Laura Lippman - Butchers Hill

"I always forget," Jackie said, putting down her fork. "The Women's Industrial Exchange is famous for its tomato aspic, so I order it. But I don't actually like tomato aspic."

Tess picked at her Charlotte Russe. Either it wasn't as good as she remembered, or else everything was beginning to taste like sawdust.

At least the media circus had finally decamped outside Tess's office. With no charges immediately forthcoming against Luther Beale, the television reporters had decided to pursue other scenarios, all tricked out with libel-proof question marks. Is there a serial killer in East Baltimore? Tess had heard that rhetorical question posed just this morning, as she dressed for work. The answer, of course, was no, unless one wanted to change the definition of serial killer, but no one actually cared about answers in the case of Luther Beale.

It was a relief to sit quietly at her desk in the twilight, to be free for a few minutes of the endless visitors who had paraded through here over the past two weeks. Beale, Jackie, Detective Tull, Keisha Moore, Sal Hawkings. So many people desiring her help, so few willing to pay for it. At least Beale and Jackie had given her money.

But they hadn't been much more honest than anyone else. Beale and Jackie had revealed their true motives only when necessary. Sal had wanted to find Eldon, but she still didn't understand why that involved coming in through her bathroom window. Well, he wouldn't be visiting again any time soon. The bathroom window had a spanking brand-new deadbolt and was now nailed in place. Tess believed in overkill.

Now Keisha Moore, she had been straightforward. She had wanted money. For a new dining room set. She had even been precise about the amount, $119. But then, lies were always precise. That was one of the secrets of "the women who walked," piling on the details until you were dizzy, or just bored enough to pay them to leave you alone. They really wanted cash, and not for the things they claimed to need. Maybe Keisha had been so angry at Tess's bait-and-switch with the furniture because there was no dining room set, no down payment coming due. Maybe it had been another ploy to get cash, quick. But why? She had been dressed up, and the oversized purse she had carried was big enough to be an overnight bag.

Keisha had come to Tess because she had heard something, something about Beale and Destiny and money. It always came back to that for Keisha: My son is dead. What's it worth? But what had she heard? How much did she really know?

Tess grabbed Esskay's leash off its peg by the door and tucked her gun in the outside pocket on her knapsack. It wasn't the safest ten blocks between Butchers Hill and Keisha's rowhouse, but the almost summer-sky was still light and Esskay could look intimidating from a distance. They took off at a semitrot, although the dog kept slowing down to enjoy the strange smells of an unfamiliar route.

Tess could hear Laylah's cries a block away. The baby sounded frantic, but exhausted, as if she had been screaming for hours and no one had come. Great. Keisha was back to her old ways, despite all her promises and assurances.

"She ain't been crying that long," said an old woman sitting on the stoop next door, as Tess charged up Keisha's steps. "It's good for her. Keisha spoils that baby something awful."

Laylah was having trouble catching her breath now, so her cries came out in little stutters, weaker and weaker. Tess pounded on the door, then brought her leg up and kicked it, flat-footed. It buckled slightly, but held, apparently the best-made door in all of East Baltimore.

"You got a warrant?" asked the Dr. Spock of the stoop. Tess ignored her, running around to the alley in back. Keisha's house had a small square of concrete for a backyard, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The gate was fastened with a padlock, but the fence was only waist-high. Tess hooked Esskay's leash to the gate, then climbed over it. The kitchen door was open, the storm door pulled to and locked. Tess glanced through its murky panes, seeing nothing. She thought she could force it by sheer will, but this door also held fast, no matter how she yanked at it or kicked. She ended up using her gun to break the lower pane of glass and reached in to depress the button that held the door in place.

She found Laylah in a small room at the top of the stairs, sitting in a wooden crib from the fifties, the pre-Consumer Safety kind with wooden slats and toxic decoupages of pastel animals with lunatic grins and silky eyelashes. Tentatively, Tess reached for her, thinking a stranger might make the baby more hysterical. But the little girl dug her tiny fingers into her arms, as if Tess were a log floating by in a flash flood.

Still, she kept crying. No wonder. Laylah stank. Tess held the baby at arm's length, looking at her dubiously. She hadn't changed a diaper since her baby-sitting days, almost fifteen years gone. But how hard could it be? She found a fresh diaper and a box of wipes in the bathroom, then looked around for a place to change her. There was the changing table, Keisha must have called Uncle Spike after all. Diaper-changing was easier than Tess remembered. Thank God for disposable diapers with sticky tabs, one of the great technical innovations of the age.

Laylah continued to cry, although the tenor had changed slightly. She wasn't as panicky, now she sounded adamant, demanding. It was the same tone Esskay's whining noises took on when supper was overdue. Tess carried Laylah downstairs-there was a new dining room set, she hadn't noticed it in her mad rush upstairs-and rummaged through the kitchen. A can of formula, which she didn't have a clue how to prepare, a bottle with what she hoped was apple juice sitting in the refrigerator. Laylah sucked, temporarily appeased.

But what to do now? If she called Social Services, Laylah would be in foster care within hours. Surely, that would be preferable to leaving her in Keisha's "care." Still, maybe Keisha had a good excuse. She hadn't been lying about the furniture. Maybe she had left the baby with someone who had wandered off, her careless sister-in-law, or some neighborhood kid. Tess paced the empty dining room, rocking Laylah. Her repertoire of baby-care skills was pretty much depleted. If Keisha didn't show up soon, she'd have to call DSS or the cops.

Laylah's skin seemed cold and clammy. Was the early evening air too cool for a baby? Holding the baby on her hip, Tess headed back upstairs in search of a T-shirt. Nothing in Laylah's room except a pile of dirty clothes in a small hamper. The bathroom held only the diaper pail. Using her foot, she pushed open the final door, figuring it was Keisha's room.

She had not figured on Keisha being in there.

Her amber eyes were open, a little stunned looking, as if she had just enough time to register what was happening to her. The man lying across her-had he tried to shield her, or was he trying to bolt from the bed when the shots came? His gun was on the floor, just inches from his stiffening fingers, his back ripped out by the gunshots, which must have passed through Keisha, too, judging by the blood. Quite a bit of blood, but it wasn't enough apparently. The killer had fired twice more-through the back of the man's head, and then into Keisha's forehead. Just to be sure.

Tess was suddenly aware of Laylah, still balanced on her hip and cooing, reaching her pudgy baby arms toward her dead mother.

"This is familiar," Martin Tull said. "You, me, a murder scene."

Tess was sitting in Keisha Moore's kitchen, still holding Laylah, who had finally fallen asleep in her arms despite the excitement around her-the police and technicians wandering through the house, the medical examiner loading up her parents' bodies. Looking down, Tess realized she never had found a T-shirt for the baby. She held her a little closer.