“Mickey Pechter,” Tess said. “My computer buddy.”

It took him a few more seconds to catch his breath. Once he did, all he said was: “I hope you know that Judge Halsey and the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s office are going to hear about what you’ve done.”

Then, with surprising force, he pushed Tess off him and stumbled toward the door.

CHAPTER 31

“What you did? He actually said that?”

“Yes,” Tess said. “And without apparent irony.”

She was at the dining room table, watching Crow as he straightened and cleaned the so-called great room, the combination living and dining room that had been created by knocking out the walls in the front of the house. He was unusually manic, as if he felt the house had been defiled by the afternoon’s events and needed some sort of symbolic cleansing.

Crow and the dogs had arrived home just as Mickey Pechter made his mad dash. Unfortunately for Mickey, Miata thought he was running toward Crow and had responded accordingly. She growled and snapped, fur bristling on her neck, penning Pechter in a corner of the house until he seemed on the verge of wetting himself.

If he had been crouched on someone else’s wood floor, Tess would have rooted for just that outcome.

But it was her floor, her house, and Mickey Pechter was a problematic presence, wet or dry. If she called the police and made a report, she could end up before Judge Halsey, her probation extended because she was clearly making no progress on the anger front. She didn’t worry about additional criminal charges-home invasions went to grand juries, which seldom indicted homeowners. But she didn’t want to come under Judge Halsey’s falsely benevolent gaze again, didn’t want to hear his droning pronouncements on the violence that flowed between men and women. She was tired of explaining herself, tired of asking for permission.

She called to the dog. “It’s okay, Miata. Down, girl.”

The Doberman retreated, but then the greyhound surged forward, anxious to get in on the action. Esskay, however, had no instinct for combat. Once she confronted Mickey Pechter, her only move was to hook her nose in his armpit, looking for a pat. She ended up knocking him back on his ass. He yelped with pain-a phony, exaggerated cry. What a whiner, Tess thought. Crow, meanwhile, had turned his attention to Carl, who insisted through gritted teeth that he would be just fine if he could elevate his knee and ice it.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Tess asked Mickey. She was suddenly weary, adrenaline draining from her body and leaving her with nothing but a bruised flulike feeling.

“I wanted you to know what it’s like to be scared and jumpy all the time. It’s a joke, what that judge did. You assaulted me. I woke up in intensive care. Then I go back to work, and I get fired. They said it was because of the downturn, but I bet it was because they heard about what happened.”

Tess smiled. So she had exacted a punishment of sorts. Out of work, Mickey Pechter would have more time but fewer funds to stalk underage girls.

He did not miss her look of satisfaction. “If I were a woman and you were a man, it wouldn’t have ended with you in counseling. You should be in jail, you bitch. I have nightmares because of what you did.”

“I know. I heard your victim impact statement. So if you’re so scared of me, why have you been following me?”

“I saw you with this guy down on Guilford Avenue one day. It got me to thinking.”

Guilford Avenue? That was the day they visited the private mail service, where Eric Shivers had once kept a box. What was Mickey doing there? Baltimore was small enough for such a coincidence to be plausible, but Tess had assumed Mickey Pechter was the kind of suburban boy who never ventured downtown.

All she said was, “Got you thinking what?”

“That maybe you and he were fooling around and I should follow you and see if I could get the goods on you, blackmail you, fuck up your life the way you fucked up mine.”

“You thought Carl and I were having an affair? Don’t be ridiculous.”

He wasn’t listening, he was wound up in his own logic, illogical as it was.

“Then I thought it would be better just to scare you, make you feel unsafe all the time, vulnerable-like. I tried hang-up phone calls at your office-only I kept getting the machine. So then I started tracking you. I wanted you to see me following you. I wasn’t planning on doing anything more, but today, when I got here and saw the door open-”

Now even Mickey Pechter seemed to be having trouble understanding how his mind had worked, how he had reasoned himself into almost getting killed. Yet Tess knew. After all, it had happened to her. All I wanted to do was scare you, get you to stay away from teenage girls. I never set out to strip your clothes off and apply a depilatory.

She would have told him as much. Mickey Pechter, however, did not strike her as a man who would appreciate that irony.

Instead, she said, “So you came to my house with a baseball bat in hand-just to scare me.”

“I’m on a softball team. We had a game today. The bat was the only thing I had in my sister’s van. I was gonna come in, wave it around. I thought I’d pretend to be like, you know, some guy in one of those drug movies who’s looking for a stash but goes to the wrong house.”

“Sounds like a good way to get killed.”

“I didn’t know you had a gun. And I didn’t know this guy, your redheaded friend, was going to jump me from behind. He was trying to kill me, swear to God. I only swung at him to get him off me, and then he was so angry, I thought he really would kill me if he got the bat out of my hand. It was like I was outside my head. I couldn’t stop.”

Tess looked at Carl, who had struggled to a seated position with Crow’s help and had a dish towel of cracked ice pressed to his knee. His face was pale beneath his freckles. She wondered if he could go into shock from pain.

“Carl, you want to press charges against him?”

“God, no,” he said, his voice tough, if a bit faint.

“You sure?” She wouldn’t have minded Mickey Pechter facing his own felony assault charges. But this was the city, not the county. There was no Judge Halsey here, no time for such penny-ante antics. Besides, she didn’t want any official record of Pechter’s visit.

“Positive,” Carl said, between clenched teeth.

She waved her gun at Mickey, just for effect. She was suddenly aware of how bizarre she must look. Much of her hair had come loose from her braid and was flying around her head, her white shirt was crusted with dirt and dead leaves, her black linen skirt was still halfway up her hips, displaying the full glory of her now-ripped pantyhose, cut-rate DKNY purchased in bulk at Nordstrom Rack. The Preppie Avenger.

“I’m the one who almost killed someone today,” she said. The catch in her voice, almost a sob, caught her off guard. “Do you realize that? I almost shot you in my home, and no grand jury in the world would have indicted me, not under these circumstances. But it would have fucked up my life, just the same. You want to give me nightmares? You came damn close. Thing is, you would have been too dead to enjoy it.”

“I told you I didn’t know you had a gun,” Pechter stammered, afraid again.

“You never know who has a gun in this world. Or who has a concerned family friend who’s willing to wreck your life for the sheer fun of it. You can’t know anything about anyone. So you shouldn’t pick fights, because you may not win. Don’t flip people off in traffic, don’t pull macho shit in bars. We live in a world where people will kill you for one rude look. How can you not know that? Are you too busy trying to pick up underage girls to read the goddamn papers?”

“I know,” he said, “that you are one crazy fucked-up cunt.”