The last thing Tess felt like doing on Friday was starting a new job, but there it was on her calendar, indifferent to her red-wine hangover and generally jittery state. It wasn’t even supposed to be her gig; Crow had agreed to do the undercover work on this one, which would have come much more naturally to him. In fact, it was one of Crow’s do-gooding buddies who had hired her. A board member of a local nonprofit had asked Tess to investigate its “public face”-an up-from-welfare success story who had effectively branded the charity with her name and image. Ellen Mars was the charity, the charity was Ellen Mars. She was a beloved figure, an inspirational role model-and the world’s shoddiest bookkeeper, putting the organization at risk for an IRS audit. Incompetent or crook, that was the question bedeviling the board member, who didn’t dare pursue the inquiry openly. He had asked Tess to volunteer for the organization on a part-time basis. It had been her plan to send Crow in her stead-he was the philanthropist, after all, and would arouse far less suspicion. He also had some context for how a charity should be run, given his work recycling leftovers. But Crow was gone and the client was anxious, so Tess got up Friday morning and reported for her afternoon shift at the Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand.
As soon as she turned off her block, she saw a familiar car idling at the small traffic island on Oakdale, not far from where Mr. Parrish had collided with Lloyd-and Tess’s life. The beige sedan followed her, not even bothering to lag back or disguise its intentions. Mike Collins was at the wheel, Barry Jenkins in the seat beside him. Tess gave them a little wave in the rearview mirror, but they didn’t acknowledge her in any way. That made it creepier somehow. They were following her yet refusing to concede the fact that she existed, that she was another person on the planet. Tess wanted it to be like the cartoon with the sheepdog and the wolf punching in and out at the time clock. Just a job, nothing personal. But these guys seemed to feel it was extremely personal. She wondered if they had known Youssef, worked with him. How would she feel if she believed that someone was obstructing the investigation into a colleague’s death?
Then again, how would she feel if she turned Lloyd over to them and he was charged with a murder he clearly didn’t commit or was killed by those keen to obscure their own involvement? If only they could make an arrest without Lloyd. They knew everything that Lloyd knew. Why wasn’t that enough? After her second missed stop sign, she reminded herself that she needed to look at the road in front of her, not the car behind her.
A half-dozen volunteers had gathered at the West Side rowhouse that served as Ellen Mars’s headquarters, all first-timers, an excellent setup for Tess’s intentions, although it gave her a pang to realize how easily she blended with these middle-aged North Side types in their embroidered sweaters and pressed jeans. Ellen Mars was nowhere to be seen, but a younger woman who bore a strong resemblance to the eponymous founder came in and began assigning jobs-someone to sort the donated clothing for the women’s shelter, someone to inventory the foodstuffs that had come in the day before, someone to open the mail, helping record the checks and cash-
“I could do that,” Tess said. “I was an accounting major in college.”
The woman-she had yet to introduce herself-led Tess to a beyond-cluttered desk behind the kitchen. Tess couldn’t help notice how ratty the little rowhouse was. Upkeep was difficult on those old places, which hadn’t been built with the expectation of lasting for centuries. But this place was simply unclean. She watched a roach meandering along the baseboard. It was headed, no doubt, for the food-encrusted dishes in the sink.
“Bills here,” the woman said, placing her hand on one stack. “Other correspondence here.” She indicated a stack of similar size. “You write down our obligations in one column and the day’s incoming receipts on the other.”
“Write them…?” Tess opened her empty hands, bereft of pen, bereft of paper.
The woman dug around in the desk’s drawers, unearthing a legal pad and pencil.
“I didn’t get your name,” Tess said.
“Phoebe. I’m Ellen’s sister.”
“Is Ellen here?”
“She’s in Annapolis for Ellen Mars Appreciation Day.”
“I’d think you’d want to be there.”
“Chil’, if I went to every ceremony honoring Ellen, I’d never get anything done. If it ain’t the White House or the queen of England, I can’t see taking the time. Okay, Verizon-we owe nine hundred and fifty dollars.”
“How can the phone bill be that large?” Tess, almost forgetting her role, was on the verge of advising Phoebe that Verizon had packages with limitless long distance for as little seventy-five dollars a month, and there were probably better deals still.
“It’s three months past due. Plus, Dwayne-that’s my cousin-met some woman on the Internet, ran up a bill. Turns out she lives in Poland. Or maybe it was Prague. One of those P places.”
“So it’s a personal expense.”
“No, he used the phone right here.”
Tess started to object, then remembered this was the kind of information she was here to gather. Apparently Ellen Mars didn’t recognize any division between Ellen Mars the nonprofit and Ellen Mars and family. Within thirty minutes Tess had a neat column of numbers, showing almost three thousand in obligations for the organization, with most of the bills marked as second or third notices, and an incoming haul of eighteen hundred dollars. It had been almost touching to see the small checks and creased bills that made up that amount. Some people sent in as little as five dollars, often with handwritten notes.
“Is this a typical day?” Tess asked Phoebe, who hovered close, snatching and examining each check as it emerged, recoiling from the bills.
“Oh, it gets slow toward spring and summer. ’Round Thanksgiving we start bringing in real money.”
Tess began doing the math in her head. Assuming, conservatively, that Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand brought in seventy-five hundred a week on average, times fifty-two-that was almost four hundred thousand a year. Yet the board member who hired her said there were no salaried employees. And there didn’t seem to be much money spent on the headquarters, so-Phoebe’s sharp scream interrupted her thoughts.
“Police!” she said, and Tess thought she was calling for them, but she was simply identifying them, after a fashion. Mike Collins stood on the other side of the barred window above the desk, looking in at them. When Phoebe jumped and started, he gave her a wave and then pointed to Tess, effectively miming, Don’t worry, it’s her that we’re interested in.
“You got troubles?” Phoebe demanded.
“N-n-not exactly,” Tess said.
“But he’s police, right? Black man in a suit, gun on his hip-in this neighborhood he better be police.”
“Well, DEA. But he’s just…keeping an eye on me. It’s not what you think.”
“Honey, we can’t have that.”
“But-”
“No thank you. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but we don’t need that around here. Thank you for coming in. You’re a good worker, and we’d welcome you back any day. But not your friend.”
Furious and embarrassed, Tess left. Her client’s suspicions were clearly justified, but what should have been a nice leisurely gig, with steady hours mounting up every week, had just been ruined. She’d have to wait for Crow to come back, and when would that be? For a moment she tried to persuade herself that she was no longer obligated to keep her promise to Lloyd. She hadn’t bargained for the disruption it was causing to her life.
Then again, Lloyd hadn’t bargained on his friend’s being killed. Neither one of them had known what they were getting into, and now they were both stuck. Tess remembered a Yiddish folktale that she had heard when she was in court-ordered therapy. Her therapist was big on Yiddish folktales. He told her of a woman who set out on a journey that she had long intended. On a bridge a man handed her a rope, told her not to let go, and then jumped over. If she left him, he would die. The woman had to see that the man’s choices were not hers and that she was not obliged to stand there and hold the rope.