"What do you mean?"

"She doesn't know you work for Rock, or that you're interested in the murder. She knows you're not a cop, so she's not worried about anything criminal. She thought you were checking her out for something else."

"How do you know so much? How do you know I'm working for Rock?" He was right, though. Cecilia had never mentioned Rock or Tyner. Tess had steered the discussion toward Abramowitz's death, but anyone who read a newspaper might have done that. Cecilia only knew Tess wasn't the victim she pretended to be. She hadn't figured out who she was, or what she wanted.

"I listen a lot. It helps when you forget I'm here-the way you did just now. The way you do all the time."

He smiled, pissing Tess off. It seemed as if everyone was a step ahead of her today-Feeney with his computer, Donna Collington with her long red nails, Kitty with her not-so-secret reservations about Jonathan, Cecilia with her mysterious mission. Now Crow had joined the gang. It didn't help that he was right.

It also irritated her to notice how fair Crow's complexion was. His skin was blue white, like milk, which made the dreadlocks framing his face seem even darker. The skin of someone who stayed out at night, prowling.

"Do they call you Crow after that robot on ‘Mystery Science Theater,' or because you look like that singer from Counting Crows?" Actually he was better looking, with good cheekbones and a broad forehead. If he stopped slouching he would have six inches on Tess.

"I was Crow long before either came along. Back in my native Virginia. If you're nice to me I'll tell you the story some day."

"Sorry, that's too high a price to pay." But he had gotten her to smile.

Tess finished her shift, then spent the rest of the evening trying to call Abner Macauley's number, a Dundalk exchange. Each time she dialed, a woman answered and refused to put Mr. Macauley on the phone unless Tess identified herself. Each time Tess refused.

The impasse continued through the evening and into the next morning, after she had returned from rowing. Rock had been at the boat house, looking confused and distracted. The Head of the Ohio was in two days, and Tess knew from looking at him that he wasn't even close to being ready. He didn't look as if he could even complete the course.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"I'm not sure I am. Ava still won't talk to me." He looked guilty. "I know, I know-I'm not supposed to talk to her. But I don't understand why her story changed. She tells me-tells you-one thing. Then she tells some newspaper reporter it's all a figment of my overheated imagination. Why would she do that?"

Because she's a louse. "I have a hunch she had to choose between you and the law firm. Given her credit card situation, she had to go with the law firm or risk losing her job."

"Maybe. All I know is I'm not going to row well until this is cleared up. Tyner says I'll be lucky to go to trial by January."

Rock looked so low, so discouraged, she wanted to hold out some hope. "Look, this is kind of premature, but I'm working a lead. I think I might find the guy who really killed Abramowitz, or at least someone with a good motive."

"Tyner didn't say anything about that."

"He doesn't know yet. Let's keep it this way for now, OK? Just between us, I have a feeling I'm on to something."

"Just between us." She tensed, waiting for the inevitable punch, another black-and-blue mark to add to the collection of marks Rock's affection left on her. To her surprise he kissed her brow instead.

By Friday morning Tess had still not been able to get past the hound of hell guarding Macauley's telephone. She had to be on the right track. Then she remembered she was an investigator, not a reporter. Time to lie again. She put on a thick Baltimore accent and dialed the number, which she now knew by heart.

"Excuse me, ma'am, could I speak to one Abner J. Macauley?"

Her long Os and nasal tones worked like a mating call on the woman, presumably Mrs. Macauley, whose Bawlmer accent Tess could have been parodying.

"He's here, hon, but can I ask who's calling and why? He don't get around that well, you know." No, just occasional forays downtown armed with baseball bats.

"Oh sure," she said. "I'm from O'Neal, O'Connor and O'Neill, and we wanted to talk to him about his settlement."

The woman squealed with excitement. "Oh hon, he's taking a nap, but I know he wants to hear about that. Can you call back in a half hour?"

"Actually we'd like to send one of our people out to talk to him in person. Could he see someone in an hour?"

"Well, that's during the noon news, but I guess it would be OK. You tell him just to come on out. You know the way? We're off Holabird Avenue, past Squires, the Italian restaurant?"

If Tess had not lived in Baltimore all her life, she would not have had a clue what the woman was saying. "Holabird" came out "hahlaburd," while Squires was "squi-yers." Italian, of course, was pronounced with a long "I."

"Sure," she replied, almost slipping into her normal voice. "By the way, it's a girl who's coming out, not a gentleman. But she's OK."

"OK, hon. See ya!"

Despite Tyner's repeated exhortations to dress like a grown-up, Tess sensed the Macauleys would be more comfortable with someone who looked as if she had gone to Catholic school with their daughter or dated their son. She paired a plaid skirt with a white blouse, then added a man's navy vest. To do the Catholic girl bit properly, she thought, I should put on knee socks and roll my waistband up until the skirt barely covers my ass. That had been the parochial school look of her era. Instead she slipped penny loafers onto bare, tanned feet and braided her hair. Fetching, she decided, sort of like a field hockey player on her way to church.

In her Toyota she headed east past Canton, past the quaint row houses of Greektown and Highlandtown, leaving the city limits and heading into Dundalk. On a map East Baltimore County looked promising. It sat on what should have been prime real estate, the meandering coastline of the Chesapeake Bay, with tiny points and inlets. And perhaps it was gorgeous, once upon a time, a time before Bethlehem Steel. But there was no Dundalk before Beth Steel, which had built the community in 1916 to house its workers. In the 1950s, when steel production was at its height, red dust from the mills had fallen steadily over the community, sifting over everything. Cars, clothing on lines, the rooftops and windowsills. They called it "gold dust" and were grateful for it, because it meant the shipyards were busy and jobs plentiful.

There was still gold in Dundalk, but not so much for those who lived there as for the men who represented them in court. Few households had been spared asbestosis or one of the other degenerative diseases associated with the onetime wonder fiber. One lawyer alone had built an empire on asbestos, earning more than $250 million in a single class action suit. Now he owned the Orioles. Some of the widows of Dundalk were doing pretty well, too, but none had a sports franchise, not yet.

But, as Mr. Miles had, Tess wondered why Mr. Macauley was so focused on money. Technically he was one of the lucky ones. There were thousands of men throughout Baltimore who had been diagnosed with asbestosis, or the related cancer, mesothelioma. Asbestosis-white lung-was said to be a particularly horrible way to die. The lungs collapsed slowly, until you felt as if you were suffocating. And it wasn't enough to prove asbestos had done it. You had to know which brand of asbestos was poisoning you if you wanted to collect.

Yet Abner Macauley had won in court, one of eleven plaintiffs in the last of the preconsolidation trials. He was due $850,000, and he had won it before he died. The other rewards ranged from $900,000 to $2.1 million, according to the clip Feeney had found, for a total of $15 million. How had the jury decided the costs of eleven men's lives? Macauley had worked a relatively short amount of time-a mere eight months during World War II-and had been able to show he was never exposed again. Someone who could enjoy the money should get more, Tess decided, not less. The scale of suffering seemed inverted to her.