Laura Lippman - In A Strange City

They parted, moving in different directions. The wind kicked up with a sudden burst, lifting the capes of both men. The taller one, heading east, seemed to be moving quickly, while the other moved at the same stately, measured pace he had used to approach. As he reached the southern wall of the cemetery, he turned back as if to take one last look at his doppelgänger. Tess was no longer sure who was who, which man had come through the gate and which man had come from the catacombs.

And then there was one.

A gunshot is startling any time, any place. It’s a sound people assume they know, and then they hear one and realize they never knew it at all. No diet of movies and television can prepare one for the way a gun cuts the air, the way it leaves all who hear it breathless with dread. Some run, others freeze in place. Whatever choice is made, the other always seems wiser.

Tess knew the sound well, too well, which only made it more terrifying when it shattered this strange tableau. As the spectators at the front gate screamed, she experienced a sickeningly familiar sensation-a sense that the world stopped for a second and then speeded up to get back on schedule. Her mind and body lurched forward, and without realizing what she was doing, she found herself following Crow to the spot in the graveyard where a man was now dead, the voluminous folds of his cape billowing around him like a makeshift shroud.

Next time,“ Tess told Crow, her fatigue so pronounced it made her entire body ache, ”remind me to run in the other direction when I hear a gunshot.“

“But it’s professional ethics, right?” he asked, even as he tried to figure out a way to place his long frame across the hard plastic bench and put his head in Tess’s lap. “You felt obligated to see what happened and then try to control things until police arrived. Besides, the guy might have been alive.”

“Okay, next time shoot me when I hear a gunshot. I could go the rest of my life without seeing the inside of this police department and be quite happy.”

The homicide cop who had caught the Poe murder was named Rainer, Jay Rainer. Tess knew him just well enough to dislike him. He had been a traffic cop when their paths first crossed a few years back. In a different era, he never would have made the homicide squad, but the city police department was still reeling from the destructive free-for-all management style of the penultimate police commissioner. The cops had liked to say he was more coroner than cop; he had treated everyone working for him like a body. Homicide cops had gone to robbery vice cops were on patrol, and traffic cops like Rainer were now in homicide.

“It’s no wonder,” Tess said on a yawn, “that the clearance rates for homicide are at an all-time low. I hear if there’s not a two-ton Chevy with blood on the bumper, Rainer doesn’t have a clue what to do.”

“I’m a big fan of yours too, Miss Monaghan.”

Rainer was standing in the corridor with one of the last witnesses from the church, who were presumed to have had the best view of the shooting. It was a presumption that Tess was happy to let stand, although it meant she had been waiting for hours to give her statement. Trust the city police department to have coffee so overcooked it was almost sour, and powdered creamer that came only in flavors-amaretto and crème de men-the. Wimps, Tess thought, frowning into her Styrofoam cup and feeling the twisted shame of the exposed gossip. She had only been expressing the opinion of another homicide cop, Martin Tull. Her only friend in the department, Tull respected her and trusted her instincts. It was their standing joke that he might leave the department and come work for her, although she barely made enough money to keep Esskay in dog food.

But inside the department, Tull was a go-along, get-along kind of guy. If Rainer figured out she had lifted the bumper line from Tull, it would be bad for him. So she swallowed it, she owned it.

“Good morning, Detective.”

“You know, I think I’ve had a few nightmares like this,” Rainer said.

“Being immersed in Poe has made you melodramatic, Detective,” Tess replied, trying to stifle a yawn. “We don’t know each other well enough to figure in each other’s dreams, good or bad.”

“And even if you did”-this was Crow, his usual laid-back demeanor pricked by the thought of Tess appearing in another man’s dream-“you ought to consider whether a Freudian or Jungian interpretation is more appropriate. My guess is that Tess represents your lost animus, the feminine side of your personality.”

Rainer had to think about this, which required his mouth to drop open. After a few seconds, the rusty hinge on his jaw clamped shut and he motioned Tess to follow him to the interrogation room.

“He’s not exactly Monsieur Dupuis,” the previous witness whispered to Tess as they passed in the hallway, and Tess nodded absently. The woman was a poetry teacher from Hood College who had lobbied hard for one of the coveted church spots and driven sixty miles for the privilege of watching a homicide. Context kicked in, and Tess realized the Poe aficionado must be referring to the detective in Poe’s stories, the one who had solved the murders in the Rue Morgue.

Funny, but she had never been in an interview room before, not in her hometown of Baltimore. She had been questioned at crime scenes, volunteered information at her aunt’s kitchen table-in fact, that was where she and Rainer had first met, when he was a lazy traffic investigator determined to believe a dead man in the alley was the careless work of an after-hours drunk instead of the premeditated homicide it really was. She had waited in the hallways here while police officers solidified leads she had brought them. But she had never sat in the famed “box.”

I am not a suspect, she told herself again. I am not a troublemaker. I am a witness.

“What are you thinking?” Rainer asked her.

“How much it is like that show, right down to the amber tile walls and the desk with the handcuffs attached.” The lie was reflexive, a knee-jerk reaction to authority. “I thought television always got it wrong.”

“Aw, Homicide was a piece of shit. I was glad when they took it off the air.” It was a heretical statement for a Baltimorean to make, but then Rainer clearly wasn’t a Baltimorean. Tess couldn’t place the accent. It was rough and crude, a northeastern caw without the round, full o sounds and errant r ‘s that make the local patois difficult even for gifted mimics. Tess’s mother had somehow kept Tess from acquiring one, and Tess supposed she was grateful. But it would be nice to put one on, from time to time.

“It’s not off the air. It’s in reruns on cable,” Tess said. She wasn’t sure if this was true, but it was too much fun, yanking Rainer’s chain. Also too easy. If she hadn’t been so tired, she wouldn’t have bothered.

“Yeah, well, I’ll call you next time I need to know what I want to watch on TV. You’re a walking channel guide. But right now we got other things to talk about. Why were you down at Westminster Hall tonight?”

If Tess’s first lie to Rainer had been automatic, the second was thoughtful and measured. Yes, she knew something, but she wasn’t sure what it was, and she didn’t want to entrust information to Rainer under those circumstances.

“Just witnessing a Baltimore ritual. I’ve lived here all my life and never visited Poe’s grave, much less seen the Visitor. That’s akin to never going to Fort McHenry or watching the Orioles play.”

“Bunch of bums.” Rainer frowned. “I hate the American League.”

“Where did you grow up, Detective?”

“ Jersey. I’m a Mets fan. Remember 1969?”