Laura Lippman - In A Strange City

Tess squelched another inappropriate response- No, but it helps -and moved on. “He threatened me. He said he would tell you I had tried to extort him, offered to keep quiet for money, and turned him in only when he wouldn’t play.”

“Yeah, so what? He would have been lying, right?”

Tess counted the sesame seeds on her bagel, unable to think of an appropriate response. There was no point in telling Rainer what he wouldn’t admit about himself, that he was small enough to believe lies about people he disliked. She decided to throw him a bone, pretend to be the person he had accused her of being.

“I honestly didn’t believe I could weather a siege of bad publicity right now. Meanwhile, I kept getting these notes, and I thought if I did what the notes suggested… I don’t know. I was caught. I made some bad decisions. But I didn’t do anything illegal.”

She pulled a Federal Express package from her backpack. This was the only thing that had kept her from coming in on Monday morning first thing, because she had to call Pennsylvania and ask Vonnie Hilliard to change her plans and head for the nearest overnight delivery service instead of the bank. The bracelet had arrived this morning, still in its Christmas wrapping.

“When Arnold Pitts came to me, he said the Visitor had sold him a bracelet, claiming it was a historic piece that had once belonged to Betsy Patterson Bonaparte.” She saw Rainer frown, unwilling to ask questions when he didn’t know something. This was a bad quality in a homicide cop. It was a bad quality in anyone.

“The name didn’t mean anything to me either,” she assured him. “She was a local belle, married to Napoleon’s brother for a while. The way Pitts told the story, he had the bracelet but was angry because it was worthless. Yet Bobby Hilliard had given this bracelet to his mother for Christmas and told her it was the real thing.”

“You think two men are dead because of this,” he said, poking it with a pencil, as if it were a snake, and lifting it from the cotton padding. The bracelet resisted, but it eventually surrendered its hold on the cotton. “I mean, I don’t care if Queen Elizabeth wore it, this thing wouldn’t bring a thousand dollars at a Baltimore pawn shop. How do you fence something like this?”

“A knowledgeable person might pay dearly for it. I don’t know. I have to assume it’s what Pitts and Ensor were looking for, at Bobby’s apartment and his parents’ farm. What else could it be?”

Rainer was thinking hard. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “But Pitts said he had the bracelet.”

“Pitts said a lot of things. The man who called me Sunday night said ”they‘ were worth killing for. He could have been talking about people, or principles, or material possessions. He could have been talking about anything. This is an “it,” singular. Are “they’ Hilliard and Yeager? Pitts and Ensor? I don’t know. I’ve told you everything I know. I think you should tell me what you’ve found out.”

Rainer’s face was glum. It was the purest expression Tess had ever seen on him.

“None of it makes sense, not a goddamn piece. We get so close, and then it falls apart. The fact is, we got no evidence that the two things are connected, Hilliard and Yeager. The only thing they’ve got in common is we got damn few leads on either one.”

“So you were just yanking Tess’s chain all this time, trying to make her feel guilty for sport?” Tyner was angry on her behalf, but Tess wasn’t. Nor was she comforted. She might not accept blame for Yeager’s death, but she also wasn’t ready to embrace the idea that the timing of her Sunday night call had been a coincidence.

“Please.” Tess didn’t feel comfortable touching Rainer in any way, so she tapped the bracelet, which still dangled from Rainer’s pencil. “Please tell me whatever you know. I’m clearly at risk. Is it too much to ask that you help me protect myself?”

“You got yourself into this,” Rainer said, ever sanctimonious.

“Yes and no. I didn’t solicit Arnold Pitts’s business. I didn’t invite some stranger to stalk me and start leaving gifts and notes at my home and office. I’m scared to go home, Rainer. Do you know what that’s like? Crow and I moved into his studio apartment yesterday morning, with a greyhound and a Doberman yet. Two humans and two dogs in one room. You may have a triple homicide on your hands soon.”

Rainer got restless easily and needed to move. Now he stood and began making circles around Tess and Tyner, small aimless swoops, like an addled hawk who can’t decide if it’s spotted prey or merely something shiny in the grass.

Tyner said, “She has cooperated, and it’s reasonable to assume she’s in jeopardy. Can’t you tell us anything?”

Rainer was behind them as he began talking and, although he crossed in front of them as he continued to circle and swoop, he never made eye contact. It was as if he was speaking to himself, thinking out loud, all the gears whirring and clanking.

“Bobby Hilliard was a waiter, worked at the big fancy restaurants, changing jobs all the time. Because he wanted to, not because he ever got into any trouble. His co-workers say he was a charmer, a good talker who knew just how much to pour it on, and a certified genius at remembering people’s special needs. Regulars would request his station when they made reservations, even follow him to new restaurants.

“But-he was a thief.” He waited, as if he expected Tess to jump in here. He was testing her, she realized. He would know that she had been to the Pratt and learned of Bobby’s work history there. She kept still.

“He stole from the library,” Rainer said. “But not from the restaurants, never from the restaurants. He was so honest he would tell another waiter if he saw someone try to pocket a tip, or chase down a customer if he thought he had overtipped by mistake. Then I come to find out the guys in the burglary division questioned him about a couple of break-ins around town.”

“As a suspect?” This was Tyner’s question.

Rainer stopped circling to think about this. “Not officially. In fact, he had alibis for all of ‘em. But the alibis were almost too good, like he was waiting for someone to come around and ask. He was working the night Pitts was hit. And Ensor had a party at his house the night he was burglarized. Anyone could have left the door unlocked. Including Ensor, as he himself pointed out. In fact, according to the uniforms who made the report, he was happy to take the blame and pretty indifferent, all things considered.”

“Was Bobby at the party?” Tess asked.

Rainer had finally worn himself out. He dropped heavily into his chair. “Not as a guest, as a worker. He worked part-time for a catering firm, making extra money on his nights off. The patrons who knew him from the restaurant ended up hiring him for their private gigs. But here’s the thing-his bosses remembered he often went to a lot of trouble to get the nights off to do these parties, even when they were held on Fridays and Saturdays. He couldn’t have made as much working those parties as he would putting in his regular shift. So you tell me why he did it.”

Tess paused, but only to make Rainer feel better. “To gain access to these homes. But did Pitts ever have a party? Did Shawn Hayes? And did everyone who had a party end up being burglarized?”

“Pitts didn’t use the catering service, as far as we can tell,” Rainer admitted. “And while Hayes had a big holiday party, it was a week or two earlier, before Christmas. He had a pretty sophisticated alarm system. It’s my guess that Bobby couldn’t figure out how to get around it. We were working on the supposition that Bobby made a date with Shawn Hayes in order to get in his house.”