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promised to love what she loved—and to love her as well. “They tore down the cornucopia and Pilgrim cutouts before the sun set on Thanksgiving, and now they’re already itching to retangle the lights they just put up, to unwrap the doors they’ve made look like Christmas boxes and cover them with red foil and Cupids for Valentine’s Day.”
    Horns sounded angrily as she squeezed down the narrow channel and into the intersection. Tess assumed the other drivers were just angry they hadn’t thought of the idea first, or because their cars were too wide. Served them right for driving SUVs.
    “And once the Cupids go up, they’ll already be thinking about shamrocks, green foil and Saint Patrick’s Day.”
    “As one of our local literary lights likes to say, welcome to the church of the next right thing,” Tess said, thinking of a short-story writer who had given a reading at her Aunt Kitty’s store just a few nights back, an exuberant man with the unlikely name of Ralph Pickle. He had filled Women and Children First with his ex-girl-friends, ex-fiancées and ex-wives, who bought multiple copies of his book. Kitty had encouraged him to write more—and date more.
    Tess was now in the middle of Madison Street, where she braked sharply, jerked her steering wheel to the right, then headed up the Fallsway, which ran between the JFX and the prison.
    “Like a hostess, who puts out guest towels, then pacesin the hallway, worried someone might actually use them,” Crow continued.
    But Tess, glancing at the prison wall that ran the length of the block, was thinking about Henry Dembrow now. She still couldn’t imagine a scenario in which someone would allow a loved one’s body to go unclaimed, yet went to the trouble of exacting revenge against her killer. Ruthie was grasping at straws. Well, as long as she willing to pay her usual hourly fee, Tess was more than happy to indulge Ruthie in this particular game of pickup sticks. Besides, her father had said he owed Ruthie a favor, and her father considered favors a kind of currency, more important than money. She was really indulging him.
    She took the Preston Street overpass above the clogged highway, then headed north, feeling smug. So smug that she shot past her turn at 29th Street, losing any advantage she had gained.
    “Damn, now I’ll have to double back.”
    “It’s eight-fifteen,” Crow said. “We’re supposed to meet Whitney in fifteen minutes.” He sounded worried. Whitney scared Crow a little. Whitney scared almost everyone, except Tess.
    “She’s always late.”
    “She’s always late, except when we’re late, and then she gives us unmitigated shit.”
    “Let me try one more approach into Hampden, this time from the north.” Tess had a peculiar vanity about her ability to find shortcuts and new routes through her hometown. They had set out to see the lights in Hampden, and she would not be denied.
    They were in Baltimore’s richest precincts now, Guilford and Roland Park, where the homes were decadently large and the tax bills were a kind of status symbol. Look, the houses seem to proclaim, we’re paying $12,000 a yearin property taxes and we still send our kids to private schools! These rambling mansions filled Tess with loathing—and yearning. One stone house had stood empty for years, neglected and haunted looking, until an exasperated neighbor purchased it to protect his property values. She could never forget that story, never stop marveling at the idea that some people bought houses the way she bought sweaters at The Gap.
    The truth was, she often thought long and hard about that second sweater.
    “What’s up there?” Crow said, pointing to a side street after she turned onto Cold Spring Lane.
    “More rich people, I suppose.”
    “No, these houses look much smaller. Turn up there, Tess. I’ve never noticed this neighborhood before.”
    “But the lights—”
    “They’ll be there for the rest of the month. We’re here, right now.