The Most Dangerous Thing

by Laura Lippman

  Coffee in one cramped, crabbed hand, she shuffles to the living room to watch the news, smoke another cigarette.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Gwen has met many people who hate journalists—they announce it happily, proudly, often at cocktail parties where she has just been introduced—but none quite as vociferously as the private detective who tried to contact Go-Go in the weeks before his death. Tess Monaghan has refused to return Gwen’s calls and didn’t even acknowledge e-mails sent to the bare-bones Web site she maintains. After several days, she finally sent back a terse note:

  I don’t talk to reporters.

  Gwen wrote back, under her personal e-mail:

  I’m not approaching you as a journalist, but as a friend of Gordon Halloran, who died in what may well be a suicide committed after you tried to contact him, wreaking not a little havoc in his life.

  Another day went by before she received this e-mail:

  My office, 2 p.m.

  The office is in Butchers Hill, less than a mile from the magazine’s headquarters, yet worlds away in a sense. While Butchers Hill caught a whiff of the go-go real estate boom of the century’s first decade, it is nothing like the glass canyon where Gwen’s office is located. It has retained its human scale, tucking new restaurants and shops into old rowhouses. Tess Monaghan’s office, which was virtually unmarked, sits two blocks from Patterson Park.

  “It’s open,” a woman’s voice calls out. Working behind an unlocked door seems a little casual for this neighborhood, even during the daytime. But as Gwen enters, she is immediately inspected by two large dogs, a greyhound and a Doberman, and a jumpier, miniature version of the greyhound. They circle and sniff her, apparently with satisfactory results, as they then return to the sofa, where they arrange themselves in an overlapping lump. Tess Monaghan, sitting behind her desk, doesn’t rise at all, but she has good reason: she is holding a baby, who is spitting up on her shoulder.

  “Way to miss the burp cloth, Scout,” she says, clearly unperturbed by the fountain of curdy white liquid that trails down her sleeve.

  “He’s adorable,” Gwen says, making conversation. She can’t really see much but the dark hair. She doesn’t have any real experience with infants. Annabelle was eight months when they met her in a Beijing hotel.

  “She.”

  “I thought you said scout?”

  “That’s her name. Her middle name.” Tess Monaghan has a manner of speaking that makes questions seem not only unnecessary but also rude. The things that Gwen might normally ask—from To Kill a Mockingbird? Why do you use her middle name? How old?—die on her tongue.

  “I don’t normally bring her to the office,” Tess says. “We had a child care crisis today and I didn’t want to cancel on you.”

  “No one has to explain child care crises to me. Most of my employees are working moms. She’s so tiny, but—” Gwen stops, not wanting to comment on a stranger’s appearance, but this woman looks pretty fit for having had a baby recently.

  “She was really early. She’s technically almost five months old, but if she had been on time, she’d be barely three months.” Again, it is somehow clear there are to be no follow-up questions. “So, Gordon Halloran. Just to be sure we are on the same page—I am speaking to you off-the-record and this is not for anything you might write, ever, on any subject.”

  “Right.”

  “And by off-the-record, we both agree that means nothing I say is to appear in print, attached to my name or to an unnamed source?”

  “I’m not here as a journalist.”

  “Would you be willing to sign something to that effect?”

  “Sure,” Gwen says. “After it was reviewed by my attorney.”

  Tess smiles. “Fair enough. I just have to be super careful.”

  “Were you burned by a journalist?”

  “Worse. I was one. Your magazine did once put me in your hot singles issue, when I was neither single nor really all that hot. Although now when I see photos of myself from back then—only a few years ago—I think I look magnificent.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was before my time,” Gwen says, then blushes. She was trying to reference the magazine, not the issue of Tess Monaghan’s looks, which merit the not-quite-compliment of handsome. Strong features, hair pulled back in a ponytail, a fresh-scrubbed face. “We still do the singles issue—it sells very well, and we make a bucketload on the advertising—but I’ve tried to add some serious journalism to the mix.”

  “I’ve noticed. That’s why I don’t want to talk to you about Gordon Halloran in any kind of professional capacity. Besides, there’s not much I can tell you. I’ve spoken to my client. My client prefers to remain anonymous.”

  Shit. That doesn’t assuage Gwen’s conscience in the least.

  “Could I have any nonidentifying information about your client?”

  “Such as?”

  “Age, gender, place of residence. Race.” If the client isn’t African American, there’s little chance that one of Chicken George’s relatives has hired Tess Monaghan.

  “I can ask. But my client is pretty paranoid. And unnerved by Gordon Halloran’s death. As am I, since you told me it might be a suicide. The news reports last month didn’t say that. At my discretion, I haven’t passed that information along to my client yet, but I will. It—” She pauses. “It complicates things for us, and I’m afraid it will make my client, who is a very nice person, feel quite bad. Are you sure?”

  “It’s unclear,” Gwen says truthfully, not wanting to admit that she guilted the PI into this meeting. “It will probably always be unclear. He had been drinking after several months of sobriety. He drove into the concrete barrier at the foot of I-70, where it dead-ends into the park-and-ride. He was speeding, but he was always a reckless, fearless person. He could have been playing some silly game, misjudged the end of the highway.”

  Tess Monaghan shifted the baby on her shoulder. Annabelle had been tiny, too, for her age. Still was. But Gwen had forgotten how alien young babies look, with their comically smushed faces and toothless smiles.

  The detective says: “But he was a regular at AA.”

  “Was. He didn’t go to the meeting that night.”

  “Right.”

  “Right—wait, how do you know that? I said only that he was sober.”

  “One of my employees was attending those meetings.”

  “That’s horrible.” Heedless of the lie she had told to gain this audience, Gwen is genuinely appalled. “The whole point of twelve-step programs is to provide people with a safe place to unburden their hearts. It’s a—desecration to send a spy there.”

  Tess surprises her by nodding. “I wasn’t wild about it. I’m not wild about a lot of the things I do. But my client—well, my client is an honorable person who has a right to set the record straight on a matter that goes to the heart of my client’s very being. There was a possibility that Gordon Halloran was someone who could help do that. I sent someone into the meeting to see if he ever spoke about certain events in his past, if he contradicted what my client was telling me.”

  “And—?” Gwen is shocked at how nervous she feels and hopes that Tess Monaghan can’t tell. It’s like driving down the road, glimpsing a cop in one’s rearview mirror and starting to shake despite being within the speed limit. No, it’s not like that, because Gwen is not without blame.

  “He never spoke at all, not during the meetings. He was a little more open during smoke breaks.” Tess Monaghan laughs. “My poor partner, who hates cigarettes, took to smoking clove cigarettes and now has a bit of a penchant for them. Still, he talked only of his family, his wife and his daughters, how he was doing this for them.”

  “It’s your messages to him that got him kicked out of the house,” Gwen says, eager to shift blame, to make someone else feel as twitchy and uncomfortable as she feels. “Which is probably why he started drinking again. And died.”

  Tess Monaghan studies her intently. “Do you believe that? That’s no
t a rhetorical question.”

  “Not exactly,” Gwen admits.

  “You were attempting leverage, to guilt me into telling you things I just can’t tell you. I might do the same thing in your position. But please understand, I am working with an attorney—a very high-powered one, not my usual kind of gig. I have to respect the client’s wishes or I’m in violation of the agreement I signed, and this lawyer will come down on me like a ton of bricks if I do that. He’s a prick that way.”

  “So why are you in business with him?”

  The baby emits a comically large burp, delighting her mother. “The client’s a sweetheart. And the circumstances—I almost wish I could speak of them because it’s darn fascinating.” She laughs again, this time at herself. “Darn! As if this lump in my arm would be shocked by my old vocabulary, but I really have trouble cursing in front of her. Let’s just say my client is that rare person who’s interested in justice.”

  Again Gwen is feeling far from comforted.

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  Tess thinks for a moment. “The client lives quite far away. New Mexico. I’m willing to tell you that one detail so you’ll understand it’s not someone you can find.”

  “At what time in his life did Go-Go know this person?”

  Tess gazes at the ceiling, absentmindedly places her lips against her daughter’s temple. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that Gordon did know this person. Or that he didn’t. When I finally spoke to Gordon—”

  “You spoke to him? His wife thought—”

  “I didn’t stop trying to speak to Gordon after he moved out, although I didn’t realize my calls had anything to do with that. And he affirmed what I believed and what my client believes. But now he’s dead and all I have are my notes from that brief conversation, and my notes—they’re not enough.”

  “Enough?”

  “They’re not proof of anything. I will say this much: I think my client was right in assessing Gordon’s character.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He’s essentially an honest person and has a hard time carrying secrets. He very much wanted to do the right thing. Look, my investigation is ongoing.” Gwen feels another flush of panic. “That’s why I have to be reserved about it. And any media attention, the barest whiff, would have horrible repercussions. You can’t imagine.”

  Gwen can, though.

  Tess Monaghan walks her to the door. It’s cool for April, and she cups a hand protectively over the baby’s scalp. “I worry about her immune system because she was a preemie. I make her wear hats to guard from cold, no matter how balmy it is, overdress her. Like all women, I have become my mother.”

  Only Gwen hasn’t. Her mother never would have left her, under any pretext, not when she was Annabelle’s age. Her mother waited until Gwen was a teenager before she even dared to stake out a life of her own, through her painting. And by then Tally had so little time left. Would she approve or disapprove of Gwen as a parent? Could Gwen ever have lived up to her example—the well-kept house, the perfect meals? No, she runs a magazine for those who aspire, as she does, to be like her mother—effortlessly stylish, abreast of things. Gwen does a fair imitation of Tally, but it requires mountains of effort. Perhaps her mother put in just as much effort. Perhaps beneath the sweet, serene surface she also roiled with self-imprecations and disappointments. Still, she never let Gwen see that, whereas Gwen already has exposed her much younger daughter to a world of doubt.

  Gwen’s thoughts are derailed by the squeal of brakes, a small but undeniable crash: an MTA bus has managed to stop before hitting the van that is blocking the street, but a Toyota Corolla behind the bus hasn’t been as fortunate, plowing into it. And now people are filing out into the street, but only one or two people are peering at the Toyota’s driver, who appears unhurt if dazed. No, most of the people are trying to get on the bus, prying open the doors, while the bus driver shouts at them to stop. Tess Monaghan laughs so hard that her baby daughter wobbles on her shoulder.

  “This is why MTA buses have cameras,” she tells a mystified Gwen. “Whenever there’s an accident, people try to say they were on the bus in order to file a claim. And it’s why,” she says over her shoulder, retreating back into the tiled vestibule, “that I have a thriving business. People are always looking for an angle, another pocket to pick.”

  Walking to her car, Gwen is briefly entranced by the insight that Tess has just handed her, wonders if there’s a feature in it for the magazine. But then she thinks about the larger meaning of Tess’s words. Another pocket to pick. If Chicken George’s relatives wanted to file a wrongful death suit against someone, then Gwen’s pockets—actually Karl’s—would be the deepest. Can she be sued under such circumstances? Could any of them? What if she goes ahead and divorces Karl? Does that make her more vulnerable or less?

  Yet it would be a relief if money is all that someone wants from them. Money always can be found, some way, somehow. If someone bears a grudge toward them, if someone knows that they left a man to die—money will be the least of their problems.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  It was never McKey’s intention to continue attending the AA meetings at the old St. Lawrence, and no one was too alarmed when she skipped the first few sessions after Go-Go’s death. She uses the cover of her work schedule, tells her sponsor that she’s attending meetings in Minneapolis, where she has frequent layovers. Luckily, the sponsor knows nothing about a flight attendant’s life and has no idea how little time she has on such trips, the airlines turning them around as fast as the regulations allow. At the same time, the sponsor is worried about her. A death in the group is a dangerous thing, especially when it involves someone falling off the wagon. He keeps checking in, and McKey decides it would be easier to show up than to endure Dan’s achingly sincere phone calls. Guy wants to bang her so bad, it’s pathetic.

  She doesn’t share at the meetings. Go-Go didn’t either, at least not after she started showing up. But McKey’s work has made her good at appearing to be an empathetic, interested listener, and those who do speak seek out her gaze, especially the men. She is the best-looking woman here, there’s no use being modest about it. And the ban on relationships gives male-female interactions a kind of buzz that McKey hasn’t experienced since grade school, if even then. Men want her, or think they do because she meets their eyes and nods, encouraging them.

  “We were worried about you,” Dan says when the others step outside to smoke, one vice McKey has never known.

  “Because I wasn’t here?”

  “And because of Gordon.”

  She measures her words. “That was shocking.”

  “You knew him, right? Outside of AA.”

  Never lie until cornered. Counter first. “What makes you think that?”

  “You two talked about how this place used to be a Catholic parish, back in the day.”

  She remembers now, how Go-Go reacted the first time she came here, his inability to disguise his feelings at seeing her. She let him—them—off the hook with some inane chatter about St. Lawrence, showed him how to play it off. Just like when they were kids.

  “My little brother went here, but he was much younger than Go-Go.”

  “Go-Go?”

  Shit. “What?”

  “I thought you said—”

  “One of those things. Gordon. I meant to say Gordon. I barely know my own name, after working eighteen hours yesterday. Mouth not connected to brain.” She smiles, lets him contemplate the mouth in question, full and wide under a fresh coat of lipstick. “Gordon. Duh.”

  Joey had gone to St. Lawrence, at Rick’s insistence. Rita hadn’t even known that he was Catholic when they were together, but when he realized how close Rita’s apartment was to the school, he insisted that Rita enroll Joey there and he paid the tuition. McKey went to public school, not that she cared. She didn’t want to wear a uniform every day. Now that she wears one for work, she finds she enjoys it. One less decision to make. Joey went to St.
Lawrence through third grade, the year that McKey graduated from high school. Her mother, by then on the outs with Larry—big surprise, that not working out—decided she wanted to move back to Florida, make a new start. Rick objected, and that’s when she dropped the bomb: Joey’s not your kid. Nowadays, there are talk shows essentially dedicated to paternity testing and baby-daddy-dom, but twenty-plus years ago, this was considerably more novel, the kind of judicial issue that all but required a Solomon. Rick was lucky enough to land a progressive judge, someone who said it was basically his choice: He could continue to pay child support and inhabit the role of Joey’s father, although he still couldn’t stop Rita from taking him to Florida. Or he could suspend ties altogether.

  McKey thought it should be a no-brainer: if he couldn’t prevent Rita from moving away with the kid, he should definitely end support. But Rick didn’t see it that way. After the breakup with Rita, he became almost insufferably proper. Rita cheated on him, played him for a fool, but Rick acted as if he were the one who had to make amends. He started going to church, enrolled Joey in the parish school, married a young goody-goody, ended up adopting two kids when it turned out she couldn’t have any of her own. He stayed in touch with McKey through college. “I’m here for you,” he would say, and she always wanted to say back: No, you’re not. Because Rick, for all his goodness and niceness, could never quite treat her like a daughter. She was his girlfriend’s daughter, his son’s sister, but not his daughter. It obviously wasn’t a blood thing because the lack of a blood connection to Joey didn’t keep him from wanting to be Joey’s dad. Eventually she stopped worrying about it.