"Missing?"
"Rock was wearing a fresh T-shirt and a pair of jeans when the cops picked him up. They went through his laundry basket and found no shortage of soiled shirts, but not a single one with blood on it."
"So Rock didn't do it."
"Or he thought quickly enough to get rid of a piece of incriminating evidence. He could have pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into a trash bin on Howard Street. But that's for the prosecutors to wonder about, and prove."
Tess bent back over her work, uncomfortable with Tyner's train of thought.
Her notes now. Joey Dumbarton-a "good" witness, for Tyner could confuse him easily, especially after a few more interviews. Frank Miles-he would testify for the state, but Tess made a note of last night's conversation. It wouldn't hurt for Tyner to ask him about the mystery man, to plant in the jury's mind the idea of an angry man, furious at being denied his money, enraged enough to kill for it.
Of course, killing Abramowitz wouldn't have accelerated the payment, quite the opposite. Who, besides Rock, had a motive for Abramowitz's slaying? Tess stared out the window at the tiny park in the shade of the Washington Monument. Ava might. Her sexual harassment claim, which couldn't be refuted now, may have boosted her bargaining power with the firm. She could have held them up for money, or for unlimited chances at the bar exam. Then again, she had recanted her story awfully fast. Perhaps she had been counting on Abramowitz to pay her off to keep her from telling the other partners? His private practice was thought to have been a lucrative one, and his estate should be entitled to some of the profits the Triple O made this year, up until his death.
"Hey, did he leave a will?"
"Abramowitz? No, surprisingly. Or perhaps not so surprisingly. Some doctors don't get physicals; some lawyers put off writing their wills. He left a sizable estate-almost one million dollars in investments and real estate-but he has no living relatives. It's in probate at orphan's court, where all estates go when there are no wills."
"Is that what orphan's court is for? It always sounded to me like something out of Dickens, a place where orphans were auctioned off to pay their parents' debt. Perhaps I should feel sorry for Abramowitz, the poor little orphan with no one to leave his millions."
"When we get through with Abramowitz in court, the one thing I can guarantee you is that no one will feel sorry for him."
"What do you mean?"
"It's simple. We're going to try the victim. An ugly strategy, but an effective one. If you can convince a jury someone deserved to die, the jury might acquit. It's not supposed to work that way, yet it does."
Tess lowered her eyes, and the reports in front of her blurred and shimmied. She wasn't naive; she knew a legal defense had little to do with innocence. It was a game. The state had to prove its case, and if it failed then one was "not guilty." Not too long ago, a man on Death Row had been released when DNA testing proved he had not raped a little girl who was murdered. "He's not guilty," the prosecutor said, "but I'm not ready to say he's innocent." Tyner was accustomed to those semantic realities. Tess wanted to be able to declare, with all her heart, that Rock was innocent. For only Rock's innocence could establish her own.
They worked in silence until Alison hurried in again, full of her own importance as she announced a phone call from Seamon P. O'Neal.
"Of O'Neal, O'Connor and O'Neill," she added as Tyner picked up the phone. Tess tried to eavesdrop, but Alison wanted to chat.
"I didn't make the connection at first," she said, wrinkling her perfect, perky nose. "He pronounces his name ‘Shaymun.' Isn't that funny? I thought it was Seamen."
"It's Irish. And Shaymun is preferable to Seamen, don't you think? Consider the homophones." Alison blushed and practically ran from the room. Tess couldn't be sure if it was the oblique reference to semen, or the word "homophone," that Alison thought obscene. She turned her attention back to Tyner, but the call was already over.
"He wants to see us-to see me," Tyner said, hanging up the phone. "He says it's about Rock's case."
"Are you meeting him at his office?"
"No, at his house. ‘Sixish, for cocktails,' he said. But I have a feeling he expects us at six sharp and drinks will be an afterthought. Successful lawyers usually do not arrive home by six, ready for cocktails. Not even founding partners with wealthy wives."
"Expects us. You said, ‘Expects us.'"
Tyner sighed. "It will probably be a boring little fencing session in which Seamon tries to figure out what we know and the implications for the firm. That's all he cares about, his law firm's reputation."
"And I'm the one who knows where and when the star associate spent her lunch hours with the newest partner."
Tyner threw up his hands. "You want to go, you can go, as long as you drive and stay quiet. I'd like to think you have something better to do with your evenings."
They left the office at 5:30, usually more than enough time for the three-mile trip to Guilford, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods within the city limits. But the O'Neals lived on Cross Place, a hidden cul de sac unknown to Tess and Tyner, both Baltimore natives. After several wrong turns they finally found their way to the street, a leafy enclave set off by a stone archway thick with ivy. A small sign advised them it was a private block, which may have explained why it was missing from the city map they had studied futilely. NO TRESPASSING, it warned in black, curving letters.
" Cross Place. Of course," Tyner said. "William Tree, Seamon's father-in-law, married Amelia Cross and bought this property for her. It was a huge estate at one point, almost two hundred acres. But Tree, always a developer at heart, couldn't resist subdividing his own land over time."
"I thought the philosophy was to hold on to land, because they're not making it anymore."
"That's fine if you don't need any cash flow. Tree had expensive tastes. The center house was his, and the houses on either side were for his two children, William Jr. and Luisa Julia-Ellie Jay. William Jr. died young in an influenza epidemic. The O'Neals took over the center house when her parents died. The O'Neals have a son and a daughter, too, but they apparently gave up on living here in harmony. The other houses were sold a few years back, almost as soon as William Tree, Sr., was in his grave."
Rambling, redbrick mansions, the houses were identical in almost every aspect. But the middle house had a subtle grandeur its mates could not match. Its lot was a little larger, its lawn crosshatched like the field at Camden Yards. Ancient crepe myrtles wrapped around the house, their blooms just past. A few tiny blossoms, in hues ranging from pale pink to almost purple, littered the grounds, faded confetti after a parade.
As soon as Tess pulled into the driveway, a maid came running to meet them, a pale blue and white banner in her hand. She tied it to the antenna of Tyner's van.
"The neighborhood watch group gives these out," she explained matter-of-factly. "It means you're invited. When people see strange cars these days, they get jumpy."
This nervousness was new, Tess realized. Once, Guilford had been a safe neighborhood, its grand homes untouched by crime and larceny as if by some secret arrangement. This summer, people in the poor sections to the south and east had started making forays into Guilford. An armed robbery here, a break-in there, at least one rape-the sort of things the rest of Baltimore had lived with for years. But Guilford 's residents were outraged. A covenant had been broken. The homeowners, many of whom were paying as much as $15,000 a year in property taxes alone, lobbied city hall for the right to hire their own security force. Grudgingly the city had allowed them to pay for the services it could not provide.
The concern for security did not stop at the curb. Waiting in the O'Neal foyer, Tess peeked into the closet and saw the green and red lights of a complicated alarm system. It even had a "lock down" designation, a term Tess had heard only in connection with prisons.