Laura Lippman - The Last Place

The various minute hands of the various clocks made their way back to twelve and Tess went on her way, her stamped card a reminder this was, in fact, probation, a punishment. Five more months. She’d make it. She was sure of that much.

She was also sure she had no use for the doctor’s theoretical questions. How would you feel if someone else were to die now? It was just the usual psychoanalytic, hypothetical, hyperbolic crap, she told herself.

And so it was, and so it remained-for the next twenty-four hours.

Things are not going according to plan. He is not used to that. Everything always goes according to his plans. He has been so thorough, so careful, ever since-well, since he had to be. And now, to be undone by a single man, a stupid man. He knows it must be that stupid Barney Fife’s fault. How did this happen? He’s not sure, he can’t be sure, he can’t get close enough to be sure.

But the fact remains, she is no longer going to Pikesville every day. She is barely leaving the house, as best as he can tell. And yet there has been nothing in the papers, no announcement of any discoveries. He wonders if the men are cutting her out. Yes, of course. He has once again underestimated the perfidy of his own sex. He has been spending so much time with women-thinking about women, listening to women, catering to women-that he has forgotten how men operate. Their methods are clumsy, barbarous, even-but effective. He wishes he could teach those state cops a thing or two. But he has to hold himself in check, stay in control. It’s all about control. Ego must be held in check.

Tonight, for example. He has to be precise yet restrained and remember the objective. A lesser man would be tempted to make some sort of grand flourish, to call attention to himself. But he has always prided himself on his subtlety, his modesty, his ability to keep souvenirs without attracting attention.

He pulls his van into the alley and waits. The city’s grid of criminal activity has shifted slightly in the time since he last roamed these neighborhoods in search of her. The cops closed down the old markets, but new ones have opened just a few blocks away. God, junkies have so little imagination. They use all their ingenuity to procure the substance they need to destroy themselves. He knows she’ll be here because it’s Friday night, and she likes to score on Friday night. Besides, he left a little message on her pager, one guaranteed to bring her here. He knows what she wants.

True, he doesn’t know her as well as he knew the others. He didn’t have the time to study her. But he knows her tastes, her weaknesses, what motivates her. He knows she is lazy and sly, in equal measure.

But the main thing he knows about her is she fooled him. He can never quite forgive her for that. When he left, he told himself he was done with her. Yet in the back of his mind he must have always suspected this wasn’t true. Even before this unexpected contingency arose, he had a score to settle with her. He doesn’t like being played.

It’s nine o’clock and the spring night should be completely dark by now, but it’s never truly dark in the city’s worst neighborhoods. She pulls her car into an alley and walks out to the street, where the touts wait, singing the praises of their poisons. She’s no crackhead; her taste runs to methamphetamine and heroin. And she won’t make a buy on the street, she’ll visit the rowhouse where a dealer waits, happy to resell the heroin he bought just that afternoon. Why not, if there’s money in it? If the cops gave a rat’s ass, they could make her six blocks away, and not just because she’s white. She’s so small, so obviously out of place. Once she’s gone down the block, he rolls his van into the alley behind her car, blocking it in. Now all he has to do is wait.

In less than ten minutes she’s heading back, her walk almost a run now. She’ll take her treasure home or to her new boyfriend’s house-assuming she has a new man, and she usually does. In her mind, waiting for her blast means she’s in control, not a junkie. “It’s no different than going out and having a beer on a Saturday night,” she had said in her defense, the first time he caught her shooting up. Maybe. But when your girlfriend went out for a beer on Saturday night, she didn’t spend Sunday through Friday robbing you blind.

He still likes that walk, that silhouette, the side-to-side roll in her slender hips. Given the chance, he’d pick her out again. And again and again. She was his type. It kills him, admitting that. But you have to know your weaknesses. You have to be honest about the things that defeated you in the past if you hope to succeed in the future. She was his one mistake. Well, second, although you couldn’t call Saint Mary’s a mistake. More of a detour.

Here she comes, almost skipping, like a little girl on her way home from the candy store. The only difference is that she’s holding a bag of heroin cut with baby laxative. God, she was such a drag high: stupid, insolent, useless. He hadn’t given up on her right away. If rehab had worked, if he had gotten her straight, she might have been his most satisfying transformation ever. But she had only pretended to clean up because it kept his money flowing. Cunning, that was a word for her. Cunning cu-but he promised his mother he would never use that word. It was crude.

She gets into her car and starts the motor, assuming he’ll move so she can get out. Dumb bitch. She honks. He cuts the engine, as if he has no intention of moving. She honks again. He shrugs. She gets out, stalks up to his van, fearless because she’s stupid. Fearless because she’s avid for her treat. She slaps the side of his van, as if it’s a horse she’s trying to shoo from a pasture. But he still doesn’t move, so she marches up to the front of the van. Objects in the mirror, he reminds himself, may be closer than they appear. Still he waits, patient as time, until she’s pounding on his door, calling him all kinds of names, too crazed to realize she knows that profile. He listens to the familiar voice on the other side of the glass, waiting to see if he feels anything, even a trace of the usual wondrous sorrow he brings to his chore. But all he wants to do is get it over with.

Her voice keeps coming, at once hoarse and shrill. “C’mon, you jerk, move this piece of shit. Move, move, move.” She is beating, pounding, slapping the van door, as if she could push the vehicle back with her own impressive energy. She’s that desperate to get home. Oh, yeah, honey. You don’t have a problem. It’s no different than a few drinks on a Saturday night.

He lets her go on for a few more seconds. Then, calmly, always calmly, he lowers the window and shoots the dumb bitch in the face. She doesn’t have time to register what’s going on. If her life passed before her eyes, her only thought was a flicker of regret that she would never enjoy her last dime bag.

He has to shoot her in the face instead of the chest. He hopes that won’t throw anyone off. Because this one-this one he doesn’t love.

Tess was coming off the water late Saturday morning when she saw Whitney on the dock. A former rower, Whitney knew better than to stand in the middle of the boathouse’s morning rush hour, creating an obstacle for the college teams staggering beneath the weights of their fours and eights. Yet there she was, in everyone’s way, arms folded across her chest. When Tess pulled parallel to the dock, Whitney ran to the side and grabbed one of the Alden’s oars so forcefully she almost flipped the shell with Tess still in it.

“Whitney, I’ve been getting up on this dock for years without your help. I think I can manage.”

“We need to talk,” she said. Whitney always considered all her needs urgent.