Baltimore’s Penn Station seemed absurdly small to him now, but pretty in a way that New York ’s Penn Station could never be. He sat on one of the wooden benches that lined the high-ceilinged space, waiting for his train to be called. He was rising to his feet to go down to the track when his phone rang. A Baltimore area code. Had he left something at the radio station?
“I hope I didn’t upset you,” said a woman’s voice. It was the woman from the radio show. “I really am sincerely curious about how you created Aubrey.”
“Do I know you? Who are you?”
She laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, but it wasn’t friendly, either.
“Do you know anyone, Gerry? Even yourself?”
The woman hung up. He called back, but no one answered, even as the phone rang and rang, never going to voicemail.
February 26
AS A TEENAGER, Gerry had read Chandler, Hammett, John D. MacDonald, although his favorite was Ross Macdonald. By college he was mildly embarrassed by his affection for the private detective genre, and he no longer reads it, although he recognizes there are a few outstanding practitioners working within crime fiction, albeit almost accidentally. Still, the affection remains.
So when he decides to hire a private detective to investigate the Case of the Vanishing Tweet, among other things, he is vaguely disappointed that his condition will not allow him to visit some seedy little office with a frosted pane, the agency’s name stenciled in chipping black paint. A silly fantasy, and even if such detectives existed, why would he want one? He wants someone honest and reputable, up to date, but it’s hard to find online reviews for private detectives. He can ask Victoria, of course—it’s her job. He Googles, but the information that comes back is daunting in its volume.
He takes it as a nudge from fate when he picks up a Baltimore magazine from the pile by his bed—it has come to this, Gerry has read all his New Yorkers, cover to cover—and sees a feature on the back page, Five Questions With. The subject in January was Tess Monaghan, private detective.
She is a handsome woman. Not his type, but broad-shouldered and capable looking. Somewhere in her thirties, with a sardonic way of speaking, at least on the page. She has a partner, male, but he is not pictured. Is it silly to call a PI because she happened to be on the back page of a magazine? Well, so be it. He calls and is happily surprised to hear a human voice, more surprised still to realize it is the woman herself.
“I’d prefer to meet face-to-face,” she says when he starts to explain why he is calling. “You won’t be billed for it. Even if I end up taking the job, the first consultation is complimentary.”
Even if—funny, it had not occurred to him that she could turn him down.
“That can be arranged,” he says. “Although—I’m confined to bed, for now, as I’ve had a bad injury. Can you get to Locust Point?”
“Sure. Last I heard, they weren’t checking passports to get onto the peninsula.”
“Can you come between five and seven? Those are the only hours I am alone, and I want this to be confidential.” He isn’t sure why he feels that way. He just knows that he could not bear to have Victoria or Aileen nearby, eavesdropping, rolling her eyes when he describes the letter that can’t be found, the calls that leave no trace.
“Tonight?”
“If possible.”
“I’ll have to work out child care.”
“Oh, you have a child?” That didn’t fit with his image of a PI at all.
“Allegedly, although she’s more like a cranky divorcée in the body of a fourth grader. If this is urgent—”
“I think it is.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
She is, at five thirty sharp. She is even taller than he had imagined, her reddish-brown hair tousled by the February wind, which has been howling formidably again, but maybe it sounds worse on the twenty-fifth floor. She is of a type he knows well from growing up in North Baltimore—a female jock, possibly lacrosse, attractive despite her disdain for makeup and clothes.
She is remarkably free of judgment, even kind, when he begins to describe what has been happening to him. She listens intently, interrupting only to clarify facts.
“So first there was a letter? With a return address that matched the address you gave—a made-up address—to a fictional character? Only the letter disappeared?”
“Yes. Things were hectic after I fell. I assume it was thrown away by accident.”
“Then a couple of calls and this one tweet? Alleging, um, intimate knowledge of your anatomy.”