Laura Lippman: The Sugar House

The waitress took their orders, sour beef all around, and everyone wanted an extra dumpling, although Tess debated with herself back and forth. Diet averse, she believed one should always eat what one wanted, but knowing what one wanted-ah, that was another question altogether.

No longer able to contain herself, she leaned forward: “Who’s the pretty boy with Dahlgren?”

“Adam Moss, his chief of staff,” her father said. “Came down from Massachusetts, I think. Has a rep for being very bright, very quick. People underestimated him at first, him being so young and all. But I hear he’s good. Good enough that someone tried to start a rumor he was queer, hoping it would tarnish Dahlgren.”

“C’mon,” Crow said, eyes bright. He loved anything that smacked of inside information. “Being gay doesn’t matter anymore. Look at Barney Frank.”

Patrick gave Crow a smile so patronizing Tess wanted to kick him under the table. “ You look at Barney Frank. Things haven’t changed as much as you think. People started gossiping about Moss because they wanted to create trouble for Dahlgren. But it didn’t work. Dahlgren’s married to his high school sweetheart, had twin daughters a year ago.”

“A week before Election Day,” Spike said. “Had his wife induced and held a press conference at the hospital.”

“Why are you so hard on Dahlgren?” Patrick asked Spike.

“Why are you so soft? He forced out Senator Ditter, the guy who got you appointed to the liquor board, in one of the ugliest, dirtiest primaries I ever seen. Ditter was a good guy. These new inspectors that Dahlgren appointed, they’re such sticklers they take all the fun out of running a tavern. It’s enough to make a man think about gettin’ out of the business.”

“Ditter did himself in, with that kickback scandal, and almost brought down all of us with him,” Patrick spoke slowly, as if the memory still caused him some pain. Tess remembered when they had come for Ditter, how helpless her father had been to help his old patron. “Dahlgren could have pushed for a total housecleaning of my office, forced us all to resign just to make a show of how he was starting fresh. But he let those of us who were already there prove ourselves. That’s class.”

The moment was tense, and it was a godsend when plates started appearing before them. They had given their food orders to a short, wizened woman with cropped gray hair and bifocals on a beaded chain. The woman who returned with their food was considerably younger-and friendlier, at least to the men.

“An extra extra dumpling for you, hon,” she said to Pat. She was around forty, with the kind of compact, curvy body that aged well, as long as the waist stayed slim. Hers had. In a tight green sweater and matching eye shadow, she was a classic Baltimore hon, knockout variety.

“Thanks, Ruthie. You already know Spike. This is my daughter, Tess.”

“And Crow,” Tess prompted. “Crow Ransome, my boyfriend .”

“And Crow,” her father echoed weakly.

Ruthie inspected Tess. “This the one?”

“My onliest one.”

“She looks awfully young.”

“She’s thirty.”

“Well, honey, that is young.”

“She’s wise beyond her years, though. And a hard worker, too.”

What was her father doing, trying to sell a horse? Tess had an uneasy feeling Ruthie was about to pry open her mouth and start counting teeth.

Instead, the waitress frowned and said: “Well, I’m pretty busy here.”

“Sure. I just wanted you to meet. We’ll talk later, all of us. Maybe go to one of the old places around here.”

“Not around here,” Ruthie said shortly. “I like to get out of Locust Point sometimes.”

“Frigo’s then. For old time’s sake.”

“Frigo’s?” Ruthie took a minute to think. “Why not? It will bring back some memories, won’t it?”

She edged away, hips swaying in such an exaggerated fashion that they bounced off men’s shoulders as she moved between the tables.

“What was that about, Dad?”

“Nothing much.”

“Dad.” Tess crammed thirty years of hard-earned petulance into that one whine of a syllable. “What are you and ‘Ruthie’ going to discuss at Frigo’s?”

“You’ll be there, too,” her father assured her. “It’s not as if we’re plotting behind your back.”

“ Dad .”

Her father pressed his fork through one of his dumplings and took a large mouthful that apparently required much careful chewing before he could speak again. “She needs a private investigator. I recommended you.”

“I don’t need the work,” Tess said reflexively, almost truthfully. Between her last case, which had paid far more than she ever dreamed, and the recent sale of some family property, she was flush by her standards. Five figures in her bank account, and that wasn’t counting the zeroes to the right of the decimal point.

“It’s an interesting case,” her father said. “I’ve never heard of anything quite like it.”

“Tell me in twenty-five words or less.”

“Tonight. Frigo’s. That’s two words. Look, you’ll like Ruthie. She’s good people. We go back.”

“How far back?” Tess asked.

“She was a barmaid around here, then at Frigo’s, while she was going to community college for a bookkeeping degree. Didn’t she even work for you for a while there, Spike?”

“Yeah, just for a little while, before she went to Frigo’s. Fifteen years ago? Something like that.”

“Thirteen years ago,” her father corrected.

“How precise your memory is,” Tess said. “If Ruthie is such a dear friend, how come I’ve never heard of her before?”

“Maybe he’s taking ginkgo biloba,” Crow suggested. “Although it’s my theory that memory isn’t really affected by age. You just have so much more to remember, the longer you live. And, unlike a computer, you can’t run a program to tidy up everything in there.”

Now that he was the beneficiary of Crow’s aimless chatter, Patrick seemed to find him absolutely charming. “You know much about computers? I hear that’s a good field to get into. Lots of money. Start a little company and then-boom-you’re a rich man.”

“It’s not for me,” Crow said. “I need more interaction with people. I was thinking of going to Baltimore Culinary College, but I feel as if I’ve been in school forever. Don’t worry about me, Pat. I’m finding my way.”

He smiled sunnily at Pat, who tried to smile back. Such a slacker mentality must be pretty alien to her father, Tess thought. At Crow’s age, Patrick Monaghan had been a husband and a father, working in the job he held to this day. If he were ever unhappy or unfulfilled in his work-well, he had never assumed there was an alternative.

Tess’s eyes tracked Ruthie as she worked the parish hall. She had the moves of a former barmaid-she could dip and weave with the heavy trays, pivot at a moment’s notice, without ever spilling a drop of gravy. She also could turn her “customer face” on and off at will. At one point, she ended up in the senator’s path, and the two orbited one another, fake smiles in place. The only difference was that Ruthie dropped her smile once their little dance was done, while Dahlgren’s never slipped.

“So did you and Ruthie decide on a time for ‘our’ meeting?” Tess asked.

“After I get off work, about six-thirty? You like Frigo’s, they have good mozzarella sticks.” Her father knew her so well. Well enough to know she’d be hungry in five hours, no matter how many dumplings she had. Well enough to know that her curiousity alone would pull her to Frigo’s, with or without good mozzarella sticks.

“That would work,” Crow said. “We’re going to drive up to Hampden to see the miracle on Thirty-fourth Street. You know, the one block that goes crazy with Christmas lights? Then we’re meeting Whitney for dinner. But our reservation isn’t until eight-thirty.”