Death Before Facebook

by Smith, Julie

  It’s something male, she thought. Something they can smell.

  They know something we don’t, but they don’t know what they know. Maybe he likes Darryl because he’s not threatening. He doesn’t really want me and Dee-Dee knows it.

  It was a good theory. She checked her watch and headed for her meeting with Kit.

  The hospital was old, dark, almost spooky. Decorative plaster cornices bespoke better days. The ceilings, especially in the corridors, seemed thirty feet high. It smelled of Pine-Sol. Skip found it thoroughly depressing.

  But to her surprise, she was ushered into a small corner office, light, cheerful, and furnished with plants and photos. “I’m a supervisor here,” Kit explained. “So I get one perk and this is it.”

  For the first time, Skip really looked at her. She was a handsome woman, the sort who might have been called “raw-boned” in another era. She was tall and strong, slender without, somehow, that being an issue. Her bones were big and her body narrow. She had brown hair, which she wore carelessly pinned up, Katharine Hepburn style, and hazel eyes that looked as if they could laugh. Her hands were certainly a nurse’s hands, capable hands, with the nails cut blunt and short. She wore only one silver ring, twisted into an ankh. She had a fast metabolism, Skip thought, and probably ran on nervous energy. She was over forty, though how much over it Skip couldn’t have said. She could have been from New England, or the Midwest perhaps; definitely not New Orleans—her bones were not delicate enough; she was too earthy. If she had tattoos or piercings, they didn’t show and wouldn’t have looked right.

  She looked at her watch, setting a certain tone. “You’re wondering how well I knew Geoff?”

  “Sure, among other things.”

  “He came to our TOWN dinners, but he didn’t talk much. I knew about him mostly, through Lenore, who’s become almost…” She hesitated, then shrugged. “I may as well say it—almost like a daughter to me.”

  Skip was pretty sure there was more to her relationship with Geoff, but now wasn’t the time to push it.

  “Ah. Then tell me about Lenore. How did you get to know her?”

  “Online, originally. Then we were in a group together and sort of discovered mutual interests.”

  “May I ask what sort of interests?”

  If Kit were the type who could blush, she might have. As it was, she merely looked caught out. “Caitlin, I guess. I feel so terribly sorry for her, having to raise that child alone. I worry, I really do. And Caitlin’s such a sweet little girl; so sunny.”

  “What kind of group were you and Lenore in?”

  “Oh, just a sort of women’s thing.”

  “Social?”

  “You could say that.” She looked acutely uncomfortable.

  “You said ‘were’ as if the group isn’t still meeting.”

  “Did I? Well.”

  “But you are.”

  “Well, Lenore and I’ve become terribly good friends.”

  “Who else is in it?”

  “Oh, dear, I really can’t remember.” She looked at her watch again. “Does this really have to do with Geoff?”

  “I was wondering—why do you worry about Lenore? Does that have to do with Geoff?”

  Kit busied herself with papers on her desk. “I suppose you could say that, yes. Or it did. I used to worry that she’d marry him, just to be with somebody.” She looked up, straight at Skip. “You know, Geoff just wasn’t the sort you’d marry. He lived with his parents, after all.”

  “You couldn’t see him taking care of a baby?”

  “He was a baby himself.” It came out with a lot of vehemence. “Lenore needs somebody strong. That poor girl, all the things she’s been through… her mother’s dead and her dad disowned her, did you know that? For being a single mother. He’s a Christian, I guess, and an unbelievably nasty piece of work. I just feel so sorry for her.”

  She looked off in the distance and when her eyes met Skip’s again, it was as if Kit read her mind. She made a rueful little snorting noise. “I should mind my own business, I guess.”

  “Oh, Miss Brazil. May I see you for a second?” A young black woman, her hair in dozens of tiny braids, poked her head in.

  Kit rose with a graceful sweep, not even putting her hands on the desk for balance. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said as she left, not bothering to turn her head toward Skip.

  Skip stood and strolled to the window. Casually, so that it would look as if she were simply bored, she turned to face Kit’s desk and scanned it quickly. An ordinary desk calendar lay open-faced, inviting riffling. But there was no need—something intriguing was written on that day, Friday. “Full moon,” said the entry. “Outside, p.u. Suby 7 P.M.”

  That was so good Skip turned back a few days, to Tuesday. That day, too, Kit had had a date at 7 P.M. On that page, she had drawn a star with a circle around it—the pentagram Skip had seen on the altar at Lenore’s. Just doodling, probably, but it gave Skip the willies. She turned the calendar back to Friday.

  She sat down, trying to make sense of it. In Satanic cults, children were sacrificed, weren’t they? Little Caitlin seemed perfectly healthy, but what about Geoff? Usually cults had men in them—if this one didn’t, maybe that meant something. Kit had been pretty harsh on the subject of Lenore’s father, and not all that lenient on Geoff.

  But that was ridiculous. A ritual murder accomplished by the pushing over of a ladder was too lame to contemplate.

  On the other hand, who knew what these people were about? Perhaps there was some strange initiation.

  Maybe Lenore was required to seduce a man and then kill him, black-widow style.

  Maybe Geoff knew something he wasn’t supposed to.

  Maybe he threatened Kit’s job, or Lenore’s.

  Skip shrugged off a shiver. A little paranoia goes with the territory, but let’s not get carried away.

  Kit came back pushing up her sleeves, efficiency personified. “Look, I sound weird, like I’m fixated on Lenore, and I guess I am. I guess, basically, I’m a mother in search of a child to take care of, and she’s satisfying that need right now—she and Caitlin together.”

  She pushed back a lock of hair that had come loose. “I never had children because my husband didn’t want to. I didn’t go to medical school—which I also wanted to do—because I put him through school, then helped him get his business started. We had a deal—I’d support him for a while, then he’d support me. Only I never got to collect—we broke up over the child issue. I got married again, but by then… I don’t know, maybe it was too late. Anyway, I’m divorced again.” She shrugged. “So I need something to nurture and Lenore’s it for right now. I guess if she’d married Geoff, I’d have had three children instead of two. I don’t know, maybe I’m as crazy as anyone in a certain section of this fine institution.”

  Maybe, Skip thought. But one thing was painfully obvious—this was a terribly unhappy woman; a woman who didn’t know where to turn to get out of the doldrums.

  I wonder if she has a boyfriend.

  It doesn’t matter—whoever he is, he isn’t enough.

  “I have to get back to work.”

  “Could I ask you one more question? Neetsie told me where she works, but I forgot. Do you happen to know?”

  “Sure. All Systems Go.” At Skip’s blank look, she said, “Are you sure she told you?”

  “I guess not. Maybe it was Suby.”

  “Well, it’s not classified information. It’s a computer store.”

  On the way back (driving being Skip’s favorite time to philosophize), she thought about the irony of Geoff, the computer whiz, working in a video store, while his sister the actress spent her days flogging computers.

  Right before lunch, Steve called. “How’s everything?”

  “Just awful. Sheila ran away last night.”

  “Sheila?” He couldn’t seem to place her.

  “Dee-Dee’s kid.”

  “Oh, sure. What’s the matter with me?”

&
nbsp; “I mean, she really ran away. We didn’t find her until two o’clock.”

  “In the morning? You were up till two in the morning?”

  “Three-thirty, actually. We had to bribe her to come home by taking her for a burger.”

  “Yikes, I hope you didn’t have to go to McDonald’s. Better to leave her to freeze.”

  “Steve!”

  “Hey, I’m kidding. Joke, okay? I didn’t mean anything.”

  “Sorry. I’m sleep-impaired.”

  “We’ll talk tonight.”

  But she couldn’t, of course. She had to spy on a bunch of cultists.

  Anyway, she didn’t want to talk. Bad news could wait.

  She hung up feeling snappish. He had seemed blithely unconcerned about Sheila; in fact seemed to have forgotten her entire existence.

  She was angry at Steve anyway, and this didn’t help. She couldn’t help thinking a real man would show some concern for children.

  To which the corollary was all too obvious: Like Darryl.

  She called Wizard, the TOWN sysop. “Oh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to phone you.”

  “Did you talk to your lawyers?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll send you the stuff. You knew I’d have to, didn’t you?”

  “I knew you would if I subpoenaed it. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”

  “Yeah, well, if I’d had my way, it would have.”

  Is this something I need to know? Why is this man so irritating? “Could you send it today, please? Federal Express?”

  “Are you going to pay for it?’

  “If you like.”

  Skip rang off. Self-important bastard.

  Then: I’m evil today.

  It was a phrase she’d picked up from Cindy Lou, whose grandmother used to say she “got evil” when she reached menopause. “So far as I could tell,” Cindy Lou had said, “it’s like galloping negativity. You don’t like anything or anybody and you snap at whoever you run into.”

  Apparently more things than menopause could cause it. Lack of sleep, for one.

  The phone rang again. “Goddamn it.”

  “Hi, it’s Layne.”

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “You don’t sound that glad to hear from me.”

  “Sorry. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s what I can do for you. I’ve got a present for you.”

  “Information, I hope.”

  “It’s this great piece of software I designed. You can track who posted where and when and how many times and all kinds of neat stuff. Sort of a detective bureau on a disk. So you can manipulate your computer data just like other stuff—like putting it on three-by-five cards.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean I could figure out what somebody did in a given session on the TOWN? If they posted in a lot of different conferences?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would it tell me when? Like what order it all happened in?”

  “Elementary, my dear.”

  She was warming toward him. She could track Geoff and Lenore and anyone else she wanted to.

  “So shall I come over tonight and install it?”

  “I don’t think that’s the way to do it.”

  “Hey, I’m gay. Did I mention that?”

  She laughed. “It’s not that. It’s just that until the case is over we need to maintain a professional relationship.”

  “Huh?”

  She kept quiet while the penny dropped.

  “Hold it. Hey, hold it. I think I just got it. I’m a suspect—is that what you’re saying?”

  “Like the man said, I suspect everyone.”

  “I can’t get over it. I’m a suspect.” He laughed for about a minute and a half, making her feel evil again.

  “Listen, thanks for the offer, but maybe I should come to your house.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. You live in the Quarter, don’t you?”

  How the hell does he know where I live. “Let’s meet for coffee. That place on Royal Street with the funny name and the little art gallery. You know, it’s…”

  “Right by the Eighth.”

  “Huh?”

  “The police station.”

  “Yeah. Coffee and Concierge, something weird like that. Is five-fifteen okay?”

  “Wait a minute. I don’t know a damn thing about installing software—do you think you can explain it in a way I can understand?’

  He was quiet a moment. “You know, I’m not really sure.”

  “What if I bring along a nerd friend?’

  “I have to admit I’d feel better.”

  She phoned Jimmy Dee, explained the situation, and asked if he’d mind acting as translator.

  “Charmed, I’m sure. In fact, perfect. My car’s having surgery; you can pick me up.”

  She had one more thing to do before she could leave—report to Cappello and make arrangements for that night.

  The sergeant frowned. “So. You really think these babes are Satanists?’

  “That thing at Lenore’s spooked me. Bad.” She shrugged. “I’ve researched it a little. If they are, killing Geoff could be one crime in a long list of them.”

  “Who do you want for backup? Hodges okay?”

  Skip broke into a grin. “Perfect.”

  Jim Hodges was an older black man, solid as a concrete wall—a tough pro who’d seen it all and carried pictures of his grandchildren.

  “You got him.” Cappello shook her head, obviously not liking the turn the investigation was taking.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JIMMY DEE KEPT Skip waiting ten minutes in front of his office, her motor running, her temper rising. “Dammit Dee-Dee, this is a business appointment.”

  “Well. Aren’t we Miss Congeniality.”

  He could make her smile even when she was angry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “You probably think you’re suffering from lack of sleep.”

  “Uh-oh. This is leading up to something.”

  “Precious angel, you’ve been bitten by the lovebug.”

  “You mean Darryl Boucree? He’s black, Dee-Dee.”

  “And beautiful—or didn’t you notice?”

  “Remember in Jungle Fever how shocked the guy’s friend is when he says he’s seeing a white woman? Darryl Boucree wouldn’t go out with me.”

  He stuck out his hand. “Oh, yeah? Fifty bucks says otherwise.”

  “Anyway, there’s Steve.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  She looked at her watch. “Damn! It’ll probably take ten minutes to park.”

  “Let me. You go handcuff the guy or something.”

  “Okay.” She turned the car over to him.

  Layne was just draining a cup of espresso. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “My friend was late. Would you like something else?”

  He shook his head. “No, thanks. Aren’t you pleased I’m doing what you said?”

  “What?”

  “You said I should get out more.”

  “Congratulations. I think your color’s coming back.”

  “Here’s the thing.” He handed over a package of software, which she opened immediately.

  “Oh, no. Those big floppies. I have the little ones.”

  “Oh. Nerds always have both kinds because we get stuff from lots of different sources. But it’s not a big deal. You can still upload it, you just need the hardware to make the transfer.”

  “Jimmy Dee probably has it.”

  “Who, me?” He came in jangling her keys.

  “Dee-Dee, you’re in the nick. This is Layne Bilderback. Jimmy Dee Scoggin.”

  She bought Jimmy Dee a latte, and for the next ten minutes, the two men spoke a language she didn’t.

  “No problem. Piece of cake,” Dee-Dee said finally.

  “Great.” She looked at her watch. “Should we get going? You still have to cook.”

  “God, yes. Anyway, I’m worried about Sheila. She could be halfway to Chicago by no
w.” He stood and spoke to Layne. “You have kids?”

  Layne grinned. “Uh-uh. Times like this I’m glad I’m gay.”

  “Don’t get too cocky, son. It’s not over till it’s over.”

  “Darling,” said Dee-Dee when they were back in Skip’s car, “I simply can’t keep track of all your men.”

  “Well, that one’s a murder suspect.”

  “Pretty friendly for a desperado.”

  “Probably just trying to butter me up.” She thought about Layne. “He is nice, though. It’s hard being a cop sometimes.”

  “I’m crying. Has he gainful employment?”

  “Employment anyway. He’s a puzzlemaker. Or puzzle constructor, as he prefers to be called.”

  “He’s pretty open about his preferences, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh, come on, Dee-Dee, tell me you didn’t know.”

  “Well, I was hoping.”

  “What? You liked him? You never like anyone.”

  “Pish-tush. I would trek to the North Pole to get Darryl Boucree a sliver of ice for his Coke.”

  “I mean… this seems different.”

  “Young Mr. Bilderback has taken my fancy.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t believe this.”

  “You think he’s single?”

  “Dee-Dee, he’s a murder suspect. Remember Sheila and Kenny.”

  “We’re not getting married, for God’s sake. Not for months yet.”

  She honestly couldn’t tell if he was just carrying on (as was his wont) or if he was genuinely interested.

  As was her wont, she entered her apartment throwing off clothes. As soon as she had stripped down to panties and bra, her doorbell sounded.

  “Who is it?” she hollered.

  “Darryl Boucree.”

  She pulled on a robe and stepped out on her balcony. “Darryl! What are you doing here?”

  “Got a present for Sheila.”

  “Well, aren’t you nice. Hang on a second.”

  She wriggled into a pair of jeans and looked around for her red sweater. It wasn’t anywhere.

  She picked up another, but it was drab brown. No good. She hunted some more, down under the bed, in the closet, before it occurred to her what she was doing.

  What do you care about Darryl Boucree? she asked herself.

  She slipped on the brown sweater, but took time to fluff up her hair.