In A Strange City

Last night, the local television stations, less discriminating, had given Cecilia her Sunday-night sound bite, but they wouldn’t know where to go with this piece of the story until the print folks showed them the way.

Cecilia’s problem was that the press, local and out-of-town, had already framed the tale in its collective mind. It was Poe, it was a ghost story, it was “human interest.” If Bobby Hilliard had been shot on a corner somewhere, coming home from work, he would have rated a mere paragraph and Cecilia’s theories would have excited much more interest, at least locally. But the Poe angle was too delicious. The media couldn’t surrender it, not yet.

Tess glanced back at the oyster tin. She should call Herman Peters at the Blight and ask if he had the police report on Shawn Hayes. If the two cases were co

“Of course, going to the library would just be silly,” she remarked to Esskay “This note is probably someone’s idea of a joke. For all I know, it’s Whitney, pulling my leg.”

Esskay stood over her, pushing out the sour, fishy breaths Tess had come to love because they were an inextricable part of this prima do

“Then again, the library doesn’t even open until ten. So if that’s my first stop of the day we could justify going back to bed for another hour.”

At last, something they could agree on.

Two hours later, as Tess locked her door, she became aware of a sudden motion in the street behind her, the strange little eddy of air created by someone trying to rush without quite ru

Her reaction was so swift that it outpaced instinct: She turned, keys laced through her fists, and let her right arm extend like a jack-in-the-box.

Luckily for her visitor, he was taller than she, and the keys grazed his neck instead of his eyes. Luckier still, his neck was well padded with a plaid muffler, so the keys merely sank into the folds of fabric. But he was caught off guard, and he stepped backward down her step, almost twisting his ankle as he fell to one knee.

Standing over him, Tess recognized the dark hair and prissy mouth of the cable-show talking head from the press conference, even though the mouth was uncharacteristically shut. She stepped around him quickly, heading toward her car.

He scrambled to his feet and managed to insert himself between her and the Toyota, not unlike a salesman who has learned to stick his foot in a slamming door.

“Jim Yeager,” he said, thrusting out a hand. “I need to talk to you.”

“I have an office,” she said. “Do people come to your home on business?”

He continued to block her path, his hand still out, his hopes of a warm welcome not quite extinguished.

“Well, no,” he said. “But I have an unlisted address. One has to, in my line of work. It’s amazing, the things that people project, you know? I’d be afraid of crazy people showing up.”

“Exactly,” said Tess, who also had an unlisted address. Which meant that Yeager had found her through someone’s tip, probably Rainer’s, payback for her appearance at yesterday’s press conference. First a Norwegian radio reporter, now this guy. Rainer sure knew where her buttons were located and how to push them.

“Now, now. Do I look crazy?”

“What you look like,” Tess said, “is a Washington-ian.”

“Is that, a priori, a bad thing?” He liked to use Latin legalisms, it was his shtick, his gimmick, his way of reminding his audience that he had a law school education. “Being a Washingtonian, not just looking like one, I mean.”

“Definitely.” Actually, Tess liked Washington for its beautiful buildings and good food. It wasn’t Washington ’s fault that such insufferable people had collected there, like hair in a drain. Come to think of it, maybe it was Maryland ’s fault. The state had donated the rectangle of land that became the nation’s capital.

“Look, I’m sorry to show up here, but I got a tip that you know something about the Poe case, and I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“If I did know something, it would be information developed from working for a client, and I couldn’t share it with you. If I didn’t know anything-and trust me, I don’t-then I still would have nothing to say to you.”

“Hear me out.” On television, Yeager was a verbal bullyboy, speaking so swiftly and emphatically that his guests seldom got a word in edgewise. But he was soft-pedaling it with Tess, trying to ingratiate himself. He looked like one of those men who had been told- maybe just once, and very long ago-that he was charming. He had curly black hair that made Tess think of the darkest Concord grapes and a heavy coarse-featured face that was too florid for him ever to progress to the more mainstream news shows. Yet he was close to bursting with self-esteem.

“A mere ten minutes of your time,” he wheedled. “Can’t we go inside, where I can tell you what I’m proposing?”

She wouldn’t have a stranger in her house, not even on a normal morning, and this morning had veered beyond normal hours ago. She was fussy about her home. It was for friends and family, not business, never business.

But Yeager was going to be hard to shake, if she didn’t go through the motions of giving him what he wanted. What if he kept coming back, now that he knew where she lived?

“There’s a coffee shop at the foot of the hill, on Cold Spring Lane. The Daily Grind. I was going to fuel up down there before heading in to work. I’ll give you exactly one cup of coffee to make your pitch, whatever it is.”

“The Daily Grind? Cute name. But is the coffee any good? I have to admit, Starbucks has totally spoiled me. I need my decaf double latte with skim to start the day.”

“I think you’ll be able to make do.”

Tess had lived in her new neighborhood for ten months. This North Side outpost of the Daily Grind had been part of her routine for nine months, three weeks, and six days. She had started going there in the early days of renovating her house because she wanted to eat a dust-free breakfast, and she had just never stopped. It was a one-of-a-kind place, a neighborhood crossroads where students, North Baltimore bohemians, and very proper Roland Park types all converged. Local art hung on the walls, and there was a fake grotto with a waterfall and a gazing globe set on a pedestal. The most recent addition was the “Elvis sofa,” a huge white-velour sectional with gold trim, which made Tess feel as if she were on the set of the Merv Griffin show. The orange juice was fresh, the coffee exquisite. Tess’s only grudge against the Daily Grind was that it didn’t open before 7 a.m. She would have welcomed an early cup of coffee in the warm weather months, when she headed out at 6 a.m. to row.

“Funky,” Jim Yeager said. He never sounded quite sincere, perhaps because of his overweening self-awareness. It was as if he played back every moment of his life on a little monitor in his head, allowing him to assess, instantly, every facial expression and vowel sound. “Not what I expected in Baltimore.”

“Let me guess.” Tess handed her battered go-cup to Gle

Jim Yeager looked puzzled. “Well, yes. I mean, I do love to go to Oriole games, and we often go to Little Italy or O’Brycki’s afterward.”