Butchers Hill

by Laura Lippman

  The children had sworn an oath never to tell what had really happened, not to mention guns, or stolen goods. They had assumed lies would keep their little family intact, but Donnie's death had started the inexorable process by which they would be torn apart.

  Two years later, Sal had tracked down Pearson and wrangled his scholarship, threatening to expose him. "I was smarter than the others," he had bragged to Tess. "They were dumb motherfuckers." Yet Eldon had done the same thing, convincing the Nelsons to hide him after he jumped bail. They had been glad to do it for a few small favors here and there. And Destiny had been smart enough to try and shake the Nelsons down for money. Or dumb enough, given the outcome.

  The Nelsons had strung her along until Eldon could kill her, but they had needed Tess to find Treasure. And when Keisha Moore had started asking questions, Eldon killed her, too. In his own way, Eldon was as much an over-achiever as Sal. He just focused his energy differently.

  Tyner finally arrived, Luther Beale in tow. There were some charges pending against Tess—reckless endangerment, destruction of property—although Tull was reasonably sure the criminal charges would be dropped. Eventually.

  "Pearson's insurance company isn't going to let you off the hook so easily," Tyler said gloomily. "Insurance companies don't make exceptions, even when you're trying to save someone's life."

  "Hey, I did, didn't I?" Tess, who had been contemplating her own role in all the deaths on Butchers Hill, felt momentarily cheered. "I wish that made up for Treasure. Or Keisha. I feel as if I led Eldon straight to them."

  "He would have found them one way or another," Tull assured her. Another olive branch. Why not? She had been right, after all.

  Beale just stood there silently, holding his Panama hat. He was wearing his brown suit, this time with a blue shirt with a white collar. Tess couldn't help wondering if he had a single shirt that matched his one suit.

  "So I didn't do it?" he asked. "I really didn't kill that boy?"

  Tull shrugged, not so anxious to mend fences with Beale. "We'll never know, will we? You fired, he fired, Donnie died. It could have been either one of you."

  "But a jury wouldn't have convicted Beale if they had known," Tyner pointed out. "We'll get a governor's pardon out of this, maybe even some money. I see a big lawsuit here."

  Tull rolled his eyes. "You can't sue the state for pursuing its mandated duties, Tyner. But go for it. Maybe you'll shake a little settlement out of them."

  Two officers brought Sal out just then. He was still just a boy, Tess reminded herself. Seventeen wasn't as old as he thought it was. And he hadn't covered up his crime because he feared taking responsibility for what he had done, but because he wanted to keep his "family" together. Perhaps, like everyone else in Baltimore at the time, he had assumed Luther Beale would never serve time for his crime. How could a little boy know the intricacies of handgun laws in the city limits?

  "The skinny one," Luther Beale said. "You're the skinny one."

  Sal glanced up. He looked angry and guilty at the same time, and not a little frightened.

  "Yeah, I remember you, too."

  "Well, I have something to say to you," Beale announced. "I have something I want everyone here to hear."

  Tull looked at Tess, as if to say: I told you he was a son of a bitch. Even Tess couldn't quite believe that Beale would insist on making a scene. It wasn't enough for him to be proven right. He had to proclaim it.

  "The way I see it, a lot of folks failed you," Beale said, the Hermanator scribbling down his words furiously. "Those people you lived with, the man who put you in their home. They didn't teach you right from wrong. But they were grownups and you were a little boy. You couldn't help not knowing any better.

  "I was a grownup, too. If I hadn't come out in the street with my gun that night, you wouldn't have fired your gun and Donnie Moore wouldn't have died. Not that night at least. We failed you, all the grownups in your life, we let you down. So all I can say is—" He stopped, playing with the brim of his hat, a gesture Tess remembered from their first meeting. "All I can say is, I'm sorry."

  Epilogue

  August

  The unseasonably beautiful summer had finally yielded to something more familiar—hot, humid days, with afternoon thunderstorms that lasted just long enough to ruin picnics and barbecues, but didn't deliver enough rain for the city's now parched gardens and lawns. At Camden Yards, the ground crew was getting more exercise than the Orioles: at least they got to put out the tarp each evening and then roll it back, while the Orioles seldom circled the bases. The Orioles being in something of a slump, their bats were the only reliably cold place in all of Baltimore.

  In other words, everything was back to normal. The bill had come due for June and July. Nothing to do but pay up, and move on. Already, fresher scandals were crowding out the twisted saga of what had happened on Butchers Hill so many years ago. "Butchers Hill?" Tess had heard a man say at the lunch counter at Jimmy's just the other morning. "Oh yeah, that place where that kid tried to kill that old man that time."

  "No," his companion had insisted. "The old man tried to kill the kid, for breaking his window."

  In Kitty's bookstore, Tess pushed aside a stack of the latest Louisa May Alcott discovery—"How many manuscripts did that woman have squirreled away?" she grumbled—to make room on the old soda fountain for yet another tray of hors d'oeuvres. Her mother had been cooking for days, it seemed, bringing by tray after tray of delicacies until Kitty had finally run out of room in her freezer.

  "I thought Judith hated to cook," Kitty said, trying to squeeze a plate of miniature quiches between the pasta salad and artichoke dip.

  "She used to," Tess said. "I think she's entering some strange new phase. Wait until you see all the outfits she's bought."

  "Not all matching?"

  "Shockingly, no."

  But this party had been Judith's idea, after all. She was entitled to go hog-wild if she wanted. "To celebrate…whatever," she had said. "Well, not celebrate, but acknowledge. You know—"

  "I know," Tess had said, feeling charitable enough toward her mother to want to bail her out. It wasn't easy, being St. Judith. It wasn't easy being Gramma. It wasn't easy being.

  Kitty had just tapped the keg, a sweet little microbrew from Sissons, the one that tasted like a blueberry muffin in a beer glass, when the guests began to arrive. Most of the Weinsteins were there, showing their support for Judith even if her meshugah daughter had thrown a monkey wrench into everything. The Monaghans had come, too, if only to gloat at the strange circumstances bedeviling their snobbish in-laws. A black teenage mistress! A discovered heir! Who did Samuel Weinstein think he was. Thomas Jefferson? Still, the Monaghans had to admit the Weinsteins were handling the situation with surprising grace. Even Gramma had behaved reasonably well, which is to say that she had decided not to try and block the sale of the property when she heard of Tess's plan to cut Samantha King in for an equal share.

  "All for one and one for all—your exact words," Tess had reminded her grandmother. "You said your grandchildren and children had to learn to get along."

  "My children and grandchildren," Gramma had countered. But she had added, a sly smile on her face: "I hear she's a smart girl, very athletic and pretty. I know whose genes those are. Blood tells, doesn't it?"

  Tess didn't bother to contradict her. Sure, blood tells, but it didn't always tell you what you wished to hear. More than Jackie herself, the long-limbed, auburn-haired Samantha King was a reminder of the secrets that even those closest to you can harbor. Tess wasn't really sorry that Sam was away at lacrosse camp, unable to attend this party today. Everyone was still working on the feelings that she stirred up in them.

  Especially Jackie. After the confrontation at the Beckers', she had decided to take up the Edelmans' offer of a limited relationship with Sam. As she had prophesied, it wasn't particularly easy for either of them. While Sam could accept the decisions made by a determined eighteen-year-old, she was perturbed
to find out her biological father had been in his sixties. And while she didn't want to leave the only family she had known for Jackie's household, she was more than a little jealous that Jackie had decided to start her own family. She wanted it both ways. What teenager didn't?

  Tull came through the door, carrying an insulated freezer sack. "Coffee ice cream," he said.

  "Well, I knew whatever you brought, it would be caffeinated. How's life on the killing streets?"

  "I'm pleased to announce Baltimore has gone forty-eight hours without a single stiff showing up. Maybe I'll be out of a job soon. Where's the guest of honor?"

  "Running late. Jackie's punctuality has taken a severe hit as of late. She's found there are some things in life she can't make run on her own timetable."

  But there was Jackie now, coming through the door, in a yellow-checked sundress, the guest of honor balanced on her hip, also in a matching yellow outfit.

  "How's my girl?" Tess asked, reaching for Laylah. But Judith had gotten there first.

  "May I?" she asked tentatively, bouncing the girl in her arms. "Oh Jackie, you put her in the outfit I sent. She looks adorable."

  "One of the outfits you sent," Jackie said. "Thank you for having this party to celebrate the adoption. But you know, she won't be officially mine for several months yet."

  "A formality," Judith said. "Laylah's your daughter now as far I'm concerned."

  Laylah, who had been staring, mesmerized, into Judith's face, made a quick grab for one of her earrings. Judith laughed, slipped them into her apron pocket, and began touring the room with the baby, allowing everyone to make a fuss over the guest of honor.

  "I owe you one, Jackie," Tess said. "I think I'm off the hook for producing grandchildren, at least for a few years."

  "I helped," Tull said. "Don't forget, I helped."

  So he had, tracking Laylah down in the foster care system, while Uncle Donald had called in every chit he had to grease the works at DHR. The agency officials had balked at first. It was highly irregular, he had been told, to allow a single woman to take a child into her home before the adoption process was further along.

  "As irregular as losing a woman's kid in the system and then trying to file a lien against her for back support?" Donald had asked innocently. From then on, everything had been simple.

  If only everything could be so simple in the future. For Jackie and Sam, for Jackie and Laylah. Would Laylah be better off with Jackie than she had been with Keisha? It wasn't a judgement Tess could make so easily any more. Laylah's material life would be better, and she would be loved. But one day, she would start asking questions and the answers she received would be far more disturbing than the ones Samantha King had confronted. Blood tells. It tells and tells and tells. Sometimes, blood just wouldn't shut up.

  Eldon had finally told, too. Stoic at first, he had decided that his loyalty to the Nelsons did not extend to taking the fall for the four murders. So the Nelsons were to stand trial in two jurisdictions now. Double-dipping again, tying up the resources of two criminal systems, two prosecutor's offices, and two juries. Chase Pearson was expected to testify at their Baltimore trial, although he was really a small player. It seemed almost pathetic, how little he had reaped from the literal mom-and-pop operation that had grown into a million-dollar fencing ring. He was a figure of ridicule now, his name synonymous with ignorance and missed opportunities. Recently, when the housing commissioner had done something particularly bone-headed, a Blight columnist had referred to it as "pulling a Pearson." It was possible to come back from being indicted in Maryland politics; even convicted felons had enjoyed second chances here. But stealing a cherry when you could have had the whole pie—unforgivable.

  Jackie appraised Tess. "You look good, girl. Prosperous." She did. Her hair was up, she wore a black linen sheath that Jackie had picked out for her at Ruth Shaw, with black-eyed Susan earrings—onyx set in real gold. She had balked at the black-and-yellow spectator pumps, however. Someone needed to draw the line at all this matchy-matchy stuff. She wasn't turning into her mother. Not just yet.

  "Work is going well. I'm turning down business these days. Everybody wants to hire the private investigator who cleared Luther Beale. No offense, Martin."

  "None taken, Tess."

  Tess looked at her two friends. She had started the summer feeling so lonely. What had Kitty said? She was a Don Quixote, in search of a Sancho. But Jackie was no Sancho, nor was Tull. They were all Don Quixotes in their own ways, each one dealing with their lost illusions.

  In last year's nests, there are no birds this year. But there would be new nests, right? You could lose one set of illusions, but gain another. At least, she hoped it worked that way. She still didn't know what happened to the real Don Quixote.

  Sal Hawkings dashed through the door, a small package in hand. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, both splattered with paint. He was spending the end of the summer helping Beale renovate houses along Fairmount. The community service wasn't court-ordered; it had been decided that no criminal action should be brought against Sal for the death of Donnie Moore. It had been an accident, after all, and he had been only twelve. These days, it seemed as if he was seventeen going on ten, trying to recapture the childhood he had never had.

  "Mr. Beale is out in the car, but he wanted me to drop this by. Will you open it while I'm here?"

  "Sure," Jackie said. She undid the ribbon and lifted a heart-shaped locket from a nest of cotton, a locket that Tess remembered well. She was surprised that Beale would part with it. But then, Beale never stopped surprising her. He had refused to sue the state, settling for a pardon. If she tried to speak to him now of what had happened that night, he said it wasn't important, the past was the past, he was too busy thinking about the future. Where should Sal go to college, for example? He had heard Princeton was nice, but he worried he should be closer to home. St. John's in Annapolis? Johns Hopkins?

  "Open it," Sal urged. "It's got a little catch on the side. I'll show you how."

  The photo inside was of a boy, his mouth slightly open, his eyes large and bright. The tiny heart shape had been cut from a color photo, grainy and overexposed, but it was still possible to see the joy in his eyes. Perhaps it had been Christmas, or his birthday. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a trip to McDonald's. It took so little to make a child happy. It took so much.

  "It's her brother, Donnie," Sal said. "Well, half-brother, I guess. His aunt had some photos, and she let us have one. So one day, when Laylah's older, you can tell her how she had a brother and he was a pretty good kid."

  Jackie thanked Sal, tears in her eyes, passing the locket to Tess, who couldn't help wondering how anyone could tell the story of what had happened on Butchers Hill. Where to begin? The night Luther Beale had gone into the street with his gun, the day he had come into her office? Did it begin the day Chase Pearson became a social worker, or on the day Donnie Moore was born? Or the day Luther Beale was born, ornery and resolute, his destiny hurtling him toward a tragic confrontation and a nickname he still couldn't shake? The Butcher of Butchers Hill. Where did anything begin?

  Once upon a time, you had a brother, his name was Donnie Moore and he was a pretty good kid.

  There were worse ways to be remembered.

  About the Author

  LAURA LIPPMAN was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels—Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill, In Big Trouble, The Sugar House, and The Last Place—have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her novel, In a Strange City, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel, Every Secret Thing, was published by William Morrow in September 2003. You can visit her website at www.lauralippman.com.

 

 

 
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