Butchers Hill

Two officers brought Sal out just then. He was still just a boy, Tess reminded herself. Seventeen wasn't as old as he thought it was. And he hadn't covered up his crime because he feared taking responsibility for what he had done, but because he wanted to keep his "family" together. Perhaps, like everyone else in Baltimore at the time, he had assumed Luther Beale would never serve time for his crime. How could a little boy know the intricacies of handgun laws in the city limits?

"The ski

Sal glanced up. He looked angry and guilty at the same time, and not a little frightened.

"Yeah, I remember you, too."

"Well, I have something to say to you," Beale a

Tull looked at Tess, as if to say: I told you he was a son of a bitch. Even Tess couldn't quite believe that Beale would insist on making a scene. It wasn't enough for him to be proven right. He had to proclaim it.

"The way I see it, a lot of folks failed you," Beale said, the Hermanator scribbling down his words furiously. "Those people you lived with, the man who put you in their home. They didn't teach you right from wrong. But they were grownups and you were a little boy. You couldn't help not knowing any better.

"I was a grownup, too. If I hadn't come out in the street with my gun that night, you wouldn't have fired your gun and Do

Epilogue

August

The unseasonably beautiful summer had finally yielded to something more familiar-hot, humid days, with afternoon thunderstorms that lasted just long enough to ruin picnics and barbecues, but didn't deliver enough rain for the city's now parched gardens and lawns. At Camden Yards, the ground crew was getting more exercise than the Orioles: at least they got to put out the tarp each evening and then roll it back, while the Orioles seldom circled the bases. The Orioles being in something of a slump, their bats were the only reliably cold place in all of Baltimore.

In other words, everything was back to normal. The bill had come due for June and July. Nothing to do but pay up, and move on. Already, fresher scandals were crowding out the twisted saga of what had happened on Butchers Hill so many years ago. "Butchers Hill?" Tess had heard a man say at the lunch counter at Jimmy's just the other morning. "Oh yeah, that place where that kid tried to kill that old man that time."

"No," his companion had insisted. "The old man tried to kill the kid, for breaking his window."

In Kitty's bookstore, Tess pushed aside a stack of the latest Louisa May Alcott discovery-"How many manuscripts did that woman have squirreled away?" she grumbled-to make room on the old soda fountain for yet another tray of hors d'oeuvres. Her mother had been cooking for days, it seemed, bringing by tray after tray of delicacies until Kitty had finally run out of room in her freezer.

"I thought Judith hated to cook," Kitty said, trying to squeeze a plate of miniature quiches between the pasta salad and artichoke dip.

"She used to," Tess said. "I think she's entering some strange new phase. Wait until you see all the outfits she's bought."

"Not all matching?"

"Shockingly, no."

But this party had been Judith's idea, after all. She was entitled to go hog-wild if she wanted. "To celebrate…whatever," she had said. "Well, not celebrate, but acknowledge. You know-"

"I know," Tess had said, feeling charitable enough toward her mother to want to bail her out. It wasn't easy, being St. Judith. It wasn't easy being Gramma. It wasn't easy being.

Kitty had just tapped the keg, a sweet little microbrew from Sissons, the one that tasted like a blueberry muffin in a beer glass, when the guests began to arrive. Most of the Weinsteins were there, showing their support for Judith even if her meshugah daughter had thrown a monkey wrench into everything. The Monaghans had come, too, if only to gloat at the strange circumstances bedeviling their snobbish in-laws. A black teenage mistress! A discovered heir! Who did Samuel Weinstein think he was. Thomas Jefferson? Still, the Monaghans had to admit the Weinsteins were handling the situation with surprising grace. Even Gramma had behaved reasonably well, which is to say that she had decided not to try and block the sale of the property when she heard of Tess's plan to cut Samantha King in for an equal share.

"All for one and one for all-your exact words," Tess had reminded her grandmother. "You said your grandchildren and children had to learn to get along."

"My children and grandchildren," Gramma had countered. But she had added, a sly smile on her face: "I hear she's a smart girl, very athletic and pretty. I know whose genes those are. Blood tells, doesn't it?"

Tess didn't bother to contradict her. Sure, blood tells, but it didn't always tell you what you wished to hear. More than Jackie herself, the long-limbed, auburn-haired Samantha King was a reminder of the secrets that even those closest to you can harbor. Tess wasn't really sorry that Sam was away at lacrosse camp, unable to attend this party today. Everyone was still working on the feelings that she stirred up in them.

Especially Jackie. After the confrontation at the Beckers', she had decided to take up the Edelmans' offer of a limited relationship with Sam. As she had prophesied, it wasn't particularly easy for either of them. While Sam could accept the decisions made by a determined eighteen-year-old, she was perturbed to find out her biological father had been in his sixties. And while she didn't want to leave the only family she had known for Jackie's household, she was more than a little jealous that Jackie had decided to start her own family. She wanted it both ways. What teenager didn't?

Tull came through the door, carrying an insulated freezer sack. "Coffee ice cream," he said.

"Well, I knew whatever you brought, it would be caffeinated. How's life on the killing streets?"

"I'm pleased to a

"Ru

But there was Jackie now, coming through the door, in a yellow-checked sundress, the guest of honor balanced on her hip, also in a matching yellow outfit.

"How's my girl?" Tess asked, reaching for Laylah. But Judith had gotten there first.

"May I?" she asked tentatively, bouncing the girl in her arms. "Oh Jackie, you put her in the outfit I sent. She looks adorable."

"One of the outfits you sent," Jackie said. "Thank you for having this party to celebrate the adoption. But you know, she won't be officially mine for several months yet."

"A formality," Judith said. "Laylah's your daughter now as far I'm concerned."

Laylah, who had been staring, mesmerized, into Judith's face, made a quick grab for one of her earrings. Judith laughed, slipped them into her apron pocket, and began touring the room with the baby, allowing everyone to make a fuss over the guest of honor.

"I owe you one, Jackie," Tess said. "I think I'm off the hook for producing grandchildren, at least for a few years."

"I helped," Tull said. "Don't forget, I helped."

So he had, tracking Laylah down in the foster care system, while Uncle Donald had called in every chit he had to grease the works at DHR. The agency officials had balked at first. It was highly irregular, he had been told, to allow a single woman to take a child into her home before the adoption process was further along.