Butchers Hill (37 page)

"Open it," Sal urged.
"It's got a little catch on the side.
I'll show you how."

The photo inside was of a boy, his mouth
slightly open, his eyes large and bright. The tiny heart shape had been
cut from a color photo, grainy and overexposed, but it was still
possible to see the joy in his eyes. Perhaps it had been Christmas, or
his birthday. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a trip to
McDonald's. It took so little to make a child happy. It took
so much.

"It's her brother,
Donnie," Sal said. "Well, half-brother, I guess.
His aunt had some photos, and she let us have one. So one day, when
Laylah's older, you can tell her how she had a brother and he
was a pretty good kid."

Jackie thanked Sal, tears in her eyes,
passing the locket to Tess, who couldn't help wondering how
anyone could tell the story of what had happened on Butchers Hill.
Where to begin? The night Luther Beale had gone into the street with
his gun, the day he had come into her office? Did it begin the day
Chase Pearson became a social worker, or on the day Donnie Moore was
born? Or the day Luther Beale was born, ornery and resolute, his
destiny hurtling him toward a tragic confrontation and a nickname he
still couldn't shake? The Butcher of Butchers Hill. Where did
anything begin?

Once upon a time, you
had a brother, his name was Donnie Moore and he was a pretty good kid
.

There were worse ways to be remembered.

LAURA
LIPPMAN
was a newspaper reporter at the
Baltimore
Sun
for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan
novels—
Baltimore Blues, Charm City,
Butchers Hill, In Big Trouble, The Sugar House
,
and
The Last Place
—have
won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her
novel,
In a Strange City
,
was named a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel,
Every
Secret Thing
, was published by William Morrow in
September 2003. You can visit her website at
www.lauralippman.com.