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

by Julie Smith

  Dilzell shrugged. “White, he thinks, but he can’t be sure. Plain, light-colored pants, same kind of shirt—work clothes, maybe; something like khakis. Baseball cap.”

  “Did the cap say anything?”

  “It was turned the wrong way.”

  Skip drew in her breath and let it out too hard, in a sigh she hadn’t meant to make. They still had hardly anything. “Okay. Put out a bulletin, will you?”

  “With that?”

  “Yeah, with that. I don’t care if we have to stop every white Chevy pickup in the state of Louisiana. Let’s go with it.” She spoke more sharply than she intended. She was angry—not at Dilzell, but at the asshole who’d killed the chief, and the dude with the tie for failing to get the plate, and the chief for dying.

  “Charlie.”

  Dilzell turned around.

  “Was it this house?”

  Dilzell nodded and turned away, piqued at her for snapping.

  She rang the bell and identified herself. The witness’s name was Ezra Johnson. He was a light-skinned black in his early twenties, young to have such a nice house. She suspected he lived with his parents.

  Ezra, I hear you saw down into the bed of the truck. I wonder if you could tell me what was in it.”

  “I told the other officer. Painting supplies.”

  “Paint?”

  “Yeah. Cans of something. Looked like paint.”

  “Brand? Colors?”

  “I couldn’t see.” His body language showed irritation. She didn’t blame him.

  “Anything else?”

  “A ladder.”

  “Aluminum or wood?”

  “Aluminum.” He thought a minute. “Not tall, not short. About medium.”

  “Now, you got it. You got it, Ezra. What else?”

  “Drop cloths. Hey! Bed in a bag.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There’s this company that puts together these kits—you can buy everything, a comforter, dust ruffle, sheets, pillowcases, everything you need for about a hundred dollars. The whole thing comes in a plastic bag and they call it ‘Bed in a Bag.’ Cheap, but popular. Real, real popular.”

  “You sound like you know all about it.”

  “I should. I work at Macy’s in the bed and bath department. I’ve sold about a million of them. This guy had ‘Early American’—the drop cloth.”

  Skip felt a tingling in her stomach. “What does it look like?”

  “Kind of like a quilt. Only it’s not, really—it’s just a polyester comforter. It’s red, white, and blue. I guess that’s what the name comes from.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I bought one for my sister last week—she just moved into her own apartment.” It wasn’t a plate number, but it was something. Skip went back to add the ladder and the drop cloth to the bulletin.

  The coroner had already come. She was consulting with the crime lab techs, barely listening, mostly just trying to hold herself together when the call came. A district car had the truck in sight.

  She took Boudreaux with her, leaving Cappello to supervise the crime scene. Tires squealing, they drove to Earhart Boulevard, where the vehicle had been spotted. They heard it all on the radio: The district officers waited for backup and then signaled the truck to stop. Instead, it went through a light and took off. The officers gave chase. Skip drove like a demon.

  In a minute it was all over—the officers lost the truck. The good news was, they had a plate number. The truck was registered to a Nolan Bazemore, who lived in Mid-City. A new bulletin went out.

  Skip asked the dispatcher to send someone to Bazemore’s house, but she wasn’t hopeful. She might as well get back to the crime scene. Bazemore’d have to be crazy to go home. He’d go someplace he felt safe.

  But where?

  “I don’t know,” Boudreaux said. “I’d go to my girlfriend’s.”

  “Yeah, or some other friend’s. Maybe even a bar.”

  “Naah, I don’t think a bar. He’d want to go someplace with a garage. To hide his plates.”

  Boudreaux chewed on a toothpick. He’d quit smoking and started chewing. “Bazemore’s kind of a funny name. I was in the army with a kid named that—from South Carolina or someplace. Never heard the name again till I read Beach Music—you know that book? Same damn part of the country. So I figured, must be some kind of Carolina name—like Boudreaux’s a Louisiana name. Guy’s probably a peckerwood from the low country. That’s what they call it, see … what the hell are you doing?”

  Skip had pulled into a gas station and put on the emergency brake. “I’m looking him up in the phone book.”

  “You crazy? We know where he lives.”

  Two Bazemores were listed, Nolan being one. It sure couldn’t hurt to try the second.

  She got back in the car. “I thought since it was such an odd name, he might be related to all the others. Guess what? There’s only one.”

  Boudreaux chucked his toothpick and stretched his feet out. “You’re grasping at straws, Langdon.”

  * * *

  The other Bazemore, Edwin, lived in Lakeview, a modest residential section that didn’t have a view of the lake.

  As soon as they turned onto the street, they saw the truck. It was making a spectacle of itself, though, in truth, if Skip and Jerry hadn’t been there, there’d have been no one to observe it. The driver was backing into a driveway, as if to get the truck bed close enough to load something—though Skip was sure it was to hide the plate number.

  Boudreaux had unfolded from his languid slump. He was bolt upright, head swiveling. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  The door opened and a woman peeked out—an older woman, with black cotton knit pants pulled over spreading hips. A print polyester blouse completed the ensemble. She couldn’t more obviously have been someone’s mother if she’d been drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “Nolan? What you doing here in the middle of the day?”

  The man had stepped out of the truck. Skip slammed on the brakes and hopped out of the car, hand on her gun. “Nolan Bazemore, freeze. You’re under arrest.”

  For an instant, he did freeze, utter amazement written on his dim features. Then he dived back toward the truck.

  The woman screamed and started running toward the vehicle. “Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

  In a second she’d be in the line of fire.

  “Mama! Mama, no!”

  Skip heard Boudreaux calling for backup. She said, “Freeze” once more, but she was acutely aware that for crucial seconds she herself was frozen by circumstance, the other woman controlling the action.

  The woman reached her son and knelt beside him. He said, “Get back, Mama. I’ll handle this.”

  Boudreaux shouted, “Back up, Mrs. Bazemore. That’s it. You’re okay. Everything’s okay now.”

  Nolan Bazemore lifted his chest, rearing up on his arms, obviously flabbergasted. Astonishment seemed his only emotion.

  Six

  SHE SHOULD HAVE known her uncle Isaac didn’t live here—the neighborhood was dicey at best, and scary was more realistic. Various dudes had given her the eye, though she had to admit none had actually accosted her until this crazy started chasing her.

  She tried apologizing. “I’m sorry, mister. Listen, I didn’t know I was trespassing. I thought my uncle lived there.”

  The footsteps continued. He had that damned, heavy crook thing. Who but a screwball would carry something like that? Her neck prickled as she imagined it around her waist, her neck, even her leg, tripping her. She stepped up her pace, but she was no match for the crazy. He was gaining on her. She tried shouting: “Help! Somebody! Please help me.”

  Almost immediately a hand went round her waist, at least not the hook, thank God, but still she was being grabbed. She was being kidnapped a second time. A harrowing idea occurred to her—maybe this was some employee of her dad’s, sent to wait for her at Isaac’s.

  A hand went over her mouth. But she wasn’t t
ruly frightened. It had to be impossible to get kidnapped by two entirely different men in two days—therefore, this guy had to be working for her dad. So, big deal, she was back to Square One, but she probably wasn’t going to die.

  The man took his hand off her mouth, spun her around, and put a finger over his lips. Was he kidding? Why in hell should she keep quiet?

  “Let me go.” She struggled in his grasp. “Let me go or I’ll yell some more.”

  To her great surprise, he did. He simply took his hands off her and held them up in front of his chest, palms out, as if to show he had no weapons.

  He touched his mouth and shook his head at the same time, why she couldn’t imagine.

  “I’m going now,” she said. “If you try to follow me, I’ll yell so loud they’ll hear me in Alabama.”

  Now he put his hands together, as if praying, and shook his head vigorously.

  She began to catch on that he was communicating in some sort of sign language—apparently he was a mute.

  Well, he hadn’t hurt her yet. In spite of herself, she was intrigued.

  He made writing motions. She shook her head—she had no pen or pencil.

  He scratched something on his palm, but she didn’t get it. Finally, he pointed to his chest.

  “You,” she said.

  He shook his head and pointed at her.

  “Me.”

  He looked so chagrined that for a moment she felt sorry for him. Finally, he pointed to his eye.

  “Eye.”

  He nodded, and made a curve in the air.

  “S. Is.” She was puzzled.

  He made an A in the air, and another one. Finally she got it—he was drawing his air C when the police car arrived.

  A young black cop got out of the car, heavyset, a little sullen. “Everything all right?”

  She realized they must look friendly, just standing there staring at each other, no matter that she’d been screaming for her life two minutes ago. Someone must have heard her and dialed 911.

  “Everything’s fine. We were just having an argument. He’s my boyfriend and … I got mad.”

  “About what?”

  “Another woman.” She tried to look philosophical, as if this kind of thing happened all the time.

  The cop didn’t look convinced. He stared back and forth, first at one, then the other, and finally said, “You got any ID?”

  “Sure. Back at the house. I got mad and I ran out and he chased me. But we can go back and …”

  He gave her a half smile. “Don’t worry about it. Y’all just try to be a little quieter next time. Don’t upset the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, gosh. I’m really embarrassed.”

  The cop went back to his car, and Isaac thumped a hand against his chest. When Lovelace didn’t react, he drew a heart in the air.

  “Love. Oh—my name.”

  He pulled on his shoelace, to prove he really knew her.

  “Uncle Isaac? It’s really you?”

  He nodded.

  “Why can’t you talk?”

  For answer, he beckoned her back to his house.

  Inside it was white. Walls, ceiling, floors, trim, and furniture, what little there was of that. It wasn’t sterile or grim, however, and it took her a while to figure out why. There were ceramic bowls on tables, some filled with fruit, and the walls were covered with paintings, mostly in primary colors. The figures in the paintings were flat, two-dimensional, offhand almost, as if they’d been drawn by children. Some were on pieces of wood rather than canvas.

  The place looked very, very clean, almost painfully so, and could certainly have used a rug, but she couldn’t say it didn’t have personality. Isaac went to the wall, plucked a picture, and brought it to her. It was an angel, rendered in colors that probably weren’t allowed in heaven. Puzzled, Lovelace took it and stared at it.

  It took a few moments, but she let out a little cry when she realized the angel’s face was her own. She saw another angel across the room and went to examine it—it, too, had her face. Feeling as if she were in a dream, completely ignoring Isaac, she walked around the room, looking carefully at the paintings. She saw that they were signed by several different artists, two of whom were represented in large numbers—someone named Revelas and someone who signed simply “W.M.”

  W.M. was the one who painted the angels—it had to be Isaac.

  “Why W.M.?” she asked, and he wrote on a yellow pad, “They call me the White Monk. In answer to your previous question, I have taken a vow of silence. Welcome to my house. I’m happy to see you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he wrote, “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, God.” She sat down in an old rocking chair her uncle had painted white. “May I sit?”

  He held out a hand in the “please” gesture, rolled out one of those Japanese mats, and sat down himself.

  “My father kidnapped me. And my mom’s—I don’t know—in Mexico, I think, with one of her boyfriends.”

  His face twitched a little, she thought, in sympathy. He had longish brown hair and a neat brown beard—very much the cliche image of Jesus—and enormous blue eyes that made him look vulnerable and sweet. Also, she noticed, he had a great smile. He was oddly attractive. The thought shocked her—he was her uncle.

  And he was weird.

  But it was so sweet the way he seemed to have perfect empathy—not, she thought, that it should have been surprising. He came from the same screwball family she did.

  He seemed to wince again when she came to the part about the drug. And why not? she thought, understanding again that this was an extraordinary thing for a father to do.

  It wasn’t a custody thing—she was grown.

  But in the back of her mind, she knew. She knew what it had to be.

  When Isaac asked, she said, “I’m pretty sure he’s with Grandpa.”

  He nodded as if he’d already deduced that.

  “But I still don’t get it. What do they want with me?”

  “Your father and my father are two of the most—” He spoke loudly and he sounded furious—absolutely furious—yet he was speaking. She was more frightened than surprised. Watching his blue eyes cloud over with anger, she felt her own fear get bigger, felt herself shrinking, drawing away from him.

  “The most what?” she asked.

  He shook his head, grinning, and started writing furiously:

  “This is the point of my vow of silence. I get mad and say too much and half the time I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Anyway, that’s one reason, the rest is that I just plain don’t understand anything anymore and therefore I have nothing to say. If I ever do figure anything out—just one thing, that’s all, even one—I’ll speak again. Are you hungry?”

  Lovelace said, “Starving.”

  He nodded.

  She said, “Listen, I love to cook. Let me make something, why don’t you?”

  He wrote, “Nonsense. You’re my guest. One thing, though. Just don’t mention my father’s name. You can call him ‘grandfather’ or ‘grandpa’—but don’t say his name, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Humor me,” he wrote. “Just please humor me.”

  He sent her to freshen up while he put on some rice and started cutting up carrots, celery, green pepper, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms—everything he could think of for a nice stir-fry.

  Isaac was one of those people for whom cooking is like a meditation. He used this time alone to figure out what he thought about this peculiar situation. He was crazy about the girl, he always had been—that he was glad to see her wasn’t in dispute.

  But he was trying to hold his fear at bay. His father was a dangerous, dangerous man, and his brother was nearly as bad—Lovelace had no idea, really. What the hell did they want her for?

  His father was always getting together some crackpot following—perhaps his ego demanded that he be surrounded by family, however unwilling.

  But that didn’t hold water, or he’d have
come after Isaac, too.

  Would have if he could have, Isaac thought. Nobody knows who the White Monk is—just another street-corner weirdo. And anyway. New Orleans had to be the last place he’d look for his son.

  He had other problems with Lovelace. She was grown-up and attractive, for one thing—that was dangerous enough in any woman, considering his vow of celibacy, but this woman was his niece. Being attracted to his own niece wasn’t a crime, but considering his vow of celibacy, he was probably more frustrated than the average uncle, and having her around might be something of a challenge.

  Then there was the dirt. He never let anyone into his house because of possible contamination. He wouldn’t be able to take a shower now without bleaching out the tub; if he let her use his bed, he’d have to find a way to sterilize everything afterward.

  Actually, he’d known all that when he went after her, and bringing her here had simply seemed to outweigh it. Now he was getting scared. He chopped a bit of his finger off.

  Not much, just enough to bleed a little. Blood carried contamination. He needed a Band-Aid, only Lovelace was in the bathroom. What was he to do? He started to hyperventilate and wondered if he was going to get hives.

  Better sit down. He grabbed a paper towel and applied pressure to the cut, rocking in his white rocking chair.

  He’d taken the same vows he’d always heard that priests took—poverty, chastity, and obedience—but the vow that really mattered to him was silence. If he couldn’t have the others, at least he’d want that one. Poverty was his next favorite. Being an artist, he was bound to be poor; it added up nicely.

  Chastity wasn’t too hard, usually, till Lovelace came along, and it wasn’t as if the vow was in danger even now—he wasn’t about to try to seduce his own niece. It was just that it was going to weigh on him.

  Obedience, however, required that he take her in. Since he didn’t have the Catholic church to tell him what to do, his form of obedience was a little loose. The way he saw it was the way somebody else might see flowing with the river or rolling with the punches, something like that. He was working on acceptance—whatever the gods sent him, he wanted to accept, even embrace, and nurture if it needed nurturing.

  They had sent him Revelas, a convicted murderer, and he’d accepted him. Now they’d sent him his own Angel—surely he could accept her.