A dusty gray minivan was idling in one of the spaces on the side street along FunWorld. For one stupid, panicky moment, Crow worried that the authorities had caught up with him. But he was pretty sure no law-enforcement agency used minivans.
“Mr. Crow?” a woman called from the car.
“Just Crow,” a familiar voice corrected. “He’s not a mister.”
“I found Lloyd hitchhiking this morning, and he said he lived here. But I didn’t want to leave him until I saw a grown-up.” The driver, a full-faced black woman with a serious Sunday hat-a tall, golden straw concoction that deserved to be called a crown-looked him up and down. “I guess you count.”
The side door slid open, and Lloyd climbed out of the minivan, at once sheepish and defiant. “Where were you last night, man? You left me.”
“I left-” But Crow saw that insisting on this technical point might cost him something larger. “I’m sorry. I went to buy new cell phones. It didn’t occur to me that you would be looking for me before closing.”
“We fed him a good lunch,” the woman said. “My, he does have an appetite.”
“And he smells!” a little girl’s voice called from within the depths of the minivan, provoking peals of childish laughter. Crow thought the insult would throw Lloyd into his worst defensive posture, that he might ball up his fists or say something inexcusably obscene. But he just mock-scowled and said, “Not as bad as you, Shavonda Grace,” which earned another round of delighted giggles.
“Looks like you made some friends,” Crow said after the woman at the wheel-Mrs. Anderson, he had learned, of Dagsboro-made a three-point turn and headed back to the highway.
“Naw. More like acquaintances.”
“Acquaintances can become friends.”
“If you say so.”
Did Lloyd mean to imply that Crow was more acquaintance than friend? It didn’t matter. His actions undercut his cruel adolescent words. He had come back here. On his own, free to choose, he had directed Mrs. Anderson to bring him here. Perhaps he trusted Crow after all.
MONDAY
26
Tess woke up about 7:00 A.M., her head fogged from restless dreams. They hadn’t been real dreams, more a state between consciousness and unconsciousness in which her mind was stuck in a single groove, like a car spinning its tires in the sand. Crow’s secret account, Crow’s secret account, Crow’s secret account. The fact nagged at her not only in its own right but because it was pointing her somewhere else. She did the only thing she knew to clear her head, the thing she would have done anyway on any weekday morning from mid-March to Thanksgiving. She went to the boathouse.
Unlike the college crews and the local rowing club, a self-employed and solitary sculler such as Tess had the luxury of going out a little later, which allowed her to avoid the traffic jams during the peak times on the rickety docks. And while the middle branch of the Patapsco was far from pastoral, it provided the serenity and isolation she needed to think. Or not think, as the case might be. Here her brain could empty itself, sit still while her body did all the thinking. Tess had tried many things to reach that in-the-moment state that some call Zen-yoga, wine, bad television. But it was only on the water that her busy mind surrendered.
Tess’s body was pretty smart, as it turned out. Today her leg and arm and back muscles went through their paces with great gusto. By the time she was heading to the dock in a nonstop power piece, she had the detail that had been nagging at her.
Tess wasn’t the only woman who shared her life with a man who had a secret account. Gregory Youssef had left behind a safe-deposit box. Was there something to that? Should she try to persuade Wilma to open it before Tess gave up Lloyd?
Her mind moved in time with the oars, thinking of other things she could do before she had to knuckle under to the feds. They had identified the young man, Le’andro Watkins, killed in Lloyd’s stead but didn’t seem interested in pursuing that lead. Tess could follow and even endorse that logic. Such an inquiry might end up alerting the killer that he had missed the real target, which could make Lloyd all the more vulnerable. The only thing Lloyd had going for him right now was that Youssef’s killer assumed he was dead. That and the fact that only five people-Tess, Crow, Whitney, Feeney, and Marcy-knew who Lloyd was.
Or was that six? This thought came to her as she was running the hose over her shell. There was at least one other person Lloyd trusted to the extent that they shared a scam and split the cash. Tess might not know the boy’s name or whereabouts, but she did know what he looked like and how he might be found. She would locate him first, then surprise Wilma in her lair, much as Wilma had caught Tess off guard in a place where she had expected to be free from questioning.
After another morning of painting, Crow and Lloyd used their lunch break to go to the library, check out the Books on Tape that Crow had returned just yesterday, already back in circulation at this small and efficient branch. Crow seized the opportunity to check the Internet as well, curious in spite of himself to read the accounts of Opening Day. Given his mother’s Boston roots, he had been raised a Red Sox fan. It was, he reflected now, excellent preparation for being in a relationship with Tess-frustrating, infuriating, heartbreaking, exhilarating. But the Sox had persevered.
After a mere eighty-seven years, a voice in his head reminded him as he closed the computer’s browser.
He and Lloyd continued to the FedEx box, dropping Tess’s new phone in the mail to her. It would arrive tomorrow morning, and Crow could call her then.
And tell her what? The long-term flaws in his plan became more apparent every day. Lloyd still didn’t want to go back to Baltimore if it meant talking to authorities. When Crow had fled with him, he’d hoped there might be another break in the case, making Lloyd a moot topic. He saw now that an arrest in Youssef’s murder wouldn’t make Lloyd any less interesting to the various law-enforcement types. If someone was charged, Lloyd would still be expected to testify-and still face the street justice meted out to those who cooperated with the police. Crow had been naïve to think that time would buy Lloyd anything but more grief.
He found himself wishing that Tess were here to argue with him, boss him, tell him to do things differently. But for once he was on his own, without Tess second-guessing him.
Funny, it was what he had always thought he wanted.
When it came to his house, his car, and himself, Gabe Dalesio was neither neat nor messy. He sometimes went too long without a haircut or didn’t notice his shoes needed a shine. The remains of his latest Starbucks Americano often sloshed around for days in his Acura’s cup holder. But where his actual work was concerned, he had systems upon systems upon systems. One of his trademarks, as he thought of it, was his use of a sketchbook, the largest one he could find, and a set of color-coded pens and Post-its. He had first started using this method when he was tracking money in drug and RICO cases. But now he deployed his colored pens in an attempt to figure out how everyone in Tess Monaghan’s life interacted-and to gain back Jenkins’s faith and trust. Look for the person or place with the most overlaps, Gabe decided, and he could figure out where they had stashed the source.
The boyfriend should be the key. He worked for Patrick Monaghan, and his sudden absence was simply too convenient. Plus, he had a pocketful of cash, based on the deposit slip for the hundred and fifty thou, which meant he could go for days without using an ATM or a credit card. Gabe wished he could get a wiretap for the Monaghan telephone, but he knew he couldn’t meet the standard, not yet. Down the road, maybe, but Jenkins didn’t have the patience for such maneuvers. Gabe riffled his papers, looking for the yellow Post-its. Yellow-the color for cowards-was the boyfriend.