The Accidental Detective

rooms, greeting many clerks by name. But wouldn’t it be more efficient to work from her office? Isn’t most of the information online?
    “Some,” says Monaghan, who also relies on an online network of female investigators from across the country. “Not all. And there’s a serendipity to real life that the Internet can’t duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the book you were looking for, and it’s that book that changes your life. Google’s great, but it’s no substitute for getting out and talking to people. Plus, the courthouse is only a block from Cypriana. So whenever I come here, I can reward myself with a celebratory chicken pita with extra feta cheese.”
    Isn’t 11:30 a little early for lunch?
    “I’ve been up since six! Besides, you want to get there before the judges release the various juries for their lunch break.”
A T REE G ROWS IN B ALTIMORE
    W hitney Talbot strides into Cypriana with the authority of a health inspector on a follow-up visit. Her green eyes cut across the small restaurant with laserlike intensity.
    “She’s the opposite of Browning’s duchess,” Monaghan whispers. “Her looks go everywhere, but she dislikes whatever she sees.”
    “I heard that,” Talbot says, even as she places her order. “And I like Cypriana just fine. It’s the clientele that worries me. I saw the mayor in here just last week. How am I supposed to digest lunch under those circumstances?”
    She settles at our table with an enormous Greek salad, which she proceeds to eat leaf by leaf, without dressing. “Whitney’s not anorexic,” Monaghan assures me. “Her taste buds were simply destroyed by old WASP cooking.”
    “I prefer to get my calories through gin,” Talbot says primly. “Now what do you want to know about Tess? I know everything—EVERYTHING. I know when she lost her virginity. I know the strange ritualistic way she eats Peanut M&M’s. I know that she re-reads
Marjorie Morningstar
every year—”
    “I do not,” Monaghan objects, outraged only by the last assertion.
    “—and cries over it, too. I re-read the
Alexandria Quartet
every year.”
    “Because you’re so f---ing pretentious.”
    “‘Pretentious’ suggests pretending, trying to make others believe that you’re something that you’re not. There’s not a pretentious bone in my body.”
    “There’s nothing but bones in your body, you fatless wench.”
    Perhaps it would be better if Talbot were interviewed separately, out of Monaghan’s hearing?
    “Why?” Talbot wonders. “It’s not as if I could be any more candid. My first name should have been Cassandra. I’m a truth-teller from way back. It saves so much time, always telling the truth—”
    “And never worrying about anyone’s feelings,” Monaghan mutters.
    “Tess is still miffed because I’m the one who called her Baltimore’s hungriest detective, back when the
Washington Post
did that travel piece on her favorite haunts. She does like a good meal, but she wears her calories well. So, okay, here’s the unvarnished truth about Theresa Esther Weinstein Monaghan, aka Tesser, although Testy suits her better.”
    Talbot leans forward while Monaghan visibly steels herself.
    “She’s a good friend, utterly loyal. She lies as if it were her second language, but only when she has to. She’s smarter than anyone gives her credit for—including Tess herself. She’s brave. You know those tiresome women who don’t have any female friends? I’m not one of those. I don’t have any friends, period. I don’t like people much. But I make an exception for Tess.”
    “With friends like these …” Monaghan shrugs. In the time it has taken Talbot to eat five lettuce leaves, Monaghan has polished off her chicken pita, but still seems hungry. “Vaccaro’s?” she suggests hopefully. “Berger cookies? Otterbein cookies? Something? Anything? I rowed this morning and I plan to run this afternoon. I’m almost certainly in caloric deficit.”
    Does she work out for her job? How much physical stamina is required? (And does she know that she won’t be able to eat like that forever?)
    “There’s actually very little physical activity involved in my work, and when there is—look, I’m five-foot-nine and my body fat is under twenty percent. I can run a mile in seven minutes and I could still compete in head races if I was that masochistic. And for all that, there’s not an able-bodied