Baltimore Blues

She stood up, determined to run, but her legs felt too rubbery. Instead she left her apartment and began walking. First north, then east. The neighborhoods through which she walked were the cornerstone of the Baltimore myth, the places enshrined in the travel pieces written by every slumming journalist who had ever swung a crab mallet at Obrycki's. Here were the marble stoops, the celebrated ethnic mix, the vast green spaces of Patterson Park. It looked good, from a distance. But Tess knew teenagers were smoking PCP and crack in the alleys, and that no one walked in Patterson Park because of the crime. She knew fewer and fewer women scrubbed their marble stoops every day. Even the Elvis mural had been defaced, so it had to be painted over. And when Baltimoreans started turning on Elvis, times were bad.

She walked past the old Francis Scott Key Hospital and through Greektown. The air was full of grape leaves, roasted lamb, potato pancakes, and, near the Brazilian restaurant, a scorched pork scent her nose recognized as the "national dish of Brazil." She passed Cesnik's Tavern. It could be Cecilia's father's place. She walked all the way to Dundalk, down Holabird Avenue, to the small hideous rancher owned by Abner Macauley.

Mrs. Macauley, her hair a few inches higher since Tess's last visit, opened the door.

"Oh, hi, hon," she said. "He's not well enough to talk."

"He doesn't have to." Almost rudely she pushed past the woman and into the living room.

Mr. Macauley looked worse, if that was possible. Grayer, thi

"Mr. Macauley?"

He was dozing and woke with a start, not recognizing her at first. He looked around her, found his wife, and relaxed. He was not dead, then, facing down an Amazonian angel at heaven's gate.

"You're going to get your money, Mr. Macauley. All of it. I talked to someone from the law firm and they promised. By next week."

He smiled. Gently Tess picked up one of his hands. The palms were still rough, all these years later, but the backs of his hands were paper thin. She stroked his hand and listened to his breathing through the plastic tube, the squeak of his recliner. An old Perry Mason show was on television. Tess had forgotten Raymond Burr once had a dark, frightening grace. She also had forgotten what a weenie Hamilton Burger was.

"I've seen 'em all," Mr. Macauley rasped. "I never remember who did it."

They watched the show together, silently. As a little girl Tess had watched it with Poppa Weinstein and he, much like Mr. Macauley, had seen every episode. She had thought this was how it worked-that everyone sat in the courtroom together, that attorneys were frequently surprised by the answers they heard, that the case was always solved as a witness dissolved in tears or shouts. In the back of her mind she had thought it would be like this for Rock.

"Jew bastard," Mr. Macauley said suddenly.

"Perry Mason?" Raymond Burr? Hamilton Burger?

"Abramowitz," he said. "Jew bastard." He fell back asleep. She continued to hold his hand. Everyone thought she was on their side, that she was one of them.

"You should go," Mrs. Macauley whispered a little nervously. Did she worry her husband would wake up again, or was she simply frightened by this odd woman in her living room, holding her husband's hand in front of an old Emerson?

"Sure." She walked to the door, Mrs. Macauley trailing her. "I meant to tell him. You won't get the money all at once. You'll get quarterly payments over the next few years. And the checks will be from a local foundation, one associated with the law firm. That way you can get it faster." The idea had come to her so quickly. If the William Tree Foundation was so generous with its funds, why shouldn't Abner Macauley get his cut? Mrs. O'Neal had been amused but happy to help. Tess would be quiet as long as Macauley got his checks.

"What will you do?" she asked Mrs. Macauley. "With the money?"

"Oh-nothing." She shrugged, as if $850,000 was no more than hitting a Pick 3. "He's so far gone. We thought Florida, once. Or one of those places with a golf course right next to your house. Now I'd just like to see he has as little pain as possible."

Tess hiked up to Eastern Avenue and caught a westbound bus home.

"Sweet Jesus Christ," she a

"How's the case?" Crow asked, looking up from his book and giving her a full-force smile, obviously trying to cheer her up. "Have you found out anything new?"

"There is no case," she said harshly. Hurt, Crow went back to his reading.

"I'm sorry. I'm not having a great day." No answer from Crow, his eyes still fixed on his book. Possession, by A. S. Byatt. Interesting choice, she thought. A literary mystery in which a man and a woman team up to solve a puzzle and fall in love. "Look, I owed you an apology and I gave it to you. Now you owe me an explanation."

"For what?" Eyes still downcast. He had a talent for sulking.

"You never told me where you got your nickname."

He looked up then. "My nickname? Well, you've had a few clues. First of all, there's my hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia."

"Is the crow the UVA mascot?"

"Second hint: the name of my band."

"Po' White Trash. So?"

"Third hint: my initials."

She had to think about that one. She had only heard them once, when Kitty told Ferlinghetti his full name. "E. A.?"

"Right. My dad couldn't resist naming his only son Edgar Allan, after Virginia's great writer."

"Excuse me, but Edgar Allan Poe is a Baltimore writer."

"He was born in Virginia. He died in Baltimore. You can argue about which place has the greater claim. Anyway, my dad started reading Poe to me when I was a little kid-the poems, not the really dark stuff. And when he read ‘The Raven,' I didn't know what he was talking about. My dad explained it was a big black bird. And I, with the wisdom of a six-year-old, said, ‘Why not call a crow a crow?' It's been my name ever since. It's better than Edgar or Ed." He closed his book. "There-you've finally solved a mystery."

"So your band is really Poe White Trash?"

"You got it. It's a great name, cuts across class lines. The rednecks from Hampden and Remington come because they think it's a redneck industrial band. But the literary college students like it, too."

"Not very politically correct, is it?" she said in that strange schoolteacher voice Crow inspired in her. "If you think about it, white trash is a term with overtones of racial superiority."

"Shit, you don't need to find Michael Abramowitz's killer. You need to find your sense of humor."

Tess, who felt she had come legitimately by her newfound dourness, shocked herself by bursting into tears at Crow's gentle rebuke. Holding her groceries, she cried and cried, unglamorous, racking sobs that shook her body. Her nose ran, her eyes began to swell, but she held her ground and she held her groceries. She wept for Jonathan, she wept for Abramowitz. She wept for Damon Jackson. She wept because she had spent the past two weeks tightening the noose around a good friend's neck, systematically eliminating every other possible suspect. She barely noticed when Crow put his arms around her, hugging her tight until her tears ran out.

Crow was not the kind of person who would have a handkerchief or even a crumpled Kleenex. Inelegantly she wiped her nose on her own sleeve.

"Well, that was pretty," she said. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize."