When he woke up at dawn, his jacket looked as if he had chewed on it, just a little bit. He went out into the day, blinking, almost expecting to find some cops just outside the garage.
But there was no one waiting for him, absolutely no one at all.
TUESDAY
8
“What do you mean, Crow won’t press charges?”
Whitney Talbot’s voice, never demure, was like a ship’s horn when she was surprised or outraged. It sliced through the midday din of Matthew’s, which, admittedly, was not difficult to do. The sixty-year-old restaurant took up only the front half of an old rowhouse, and there were few diners at this time of day.
Still, even in a place used to voluble and excitable customers, Whitney attracted attention. She always did. Tess, who had known her since college, had decided having Whitney as a friend was like traveling around Baltimore with a white Siberian tiger. Seldom dull, always the center of attention, but also a little unpredictable.
“Lloyd has a jacket-” Tess began, shaking hot pepper flakes over the traditional tomato pie. Whitney was having the house specialty, a crab pie, but shellfish-averse Tess never risked contact with the local delicacy. Unless she was desperate to leave a social occasion early. Then a little anaphylactic shock was just the ticket.
“A jacket? Did he steal that, too?”
“A record. He’s already been in Hickey for auto theft. Crow doesn’t want to bring charges because he’ll almost certainly end up back inside. And maybe not as a juvenile this time.”
“But even if he’s not a car thief, he’s still guilty of leaving the scene of an accident, right? And you have to tell police who he is, or you’re liable.”
“Crow gave them a fake name,” Tess said, still feeling sheepish for letting that bit of deception fly. “Bob Smith. No one batted an eye, even when Crow helpfully added, ‘That’s Bob with one o.’”
“Isn’t it illegal to lie to cops?”
“Sort of. But with no real injuries, the cops aren’t exactly making this a priority. And Crow told them the truth when he said he didn’t know how to find our houseguest again. You know what’s really embarrassing? I think the cops thought it was some kind of kinky pickup. Two white suburbanites cruising for decadent thrills, bringing home a young hustler and getting metaphorically screwed instead. They’ve probably opened a pervert file on us.”
If Whitney’s voice was loud, then her laugh was a borderline bray. “It sounds like the damage was pretty minor,” she said at last. “Other than that done to your reputations with Northern District, I mean. You said the other guy had nothing more than a crumpled bumper, and the Volvo’s such a junker you can’t really damage it.”
“Yeah, but he’s claiming the impossible-to-pin-down soft-tissue injury. Worse yet, the responding cops let him go without administering a Breathalyzer. Believe me, he would have flunked. You could smell the gin on him ten feet away. Everyone in the neighborhood knows about Mr. Parrish. He goes over to the Swallow at the Hollow, then literally coasts home, sliding down Oakdale and then making the turn toward his house on Wilmslow. He rationalizes that it’s not driving drunk if his foot isn’t on the accelerator and the engine is off. Just coasting drunk.”
“Well, it’s not like Crow has any money. Can’t get blood from a stone.”
“If Parrish has a cagey lawyer, they might go after me-through my homeowner’s or the umbrella policy I carry for the business. And my carrier won’t be so blasé about accepting Crow’s bogus Bob Smith story. They could refuse to cover me, and even a small settlement would wipe me out right now.”
Whitney didn’t laugh at this. Despite being born rich-or perhaps because of it-Whitney took money very seriously.
“Then Crow’s being an idiot. This kid doesn’t deserve his nobility. You took him into your home, fed him, gave him shelter, and how did he reward you? By trying to steal from you and wrecking Crow’s car. You’ve got to convince Crow to tell the truth and press charges.”
Tess sighed and focused on her pizza, but even a Matthew’s tomato pie could not soothe her. With Crow this morning, she had taken Whitney’s side of the argument. She had, in fact, been far more shrill and unkind. The past twelve hours had been a series of shocks-the jolt of the Lexus’s alarm, the cold air that hit them as they raced outside with only jackets and boots added to their nightclothes, the dogs trotting excitedly behind. The scene at the bottom of the hill, with Mr. Parrish stalking around his car in inebriated indignation, saying some terribly racist things about what and whom he never thought he would see in Roland Park. It was Mr. Parrish’s diatribe, as much as anything else, that had hoisted Crow with his sanctimonious petard. By the time the police arrived, he was adamant that Lloyd-well, Bob-was their guest and that he had implicit permission to use Crow’s car. And the fact was, Mr. Parrish’s mammoth Buick had struck the Volvo so far back along the midsection that Tess was inclined to agree with Crow: Lloyd was stalled in the street at the moment of impact, so Mr. Parrish was to blame for the collision. After all, the one thing that they hadn’t heard that night was the Volvo’s engine, and it was a noisy, raucous car, audible for blocks.
Even so, Crow shouldn’t have given the police a false name for Lloyd. That had been rash, a mistake that was sure to come back and haunt them. The boy was still liable for leaving the scene of an accident, although, given the small stakes-no real injuries, the minor damage to Mr. Parrish’s car-Tess doubted that the police would spend a lot of time trying to find and arrest him. And the insurance companies wouldn’t be much interested in him either. Lloyd had no figurative pockets, shallow or deep, under any name, so Crow’s carrier couldn’t transfer the fiduciary responsibility to him. Yet Mr. Parrish would collect nothing if the case were treated like the theft that it was. No, as long as Crow claimed that Lloyd had his permission to use the car, Crow would be on the hook for everything. Tess’s only hope was that Mr. Parrish’s insurance company, once it ferreted out how few assets Crow had, would give up.
Tess worked a lot with insurance companies. The industry’s very aversion to paying out large sums had generated several small ones for her over the years, so she would never stoop to gross generalizations where agents and actuaries were concerned. She hated to think what another Tess Monaghan might do if presented with such a case. She would make short work of the assignment, getting Mr. Parrish a nice little check and never caring what happened to the irresponsible driver on the other side of the equation.
“Crow may be a soft touch, but that’s a large part of who he is,” she said to Whitney now. “You of all people should get that. You’re the one who told me we had to stop trying to change each other.”
“He could stand to toughen up a little bit. It’s not just the car-it’s being naïve enough to bring this kid home in the first place. Whatever story he’s feeding the insurance company doesn’t change the fact that you nursed a viper in your bosom, as Aesop would say. Took the kid in, gave him a meal and a warm place to sleep, and he rewarded your hospitality by trying to steal from you.”
“The moral of Aesop’s story was that you can’t change someone’s ingrained nature.”
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean this kid did seem to have some genuine sweetness to him. And he wasn’t very good at lying-not when the name of Gregory Youssef came up.”
“Really? Do you think-”
The two old friends, who had once rowed in perfect sync at moments, were still capable of thinking that way. Tess knew that Whitney’s mind had jumped to the obvious conclusion-a young man from the East Side, not far from the neighborhood Youssef was last known to be. Police had assumed that Lloyd was a hustler. Wasn’t he, in a sense?