"We'll probably have another snowstorm before the month is out," she said. How lame could she be, falling back on the weather to make conversation? She should have said something about politics, or today's front page. But that would have involved actually reading the front page. She had been having far too much fun wallowing in the electronic trash heap.

" Baltimore is lovely in the snow," Sterling said, "even if Baltimoreans aren't."

"Are you going to go into that usual out-of-towner rap, about how we can't drive in it, and we all act like idiots, rushing to the store for supplies?"

"It's the nature of the supplies I've never understood. Bread, milk, and toilet paper, hon." Sterling did a decent Baltimore accent for a newcomer. "The holy trinity of Baltimore life. Can you explain it, hometown girl?"

"My parents always say it goes back to the Blizzard of '66, which seemed to come out of nowhere," Tess said, as they climbed the marble steps outside Marconi's. "Milk for the kids, bread for sandwiches. And I think the toilet paper was for women to wrap their beehives."

Good, she had made him laugh again. "And now people run to the Giant or the SuperFresh near Television Hill so they can be sure of making the evening news."

"Hey, don't knock it. Being identified as a ‘panicky snow shopper' is how most locals earn their fifteen minutes of fame."

"Funny, how that phrase has been perverted over the years," Sterling mused, as they followed an ancient maître d' to a table in the rear dining room. "Warhol actually wrote in an exhibition catalog, ‘In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.' Now we talk about it as if it were an entitlement, or part of the Declaration of Independence. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of our fifteen minutes of fame. Have you had yours yet?"

Tess took her seat, thinking about the brief article the Blight had run last fall, when she had been attacked. If she was going to be famous for fifteen minutes, she hoped it wouldn't be for that. "I might have slept through mine."

"Well, then, you can have my fifteen minutes. Unless I'm on the masthead, the only time I ever want to appear in any newspaper is when I die."

It was Tess's turn to laugh. "How Junior League of you. What's the rule? A proper person's name appears only three times: at birth, marriage, and death."

"Exactly. So I have two more opportunities left."

She ducked her head, taking more care than necessary as she unfolded the linen napkin, hoping Sterling couldn't see the wide grin spreading across her face at the realization he had never married.

Marconi's was a dowdy grande dame. The dining room was too bright, the food too heavily sauced, the wallpaper faded and waterstained. Prices, while not steep, climbed quickly on the a la carte menu. And although the owners had finally agreed to a reservation system, the last seating for dinner was at 8 P.M., ensuring the regulars were at home in time for reruns of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote. But Baltimoreans cherished the place. Tess opened the menu with happy anticipation.

"I'll have the house salad-it's big, we can split it if you like-fried pork chops, and potatoes au gratin," she told the waiter, who was young by Marconi staff standards, not even sixty. "And please make sure the kitchen doesn't run out of fudge sauce. I know I'm going to want a sundae for dessert."

Sterling seemed slightly taken aback by Tess's appetite, but he tried gamely to keep up with her. His choices were healthier, however-broiled sole and a plain baked potato. And while he urged Tess to have a drink, he settled for club soda and lime. After hearing his abstemious order, Tess wished she could at least rescind her request for a glass of white wine. Bad enough to be such a pig, did she have to be a drunkard, too?

"Don't worry, you won't lose points for drinking in front of me," Sterling said, again guessing what she was thinking. "I'd love a drink myself, but my metabolism went south when I turned forty. Can't afford those empty calories."

"I guess I do have a pretty good metabolism. Of course, I exercise every day." Tess was aware she sounded boastful, yet she didn't stop. She wanted Jack Sterling to know how strong she was, how fast, how firm. "On a typical day, I bet I burn at least a thousand calories from my workouts-rowing in the warm weather months, running and weight lifting year round. That's five glasses of wine, or almost four packs of Peanut M amp;Ms."

"Well, you look very…healthy," Sterling said. His naturally pink cheeks turned a little pinker and a dry cough almost choked him. He gulped his club soda, spilling some on his shirt front. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate."

Tess wanted to ease his embarrassment, the way he had eased her discomfort earlier. "You don't know from inappropriate. You should have heard what Wink Wynkowski said to me when I ran into him at the gym."

"When was this?"

"Friday. The day before…" she stopped, flustered.

"You can say it, Tess. The day before he killed himself, thanks to the Beacon-Light's enterprising reporters. Maybe I will have a drink after all."

The salad arrived, a welcome distraction. Tess watched the waiter as if she had never seen someone toss and cut greens before, then forked up several mouthfuls in a row to avoid saying anything. It seemed tactless to speak of Wink's death to Sterling, although she wasn't sure why.

But Sterling wouldn't let her off the hook.

"Did we do it, Tess? Did the paper, in its zeal for a story, kill a man?"

"Of course not. You didn't know-you couldn't have known what he would do when the story ran. It's no different than what happened with Newsweek and Admiral Boorda. Wink made himself out to be such a tough guy. Who knew it was all an act?"

"Who knows anything about anyone? I'm burning out on this business, and on the glib explanations we offer up for everything, as if we could ever really know a man's soul. I'm no longer so confident I know what's right and what's wrong. I'm not even sure Wink's crimes are relevant. Wink Wynkowski left behind a wife and three children under the age of five. How do I weigh their pain against the readers' ‘right to know'?"

The entrees and side dishes arrived, along with a bourbon and water for Sterling. Although she knew form past experience how hot the potatoes were, Tess plucked a cube from the yellow-orange cheese sauce, which had tiny grease bubbles on the surface. Sure enough, it burned the roof of her mouth.

Sterling stared glumly at his food. "I think about his widow a lot. I wonder if she spoke to him Saturday, if he told her what he was going to do. I wonder if she knew about the story before it was in the paper. Had Wink ever confided in her? Had he ever confided in anyone about his past?"

"Are Feeney and Rosita working on a Sunday story about how it…happened?"

"No-not if I have anything to say about it. I'm not worried about answering these questions for the Beacon-Light. I want to know for myself, for my conscience. But Mrs. Wynkowski's not talking to anyone. I'll never know how she feels or what she's thinking."

Tess sliced off a piece of pork, chasing it with another potato cube. Still hot, but no longer lethal. "What if someone intervened, asked her a few questions? Questions you wanted asked."

"Who would do that?"

"I would, if it counted toward my six hours daily of indentured servitude. I can't take being on such a tight leash, Jack. I'm probably in trouble right now for not checking out with Colleen's secretary before I went to lunch. Maybe if you told Colleen I was talking to Mrs. Wynkowski on your behalf…"

"Why would Lea Wynkowski talk to you?"

"Because I'm not a reporter. Which means I can misrepresent myself, becoming someone she might like, someone she would want to confide in."