Hardly Knew Her

It wasn’t what Mr. Weejun wanted to hear, so he ignored her.

“Yeah, you can clean my shoe,” he told the old man. “Just don’t expect a tip.”

The shoeshine man sat down his box and went to work quickly. “Mayo

“I guess you’d know,” Weejun said. “Since you put it there.”

“No, sir. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

The shoeshine man was putting the finishing touches on the man’s second shoe when the valet pulled up in a Humvee. Taxicab yellow, Tess observed, still playing the game. Save the Bay license plates and a sticker that a

“Five dollars,” the shoeshine man said, and Weejun pulled out a five with great ostentation-then handed it to the valet. “No rewards for scammers,” he said with great satisfaction. But when he glanced around, apparently expecting some sort of affirmation for his boorishness, all he saw were shocked and disapproving faces.

With the curious logic of the disgraced, Weejun upped the ante, kicking the man’s shoeshine kit so its contents spilled across the sidewalk. He then hopped into his Humvee, gu

As the shoeshine man’s hands reached for the spilled contents of his box, Tess saw him pick up a discarded soda can and throw it at the fender of the Humvee. It bounced off with a hollow, harmless sound, but the car stopped with a great squealing of brakes and Weejun emerged, spoiling for a fight. He threw himself on the shoeshine man.

But the older man was no patsy. He grabbed his empty box, landing it in his attacker’s stomach with a solid, satisfying smack. Tess waited for someone, anyone, to do something, but no one moved. Reluctantly she waded in, tossing her cell phone to Whitney. Longtime friends who had once synched their movements in a women’s four on the rowing team at Washington College, the two could still think in synch when necessary. Whitney called 911 while Tess grabbed Weejun by the collar and uttered a piercing scream as close to his ear as possible. “Stop it, asshole. The cops are coming.”

The man nodded, seemed to compose himself-then charged the shoeshine man again. Tess tried to hold him back by the belt, and he turned back, swinging out wildly, hitting her in the chin. Sad to say, this physical contact galvanized the crowd in a way that his attack on an elderly black man had not. By the time the blue-and-whites rolled up, the valet parkers were holding Weejun and Whitney was examining the fast-developing bruise on Tess’s jaw with great satisfaction.

“You are so going to file charges against this asshole,” she said.

“Well, I’m going to file charges against him, then,” he brayed, unrepentant. “He started the whole thing.”

The patrol cop was in his mid-thirties, a seasoned officer who had broken up his share of fights, although probably not in this neighborhood. “If anyone’s adamant about filing a report, it can be done, but it will involve about four hours down at the district.”

That dimmed everyone’s enthusiasm, even Whitney’s.

“Good,” the cop said. “I’ll just take the bare details and let everyone go.”

The laundry truck moved, the valet parking attendants regained their usual efficiency, and the crowd moved on, more anxious about their destinations than this bit of street theater. The shoeshine man started to walk away, but the cop motioned for him to stay, taking names and calling them in, along with DOBs. “Just routine,” he told Tess, but his expression soon changed in a way that indicated the matter was anything but routine. He walked away from them, out of earshot, clicking the two-way on his shoulder on and off.

“You can go,” he said to Whitney and Tess upon returning. “But I gotta take him in. There’s a warrant.”

“Him?” Whitney asked hopefully, jerking her chin at Weejun.

“No, him.” The cop looked genuinely regretful. “Could be a mix-up, could be someone else using his name and DOB, but I still have take him downtown.”

“What’s the warrant for?” Tess asked.

“Murder, if you really want to know.”

Weejun looked at once gleeful and frightened, as if he were wondering just who he had challenged in this fight. It would make quite a brag around the country club, Tess thought. He’d probably be telling his buddies he had taken on a homicidal maniac and won.

Yet the shoeshine man was utterly composed. He did not protest his i

“IT’S THE DAMNEDEST THING, TESS. He couldn’t confess fast enough. Didn’t want a lawyer, didn’t ask any questions, just sat down and began talking.”

Homicide detective Martin Tull, Tess’s only real friend in the Baltimore Police Department, had caught the shoeshine man’s case simply by answering the phone when the patrol cop called him about the warrant. He should have been thrilled-it was an easy stat, about as easy as they come. No matter how old the case, it counted toward the current year’s total of solved homicides.

“It’s a little too easy,” Tull said, sitting with Tess on a bench near one of their favorite coffeehouses, watching the water taxis zip back and forth across the I

“Everyone gets lucky, even you,” Tess said. “It’s all too credible that the warrant was lost all these years. What I don’t get is how it was found.”

“Department got some grant for computer work. Isn’t that great? There’s not enough money to make sure DNA samples are stored safely, but some think tank gave us money so college students can spend all summer keystroking data. The guy moved about two weeks after the murder, before he was named in the warrant. Moved all of five miles, from West Baltimore to the county, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who left a forwarding address. Or the cop on the case was a bonehead. At any rate, he’s gone forty years, wanted for murder, and if he hadn’t been in that fight night before last, he might’ve gone another forty.”

“Did he even know there was a warrant on him?”

“Oh yeah. He knew exactly why he was there. Story came out of him as if he had been rehearsing it for years. Kept saying, Yep, I did it, no doubt about it. You do what you have to do, officer. So we charged him, the judge put a hundred thousand dollars’ bail on him, a bail bondsman put up ten thousand dollars, and he went home.”

“I guess someone who’s lived at the same address for thirty-nine years isn’t considered a flight risk.”

“Flight risk? I think if I had left this guy in the room with all our opened files, he would have confessed to every homicide in Baltimore. I have never seen someone so eager to confess to a crime. I almost think he wants to go to jail.”

“Maybe he’s convinced that a city jury won’t lock him up, or that he can get a plea. How did the victim die?”

“Blunt force trauma in a burglary. There’s no physical evidence and the warrant was sworn out on the basis of an eyewitness who’s been dead for ten years.”

“So you probably couldn’t get a conviction at all if it went to trial.”

“Nope. That’s what makes it so odd. Even if the witness were alive, she’d be almost ninety by now, pretty easy to break down on the stand.”

“What’s the file say?”

“Neighbor lady said she saw William Harrison leave the premises, acting strangely. She knew the guy because he did odd jobs in the neighborhood, even worked for her on occasion, but there was no reason for him to be at the victim’s house so late at night.”