Laura Lippman: No Good Deeds

He took one last greedy drag, staring balefully at the ridiculous piece of modern art on the tiny patch of courthouse lawn. It was Gabe’s understanding that the twisty piece of orange, blue, and yellow metal had long been the unchallenged title holder for ugliest piece of public art in Baltimore, but it had gained some serious competition from a towering man-woman figure outside the train station. That hermaphrodite monstrosity had been the first thing Gabe had seen when he made the trip down from New Jersey for his job interview, this giant male-female of steel, with a pulsing purple-blue light where the heart should be. It completely dwarfed the train station. Gabe was no philistine, but what message was such a statue trying to send? Welcome to Baltimore, the capital of androgyny. Welcome to Baltimore, the land of hollow people. Welcome to Baltimore, pre-op tranny capital of the world, where you can’t tell the men from the women. The last was kind of true, actually.

Gabe had been lured to Baltimore by the former U.S. attorney, a gungho guy who spoke passionately of nailing corrupt public officials, who dangled the bait of vast conspiracies and career-making casework. An Italian-American, he had bonded with Gabe over their loathing of The Sopranos, The Godfather , and every other guido stereotype. Truth was, Gabe sort of liked mob shows, not that he was the kind of guy to park himself in front of the television on a regular basis. Anyway, he was only half Italian. His mother was German-Irish. She had the Irish charm, if not the German mania for cleanliness, and her emotions ran as freely as water. Meanwhile his Italian dad was as starchy and reticent as any WASP, a shirt-and-tie civil servant. So Gabe could, and did, play his identity numerous ways-Horatio Alger boy made good, solid middle-class citizen used to creature comforts, arm-waving Italian, poetic Irishman, orderly German. Some people might call that phoniness, but Gabe considered his ability to fit in with others a social nicety. He didn’t lie, not exactly. He just played up whatever part of himself made others feel comfortable.

He put his cigarette out in the ceramic container, one of those overdesigned contraptions intended to be mildly decorative. Someone made that, Gabe thought, although probably not in this country. That was someone’s job, poor bastard. Most people had jobs like that. Meaningless, disposable, of no import. Whatever his frustrations, his work mattered. He never lost sight of that.

He checked his watch and realized he needed to get to the staff meeting. An oddity, scheduled for day’s end on a Monday instead of a Friday, suggesting that it might actually be about something. But whatever the topic, it would circle back to the Youssef case. All the meetings did.

He arrived for the 4:30 P.M. meeting at exactly 4:29. Punctual but busy, that was the message to send. Show up five minutes early and everyone wondered why you were so free. One second after the boss, and you were toast. With the calculation that Gabe brought to everything at work, he chose a seat in the middle of the room, one where he could make eye contact with the boss but also steal looks at Lombard Street if it got too deadly dull.

He listened attentively, looking for opportunities to contribute, but only if he could be original, meaningful. No talking for talking’s sake. Still, no matter how on point Gabe was, he never seemed to earn more than an impatient frown. The boss woman just wasn’t in his corner. True, she hadn’t hired him and she wasn’t here for the long term, but her indifference bothered Gabe. Why didn’t she like him? He was good and eager and hardworking. In his head he was a rising star, and his inability so far to persuade others of that fact had been the biggest shock of his postcollege life. After a lackluster year with a Wall Street firm, he decided the federal system would be more of a meritocracy, less inclined to be impressed by prestigious law schools and things like law review. Albuquerque had been okay, but Baltimore was supposed to be closer to the center of things, especially terrorism. So he came back east, only to find out that they now thought Al Qaeda was infiltrating Mexico. Gabe never seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

The meeting was just a regular staff meeting, a nuts-and-bolts thing, but the boss lady did bring up Youssef at the end.

“I know you don’t want anyone in this office to talk to the press about Greg,” said one of the more senior prosecutors, a woman on whom the boss just doted, Terri Hamm. She got the hot cases, the big drug dealers, the gang members who were getting federal death-penalty sentences. Again, it was a matter of having the connections, of knowing the agents who would bring you the good stuff. Youssef had been doing a lot of those cases before he moved to antiterrorism.

“I don’t want anyone in the office to talk to the press, period,” Gail said, and everyone laughed dutifully. A joke, but not.

“The thing is, that lets the Howard detectives off the hook, because no one’s calling them on what a shitty job they’ve done. And the less that’s said, the more people on talk radio feel free to indulge in wild speculation, some of which leads right back to this office. We look awful, through no fault of our own.”

“It is a delicate situation,” conceded the boss. “But I’m more concerned with Greg’s widow than with public perception. And I don’t think talk radio represents mainstream opinion.”

“Still, it shakes people’s faith in our overall ability,” Terri Hamm said. “The one thing we’re supposed to be able to do is solve the death of one of our own. Why can’t the Howard County police at least provide updates, let people know that the case isn’t completely stalled? They were pissed when the one fact about the ATM got out, but that wasn’t our fault.”

“We have no official role in this, although an FBI agent is acting as an unofficial liaison. And what’s the use of announcing they’ve developed leads if they don’t want the leads to get out? I think they’re right to hold back the information about the toll plaza and the ATM card.”

Although Gabe’s gaze was focused, his expression appropriately serious, he allowed his mind to wander. He had barely known Youssef, who was killed two months after Gabe started, and what he had known made him resentful: the Egyptian wonder boy, the son of a Detroit deli owner. Youssef had gotten a lot of hot assignments for the wrong reasons, in Gabe’s opinion. It was sheer public relations. Forget Abu Ghraib, forget Guantánamo-look at this handsome A-rab who’s working for the U.S attorney.

Still, Gabe’s brain was poking at something almost in spite of itself, prodding and nudging. He risked a question, despite the fact that Gail was clearly ready for the discussion to end.

“The toll plaza-are we talking about the fact that the car went through cash booths, even though it was outfitted with an E-ZPass?”

“Yes. Clearly the driver didn’t know that Greg had E-ZPass on his car-or thought that going through the cash tolls would keep the device from being activated. So we still know exactly when he went through the McHenry Tunnel and when he entered and exited the New Jersey Turnpike.”

“But there’s another time, right? Not just on the trip north, when we think the killer panicked and headed to a place he knew so he could dump the car and get away, but on the trip out of the city, right?”

The boss lady sighed, not bothering to conceal her impatience. “Yes. What’s your point, Gabe?”

“Nothing.”

But something had clicked for him. He just didn’t want to feel his way through the idea in front of this throng.

The meeting ended, and Gabe’s little brainstorm might have moved on, replaced by his own work, uninspiring as it was. But on his next trip to the smoking pad, he saw Mike Collins, a DEA agent, the kind of guy that other guys wanted to impress, even if he wasn’t the star he used to be. Collins had a fierce rep. Strong, broad-shouldered, laconic, Collins never wasted a word. He barely wasted a facial expression.