Chapter 13
It was just after nine Tuesday morning when Tess left the highway and began working her way north on a narrow country road. The thirty-minute drive to Penfield School had passed quickly, thanks to the woman on the radio explaining a vast government conspiracy, in which all new cars were equipped with computer chips that would allow the federal government to shut them down anywhere, any time. Tess tried to figure out how this would work exactly. If the government disabled her car right now, for example, what would they do with it, or her?
Talk radio, the more paranoid the better, was Tess's entertainment of choice as of late. The cacophony of voices was pretty good company. Unfortunately, the shows where the hosts really seethed were becoming harder to find, replaced by garden-variety blustering conservatives and apologetic liberals who hit the same notes over and over. At the other end of the dial, as well as the spectrum, earnest NPR was the high-fiber cereal of radio: Tess would start liking it, remember it was so good for her, and recoil.
Now a caller was wondering if these new, smaller satellite dishes were really part of a government surveillance program. "Of course they are," the host assured him, going on to explain how pay-per-view events allowed the White House to bug your home. Tess was so engrossed in the details of this elaborate scheme that she almost missed the turnoff to the Penfield School.
It was a balancing act, working for two clients. Jackie had assumed she would head straight to Annapolis this morning, but she had promised Beale to interview Salamon Hawkings. To arrange the meeting, she had called Penfield yesterday, telling the headmaster careful not-quite lies: She was an alumna from Washington College (absolutely true), she was interested in helping the school recruit a more diverse student body (true, not that she'd actually do anything about it), and she had heard Salamon Hawkings was a promising young student, an award-winning public speaker (true). The headmaster had hemmed and hawed, but finally agreed she could meet with Salamon this morning, during his study period.
The plain wooden sign for the school was so small and discreet that she overshot the driveway and had to do a U-turn. The Penfield School, established 1888. It had been a church-run school then, intended for poor, young orphans. In terms of class and background, Salamon Hawkings was actually closer to Penfield's origins than most of the young men enrolled here today.
The headmaster, Robert Freehley, met her in the hallway. Hello, Mr. Chips: Tall, thin, prematurely gray, tweedy, he might have come straight from Central Casting. The June mornings were cooler here in the country, Tess thought, but not so cool as to warrant a tweed jacket. With leather elbow patches yet.
"They're waiting for you in the library," he said, leading her through corridors that didn't really look any different than most school buildings, yet Tess could still sense how much richer Penfield was than, say, Gwynn's Falls Middle School. Not to mention the Benjamin Banneker Academy. The differences were small, but telling: The display case, which ran heavily to lacrosse and soccer trophies, was made of oak and the items inside were obviously dusted on a regular basis. Furniture was well-worn, but in that thrifty WASP kind of way. And the building was cool, not just because it had central air conditioning, but because it was made of thick stone that held in the night air. Only the odors were the same from school to school, the smell of chalk dust and adolescent boys being pretty standard everywhere.
Salamon Hawkings sat at the end of a long library table, his head bent over a book. The tables here actually had green-shaded lamps at each place, although the morning sun spilling through the wooden Venetian blinds made them unnecessary just now. A man in a seersucker suit sat next to him. A teacher? The librarian? He was vaguely familiar to Tess, a bland-faced man of thirty-five or so.
"I'll leave you to your business," the headmaster said. He seemed a little nervous to Tess. Perhaps the man at the table was one of his trustees, or a rich alum.
"Miss Monaghan?" The man stood, while Salamon never looked up, just kept reading. "I'm Chase Pearson."
Tess reached for his hand, then realized he hadn't offered it. "Of course. You're in the governor's cabinet. The task force on children and youth, right?" And thinking of a run for lieutenant governor, depending on how the ticket shook out, according to her Uncle Donald's gossip. The Pearson family was rich in connections and blood, if not much else. His first name, Chase, was probably intended to remind people he was distantly related to Maryland's signer of the Declaration of Independence. Very distantly related.
"I'm the special secretary for Adolescents and Children," he said, a little stuffily. Well, it must be disappointing for a politically ambitious man to find out someone didn't know his current title and couldn't recognize his face. "Before that, I headed the task force on young men and violence in Baltimore City, by special appointment of the mayor. People often confuse the two. But I'm here today as a Penfield alum-and as Sal Hawkings's guardian."
The young man kept reading, as if they weren't even there. He probably had much practice in tuning out the world around him, Tess thought, a preternatural ability to concentrate. That was the talent that had gotten him here, as much as his oratorical skills.
"Did the headmaster tell you about Washington College's interest in Salamon?"
"Sal," he corrected, turning a page, still not looking up. "I go by Sal now."
Chase Pearson smiled. Tess saw another problem facing the would-be candidate. His teeth were uneven and yellow, stained with nicotine and brown at the gum line. Good enough for lieutenant governor, but nothing better.
"The headmaster told me what you had told him," Pearson said. "Yet when I called Chestertown yesterday, no one in admissions at Washington College had any idea what I was talking about."
Damn. She knew she should have scheduled this meeting closer to her initial phone call. Even the best lies had a pretty short shelf life. "This recruitment program is through the Alumni Society. The college wouldn't necessarily know about it."
"I don't think so," Pearson said, then picked up a single piece of paper from the library table. "Theresa Esther Monaghan, twenty-nine. Lives on Bond Street in Fells Point, in a building owned by her aunt, Katherine Helen Monaghan. Owns a twelve-year-old Toyota which failed the state emissions test last year and has two outstanding parking tickets, one in Baltimore City, the other in Towson. Former employee of the Star newspaper. Now a licensed private investigator for Keyes Investigations. Owns a.38-caliber Smith and Wesson, for which she has a permit to carry."
Tess had wondered what the world's databases had on her, and now she knew. Pearson must have used his government sources to pull this dossier together so quickly. Dorie could have gotten much more, but Pearson had done okay. For an amateur.
He slid the piece of paper toward Salamon-Sal-who never lifted his eyes from his book. "By the way, Washington College was glad to have your new address, as they had lost track of you quite some time ago. You can look forward to a fund-raising solicitation quite soon. Although I have a sense you don't have a lot of discretionary income, not even for your beloved alma mater."
"If Washington College wanted me to donate money, they should have steered me away from majoring in English," Tess said. "Okay, so I lied. Sort of. I represent someone who is familiar with the circumstances of the death of Sal's friend, Donnie Moore. This person, who prefers to remain anonymous, would like to help Sal and the others who witnessed his death."
"You represent Luther Beale."
Tess thought of her office door, loose and swinging in the summer breeze. But she couldn't imagine someone like Chase Pearson going to such extreme measures. He wouldn't have to. Maybe the state police had Beale under surveillance. Maybe another Penfield alum sat on the board of her bank, and knew whose checks she had deposited. Baltimore boards were lousy with Penfield grads.