?”

“Actually, it looks…happy. You look happy, ever since you got back from Texas. And back with Crow.”

“I guess I am,” Tess said, then looked around nervously. Too late-there wasn’t even a splinter of wood to knock in this room of formica tables and plastic chairs. She rapped her knuckles on her forehead, figuring it was hard enough to count.

chapter 5

TESS SUPPOSED THERE WERE WORSE THINGS THAN FINDING one’s erstwhile boss at the breakfast table almost every day, wearing his robe and eating bran flakes, but she had yet to think of any.

Oh yes, there was one-knowing that said erstwhile boss was sleeping with one’s aunt.

“Hello, Tess,” Tyner Gray greeted her the next morning, his smile so smug that it could make the Chesire Cat disappear from shame. “We didn’t hear you come in last night, but then-we were busy.”

“Roll a little closer to the table,” she said, nudging his wheelchair with her hip. “I need to get into the refrigerator.”

“I thought you ate at Jimmy’s most mornings,” he said, even as he complied. The kitchen was large, or so it had seemed before Tyner came along. “Is it true that you got one of the new waitresses fired for putting cream cheese on both your bagels, or is that just more Fells Point apocrypha?”

Tess leaned into the refrigerator, checking out her options. “In the off season, when we’re not rowing, I like to come downstairs and have breakfast with Kitty and her man of the moment. Some of them even cook. The one before you made Belgian waffles.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d become resigned to toasting my own bagels this winter,” he said. “Kitty’s talking about installing an elevator so we can use her rooms on the second floor.” Since taking up with Tyner, Kitty had limited herself to the cramped rooms behind the store.

“Don’t count on it. Kitty has been in the boyfriend-of-the-month club for as long as I’ve lived here.” Tess sniffed the half-and-half. Kitty drank her coffee black, so the cream she kept for guests and her tenant-niece