Identity Crisis (Sam McRae Mystery #1)

Chapter 22

One of the dealership phone directories listed B. Ferrengetti in Dundalk, the only Ferrengetti in the book. Dundalk was an aging suburb, southeast of Baltimore, close to Sparrows Point and the Bethlehem Steel Mills.

I retraced my route on the Baltimore Beltway to the last exit before the Harbor Tunnel, which dumped me into a neighborhood where the overall theme was old, cramped, and brick. I stopped for directions at a firehouse, wedged between a funeral home and a liquor store. Despite the urban setting, the smell of water from the Outer Harbor and the seagulls that cried overhead gave the place an odd touch of the beach.

Barbara lived on a street of identical, rectangular, brick houses, paired off and mated by common walls, each a mirror image of the other. Several of the porches had painted metal awnings and were decorated with hanging geraniums and petunias—probably to make it easier for the residents to figure out where the hell they lived. Whatever restrictive covenant required the fronts to look the same apparently didn't apply to the backs. The alleys were a visual cacophony of telephone poles, clothes lines, and fences of various heights and materials.

I parked in the first space I found and walked to Barbara's house. In front, a short, wiry woman with an array of plastic grocery bags around her feet bent into the back of a new SUV. She grunted with effort as she reached for something, but all I could see was a skinny ass in cutoffs and pale white legs. She wore red plastic flip-flops.

I cleared my throat. "Barbara Ferrengetti?"

"Hold on." With the Baltimore accent, it came out sounding like hold awn. A few seconds later, she popped up with an errant can of vegetables in hand. Closing the SUV, she turned toward me.

It was the woman I'd seen outside Schaeffer's apartment, the one arguing with him at the gym. Blue eyes that showed no recognition blinked at me above a pointed nose. Worry lines creased her brow. Despite a thin face, her cheeks seemed to droop, pulling her mouth into a permanent frown.

"Yeah?" she said, her tone conveying the clear desire to dispense with me and get on to the next tiresome chore.

"Hi," I said. "My name's Sam McRae. I'm an attorney—"

"Are you from the workers' comp? Cause you're supposed to talk to my lawyer."

"I just want to ask some questions—"

"Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-no." She waved a hand to cut me off. "My lawyer said you gotta talk to him." Suddenly conscious of the fact she was waving a can of food around, she put it in one of the bags and began rubbing her wrist.

"Are those heavy?" I said. "I could help you get them inside."

She looked me over, perhaps wondering if this were a test of her alleged disability. "That would be nice. I mean, usually I have to make several trips 'cause of my wrist, or my son helps. But since you're here."

We gathered the bags—she made a great show of wincing on picking hers up—and I followed her up the steps and into the house. The kitchen was straight back with the living room off to the left. I stopped briefly to gawk at her wide screen, high-definition TV—fifty inches, at least. She also had a state-of-the-art home theater sound system, made up of several little speakers scattered about the room. A workers' comp award for carpal tunnel wasn't going to cover that lot. In contrast, her sofa and chairs looked like they came from the Salvation Army. A carved wood crucifix hung on the wall.

She took her bags to the fridge, where she unloaded a half gallon of milk and several packages of deli meat. I checked mine for perishables and found iceberg lettuce and frozen orange juice which I handed to her. The kitchen was small—the decor, circa 1950. Over a small table, I spotted a picture of Jesus, with a passage of scripture in fancy print underneath. Blessed art the clever, I thought, for they shall rip government agencies off to provide for their needs.