Laura Lippman - Baltimore Blues

"I asked Shay about that once." Shay , Tess noted. "Of course, I didn't ask it quite as rudely as you did. He told me Abramowitz had screwed something up, an important case. He didn't really have a lot of experience in this kind of practice, you know. He knew the law, but he didn't have the style the firm's clients expected. He upset an important client. So they stopped giving him work, hoping he would leave. That's how they do things at O'Neal, O'Connor and O'Neill. But Abramowitz wasn't gracious enough to cut his losses. He was greedy."

Tess could hear the too-hearty voice of Seamon P. O'Neal-no, Shay -reeling off those last few sentences. Ava was a quick study, at least at some things.

"Did everyone know he was being frozen out?"

"No, no one was suppose to know. Not even me-I. They just wanted him to leave; they didn't want to destroy his reputation. But after three months of creating busywork, he began running out of things for me to do. At first I thought he didn't trust me because of my problems with the bar. Then I saw his files were empty, and one day…well, one day I opened his briefcase. All he had in it were a law journal and a ham sandwich."

So Abramowitz had never lost his taste for trayf. Tess liked that.

"He never got mail. Almost no one called, never any clients. The Sims-Kever people were always meeting with Larry Chambers, a young partner at the other end of the office, while I was moving death certificates around in my files."

"No mail or phone calls at all? What about personal stuff?"

"He did get letters from inmates-I saw the Department of Corrections numbers on the envelopes. He said a lot of his clients from his public defender days stayed in touch. He was proud of that, which was odd. Those were the cases he lost."

"Maybe he was proud the men liked him, even though they lost."

"Maybe. One sure didn't, though. He used to call and harangue him, which always upset Michael."

"Did he ever say anything about those calls, who they came from? Maybe a client with a grudge had been released from prison recently."

Ava shook her head. "He'd just get all red in the face and say, ‘I hate that-' Well, I'd prefer not to repeat what he would say."

"Give me a break, Ava. We've established you're not exactly Emily Post. Tell me what he said."

"He'd say…‘I hate that twisted fucker.'"

"Twisted fucker? He called him a twisted fucker?"

"Yes, and it was odd, because he never used words like that, not around me. When I complained he told me everyone called him that."

And when Tess had told Jonathan not to refer to his source by that name, he had said the same thing. "It's not just me. It's practically his nickname." The twisted fucker.

"Ava, this is important. This guy could have been released from prison, he could have come after Abramowitz."

"No way. Not this guy."

"Why?"

"Because this man is on Death Row, I know that much. The only way he's leaving prison is on a gurney."

Death Row. Jonathan's source had been on Death Row, too. It had to be the same man. He had contacted him after he wrote about Abramowitz. The night before he died, Jonathan admitted the source was connected to the lawyer, but not to the lawyer's death. But Jonathan could have been wrong.

Tess stood up to leave. "You've actually been a big help, Ava, although I can't tell you how."

"You're not going to give that letter to the newspaper, right? That was our understanding."

"The letter? Oh, you mean Abramowitz's diary, with all that stuff about you in it? Well, I should tell you two things, Ava. First of all the newspaper could give a fuck about your story. It's not news and only an egomaniac would think it was. The second thing is-I made it all up. Oh, Abramowitz was gay, but he never mentioned you, or your attempted seduction, although he did work out some practice questions for you. I lied to get you to talk to me, Ava. I owed you that much, don't you think?"

Ava dropped the glass of wine in her lap, spilling the dark red burgundy. Tess had been wrong: The wine and the dress were not the same color. The wine made a satisfyingly dark stain across the skirt of her dress, then ran down the sofa to the rug. Yes, that color did look nice next to the green.

"You know, my mom always uses plastic slipcovers on the good furniture," Tess told Ava. "You might want to try that, given your problems holding on to wineglasses."

Tess did not have to dig far through her file of Abramowitz clippings to guess the identity of the twisted fucker. The "nickname" was a play on the man's real name-Tucker Fauquier. During his trial his name had become a spoonerism of sorts, with would-be wits calling him "that fuckin' queer." Times had changed. "Fucker" was more acceptable, "queer" less so. Fauquier had, wittingly perhaps, provided the alternative. In one of the clips from the newspaper file, he called himself "one twisted fucker." Actually, Tess saw, he had called himself "one twisted f____________________," but even a child could have solved that puzzle.

"I was lucky to have a lawyer like Michael Abramowitz," he had told the reporter. That was after his conviction for the one killing with a witness, after he had pleaded guilty to the other murders, receiving so many sequential life sentences he would have to top Methuselah's 900 years before he would qualify for release.

Why had his gratitude metamorphosed into rancor? Tess slumped back in her chair and tried to find an answer. Was it simply because death seemed more likely now than it had ten years ago, when it appeared Maryland would never again execute someone? Was it the result of time alone, time to think up new grievances? She studied the old photo of Fauquier, his arm slung around his lawyer's neck. It was Abramowitz who looked unhappy, staring down at his feet. Abramowitz, the man who was glad to receive mail from his other clients in prison, could not bear to be with Tucker Fauquier. Was it because he had lost the case? Or because, as a man grappling with his own sexuality, he could not bear the touch of someone who raped boys, then killed them so no one would ever know?

Fauquier had been Jonathan's source. Fauquier had been Abramowitz's client. Both men were dead. Did she dare go see him, too? She felt she had no choice. It was as if she were in a boat, a boat rushing forward of its own momentum along an unfamiliar route, with no coxswain to steer or warn her about obstacles in her path. Of course she could always stop, give up, go to the police or Tyner, tell them everything she knew. Or she could keep going.

She dialed her uncle Donald's number at work. He answered on the third ring, as he always did, hoping to seem busy.

"Tesser! Where were you last week? I had to write those damn things myself. How could you let me down like that?"

"I couldn't come back after Mom told me who was really paying my ‘salary.' I never wanted a handout, Uncle D. I don't need money that badly."

"Neither do I. And after doing this job on my own, I'm ready to double the price. Anything. Just come back to me." He sang the last line, adding: " On A Clear Day You Can See Forever . It was on cable the other night. If I sing like Yves Montand, will you take your job back?"

"No deal. I need a big favor from you. In all your state jobs, did you ever pass through the Department of Corrections? I have to get in to see a condemned inmate as quickly as possible."

"I did a DOC rotation a few years back. Deputy director of prisoner relations. You write a letter, the inmate has to give his consent, and the lawyer has to agree. It can take a long time, though. Tell you what: You write the letter and fax it to their office first thing tomorrow morning. I'll call someone I know over there and tell 'em-what will I tell 'em? Wait, there's a Monahan in Maryland who gives the governor a lot of money. Spelled without the ‘g,' but who'll notice? I'll call a guy I know, whisper in his ear you're Monahan's granddaughter, doing a sociology thesis. They'll have you in by tomorrow afternoon."