"You
wasted my time."
"I paid for your time. A new private investigator, starting out—all
your cases should be so easy. I know what it's like to start
a business. You can't have too many easy jobs. But my next
job is harder. You won't have such an easy time finding the
person I'm really looking for."
Tess looked up. "What makes you
think I'd do any more work for you at all, after the way you
dicked me around?"
Jackie's smile was the smile of a
businesswoman used to coddling difficult types, smoothing ruffled
feathers, working her to way to yes .
"Look, it's past noon. Can we talk about this over
lunch? There's always Clyde's, just across the
way."
"No Clyde's,"
Tess said petulantly, a child saying no just to say no.
"I've never forgiven their menu for inspiring that
insipid song ‘Afternoon Delight.'"
"Let's go into
Clarksville, then."
"Clarksville? What's out
there, the local Dairy Queen?" Actually a hot dog and a
Peanut Buster Parfait would hit the spot. One drawback to city living
was the serious lack of Dairy Queens.
"You obviously haven't
been keeping up with Howard County real estate. Clarksville is home to
some of the ritziest subdivisions around—and one amazing
French restaurant. Expensive, but worth it. Come on, it's on
me."
"You bet it's on
you," Tess said. "After all, you have a stock
portfolio worth almost two hundred thousand dollars as of market close
yesterday."
There was a small victory in seeing Jackie
Weir's eyes widen at that factoid. Good—let her
wonder what else Tess might have uncovered along the way.
Clarksville had changed. Tess remembered
farmland, a few simple houses scattered among the trees. Now huge,
elaborate homes sat on landscaped lots. These weren't the
kind of developments that looked naked and raw in their early years;
too much money had been spent for the owners to tolerate anything less
than instant perfection. But the very lack of flaws, the absence of
anything as spontaneous as a fallen bicycle or an overgrown lilac tree,
made the houses forbidding to Tess.
"Mini-mansions, they call them in
the trade," Jackie said as they drove west. "The
covenant actually specifies a minimum square footage of ten thousand
feet and all natural materials."
"But that was a lavender stone house. How can that be natural?"
"Closer to periwinkle, if you want
to be precise. The owner's Mercedes has been custom-painted
to match. Or was it the other way around?"
After seeing the overdone, overlarge houses,
Tess assumed the restaurant would be built along the same nightmarish
proportions. To her relief, Trouve was a small, fieldstone farmhouse
that looked as if it had been moved, stone by stone, from the French
countryside. If it weren't for the parking lot full of
expensive cars, it might have passed for the working farm it once was.
"Miss Jacqueline, do you have a
reservation today?" the maitre d' asked. Tess,
glancing at the clientele in the almost-full dining room, suddenly felt
underdressed and frumpy. Her warm-weather clothes tended toward things
that made as little contact with the skin as possible—a
loose, white T-shirt today, and an ankle-length cotton skirt that
allowed her to skip pantyhose, but was now badly wrinkled from all her
driving.
"I didn't plan ahead,
but I was hoping you just might find a place for us, Michel."
"Of course." Tess
assumed two women would be hidden away by the kitchen or bathroom,
especially when one was so sloppily dressed. But Michel led them to a
table next to a large bay window, overlooking a small orchard of fruit
trees and, beyond that, a meadow of wild flowers.
Jackie allowed herself to preen just a
little. "As I said, I bring a lot of clients here."
"What is it you do ,
exactly?"
"Professional fund-raiser. I
started out in development at a hospital in the Washington suburbs, but
I found I could make better money on my own, raising money on a
contract basis. I do a few good causes to salve my
conscience—Advocates for Children and Youth,
wasted my time."
"I paid for your time. A new private investigator, starting out—all
your cases should be so easy. I know what it's like to start
a business. You can't have too many easy jobs. But my next
job is harder. You won't have such an easy time finding the
person I'm really looking for."
Tess looked up. "What makes you
think I'd do any more work for you at all, after the way you
dicked me around?"
Jackie's smile was the smile of a
businesswoman used to coddling difficult types, smoothing ruffled
feathers, working her to way to yes .
"Look, it's past noon. Can we talk about this over
lunch? There's always Clyde's, just across the
way."
"No Clyde's,"
Tess said petulantly, a child saying no just to say no.
"I've never forgiven their menu for inspiring that
insipid song ‘Afternoon Delight.'"
"Let's go into
Clarksville, then."
"Clarksville? What's out
there, the local Dairy Queen?" Actually a hot dog and a
Peanut Buster Parfait would hit the spot. One drawback to city living
was the serious lack of Dairy Queens.
"You obviously haven't
been keeping up with Howard County real estate. Clarksville is home to
some of the ritziest subdivisions around—and one amazing
French restaurant. Expensive, but worth it. Come on, it's on
me."
"You bet it's on
you," Tess said. "After all, you have a stock
portfolio worth almost two hundred thousand dollars as of market close
yesterday."
There was a small victory in seeing Jackie
Weir's eyes widen at that factoid. Good—let her
wonder what else Tess might have uncovered along the way.
Clarksville had changed. Tess remembered
farmland, a few simple houses scattered among the trees. Now huge,
elaborate homes sat on landscaped lots. These weren't the
kind of developments that looked naked and raw in their early years;
too much money had been spent for the owners to tolerate anything less
than instant perfection. But the very lack of flaws, the absence of
anything as spontaneous as a fallen bicycle or an overgrown lilac tree,
made the houses forbidding to Tess.
"Mini-mansions, they call them in
the trade," Jackie said as they drove west. "The
covenant actually specifies a minimum square footage of ten thousand
feet and all natural materials."
"But that was a lavender stone house. How can that be natural?"
"Closer to periwinkle, if you want
to be precise. The owner's Mercedes has been custom-painted
to match. Or was it the other way around?"
After seeing the overdone, overlarge houses,
Tess assumed the restaurant would be built along the same nightmarish
proportions. To her relief, Trouve was a small, fieldstone farmhouse
that looked as if it had been moved, stone by stone, from the French
countryside. If it weren't for the parking lot full of
expensive cars, it might have passed for the working farm it once was.
"Miss Jacqueline, do you have a
reservation today?" the maitre d' asked. Tess,
glancing at the clientele in the almost-full dining room, suddenly felt
underdressed and frumpy. Her warm-weather clothes tended toward things
that made as little contact with the skin as possible—a
loose, white T-shirt today, and an ankle-length cotton skirt that
allowed her to skip pantyhose, but was now badly wrinkled from all her
driving.
"I didn't plan ahead,
but I was hoping you just might find a place for us, Michel."
"Of course." Tess
assumed two women would be hidden away by the kitchen or bathroom,
especially when one was so sloppily dressed. But Michel led them to a
table next to a large bay window, overlooking a small orchard of fruit
trees and, beyond that, a meadow of wild flowers.
Jackie allowed herself to preen just a
little. "As I said, I bring a lot of clients here."
"What is it you do ,
exactly?"
"Professional fund-raiser. I
started out in development at a hospital in the Washington suburbs, but
I found I could make better money on my own, raising money on a
contract basis. I do a few good causes to salve my
conscience—Advocates for Children and Youth,
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