Laura Lippman - In A Strange City

Exclusive. Tess would like a dollar for every time she had heard that word misused by television journalists.

Yeager turned to the camera, and any pretense that this had been a dialogue vanished. “Because you see, contrary to what Ms. Cesnik and her sexuality police would have you believe, the attack wasn’t the testosterone-fueled rage of some hulking heterosexual. Hayes’s attacker, in all probability, was Bobby Hilliard himself, who visited the Hayes home the night of the attack.”

He paused, as if expecting to hear the gasps of his audience, only there was no studio audience for this show. “Yes, Shawn Hayes was the victim of a hate crime-a hate crime perpetrated by a self-loathing gay man who preyed on gay and straight men alike, insinuating himself into their lives, then burglarizing their homes. As a waiter in the city’s best restaurants, Bobby Hilliard had endless opportunities to meet such men, befriend them, and then rip them off. It’s my supposition that Hilliard was enraged by the quiet dignity of a man like Shawn Hayes, who at least didn’t flaunt his deviancy So let’s talk about hate crimes now, Ms. Cesnik. When it’s a gay man who’s doing the beating, is it still a hate crime? Or do you have to be a white heterosexual”-he gave the last word so much spin it came out with at least eight syllables-“to perpetrate hate?”

“You have no proof of what you’re saying,” Cecilia said through gritted teeth, “no proof at all. This is all conjecture, and irresponsible conjecture at that.”

“I have as much proof as you did when you stood up at Sunday’s press conference and declared Bobby Hilliard was killed because he was gay. Why does my agenda require a higher standard of proof than your agenda?”

Tess had tried to tell Cecilia the same thing yesterday morning, in a slightly more diplomatic fashion.

“Besides, I do have proof.” Yeager brought out a small black datebook, the kind available in any stationer’s shop. “Bobby Hilliard kept a datebook. It was this book that may tell us of his visit to Shawn Hayes’s home. It could also establish his social comings and goings with the men who were burglarized over the past year. So I maintain Bobby Hilliard was conducting economic hate crimes, preying on men who patronized the restaurants where he worked, driven mad by his inability to own the things they took for granted. But that’s not-excuse the term-sexy enough for you, is it, Ms. Cesnik? You distort public discourse by dragging everything through your prism of sexual politics, until all meaning has been wrung out of it.”

Cecilia was so angry-and perhaps so humiliated- that she was shaking visibly. The dog’s fur ruffled a bit, as if she sensed some menace at hand, and Tess thought she heard a low growl, but that might be the poor sound quality of the bar’s old Sanyo.

“Whatever you think about the choices people make-”

“Aha, so it is a choice, isn’t it, not some biological destiny? An unhealthy choice that motivated people can overcome? Finally, something we can agree on, Ms. Cesnik.”

“Whatever you think,” Cecilia continued, as if Yeager had not spoken, “Bobby Hilliard is, unequivocally, a victim. He’s dead, remember. Someone shot him.”

“Maybe he deserved to die.” Yeager flapped the datebook in Cecilia’s face. “He had progressed from petty burglary to an outrageous act of violence. It was only a matter of time before he killed someone and the state had to kill him. I think the police should close the investigation into Bobby Hilliard’s death, unless they’re trying to track down his shooter and give him a reward. We’re all better off that he’s dead.”

The datebook was only inches from Cecilia’s nose, but she didn’t flinch, although she clutched the arms of her chair as if trying to hold herself there. Miata, new to television talk shows, showed less restraint. Her growls now unmistakable, the dog leaped toward Yeager, toppling him backward in his chair and grabbing the black book from his hand.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Yeager protested from a heap on the floor.

Cecilia was off camera, but her voice was still audible. “Then you take it away from her.”

The confused producer kept calling for different shots, trying to get an angle on Yeager that didn’t reveal his broad backside as he crawled around on the floor, making tentative motions toward the dog, who growled every time he came too close. Finally, Yeager righted his chair and slumped into it, his face the color of a beefsteak tomato.

“This is Face Time with Jim Yeager,” he said. “And we’ll be back after these commercial messages with an update on the trial of the Philadelphia police officers.”

At Tess’s nod, the bartender quickly switched the channel to the Terps game, only to find a small rebellion on his hands.

“Turn it back, turn it back,” one of the regulars shouted in a slurred, furry voice, much to the outrage of the other bar birds. “This is better ‘n pro wrestling.”

“And about as real,” Tess said to Crow. “I find it hard to believe that Jim Yeager could have a piece of evidence as crucial as Bobby Hilliard’s datebook.”

“Well, you’re always saying Rainer’s incompetent. Maybe he missed it somehow, or maybe Yeager managed to get into Bobby’s apartment. Or maybe the Hilliards gave it to Yeager, not knowing any better. I just hope Bobby Hilliard used a brand of ink that can stand up to dog drool.”

Tess stared thoughtfully up at the television, although the face staring back at them now was the famously sweaty visage of Gary Williams, the seethingly intense Maryland coach who perspired more than his players.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’m going to take a little trip out I-70 this weekend, see the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside in the dead of winter. But first, I think there’s one place I need to check out right here in town.”

Bobby Hilliard had lived in a surprisingly characterless apartment building in North Baltimore, the kind of place popular with spoiled Johns Hopkins students and genteel widows who wouldn’t dream of being without a hairdresser, deli, dry cleaners, and chiropodist on the premises. Not that they availed themselves of these services, but they liked knowing they were there.

Tess surveyed the high-rise from a parking place on Charles Street, watching the little old ladies venture out with their inevitably tiny dogs, noting the students with their bouncing knapsacks. She would have thought someone with Hilliard’s love of pretty-pretty things would have chosen charm over convenience-a one-bedroom with, say, a marble fireplace and a little galley of a kitchen in Bolton Hill or Mount Vernon.

Bolton Hill or Mount Vernon -places where two of Hilliard’s victims had lived, if one bought Jim Yeager’s theory. Tess didn’t, not yet. The standards for public discourse had fallen so alarmingly in recent years that anyone could say anything on the airwaves, especially if the target was dead. See Vincent Foster, whose sad suicide had provided no end of conspiracy theories. The prevailing logic, on talk radio and fringe shows like Yeager’s, was that you were right until someone proved you wrong. Tess remembered a time when “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story” had been a joke in newsrooms, not a governing philosophy.

Still, she wasn’t ready to eliminate Yeager’s scenario, not in its entirety. It filled in some gaps, supplied the connection about which police had been so secretive and edgy. Bobby Hilliard was a thief; she knew this fact independently. The question was whether someone could go, in a few short years, from pocketing pillboxes to breaking and entering and, finally, a furious assault. And if he did, and you knew he did, why kill him? Why not go to the police? Yeager had conveniently glossed over this last piece of the puzzle, claiming Bobby Hilliard’s death didn’t matter because he was a criminal.