Laura Lippman - The Sugar House

“As you wish,” Adam said, and he led her up a flight of stairs.

“Library” was a misnomer. One wall was filled with books, but the other three were covered with portraits-oil paintings, watercolors, charcoal sketches. No windows, Tess noted, and only one door. Only one way in, and only one way out. She studied the artworks, each hung as a museum might display them, in ornate frames and with indirect lighting. But they were so crowded, the effect was diminished. Why not spread them throughout the house? Tess recognized a Modigliani and a Dégas, but she knew the latter only because the girl wore ballet garb. It was a bit unsettling, all these faces staring at her.

Meyer Hammersmith sat in a high-backed chair, one of only two pieces of furniture in the room. The other was a chaise longue, whose red velvet upholstery and sinuous lines gave it a decadent feel. Tess could not see herself perched on such a thing under any circumstances, but especially not for this meeting. Adam Moss also declined the chaise, standing a few feet to Tess’s right, which happened to put him between her and the door.

“Miss Monaghan?” Meyer Hammersmith did not rise, nor offer his hand. This close up, he bore a marked resemblance to a snapping turtle, with his mottled tanned skull, beaky nose, and downturned, rheumy eyes. Even the small hands that poked from the sleeve of his wool jacket were like a turtle’s stunted, wrinkled legs. Tess was reminded of an old-fashioned recipe for terrapin, once a prized delicacy in Maryland: Throw the turtle in the pot for one hour, until all dirt is cleansed from the body. Then remove the toenails and the scales -

“You are Miss Monaghan?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“Adam said you had a favor to ask of me.”

“I’ve come to you to ask to guarantee my family’s safety. My family, my friends, my dog-if you can promise me that they’ll be safe, I’ll do whatever you want.”

Meyer held up a finger, as if to warn her. “You should be more careful. ‘Whatever’ is quite a lot to promise. After all, who knows what I want?”

Adam Moss shifted his weight from one side to the other, but said nothing.

“I’m ready to do whatever is necessary to protect the people I love,” Tess said. She reached into her pocket, made contact with her gun, withdrew her hand, feeling assured. “Or to stop doing it, to be more precise. I don’t know what I’ve done that has put them at risk, or what I’ve stepped in. But I give you my word I’m stopping. I’ll sign something, if that’s what you want, give up my investigator’s license if I have to. All I ask is that you stop.”

“Miss Monaghan, I don’t know who you are. I never heard of you before you sought this meeting, although I know your uncle, Donald Weinstein, by reputation.”

Something in his tone suggested it wasn’t a very good reputation. This hurt, but Tess knew she had to withstand such petty insults.

“Adam knows me.” Hammersmith looked at Adam, who gave the smallest of nods. “And you and Adam are the powers behind the throne, right? You’re the ones who are orchestrating Dahlgren’s congressional run. Toward what end, I can’t guess and I no longer care. Just tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll forget about Gwen Schiller and Henry Dembrow and Domenick’s Bar. For what it’s worth, I never did figure out how it was connected to Dahlgren, or either of you.”

But I must have been close , she wanted to say. I must have gotten real close if people had to die and houses had to burn .

In another part of her mind, she also wanted to say: I’m sorry, Gwen. I’m so sorry I have to give you up. But you’re dead, I can’t save you.

Hammersmith blinked his turtle eyes, blinked them again. “I am Senator Dahlgren’s finance chairman. My only concern is to amass a war chest so formidable that other Democrats will think twice before entering the race. Adam is on Dahlgren’s legislative staff. He has no official role in the campaign, although he does occasionally help us with opposition research.”

“Opposition research? Oh, you mean digging up dirt on potential rivals.”

“As you wish,” Hammersmith said.

“Do you limit yourself to research, or do you actively create opportunities for blackmail, by sending Nicola DeSanti’s girls to local hotels to meet lonely politicos?” She was thinking of Gene Fulton, escorting the pseudo-waitress from Domenick’s to Harbor Court Hotel.

If there was any expression to be read on Hammersmith’s face, it was boredom. “An interesting idea and I wouldn’t be surprised if such things have happened. Nicola has been very active in Democratic politics over the years. But you don’t have to fight that dirty, Miss Monaghan, when you have money and a squeaky clean candidate. Backbenchers have their advantages. They’re too unimportant to be bribed, or get into trouble. No one has anything on Kenny Dahlgren, because he hasn’t done anything. He’s never even carried a major piece of legislation.”

“Then why did you have my parents’ house torched? Why did someone try to kill Devon Whittaker, just because she was the last person to speak to Gwen Schiller?”

Tess did not flatter herself by thinking she was a remarkable judge of character, not with two men this calculating. But it seemed to her there was a subtle difference in their reactions. Adam looked at Hammersmith as if to say, What she’s talking about? , while Hammersmith merely looked to the side, studying the long, lean face of his Modigliani.

“Surely you’re mistaken,” Hammersmith said. “This has no connection to us.”

“I think it does.” Her voice was still hesitant and deferential, but she was feeling stronger. If Hammersmith and Moss had withheld secrets from one another, it gave her leverage. “A week ago, I asked for phone records from a pay phone in Locust Point. Adam Moss requested the same records, even before I did. One of the calls on that log was to Devon Whittaker. I don’t know who Adam gave the information to-maybe he used it himself, although I rather doubt it-but Devon’s companion was killed and the killer was waiting for Devon when I got there.”

Now Hammersmith appeared genuinely confused, while Adam Moss glanced nervously from him to Tess and back again. “I didn’t-I mean, yes, I picked up the phone logs. Dahlgren said he had a constituent who needed those records. I didn’t ask why.”

“Did Dahlgren tell you the constituent’s name?”

Adam Moss shook his head. “Part of my job is knowing when not to ask questions. He told me it was a favor for someone from the Stonewall Democratic Club. It’s the kind of favor he does all the time and it’s not completely kosher, but it’s pretty harmless. But I’d never be a party to-I mean, murder. That was never part of the arrangement.”

“What was the ‘arrangement’?”

The two men were eyeing each other now, each suspicious in his own right. Hammersmith had not known about the phone logs. Adam had not known about the house fire, or the attempt on Devon’s life. Yet neither man had asked her: Who is Gwen Schiller? Which meant they knew.

Hammersmith spoke first: “About two years ago, I asked Kenneth Dahlgren to take Adam Moss on as his aide. Dahlgren did this as a personal favor to me. He was resistant at first, for Adam’s résumé was-well, let’s say it had some gaps. But he has a natural instinct for politics and Dahlgren has been extremely happy with his performance.”

“Did you agree to become his finance chairman in exchange for his hiring Adam?”

“No,” Hammersmith said. Another surprise for Adam Moss, Tess noted. He looked truly perplexed now, brows drawn tight over his dark eyes. “That was an unrelated negotiation.”