By a Spider's Thread

by Laura Lippman

  Certainly Isaac's mother and Zeke talked about money all the time, about the cost of everything, in a way his father never had. "Down by thirty-seven dollars," Zeke might say, after paying for breakfast. "Up by three hundred dollars," he had announced yesterday as he helped Isaac out of the trunk last time. Down was bad, no matter how small, up was good.

  But it was never good enough, judging by Zeke's face, which always looked as if he were adding and subtracting.

  They had started out with a thick envelope of money, but his mother had given much of it to the big, hairy man who gave her the car, the papers, and the shoe box. Isaac's mother had cried, accusing the man of taking too much of her money. The man had said the car was cheap, but the things she needed to drive the car came a little dearer. Isaac remembered the exact phrase, for it was new to him. Came a little dearer. His mom had handed over the money and gotten the crummy green car in return. She should have been willing to walk away. That was important in making a deal, his father had told him. You always had to be ready to walk away.

  That had been in the mountains, the Appalachians—he had learned about them in geography. His mother's friend, the woman with the fuzzy hair and the sad eyes, had driven them to a farm. On the way his mother kept talking about what a great weekend they were going to have, picking fresh fruit at orchards, maybe swimming. The signs promised a lake—Deep Creek—and cabins. They had gone west, west, west, past Frederick and Hagerstown, past Cumberland. They may have even left Maryland before they were done. Isaac wasn't sure. He was thinking about the lake and wondering if his father would teach him how to fish. Did Jews fish? They weren't allowed to hunt, he knew that, not the Orthodox. But fishing was different for some reason, maybe because fish were kosher and bears were not.

  But when they got to the old farm, his mother's friend had unloaded their bags and taken off, hugging Isaac's mother and wishing her well. His mother had put them in the new car—well, the old car that was new to them—and driven them to a motel, one with a pool. That had been the last motel with a pool, at least a working one. The next day they had been in the car forever, driving into the night, passing motel after motel, only to pick one that looked like all the others.

  The next morning his mother had put Isaac in charge and left for an hour. When she came back, she was with a man who had the palest face that Isaac had ever seen. "Meet your Uncle Zeke." Even then Isaac had thought his father would be joining them soon. It was only later, when his mother told him to stop asking, that he understood they weren't going home.

  Tonight his mother and Zeke had gone to talk in the car. They were always going to share secrets in the car, which was rude. Isaac's father didn't believe in having so many secrets. The car was parked right outside the door of their motel room, so Isaac didn't dare sneak away. He looked longingly at the phone, but Zeke had taken the talking part with him, just so Isaac couldn't try to use it. He would have, too. He wished now that he had been fake with Zeke, pretended to like him, because then Zeke might trust him more. And if Zeke trusted him, his guard would drop, and Isaac would find a way to make a phone call.

  Not to the police, though, not after his experience with that guard man. If the guard man, a man who wore a gun, didn't believe Isaac, then a police officer probably wouldn't believe him either. Maybe it wasn't a crime what his mother was doing? Besides, she would just convince everyone that Isaac was a liar. He would be the boy who cried wolf, even though he hadn't—he was screaming for people to look at the wolf that only he could see. No, he had to get to his father, tell him where they were. Only his father would believe him, right away, and not waste time asking for other sides.

  Penina leaned over to Efraim and whispered something, making him laugh. Her voice was a low mumble, but Isaac wasn't sure he would know what she was saying even if she spoke up. When the twins spoke their made-up language, just for them, it made Isaac lonely and nervous. When Zeke was around, they barely spoke at all.

  His mother and Zeke came in, their cheeks flushed as if the night had turned cold. Zeke made a big show of attaching the talking part back to the phone—the handset, that's what it was called—looking at Isaac as if daring him to say anything. It was as if Zeke wanted to say, I'm smarter than you! Isaac wanted to shout back, So what? You're a grown-up, you're supposed to be smarter. Instead they just looked at each other, like two men in a western about to have a gun-fight, and Isaac's resolve to make Zeke like him fell away. He would never in his life be that good a pretender.

  But you didn't always have to be the smartest one to win. His dad had taught him that, when Isaac was learning to play Advanced Mission Battleship, the new improved version with missiles and lots of sound effects, so when you sank someone's ship, it made a really satisfying kaboom sound, with splashing, and when you finally won, the woman's voice announced in a pleased way, "Con-grat-u-la-tions, Admiral." Isaac almost never, ever beat his father at Battleship—only twice so far, and both times had been luck. His father had pressed the wrong buttons, firing his Tomahawks in the wrong pattern, even though he knew where Isaac's PT boat was. So Isaac didn't think his wins really counted.

  But his father had said, "Don't scorn luck. A lot of my success in life has been luck. Ditto my father's, and his father before him. If I could wish just one thing for you, Isaac, I think I would wish you to be lucky."

  "Really?" Isaac thought his father might at least wish he had a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball or early admission to a really good college.

  His father had taken him into his lap. (How Isaac missed that lap, which was big and warm and safe, although he was really getting too big for such things.) "Well, I guess I would wish first and foremost that you would be a virtuous man."

  "What does that mean?"

  "To be good, to have… well, virtues. To be honest and kind and modest. You know, the Christians take credit for the Golden Rule—love your neighbor as you love yourself—but the Jews have their own version, and it is much older. And, I think, a little wiser. We say, 'Do not do to your neighbor what you would not want done to yourself.' That makes more sense to me. I don't think it's possible to love others as we love ourselves and our families, but we can avoid doing anything to them that we would not want done to ourselves."

  "What if someone is really mean to you? Can you be mean back? Since they started it?"

  "It depends. Is someone being mean to you?"

  Actually, someone had been mean to him, a boy at school, calling him teacher's pet and Rubin the Nose-Rubber, which made no sense, but everyone laughed as if it were extremely funny. It had been terribly important at the time, but Isaac no longer remembered why that boy disliked him so, or even why it bothered him. It was so long ago, so far away, back in the second grade. The things that once made him cry—another boy's insults, a reprimand from his father, a scary dream—would never make him cry now. He was determined that nothing would make him cry, not in front of Zeke.

  He cried only in the privacy of the trunk. Or, sometimes, late at night, long after everyone was asleep. Even then he had learned the trick of crying silently, without even a snuffle, so it was barely like crying at all.

  * * *

  FRIDAY

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Tess—I know it's commonly believed that Jewish dietary law was nothing more than a series of sensible precautions developed in response to foods that carried risks—trichinosis in pork, for example. But Jewish law is more subtle than that, Tess, and trying to reduce its tenets to mere pragmatic considerations robs it of its deep philosophical underpinnings.

  Take the tradition of the mikveh, which has gone by the wayside even in some Orthodox families. It is not the misogynistic, female-phobic practice some would have you believe. The rationale for abstinence is not that women are "unclean" but that the days following the prohibition is when they're at their most fertile. For further insight into your new client, I strongly recommend you read Herman Wouk's This Is My God.

  Ask a question, get an a
nswer. So far the SnoopSisters had few concrete ideas about how to find Natalie Rubin and her children. But Tess's casual question about Mark Rubin's refusal to shake her hand had started a lively thread, with posts from Susan Friend in Omaha, who could always be counted on to provide the historic and intellectual overview of any topic, and Jessie Ray in Houston, who reminded the SnoopSisters that Texas husbands once had carte blanche to execute men who trespassed on their land or their women. And now this gently chiding missive from Margie Lynn in Southern California.

  I read Marjorie Morningstar as a teenager, Tess typed back. Do I get half credit for that?

  The sun was barely up, and Tess was in bed, her laptop balanced on her knees, the greyhound stretched across the foot of the bed like a lumpy quilt, the Doberman on the floor. Since Crow had left for Virginia to help his mother through her chemo and recovery, Tess had allowed the dog to take his place, but Esskay was a poor substitute for a number of reasons. She didn't give back rubs, and she wouldn't spoon. And her breath remained as vile as the day Tess had met her, despite changes to her diet and a tooth-cleaning regimen that required Tess to don a rubber fingertip and scrub each fang individually.

  No wonder Tess didn't get manicures more often. Using one's fingers as a greyhound's toothbrush did not keep nails in tip-top shape. She wondered if Kitty's growing obsession with her wedding would lead her to a keener interest in Tess's grooming. Almost without thinking, she shared these thoughts with the SnoopSisters. This morning check-in had become a ritual of sorts, making her feel as if she had human company while sipping her first cup of coffee.

  A first yesterday, interview-by-manicure. Makes it hard to take notes, but it also makes it difficult for the person you're questioning to walk away. Riddle me this: Why do Baltimore's manicurists tend to be Russian, when they're Korean almost everywhere else? No, never mind, I'm sure I'm showing my cultural/ethnic ignorance all over again, possibly being racist.

  At any rate, I'm lucky I could focus on the interview at all. Tyner Gray, the lawyer for whom I've worked off and on, dropped a bombshell over lunch. He's going to marry my aunt. They've lived together for almost two years, but I find this discombobularing for some reason. Perhaps because I've been instructed to wear a dress and warned that my aunt, a once-sensible woman, is now a giddy bride-to-be with visions of bows and peplums and handkerchief hems. I'm not even sure what a peplum is, but I know one of you will enlighten me.

  She stopped to admire her hands. Well, hand. Lana had done a superb job on the left; the right one bore the marks of the rush job that it had become once Tess's questions grew sharper. She sent the e-mail off, feeling extremely productive. How many people went through their in-box at sunrise, then spent an hour rowing?

  Almost as soon as her e-mail vanished, her computer trilled back at her, and an instant message popped up on her screen. No-nonsense Gretchen, up even earlier in Chicago, had some on-topic advice:

  Sorry, just saw your request to the digest. (I get it as individual e-mails.) When I was a city cop, there was a woman coming up behind me, Nancy Porter, very good police, who ended up leaving the department about the same time I did. She's out in the county, in Homicide. Call her, use my name. If there's something hubby isn't telling you, she'll share.

  You're a gem, Gretchen, Tess typed, making a note of the office and pager numbers that Gretchen had enclosed for the detective.

  Tell me something I don't know.

  Tess promptly disconnected from the Internet and dialed the work number, assuming she would get voice mail. But the detective had just arrived at her desk, showing up early for the seven-to-three shift. Tess thought such a seemingly ambitious county Homicide cop, who saw perhaps one case for every thirty the city worked, would be up for any distraction, but Detective Nancy Porter was reticent to the point of rudeness until Tess dropped Gretchen's name. Then she was just reticent.

  "Yeah, I know about the Rubin family," she said. She had a high, clear voice, almost little-girlish. "Family Crimes worked it, but the detective ran a lot of the stuff by me because I've done some missing-kid work. It's interesting, a stone-cold whydunit. It's just not a criminal case."

  "I'm curious to know why the department is so sure of that."

  Nancy didn't answer right away. She didn't answer any questions right away, and while her cautious manner made Tess impatient, it also struck her as admirable. She should try it herself sometime, thinking before she spoke.

  "At the risk of sounding paranoid, I don't like talking on the phone with people I don't really know," the detective said at last. "I've got to go down to Northern District in the city this morning, so I'll grab a late breakfast with you in Hampden. That's near your house, right?"

  "How do you know where I live?"

  "Caller ID. I can match almost every prefix in the city with the neighborhood. I'm guessing you're north of Cold Spring but west of Charles."

  Tess was impressed. This was a geek after her own heart.

  "So if you're meeting with me, you've got something to tell me."

  "I know a little bit. I'm not sure it will help you find the Rubin family, but it will give you some perspective you'll need if you're going to work for this guy."

  Tess's mind raced. "Is Mark Rubin concealing something from me? Did Natalie Rubin have to disappear for a reason? Was she—"

  "Later." The girlish voice was surprisingly firm. "I'll answer all your questions the best I can when we meet."

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  TESS STOPPED OFF AT THE HAMPDEN POST OFFICE BEFORE her late-breakfast meeting with Nancy Porter, sending three certified letters to the Mail Boxes Etc. store that Lana had visited. Each one contained a card with a typed message, one for Lana and two for Natalie, addressed to both Rubin and Peters: I know what you're doing. Call me. She used her second cell-phone number, the one that couldn't be traced to her. But just getting either of the Natalie letters accepted at the address would be a key piece of information.

  The morning was bright and breezy, and Nancy Porter had taken one of the two porch tables at the Golden West, a restaurant carved out of a row house on Thirty-sixth Street, aka the Avenue. Long the main business artery in the working-class neighborhood of Hampden, the Avenue had become hip in spite of itself, bringing in the usual mix of cafes, galleries, and shops. Tess's personal favorite was Ma Petite Shoe, an establishment that sold only chocolate and shoes. That pretty much met all her needs, although most of the shoes tended to be on the girly side.

  "I'm glad you were okay with meeting here," Nancy said, rising to shake Tess's hand. "I'm on a low-carb diet, and they have the best huevos rancheros, which almost make up for the fact that I can't have the tortillas."

  Tess sized up the detective. She appeared a year or two younger than Tess and only a few pounds heavier, although those pounds were packed on a shorter, finer-boned frame. Men probably didn't mind Nancy's weight as much as she did. She had an all-American-girl cuteness, and the wedding band on her left hand would seem to indicate she didn't lack for companionship.

  "Well, we're the perfect dining companions, then," Tess said.

  "You're doing low carb, too?"

  "No, but I love huevos rancheros, and I'll happily eat your tortillas along with mine."

  Nancy favored her with a crooked grin. "I hate women like you. You can probably eat anything you want and not worry about it."

  "Oh, I could worry about it, but what's the point? I accept my height and shoe size, my eye color and my hair color. I might as well live in the body I was born with, too."

  "You can change your hair and your eyes, though."

  "Would you?" Tess challenged the blue-eyed blonde.

  Nancy laughed, shaking her head. "Gretchen said you were funny. Said you'd talk my ear off about nonessential stuff, too, but she swears you're a good investigator when you aren't being all philosophical."

  "You talked to Gretchen?"

  The blue eyes in that baby face had a knowing spark. "Oh, yeah, as soon
as I hung with you. Woke her up, too. Sorry, but there was no way I was going to take your word for anything. I've gotten burned a time or two, talking to people I shouldn't. For all I knew, you were a reporter. In fact, Gretchen said you used to be."

  "I've been a private investigator almost as long as I worked as a reporter." Tess paused, surprised by her own stat. She double-checked her arithmetic. Three years at the Star before it folded, now going on three years as a licensed PI. "And I wasn't much of a reporter. I was so far down the fourth-estate food chain that I was plankton."

  "If you say so. Anyway, Gretchen vouched for you, and she's as tough on people as I am. So here I am. What can I tell you?"

  "Did you work the Rubin case?"

  "There is no Rubin case, as far as the department is concerned. And I hope he's not trying to say there is. Family Crimes checked it very thoroughly. His wife walked out, taking their kids. No sign of foul play. And until he gets a custody order, which he says he doesn't want to do, no laws broken."

  "That's pretty much how he tells it. But I was curious about the fact that her credit cards have been dormant since she left. Isn't that suggestive of foul play? How can she be on the run without any money?"

  "Didn't he tell you?"

  "Tell me what?"

  Another knowing smile. Nancy might be younger than Tess, but she had more experience listening to people's lies.

  "Mark Rubin kept his wife on a short, tight leash when it came to money. She had credit cards for everything she needed, and an ATM-Visa card, but he didn't let her have more than a hundred dollars in cash. Plus, he made her account for her cash day by day. Withdrawals, too. At the end of the month, he went over everything again, item by item."