She was wrong. In less than thirty minutes, she and Carl had worked the entire block, from west to east. People had been helpful, especially when they heard that Tess and Carl were city employees who were assigned to evaluate the efficacy of parking regulations. Many a resident had leaned into the doorjamb and complained long and loud about the interlopers who parked on Lancaster. People from well outside the residential parking district. People from the other side of Ann, said one older woman, her head bristling with the kind of wire curlers that Tess hadn’t seen in years.
“Or even”-the woman paused, lowering her voice as if she were about to say something truly slanderous-“Wolfe Street.”
But no one remembered the van as a standout among the block’s repeat offenders. After all, it had been several months since the vehicle had received a ticket. Maybe Billy Windsor had moved on-as Tess had.
Tess and Carl met on the corner to compare notes. The sky overhead was shot through with pink now. They had maybe thirty minutes of light left.
“See, Tess?” Carl said. “He didn’t live around here. Probably came down to have a meal or something. I mean, lots of people come to Fells Point. This would have been a good place to meet women, if you think about it.”
“Not for our guy. He couldn’t make the connection he needed in a bar, shouting over the din of music and other people. He moved slowly. He courted his women.”
“At any rate, he didn’t live here.”
“Not on Lancaster, no.” Tess sighed. “But maybe on one of the surrounding blocks, outside the parking district.”
“It’s getting late, Tess.”
“Then let’s hurry.”
This time, however, they decided to go door-to-door in tandem. They worked Wolfe, moving north, then turned onto Eastern. The farther out they went, the less hospitable people were-and the less likely to speak English. A lot of Dominicans had settled in the neighborhood, and they spoke a rapid staccato Spanish that Tess couldn’t begin to follow. They thrust INS documents at her and Carl, assuming they were from immigration. Just the sight of strange Anglos made them nervous and defensive.
Which was why the seventh Spanish-speaking man stood out. His Spanish was equally rapid but smooth. He wasn’t scared, Tess realized, he was just trying to build a wall between them, so they would go away. He was shaking his head, chanting, “No’sé, no’sé,” before they asked a single question. When they showed him the license number for the van, he didn’t bother to look, just pushed the paper away and continued shaking his head. “No’sé, no’sé, no’sé.”
Only someone who knew something he shouldn’t would be so quick to claim ignorance.
Tess thanked him politely, turned to Carl and said, “Well, I guess we’re done.”
“I thought we were-”
“No,” Tess said. She was speaking directly to Carl, as if her words were meant only for him, but she used a clear ringing tone that was much louder than her normal speaking voice. “We’re not going to find that van tonight. But we’ll find it eventually-and we’ll tow it when we do, and then he’ll have to pay us what he owes us.”
She smiled at the man over her shoulder. “We did tell a white lie.
We’re skip tracers, and this guy’s been giving us the slip for a long, long time.“
Nothing in his face betrayed comprehension. But Tess didn’t doubt that he understood every word she had said.
She tugged Carl away by the sleeve and retreated, heading east. When they reached the cut-through to the alley, she glanced casually over her shoulder to see if the man had come out on the steps to watch them leave. Good, he wasn’t on the stoop. She ducked down the alley and worked her way back, counting so she could match the rear of the house to the front.
“Look,” she told Carl, craning her neck, “it has a rooftop deck.”
“Not much of a deck, more a platform.”
“That’s how you build a deck if you have a rowhouse down here. It’s not like you’ve got a backyard. But the point is-that shitty little rental house has a deck, no more than a year or two old, judging by the lumber, and the workmanship looks pretty sound.”
“So?”
“He has a view of the water, Carl. Remember? Wherever he goes, he lives in sight of the water.”
“You think he lives here?”
“Or stayed here on and off, when he wasn’t living with a woman. Illegal aliens aren’t inclined to call the police, so it would be a safe place for him to come and go. Señor No Sé is probably calling him right now, telling him of our visit.”
“Then he won’t come back. Not tonight, at least.”
“No. But his landlord may go to him. Chances are, Billy Windsor has stuff he can’t afford to have found.”
“Like what?”
“The handgun he used to kill Julie Carter, for example. Anything that links him to Tiffani Gunts and Lucy Fancher. If there’s a single incriminating item in that apartment, he needs to get it out now. He can’t risk the fact that we might go to the cops and they’ll come back with a warrant.”
“You think-”
She handed him the keys. “Go get the car, Carl, and I’ll meet you at the corner of Eastern and Wolfe. You get your wish. We’re going to do a little surveillance.”
“Isn’t it safer if you get the car and I stand here?”
“I’m the one with the gun, remember? I’ll be okay.”
And she would. Because she was going to press her back against the rear of the rowhouse on the far side of the alley so no one could sneak up on her.
It seemed like forever, it seemed like no time at all. They didn’t speak while they sat in Carl’s car, didn’t listen to the radio, didn’t notice how their bodies stiffened in their long-held positions. Tess’s stomach was empty, her mouth was dry, and she felt she could hear tiny discrete sounds that were normally lost in the buzz of daily life: the ticking of her watch, a can bouncing along the gutter after it was thrown from a passing car, the blood in her eardrums. She wondered if Carl was experiencing the same sensations. But she did not want to speak, did not want to move, did not want to do anything that would risk this willed vigilance.
She realized they had been going all day, with virtually no break unless one counted the hour at Sheppard Pratt. Haste makes waste. But Billy Windsor was a moving target and she had a feeling he was moving faster and faster, so they had to keep up with him.
Finally, about 8:30 P.M., Señor No Sé left the house and, with a quick glance around the street, climbed into a faded blue El Camino that needed muffler work. He headed east, toward the interstate.
“He’ll be easy to follow, at least,” Tess said. “You could almost do it with your eyes closed.”
“If you ask me, he’s almost too easy to follow,” Carl said. “Do you think he’s leading us somewhere?”
The thought had occurred to Tess as well. “He could be. Then again, if he thinks we’re gone, this is how he would drive, right? If he starts acting more erratic-running red lights or making sudden turns-we’ll know he’s trying to elude us.”
“Yeah,” Carl said. “I guess so.”
Once on I-95, the El Camino headed south, through the Fort McHenry tunnel. Then he took Hanover Street south, crossing the Patapsco and weaving south along Route 2, then cutting east into the Curtis Bay area. These were roads that ultimately led nowhere and it was trickier to follow him here. In a few blocks, he made a turn into the parking lot of an old industrial park that was surrounded by a high fence with razor wire across the top. He got out, yanking on a padlock that appeared to be unlocked, slid the gate open, and drove through, leaving it open behind him.
“Keep driving, as if we’re headed somewhere else,” Tess hissed at Carl. She was hunched down, so only Carl’s head showed. If their prey looked back, he would see only one silhouette. “We can’t pull in there behind him.”