No Good Deeds Part 18

Thing was, the police couldn't take care of Lloyd even if the kid would allow it. Wasn't that why he had come to Crow in the first place? Stupid, self-destructive kid. If he didn't care about his life, why should Crow?

He took out the new cell phone and dialed Tess's home phone again. The phone rang twice, then kicked into voice mail, a sign that she was on the other line and ignoring the call-waiting signal. He started to text-message her cell but didn't think it was a good idea to relay the news about Lloyd in such a fas.h.i.+on. He called the house one more time, just in case. No answer now. Where could Tess be on a Sunday morning? A creature of routine, she should have walked the dogs and grabbed her usual coffee by now. Even with the return of mild weather and the reopening of the boathouse, she never went out on the water on Sunday mornings. She preferred to go at day's end, in the last hour before sunset, when the light was kind to the eyes and the weekend boat traffic had thinned.

Where could she be? Where could Lloyd be? He thought of mice and men, he thought of Of Mice and Men, he thought of Lennie and the rabbits, and the source for the book's t.i.tle. The best-laid plans of mice and men often aft a-gley.

Well, here he was, living large at the G.o.dd.a.m.n intersection of Aft and A-gley.

Lloyd had slept outside many times, in weather more biting than this, yet he never knew a berth as cold and hard as the field he'd found near what appeared to be a highway. Once the sun came up, it was a little better, and he burrowed down into the narrow groove. A furrow. The word came back to him, unbidden, a lesson from long ago. Furrows and Pilgrims and planting fish heads to make better corn. Satchmo? Sasquatch? Something like that. But as the sounds of traffic grew louder on the road, he decided to get up and get going.

Where, was the only question. Where should he go? Where could he go? The question was complicated by the fact that he had missed the sunrise, so he wasn't exactly sure which way was east and which way was west. And even once he figured it out, which way would he choose? He was a lot closer to the amus.e.m.e.nt park than to Baltimore, had to be, but it was hard to imagine he could walk all that way. It had taken Crow almost an hour to drive it.

Baltimore was farther still. But once he got there, at least he would have his life back. No more working for nothing. No more of Crow's conversation, which just drove him nuts sometimes. He was the talkingest guy, although he did know some interesting stuff. The older guy, Ed, at least he knew how to chill, just sit back and be quiet. He was almost cool, although Crow said he was an ex-cop, which meant he wasn't cool. It had made Lloyd nervous, being so dependent on a cop, ex or no.

He walked along the road, determined to let someone else decide where he would end up. He'd stick out his thumb and catch a ride, and wherever he went, that's where he would be. That was as good a way to plan as any. Just let life take you where it goes. Hadn't that been the way he always lived?

Come to think of it, wasn't that why his life was so f.u.c.ked up?

He stumbled along the soft, crumbling shoulder, whipping around when he heard cars approaching, but no one slowed. That didn't really surprise him, black man with leaves and s.h.i.+t in his hair. What did shock him was the minivan that rolled to a stop next to him, big black woman at the wheel, six kids packed into the two rows of seats, all in churchgoing clothes.

"Where you trying to get to, son?" she asked, her voice all sweetness. The kind tone surprised him more than anything. Somehow he had figured she would yell at him, make a lesson of him for all those kids. Look at this stupid n.i.g.g.e.r walking down the highway. This is what happens if you don't go to church regular.

"I...I don't know."

"Where your people?"

Where indeed. Who were his people? His mama and Murray? Dub? Not Bennie Tep and his folks, not since they killed Le'andro. Lloyd felt something strange in his throat and his eyes, a stinging sensation. Why did this woman's gentle voice and manner make him want to cry when he had held his ground through a.s.s whippings? He'd be more comfortable if she were b.i.t.c.hing him out. He was used to that tone, at least.

"I been staying over to, like, the boardwalk," he said.

"In Ocean City?"

"Northa there." It took him a second, but he pulled the name out. "Fenwick."

"So why you going the other direction?"

He shrugged, not wanting to admit that he didn't know where he was going.

"We're from Dagsboro, but we're on our way to lunch, up to the Denny's in Salisbury. You want to come with us?"

"I thought Denny's was the place that didn't like black people to eat there," he said.

"That's why we go there, every Sunday." The woman had a single dimple in her left cheek, sharp as a diamond winking in a ring. "We go and we say grace, and I have to say they're always real nice to us. You're welcome to come, too, although no soda. And no dessert unless you clean your plate. You gotta play by the same rules as my owns."

Two little girls on the bench seat in the far back scooted apart, pulling in their full skirts and making room for Lloyd.

"You smell funny," said one, but not with any real meanness to it.

"Shavonda Grace," the lady scolded, but her tone was mild. "What are you thinking, talking to our guest that way?"

Guest. He was a guest. Lloyd didn't remember anyone ever calling him that before.

Wait-Crow had, the first night he'd brought Lloyd to his house. Thing was, Lloyd had been so busy being a thief in his own head, he hadn't even noticed, or cared, what Crow considered him. If only he hadn't tried to steal the car, if he had just accepted the kindness for what it was. If he hadn't stolen the car, then that woman wouldn't have been so h.e.l.l-bent on coming after him and he wouldn't have told them what he knew to get her off his a.s.s and Le'andro wouldn't have been killed.

He thought he'd been so clever, telling the story the way he did. He had thought he was smart, leaving out those details that complicated things. But it was his own cleverness that had gotten Le'andro killed. Maybe he should have told the whole story from the beginning. But it was his nature to hold back what he could, to squirrel away a little extra.

Besides, if he had told the story in full, the only difference would be that he and Le'andro both would be dead.

"You smell," Shavonda Grace repeated, but she was giggling.

"You'd smell, too, you spent the night in some got-d.a.m.n cornfield."

The children gasped in horror at the mild profanity, but the woman behind the wheel kept her company manners.

"Son-I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Lloyd."

"Well, Lloyd, we don't permit bad language, especially if it involves taking the Lord's name in vain. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that in mind."

Her manner couldn't have been sweeter, the same easy tone she had taken with the little girl, but for one moment Lloyd was reminded of every woman, every teacher, every person who had told him what to do, where to go, what to say, and how to say it. He wanted to unleash a string of curses, things that would sear the ears of these little churchgoing prisses, show them just how tough he was. f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k them. f.u.c.k everybody. f.u.c.k the whole got-d.a.m.n world, and all the people who think they know what you should be doing and saying and thinking and breathing.

Then his stomach sent up a sad, sour rumble, and Lloyd recognized it for the plea it was. Go to Denny's. Get a meal. Maybe borrow some bus fare, you lucky. Then you can be as got-d.a.m.n tough as you want to be. Just take this little kindness, for once.

"Yes'm," he said, meek as a girl.

"You smell," Shavonda Grace repeated, giggling behind her hand.

"Yeah, well, at least I don't-" He was going to say something mean about her dress, her hair, her nose, her ears, whatever he could find, and although she was a pretty thing, there was no shortage of material to work with. There was always something you could find to use against a person, tear her down. But she was just a little girl, and her mother-or aunt or whoever-was doing him a kindness. Besides, he remembered the insults flung at him when he was her age, the way they stuck. He wouldn't do that to her.

"Don't what?" Shavonda Grace demanded to know.

"Don't take up too much room, so you can scoot as far from me as you like and hold your nose. I won't take no offense."

Shavonda Grace made a great show of pinching her nose shut and fluttering her eyes, but she didn't slide one inch away. If anything, she seemed to move a little closer.

24.

February two years ago, you took a loan out for your house," Gabe said, pus.h.i.+ng a photocopy of the mortgage application toward Tess. She didn't have to see the paper to remember the transaction. She had been almost nauseous after the hour at the t.i.tle company, stunned by the dollar amounts, the commitment she was making. Thanks to Baltimore's real-estate market, she looked brilliant now, but at the time all she could fixate on was the actual cost of a $140,000 loan over thirty years.

"You got me there," Tess said. "I bought a house."

"And you made a down payment of twenty percent."

"Sure. That's mandatory to avoid private mortgage insurance."

"Where did you get thirty-five thousand?" Gabe asked.

"I had just closed a case that included a generous reward for information about a long-missing girl."

"So you made the down payment on your own?"

Were they trying to bring this back to Crow and his mystery money? Tyner looked as mystified as she was. Tess nodded tentatively.

"You didn't borrow any of the money for the down payment?"

"No."

"Didn't take money from your father?"

"My father's contribution was a gift."

"Right." Gabe produced another piece of paper from the file. "And here's his notarized statement that the money was a gift. Nine thousand nine hundred fifty dollars-just under the limit for taxable gifts under the codes then."

"Uh-huh."

"And here's where you swore on the application that no borrowed money was used for the down payment. You remember checking that?"

"I checked a lot of things in the process of buying the house, but sure. As my father's letter said, it was a gift."

"But you've since made two payments to your father-five thousand dollars year before last, seven thousand last fall."

Last fall. Tess remembered wistfully how flush she had been.

"I was grateful to my father. He had helped me buy my house. When times were good for me, I wanted to repay the favor."

"In other words, it was a loan, and you repaid it with interest."

Tyner ran his fingers through his hair, a sign that he was nervous, but only Tess would know that.

"No," Tess said. "He gave me a gift. I gave him a gift. It's like-if my dad gave me a turkey for Christmas and I gave him a ham for Easter."

"I'm afraid the federal government doesn't see it that way. Call it turkey, call it ham, but it was a loan, and you lied about it."

Tess flounced in the hard plastic chair, impatient and out of sorts. They had been trying to scare her with their talk about federal charges, but this was so chickens.h.i.+t. She thought of the blatantly illegal things she had done as part of her job. Taking confidential doc.u.ments out of the governor's trash, for one. And this was the best they could do? Nitpicking over payments from a father to a daughter and back again.

"Fine-" she began, ready to concede the point, but Tyner put a cautionary hand on her arm and interrupted.

"They were gifts," he said. "It's our position they were gifts."

"Well, it's our position that your client lied on a federal form," Gabe said. "And we plan to charge her with that."

Tess rolled her eyes. Jenkins, who had been letting Gabe run the interview, caught her exasperated expression, but it didn't seem to bother him. The three men were like proud hens sitting on some monstrous egg.

"The penalty for what you've done," Gabe said, "is thirty years in federal prison."

"Oh, get out," Tess said. But even as she spoke, she saw Tyner nodding unhappily.

"And your dad has done the same thing. Lie in this notarized statement." Jenkins held up the letter for Tess's edification. "So we can go after him, too. And we will, unless you tell us the name of your source. Give it to us and all this will be forgotten. We'll cut an immunity deal for you and your dad, and this will never come up again."

Tess felt dizzy, weak-and almost bizarrely grateful. It was going to end now. This had gone too far. Her dad was already unnerved by their inquiries into his business. This would drive him over the edge. But even as she readied herself to break her promise to Lloyd, her brain clicked along, hearing the false note, the sour chirp of illogic, but not being able to pounce on it.

Tyner could, however.

"You're saying this is an official plea bargain, something Gail Schulian has approved?"

"Well..." Gabe glanced at Jenkins, lost for just a second. It was a fatal mistake. Tyner's instinct for weakness and ineptness was as sharp and astute as that of anyone Tess had known. She sometimes felt that Tyner had learned to compensate for his physical limitation, the paralysis caused in a car accident almost fifty years ago, by developing a sixth sense that allowed him to discern the tiniest frailty on a cellular level. If you were going to go up against Tyner, not a single mitochondrion could be having an off day.

"Does Gail know about this?" Tyner pressed.

"Gail?"

"Your boss. Gail Schulian. Has she signed off on making an official plea agreement, in which the government agrees never to prosecute Tess for what we've yet to affirm is a violation of this federal statute, in return for naming the confidential source in the Youssef case?"

"We don't take everything to the boss," Gabe countered, but his optic muscles seemed to have snapped, so his gaze went everywhere around the room, avoiding Tyner's. "I have the authority to offer this plea."

"I don't doubt that," Tyner said, in a tone that indicated he had no faith in the young man whatsoever. "But given that your boss is an interim U.S. attorney, I think it's important we involve her in these discussions from the beginning. It would make me feel more comfortable, especially since her replacement could be named at any time. Also-should Tess tell you what you want to know, are you going to share the information with the Howard County detectives? It is their case, after all. Seems odd, the feds expending so many resources on a case they didn't even want to investigate. Let's get everyone in the room-this suspiciously bare-bones, under-decorated room-and do this just once."

Why was Tyner talking about interior decorating now?

"Gregory Youssef was my colleague," Gabe said. "Of course I care what happened to him."

"Yes, now that you believe he wasn't killed by a male prost.i.tute. But when that was the going scenario, this office couldn't get far away enough from Youssef."

Gabe gathered up the papers he had spread so lovingly across the desk, straightening and bouncing them ostentatiously in an obvious delaying tactic.

"Your client is guilty of a felony," he said. "We're offering you a deal. Take it or leave it."

"Are you prepared to charge my client?"

"Absolutely."

"Then do it. Enter the charge and let me get her in front of a federal magistrate, so bond can be set and she can be released. We don't have to work out a plea today. You think she broke the law? You think you can prove it? Go ahead."

"There's no need to be all official-" Jenkins put in.

"Really? I guess that would explain why we keep meeting in an office that the U.S. attorney vacated back in January of this year. Are you that paranoid about your colleagues looking over your shoulder, Mr. Dalesio-or that nervous about the boss finding out about this little freelance investigation?"

"Look, this is just beginning." Gabe Dalesio's olive-skinned complexion was now more of an eggplant shade, his forehead perspiring. "I've got the paperwork to seize her car today. And to start the process on seizing her house."

"On what grounds?"