Baltimore Blues

"Will you?" She found herself caring about the answer more than she wanted to.

"Naw, because Whitney missed a salient detail: Cecilia's gay. Besides, I like tall women. Muscular women." He squeezed her bicep.

Tess looked away but didn't take his hand off her arm. "Crow, you don't know what you want. A few weeks ago you were delirious over Kitty, and she's not exactly tall."

"Everyone falls in love with Kitty. It's a rite of passage. Then you move on. I like you, Tess. I really like you."

If he had said he loved her, or couldn't live without her, she would have been unmoved. If he had quoted poetry or put his arms around her, she would have pushed him away. Crow's understated declaration was harder to ignore. He liked her.

"Do you have a fiancée? Or a wife?"

In reply Crow kissed her-a simple, outdoors kiss, a kiss promising much, but not too much. He wasn't saying forever. He wasn't even saying next week. Just now, this afternoon. She kissed him back, then pulled away, aware they were in a crowd. People were watching.

The Patapsco looked almost blue today, shiny in spots. Oil, Tess thought, shuddering a little. Toxins. Lovely muck. She turned her back on the river and faced the boat house. A handsome building, she decided, a perfectly i

On the veranda, along the second level, officials and VIPs crowded the rail, where they paid more attention to one another than to the races below. Light skipped and bounced along shiny surfaces-tiny prisms created by diamond rings, gold earrings, silver flasks. Tess saw a rainbow trapped in a crystal glass half filled with amber liquid, a large hand holding tight to the glass. The hand belonged to Seamon O'Neal, laughing, even redder than usual, Ava on one side, Luisa on the other. Tess had never noticed the similarities between the two women-the dark hair, the heart-shaped faces, the good bones. Only, Ava looked like a cheaper version, the fine lines blurred in translation, like a knockoff of a designer dress.

Tess stared at the trio steadily. Neither Seamon nor Ava looked down, but Luisa's wounded eyes caught hers, held them for a moment, then closed as she raised her glass to her mouth.

You see my side of things, Miss Monaghan. Justice was done… You're no one, and no one will ever believe you.

She had not told-not Tyner, not Kitty, not Whitney-especially not Whitney, whose loyalties would have been sharply tested. Her mother substituted in Luisa's te

Tess turned back to Crow. "Do you really like James Cain?"

"Jesus, Tess." He rolled his eyes. "I have better things to do with my time than study up on your literary preferences, hoping to impress you. I counted on my charm to win you over. James Cain was a lucky accident."

"Last line of Mildred Pierce. What does Mildred say to Bert?"

"Bert says it to Mildred first: ‘Let's get stinko.'"

"Let's get stinko, Crow. And then-then I'm going to tell you a story."

The bagpipe band, terrifyingly hearty, swung into the anthem's final lines. It had started as a poem, and a bad poem at that. Tess didn't need Crow to tell her that much. She also knew it was set to a drinking song, ugly and clumsy, from Great Britain. But the anthem belonged to Baltimore.

About the Author

LAURA LIPPMAN was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels-Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill, In Big Trouble, The Sugar House, and The Last Place-have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her novel, In a Strange City, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel, Every Secret Thing, was published by William Morrow in September 2003. You can visit her website at www.lauralippman.com.