Laura Lippman - No Good Deeds

“We’ll work something out, maybe rent a place that you can share with Dub and his people. But it would be my name on the lease, so you’d have to live according to my rules.”

“Rules,” Lloyd said, his voice crackling with contempt. “School. Books and shit. Like all the answers are written down someplace and all I have to do is learn them.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll think on it.” He takes a few steps forward, shakes my hand. Then he ambles away before I can find out how to get in touch with him, where to find him. As Miss Charlotte said, Lloyd Jupiter’s in the wind these days, aiming to please no one but himself.

“Go ahead,” I say to Tess, who’s clearly bursting to say something. “Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me I’m a fool for trying, for caring.”

“It was easier to save his life one night than it will be over the long haul,” Tess said. “But you already know that. You’ve always known that.”

Miss Charlotte comes out, locking the door behind her. “Did you see Lloyd?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t sure, because he gave me something to give to you.”

She pulls out Tess’s unicorn box and hands it to her. Tess starts to open it, then thinks better of it. She passes it to me instead, and I shake it gently. Hollow, not even a seed swishing inside. Nobody’s perfect.

“Do you think,” I ask Tess, “that it’s a good sign? Or does this mean he’s through with us entirely and doesn’t want any unfinished business between us?”

She traces the crooked line of my nose with her index finger. At some point the face of one’s beloved becomes so familiar as to be abstract. What does she see? What do I see? Is Tess pretty? Are her features even? I don’t know. All I can absorb are the expressions that play across the surface, the amazing nuance. In this instance there is mockery, yes, the impression that she’s always amused by me. But there is sympathy, too, a shared weakness for lost causes. Sadness and respect for the bond we now share. I finally understand that when Tess fingers her scar, it’s not because she’s scared but because she wants to remind herself that she has what it takes to survive.

She touches my scar and concedes the melancholy bond between us. My grandfather arbitrarily established that my life as an adult would start on my twenty-sixth birthday, December 15. But I know it began on April 5, on a deserted stretch of beach north of Fenwick, Delaware. Not because I killed a man but because I realized that a man could kill me, that immortality was not my birthright.

“Go for it,” she says at last. “God forbid another native should come of age not knowing who the Baltimore Four were.”

“The Oriole pitching staff of 1971, right?”

“Berrigan, Lewis, Mengel, and Eberhardt. The Customs House,1967.”

This surprises me more than anything. “I didn’t think you were listening that day.”

“Well, I was.”

Readers often ask where writers get their ideas, and in the case of No Good Deeds it seems more important than usual to anticipate and address that question. In December 2003, I heard a radio report that a federal prosecutor in Baltimore had been killed on the eve of closing arguments in a big case. Jonathan Luna’s death remains unsolved, and my knowledge of it goes only as far as what was reported in the media. It was someone else’s casual observation about the coverage of the case that sparked my imagination and led to this story, which has been built on what-if upon what-if upon what-if.

Yet Baltimore really is Smalltimore, and when I turned to a neighbor to help me research a day-in-the-life of an assistant U.S. attorney, I found out I was talking to one of the two coworkers who delivered eulogies at Luna’s funeral. I am extremely grateful to AUSA Bonnie Greenberg and keen that this be understood: Nothing in this book is meant to reflect on the life of Luna, a man about whom I know almost nothing. The same is true of Luna’s family, friends, and coworkers.

To continue the Smalltimore theme, I am indebted to Julian “Jack” Lapides, a longtime family friend, for some crucial background on probate and safe-deposit boxes.

Randy Curry, part of the multigenerational family that has run Rehoboth’s Playland since 1962, gave me some insight into how a seaside amusement park readies itself for summer. There is no Frank’s FunWorld, alas, but if you’re looking for a good time on the Delaware seashore, Skeeball at Playland is still twenty-five cents for nine balls. Curry also confirmed my long-held belief that you must bank your shots to get the highest possible score.

Books, articles, the Frontline documentary The Man Who Knew , and other sources provided insight into the day-to-day life of an FBI agent. John O’Neill was killed on September 11, 2001, in his new capacity as director of security for the World Trade Towers-a job that he took, in part, because he felt he had been unfairly scapegoated by the FBI. A source that must remain anonymous was extremely helpful in detailing the ins and outs of the federal justice system.

I learned about the Baltimore Four, a precursor to the better-known Catonsville Nine, from Brendan Walsh of Viva House. Brendan and his wife, Willa Bickham, hate it when they’re singled out for credit-and here I am, doing it twice in one book. Dave White provided another esoteric bit of knowledge for Crow, while Mike Ollove deserves credit for the best headline that the Sun never used. Thanks to David Simon, whose chance remark inspired this novel. Like Tess, I’m listening even when you think I’m not.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that there were 269 homicides in Baltimore last year-a slight decrease from 2004, but far from the large-scale reduction promised by Mayor Martin O’Malley when he ran for office in 1999. As I write this, the city has just paid five hundred thousand dollars to a consultant to help remake its image in the eyes of tourists and convention planners. But visitors to our city enjoy remarkable safety in an increasingly vibrant downtown. It’s our own citizens, in neighborhoods where executives would never want to tamper, to paraphrase a favorite poet, who are most at risk. I’m just saying.

LAURA LIPPMAN

Baltimore, Maryland

December 2005

LAURA LIPPMAN was a Baltimore Sun reporter for twelve years. Her novels have been awarded every major prize in crime fiction. The first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.