Tess thought she detected a lot of attitude in that one word, "Now." Feeney had filed for eighteen hours of overtime without bothering to defend himself in writing. That, too, was in character.
Why would any reporter, especially a cagey type like Rosita, allow her craven brown-nosing to be on display? Tess couldn't be the first pair of "prying eyes" to pass through these directories. She checked the history field, the way Dorie had shown her. Of course: reporters created the files, but the editors dumped them. And the editors weren't concerned about safeguarding anyone's privacy except their own. Reganhart, in particular, never erased reporters' notes before trashing them, while Sterling was erratic. Only Lionel Mabry, who had seemed so vague and out of it, scrupulously expunged everything he discarded.
Digging deeper into the electronic trash, Tess found yesterday's news budget, which included ongoing projects at the bottom. Reporters assigned to the Wink story were to keep checking with county police, on the off chance the death would be classified as an accident or homicide when the toxicology reports came back from the medical examiner. The budget also indicated at least five other reporters had been deployed in case Wink had even nastier skeletons in his closet. So far, they had come up empty. Meanwhile, Feeney was responsible for tracking the basketball deal, which was expected to unravel unless Paul Tucci could find more backers, but there had been no developments on that front, either.
In fact, the only Wink-related story in today's editions was a thin piece on his wake by Rosita. As published, the piece had been flat and unremarkable. The original, sent to the trash by Reganhart, was inappropriately vicious, the kind of piece in which the writer mistook mere bitchery for wit. Tess was particularly struck by the description of Wink's high school basketball team members in "green-and-gold letter jackets that would never button again, not in this lifetime." At least Reganhart, whatever her weaknesses, understood how disastrous this would have been. Death demanded reverence not only for the deceased, but for his mourners.
"So what's moving on the wires this morning?"
Startled, Tess jumped and banged her right knee hard on the lap drawer of the old metal desk, which caused her to swear under her breath. Jack Sterling was leaning against the door jamb, hands in his pockets, shirt sleeves rolled up. A solid blue shirt today, which made his eyes almost too blue.
"Not much," she lied automatically. Even if she wasn't actually hacking, she didn't want to admit she was digging through the Blight's electronic trash. "Spring training stories."
"In March, it's hard to believe Opening Day will ever come. In August, when you're a Cubs fan like myself, you sometimes wish it never had."
As Tess casually cleared her screen of any incriminating files, Sterling came in and sat on a corner of the desk, inches from her right elbow.
"Do you like baseball, Tess?"
"I watch the World Series. Want to know my deepest, darkest secret?"
"I'm a journalist. I live to know secrets."
"I don't even know where the Orioles finish, most years."
He laughed, a sound so spontaneous and generous that Tess wished she could find other secrets to confide in him. I didn't report all my income on my taxes last year. I think you're cute. I've been known to be something of a round-heels under the right circumstances.
"Let me ask you something, Tess."
Yes.
"Did anything bother you about the first Wynkowski story? The, um, unofficial one?"
She knew she was suppose to say she had been bothered, and she hated to disappoint him. But what had been wrong? She wracked her brain.
"I know there were a lot of anonymous sources. Then again, you let the guy in Georgia cloak his identity, too."
"At least I know who he is this time, and what his motivation is. I don't know anything about the sources in the first story. I've got a bad feeling in my gut about this whole thing. What about you? What do your instincts tell you, Tess?"
It was an uncomfortable question for Tess, who had once watched as her best instincts had collapsed against the backdrop of three separate deaths. But it was foolhardy to tell the unvarnished truth to an employer, and Jack Sterling was still just that: her employer.
She settled for a partial truth. "My gut tends to be opinionated, so it's not infallible."
Her stomach picked this exact moment to groan with hunger. Tess wanted to crawl under the desk, or find some graceful way to inform Sterling she did not normally make such noises.
"Running on empty? Let me treat you to lunch at Marconi's." Tess grinned at him the same way Esskay the greyhound grinned at any offering of food.
They walked down Saratoga Street to the restaurant. It was a little cool, but the sun was out and the sky clear. A few brave crocuses peeked out among the stunted trees planted along the sidewalks. A horrible tease, Tess knew. Did spring have an equivalent term for Indian summer, a way to describe these March flirtations with nice weather?
"We'll probably have another snowstorm before the month is out," she said. How lame could she be, falling back on the weather to make conversation? She should have said something about politics, or today's front page. But that would have involved actually reading the front page. She had been having far too much fun wallowing in the electronic trash heap.
" Baltimore is lovely in the snow," Sterling said, "even if Baltimoreans aren't."
"Are you going to go into that usual out-of-towner rap, about how we can't drive in it, and we all act like idiots, rushing to the store for supplies?"
"It's the nature of the supplies I've never understood. Bread, milk, and toilet paper, hon." Sterling did a decent Baltimore accent for a newcomer. "The holy trinity of Baltimore life. Can you explain it, hometown girl?"
"My parents always say it goes back to the Blizzard of '66, which seemed to come out of nowhere," Tess said, as they climbed the marble steps outside Marconi's. "Milk for the kids, bread for sandwiches. And I think the toilet paper was for women to wrap their beehives."
Good, she had made him laugh again. "And now people run to the Giant or the SuperFresh near Television Hill so they can be sure of making the evening news."
"Hey, don't knock it. Being identified as a ‘panicky snow shopper' is how most locals earn their fifteen minutes of fame."
"Funny, how that phrase has been perverted over the years," Sterling mused, as they followed an ancient maître d' to a table in the rear dining room. "Warhol actually wrote in an exhibition catalog, ‘In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.' Now we talk about it as if it were an entitlement, or part of the Declaration of Independence. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of our fifteen minutes of fame. Have you had yours yet?"
Tess took her seat, thinking about the brief article the Blight had run last fall, when she had been attacked. If she was going to be famous for fifteen minutes, she hoped it wouldn't be for that. "I might have slept through mine."
"Well, then, you can have my fifteen minutes. Unless I'm on the masthead, the only time I ever want to appear in any newspaper is when I die."
It was Tess's turn to laugh. "How Junior League of you. What's the rule? A proper person's name appears only three times: at birth, marriage, and death."
"Exactly. So I have two more opportunities left."
She ducked her head, taking more care than necessary as she unfolded the linen napkin, hoping Sterling couldn't see the wide grin spreading across her face at the realization he had never married.
Marconi's was a dowdy grande dame. The dining room was too bright, the food too heavily sauced, the wallpaper faded and waterstained. Prices, while not steep, climbed quickly on the a la carte menu. And although the owners had finally agreed to a reservation system, the last seating for dinner was at 8 P.M., ensuring the regulars were at home in time for reruns of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote. But Baltimoreans cherished the place. Tess opened the menu with happy anticipation.