“Did your husband ever mention Vasso?”

“I told you, I never heard of him. But I guess no one ever tells anyone everything.”

“Let’s hope not,” Tess said absently. In her mind, she was already en route to Annapolis, where Arnold Vasso could be found any time the General Assembly was in session. Even a closed committee meeting, convened for no reason other than to railroad one of its own, would draw Vasso.

After all, vultures don’t discriminate when it comes to carrion.

CANNIBALISM WAS CONSIDERED A PRIVATE AFFAIR IN the state capitol, so the joint committee on ethics was allowed to meet behind closed doors. Reporters, with few other legislative stories to chase this time of year, lined the hall outside the hearing room, waiting for breaks in the action so they could try to gauge the progress of the hearings. Tess took her place next to them along the wall, wondering if Vasso had come and gone already. She could check out his office, in one of the pricey, refurbished town houses near State Circle, but everyone knew that Vasso was never in his office. A good lobbyist never was. The reporters, most of them strangers to her, looked at her curiously, trying to figure out why a civilian would be camping here. She recognized only one, Tom Stuckey, the slight Associated Press reporter who had been in Annapolis longer than any of the elected officials. Well into his fourth decade in the job, he was the closest thing the State House had to an institutional memory, yet he remained remarkably sane. But she couldn’t tell the Beacon-Light reporter from the Washington Tribune reporter, a sad state of affairs indeed. Tall, rangy men in their thirties, they both wore navy sports jackets, khaki pants, white shirts, and moderately interesting ties. On the other side of the hall, the television reporters were similarly indistinguishable, whether male or female-glossy of hair, vacant of eye.

“Hertel’s only problem,” one of the newspaper reporters was saying, “is that he’s a white guy. They kicked out Larry Young, so they have to expel a white guy to make it all nice and even. Especially since Young was acquitted of the criminal charges.”

“They already did that,” the other print reporter objected. “Gerry Curran, remember? They were already even-steven. This isn’t about affirmative action, this is about Dahlgren wanting to be a glory hog, trying to build up his name recognition for the congressional run.”

“He’s not going to run for the first,” the other scoffed. “He likes sure things too much.”

The two continued to argue, but it was a languid, no-stakes debate, its only purpose to pass the time. Tess smiled, remembering when a State House job had been her fervent ambition, back in her reporter days. Her bosses at the Star had worried her family was too connected to state politics. “It’s not that you’d be too nice. You’d go the other way, to prove you weren’t cutting anyone any slack,” the state editor had told her. “Besides, you’re young. You have all the time in the world.” The Star folded less than a year later, making the whole discussion moot.

The truth was, she wouldn’t have been much good, although not for the reasons the editor had cited. Political coverage required schmoozing, a skill Tess lacked. Few females could do it. The senators and delegates feared, quite rightly, that women didn’t play by the rules, that they wouldn’t protect them from their own verbal slips. Once, Whitney had been at a hearing on proposed legislation intended to ensure financial support for battered women. A senator from the upper shore had asked, in his drawling country-boy accent: “Under this bill, could a boy go out on a Saturday night, pick up a gal, have sex with her, pop her in the eye, and then have to pay her support and give up his house? Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

The male reporters covering the story had let the comment go, but Whitney had written an editorial about it. The resulting fall-out had forced the chastened senator to work with the advocates to write a better bill, so it should have been a win-win scenario. But Whitney later told Tess that the senator was, on one level, right: The bill didn’t distinguish between violence in ongoing relationships and one-night stands gone bad. His question had been insensitive, but his eye for the law unerring. Whitney had won a little skirmish, only to lose an important ally.

The double doors of the hearing room opened and the cluster of reporters perked up. The only person to emerge, however, was Adam Moss, the pretty-boy aide to Senator Dahlgren. The television reporters didn’t appear to know who he was-after all, he wasn’t in the face book of senators and delegates. But the print reporters trailed him down the hall, cajoling him in soft voices. Tess saw no reason not to tag along. It was a public building, she was the public.

“You’ll have to ask the senator,” Moss was saying, his lovely mouth curved in a slight yet superior smile. “I’m not at liberty to speak for the record. The senator will tell you when he thinks the committee will vote.”

“Then what?”

“You remember the drill, how it worked with Senator Young. Although I think Senator Hertel, if recommended for expulsion, will see the wisdom in resigning, rather than forcing the General Assembly to kick him out.”

“You’re saying Hertel has agreed to resign?” Tess admired the reporters’ technique. They kept their pads in their back pockets, as if this were still a casual conversation, but the tenor of the conversation had changed. The game was afoot.

“There’s the senator,” Moss said, pointing back to the double doors, through which a steady stream of people now poured. The television reporters had clustered around Dahlgren, lobbying frantically for the live shots they needed to do at noon. “Ask him, once the television reporters are through. Or ask Hertel.”

A short, round man scurried by them, his head down. He looked pale and utterly confused, like a prize hog who had just been taken on a tour of the abattoir.

The print reporters loped down the hallway after him, leaving Tess and Moss alone.

“You’re not a reporter,” he said.

“I was.”

He stared her down and she was the one who finally broke the gaze, if only because it was unnerving, gazing into that perfect face. Adam Moss’s confidence was unseemly in one so young. Looking at him, Tess found herself thinking inexplicably of the Vermeer exhibit that had come to Washington a few years back. Adam Moss had the same golden light in his face.

“Do you find the legislative process so interesting, then?” he asked Tess.

“No,” she responded truthfully. “I came here looking for Arnold Vasso.”

“Are private detectives going to hire him to protect their interest next session? To ensure that people’s private lives remain as open as possible, so they can do their dirty little jobs?”

She did not recall her job had been mentioned when they met at the Sour Beef dinner.

“Vasso’s name cropped up in a file connected to my case. It’s a long shot, but he may be able to help me. If I can find him.”

Moss checked his watch. “Try Piccolo Roma, over on Main Street. Vasso has a standing reservation. And he’s going to be eating alone today, because his lunch date is standing him up.”

“Would that be you, or Senator Dahlgren?”

“You ask too many questions. You should learn how to take what is given to you, and leave gracefully.”

“Sorry, I don’t have your boarding school manners.”

“But you could acquire them,” Adam Moss said. “Anyone could, with just a little effort.”

Arnold Vasso’s regular table was in the window at Piccolo Roma, off to the side-visually prominent, but out of eavesdropping range.

“Mr. Vasso?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure it was him. The fact of a question in her voice would stop him, she figured. Arnie Vasso wanted it both ways, wanted to work behind the scenes and still be well-known as a fixer. He had an enviable kind of fame, she supposed. Unknown to the public at large, but a star within this tiny galaxy.