Laura Lippman - Hardly Knew Her

“I’ve got a conscience, too, you know.” Tull looked offended.

Tess realized that it wasn’t something she knew that had prompted Tull to call her up, but something he wanted her to do. Yet Tull would not ask her directly because then he would be in her debt. He was a man, after all. But if she volunteered to do what he seemed to want, he would honor her next favor, and Tess was frequently in need of favors.

“I’ll talk to him. See if he’ll open up to his tag-team partner.”

Tull didn’t even so much as nod to acknowledge the offer. It was as if Tess’s acquiescence were a belch, or something else that wouldn’t be commented on in polite company.

THE SHOESHINE MAN-William Harrison, Tess reminded herself, she had a name for him now-lived in a neat bungalow just over the line in what was known as the Woodlawn section of Baltimore County. Forty years ago, Mr. Harrison would have been one of its first black residents and he would have been denied entrance to the amusement park only a few blocks from his house. Now the neighborhood was more black than white, but still middle-class.

A tiny woman answered the door to Mr. Harrison’s bungalow, her eyes bright and curious.

“Mrs. Harrison?”

“Miss.” There was a note of reprimand for Tess’s assumption.

“My name is Tess Monaghan. I met your brother two nights ago in the, um, fracas.”

“Oh, he felt so bad about that. He said it was shameful, how the only person who wanted to help him was a girl. He found it appalling.”

She drew out the syllables of the last word as if it gave her some special pleasure.

“It was so unfair what happened to him. And then this mix-up with the warrant…”

The bright catlike eyes narrowed a bit. “What do you mean by ‘mix-up’?”

“Mr. Harrison just doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of man who could kill someone.”

“Well, he says he was.” Spoken matter-of-factly, as if the topic were the weather or something else of little consequence. “I knew nothing about it, of course. The warrant or the murder.”

“Of course,” Tess agreed. This woman did not look like someone who had been burdened with a loved one’s secret for four decades. Where her brother was stooped and grave, she had the regal posture of a short woman intent on using every inch given her. But there was something blithe, almost gleeful, beneath her dignity. Did she not like her brother?

“It was silly of William”-she stretched the name out, giving it a grand, growling pronunciation, Will-yum-“to tell his story and sign the statement, without even talking to a lawyer. I told him to wait, to see what they said, but he wouldn’t.”

“But if you knew nothing about it…”

“Nothing about it until two nights ago,” Miss Harrison clarified. That was the word that popped into Tess’s head, “clarified,” and she wondered at it. Clarifications were what people made when things weren’t quite right.

“And were you shocked?”

“Oh, he had a temper when he was young. Anything was possible.”

“Is your brother at home?”

“He’s at work. We still have to eat, you know.” Now she sounded almost angry. “He didn’t think of that, did he, when he decided to be so noble. I told him, this house may be paid off, but we still have to eat and buy gas for my car. Did you know they cut your Social Security off when you go to prison?”

Tess did not. She had relatives who were far from pure, but they had managed to avoid doing time. So far.

“Well,” Miss Harrison said, “they do. But Will-yum didn’t think of that, did he? Men are funny that way. They’re so determined to be gallant”-again, the word was spoken with great pleasure, the tone of a child trying to be grand-“that they don’t think things through. He may feel better, but what about me?”

“Do you have no income, then?”

“I worked as a laundress. You don’t get a pension for being a laundress. My brother, however, was a custodian for Social Security, right here in Woodlawn.”

“I thought he shined shoes.”

“Yes, now.” Miss Harrison was growing annoyed with Tess. “But not always. William was enterprising, even as a young man. He worked as a custodian at Social Security, which is why he has Social Security. But he took on odd jobs, shined shoes. He hates to be idle. He won’t like prison, no matter what he thinks.”

“He did odd jobs for the man he killed, right?”

“Some. Not many. Really, hardly any at all. They barely knew each other.”

Miss Harrison seemed to think this mitigated the crime somehow, that the superficiality of the relationship excused her brother’s deed.

“Police always thought it was a burglary?” Tess hoped her tone would invite a confidence, or at least another clarification.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. That, too. Things were taken. Everyone knew that.”

“So you were familiar with the case, but not your brother’s connection to it?”

“Well, I knew the man. Maurice Dickman. We lived in the neighborhood, after all. And people talked, of course. It was a big deal, murder, forty years ago. Not the happenstance that it’s become. But he was a showy man. He thought awfully well of himself, because he had money and a business. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made such a spectacle of himself and then no one would have tried to steal from him. You know what the Bible says, about the rich man and the camel and the eye of the needle? It’s true, you know. Not always, but often enough.”

“Why did your brother burglarize his home? Was that something else he did to supplement his paycheck? Is that something he still does?”

“My brother,” Miss Harrison said, drawing herself up so she gained yet another inch, “is not a thief.”

“But-”

“I don’t like talking to you,” she said abruptly. “I thought you were on our side, but I see now I was foolish. I know what happened. You called the police. You talked about pressing charges. If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened. You’re a terrible person. Forty years, and trouble never came for us, and then you undid everything. You have brought us nothing but grief, which we can ill afford.”

She stamped her feet, an impressive gesture, small though they were. Stamped her feet and went back inside the house, taking a moment to latch the screen behind her, as if Tess’s manners were so suspect that she might try to follow where she clearly wasn’t wanted.

THE SHOESHINE MAN DID WORK at Penn Station, after all, stationed in front of the old-fashioned wooden seats that always made Tess cringe a bit. There was something about one man perched above another that didn’t sit quite right with her, especially when the other man was bent over the enthroned one’s shoes.

Then again, pedicures probably looked pretty demeaning, too, depending on one’s perspective.

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Harrison, about the mess I’ve gotten you into.” She had refused to sit in his chair, choosing to lean against the wall instead.

“Got myself into, truth be told. If I hadn’t thrown that soda can, none of this would have happened. I could have gone another forty years without anyone bothering me.”

“But you could go to prison.”

“Looks that way.” He was almost cheerful about it.

“You should get a lawyer, get that confession thrown out. Without it, they’ve got nothing.”

“They’ve got a closed case, that’s what they’ve got. A closed case. And maybe I’ll get probation.”

“It’s not a bad bet, but the stakes are awfully high. Even with a five-year sentence, you might die in prison.”

“Might not,” he said.

“Still, your sister seems pretty upset.”

“Oh, Mattie’s always getting upset about something. Our mother thought she was doing right by her, teaching her those Queen of Sheba manners, but all she did was make her perpetually disappointed. Now if Mattie had been born just a decade later, she might have had a different life. But she wasn’t, and I wasn’t, and that’s that.”