Kitty and Tyner had passed the one-year mark last fall, and Tyner was the only one who wasn’t surprised. He was too conceited to realize the great fortune that had befallen him, but smart enough to cherish Kitty. He loved her, and not for her red hair alone. She loved him, and Tess had decided she would master string theory before she deconstructed this particular puzzle of the universe.
“Well, I’m sure they’ll treat it like the red ball it is,” Tess said. Red ball was the local jargon for a case given top priority by the department. “ ”Once upon a midnight dreary…‘ It’s a tale worthy of Poe himself, I suppose. Death of a doppelgänger.“
“Tess”- Tyner’s voice was sly, probing-“what brought you to Fells Point today anyway?”
“Oh, I had to check some antiques stores for a hot item. A one-in-a-million shot, but the police weren’t going to do it.”
“John P. Kennedy and his bracelet?”
Tyner was in his sixties. Was it too much to ask that he start having a senior moment, here and there, and not remember everything she said? She shrugged noncommittally.
“John Pendleton Kennedy was his full name, as he kept reminding me. But he was just a little gadfly of a man, of no importance.”
“John Pendleton Kennedy. I think I know that name,” Kitty said now, moving around the store, setting things straight. She was a very proprietary proprietress.
“You’re the second person to say that to me in the last hour. Have you met him?” Tess spoke casually, or so she hoped. “He has the most annoying laugh; you wouldn’t forget it once you heard it. It sounds like a hyena having an asthma attack.”
“No, it’s the name that rings a bell, but I can’t say why. As if I read about him somewhere. I’m probably just thinking of a sound-alike-John Kennedy Toole, the writer, or one of the Kennedy-Kennedys. Or maybe it’s the simple fact of hearing three names, which makes me think of Arthur Gordon Pym, who’s been on my mind as of late, for obvious reasons.”
“Who’s he?” Tess said.
“Who’s he?” It was Tyner who queried her. “Good lord, Tess, you allegedly majored in English.”
“Yes, and I had a piece of paper to prove it, once upon a time, but it’s lost to the ages. What of it?”
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” Tyner said, “was a Poe novella. I remember reading it when I was eleven. I still have nightmares about Dirk Peters. I’m surprised you don’t know it.”
“I’m not.” Tess was seldom surprised or embarrassed by her ignorance of anything. She wondered, for a moment, if there could be a connection. But her mystery client’s middle name had been Pendleton, not Pym.
Of course, if his name was false, his story might have been false, too. Why hadn’t she considered that possibility? There probably never was a bracelet, never was a business deal gone sour, never was a forged set of papers. He had lied about his name, he had misled her about Fiestaware. How could she have assumed anything he said was true? And here she was, gullible Tess, trying to protect the little weasel.
Suddenly, it seemed silly to canvass any more antiques shops, and the snowy day was no longer serene and peaceful. The streets had turned to gray slush, and cars made horrible whirring noises as they plowed through it down Bond’s brick surface. Tess called Esskay-once, twice, three times before the dog emerged from Kitty’s kitchen, looking guilty and triumphant-and hooked her to her leash. Kitty was keen enough to sense the change in her mood, and sensitive enough not to inquire after it.
Oblivious Tyner didn’t realize she had gone through any changes at all, and he looked surprised by her abrupt leave-taking.
“See you later,” she said, bestowing a kiss on her aunt, flapping a hand at Tyner. She gathered up her bag of books and made her way back to the office, a walk that was virtually all uphill. The sidewalks were slippery, and careless cars splattered her with slush when she tried to walk in the street. By the time she turned onto her block in Butchers Hill, the handles of the grocery sack had made painful grooves in her fingers. She was trying so hard to juggle the heavy books, while holding on to Esskay and searching for her keys, that she did not notice at first the snow-etched items waiting on her doorstep.
Three red roses and a half-full bottle of cognac.
Chapter 6
Why half empty? I don’t get that part.“ Whitney Talbot, Tess’s oldest friend, was staring skeptically at a dirty martini in the bar at the Brass Elephant. The specialty drink was the only thing that stood between Whitney and her lone New Year’s resolution-to try every one of the martini concoctions now offered in the restaurant’s refurbished bar-but the flakes of blue cheese floating in the glass were testing her resolve. She tucked a lock of blond hair behind one ear and narrowed her green eyes as if she were in a poker game with the drink. This was a dirty dirty martini, a filthy martini, platonic proof that one could take two wonderful things-good gin and blue cheese- and make something truly awful.
Tess, feeling uncharacteristically girlish, had ordered a Cosmopolitan. The pink drink was no longer fashionable and thus was enjoying a huge vogue in Baltimore just now.
“I don’t know why the bottle is half full,” Tess began.
“Hey, you said half full, and I said half empty. I guess we know which one of us is the optimist and which is the pessimist.”
Tess smiled wanly. Whitney had a terrifying self-confidence that made optimism superfluous. She assumed everything would work out for her. So far, everything had.
“Anyway, the Visitor, the Poe Toaster, brings a half-full-or half-empty-bottle of cognac to the grave site every year. From what I’ve been able to determine in my crash course in Poe, there’s no real significance to the drink. Scholars are bitterly divided on whether Poe could even tolerate alcohol in any quantity. And cognac, in particular, doesn’t figure in any of Poe’s stories. It’s not amontillado, after all. The best explanation is that it’s a toast, a form of tribute.”
“Do you think your visitor intended tribute?” Whitney’s tone was at once arch and concerned. Her voice, the clear, confident tone that only the richest people can afford, was often on the verge of self-parody but Tess knew she was genuinely interested. And genuinely worried.
“I don’t know. It felt creepy but not overtly threatening. Someone knows I was there the other night, that’s the creepy part. But-and here’s where I’m going to sound as if I’m really off the rails-I don’t think it’s a threat or a warning. Someone knows what I’m doing and wants me to keep doing it. The question is who.”
“The question is who.” Whitney tested the grammar and found it acceptable. “And why?”
“And why,” Tess agreed. “The man who tried to hire me? Maybe this was an elaborate psychological ploy- maybe he wanted me there that night as a witness so he lured me there by letting me think something bad was going to happen-but he didn’t strike me as bright enough to play such a complicated game, and I wouldn’t have been there if Crow hadn’t insisted.”
“Could he be the Visitor? Suppose he had gotten wind of the fact that someone else planned to be there that night and was worried about what might happen. Perhaps he was trying to tantalize you into protecting him.”
Tess had already considered this possibility. “No. No, it’s all too sloppy, dependent on too many variables. Besides, the man who got away, while he wasn’t as tall as the man who was killed, he wasn’t short. And he moved stiffly, while my little pig friend scuttles when he runs, like a crab who’s figured out how to go forward. I wonder if my visitor is Rainer, the homicide cop, playing another joke on me, trying to test me. I told you about the Norwegian radio reporter. I think he wanted to see if I would seize the spotlight for myself.”