Read Online Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Lippman
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Ava being more concerned about her affair than her tendency to steal underwear. But in her version the sex, unwanted, was making her shoplift. What if Rock believed her? What if she was telling the truth?
George fell off his bar stool again as Ava walked by, knocking her down with him. The tangle of arms gave Tess some pleasure, but Ava, even trapped beneath the 300-pound frame of a sometimes incontinent alcoholic, kept her Princess Grace cool. As she stood up, brushing off her now not-so-white unitard, she looked smug, untouchable.
“On your mark, get set, go,” she called back. By the time Tess figured out what she meant, and ran to the door of the tavern, Ava was already in her silver Miata, dialing her car phone as she made an illegal left turn out of the parking lot.
Chapter 7
T ess dawdled the next morning, reluctant to show up at the boat house. When she finally arrived Rock apparently was already on the water, as she had hoped. She rowed her usual route. If he wants to find me , she told herself, he will. If he doesn’t he’ll stay out of sight, hiding on that little branch that heads south . It was a tricky route—shallow in spots, with bridges forcing one to duck, pull in oars, and skim beneath them—but Rock preferred it when he felt sulky. Tess rowed to Fort McHenry and back, then out to the fort again. She saw eights and fours and two-man crews, but no other single.
It was a glorious morning, a day to savor. Brilliant blue sky, light wind, crisp air. Indian autumn, Tess called it—a fake fall to be replaced by another wave of muggy weather any day now. Tess felt she could row the length of the Chesapeake, find her way to the Atlantic, and make England by lunchtime. She settled for a power piece back to the dock. Bursting with endorphins, she waited in the practice room, pretending to stretch until 8 A.M ., when she finally gave up on Rock. He was off licking his wounds somewhere. He’d come around eventually.
She skipped Jimmy’s and ate breakfast at her aunt’s kitchen table, feasting on leftover cornbread that Officer Friendly had prepared the night before, and reading the papers her aunt had left behind in a tidy pile. Tess workedfrom back to front, a childhood habit reinforced by her days as a reporter. When she had worked at a paper, she already knew the local news, so she saved it for last, reading features and sports, then the Washington Post and The New York Times . She read the Beacon-Light last—or the Blight , as most readers called it—so it was 9:30 A.M . before she saw the story below the fold: Prominent Lawyer Dead; Biologist Held .
Michael Abramowitz, a lawyer whose amateurish but unforgettable advertisements made him an unlikely local celebrity, was strangled last night in his Inner Harbor office at the staid law firm of O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill, according to police.
A suspect was arrested within an hour of the slaying, which police described as unusually brutal. Darryl Paxton, a thirty-three-year-old researcher at Johns Hopkins medical school, was to be held overnight in the central district lockup, then taken before a commissioner for bail review this morning.
According to sources close to the investigation, Mr. Abramowitz was beaten and squeezed in a pythonlike grip, then beaten viciously. He also had bruises on his face, presumably from a fight with Mr. Paxton, who visited him at the office just after 10 P.M ., according to a security guard’s log. The body was discovered by a custodian…
Shirley Temple. Tess felt her stomach clutch and saw the child movie star’s dimpled face swimming before her, a ghostly apparition in pale blue. When she was a child—well, fourteen—she had broken her mother’s Shirley Temple cereal bowl and blamed it on a neighbor’s child. No one had ever discovered her lie. Twenty years later, guilt always evoked the same reaction—Shirley’s face, followed by nausea and fear. She had never been good, but she had always been good
George fell off his bar stool again as Ava walked by, knocking her down with him. The tangle of arms gave Tess some pleasure, but Ava, even trapped beneath the 300-pound frame of a sometimes incontinent alcoholic, kept her Princess Grace cool. As she stood up, brushing off her now not-so-white unitard, she looked smug, untouchable.
“On your mark, get set, go,” she called back. By the time Tess figured out what she meant, and ran to the door of the tavern, Ava was already in her silver Miata, dialing her car phone as she made an illegal left turn out of the parking lot.
Chapter 7
T ess dawdled the next morning, reluctant to show up at the boat house. When she finally arrived Rock apparently was already on the water, as she had hoped. She rowed her usual route. If he wants to find me , she told herself, he will. If he doesn’t he’ll stay out of sight, hiding on that little branch that heads south . It was a tricky route—shallow in spots, with bridges forcing one to duck, pull in oars, and skim beneath them—but Rock preferred it when he felt sulky. Tess rowed to Fort McHenry and back, then out to the fort again. She saw eights and fours and two-man crews, but no other single.
It was a glorious morning, a day to savor. Brilliant blue sky, light wind, crisp air. Indian autumn, Tess called it—a fake fall to be replaced by another wave of muggy weather any day now. Tess felt she could row the length of the Chesapeake, find her way to the Atlantic, and make England by lunchtime. She settled for a power piece back to the dock. Bursting with endorphins, she waited in the practice room, pretending to stretch until 8 A.M ., when she finally gave up on Rock. He was off licking his wounds somewhere. He’d come around eventually.
She skipped Jimmy’s and ate breakfast at her aunt’s kitchen table, feasting on leftover cornbread that Officer Friendly had prepared the night before, and reading the papers her aunt had left behind in a tidy pile. Tess workedfrom back to front, a childhood habit reinforced by her days as a reporter. When she had worked at a paper, she already knew the local news, so she saved it for last, reading features and sports, then the Washington Post and The New York Times . She read the Beacon-Light last—or the Blight , as most readers called it—so it was 9:30 A.M . before she saw the story below the fold: Prominent Lawyer Dead; Biologist Held .
Michael Abramowitz, a lawyer whose amateurish but unforgettable advertisements made him an unlikely local celebrity, was strangled last night in his Inner Harbor office at the staid law firm of O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill, according to police.
A suspect was arrested within an hour of the slaying, which police described as unusually brutal. Darryl Paxton, a thirty-three-year-old researcher at Johns Hopkins medical school, was to be held overnight in the central district lockup, then taken before a commissioner for bail review this morning.
According to sources close to the investigation, Mr. Abramowitz was beaten and squeezed in a pythonlike grip, then beaten viciously. He also had bruises on his face, presumably from a fight with Mr. Paxton, who visited him at the office just after 10 P.M ., according to a security guard’s log. The body was discovered by a custodian…
Shirley Temple. Tess felt her stomach clutch and saw the child movie star’s dimpled face swimming before her, a ghostly apparition in pale blue. When she was a child—well, fourteen—she had broken her mother’s Shirley Temple cereal bowl and blamed it on a neighbor’s child. No one had ever discovered her lie. Twenty years later, guilt always evoked the same reaction—Shirley’s face, followed by nausea and fear. She had never been good, but she had always been good
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