Read Online Laura Lippman by Tess Monaghan 05 - The Sugar House (v5) - Free Book Online Page B
Ads: Link
rest of her day poring over phone books and CD-Rom telephone directories, looking for places with names like Domino’s, which should be called the Sugar House, unless it was the Gingerbread House, or a cake. It was her willingness to share details like this that had put Tess on the “do-not-call” list for every city school’s Career Day. She also didn’t see any point in mentioning that she was going to check to see if there had been an armored car robbery in Locust Point this morning.
The truth was, she couldn’t imagine any assignment more dangerous than being a teenage girl, at large in the land with an overripe body and a face full of yearning. Bring on the globetrotting psychopaths. They couldn’t be anywhere near as terrifying as adolescent boys.
chapter
6
S OME PEOPLE PANIC AT D ECEMBER’S DARKNESS, DESPAIRING to see the sun go down before they leave work. But Tess had always found comfort in the shorter days. The winter months gave her permission to relax. It was pleasant, cozy even, to sit in her office and feel the shadows encroach around her and her computer screen. On this particular afternoon, the ebbing light was at least a sign of progress. The sun came up, the sun went down, and the only thing she knew was what she already knew: Jane Doe had a conversation with Sukey on the swings at Latrobe Park.
Unless she didn’t. Sukey wasn’t a liar, Tess realized. She wasn’t mean, she wanted nothing from her stories, except a little attention. The robbery tale even had a germ of truth in it. The desk sergeant at the Southern Precinct confirmed a bakery truck had hit a light pole in the neighborhood, and some kids had carried away cakes and pies before police arrived. Sukey had changed the bakerytruck to an armored car, the sweets to money, thinking, in her innocence, to make the story better. Yet the truth was so much more entertaining. Tess had even phoned in the item to her Beacon-Light friend, Feeney, made an early Christmas present of this slam-dunk brite. No, Sukey was a fantasist, trying to make something out of the dreary reality of the life around her. Then why couldn’t she imagine a life for herself that would take her down Fort Avenue and out of Locust Point? Why was she cutting school and thinking her own future was limited to a job at the Sugar House?
A knock sounded on the door, slightly tentative. From the outside, the office probably looked dark. “Come in, it’s open,” Tess called out, turning on the desk lamp and feeling as if she had been caught doing something. What, she wasn’t sure.
Her father’s red head poked around the door, the way he had poked it into her bedroom all those years—unsure of his welcome, a little nervous about entering what he considered a feminine precinct.
“I can’t believe you don’t keep this locked,” he said. “You should have a buzzer system, throw the deadbolt the minute you come in.”
She usually did, but being scolded by her father made her feel contrary.
“I don’t worry too much. After all, I have this fine watch dog—” the greyhound, Esskay, unrolled stiffly from the sofa, did her salaam stretch, and presented herself to Patrick for the obligatory tribute she demanded from everyone who crossed the threshold.
“And a gun in my desk drawer.”
If Tess were in therapy, a psychiatrist probably could have spent many, many hours on the immense pleasure she took in brandishing her .38 Smith & Wesson at her father just then. But, really, the gesture said more about her relationship with her gun than it did about her relationship with her father. When she first opened the office, she had kept it in the wall safe. She had been literally gun shy, afraid of her own weapon. She soon found there was no percentage in having a permit to carry if she didn’t keep the gun close at hand. The fact of gun ownership didn’t intimidate anyone, she needed the weapon nearby.
Besides, she had fallen a little in love with her Smith & Wesson. It
The truth was, she couldn’t imagine any assignment more dangerous than being a teenage girl, at large in the land with an overripe body and a face full of yearning. Bring on the globetrotting psychopaths. They couldn’t be anywhere near as terrifying as adolescent boys.
chapter
6
S OME PEOPLE PANIC AT D ECEMBER’S DARKNESS, DESPAIRING to see the sun go down before they leave work. But Tess had always found comfort in the shorter days. The winter months gave her permission to relax. It was pleasant, cozy even, to sit in her office and feel the shadows encroach around her and her computer screen. On this particular afternoon, the ebbing light was at least a sign of progress. The sun came up, the sun went down, and the only thing she knew was what she already knew: Jane Doe had a conversation with Sukey on the swings at Latrobe Park.
Unless she didn’t. Sukey wasn’t a liar, Tess realized. She wasn’t mean, she wanted nothing from her stories, except a little attention. The robbery tale even had a germ of truth in it. The desk sergeant at the Southern Precinct confirmed a bakery truck had hit a light pole in the neighborhood, and some kids had carried away cakes and pies before police arrived. Sukey had changed the bakerytruck to an armored car, the sweets to money, thinking, in her innocence, to make the story better. Yet the truth was so much more entertaining. Tess had even phoned in the item to her Beacon-Light friend, Feeney, made an early Christmas present of this slam-dunk brite. No, Sukey was a fantasist, trying to make something out of the dreary reality of the life around her. Then why couldn’t she imagine a life for herself that would take her down Fort Avenue and out of Locust Point? Why was she cutting school and thinking her own future was limited to a job at the Sugar House?
A knock sounded on the door, slightly tentative. From the outside, the office probably looked dark. “Come in, it’s open,” Tess called out, turning on the desk lamp and feeling as if she had been caught doing something. What, she wasn’t sure.
Her father’s red head poked around the door, the way he had poked it into her bedroom all those years—unsure of his welcome, a little nervous about entering what he considered a feminine precinct.
“I can’t believe you don’t keep this locked,” he said. “You should have a buzzer system, throw the deadbolt the minute you come in.”
She usually did, but being scolded by her father made her feel contrary.
“I don’t worry too much. After all, I have this fine watch dog—” the greyhound, Esskay, unrolled stiffly from the sofa, did her salaam stretch, and presented herself to Patrick for the obligatory tribute she demanded from everyone who crossed the threshold.
“And a gun in my desk drawer.”
If Tess were in therapy, a psychiatrist probably could have spent many, many hours on the immense pleasure she took in brandishing her .38 Smith & Wesson at her father just then. But, really, the gesture said more about her relationship with her gun than it did about her relationship with her father. When she first opened the office, she had kept it in the wall safe. She had been literally gun shy, afraid of her own weapon. She soon found there was no percentage in having a permit to carry if she didn’t keep the gun close at hand. The fact of gun ownership didn’t intimidate anyone, she needed the weapon nearby.
Besides, she had fallen a little in love with her Smith & Wesson. It
Similar Books
