"Are you sure they were his?"
Kitty shrugged. "It was pretty well hidden near an old safe. I don't think they belonged to Rachel." That would be Momma Weinstein, whose only known passion was for her beloved springer spaniels. If Tess had been married to Rachel Weinstein, she might have had a similar stash.
"Why did you keep them?"
"I thought I could use them for a censorship display one day, or one on pornography. They're so retro it's almost innocent. No AIDS, no condoms, and the pill was still a godsend. I was in my twenties when these magazines came out. I could have been in one of these magazines."
Kitty and Tess drifted into their discrete musings. Kitty appeared to be thinking about her glory days, which Tess doubted were one-tenth as glorious as her current life as Fells Point's resident goddess-merchant. Tess was mulling over Poppa Weinstein, her dirty old grandpa. At first she felt the way one does after making the connection between one's conception and one's parents. But after the initial queasiness subsided, Tess decided it was sweet. Well, not sweet, but OK. At least he wasn't luring little girls behind the soda fountain, just curling up with the very magazines he refused to sell.
She hoped.
The phone rang in Kitty's office, a narrow room between the kitchen and the bookstore proper. "That should be Thaddeus." She floated to the phone, ever the teenage girl, but was back in a few seconds.
"The thrill is gone?" Tess asked.
"No, it's for you. Since when do you give the store number out?"
"Tyner put it on my ‘business' cards because he knows I don't always answer upstairs. Sorry-it didn't occur to me anyone was going to use it."
In the office Tess picked up the sleek, modern phone on Kitty's desk. A deep voice, hesitant and sweet, spoke softly into her right ear. "Miss Monaghan? It's Frank Miles, the custodian from the Lambrecht Building."
"Mr. Miles." She imagined him, girth squeezed into his easy chair, scarfing down a whole bag of Hydroxes. A black Santa Claus on his throne. No beard, though. "What can I do for you?"
"I was thinking-I have so much time to myself, to sit here and think-and I remembered something. There was a man, Miss Monaghan. An angry man."
"Where, Mr. Miles? At the office?"
"Yes. He came to see Mr. Abramowitz a few months ago and said horrible things, ugly things. It was after hours, so I heard them. He wanted money. He said he would kill Mr. Abramowitz if he didn't get his money."
"Was it a man with a baseball bat? The man written up in the paper? Do you remember what month this was?"
"No-maybe spring, maybe summer."
"With a baseball bat?"
"A baseball bat? I think there was. Or maybe I just heard about it later."
"Did you catch his name, Mr. Miles? Did you see him?"
A long, sad sigh. "No. No. I'm sorry." He sounded hurt and defensive, as if he regretted disappointing her.
Tess wanted to sigh, too, with frustration. He hadn't told her anything she didn't know. But he had kept her card. He had called. Maybe he would remember something worthwhile.
"I am going to check into it, Mr. Miles," she reassured him. "It's a good tip, a really good tip. I bet there's something there."
That cheered him up. "He was an angry man, Miss Monaghan. Angry over money. Isn't that a shame? He was mad because they hadn't paid him for dying, the way they promised. Who needs money for dying?"
"It's a good tip," Tess repeated. "And I think I know who it was." I just don't know his name.
"You're good at your job, Miss Monaghan. You're very conscientious, a good, hard worker. I noticed that right off. Good night, Miss Monaghan."
Conscientious. Good at her job. When had Tess heard that last? She couldn't remember. The words almost made her want to weep, to thank Mr. Miles profusely, to make her parents proud of her, to get an MBA or go to law school.
But all she said was, "Good night, Mr. Miles."
Chapter 16
Tess woke up the next morning with an unfamiliar pleasant feeling. She sat up in bed, trying to figure out what it was, this fluttery sensation deep in her stomach. She was eager to begin the day, the real day beyond her workout, before she had to show up at Tyner's office. Of course. This was what it felt like to have something to do, a job to which one wanted to go. After her conversation with Mr. Miles last night, she was more sure than ever it was essential to find the man with the baseball bat. She couldn't wait to go see Feeney at the courthouse.
But Tyner had other plans. He was waiting when Tess docked at 7:30.
"I need some help around the office today. What's your schedule like?"
"I owe Kitty a few hours this morning. And I had some stuff I wanted to do on my own this afternoon."
"Work for your uncle?"
"Not exactly."
Still in her shell, Tess bent over her shoes and untied them slowly, with great concentration, more than the task required. When she looked up again Tyner was giving her the hard glare usually reserved for a novice who was dogging it, or an experienced rower who caught a crab-rower jargon for putting one's oar in at a wrong angle, so the entire shell lurched. A single crab could lose a race or overturn a four.
"I hope you're not playing detective, Tess. You come to my office this afternoon. You haven't even earned back all that money Rock paid you. Maybe you can do some typing for me."
"On Rock's case? Or some of your other cases?"
"Whatever I tell you to do, you'll do, when I tell you to do it. That's our arrangement." And he rolled away while Tess sat in her shell, nonplussed.
Feeling mildly defiant, she did not dress up for her afternoon at the law office, prompting a stern look from Tyner when she arrived at 2 P.M., an hour late, in black jeans and a white T-shirt. She bet the jeans bothered Tyner more than her tardiness. Tyner was something of a dandy, obsessed with clothes.
Today, at least, he didn't insult Tess by making her perform tasks that had nothing to do with Rock's case. That was the adoring Alison's job when she wasn't finding endless excuses to leave the anteroom and bustle into the office.
"She has a crush on you," Tess said after the third interruption.
"Not at all," said Tyner. "She just loves her job. I don't really need her, but her father owns the building, and if I have a bad month, he'll let me deduct her salary from the rent I pay."
"Whatever you say, Tyner. I'm sure a girl whose father owns a Mount Vernon town house has nothing better to do than answer your phone and fetch you coffee."
She was reviewing the statements collected to date, including police reports and a preliminary autopsy, and noting any contradictions. Using Tyner's color-coded system, she marked every mention of time, separating out "good" and "bad" testimony-i.e., what favored their version of things (red), and what could undermine Rock's case (blue).
"How's the autopsy look for us?" Tess asked.
"Well, it doesn't jibe with Rock's story. Abramowitz was choked, and Rock's fingerprints are all over his office. But he also has a skull fracture, and the medical examiner ruled the cause of death was blunt force trauma-a repeated beating against the corner of his desk. It wasn't pretty, Tess. Whoever killed him was in a rage. Half his skull was on that desk. They were picking the rest of it out of the carpet for days, I bet."
No wonder Frank Miles had been so worried about cleaning up. "What about Rock's clothing? Did they find any of Abramowitz's blood on his stuff?"
"Now that's one of our few breaks. Rock's clothes appear to be missing."