Crescent City Connection (Skip Langdon Mystery #7) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  Skip said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, I’m sure they said something. Errol just had a habit of interpreting things his own way. I mean, one thing I know happened. A neighbor’s cat died mysteriously. After that, maybe they said something like Daniel really needed some attention, or guidance, maybe—something like that.” She shrugged. “What they meant was, a kind word, maybe—or a few sessions with a shrink. Errol read it as ‘punishment.’

  “Well, anyway, I might have been crazy, but I married him. And Isaac was born three years later, when Daniel was seventeen. I had my hands full for a while, I sure did.”

  “How old is Isaac now?”

  “Twenty-seven. And Daniel’s got a grown girl. In school at Northwestern.”

  Skip tried not to show surprise. She hadn’t known about the girl.

  “Daniel came out kind of strange after all. He drank too much for a long time—for all I know he still does.”

  “You’re not in touch with him?”

  Irene looked surprised. “Oh no. None of us have been for a long time. He went off to Idaho to be a survivalist.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Jacqueline? They got divorced before that. Now, she never was any good.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Drinking. Drugs. Anything you can name. It’s like Daniel married his mama without even knowing her. Jacqueline left Daniel when Lovelace was ten—ten years ago.”

  “Did you know Rosemarie?”

  Irene blushed slightly. “I’ve been told about her.”

  “Where is Isaac now?”

  “I don’t … really know. When the thing happened with Daddy—I mean Errol…”

  “Wait a minute. Which thing? Atlanta or Louisiana?”

  “Atlanta. When the thing happened in the church and I left his father, Isaac just…” she paused “… he just stopped writing. Or almost did. I got a postcard once saying he was all right and healthy.” She smiled. “So healthy he was working in a juice bar. That’s what he said.”

  “Where was it mailed from?”

  “Mailed from?” She looked puzzled, then seemed to catch on. “Oh. New Orleans.”

  “Is his dad in touch with him?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I suppose…” She was clearly going over the events of the last few months in her head. “I suppose he could be. They were both in that part of the world.”

  “Do you have an address for Isaac? Or the name of the juice bar?”

  “No.” She crumpled a little, and Skip felt she had just torn off a bit of the woman’s scar tissue, exposing the wound beneath. “Isaac will… Isaac was an unusual child. A fragile child. He can only do what he can do. For some reason he doesn’t feel he can be in touch with me right now. When he can be, he will be.”

  “What do you mean, Irene? Does he have mental problems?”

  Irene stared at Shellmire, angry now, for the first time showing an emotion other than despair. “He’s fragile. I told you that.”

  “Are you in touch with Daniel’s daughter?”

  Her face changed course completely, was suddenly radiant. “Oh, yes. Lovelace. We’re all so proud of her.”

  “All?”

  “She’s such a lovely girl.”

  “I meant …” Skip decided not to continue. She had meant, how could Irene know if she wasn’t in touch with any member of her family, but that didn’t really matter, she thought. In this case, “all” was probably a euphemism to make herself feel better about their loss. Only one person really mattered.

  “Irene—I have to ask you directly—have you heard anything from your ex-husband?”

  “No, I have not.” Her washed-out eyes burned briefly—weak blue flames in the wilderness.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I do not.”

  “Do you know if he’s in touch with anyone else in the family?”

  “I would have no idea about that.”

  She had suddenly gotten on what Southerners call her high horse—why, exactly, Skip wasn’t sure.

  “Do you have an address for Daniel?”

  “I do not. Jacqueline might, but I couldn’t tell you where to find her. Or Lovelace might. Oh, yes. Lovelace would. You can find her at Northwestern.”

  Skip thought that in Irene’s shoes, she, too, would have asked for some time off in the boonies. If her sons had cut her off, they might have a very good reason—those beatings, perhaps. By her own admission she had “thought that was all right.” She must have gone along with Jacomine’s sadistic ideas of discipline as if they were hers as well.

  She was paying the price now, and Skip felt sorry for her. She stood and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Jacomine. I’m sorry for your trouble,” as if someone were dead.

  Surprise filled the woman’s eyes like tears, and Skip was reminded of an animal that expects, from long experience, a kick instead of kindness.

  Ten

  DORISE HADN’T LIKED these white people from the minute she arrived, though they were friends of Cammie’s. She came to set up for a Sunday brunch—a job she damn well knew how to do as well as the next person. All you had to do was tell her where you wanted the food and where you wanted the bar and then enjoy your party.

  She walked in and this Meredith, who introduced herself as Mrs. Clemenceau as if it were the nineteenth century, started in with a checklist. She, Meredith, had made a list of what Dorise was supposed to do!

  Dorise said, “Don’t you worry, darlin’. I’ve done this a hundred times. I’m gon’ take care of everything and you’re not gon’ have to worry about a thing. Those sure are pretty earrings you’re wearing.”

  Diamonds. First thing in the morning.

  Every now and then she ran into an uptight one and she always said that, or something like it, and you could just see the little wrinkles in their foreheads straighten out. And then they would show their pretty teeth and they would whisper, “thank you” or some such, and leave in a cloud of perfume.

  Dorise moved slowly and confidently. She didn’t race about creating more panic. She just did what had to be done, in about the time it took these ladies to put on lipstick.

  This one didn’t respond. Her eyes squinched even closer together, as if she considered Dorise impertinent, and she snapped, “You haven’t done it a hundred times at my house.”

  And then her husband came out and when Dorise smiled and said hello, he didn’t even respond, just looked right through her as if she didn’t exist.

  Dorise had no choice but to waste her precious time listening to what this Mrs. Clemenceau wanted her to do and then do it in the order that Mrs. Clemenceau wanted it, with Mrs. Clemenceau standing over her the whole time, practically daring her to do something wrong, which she did. Being supervised affected her that way.

  And naturally everything took twice as long, doing it Mrs. Clemenceau’s way, and so she wasn’t even completely set up before the first guest arrived, though she was only five minutes away, and though the next guest didn’t arrive for another twenty minutes. Still, it hurt her pride.

  She served mimosas and Bloodies for a good half hour after she judged it was time to eat, but Meredith had told her not to start serving until she told her to. And then she forgot to tell her, and clicked in on a cloud of ruffled feathers: “Dorise. It’s twelve-thirty.”

  As if that were something to Dorise.

  Dorise didn’t even like her guests. The men were overweight and a little too loud, especially after a few drinks, and they had quite a few. The women all seemed to have those same wrinkled foreheads Meredith did. Dorise would catch snatches of the conversation and they were all talking about crime. Crime and who did it. The people who did it were called “they” and it was abundantly clear from the way the guests cut their eyes to see how much she heard that “they” were invariably African American.

  Going through the house to collect the glasses, Dorise noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Clemenceau, despite their obsessiveness, poor manners, and gen
eral sourpussness, had some pretty nice things.

  They had those good, nearly threadbare Oriental rugs. They had gold leaf mirrors that had cost more than Dorise’s car. They had silver and jewelry and stereos and all the things she had talked to Troy about.

  Thinking of Troy, it occurred to her that if the Clemenceaus lost some of their nice things it wouldn’t completely break her heart. Playing that game with Troy had made her uncomfortable that time, but here, in her head, there wasn’t any harm in it and as it turned out, it was lots of fun. These people talked about crime all the time and didn’t even have a burglar alarm. They didn’t have decent locks on their windows either, and they sure didn’t have a dog that was going to do them any good.

  Now they did have a dog—a little yappy white thing that had been trying to get a grip on Dorise’s ankles ever since she arrived. But its nasty little mouth was too small.

  When she got home, she needed something nice and real to get the taste of that place out of her mouth, so she put on a pot of red beans and called Troy to come over and help her and Shavonne eat them.

  He didn’t stay over that night because Shavonne was there, but when she went off to do her homework, Dorise told him about Mr. and Mrs. Clemenceau and their delightful personalities. She told about the guests and their opinions on crime and the windows without locks and the little canine dustrag, and everything.

  The other way they’d played the game had had an uncomfortable edge to it—a kind of greediness, and longing, a sadness, maybe, that they couldn’t be lord and lady of the manor, no matter how odd the role. This way was just funny—they laughed themselves silly planning a fake robbery of Mr. and Mrs. Sourpuss Clemenceau. She said, “Least you wouldn’t have to worry about that little kitty-cat of a dog. You could just pick him up and throw him against a wall.”

  They got so carried away, Shavonne came out and said, “Are y’all gon’ let me do my homework or not?” and she was so funny saying that, they started laughing again. She stuck out her lip and turned and ran. Dorise knew she was going to cry, so she ran after her. Shavonne had been as fragile as a butterfly since Delavon died.

  Troy was gone when she came back.

  Two days later Dorise did another Uptown lunch, and the ladies were all abuzz about the burglary of a friend. The burglar had apparently done something unbelievably brutal—had picked up the couple’s little white dog and thrown it against a wall—or so it seemed from the dog’s injuries. It was still alive when they came home, but it had to be put to sleep.

  The story knocked the breath out of her. Surely they couldn’t be talking about Meredith Clemenceau. She and Troy had made up that story about the yappy little dog—it wasn’t real, it was something they imagined, just to have something to laugh about.

  She wondered, Can you make something happen, just by talking about it?

  She didn’t tell Troy, didn’t tell anybody—it was too creepy. The coincidence, for one thing, but also that someone would actually do that to a dog! She didn’t want to think about it.

  It was another two days before Troy called and came over and presented her with Meredith Clemenceau’s diamond earrings.

  * * *

  That first night Lovelace lay awake in Isaac’s bed (Isaac having insisted on sleeping on pillows on the floor) and assessed her position.

  She felt bad for her uncle, for a lot of reasons, but most immediately because he had to sleep on the floor. She had to get him an air mattress of some kind.

  It surprised her that she thought that—it must mean she wanted to stay.

  She didn’t want to deal with that—whether she did or didn’t want to stay—but one thing she knew. She was happy. Lying in this hospital-clean bed, squeaky clean herself from the shower, full of Isaac’s inconceivably healthy vegetable stir-fry, she was absolutely euphoric.

  Of course it’s always nice, she thought, not to go to bed with your hands bound, and with no knockout drops in your bloodstream. Damn! I still can’t believe my own dad did that.

  She certainly wasn’t afraid of her dad in the sense you’d be afraid of a criminal—he wasn’t going to rape and rob her—but this had to have something to do with her grandfather, who really was scary, and not only to her—this was a man who’d killed people. She hadn’t seen him at all in recent years and really had no idea who he was.

  When she was a kid she’d hardly noticed him, and she was pretty sure he’d hardly noticed her. She tried to think back, to get anything at all, and she drew a blank.

  Michelle knew about him. When Lovelace told her, her roommate had all but fallen out of bed. “You mean your grandfather’s a killer? But what’s that like? What’s he like? How on Earth could you have a grandfather who’s a killer?”

  She didn’t know. Try as she might, she couldn’t conjure up the least image of him, except preaching. She’d been made to go to church and hear him.

  He sounded like a preacher. That was really the only impression she had. But it frightened her that she hadn’t noticed anything odd.

  What a weird family, she thought, thinking of poor Isaac.

  All the warm feelings she’d ever had for him had come flooding back—and more. They were nearly the same age, she realized. When she was three and he was ten, he was another whole species, and when she was ten and he was seventeen, he was yet another. Now though, when she was twenty and he was twenty-seven, they were close to being contemporaries. She’d had dates with men who were twenty-five.

  They might be contemporaries, Lovelace thought, but they couldn’t be more different. Lovelace didn’t get him at all. There was almost nothing about him she understood, even his obsessive angel art, which seemed to be about her.

  Despite that, she adored him. She knew in her bones he had as beautiful a spirit as anyone she’d ever met and that they were deeply connected, the two of them. She felt close to him, drawn to him—safe with him. There was something about him she’d never felt with anybody else—she felt he had her best interests at heart. So here she was lying in his bed and feeling like a baby in a crib.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a life. But how the hell did you go back to school when your own dad was stalking you? God knows what he’d told the administration by now—maybe that she’d been in and out of institutions, that she’d threatened to kill herself, that she was so depressed she was suicidal.

  If he’d said that—and she knew he probably had—they’d be dying to get her off campus. Blood was so embarrassing to a college. Then, too, there was her name—if she did anything that made news, it would make double news because of her grandfather. She’d be a very high-profile suicide. And the school would be putty in her dad’s hands.

  So there was no going back. Which brought up the problem, In that case, what now?

  She slept on it.

  And in the morning, the answer was obvious—she’d have to stay here till her mother got back from Mexico. Jacqueline wasn’t good for much, but she could probably get Lovelace out of this one.

  But how to make it through till then? Isaac obviously couldn’t afford to support her, and anyway, she had to have something to do. She’d done temp work before and she could do it again.

  She found a coffeehouse, where she perused newspaper ads, and from which she made a quick call to her roommate.

  Michelle squealed. “Omigod. You’re alive.”

  “Have you reported me missing?”

  “I didn’t till yesterday afternoon, but by then I was out of my mind. I hope I did right. They said you’d been called home unexpectedly.”

  “And you believed that?”

  “I’ve been tearing my hair out, Lovie. I called your house in Florida and nobody answered. Tomorrow I was going to go to the cops—or at least a shrink.”

  “Well, I’m okay, but this is dicey.” She ran down what had happened, and then admonished Michelle not to breathe a word to the authorities even if they tied her up and tortured her.

  “Hey, no problem. I never heard of you. The last
thing I want is your grandfather in my life.”

  That done, Lovelace registered at three different employment agencies, and spent the rest of the day prowling around. She hadn’t been to New Orleans before, and she found it had a strange, languid air to it, an anything-can-happen kind of feeling. It was a hot day—much too hot for March—but she found herself oddly energized, excited somehow. By what, she wondered? The weather? It made her feel languid and sexy and kind of exuberant, but she didn’t think that was what the excitement was all about. It was partly the beauty of the architecture—Lovelace wanted desperately to go to Paris, which she hoped would look like this. It was partly the beauty and the foreignness, and partly the weather, too. But there was also a kind of rife feel—as if every moment was a bud that could open up into some wonderfully unexpected flower, something as exotic as it was irresistible, something lush and bruised and dangerous. She thought it no accident that so many vampire stories had been set here.

  She walked by the river, strolled the French Quarter, and explored the Faubourg Marigny. She felt something like an American in Paris and something like a time traveler. Who she didn’t feel like was Lovelace Jacomine, conscientious (if not brilliant) student at a midwestern university. This place was nothing like Evanston and nothing like Florida and nothing like anywhere she’d been.

  The next day she was in an ordinary, airless office, filing for an oil company.

  By ten A.M. she started to cough; by noon she was sure she was choking. It was the mold, people said—in a city this old, it got to you. If you had allergies, they kicked up; if you didn’t, they kicked in.

  She went out at lunch and had an extraordinary thing called crawfish bisque and then, because she was intrigued, the dessert they called bread pudding. Every bite was an adventure and not only because she liked the stuff—because she was trying to figure out how it was done.

  Partly because her mother was so lame, Lovelace was a good cook—someone in the family had to be. As she was trying to figure out how you turned day-old French bread into the dessert she was eating, it suddenly occurred to her that there were other ways to make a living besides slaving in an office.