Laura Lippman - By A Spider's Thread

As he hung over the steering wheel, Zeke's last thoughts were for Natalie. They did not follow the five classic stages, but they were close. Surprise-he never saw it coming, literally and figuratively. Anger-stupid Russian bitch. Amazement-who knew she had it in her? Grudging respect. She'll tell them I killed the cop, back in Ohio . She'll blame everything on me and get away with it, because of that angel face of hers .

In the end Zeke had just enough time to lose faith in everything he had ever believed-in his own power and brilliance, in the steadfastness of Natalie's love, in the destiny of the birthright he had been denied. He didn't have time, however, to replace those beliefs with anything else.

KATHERINE FRANCES MONAGHAN MARRIED TYNER Francis Gray at the Enoch Pratt Free Library on November 21. Perhaps it was a bad sign for Baltimore's quality-of-life index that the central branch of the venerable library system rented itself out for weddings to pick up a few extra dollars, but it was the perfect venue for a woman who had devoted her life to the written word. Tess was amazed by the guest list, which had swelled to almost three hundred names and included Baltimore luminaries that she had never known were among Kitty's and Tyner's acquaintances.

"I think I see half of the '66 Orioles pitching staff out there," Tess said, peeking around a set of shelves in the social-sciences wing, where Kitty was making last-minute preparations. "And the entire cast of Homicide , first season. How do you know all these people?"

"A bookstore owner isn't much different than a priest or a doctor. I tend to their needs, and I keep their secrets. It builds up a lot of goodwill."

"Why is the former governor here? I'm not even convinced he's literate."

"Politicians are easy. Just give them money and they're your friends for life." Tess remembered that Mark Rubin had given her the same advice. "How do I look?"

Given that Kitty looked beautiful even when she rolled out of bed in the morning, it was to be expected that she would be radiant on her wedding day. But there was something extra, an additional glow, a brighter spark in her eyes. Much to Tess's relief, Kitty had chosen a relatively restrained outfit, a suit in a peach color that had always flattered her. She was the most gorgeous woman in the room, as always, but Tess did well by her black dress, her hair coaxed into an upsweep by the hairdresser Kitty had hired. If the shoes hadn't been so painful, she almost might have enjoyed her glamour-girl alter ego.

"You look great," she told her aunt. Feeling dangerously close to tears, she sought refuge in sarcasm. "But I knew the bride when she used to rock and roll."

"Well, the groom rolls. You'll always have that." Kitty glanced at the large clock high above the atrium. "We'll be starting in two minutes. And in fifteen minutes all these weeks of planning and fretting and me being a basket case will be officially over. Seems kind of silly when you think about it."

"Why did you do it?" Tess asked. "I don't mean the wedding so much as marriage. You're over forty, you and Tyner were already living together, you both have your own money, your own careers. You're clearly not going to start a family-"

"I could always adopt a girl from China," Kitty said, her face full of mischief. "And don't forget that movie director, the one whose wife had twins when she was in her fifties."

"But why marriage ?"

Kitty answered the question with matter-of-fact, unhurried calm, as if they were in her store on a slow afternoon, not holding up three hundred people waiting for a wedding.

"We take so many unconscious risks in this life-especially you, sweetie-that we might as well take a few conscious ones from time to time."

She smoothed a piece of hair back from Tess's forehead. An hour out from under the beautician's touch, a few stubborn pieces were already asserting themselves. Had her hair always been this unruly, or was it just cranky since it had been shorn before its time? "I wish you had a date for the wedding. It's a shame Crow couldn't make it up from Charlottesville."

"I almost had four dates," Tess said. "But Mark checked the time and realized the sun wouldn't have been down long enough for them to make it here on time from Pikesville. Besides, the catering isn't kosher, and the children would be up past their bedtimes. Mark is very strict about their routines-although not as strict as he used to be. He even let the children celebrate Sukkoth late. Isaac said it wasn't fair to have Yom Kippur without having Sukkoth, too."

She had, in fact, helped Mark and the children build the traditional shelter, with Isaac instructing her at great length on the rituals of the holiday, a celebration of the harvest.

"We'll make a Jew out of you yet," Mark had joked.

"Maybe a half one," Tess said.

"Can you be a half Jew?" Isaac had asked. "Don't you have to be all or nothing?"

Mark Rubin had treated the question with the utmost seriousness. Tess was learning this was the way he treated all his children's questions, large and small.

"When it comes to faith, you believe or you don't believe," he had told his son. "But there is a cultural aspect to Judaism, too, and Miss Monaghan is talking about that part of herself. Her mother's family was Jewish, but she wasn't raised to believe anything."

"Yes I was," Tess protested. "I was raised to believe that a good handshake, big tips, and a decent Christmas-card list can grease the wheels of doing business. And that Jews can have crab feasts as long as they have them outdoors."

Mark didn't want to laugh at mat bit of sacrilege, not in front of his children, but he did anyway. "Tess doesn't have a religion. But she does believe many things. And she sticks by them, which is more than some religious people can say. She honors her own principles."

"And Mama? Was she a half Jew or a whole one?"

It was as if a cloud had passed over the sun and a bright day had grown chilly and dreary. With just a glance at Mark's face, Tess could tell he was thinking about Natalie, who was being held in a Maryland jail and fighting extradition to Ohio, where she and Zeke had been implicated in the death of a patrolman. Mark could not believe that his wife had killed anyone but Zeke, and Tess saw no reason to argue with him. But a police officer was dead, and Ohio wanted a live suspect to try. Tess, remembering the coded exchange between Zeke and Natalie, had a hunch Ohio was after the right person. But she held her tongue around Mark. People needed to believe what they needed to believe.

"Your mother," Mark said at last, "is a good woman who loves you very much. That was what she believed in-that you were precious and worth making any sacrifice for."

The Rubin Sukkoth table groaned with offerings from throughout Pikesville, and Tess knew that Mark Rubin would remain alone only by his own choice. Still, he had yet to pursue a get from Natalie, or even a more mundane Maryland divorce. She hoped he would. Mark Rubin was an awfully attractive man. Not attractive enough to convert for-Tess knew her limitations. But he would make such a good husband for the right woman, once he was through yearning for the woman he couldn't have, the woman no one should really want.

In the Pratt the jazz trio, a group of Peabody students, began playing a light classical piece that Tess knew she should recognize but didn't. Crow would know , she thought, the memory almost unbidden. Crow always knew things like that.

"That's your cue," Kitty said, pushing her past the shelf of biographies, and Tess walked the length of carpet that had been put down to create an aisle between the rows of folding chairs. She walked a little more swiftly than she should, although the heels kept her from moving with her usual long stride. At the end of the runner, she greeted Tyner and then turned to watch Kitty walk down the aisle. Because of her dual duties, she did not carry flowers, but she had a tiny velvet bag dangling from a wrist corsage. She would produce the ring from that bag when the time came.