Laura Lippman: The Sugar House

“My brother was named Henry Dembrow,” Ruthie clarified, in case Tess couldn’t put that together. Her dad must have done quite a sales job on her abilities.

The conversation stalled, as it had stalled several times in the ten mintues they had been sitting in the bar. Ruthie Dembrow didn’t seem to have a clue how to begin her tale of woe, which made her unusual in Tess’s experience. Sure, she had known would-be clients who hemmed and hawed at first, primarily because they disliked telling a stranger about intimate problems. She also was used to people who couldn’t tell a story for anything, who thought the beginning went about as far back as Genesis, and that every tangential thought, every narrative cul de sac, must be explored en route.

But even the worst of the lot-the stammerers, the blushers, the liars, especially the liars-had an opening line or two. They had rehearsed them, standing in front of bathroom mirrors, or talking under their breaths as they drove. They were Hamlet, this was their soliloquy, the first and last time they might hold an audience in their hands.

Not Ruthie, though. Tess was going to have to pull it out of her.

“Why do you need a private detective?”

“Last year…well, almost thirteen months ago.” She took a long swallow on her Miller Lite. Her hands were shaking. “I’m sorry.”

“Take your time.”

“It’s like this, Tess.” Her named sounded strange, coming from those plump, coral-flecked lips, although Tess couldn’t have said why. “My brother Henry killed a girl last year. It was an accident-they were sniffing glue in my backyard. He panicked when she tried to get into our house. He thought she was going to try and take some stuff, I guess. Anyway, she fell, cracking her head open on the pavement. But he admitted it, he took responsibility for what he did. Right from the very beginning, he didn’t try to make any excuses.”

She paused, green eyes wide and solemn, as if waiting for Tess to acknowledge the remarkable moral fiber of her brother, this veritable modern-day George Washington. I cannot tell a lie, I cracked her head open while fighting over some airplane glue.

“Uh-huh,” Tess said, nodding and smiling. As long as you nodded and smiled, she had learned, it didn’t matter what you were saying.

“He went to trial, got ten years, and was sent to Hagerstown this past summer. It wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.”

“No, not at all.” It was, for example, better than having your brains oozing out of your head on some concrete patio in Locust Point.

“It was his last chance to clean up, you see. Prison, I mean. They have a Narcotics Anonymous group there. It was his chance to get clean for once. I hope you don’t think I sound cold, but in some ways it was the happiest day in my life when I saw Henry go off to Hagerstown. Nothing else had worked. No matter what I did, he always went back to huffing.”

“I hear that literally destroys brain cells,” Tess offered, then felt fatuous. Ruthie was probably an unwilling expert on the topic.

“It’s a stupid high,” Ruthie said, inhaling fiercely on her cigarette. “Look, I’m no angel. I like to drink. If I have a gentleman friend, I drink with him. If I’m alone, I might drink a beer or two. When I was working two jobs and going to community college, I took speed to get through exams. But sniffing glue and spray paint, sneaking up on gas pumps-I can’t imagine anything dumber. I kicked Henry out three times in the last two years.”

Tess dropped the smile, which now seemed inappropriate, but continued to nod.

“I also took him back three times. He was my baby brother, I practically raised him after our mother died.”

“Was there a big age difference?”

“Eighteen years. He was a change-of-life baby. Mother died of lung cancer before he was two.” Ruthie sucked on her cigarette as if to taunt whatever gods she believed in. “She was forty-seven. Dad made it to fifty-five before he went. Brain tumor.”

In another city, or another neighborhood, perhaps this double dose of tragedy would have been shocking. But cancer was one area where Maryland stayed competitive, year in and year out, thanks to families like the Dembrows. Bad habits, bad diets, bad workplaces.

Tess realized Ruthie had spoken of her brother in the past tense.

“Henry didn’t make it, did he?”

Ruthie shook her head. “He was stabbed to death his first month in Hagerstown. His first month. There was a fight, and the guards all went running to one part, Henry was left where he was, nobody around. But when it was over, Henry was the one who was dead. I thought Hagerstown was going to save him, but it ended up being the death of him.”

Fairly classic prison shanking scenario, but Tess didn’t think this assessment would comfort Ruthie Dembrow. It was a sad story, too, and one Ruthie carried with not a little guilt. Maybe her eyes, and her mouth and her hair had not always been so hard.

Still, Tess couldn’t see where a private investigator came into play. She wondered if Ruthie was going to try and sue the state, claim the guards were negligent in her brother’s death. If so, she wanted no part of it. Tess was probably Ruthie’s last resort, the only person left after being turned down by every ambulance chaser in the city. There was just no money to be made suing state government. They were careful to write the laws so their mistakes carried no penalties. A guy who had served ten years for a robbery he hadn’t committed, who had lost most of his twenties to the state prison system, had gotten $250,000, parceled out over six years. The credit card commercials said some things were priceless, but Maryland ’s Board of Public Works had come up with a pretty exact figure for a man’s youth.

But that man had been innocent at least. Henry Dembrow had killed a woman. Tess didn’t believe in the death penalty, but she didn’t lose too much sleep over fate getting the job done.

“I’m not a lawyer, Ruthie. I’m an investigator.”

“I know that.”

“So what do you want from me?” She knew she sounded impatient and not a little crass, but she was to meet Crow for dinner in less than forty-five minutes.

“I want to know why my brother was killed.”

“Ask the prison officials.”

“They say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Not very satisfying, but the truth seldom is. Why would they lie?”

“I don’t think they’re lying. I think they don’t care.” Ruthie leaned toward Tess. “But isn’t it awfully coincidental, my brother getting killed after he killed someone?”

Tess managed, with great effort, not to sigh or shrug. “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Killers serve time alongside other killers. I’ve even heard that some of these guys are not successfully rehabilitated by the system.”

“You know, you remind me of your dad.”

“Really?” Tess almost never heard this. Although her hair had glints of red in it, and she freckled during the summer, her mother’s dark good looks and strong features had crowded most of the Monaghan influence out of her face.

“Yeah, you both think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

“My dad thinks he’s funny?” Tess wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass, it just slipped out. She had never noticed Patrick had much of a sense of humor. Then again, maybe this was his idea of a joke. “Look, you said I was going to be intrigued by what you had to tell me. So far, I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat.”

“Maybe it’s time to strap yourself in. Ever heard of a Jane Doe killing?”

Tess finished off her beer and looked for the waitress, hoping to signal for the check. “Sure. They find a body, they can’t identify it at first, maybe not ever. Jane Doe, John Doe. Happens all the time.”