House of Blues

by Julie Smith

  Something was wrong here. This was not a home where pure evil could flourish.

  Skip could see a room full of kids, eyes glued to the tube. She glanced at Abasolo. He looked a lot more nervous now, his neck practically a swivel, checking out everything and then some.

  "I'm Martha Redmann—here from Illinois, visitin' my daughter. Used to live here, though—still miss it, can you imagine? We havin' a big family reunion this week. Y'all want some gumbo?"

  Skip stepped inside, Abasolo following. Martha Redrnann turned toward the kitchen, but Abasolo didn't. He walked around Skip into the room where the kids were.

  Skip turned to follow their hostess. Behind Redmann, against a wall of the living room, was an old-fashioned secretary, shelves above a fold-down desk. The shelves were glass-enclosed, and in the glass Skip saw a man reflected.

  He was wearing a T-shirt and baggy, bright print pants. He was pointing a gun at her.

  She couldn't tell if it was Delavon or not, and it didn't occur to her to wonder. She dropped into a deep crouch, a squat almost at floor level, and whirled, pulling the gun from her pocket.

  The secretary exploded behind her, and Martha Redmann screamed.

  Glass rained on Skip's head. She fired.

  The man fell, dropping the gun, blood spewing onto his white T-shirt. Skip tried to stand but couldn't. She ended up sitting on the floor, watching Abasolo fly into the hall, feeling Redmann come from behind her. For a moment she thought the two were going to collide, but each managed to stop in time.

  "Police," said Abasolo, gun drawn. More women were pouring from the kitchen, keening. To her left the children, the tube hounds, were frozen; not screaming, not moving.

  "My baby, my baby," said one of the women, Delavon's mother perhaps, or maybe the mother of one of the children. And then Shavonne, the little girl in the pink jeans, stood up and screamed, "Mama!"

  Skip got only a glimpse of her face before Shavonne began to run toward the women, but she could see that the child, in her Little Mermaid T-shirt, her impossibly tiny jeans, knew that her world lay about her in shards. She tripped on her clumsy thongs almost as soon as she was in motion, and fell with a noise like a brick dropped from above.

  She seemed not to notice that she had fallen.

  "Mama! Mama!" she cried again, and she began to crawl, very fast, as if a wolf pack were chasing her. Skip didn't understand why her mother didn't run to her; later remembered Abasolo's gun pointed at the women, pinning them in place.

  She finally managed to stand.

  "You okay?" asked Abasolo.

  "I think so." She looked around, reorienting herself. In the kitchen behind the women stood one of the uniformed officers, gun drawn. The other was just inside the doorway, radio at his mouth.

  Abasolo said, "Everybody be still. Just be still for a minute and everything's going to be all right." He spoke to Skip: "You want me to make the check?"

  Someone had to see if there was anyone else in the house.

  Skip's legs had about as much starch as a pair of rubber bands, but she wasn't about to say so.

  "I'll do it."

  Shavonne had reached her mother, who was holding her and crooning to her: "You fine, baby, you fine. Everything gon' be okay now."

  Skip turned to the room full of children. "Everybody stay still a minute. I'll be right back."

  "I'll be right back." Like I'm their mama, gone to fetch a glass of water. One of the uniforms went with her, the other went to the fallen man.

  The shooter was the only man in the house. Everywhere else she found open suitcases, children's dirty clothes, in piles and simply strewn, suitcases—all the appurtenances of the family reunion Martha Redmann had mentioned.

  She went to the man on the floor. She knew as soon as she knelt that he was dead. That she had killed him.

  He was Delavon. Delavon the Evil. Lying on the floor in a pool of blood surrounded by women and children, at a family reunion. Presumably one of the women was his wife. Skip had shot him dead in front of her; in front of his own children, and their cousins, and their aunts and their grandmother.

  The room started to blur.

  "Langdon!" Abasolo called sharply. "Sit down and lower your head."

  She obeyed and in a few moments began to feel sharper. She must have been swaying.

  Oh, great. First, you kill somebody and then you almost faint. First day with a new sergeant. Terrific impression you're making.

  Later, when she talked about it, she couldn't believe those thoughts had gone through her mind.

  When she could stand again, and once again began to act like a cop, she worked mechanically, now thinking only one thought: It happened so fast. How could it do that?

  She knew that her life was forever changed.

  As the shock began to wear off, and the children to cry, she and Abasolo let them go to the women, but Abasolo kept his gun trained on them until the district cars began to arrive.

  First on the scene was a grinning man with a bag full of ice cream. Uncle Eric, for whom Shavonne had mistaken Skip.

  Abasolo took Skip outside. "You all right?"

  She shrugged. "Sure."

  Happens every day. I shoot somebody's daddy and then watch her crawl across the floor.

  "You know what color you are?"

  It felt like an attack, like he was telling her she hadn't measured up, she wasn't good enough, she'd almost fainted and couldn't be trusted. "Leave me alone, goddammit!"

  She turned away, but he grabbed her arm.

  "I'm up on my colors these days. You're Navajo white."

  "I'm fine. Could we get back to work, please? It's not like there's nothing to do in there."

  "Hey. You're the cop who got the guy who killed Jim. You're a hero. Don't you think you get a five-minute break?"

  "Oh, bullshit. You don't even know what happened."

  "I hear two shots, I spin around, you've got glass in your hair, and the other guy's lying on the floor with a gun in his hand. The story kind of tells itself."

  "I've got glass in my hair?"

  "Uh-huh, but let's don't take it out yet. I want a lot of witnesses to this."

  "That's where I saw him—in the glass. He was already pointing the gun."

  "Shit."

  "So I ducked. What would you do?" She started to laugh.

  "Probably freeze and get shot." He laughed as well, a little uneasily, as if he didn't know where Skip's laughter was going. He put a hand on her shoulder, to steady her, she thought, and she found that she was profoundly grateful.

  She had been numb before; dazed. But when Abasolo mentioned the glass in her hair, and witnesses, she had felt the leap in her chest that meant fear.

  "Nobody saw what happened," she said. "But they could say they did. They could say anything they want."

  Awkwardly, Abasolo stroked her arm. "You forget I was there. Two other cops were there. It'll be okay. Believe me. It's going to be okay."

  That's what you told those women when their husband and son and son-in-law and brother was lying there dead. That's what Shavonne's mama said. She turned in her gun for evidence, then went back to headquarters and gave her statements to someone from Internal Affairs, someone from OMI—the Office of Municipal Investigation—and Cappello, who'd been called back to take it. It was hours before they let her go.

  But she found that Abasolo had waited for her, to drive her home. She was annoyed. "I'm okay to drive."

  "Take it easy, will you? I want to talk to you."

  "What about?"

  "Come on. Let's get in the car."

  "This is ridiculous. I brought my car, which means I really have to drop you off."

  "Oh, quit bitching. I'll take you home and get a taxi from the Quarter. Okay?"

  She didn't speak again, until they got to her car, ashamed of herself for snapping at him, not sure why she had.

  When she spoke, it was only more of the same. "I can drive."

  "You're nuts, you know that? This i
s an honor for me. To be able to drive the hero of the day."

  "Quit trying to flatter me."

  They were alone in the dark now, the two of them sitting side by side. He didn't start the car, didn't even put the key in the ignition.

  He said, "Look, I feel bad about this."

  She felt the fear—leap again. "About what? What's going to happen to me?"

  He touched her arm, and once again she found it reassuring.

  "Will you stop it? Everything's going to be okay. I meant I feel for you; I feel bad because you feel bad."

  That got to her. She felt blood suffuse her face, felt her cheeks heat up and the muscles move into a smile of sorts.

  "That's the sweetest thing a cop's ever said to me."

  "I've been through it before."

  "You shot somebody?"

  "My partner did. It was like tonight—God, this was deja vu. We were at somebody's house and there were a bunch of screaming kids. We couldn't hear anything, so he went into another room to question the suspect. The next thing I knew I heard shots."

  He hesitated.

  "I was destroyed because I couldn't do anything."

  He stopped and sighed. She could feel his body shift in the dark, and realized he had demons of his own about tonight. "But that's neither here nor there. What I want to tell you about is what happened to him. He went into a frenzy of work; he got all snappish and nasty like you did."

  "Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

  "And I realized it was all a way of keeping the way he was feeling at bay. I didn't get it; I really didn't get it at first. But tell me if this is right—you don't feel like a hero, or even like you're in I control. You feel vulnerable."

  She stared at the lightish circle that was all she could see of his face. "How did you know that?"

  "I'm right, aren't I? I'm right." He sounded triumphant.

  ''How do you know?"

  "Well, that's how I get when I feel that way. Snappy. Like everybody's intruding." He inserted the key and turned it, apparently satisfied that he'd made contact.

  When they were out of the garage, abroad in the soft night, he said, "I finally figured that out. But I never figured out why."

  "I'm not sure. I guess—it's such a huge thing—you don't want to think about it. Anyone who comes around and says, 'How do you feel' or something makes you think about it. And that's the last thing you want to do."

  He nodded. "You want a drink?"

  She did. She wanted two or three. "No. I mean . .

  "No," she said again. "I'm fine."

  "No, you're not. But I am—on that one. I could watch you drink until six A.M. and not even be tempted."

  "Mr. Macho."

  "No. It's just not an issue."

  "Maybe not tempted. Repelled."

  "I like drunks. I've spent a lot of time with them."

  She knew he couldn't possibly—even drunks don't like drunks—but she went with him to the Blacksmith Shop and had two beers while she talked to him. Mostly, she talked, not him. She told him every detail of what had happened at Delavon's house and everything that led up to it, even about being kidnapped by Delavon's thugs.

  "Okay, that's it," he said. "Now even I don't believe you. He didn't shoot first. You just had to kill him, right?"

  "What do you mean, ‘even' you?"

  "Oh, no, I forgot to tell you. The IA guys won't say so till it's official, but you're in the clear. That gorgeous woman—Martha something—said she saw it and it happened like you said."

  "She couldn't have seen it. She had her back turned."

  "She says she turned around to say something to you."

  "I don't think so. I didn't see her."

  "You were looking in the glass."

  "Yeah, but you feel things. Motion. I think she was already in the kitchen."

  "Would you want your daughter to marry Delavon? She'll probably send you flowers."

  She knew he was making a giant effort for her, and she was grateful. She wondered if she would have done it for him, for Jim, for any partner in trouble.

  Probably not. I get my feelings hurt when people snap. She was grateful that he had not; that he had known what was wrong, and cared enough to wait for her, to sit with her while she talked it out. Tomorrow was his second day in Homicide, and it was only a few hours away; he would want to be rested, and he wasn't going to be.

  She thought: I could love this man, and knew that it was only partly the beer. He reminded her of Steve.

  When she was home, in bed alone, she found that the tears finally came. They surprised her, and not the least of her surprise was realizing she had kept them back, she hadn't cried, she had behaved with dignity.

  She missed Steve so much her whole body hurt, and it was all she could do not to reach for the phone. There was a time when she'd have called Jimmy Dee, no matter how late the hour, but with the kids there, she could no longer do that.

  After a while she slept, but she awoke early, leaking tears onto the pillow. The image of Shavonne tripping on her shoe, crawling to her widowed mama, wouldn't leave her.

  29

  She got out of bed, sat on the floor, and tried to meditate. This was something she did every time she felt stressed out, and she always failed. She simply couldn't sit still long enough to empty her mind.

  This time it was like a waking sleep.

  She had the sense that it wouldn't lead to spiritual enlightenment, was somehow not what was meant by the empty—mind concept, but, oddly, it felt safe.

  She had no idea how long she sat there, legs folded, back straight, hands open on her knees, but when her alarm rang, it penetrated her peace like a gunshot. She opened her eyes and made to get up, but her knees hurt and she had to straighten them slowly, which made her realize she had been sitting this way for a very long time.

  What she had been doing, she didn't know, but she was faintly alarmed by it. It wasn't quite sleep and she didn't think it was really meditation; it seemed instead to be some kind of shadow state, brought about by shock.

  Her phone rang. "Baby, you okay?" It was Cindy Lou, who never called her "baby" and never, ever sounded frightened, though she did now.

  "Lou-Lou. What's wrong?"

  "I heard what happened last night. Cappello called me."

  "It was pretty grim."

  "Why in the hell didn't you call me? Just tell me that?"

  "I should have. You're the person I should have called."

  "Damn right you should have. I'm your best girlfriend and I'm a shrink and I care about you. Call, hell! You should have just come over."

  "Well, it was late and I didn't—"

  "Late! Late! Honey, you were in trouble, weren't you? Couldn't have been feeling okay; no way. And don't try to tell me different—you aren't the first one who's ever been there."

  Skip started to cry. "You really mean it, don't you? You wouldn't have minded, no matter how late it was."

  "What kind of friend do you think I am? Besides, I'm the cop-shop shrink. They'd have probably paid me for it—hey. I'm kiddin' about that. I shouldn't have said it—I don't want to be flip at a time like this. I want you to know I'm there for you—do you get that?"

  For some reason, this seemed too much to take in. Skip felt overwhelmed for what seemed to her all the wrong reasons—it seemed inexpressibly sad that she hadn't felt connected enough to the human race to call Cindy Lou last night, even to realize she was there to call. Her body began exploding sobs in quick rhythmic succession, a bazooka launching shells.

  "Okay, baby. It's okay." Lou-Lou didn't sound like herself. She sounded like a mother soothing a child. "Now, look—I'm coming right over, okay? You just stay there a few minutes and I'll come make you some coffee. Maybe some toast too. Does that sound good?"

  "I've got to go to work."

  "Are you kidding? Cappello told me to tell you to bag it."

  "Uh-uh, I've got to talk to Reed."

  "Huh? Reed?"

  "Oh, she didn
't tell you everything."

  "Just that you got Delavon and you felt pretty down about it."

  "Well, a few other things happened too. The upshot is, Sally's back and so's Reed."

  "Skip. That's wonderful."

  "It was a hell of a day." Skip sighed. "Anyway, it's my case and I'm not leaving the interview to someone else."

  "Okay, baby. Okay. You sound fine for now. You just call me when you're done, you promise?"

  "I promise if I can stay awake. I may just pass out."

  "Just give me a call and let me know. Promise, okay?"

  "Okay." She felt slightly annoyed at having to answer to someone, but at the same time, Cindy Lou's concern was touching. She really meant it. I could have called her in the middle of the night. Suddenly, Skip understood that she could have called Jimmy Dee or Steve as well, never mind the time difference or the kids; they'd have wanted her to call.

  She felt better, not quite so desolate as the night had left her. She dressed carefully for work, not wanting to look the worse for wear, sure that eyes would be on her. But she wasn't prepared for what happened when she walked into the detective,bureau.

  "Hey, Langdon," said someone; she never knew who. And then she was aware that everyone was on their feet, applauding.

  She was confused. "What's going on?" she murmured, head swiveling.

  Joe Tarantino came out of his office. "Nice going, Skip. Good job." He shook her hand.

  When she had made her way to her desk, she saw that O'Rourke was at his, deep in paperwork. She hadn't noticed him when everyone stood, but she was sure she would have seen him if he'd been sitting down. Had he really stood and applauded her? Impossible.

  But if not, where was he?

  She had too much pride to ask anyone, even Cappello. She'd never know.

  Abasolo came by and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  "You okay?"

  "Great."

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  She gave him a big insincere smile. He squeezed a little harder, as if to show he appreciated the effort.

  Because Reed and Sally had been through a week-long ordeal, and because all hell was breaking loose, Reed had been sent home with her child rather than questioned. She'd been asked to return at nine-thirty to give her statement.