Baltimore Blues

'Cross-Tree Creek!' Mr. O'Neal interrupted with a snorting laugh. 'Only the Trees ever called it that. It's Little Wyman Falls on any city map I've ever seen. The city renamed it thirty years ago, after William sold off that parcel. Of course, now it's worth a hundred times what he sold it for.'

Tess was used to such sniping in her own family, but it made her uncomfortable here. Unsure of what she should say, if anything, she stared at Mr. O'Neal's teeth through her eyelashes. They were long and ocher colored, very refined in her opinion. Perhaps they were dentures, made to look so unappealing no one would guess they were fake.

Husband and wife took their seats in matching wing chairs as Mrs. O'Neal launched into a droning litany of hospitality. Coffee, tea, wine, beer, whiskey, a cocktail, water, Coke, ginger ale, juice? Tea, Tyner and Tess agreed, although Tess secretly longed for one of those mellow amber whiskeys she saw in crystal decanters on a butler's bar. But even tea, it appeared, was not a simple choice. 'Hot or iced?' Mrs. O'Neal asked. Hot, they agreed. Herbal? Sure. Lemon. Of course. Or cream? No, lemon. One lump or two? Two, they guessed. By the time she finished quizzing them, the maid had arrived pushing a rolling cart with a teapot in its cozy and plates of petit fours, cheese straws, and crustless sandwiches. The cozy was dingy looking, covered with an unskilled cross- stitch. Probably the handiwork of a Tree ancestor and already promised to whatever museum had agreed to put up the requisite plaque: Donated by Seamon P. and Luisa J. O'Neal, on behalf of the William Tree Foundation.

Tess was so overwhelmed by the tea's production values that she almost forgot she and Tyner had been summoned here.

After a few observations about the weather and the Orioles, O'Neal segued neatly from a humorous anecdote about his latest case to the matter at hand. 'Now, you're representing that Paxton boy, is that right, Tyner?'

Tyner nodded.

'Yes. Tragic situation. And a very…public one. We wonder-at the firm, the partners-if it might be the sort of thing best suited to a plea bargain. We might even be able to help the young man if that was the case, call on some of our contacts in the state's attorney's office. Although I've never done any criminal defense work, I do have some ties there.'

'Plea bargains work best for guilty people,' Tyner said.

'Of course. Yes.' Mr. O'Neal added another two lumps of sugar to his tea and stirred it energetically. 'My understanding is your client might fit that, uh, profile. The evidence is, I understand, quite damning.'

'Circumstantial.'

'Yes. Well.' O'Neal whipped his tea madly again, then put it aside. Tess sensed he had put his manners aside, too, that the conversation had shifted suddenly. 'We think it would be better for everyone if it didn't go to trial. Perhaps Abramowitz was a pig, but what's the use of going over that in a courtroom? A lot of people's lives could be upset, and the conclusion probably will be the same, albeit with more jail time for your client. A trial would just be an exercise in vanity-your vanity, Tyner. I have it on good authority the prosecutors will settle for manslaughter and a sentence of ten years. He could be out in five. That's nothing.'

Tess tried to imagine Rock in prison for five years. He would never last. Oh, he could protect himself against the most vicious inmates, but weight lifting and basketball could never replace his rowing routine. And nothing would compensate for the crush of people. He would hate that most of all.

Tyner regarded O'Neal quizzically. 'When you represented Nance Chemical, did you advise the CEO of that company to pay the fine and be done with it? Did you ever tell the folks at Sims-Kever to forget about a trial, just go ahead and pay those pesky asbestos victims?'

'That was different.'

'Exactly. Your clients were guilty. Mine isn't.'

The two men stared at each other across the expanse of a kilim rug that Tess estimated to be worth her take-home pay for the year. O'Neal's face had flushed a deeper shade of red, but he seemed calm, almost jovial. She had seen that face before, she decided. The photo in the newspaper file? No, in that one, he had been looking down, so all one saw was the part in his hair. She had seen him laughing and smiling, enjoying himself immensely. Pleasant and harmless, the way he had seemed when their tea party began. A benign grandfather, showing a favorite grandson his back swing. Not, not back swing-a backhand. And not a grandson. A girl. A woman.

'You look different with your clothes on,' she blurted.

If O'Neal had been sipping his tea, he might have executed a perfect spit-take. Instead he stammered and blustered while his wife fastened her bruised eyes on him. Mrs. O'Neal did not seemed altogether surprised, but she was certainly interested.

'I saw you at the Sweat Shop talking to Ava Hill the other night,' Tess said. 'You weren't not dressed-I mean, you weren't naked-but you had on workout clothes. Or squash clothes, I guess. That's what I meant.'

'Of course.' He turned to his wife. 'Ava stopped me at the club, worried to death about the implications of her fiance's arrest.'

'Now that's interesting,' Tess said, knowing she should stop, yet incapable of shutting up. 'Because this was more than a week before Abramowitz died. Did you talk to her before and after the murder? Or were you lying just now?'

She was glad then for the length of the room and its high ceilings, for a smaller room could not have held the ensuing silence. O'Neal was now the color of a plum tomato. Mrs. O'Neal's face was impassive, staring off into the hills as if the matter was of no interest to her. Every inch a lady, Tess noted. Tyner looked furious-probably with her because she had spoken, and because she had not shared an important fact earlier. He didn't like surprises. But she hadn't realized what she knew until she watched O'Neal speak, seen the same bobbing gestures he had used when Ava had stalked him at the Sweat Shop. She was often the last person to realize what she knew.

'Oh, the sun is going down!' Mrs. O'Neal cried, clasping her hands together. It was the bland, borderline insipid remark of a woman trained to defuse tricky social situations, a woman who never had trouble setting a table, no matter how many sworn enemies were invited to the same dinner party. It worked, for her husband suddenly found his tongue, as smooth as ever.

'I talk to Ava all the time. She is an associate at our firm, with a promising future,' O'Neal said. A vein throbbed at his temple, but he was otherwise composed. 'Her fiance's murder trial could damage that future. Clients don't like lawyers who have been too close to felonies and felons. Or law firms where people are murdered. O'Neal, O'Connor and O'Neill doesn't deserve this. We've always avoided publicity, good or bad.'

'You brought Abramowitz in as a partner,' Tyner said. 'You must have known publicity would come with him.'

'It didn't, not at first. He was happy to go to charity balls and have his picture taken. And, to be fair, it's really not Abramowitz's fault he became front page news by becoming a corpse. Your client gets the credit for that.'

In the space of ten minutes Tess had reassessed her opinion of Seamon P. O'Neal almost ten times. He had seemed silly and harmless, then harmful. He had lied; she was sure of that. An associate who had failed the bar twice didn't have a promising future. But he wasn't a stupid man, merely someone with a radically different viewpoint. He had spent his career protecting large corporations from the complaints of individuals. It was consistent he should hold to this view when it struck close to home.

'My firm means the world to me,' he said. 'Its reputation is priceless. If you insist on going to court with this case and trying to build a defense on whatever your client thinks was going on between Mr. Abramowitz and Ms. Hill, I can promise you we will be of no help. The tiniest thing you want from us-a file, information about the girl's employment history, interviews with employees-will have to go through a judge. You'll need a court order to call me on the phone. And I don't think you'll get any cooperation from Ms. Hill, either. Wouldn't it be better if we were all on the same side?'

'Only for you.' Tyner said. 'And I could give a fuck about the Triple O. I would consider it a bonus if this trial damaged the undeserved reputation of O'Neal, O'Connor and O'Neill.'

O'Neal's eyes flicked across Tyner's wheels. With his red face and beaky profile, he reminded Tess of a copperhead snake.

'I'd forgotten what a bitter bastard you are,' he said. 'I suppose I would be, too, if I were a cripple with only one accomplishment of note, and it was more than forty years behind me.'

Mrs. O'Neal picked this moment to ask: 'More hot water, Tyner?'