Butchers Hill

"Maybe they figured they might not get such big grants if they admitted a kid got killed in their care."

"Look, they didn't exactly give him permission to go out at two a.m., breaking windshields." Feeney flipped through the pages of his reporter's notebook. "I dug up an address on Do

Tess made another note on her legal pad, copying the address scrawled on the inside cover of Feeney's reporter's notebook.

"What happened to her lawsuit?"

"She settled. It was sealed, but word around the courthouse was she ended up with less than five figures after her lawyer took his cut. It's a little ugly, how they do the math in these cases. Do

"Damn, I wonder what I'd be worth according to that formula."

"Hell, Tess, they'd get more for you if they sold you for parts." Feeney cackled at his own joke.

"Thanks. You want to get together for di

"Maybe later this summer. I'm taking four weeks off. I've got so much vacation banked they're ordering me to take some of it."

"Where you headed?"

Feeney looked embarrassed. "California. My sister lives in Long Beach and I haven't seen her daughters for three years. We're going to do some family junk together. Go to the zoo down in San Diego, stuff like that, then I'm going to head into Baja by myself, sit on the beach and drink. You ever been there? Beautiful, beautiful place."

Tess wasn't distracted by his babbling about Baja. "Feeney, are you going to Disneyland with your nieces?"

He nodded, mortified. The phone rang and he grabbed it, shouting into the phone in glad relief: "Yeah? Well, fuck you too, Bunky. You know, if I wanted shit from you, I'd squeeze your head."

Tess waved good-bye, still gri

The main office at Gwy

"Can I help you?" The harried secretary at the front desk didn't bother to make eye contact with Tess and her clipped words made it clear that she hoped she couldn't help.

"I'm trying to get some information about one of your former students."

Tess was nonchalant, as if it were perfectly routine for some stranger to request a student's record, but the secretary was having none of it. A black woman with dyed blond hair, grass-green eyes, and a crumpled linen dress of a tropical pattern with glints of both colors, she stared at Tess as if trying to match her to some of the faces she had seen on the wall during her last trip to the post office.

"I take it you're not a parent."

Tess considered lying, but decided she wouldn't get away with it. She hadn't seen a single white student in the office, nor in the school's gloomy corridors. "No, I'm a private investigator who's been hired to find this student."

"By a custodial parent?" The secretary drew out the legal term, cu-sto-di-aaaaaaal, as if to warn Tess she knew what was what.

"Um, no, but my client does have a legitimate interest in finding this child."

"Really? How can anyone-someone who's not a parent, probably not even a relative-have a legitimate need to find one of our students? If it were the law, you'd have a badge. If you were from Child Protective Services, you'd have a state ID. If it's not the law, and it's not the state, then you're not legitimate and I don't want you in my school."

Tess decided to pull rank. "Look, maybe you should just get the principal. This is a sensitive matter, it requires someone who has authority, and the discretion to use it."

"I am the principal, Missy, and you're the sensitive matter. Strangers who walk in off the street are something we take real seriously around here. Now clear these premises, and don't come back. If I see you again, I'll have you arrested for trespassing."

Tess left the way she had always left the principal's office-head down, cheeks hot, certain everyone she passed knew of her misdeeds.

Do

"Near the hospital?"

"No, farther south." In her drug-soft mouth, the phrase came out: "Farver sauf."

"But that's practically back in Butchers Hill." Tess felt as if she had been driving all morning, only to find that what she wanted was a few blocks from her own office.

"Yeah, that's where Keisha's new house is. Her baby's fahver helped find it for her." The sister faded out for a second, closing her eyes. Then her eyes popped open again. "He treats her good?"

"Her boyfriend?"

"Her baby's fahver," she corrected. An important distinction, apparently. "Say hey to her for me, will you? Tell her Tonya says hey."

"Do

"Uh-uh. Tone-ya. Like Toni Braxton, you know, 'cept different. Hey, you know my cousin know a girl who know one of her sisters, down in Severna Park, where she's from?"

"A girl knows your sister?"

"No, she know Toni Braxton. She says she's really nice, not at all stuck-up. She say she comes home and sings in the backyard, and they have chicken. They go

A rat waddled down the sidewalk in front of Keisha Moore's rowhouse. The house looked neat, but dark, its windows shut and curtains drawn against the bright sunlight. It had the feel of a place where everyone was fast asleep, although it was now almost noon. Tess knocked several times and was about to leave when she heard footsteps on the stairs.

"What you want?" The woman who flung open the door wore nothing but a bra and a pair of baggy athletic shorts. At least, the shorts had been designed to hang loosely. Her substantial frame filled every fold. She wasn't fat, really, but big and solid in a way Tess imagined was probably appealing to most men. Certainly, this wasn't the wasted frame of an addict.

"Are you Keisha Moore?"

"You from Social Services?"

"No-" Tess fumbled with her knapsack, trying to find her wallet and her P.I.'s license.

"Because I told you, there's no man living here."

"No, really, I'm a detective."

Poor word choice. "I ain't done nothing. What the cops want with me? I ain' done nothing and Lavon ain't done nothing. Why you got to be hassling us all the time?"