By a Spider's Thread: A Tess Monaghan Novel by Laura Lippman Page B

their own,” Tess said, still feeling self-righteous.
    “No question. But the downside to keeping problems all in the family is that there’s no paper trail when a situation gets out of hand. If you don’t get the batterers in the system when they start, then sometimes you can’t clamp down on them when their behavior becomes truly life-threatening.”
    “I don’t see Mark Rubin as an abuser.”
    “Neither do I. But I can be definite on this point because we looked into it. We also checked to see if there had been any accusations of sex abuse, if the school had noticed anything in the oldest kid’s behavior. Look, we even had to consider if Mark Rubin was some criminal mastermind who’d murdered his whole family, then played the part of the grieving husband. The fact that he hired you is only further proof that he’s in the clear.”
    “Or an expensive bluff.”
    Tess was thinking of the pregnant woman who had become a national sensation a while back. Her husband hadn’t been the most persuasive grieving spouse in the world, though, given that he was an adulterer who put their house on the market and sold the family car within a month of her disappearance. Rubin was much more convincing in his agony.
    “You said you know the detective in Family Crimes who worked this. What’s her take on it?”
    “Maria says if Mark Rubin had anything to do with this, he’s the biggest, two-faced Bluebeard ever. No one has a bad word to say about the guy. Employees, people in his congregation, neighbors. Even ex-employees, and you know what they’re like. Everyone agrees he’s a great guy. Although they say it as if it were a little bit of a surprise.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, the older ladies at his synagogue, the ones who had known him since he was kid, kept telling Maria he was such a nice man, ‘considering everything.’ And when Maria asked, ‘Considering what?’ they’d just smile or pat her hand. Again, it’s a close-knit community. They’re not going to tell us all the gossip.”
    “What about Natalie?”
    “Maria says no one knows her — and no one seems to want to know her. In fact, she’s probably the ‘everything’ that all those women find so objectionable.” Tess, knowing Natalie’s background and youth, saw Nancy’s point. “And then there’s Lana Wishnia, but she’s not saying anything.”
    “She stonewalled me, too, but I like to think that Baltimore County Police can be a little more persuasive.”
    “We can — if we have a charge on you.” Again Nancy raised a single eyebrow. “But you have to remember, no law has been broken, and Mark Rubin didn’t want to pursue custody through the system, so…sayonara. Not our case, not our stat. The major only expended as much energy as he did because he thought the community might get up in arms, bring all this pressure to bear if we didn’t make every effort to establish there was no crime. The last thing he wanted was to turn on the news and see some little old ladies marching around the Public Safety Building, picketing the department.”
    Tess was transformed back into Teresa Esther, defender of the faith. “Are you saying Jews are pushy when they want something?”
    “I’m saying
people
are pushy. But some communities are better organized than others, always have been.”
    “What are you, anyway? You look WASP, you have a WASP name, but you sure don’t have the attitude.”
Or the bone structure.
Nancy Porter’s round face was pleasant, but she would never pass as one of Baltimore’s moneyed bluebloods.
    “Porter is my married name. I was born Potrcurzski. We’re pretty burned out, us Poles, just as left behind as your people, Monaghan. We’re never going to run this city or state again.”
    “Baltimore has an Irish mayor now. He even plays in his own Irish band.”
    “You know, that’s one of the few things makes me glad I’m working in the county these days. My sergeant says we live in an era where the politicians want