Laura Lippman - The Sugar House

“You shouldn’t be drinking eggnog anyway,” Judith said. “You have to watch your cholesterol. Not to mention what can happen eating raw eggs.”

Their house seemed to sigh and settle just then, as if to remind them cholesterol and salmonella were not the only threats to one’s longevity.

“Why would someone want to burn down our house?” Judith asked.

“It might not be arson,” Patrick said, but he didn’t sound convinced. There was, after all, the matter of a body on his front lawn. “The wiring’s always been a little off.”

The fire captain came over to them.

“If it hadn’t been for the wind tonight, we might have been able to save it. As it is, I’m afraid it’s a total loss.”

“That’s okay,” Patrick said. “I’ve got everything I need right here.” He hugged Judith and Tess closer to him. “Do you know what happened, though? I mean, the body you found-”

“We think he was an intruder. There’s glass inside the house, from where a pane on the kitchen door was broken. The fire appears to have been started there, and that’s where we found him when we arrived. The M.E. is going to have to autopsy him. My guess is he slipped on the gasoline he had spread and knocked himself out while trying to get away from the very fire he started.”

“An intruder?” Patrick asked. “You mean a burglar?”

“Well, he didn’t take anything out of the house, as far as we can tell. We’re assuming it’s his car we found parked in the alley, although we won’t be able to make a positive ID until he’s in the medical examiner’s office. Car could be stolen, for all we know, but police say they have no report, not yet.”

Tess asked, “Did you check the registration?”

“Eugene H. Fulton, address on Erdman. Mean anything to you?”

The name seemed to float above their heads, another piece of charred debris from the fire. Gene Fulton. Her father’s colleague. The liquor board inspector with the side gig at Domenick’s.

“Why would Gene Fulton want to burn down our house?” Judith asked.

“I don’t know,” Pat said, looking at Tess. “What do you think, Tess? You got any theories about why Gene Fulton would be holding a grudge against me?”

Her mouth was dry, her throat raw from the smoke and the cold. “I’m not sure.”

The case was like a stray cat, she thought to herself. She kept trying to take it farther and farther away from herself and her family, only to come home and find it on the doorstep every night.

“You didn’t stop, did you? I asked you to do this one thing for me, I begged you. I told you that you were in over your head, and you still couldn’t listen to me.”

“No one knew what I was doing,” Tess said. “I was careful, I swear.”

“Why were you doing anything at all, Tess?” Her father’s voice was even, emotionless, and she realized he was as angry as she had ever seen him. “What’s really at stake here? The death of some glue-sniffing turd, a spoiled rich girl who ran away from all the help her parents were trying to give her, so she could be a whore in Southwest Baltimore.”

“I don’t think Gwen Schiller was-”

“A whore,” Patrick repeated. “A whore who was killed by a junkie, and then someone killed him in prison, which is what he deserved. So what? Why are their lives worth so much to you, and mine so little? I’m homeless and I’ll be jobless before they get through with me. This was a warning, a little bonfire to scare you off, and it got out of control. But just because Gene’s dead from his own stupidity doesn’t mean it won’t get leaked, what I did all those years ago. Did for you, Tess. Only for you.”

Judith looked genuinely confused. So he had held her harmless, too, fed her the same bullshit story about the scholarship.

“Daddy, I’m sorry. I never meant for this to come back on you. I thought-”

“You thought you could do whatever you wanted to. You always have. Did I ever give you any grief for the decisions you made? Did I mind that you went off to some overpriced fancy college and majored in English? Did I ever ask you to get a real boyfriend, or even a real job, one where you don’t sit in a car all day taking photographs of people cheating on their spouses and insurance companies? Everything I did, I did for you. By the way-” he pulled a rectangular jewelry box from his pocket. “This is what I was doing tonight. This was my errand. We went to see your Uncle Jules, because he gave us a deal on your Christmas present. You don’t have to open it, I’ll tell you what’s inside. It’s a watch, a goddamn gold watch because I knew even if you made it fifty years at your crappy little business, there’d be no one to give you anything. Merry fucking Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.”

Her father walked away and Judith, after one anguished look back at Tess, followed him. The fire captain interceded, began asking them questions, wanted to know if they needed a place to stay this evening. Do you have any family? Oh yes, plenty, Judith replied. Tess just stood where she was. It was bitter cold, she realized. But then it was December, it should be cold. The gingerbread men continued to twist in the wind. The gingerbread house had a gumdrop for a door knob. It was December. It was Christmas. It was cold.

Crow held her, angry not on his behalf, but on hers.

“He shouldn’t have said what he did. He’ll regret it. You were trying to do the right thing. One day he’ll understand that.”

“They could have died,” she said. “My parents could have been killed because of me.”

“Not even your father believes they were trying to kill him. Gene Fulton broke in while they were out. He wasn’t going to hurt them.”

“Not this time,” Tess said. “But what happens next? Last week it was Hilde. Tonight it was my parents’ house. Tomorrow it could be my parents. Or you. Or Jackie and Laylah. Or Whitney.” Tess realized she couldn’t begin to name all the people she loved, all the people who might be hurt in order to punish her. Such a list should have made her feel warm and happy, rich in relations. Tonight, all it made her feel was vulnerable.

“So what are you going to do, Tess?”

“The only thing I can do. Make a deal.”

MEYER HAMMERSMITH LIVED IN THE ONLY DETATCHED house in his block on Federal Hill. A limestone rectangle, it sat near the top of the hill that gave the neighborhood its name and it was in the Federal style, so its location could be considered doubly apt. The house was not particularly large-it was smaller, in fact, than many of the town houses arrayed in the same block-but because it stood apart, surrounded by an iron fence, it was a source of great status in Federal Hill.

Privacy , Tess thought, pressing the buzzer at the front gate, announcing her name and waiting for the lock to be released. Meyer Hammersmith is a man who values privacy .

Adam Moss opened the door. Tess expected him. She had gone through him to arrange this meeting, and he had told her Meyer would insist on this location. Dubious, she had resisted at first. Take it or leave it, Adam said. She took it. She knew she was going to have to take a lot before this was through.

“He’s waiting for you in the library,” Adam said. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he was nervous, but his manner was a shade less smooth than usual. He reached for her coat, but Tess stepped back, pulling it tighter around her, as if the house were cold. If anything, it was overheated, with the dry, crackly heat found in a run-down nursing home, the kind that ended up getting closed by the state.

“I’ll keep it with me,” she said. Her gun was in the right pocket, her cell phone in the left. She didn’t expect to use either, but she liked having them close.