Laura Lippman - In A Strange City

“Is this what the Blight was alluding to, in its on-line site? Aunt Kitty mentioned it to me yesterday.”

Cecilia’s face brightened. “I remember your aunt Kitty and her bookstore. She was lovely.”

Tess was so used to everyone falling in love with Kitty that the remark barely registered. “She still is. Anyway, what’s the link between Hayes and Bobby Hilliard?”

“That’s what we want the police to tell us. A sympathetic officer passed along the tip that the cops think the two cases might be linked. But our source is in vice; he doesn’t know anything more. We fear some homophobic maniac has progressed from beating his victims to shooting them-which makes this a public safety issue for a large number of Baltimore residents, something the police seem reluctant to acknowledge. If this was someone who preyed on women, or children, the police-and the press-would have trumpeted the fact long ago.”

Tess shrugged, unconvinced. The police usually had good reasons for not telling everything they knew. The press, too, much as she hated to impugn any good motives to them.

“So do you know for a fact that Shawn Hayes was beaten by some homophobic creep?”

“No-but it was brutal and nothing was taken. The problem is, Shawn Hayes wasn’t out-out.”

“Out-out?”

“His friends were aware of how he lived his life, and he had been in long-term relationships over the years, but he was still… extremely private. He has grown children from a marriage that ended in divorce years ago. I mean, his kids know, of course, but he was never in-your-face.”

Tess thought about the Hilliards’ confused expressions at the press conference. Shawn Hayes wasn’t the only person who wasn’t out-out.

“Then I can see the cops’ reluctance about discussing the lead publicly. You don’t want to start talking about hate crimes against gay men if the victims aren’t openly gay.”

“Why not?” Cecilia’s anger flared as suddenly as a manhole cover popping from some unseen pocket of pressure. “Is it so awful to be gay? Is it libelous to be called a homosexual? Do you get upset when someone mistakes you for a nice Catholic girl, because of your last name and freckles?”

“No,” Tess said slowly, trying not to rise to the bait. For the first time, she understood what was meant when it was said someone was spoiling for a fight. There was something sour about Cecilia right now, as if the confrontation with Rainer had left her feeling unsatisfied, unfinished. “And I let a lot of anti-Semitic remarks go by, because most people don’t know there’s a Weinstein inside the Monaghan and it’s not always worth the effort to remind them. But you can’t go around claiming a crime for your own political ends before all the facts are in. What if you’re wrong? If you shape these two crimes in such a way as to influence the public, you run the risk of confusing potential witnesses who might have information that doesn’t gibe with your scenario.”

“I don’t see how. It’s up to the homicide cops to pursue all the leads they have. I didn’t notice they had many. Did you?”

“No, they don’t seem to know much.”

The conversation stalled. Tess was reminded of the reasons she and Cecilia had dropped out of one another’s lives, once their missions were no longer congruent. Cecilia’s awakening as an activist had crowded out everything she deemed discretionary. Tess hadn’t made the cut.

“About Rainer-” She stopped, aware she was going to give advice she herself had been given but never taken.

“The cop? What about him?”

“I wouldn’t make an enemy out of him. He doesn’t have the biggest brain, but he does have a capacious memory. He remembers every slight and not much else. It’s a deadly combination.”

“This isn’t about him. It’s not personal.”

“He won’t see it that way. It’s his case; that was his press conference.” She stopped, distracted by the memory of the mob scene on War Memorial Plaza. How tiny the Hilliards had looked between those huge horses. “I feel bad for the parents.”

“Of course. Their son is dead.”

“His… lifestyle doesn’t seem to have any reality to them. It’s not just that they didn’t understand the concept of a hate crime. It’s that they couldn’t see how their son could be the victim of one. Did you really need to press it home?”

“Bobby Hilliard wasn’t in the closet.”

“He moved almost two hundred miles away to live the way he wanted to. Maybe he was willing to allow his parents a certain amount of denial about a choice they might not understand or accept.”

“It’s not a choice.” Cecilia lifted her chin. “Besides, this is bigger than one cop, one family, or two grieving parents. This affects an entire community.”

“If you’re right. A vice cop’s half-assed tip isn’t a guarantee of anything.”

“Well, that’s all I’m trying to find out. Rainer could have answered my questions over the phone-if he had deigned to take my calls. He didn’t want to play. So I had to move the game into the open. What brings you here, anyway?”

Tess used the excuse she had prepared for Rainer. “I was just passing by, wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Ever curious, aren’t you, Tess?” Cecilia held out her hand, an oddly formal gesture that served only to remind Tess how distant they had become. “Well, it was nice seeing you. Drop by Shawn Hayes’s house on Mount Vernon at six, if you want, watch me go live on all the stations, one after another. I’ve turned into quite the pro.”

“You were always a pro,” Tess said, “but I don’t think I could stomach another media event today. Why don’t you call me sometime, and we’ll have a drink?”

“You got an office now?”

“An office, a house, a dog, and a boyfriend. I’m downright respectable. You?”

“An office, an apartment, a cat, and a girlfriend. I guess I’m pretty respectable, too. We’ve come a ways, haven’t we, since I knocked you on your ass in that coffee bar. Remember?”

“Only because you had the element of surprise going for you,” Tess felt obliged to point out. “Under any other circumstance, I could have taken you.”

“Sure you could, Tess. Sure you could.” But for the first time since they had begun speaking, Cecilia was smiling, her features genuinely warm. Then she turned and rushed down the street toward a pay parking lot.

Tess wished she was always so sure of where she was going.

Baltimore has a West Street, a South Street, a North Avenue, an Eastern Avenue, and several other variations on the compass’s four points, but it was Tess’s own East Lane that had the distinction of flummoxing pizza delivery men. That was okay with Tess. For one thing, she sometimes got a free pizza that way. For another, it must mean she was hard to find.

Or so she thought, until she stepped outside the next morning and began her usual daily hunt for the Beacon-Light. The carrier was mercurial; sometimes he left the papers in a little bunch at the bottom of the hill, other times he just seemed to fling his arms in the air and let the papers fall where they may. Today, Tess found hers-at least she hoped it was hers-in the backyard of the house across the street.

It was only when she returned to her doorstep that she noticed the white envelope in the wicker basket she used for a mailbox. It was a heavy square, more creamy than white-white, formal enough to be a wedding invitation.

But Tess didn’t think many wedding invitations arrived overnight, before the rest of the mail. And while a wedding invitation might come with red rose petals, shouldn’t the petals be inside the envelope, as opposed to strewn across the bottom of her mailbox?