Baltimore Blues

'You should. Maryland is losing patience. People want to see you guys executed-especially you. Ever since Thanos went, there's been a lot more momentum. You could be dead by next summer.'

'Fuckin' Thanos,' Fauquier said, as if commenting on the weather or the Orioles' season. 'Fuckin' crazy Greek motherfucker. Just because he wants to die doesn't mean the rest of us have to.'

She tried a different tack. Perhaps if she mixed up her questions, flitting from subject to subject, she could surprise Fauquier into telling her something, anything.

'Why were you angry with Abramowitz?'

'Hey, he did a shitty job. I'm here, aren't I? Then he dropped me, foisted me off on some other public defender to handle my appeals. He fucked me. I'm not sorry he's dead, but I can't kill anyone from here. Even if I could I don't think Abramowitz would be my first choice.'

'Really? Who would you kill?'

'Ben.' The name of the boy who had watched him kill, the only one who had escaped. 'I loved him, and he ratted me out.'

'Really? I thought you were going to kill him, too.'

'Oh, I was. But I was going to love him first. I loved all of my boys, but Ben was the handsomest. You know, Jonathan looked liked my Ben. I almost thought he was Ben, the first time I saw him. Of course, they tell me Ben's in a mental hospital somewhere, but they won't tell me where, which is a shame. I'd love to write him a letter sometime.'

Fauquier smiled, waiting for Tess's reaction. She tried not to show how sickened she was, which she assumed was the point of his dreamy recitation. In a copse of trees almost within sight of Governor Ritchie Highway, Fauquier had strangled his last victim with a piece of red and white bunting from a roadside produce stand, then dismembered the body and buried it. Tess suddenly remembered a strange, stray detail from the trial. Ben had testified that Fauquier sang as he shoveled. Cole Porter's 'You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To.'

She shook off the ugly memory. This was her only chance. Someone was going to figure out that Ed Monahan, seafood king, did not have a granddaughter. 'There was a time when you thought Abramowitz was your best buddy. You told reporters you were lucky to have him. What changed?'

Fauquier, his arms still braced against the table, looked at his fingernails. He had a French manicure, Tess noticed, and there were no nicotine stains on his fingers.

'Suppose you did something?' he asked, his voice still dreamy. 'Something wonderful. Your life's work. And no one appreciated it, no one knew?'

She stifled a sigh. 'Do you really think what you did was wonderful?'

'It was ingenious.' He leaned across the table toward her, eyes glowing happily. 'A lot of people thought I started because of John Wayne Gacy, but I started way before that. I had killed my first one before anyone ever heard of that clown. I was careful. I was going to kill a boy in every county. Then I realized I needed verification, or how would anyone know? I was going to make Ben watch, then sign a little paper about what he had seen. Repeat, county after county, from the mountains to the sea. In the amber waves of grain. God bless America.'

'‘America the Beautiful' is the one with the amber waves and the purple mountains' majesties above the fruited plain. You're mixing the two songs up.'

His eyes flickered. 'What do you mean, ‘fruited'? You saying I'm queer?'

'Of course not.'

''Cuz I'm not, you know. I was an artist. I shoulda been in Guinness, that's what I was aiming for. You gotta have proof to get into Guinness.'

'I don't think Guinness keeps tabs on serial killers. Besides, you topped out at, what, twelve or thirteen? You're not even a contender any more.'

'Well, I certainly expected some movie producers to come around, or someone who wanted to write a book. But no ever did. At least that's what my Jew lawyer told me during the trial. I wonder now. You know, your lawyer controls who gets in to see you. My new lawyer, he doesn't interfere. He doesn't do shit. But Abramowitz could have kept all those people away from me, and I never would have known.'

A decade ago no one had wanted to read the details of his story. Of course, today there would have been two paperbacks on the shelves within weeks of Fauquier's arrest, a television movie, and a horde of tabloid television reporters, ready to pay anyone for the tiniest piece of his story. Maybe Tucker Fauquier's frustration was justified. He had been ahead of his time.

'What would you do with money anyway, assuming state laws allowed you to keep it? You're never leaving here.' Even as she spoke she heard Jonathan's voice, answering her question, prodding her. 'The money is leverage.'

'How do you know what something's worth if no one ever pays you for it? I told Abramowitz to find a buyer for my story. The best he could do was find someone to pay me $50,000 a year not to talk.'

'Why would someone pay you to shut up?'

'They paid me to talk, but only once. Then they paid me, every year, not to talk about something I didn't do. Not bad, huh? It's like a double negative. If I don't talk about what I didn't do, I must've done it.'

'So this guy comes forward with a story about a crime someone else committed but got away with because he was rich and connected.' Jonathan again, coaching her, coaxing her through. Rich enough to pay someone to confess to a crime he didn't commit? What was another murder to someone sentenced to die, a sheaf of confessions in his file?

'But you did talk. You talked to Jonathan. You're not very good at keeping promises, are you?'

'Promises!' He spat the word back at her. 'Ask Abramowitz about promises. That kike set up the deal, then took all my money. A year ago I asked to see my bank statement. I knew the money had to go through him-the people who were paying me didn't want me to know who they were. He told me he invested it. But when I asked to see the statements, to see my nest egg, he hems and haws, then tells me: ‘Oh, I gave it away to some good causes.' Can you believe that shit? He didn't give it away. He stole it. How do you think he started that private practice of his? He was the good cause. He took my money. My money!'

When he was agitated Fauquier's voice did not get louder but raspier, and his lisp became more pronounced. He was hissing wetly now, spit flying from his mouth with each liquid word. It took all Tess's resolve not to recoil or duck.

'You told Jonathan all this.'

'Eventually. I drew it out more. I liked talking to Jonathan. He was pretty.' Fauquier looked at her slyly. 'Didn't you think he was pretty?'

'Did you tell him which was the fake confession?'

'I was going to, if he paid me. But he said he wouldn't pay me. And you know what happened to him.'

Yes, I was there, you schmuck.

'Do you think Jonathan was killed because of what you told him?'

'I don't know and I don't care. They can't get me. That's the funny thing. The hardest person to kill in Maryland is someone who's condemned to die. I'm just holding out for the best offer. How much money do you have?'

Fauquier leaned closer, until his face was only inches away. Tess rolled her chair back, trying to keep her distance. There was something wrong with Fauquier's story. Something was missing. Even if Jonathan had been able to pick out the false confession, he would have to know who had been shielded. That was the sexy part. Somewhere out there the parents of a young boy had the scant comfort of thinking his killer was in prison and scheduled to die, even if it was for another boy's death. You wouldn't want to take that away from them unless you could advance the story, tell them who really did it and why. Fauquier lied, so what? He was still a killer. Who benefited?

'I wouldn't pay you anything,' she told Fauquier. 'You don't know the most important part. You don't know who you took the fall for. Without that your story's just a fairy tale.'

The pun had been unintentional, but it enraged Fauquier. 'Who're you calling a fairy, you cow? You whore. You think you're so smart. Well, you try to figure out which one I didn't do, much less who really did it. Jonathan thought he could. Maybe that's why he's dead right now. I hope it is.'