Irish temper was a cliché Tess had never actually experienced. All the temper in her family had come down on the Weinstein side. Her father was a gentle man, hard to anger. So when he rose to his feet, his face now almost purplish red, and began jabbing his finger at her, she was undone by the sheer fact of his rage.
“You want to know what I got, for looking the other way? I didn’t get shit. But my daughter, who had decided the University of Maryland wasn’t good enough for her, that she had to go to some fancy private school, got a fake scholarship. Ditter set up a little fund, helped to pay your tuition the whole four years. That’s what I got. A college education for an ingrate of a daughter who’s incapable of ever doing anything just because her old man asks her to.”
“I had a senate scholarship,” she said. “Sleazy, but legal.”
“You got a kickback.”
Tess found her mind reaching back, trying to remember the financial aid package her family had pieced together so she could attend Washington College. She had gone after every little pocket of money, no matter how small-grants from the local chapter of the DAR, an essay contest sponsored by the VFW. Her father had told her the state grant was for students who had scored well on the PSAT, but just missed National Merit status. And she had believed him. She believed him because she was eighteen and relatively confident that she was the axis on which the world spun, that she was worthy of all good things that accrued to her.
“You see?” he asked. “You see why you can’t say anything? Gene was tight with Ditter, he knows what happened. He’ll take me down with him, if he suspects I had anything to do with this. You gotta stop.”
“But it’s not fair,” she said.
“Jesus Christ, Tess.”
“What you did, what Gene is doing-it’s not the same. He’s taking a bribe from a pimp, and he’s going to go on doing it. You bowed to political pressure and were rewarded after the fact.”
“Once it’s in the newspaper, those are the kind of fine distinctions that will be lost, Tess. The statute of limitations may have run out on what I did, but the morality police can come for you anytime. Gene and I will both be fired, and no one will touch me, because I’ll be a snitch. I’ll be a fifty-two-year-old man, with no connections and no real skills. No one will hire me.”
“Someone-”
“No one, Tess. I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to lose my job. Don’t you get that? So unless you’re ready for your mom and me to move in with you, I’m begging you to drop this, before it’s too late.”
Tess thought of Philadelphia, of Pete and Repete, perched on her car like a couple of buzzards. She knew it was already too late, but she could not bear to tell her father this. Children protect their parents as surely as parents protect their children.
They do it the same way-by lying.
“Okay, Dad,” she said. “I won’t press the issue. I’ll tell Tull what I know, and then I’ll let the whole thing drop.”
Her father came around the table and hugged her. They were not a physical family, so it was an awkward, clumsy embrace, but no less sincere for its clumsiness.
“You’re a good girl, Tesser,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
Tess, her head bumping beneath her father’s chin, thought of how long she had waited to hear those words.
And how unfortunate it was that they had to come now, when she was lying through her teeth.
chapter 25
IN HER OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, TESS CLICKED HER way to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Internet site and found the story about Hilde’s slaying. It wasn’t played on page one, as far as she could tell, and the juiciest details-the gunfire, Tess and Devon taking cover behind the cheesesteak cart-were missing. Nor was there anything about a possible kidnapping. In fact, Devon’s name didn’t even appear in the story, so the Whittakers must have more pull than Tess realized. According to the Inquirer, the woman killed was a “Swedish nutritionist,” living here on a visa. The landlord said she had a roommate, but the roommate had not been home at the time of the slaying and was not available for comment.
“Not available for comment.” Newspaper-ese for “I fucking couldn’t find her, okay?” Tess sat back in her chair, feeling safe. If the police were withholding Devon’s role from reporters, then Tess’s identity also would remain a secret. There would be no awkward questions to answer from the Philly press, which means it would be unlikely that the story would trickle down Interstate 95 and show up in the Blight. She had escaped being the local angle.
Then she checked her messages.
“Miss Monaghan?” The voice was male and bill-collector polite. “Herman Peters, at the Beacon-Light. I had a tip this morning that you might know something about an incident in Philadelphia yesterday. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Great. Herman Peters was only the sweetest, gentlest, and most indefatigable son of a bitch at the local paper these days. One of the Philadelphia cops must have been checking her out through Baltimore PD and hit one of Herman’s sources, who had then offered this tidbit to him to make him go away.
She gathered up her keys and knapsack, jangling the hook on Esskay’s leash, which signaled the dog to roll from the sofa and follow her out. It suddenly seemed like a good day to work at home, where Kitty could keep unwelcome visitors at bay.
But when she stepped out the door to her office, Herman Peters was getting out of a surprisingly clean Honda Accord, talking on a cell phone.
“Yeah, I heard the fire call for Northwest,” he was saying, as he walked toward her. He spoke rapidly, so rapidly that it was almost as if he were speaking in a foreign language. “Vacant rowhouse. We don’t need to worry about it unless the wind picks up, and it goes to extra alarms. Gotta go-I’m here on an interview.”
“That’s okay,” Tess said sweetly, walking past him and unlocking her car door. “I’m on my way out, anyway. Why don’t we catch up later?”
Herman Peters had brown eyes that Keene would have been proud to paint and bright pink cheeks that brought to mind impossibly wholesome activities, like cross-country skiing. However, Tess knew from her Blight friends that he hadn’t taken more than one day off in the last two years and outside murder scenes provided the only sunshine and fresh air in his life. Cal Ripken’s streak had ended, but Peters hadn’t missed a homicide yet. This had led to a saying around town: If a body drops and the Hermannator isn’t there to hear it, does it make a sound?
He was a crafty son of a bitch, too. Instead of trying to change Tess’s mind, he took a package of Nabs crackers from his pocket and offered one to Esskay. The dog all but dragged Tess back to the man she was trying to avoid.
“So, about Philadelphia-” he said, offering Esskay a second Nabs.
“It’s not a city I know very well,” Tess said. “I used to go there when I competed in crew races, but I haven’t done that for years.”
“Then what were you doing there yesterday? Patching the crack in the Liberty Bell?”
“Davy Crockett,” Tess sang back to him. “I bet you had a little raccoon cap when you were younger and galloped around the yard on a hobby horse, shooting at imaginary Mexicans.”
“Actually, I did have a coonskin cap, when I was a little kid.”
“And that would have been, what, three years ago?”
The Nabs were gone, but Peters was now stroking Esskay’s muzzle and scratching her behind the ears, and the dog was so rooted to the spot that Tess wasn’t sure she could yank her away with both arms. She remembered yet another stray piece of gossip she had heard about Peters: Despite his boyish looks, or perhaps because of them, he was extraordinarily successful with women. He had triple-timed female co-workers at the paper, and then hooked up with some starlet who was making a movie in town.