Of course you will. Ali is eager to get married. The advantage is mine.

But she would not abuse her power. She gave him a polite kiss on the cheek, realizing that they would be going forward as an odd triangle. Maybe eventually a quadrangle, and it made her smile to imagine Milton and Ali, Maddie and Ferdie, showing up for Seth’s milestones. High school graduation, senior prom, too. College graduation, his marriage, grandchildren. All those things were to be. Of course, Ferdie would not be with her. Eventually, another man might, if that was what she wanted. What did she want?

She was going to have money now. Not a lot, but enough. She could find a better apartment, maybe try to find a job where she would have an opportunity to advance.

As Milton said good night, his old look, the worshipful one, returned for a moment. But she also saw confusion in his gaze. He did not know her anymore. Fair enough. She didn’t know herself, either.

October 1966

October 1966

It was Halloween, of all things, that broke her. A Halloween with no trick-or-treaters. At the corner of Mulberry and Cathedral, it could have been just another Monday night. The only bright spot was Ferdie, tired from the day’s petty assaults on law and order, but also fired up.

“I talked to Pomerleau today. Just in passing. He visited the district.”

“The new commissioner?” There was a time when Maddie would not have recognized the name. But she read the paper now, front to back. Read the competition, too. Her mind was stuffed with the news of the day.

“He announced that the department ended up with a net gain in men this month. That reverses a trend of more than a year, in which the resignations and retirements outnumbered the new recruits. Now that morale is improving he’s going to start promoting Negro cops. Things are going to change, Maddie. I could make detective, and fast. Maybe even homicide. I’ve been cultivating one of the guys there. He trusts me. He tells me stuff.”

“That’s nice,” she said absentmindedly. This conversation was beginning to remind her of how she and Milton spoke to one another. And that was not a good thing.

But the sex that followed was very good, so she decided not to worry. In fact, something about Ferdie’s professional dreams seemed to make the sex even better, as if he were a different man, in his own mind, and therefore she was new to him and he was new to her.

“Detective,” she purred at one point, and it excited him. His eyes grew wide, and without bothering to ask if it was what she wanted, he flipped her on her stomach, then used the belt from her bathrobe to tie her hands behind her.

“You’ve been warned about shoplifting, miss,” he said. “I have to take you in.”

There had always been a sense of play for them in the bedroom, probably because this was outside of life, proper. They could afford to be silly, to expose parts of themselves that no one else had seen.

“I’ll do anything,” she said. “Anything.”

And she did. This was the one part of her life where things continued to grow, change, where she could meet her potential. The night was cool, but they needed a shower when they were done. They crowded together into the ridiculously small stall, started over again, needed a shower from the shower. It was almost two a.m. when they finally began to fall asleep. At least, she was falling asleep. Ferdie was wide awake, stroking her hair.

“My friend in Homicide, he told me something about Tessie Fine.”

“What?”

“They’re pretty sure they finally know the accomplice. The woman who came and got him.”

“Woman?”

“His mom, Maddie. They think he called his mom and she came to get him. But all the detectives can prove is that he called his mother from the store. They both agree that he was calling only to say he would be late that night. They’re rock solid on that. The detectives have been pushing him hard and now he’s willing to plead, but only to manslaughter. Of course, there can’t be a plea.”

She sat up in bed. “That’s a huge story.”

Ferdie grabbed her arm as if she might bolt for the door. “No, Maddie. No. You can’t write about this. They’ll know it was me.”

“You gave me the tip about Ludlow.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

His gaze slid away from hers. “A dozen people could have told you about that. And no one knows about us.”

Maddie thought about Diller’s staring at her malevolently in the city editor’s office.

“If no one knew about us then, then no one knows about us now. That hasn’t changed. This is sensational stuff. The mother covering up her son’s crime.”

“She’s not trying to cover up for anybody. She’s trying to save her own neck. And the son’s going along with it, so far.”

“Could I say that police have identified the long-elusive accomplice?” She was already writing the story in her head.

“No, Maddie.” His voice was sharp, almost a shout. “This information has been held very close. They’ll know it was me. You cannot write about this.”

“But—Tessie Fine was my murder. I found her.”

He got up, began to dress. He usually waited until she was asleep to go.

“I don’t know what it is about you and dead people, Maddie, but it’s getting out of hand. Can’t you find another way to get ahead?”

“Can’t you? You’re the one who wants to be a homicide detective, after all.”

“Do you even see how much this means to me? I joined the department almost ten years ago. There’s no place for me to go, not really. Or there wasn’t until Pomerleau started a month ago. It’s going to change, Maddie. It’s been dirty, a place where Negroes can’t advance. I know you know what it feels like to have a dream. I’d never do anything to get between you and yours. You cannot take this information out of this room.”

“It’s in my head now. It’s not like I can forget it. It goes where I go.”

“You know what I mean. You can’t tell anyone. Look, if I find out there’s a break, if they’re on the verge of arresting her, something like that—I’ll tell you. Until then, you cannot write about this.”

She said carefully, “I won’t write anything about the police developments.”

“Don’t be cute, Maddie.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I promise you—I won’t write anything that could be linked to you.”

Not even eighteen hours later, she knocked on another mother’s door.

November 1966

November 1966

What were you thinking? Maddie was asked frequently in the weeks that followed her visit to the home of Angela Corwin on the afternoon of November 1. Is that question ever really asked in an open-minded, non-accusatory way? Is one ever asked, What were you thinking? as a prelude to a compliment? Maddie thought not. Still, she told the truth, more or less:

“I thought Mrs. Corwin might talk to me, mother to mother, in a way she had not talked to police detectives.”

It was true. True enough. She had rationalized that if she could get Mrs. Corwin to confess to her, or at least make a little slip, then she had not violated Ferdie’s confidence. She wasn’t really sure that Ferdie would see it that way, but she believed she could persuade him this was so, eventually. The son had spoken to her. Why not the mother? Maddie had found the body of Tessie Fine. She had gotten the killer to tell her a detail he had omitted in the police interview, the very detail that had led to the hunt for his accomplice. People kept stealing her story—stories. This one would be hers.

And, at first, it seemed to be going so well. Mrs. Corwin was a tiny woman with lovely manners. “Oh, yes, I remember your name,” she said. She invited Maddie in, asked her if she wanted tea or coffee. She brought out a plate of cookies, bakery cookies. “From Bauhof’s in Woodlawn,” she said. “They make Silber’s look like trash.” Maddie helped herself to one, a pink-and-white refrigerator cookie. It was outstanding. If she lived closer to Woodlawn and still entertained, she would have served them to guests and pretended they were homemade.

“I love my son,” Mrs. Corwin said, “but you know he’s quite mad. Insane. But they won’t let him enter an insanity plea. They don’t want the information to get out.”

“The information?”

“About the experiments at Fort Detrick.”

“Ah, yes, Bob Bauer wrote about that. Operation Whitecoat.” She didn’t point out that this meant that information had gotten out, that the world now knew—and didn’t care—about the germ experiments.

“He was a conscientious objector. We’re Seventh-Day Adventists.” She sipped her tea. “We don’t mind Jews, though.”

Maddie could not tell if that assurance was meant for her, Tessie Fine, or both of them.

“So there’s no doubt in your mind that your son did kill her.”

“I wouldn’t want to gossip about Stephen with a stranger.”