Baltimore Blues

'You're supposed to call it the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge now,' Whitney informed the others. 'But no one does. The Vietnam veterans want us to write an editorial on it next month for Veterans Day.'

'Great, another group of victims, showing up to demand their due,' Tess said, then looked at Cecilia. 'Sorry. I didn't mean-'

Cecilia shrugged. 'No offense,' said VOMA's newest director, who in just three weeks had opened the group to all sexual assault victims as well as their relatives and spouses. She had also become ubiquitous in the media. Surprisingly she could be tactful and thoughtful in front of television cameras, decrying Frank Miles's violence, but maintaining he had been driven to it.

They heard the crowd's roar: The 2,000-meter race had finally started. Crow and Cecilia, not even sure which one of the five scullers was Rock, yelled and clapped indiscriminately. Whitney, watching through field glasses, shook her head and passed them to Tess. Rock was out in front, but his timing was off, his form ragged. Tess could tell he wasn't holding anything back, he was going to collapse toward the finish. Shorter races, head-to-head with other boats, had always been tougher for him than the longer races, run against the clock and himself.

The five boats passed under the bridge and shot out the other side before Tess could dodge the traffic on Hanover Street and position herself to see the finish. Rock was still in the lead, but his energy was flagging. The closest boat was gaining on him inch by inch. Tess pressed her feet against the sidewalk, as if she could give Rock an extra boost. He held on, slipping across the finish line in front of his late challenger, but well off his best time.

'I guess being accused of murder and breaking off your engagement doesn't do wonders for a training regimen,' Tess said.

'Not pretty,' Whitney agreed, 'but it will do.'

They left the bridge and headed to the docks so they could carry up Rock's scull in a show of fealty. Along the banks of the Patapsco, it looked as if Whitney's extended family was staging a reunion. Lots of sockless men in plaid pants and V-neck sweaters, women in kelly green, so much blond hair it created a glare.

As they neared the boat house Tess found herself trying to keep her distance. Soon she would have to go back, especially when she had her own Alden hanging inside, a partial payment from Rock and Tyner. They had wanted to give her something sleeker, a Vespoli or a Pocock, but Tess had been firm. The Alden was durable, well-suited to her rowing regime, and less likely to tip. She didn't plan on going back into the Patapsco any time soon.

Tyner was waiting for them near the dock, squinting unhappily. Even from this vantage point, far from the finish line, he knew how badly Rock how rowed. But when Rock appeared, subdued and drenched with sweat, Tyner smiled and handed him a banana for potassium depletion. The lecture could wait. Whitney draped a stadium blanket around Rock's shoulders, while Tess showed Crow how to hoist the scull and set it on sawhorses to be washed before it was put away. In the midst of all this activity, Cecilia hung back, overwhelmed by Rock's bulk.

Suddenly Tess was as happy as she had been in months. It was a beautiful fall day, she was alive, Rock was rowing again and would be in top form in time for the Frostbite Regatta in Philadelphia, the last race of the season. She was surrounded by friends, old and new. And she was going to have a job soon: Tyner had promised to apprentice her to a lawyer he knew, someone who needed a full-time investigator. A forty-hour workweek loomed, complete with benefits. It was almost enough to make her wistful for her carefree life.

Snip, snip, snip. Everywhere loose ends were being trimmed. She heard this sound in her dreams, she read it between the lines of the short items in the Beacon-Light. First there had been a story that the murder charges against Rock had been dropped when police became convinced Miles had killed Abramowitz and Jonathan. A few days later, an item about an old Checker cab abandoned out in the country, with some of Jonathan's blood on its fenders. Stolen, of course, before the hit-and-run. By Miles, police said now, who assumed this had been the first attempt to kill Tess. How strange no one found the car until after Miles was dead, Tess thought. How fortuitous for the Triple O there would be no trial of Abramowitz's murder, no investigation into Jonathan's death. Tess wondered if Jonathan's hit-and-run could go in the homicide pool now. Snip, snip, snip.

Another brief, in the business section. Ava Hill was leaving the law firm to work with the William Tree Foundation. An in-house audit's discovery of 'financial irregularities' had prompted the board to bring in new people. Tess, thinking of Ava's shoplifting hobby, had a hunch the financial irregularities were only beginning. But passing the bar would no longer be a problem for Ava Hill. And Ava Hill would no longer be a problem for Luisa J. O'Neal, not if she was paying Ava's salary.

Tess had pieced it together. Shay O'Neal, panicked by Jonathan's visits to Fauquier, had arranged for someone to kill him, a nice anonymous someone in a Checker cab who was still roaming Baltimore, no doubt, at O'Neal's disposal. When Frank Miles made himself handy as a suspect, O'Neal had used him with Ava's help. Only Tess knew, or could guess this, and she could never prove it, which is why she had settled on the payout to Abner Macauley. Her deal with Mrs. O'Neal, along with the sealed envelope Kitty kept in the store safe, should protect her. This was business, another ad hoc arrangement in Luisa O'Neal's eyes, no different than the one she had put together for her son. Tess would be fine. As long as Seamon O'Neal didn't panic again.

And then there was Frank Miles, another person out to create his own justice. A patient man, unlike O'Neal, willing to bide his time. He had waited for his opportunity to kill Michael Abramowitz. And he had tried to send Tess down blind alleys, hoping he wouldn't have to kill her. Poor man. In the end he was the one person in this whole mess who had believed in her.

Lovely muck, as Feeney's poem would have it. The world, it was the old world yet. I was I, my things were wet.

Whitney and Rock had gone off in search of more food, with or without potassium. Cecilia, her shyness overcome, was arguing animatedly with Tyner about something she had learned in law school. The sudden appearance of a bagpipe band, wheezing through 'Maryland, My Maryland,' drowned them both out.

Was it Carroll's sacred trust and Howard's warlike thrust, or vice versa? No one ever remembered, and few sang along. The state song finished, the skirted band began the national anthem, accompanied this time by the quavering voices of the dutiful crowd. Baltimoreans seldom complained about the song, given its local origins, but they sang it as poorly as anyone.

'You sing it wrong, you know.' That was Crow, at Tess's elbow.

'I never sing it at all.'

'People, I mean. Marylanders. Everybody. We sing the first verse, which is all questions. Francis Scott Key was asking if the flag still waved, if the United States had been victorious over the British. We should sing the last verse, when he knows they've won and is exultant.'

'I never knew that.' Nor particularly cared.

'I'll tell you something else you don't know. Cecilia doesn't really have a fiance. That was just another of Pru's lies, when you crashed the VOMA tribute to Abramowitz's death. Whitney says I ought to ask her out.'

'Will you?' She found herself caring about the answer more than she wanted to.

'Naw, because Whitney missed a salient detail: Cecilia's gay. Besides, I like tall women. Muscular women.' He squeezed her bicep.

Tess looked away but didn't take his hand off her arm. 'Crow, you don't know what you want. A few weeks ago you were delirious over Kitty, and she's not exactly tall.'

'Everyone falls in love with Kitty. It's a rite of passage. Then you move on. I like you, Tess. I really like you.'

If he had said he loved her, or couldn't live without her, she would have been unmoved. If he had quoted poetry or put his arms around her, she would have pushed him away. Crow's understated declaration was harder to ignore. He liked her.

'Do you have a fiancee? Or a wife?'

In reply Crow kissed her-a simple, outdoors kiss, a kiss promising much, but not too much. He wasn't saying forever. He wasn't even saying next week. Just now, this afternoon. She kissed him back, then pulled away, aware they were in a crowd. People were watching.

The Patapsco looked almost blue today, shiny in spots. Oil, Tess thought, shuddering a little. Toxins. Lovely muck. She turned her back on the river and faced the boat house. A handsome building, she decided, a perfectly innocuous place. A place couldn't hurt you.