Mean Woman Blues

by Smith, Julie

  She was taken aback. “Because… uh… he called me a whore.”

  Her mother reached to stroke her forearm. Her father said, “Hmmph,” to acknowledge her answer. “And because… uh…” She was finding it hard to tell. “He got rough. He scared me. So I pushed him away. And then he tried to pull me back…”

  Her father’s stare was like an icepick. “Y’all into little games?”

  She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She felt herself blushing, not out of embarrassment but out of shame. “No! No, we’re not into little games. Daddy, this was no game. What do I have to do to make you understand? He threw me against a wall.” Her hiccups were gone.

  Her mother pulled her close again. “Oh, honey.”

  Her father got up and paced. The phone rang. All three of them ignored it.

  Finally, Karen said, “Mama, my back really hurts. Do you think I could have some ice for it?”

  “Oh, honey,” her mother said again and got up to get the ice.

  When she was gone, her dad turned to her, furious. “Now you listen to me, Missy. You’re supposed to be grown up, but you don’t ever grow up. You just make one bad decision after another and expect this family to clean up your messes. You’re going to have to figure this one out on your time, you understand? You leave your mother and me out of your filth.”

  Karen felt sick. “Excuse me, Daddy,” she said, and ran to throw up. After washing her face and rubbing it with some of the ice meant for her back, she started to feel a little better.

  Damn the McLeans, she thought later, lying on the bed in her old room. Why couldn’t I have the kind of Southern father who’d kill any bastard who messed with his little girl? It was all her mother could do to persuade Boyd to let Karen stay the night.

  She was dozing, trying to cope with the pain, when she heard the doorbell ring. She knew who it was even before she heard her father’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Come on down. Your husband’s here.” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  David was waiting in the den, her parents having tactfully melted away. “Karen. My poor little lamb.” He crossed the room and tried to put his arms around her. She grabbed them and shoved him away. “All right. I deserved that. I came to apologize.”

  “I’m not going home with you, David.” She would have to tomorrow, but at least she could have one night of peace.

  “Karen, darlin’, you mean the world to me.”

  “David, you hit me!”

  “I most certainly did not. I’ve never hit a woman in my life.”

  She shrugged. “Shoved then. What’s the difference?”

  A strange look came over him, something she’d never seen before. It was pain, she thought. Trouble— the kind the guests on his show had, nothing she’d ever associate with Mr. Right. “Honey, something bad happened tonight.” He held up a hand to stave her off. “I mean besides my hurting you. I am truly sorry about that Karen. You may not believe it but I am. When I said I was under pressure, I didn’t mean from some stupid television show. I was afraid for my life, honey. And yours.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Baby, I’ve got some things to tell you. I’ve got some enemies. I saw someone tonight, someone from my past… and I couldn’t help it, I just went nuts. I was so crazy with worry— and so damn upset to see you at the studio— I just lashed out at you. Honey, I swear to God nothing like that’ll ever happen again.”

  “What do you mean ‘enemies,’ David?” She heard the edge in her voice and hoped he did.

  “It was a long time ago. Back when I was running this little company in Phoenix, somebody was getting picked on and I took his side. Fired a couple people.”

  Karen didn’t get it. “So? That’s enough to hit your wife over?”

  “Fired was just the beginning. Once these two guys were gone, we discovered they’d been stealing from the business—”

  “Ah.” It was starting to come clear. “And they were going to pin it on the picked-on guy.”

  “That’s my girl! You got it. Long story short we prosecuted, and I didn’t know they were out of jail till I saw one of them in our studio tonight. Now, this man’s from Phoenix, and he turns up in Texas. Last thing I wanted was my wife in the same building with him so I saw you and I just… lost it. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  She wasn’t sure. On the one hand, it sure wasn’t a reason to call her a whore. On the other hand, this was Mr. Right, the man she’d loved unequivocally before tonight. She’d be a fool to kiss her marriage good-bye without even hearing him out. “I think,” she said carefully, “I need the details.”

  He looked so relieved she almost wanted to hug him. He even chuckled. “Well. At least you aren’t throwing me out.” He reached out to her, still guarded, she put her hand in his. “Come on. Let’s go home. Details at eleven.”

  She let him take her home and tuck her into bed with more ice and plenty of aspirin, and a thousand more apologies. She was glad to have been talked into this, glad not to have to wake up contemplating a second divorce before her twenty-seventh birthday.

  Sometime in the night the aspirin wore off. She woke up moaning, disoriented. She was still in pain, but a different sort, like menstrual cramps. And something else was wrong. “David!” She shook him. “David, turn on the light.”

  He reached his lamp and blinked in the glare. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I feel… wet.” She threw off the covers. The bed was soaked with her blood.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Skip and Shellmire spent the day on a wild goose chase, driving to the state penitentiary at Angola. Daniel Jacomine (the big prize) refused to talk to them, but two former followers agreed, including Potter Menard. Skip held high hopes for Menard, and, indeed, seeing him was gratifying in its way. He’d turned on Jacomine, done a complete one-eighty. That was the gratifying part. But he couldn’t tell them a single thing about where his former leader was now. The other guy was still loyal to Jacomine and, it appeared, had only agreed to see Skip so he could threaten to kill her when he got out. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was a loss.

  Skip was so disheartened Shellmire took her to dinner when they got back to New Orleans, a dinner that included several glasses of wine and a lot more obsessing. “Bettina next?” Shellmire suggested.

  “Nah, I think we’ve already milked that one, unless we could get a search warrant. But we sure don’t have probable cause. I think Rosemarie’s our best bet. She’s got money, and I’m betting he’s not going to leave her alone as long as he thinks he can get some. Maybe he had to pay for that botched hit on me. Could be he’s run out of thugs who’ll work for free. Why don’t we go to Dallas?”

  Shellmire set down his glass. “Yeah. Let’s try for tomorrow afternoon; spend the morning going over past cases, see if we can dredge up anybody else, figure out if we overlooked anything.”

  “Or anybody,” Skip said. But she couldn’t help feeling discouraged. “I brought a lot of stuff home. I’ll work on that, and you can work at your office. We can meet at the airport.”

  He signaled for the bill. “I’ll see if we can get a flight around three. Give us plenty of time to get to the airport.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She got home shortly after ten and felt a little shiver when she heard LeDoux’s message on her voicemail. “You had a call from an Isaac James. Said to tell you he used to be the White Monk. A weirdo, am I right?”

  Skip had to laugh. One of her favorite weirdos. You couldn’t forget the White Monk even if he weren’t the son of your worst enemy. She wondered briefly if his father had been in contact with him. Not likely, she thought, but hope sprang eternal. More likely, he was calling to commiserate about Angelgate.

  She got ready to write down his phone number, but it wasn’t on the message. Oh, well, she probably had it somewhere.

  She looked it up and gave him a quick call but got only his voicemail. She found that even though chan
ces were about ninety percent that Jacomine wouldn’t contact his son, couldn’t possibly access his voicemail, she was a little queasy about leaving her home number. She put Isaac’s number by the phone, to remind herself to call him first thing in the morning.

  But she was tired from the trip to Angola and slept later than she’d intended. He’d evidently already left the house by the time she called. Despite his mnemonic device with LeDoux, it hadn’t been that long since she’d seen him. She knew he was in school at UNO, which could mean any kind of schedule in the world. Well, hell. She shrugged and decided to call back later, maybe drive by his house.

  She called Steve, thinking it was odd that she hadn’t heard from him. “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Oh. Hi.” Very distant.

  “You don’t sound so good.”

  “I just feel so helpless.” No wonder, with the whole town thinking he was a thief. It was her fault, and she wasn’t even free to tell him it was going to come right.

  “Baby, you don’t know the meaning of helpless. But it’ll be okay, really. You’ve just got to have faith.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know. We just have to get through this. Somehow.” It broke her heart to hear him sound so dejected.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ve got to get out of here; I’m going out of town for a couple of days.”

  “Oh? Where?” Even more distant. She hadn’t asked him to come with her; that had to hurt.

  “Just… uh… I think I’m going to drive to the Gulf Coast. Try to cool out a little.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ve got the bug men coming today.” The termite people.

  “Steve, listen. We’ll get through this. I just need a couple of days…”

  “Sure. No matter what, Skip—”

  “What?”

  “I love you. I’m just a little down right now.”

  God, that must have cost him! “Me too, Steve. Let’s just hold on to that.”

  She rang off, feeling disoriented and sad. She sat down to read the paper with her coffee, see if she could wake up a little before tackling her files. She didn’t really want to face the fact that the Angola trip had been profoundly disappointing. She hadn’t actually dared hope that any of Jacomine’s followers had had a change of heart, but come to find out the toughest hombre in the bunch had cracked. Or claimed he had. But still he couldn’t tell her a damn thing.

  Or claimed he couldn’t.

  When she really thought about it what Menard had actually told her was to back off and flee for her life. Maybe he was a rattlesnake in a bunny suit, like Bettina. He looked sincere, sounded sincere. The best con men always did.

  He had said unequivocally, Daddy set you up. Maybe he knew it for a fact.

  Damn! She couldn’t seem to catch a break. But maybe she had, and didn’t know it. There was still the call from Isaac. She hadn’t left a message the first time, thinking to try him every thirty minutes. But an hour had gone by. She phoned him again, and again got no answer. She said, “Isaac, it’s Skip Langdon. Got your message; I’m around if you want to try me again.” She left her home number and went over to see if there was anything new at the Big House.

  Only Layne and Angel were home, Layne working in his study, and Angel curled up beside his desk. Being a puzzle maker by trade (which went over great with the kids), Layne did all his work at home.

  “The news,” he said, “is large. Kenny actually succeeded in teaching Angel that trick. You know, jumping up to his shoulder.”

  “Hey, show me!”

  “Nope. Only Kenny can do it. Right, girl?” The little dog wagged her tail and stared up at him, totally devoted. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”

  Time was when he was so allergic to her, it almost ended his relationship with Jimmy Dee. But Kenny saved the day in a thoroughly unexpected way. Now Layne and Angel were inseparable, he being the human who was home the most.

  “Enough about us and our domestic triumphs. How about you?” Layne asked. The uncles were understandably worried about her.

  “Well, I’m… uh… ‘working at home’ until they figure out what to do with me.” She hated lying to Layne.

  “Skip, I’m just so sorry about all this.” He’d said it before, the first night of Angelgate, but it was the kind of thing you couldn’t get off your mind.

  “Yeah. Me too. I know it’s tough on the kids.”

  “Listen, you tried eating anything?”

  “Maybe I should make myself some oatmeal.”

  “Ha! I can do better than that. I was about to whip up some pain perdu.” The New Orleans version of French toast. “Sheila doesn’t know it but I’m barely managing to keep a recipe ahead of her in this cooking project we’re doing. I practice when the kids are at school.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I’m up to company right now. I’m just—” She was about to say she was going over some old files but thought even that might be saying too much.

  He interpreted her hesitation as depression. “I understand.”

  She went back and picked up her phone to try Isaac again. There was a message from Shellmire. “Skip, call me right away. It’s urgent.”

  Damn! She’d only been gone a few minutes. She should have taken her cell phone. She punched in Shellmire’s number, fingers fumbling. “Turner, it’s Skip.”

  “Bad news, kid. Somebody’s shot Isaac Jacomine.”

  She drew in her breath. Hell! I should have known.

  “They took him to Charity.”

  She breathed again; he was alive. “How bad is it?”

  “It doesn’t look good. It’s…” He didn’t want to tell her, she could tell. “It’s a head shot.”

  “Shit!”

  “I hear you. Look, I’ve got to go; I’ve got to wrestle your guys to let me assist.”

  “Wait a minute. Where are you?”

  “On my way to his house— he was shot in the front yard.”

  “He must have been coming home. Did it just happen?”

  “Few minutes ago. Why do you say that?”

  “We’ve been playing phone tag. He was ‘it.’ I’m coming over, Turner.” She didn’t give him a chance to answer and regretted having to do that; it meant she couldn’t ask any of the questions on the tip of her tongue.

  But she had to; she had no official place in this investigation, and Turner needed to manufacture a way to get her in. She’d given him a few minutes to think.

  As she drove up, so did a young woman in a beat-up old car— a pretty woman but a little straight for Isaac, maybe not his girlfriend. She figured he’d go for a more Bohemian-looking babe. Ah, but on closer inspection she did have a tattoo on her arm. That was more like it.

  “Hi,” she said, as if she knew the girl. “You a friend of Isaac’s?”

  The girl looked terrified. “What’s wrong? Why are these police cars here?”

  Behind her, she heard someone call, “Terri? Terri, stay right there. He’s all right. I’m coming right over to talk to you. Everything’s all right, now. Just stay right there.”

  Skip turned to see who it was. “Pamela!” she cried, genuinely delighted to see the large woman who’d befriended Isaac so long and so often.

  And at that, Pamela’s face fell apart. She collapsed on Skip’s shoulder. “Oh, Skip. Omigod, Skip! Those bastards.” She was sobbing so hard she couldn’t say any more.

  The young woman— Terri, evidently— walked around Skip and the sobbing Pamela, so that she faced Skip. She’d apparently figured out that everything wasn’t all right, despite Pamela’s protestations. Her face was chalk-white, and she had a wild look in her eye. Skip said, “Terri? Sit down. Right there, right now. Put your head down.”

  That brought Pamela out of it. “Terri, I’m so sorry.” She knelt and put her arm around the girl, who had— apparently gratefully— obeyed Skip’s instructions. “Isaac’s in the hospital. Someone, uh… it looks like someone… uh… someone shot him.”

  A huge wail escaped from Terri, clueing Skip in th
at she probably was Isaac’s girlfriend. Seeing her on the sidewalk, so young and vulnerable, made her think of Isaac’s niece. She said to Pamela, “Has anyone called Lovelace?” at which point Terri said, “How do you know Lovelace? Who are you?”

  “I’m an old friend of Isaac’s.”

  “Detective Skip Langdon,” Pamela said. “She’s the cop that almost got blown up by Isaac’s father a few years ago. You remember that.”

  “Isaac’s father?” the girl said. “Isaac’s never mentioned his father.”

  Pamela and Skip looked at each other. “Oh, Jesus,” the fat woman murmured. “Let’s all three of us all go in for a cup of… Oh, shit! I was making tea for Isaac when he was… Oh, fuck!”

  While she collected herself, Skip turned to Terri. “You okay now?”

  The girl nodded, looking anything but.

  “Let me help you up.”

  “You’re a… cop?”

  Skip gave her a smile she didn’t feel— anything to put her at ease. “Yeah, but I’ve posed for Isaac; you might even have seen the picture.”

  Terri looked at her critically. “Yeah. I know you… sure, I’ve seen it many times.”

  Skip gave her another weak smile. She had to get to Shellmire. “Listen, go with Pamela and let her tell you what she knows. I’m going to see if I can get some more details.”

  Obediently, they went into Pamela’s house, the thin young woman and the fat middle-aged one, united in their affection for Isaac. Skip had wondered often how Pamela and Isaac managed to strike up a friendship when one of them didn’t even talk, but the truth was, Isaac’s sweetness was obvious from the next parish. He got to everybody.

  There were several district cars at the scene and one unmarked one, along with a couple of white crime lab vans. Some of the uniforms stared at her curiously, maybe recognizing her, maybe not; she didn’t see anyone she knew. She didn’t see Shellmire, thought he must be inside. She walked over and paused at the yellow tape already stretching around the scene.

  One of the uniforms swaggered over. “Ma’am, this area’s restricted.”