Free Laura Lippman by Tess Monaghan 05 - The Sugar House (v5)

felt good in her hand and it was much more reliable than other tools of her trade—the cell phone, the computer, her instincts.
    “Put that away,” her father said. “It’s not a toy.”
    “No, but it looks like one, which is probably why kids are always picking them up. What brings you here?” she asked. It occurred to her that this was only his second visit to the office, the first being the “grand opening” where her mother had tried not to weep and Patrick had recommended burglar bars for all the windows.
    “I was in the neighborhood,” he said, and she let the lie pass. She knew—and he knew that she knew—the East Side had never been his territory.
    He glanced around her office, which she thought looked best in evening’s dim light. The walls, which probably had layers of lead paint beneath the eggshell white Tess had slapped on last summer, didn’t look as rough, the floors weren’t as noticeably wavy. “I keep hoping you’ll do well enough so you could afford a nice little office in one of those strip centers out York Road, or toward Ellicott City.”
    “I could swing that, if I wanted to,” Tess said, her tone a little curt. Maybe she should have brandished her bank book at her father, instead of her gun. “But some of my clients couldn’t. I need to be near a bus line, or theMetro, limited as that is. Not everyone owns a car, you know.”
    “But that’s not the kind of clientele you want,” her father said. “You want to be in a place where suburban ladies feel comfortable pulling up in their mini-vans.”
    “The suburban ladies like this location just fine. It gives them a thrill, as if they were coming into the city to score crack. They already feel degraded, hiring a private detective, so they might as well get the full slumming experience. I think they’re disappointed that I don’t have my name on the door in gilt letters, and a secretary named Velma out front.”
    “Still, if you want to impress someone—”
    “I can always meet them at the bar at the Brass Elephant, or the coffee bar in the Bibelot bookstore in Canton. But I don’t much care for clients I have to impress.” She had clawed some wisps of hair loose while working on the computer, now she pushed them back behind her ears. “Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m doing fine.”
    “I know you are.” Patrick took the seat opposite her desk. She could tell he didn’t like being on that side of the desk, sitting across from his daughter. Esskay hooked her nose in his armpit, trying to lift his hand toward her head. Esskay believed all human hands existed to rub her, just as all sofas were invented for her to sleep on.
    “If you know my business is going well, why did you send Ruthie Dembrow to me with a loser case that I have about a one-in-a-million chance of solving?”
    “I told you, I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Ruthie,” he said slowly. “I think Ruthie’s crazy, you want to know the truth. What happened with her kid brother tore her up. Maybe she should be spending her money on a therapist, or going to some spa. I told her that, she said this is her cure, finding out what happened.”
    “How do you know Ruthie?”
    “I told you. She was a cocktail waitress in Locust Point years ago. Even worked for your Uncle Spike for a summer.”
    “I don’t remember her.”
    “There’s no reason you would. It was around the time you went off to college.”
    Tess wanted to ask her father a few more questions about Ruthie. But she wasn’t sure she was ready for the answers.
    “It’s late, for you to be out. Mom will be holding supper, wondering where you are.”
    “Not tonight. She’s in a book club.”
    “She’s in a book club?” Tess had not heard about this development, and she subscribed to a strict double standard with her parents: She told them nothing, no matter how important, they must tell her everything, no matter how insignificant. Her father looked forlorn, and his drop-by suddenly seemed