Laura Lippman - In Big Trouble

"She'll never be able to eat that," the attendant said. But he must have liked dogs better than humans. He stroked the dog's snout and scratched behind her ears, crooning something in Spanish.

"She eats charcoal briquets, too," Tess said. "Look, isn't there anywhere I can find a room? It doesn't have to be downtown. All I need is a place with a phone and a bed, something clean and safe."

Esskay coughed up a gnawed piece of red candy. Cinammon, Tess guessed. She didn't like spicy things.

"How loose are your standards on cleanliness and safety?" the attendant asked, as he looked for something to wipe up the pinkish drool on his counter. "I know a place maybe fifteen minutes from here, on Broadway next to the park. Look, I'll even call ahead for you, make sure they hold something."

"Great," Tess said. "What's it called?"

" La Casita. Ask for the daily rate. It's a better deal."

"As opposed to the weekly?"

He stifled a laugh. "As opposed to the hourly."

Mornings were quiet at La Casita, in marked contrast to the nights. Tess woke to the sound of a local news program, coming in on the television's only working channel. The television was bolted to the stand, just in case anyone developed a hankering for a 15-year-old Samsung sans remote.

Tess rolled out of bed and put on fresh clothes, taking a perverse pleasure in the spareness of her surroundings. Her clothes, her toothbrush, her copy of Don Quixote . It was Friday, she realized as she pulled on that day's allotment of underwear. She'd have to buy some Woolite, or drop in at a laundromat soon.

For a hooker motel, La Casita was nice enough, a Southwestern version of the Route 40 motor court that Tess had camped outside not even two weeks ago. Funny, it seemed like months had passed since that day, although in the wrong direction. When she cracked open the door of room number 103, the warm Texas autumn was so much like summer that she felt as if she had gone backward in time.

"Is it safe to walk around here?" she asked the elderly Vietnamese woman who sat in the front office, behind a Plexiglas shield with a pass-through for keys and money.

"Very safe, very safe," Mrs. Nguyen said. "Even in the park, very safe. Chris Marrou on Channel 5 said . You can walk to the river from here, walk to zoo, ride in the little cars on the wires, the ones above the trees."

"Sounds good."

Mrs. Nguyen shook her finger at her through the bullet-proof glass. "But don't talk to strangers, bad boys who ask you to go for ride, drink beer. They not good. Not good. They do things to girls who go with them. Chris Marrou said ."

Although Tess didn't know this local oracle, Mrs. Nguyen's warning made her feel cozy and cared for. She headed up Broadway, in order to get her bearings before trying the park. The neighborhood around La Casita wasn't seedy, but it had a jumbled look to it, as if it wasn't quite sure what it was, or what it wanted to be. There were inexpensive ethnic restaurants, the familiar fast-food chains, some upscale antiques stores, a secondhand book store, and the clothing store opened by Selena, the young Mexican-American singer killed by her own fan club president a few years back. Maybe Tess would go back to Baltimore with a sequined halter.

Within a few blocks, she came to a large museum set back from the street. The Witte Natural History Museum, according to its sign. She and Esskay walked around this and found themselves in a shadowy lane parallel to Broadway, on the park's edge. The zoo must be nearby-she had been able to hear a lion's roar last night. At least, she hoped it was a lion. Where was the river, though? If it were like Austin's Town Lake, maybe she could rent a scull somewhere. She missed rowing, her day felt unfinished without it.

But the San Antonio River proved to be a narrow, sluggish channel, smaller and shallower than the streams back home. "I thought everything was supposed to be bigger in Texas," she scoffed to Esskay. She'd be running and jumping rope for exercise as long as she was in San Antonio. She scouted a route and found a long, steep hill that ran above an amphitheater and past a Japanese-style garden.

Funny-she was worrying about running for exercise, when she should be worried about the fact that she was on the run. She would have to call Kitty, or Kitty's machine, and leave a detailed message about what to say if a certain sheriff called. Keith would play his part perfectly, for he truly believed she was heading back to Baltimore.

At the foot of the park, on a street called Mulberry, she stopped at a convenience store and bought breakfast-a large cup of coffee, a pint of orange juice, and a bag of Fig Newtons-and some dry dog food, dog treats, and a spiral-bound map book. It occurred to her she had gone almost five days without a bagel, and this single fact made her feel truly dislocated.

Back in the gloom of La Casita, she and Esskay stretched across the synthetic flowery spread and nibbled on Fig Newtons together as Tess paged through the phone book, which was thicker than she had expected. Even so, she found what she was looking for easily enough. Marianna Barrett Conyers lived on a street named for a sock, Argyle. There was no husband's name twinned with hers, and no coy initials to disguise the fact of a woman alone. Tess liked that in a woman, but only because it made a private investigator's job easier. She wouldn't have her own home number in the phone book for anything. Like most people who made their livings invading the privacy of others, she had become intensely protective of her own.

"Don't people know how easy it is to find them?" she asked Esskay. The dog appeared to think about this for a moment, then nudged Tess with her nose, demanding another cookie. Tess gave her a liver treat instead.

"Most people," Tess amended. "Everybody but the one person we want to find."

As it happened, Marianna Barrett Conyers wasn't quite that easy to find. According to the map, her house sat somewhere among a curving grid of streets in a place known as Alamo Heights, but Tess kept ending up on a long, narrow road below a flood plain, which took her away from the neighborhood and into another, similar-looking one on the wrong side of the highway. Finally, after she had crossed back for the third time, she found the right house.

It looked shy, if a house could be called that. The stucco exterior had been painted a soft olive green, the trim just one shade darker, allowing the house to disappear into the trees and plantings around it. Don't notice me, the house murmured. Drive on by, leave me alone.

A maid in a gray uniform answered the door, a tiny Mexican-American woman brandishing a broom. She looked at Tess as if she were a piece of dirt she wanted to sweep away as quickly as possible.

"You want to see Mrs. Conyers? What for? Who are you? She know you? I didn't think so. What do you want?"

Although the maid barely came up to her collarbone, Tess found herself taking a step back, out of arm's length, if not broom's length. "It's about what happened up at her country place," she said when the maid finally ran out of breath. She assumed Sheriff Kolarik had been in touch by now, that she need not go into too much gory detail.

"They've been here. She knows. It's got nothing to do with her. Goodbye. We don't want any." The maid started to close the door on her, as Tess braced it with her foot. She didn't want to come on too strong, but she wasn't leaving without making her best effort.

"There are still things that have to be…discussed." Tess was trying to imply an official role without claiming one. "I was the one who found the body, you know."

"Really?" The maid was intrigued, but only for a moment. "So what?"

A voice called out from somewhere within the house. "Oh, let her in, Dolores. I guess I can stand two callers in one day."