The Sugar House

what end, I can’t guess and I no longer care. Just tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll forget about Gwen Schiller and Henry Dembrow and Domenick’s Bar. For what it’s worth, I never did figure out how it was connected to Dahlgren, or either of you.”

But I must have been close, she wanted to say. I must have gotten real close if people had to die and houses had to burn.

In another part of her mind, she also wanted to say: I’m sorry, Gwen. I’m so sorry I have to give you up. But you’re dead, I can’t save you.

Hammersmith blinked his turtle eyes, blinked them again. “I am Senator Dahlgren’s finance chairman. My only concern is to amass a war chest so formidable that other Democrats will think twice before entering the race. Adam is on Dahlgren’s legislative staff. He has no official role in the campaign, although he does occasionally help us with opposition research.”

“Opposition research? Oh, you mean digging up dirt on potential rivals.”

“As you wish,” Hammersmith said.

“Do you limit yourself to research, or do you actively create opportunities for blackmail, by sending Nicola DeSanti’s girls to local hotels to meet lonely politicos?” She was thinking of Gene Fulton, escorting the pseudo- waitress from Domenick’s to Harbor Court Hotel.

If there was any expression to be read on Hammersmith’s face, it was boredom. “An interesting idea and I wouldn’t be surprised if such things have happened. Nicola has been very active in Democratic politics over the years. But you don’t have to fight that dirty, Miss Monaghan, when you have money and a squeaky clean candidate. Backbenchers have their advantages. They’re too unimportant to be bribed, or get into trouble. No one has anything on Kenny Dahlgren, because he hasn’t done anything. He’s never even carried a major piece of legislation.”

“Then why did you have my parents’ house torched? Why did someone try to kill Devon Whittaker, just because she was the last person to speak to Gwen Schiller?”

Tess did not flatter herself by thinking she was a remarkable judge of character, not with two men this calculating. But it seemed to her there was a subtle difference in their reactions. Adam looked at Hammersmith as if to say, What she’s talking about?, while Hammersmith merely looked to the side, studying the long, lean face of his Modigliani.

“Surely you’re mistaken,” Hammersmith said. “This has no connection to us.”

“I think it does.” Her voice was still hesitant and deferential, but she was feeling stronger. If Hammersmith and Moss had withheld secrets from one another, it gave her leverage. “A week ago, I asked for phone records from a pay phone in Locust Point. Adam Moss requested the same records, even before I did. One of the calls on that log was to Devon Whittaker. I don’t know who Adam gave the information to-maybe he used it himself, although I rather doubt it-but Devon’s companion was killed and the killer was waiting for Devon when I got there.”

Now Hammersmith appeared genuinely confused, while Adam Moss glanced nervously from him to Tess and back again. “I didn’t-I mean, yes, I picked up the phone logs. Dahlgren said he had a constituent who needed those records. I didn’t ask why.”

“Did Dahlgren tell you the constituent’s name?”

Adam Moss shook his head. “Part of my job is knowing when not to ask questions. He told me it was a favor for someone from the Stonewall Democratic Club. It’s the kind of favor he does all the time and it’s not completely kosher, but it’s pretty harmless. But I’d never be a party to-I mean, murder. That was never part of the arrangement.”

“What was the ‘arrangement’?”

The two men were eyeing each other now, each suspicious in his own right. Hammersmith had not known about the phone logs. Adam had not known about the house fire, or the attempt on Devon’s life. Yet neither man had asked her: Who is Gwen Schiller? Which meant they knew.

Hammersmith spoke first: “About two years ago, I asked Kenneth Dahlgren to take Adam Moss on as his aide. Dahlgren did this as a personal favor to me. He was resistant at first, for Adam’s resume was-well, let’s say it had some gaps. But he has a natural instinct for politics and Dahlgren has been extremely happy with his performance.”

“Did you agree to become his finance chairman in exchange for his hiring Adam?”

“No,” Hammersmith said. Another surprise for Adam Moss, Tess noted. He looked truly perplexed now, brows drawn tight over his dark eyes. “That was an unrelated negotiation.”

“Made about a year ago?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I signed on last December, although we didn’t announce the fact for several months.”

“You took the appointment just after Gwen Schiller was killed.”

It was a guess, a feint, nothing more. But Tess knew she had closed the circle. She waited, letting the silence in the room grow, determined not to be the next one to speak. She would stand here for hours, if necessary, until one of them told her what she needed to know.

As it happened, she had to wait only a few seconds. But it seemed much longer.

“We knew her as Beth,” Hammersmith said. “Elizabeth March.”

“We?”

“I.”

“We,” Adam Moss corrected. “In fact, I introduced her to Meyer. We were horrified when we realized she must be the girl who was killed in Locust Point, but what could we do? I made an anonymous call, but her name turned out to be fake, as we always suspected.”

“How did you know her?”

Another silence. Again, Tess waited it out.

“She lived here, very briefly,” Hammersmith said carefully. “As did Adam. And Wendy.”

“Wendy? You mean the girl from the gallery.” Tess saw another link, a visual one, spread out on the walls around her. Beautiful faces. Beautiful, beautiful faces of all types, male and female, and no two alike. So art was not the only thing Meyer Hammersmith collected.

“How do you know about Wendy?” Adam asked.

“I followed you one night, then checked the property records for the gallery. So you got a job with a state senator and Wendy got her own business. What was going to be Gwen’s reward?”

“She did not stay long enough for me to help her,” Hammersmith said. Help her? Tess wanted to throw the words back at him, but there was no irony in his voice, no self-awareness.

“You mean she wouldn’t sleep with you.”

“You misunderstand our arrangement.” Meyer Hammersmith actually looked offended. “I’m a mentor. I take in proteges, people who need molding, give them a leg up.”

“Gwen Schiller was a billionaire’s daughter from the Washington suburbs,” Tess said. “She didn’t need your ‘leg up.’” Or your scaly little hand up her skirt.

“I knew her as Beth,” Hammersmith repeated, as if the name made all the difference. “A runaway. If I had known who she was-if Adam or Wendy had known who she was-they never would have brought her to me. They picked her. I knew her as Beth.”

Tess looked questioningly at Adam.

“You have to find your own replacement,” he muttered, looking at the floor. “Wendy didn’t understand Meyer’s tastes as well as I did, she was having trouble finding someone new. We were eating in a bar in South Baltimore one night when Beth came in, looking for work. She didn’t have an ID, or a Social Security number. I knew Meyer would approve of her, once we got her cleaned up.”

“You took her to Domenick’s.”

“I took her to Domenick’s.” Adam seemed relieved, as if he had yearned to tell this story to someone, anyone, over the past year. “The DeSantis aren’t so picky about things like work permits and they know about Meyer’s… proclivities. They’re always happy to help him out. The strange thing was, Beth was actually happy there, living in an apartment above the bar, waiting tables, being left alone. Me and Wendy, we couldn’t wait to get out of there, but Beth-I’m sorry, it’s hard for me to think of her by any other name-didn’t want to go when her time came.”

“You brought her here, to begin her tenure as a ‘protege,’ and she ran away.”

“I guess so,” Adam looked at Meyer. “I assume so. I’ve never asked too many questions about what