"Congratulations." Mr. Roger Hehnke didn't look old enough to drive, but you didn't need a driver's license or a high school diploma to be a father in Maryland. Unless you planned to marry, which required one be at least eighteen or sixteen with parental consent. By local standards, Mr. Roger Hehnke was quaintly old-fashioned.

"Thanks. Hey, you know how the first anniversary is paper? Would tickets count? I thought if Hammerjacks had a band that night, we could go there."

"That's good, but I think you should take her to dinner, too."

"Oh, of course. We're going to Chi-Chi's. And we're gonna have the gold margaritas, the ones they make with the good tequila. They cost five dollars!" Mr. Roger Hehnke held up his palm and Tess high-fived him, thinking: I hope it lasts forever. But I give you three years at the outside.

Who would she have married at age eighteen? Joel. Joel Goodwin. A neighborhood boy she had chosen precisely because he seemed so safe and pliable, someone with whom to practice sex and love before she left for college. Today, she probably wouldn't recognize him if he passed her on the street.

How long had Wink and his first wife lasted? It was of no concern to her; she had kept her bargain with Sterling and didn't have to worry about Wink any more. Still, Tess found herself tapping out Wynkowski's full name, if only because she longed to have something to show for her field trip to the courthouse. At least she knew Wink's name wouldn't disappoint.

Sure enough, dozens of files came up, most of them the civil suits Feeney had documented. Wink had sued and been sued, in that never-ending shell game some sleazy businessmen played. Tess had to go back almost fifteen years to find the case she wanted, Wynkowski v. Wynkowski. She wrote down the number, then asked the clerk for the complete file.

The file was thick with papers, but in the end it shed little light on the marriage or its dissolution. Linda had petitioned for the divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences and mental cruelty, but made no mention of Wink's physical cruelty. Well, alimony was more common at the time; maybe Linda didn't need to drag Wink through the dirt to get the financial settlement she wanted. Although the two had no children, she was to receive $500 a month, as long as she lived. That wasn't so much. What had Lea been complaining about?

Tess paged through the file. There was a revised order from five years ago, upping the alimony order to $20,000 a month. And the revised order included a rider that stipulated that in the event of Wink's death, his estate would continue to support Linda through an irrevocable trust, an annuity independent of any life insurance policy. So the first Mrs. Wink was better off than the second, since Wink had killed himself.

She looked at the date again. Right around the time Wink had remarried. Was Wink afraid his first wife would scuttle his marriage to Lea if he didn't give her what she wanted? Had the first Mrs. Wink used his abuse to blackmail him into higher payments? And once the abuse became public knowledge, did Wink no longer have a reason to honor this commitment?

Tess checked Wink's name in the criminal system. He had no record for assault, but that wasn't a surprise. Prosecutors had only recently started pursuing cases where wives wouldn't testify against abusive husbands. The city police department hadn't even kept separate statistics on domestic violence until 1994. During Wink's first marriage, it was likely that the cops who'd answered calls to the house hadn't considered domestic violence a crime. They had probably taken Mrs. Wink's statement, then taken a beer from Wink, laughing with him. Dames, Broads. Bet she was on her period.

What had really happened between Wink and his first wife? Kitty, who had been married for exactly six weeks in her twenties and seldom spoke of it unless she had too much to drink, liked to say there were only two people who knew the truth about any marriage.

In Wink's case, there was now only one.

Chapter 18

There were only two Wynkowskis listed in the Baltimore phone book and Tess had already made the acquaintance of the first. The second, Linda Stolley Wynkowski, lived in Cross Keys, one of the city's first gated communities. An understated cluster of townhouses and high-rise condos on the city's north side, Cross Keys over the years had attracted such disparate individuals as John Dos Passos, onetime NAACP director Ben Chavis, and-most impressive to Tess-the original Romper Room teacher, Miss Nancy. Tess still had a soft spot for Romper Room, despite the fact that the Magic Mirror never saw a Tess, or even a Theresa, in all the years she watched.

She had not called ahead. It was so much harder to say no to a face than it was to a voice, especially someone who looked as harmless as Tess. Her mother might have despaired of her hair and clothes, but mild dishevelment worked for Tess. She looked like a jock, or jockette, and people equated jocks with stupidity, or at least a certain rah-rah thickness. It wasn't flattering for people to assume you were dumb, but it was often an advantage.

Sure enough, the building's front desk clerk-Karl the concierge, according to his name tag-was positively chummy when Tess asked him to ring Mrs. Wynkowski's apartment.

"I should have made an appointment, but I happened to be in the area and it is terribly urgent," she said, then lowered her voice. "It's about her ex-husband's will."

As she had hoped, the concierge was the type of young man who loved being taken into one's confidence.

"You just missed her," he said in an affected, campy voice, his eyebrows twitching in a way that suggested his every utterance arrived with an overcoat of irony. "Wednesday is Octavia day."

"Excuse me?"

"At least, I think it's Octavia day. Or is it Ruth Shaw day? I do have trouble keeping them straight."

"She alternates Octavia and Ruth Shaw," said the doorman, who was leaning against the front desk, seeking refuge from the day's sleety rains. "Octavia or Ruth Shaw on Wednesday, Jones amp; Jones Thursday, the shoe store on Friday, Betty Cooke jewelry from the Store, Ltd., on Saturday. I know because she always has the packages dropped off later, and I have to carry 'em up to her apartment."

"And on the seventh day, she rests," Karl said. "But only because the stores in Cross Keys are closed on Sunday."

"The malls are open," Tess said. "If she's such a shopaholic, she could go find plenty of other places to go."

"True, in theory," Karl the concierge said. "But in practice, Miz Rhymes-with-Witch never leaves Cross Keys. Hasn't been off the reservation in years, to my knowledge. Says everything one needs can be found right here-shops, restaurants, the tennis barn. Doesn't need a gas station because she never takes her car out of the garage. And she may be the only person in America who doesn't own a VCR, because you can't rent videotapes in Cross Keys. Thank God for cable and pay-per-view, or she wouldn't even know who Brad Pitt is, and that would be truly tragic."

Tess glanced at a framed Christmas photograph of Karl, a heavy-set woman, and five children who favored him, with their lean builds and mean little mouths.

"I'm getting the impression you don't like Mrs. Wynkowski very much," she said.

"Moi? Dislike anyone? Why, I adore the woman, especially at Christmastime, when she gives me ten whole dollars for all the little extra services she expects through the year. You trot over to Octavia and I'm sure you'll see just how charming Miz Rhymes-With-Hunt Cup can be."

The shopping center at the heart of Cross Keys was small and set on an open plaza, an arrangement that seemed quaint and dated in this age of malls. Tess did not see how its dozen or so shops could keep one busy for a single day, much less fill six days a week.