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

by Julie Smith

  She nodded, wondering where this was going.

  “I meant what ladies are you workin’ for?”

  “I don’t know. I never know till I get there.”

  “Sometimes they perfect strangers, right?”

  “Umm-hmm. Usually they are.”

  “And they real rich, right?”

  “I don’t know about that. Some of ’em just have stuff they inherited, ain’t made no money their own selves. But they got stuff. They got stuff piled up on top of stuff. They got antiques covered up with real nice linen scarves and they got more antiques sittin’ on top. Like maybe a jewelry box worth as much as the jewelry they got in the box. Then they got a silver candleholder on top of the box. You know what I mean? They got so much stuff they can’t keep track of it.” She went off in one of her dream states. “Wonder what it’d be like to have that much stuff?”

  Troy pulled her back. “I could maybe help you.”

  “Help me what?”

  “Help you get some stuff.”

  “Now how you gon’ do that?” Dorise leaned back in her chair, her robe gaping open, showing the tops of her breasts, but she didn’t mind, at the moment didn’t feel the least bit modest. She felt light-headed and a little bit in love. The flaps of her robe could fall where they wanted. She felt like running through a field of flowers with Troy, or maybe down a nice beach.

  “Well. You’d have to help me help you.” He had a come-hither grin on his face, real flirtatious.

  Dorise took his hand and started licking his fingers. “What you want me to help you with, baby?”

  “Well, you know. You don’t have to do anything. Not a damn thing. All you do, you look at where everything is, and you tell me. Tell me what you want, specially. Then you tell me about all the doors and windows, when the family comes and goes, how the alarm system works …”

  Shocked, Dorise jerked his fingers away from her lips. Still holding his hand, she stared at him, trying to read his face, to figure out if she’d heard him right. Up till the word “alarm,” she hadn’t got his drift at all. She thought he meant he’d buy her something she wanted. The “help me” part was something about getting in the mood, the way she heard it.

  It occurred to her now that she was sitting across the table from a burglar. She, Dorise, who’d been married to a big-time drug dealer and hadn’t even known it. She was a Christian now. She’d found a lot of comfort in the church. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

  “Dear God,” she said. “Dear God, what have you sent me?”

  Troy took it the wrong way. He said, “Your salvation, honey,” and chuckled. “Your salvation.”

  “I don’t need no salvation and I don’t need no criminal in my life, Troy Chauvin. You better go.”

  He grabbed her cheek and a little bit of her hair. “Aww, honey, you didn’t think I meant it, did you?”

  Slick as shit, she thought. Just slick as shit.

  He lit a cigarette and leaned back. “I almost had me fooled.”

  She gave him her evilest look, mean little eyes like racists have—old guys out in the country who hate everybody they aren’t related to and everybody they are as well.

  “Oh, come on, baby, don’t tell me you never think about it. I know different ’cause you already told me you do.” He shrugged. “So I was just doin’ it, too. Just playin’ the same game you already told me you like to play yourself. What if I was lord of the manor? What if all this was mine? What if I could give it all to the sweetest woman on the face of the Earth? With the most beautiful ass I ever saw in my life?”

  God, he was good-looking. She thought about it. Troy had a good job and no dependents. Why should he be a burglar, and when would he have time anyway?

  “Well, it would be kind of fun to just pretend Cammie’s house was like a supermarket. To just go shoppin’ for anything you want.”

  “Tha’s what I mean.”

  “She got silver! Whoa. Silver coffee things and silver tea things and—you know what? She keep her hairbrushes in some old silver vase-lookin’ thing.”

  “She got jewelry?”

  “Yeah, but I don’ like it much—mostly little bitty pearls and shit. Too dainty—you know?—for somebody like me. She got nice earrings though. Rubies that hang down. Think her mother left ’em to her—can’t imagine her wearin’ anything like that.”

  “Know what I’d like? A real nice stereo. She got anything like that?”

  “Oh, man, a whole room full. They got this great big room on the second floor they call the music room—got a piano in it and everything. But mostly stereo stuff. And a TV. Great big screen.”

  “VCR?”

  “You kiddin’? They got three kids. They probably got three VCRs.” She giggled. “Adult movies, too. I seen those.”

  “Wish she’d sell tickets to her house. You and me could have a bunch of fun in there, just for one afternoon, maybe.”

  “Too bad she so little. No fun to try on all her clothes.”

  “She got furs? Bet those’d fit.”

  “Wooo, I bet they would.” She leaned back and laughed, at peace again. Enjoying the game. He was right, it was her game. She played it all the time, she just didn’t approach it quite the same way he did—like it was halfway real.

  Eight

  SKIP PLANTED HER foot hard and nasty on Nolan Bazemore’s spine as she cuffed him. She put her weight on the foot and almost enjoyed watching him wince, though in the end her own cruelty gave her the creeps.

  Internally, she shuddered at herself, but she said calmly, “Okay, stand up.”

  Bazemore wasn’t hurt and he wasn’t armed. But there was an MP5 on the floor of the truck that made Boudreaux grin. “That’s it, Nolan babe. Your ticket to Death Row.”

  “What are you talking about?” The older woman had her hands on her hips. She had a wash-’n’-wear perm and carried about sixty pounds of extra weight. Eighty, maybe. She looked as if she hadn’t exercised in a couple of decades.

  Bazemore said, “Mama. Go inside.”

  Nobody’s all bad, Skip thought. Everyone’s got a mama somewhere.

  But in the next few hours, during which she got to know Nolan Bazemore a great deal better than she wanted, she concluded he came close.

  While they waited for backup, Mrs. Bazemore cried and tore at a Kleenex. “My boy’s never done nothin’. It’s that trashy girl’s fault—that damn Joelle. I rue the day he ever met her.”

  Skip didn’t know that she’d ever heard the word “rue” spoken aloud. She said, “Why is that, Mrs. Bazemore?”

  “That whole stupid thing was her idea. She didn’t have the faintest idea what these Bazemores are like—Nolan and Edwin, both of ’em.”

  “What was her idea?”

  Bazemore said, “Mama, don’t you say a word. I don’t want you in trouble, now.”

  “Neither you or your daddy ever had a lick of sense.” She turned on her heel and went inside, leaving her son to fend for himself.

  Eventually they pried the story out of her.

  Nolan and his no-good girlfriend, Joelle, had come over for dinner the night Albert Goodlett’s appointment was announced. One of them—Mrs. Bazemore couldn’t remember which—said it was “time to give this town back to the white people.”

  She said, “Since niggers are responsible for the crime, it’s pretty stupid to go and give a nigger the job of stopping it, innit? Now, how hard is that to figure out? I mean, it don’t make no sense. Time after time, too. I think we’re all just damn tired of this, don’t you?”

  Skip said, “Go on.”

  “So Nolan said somebody ought to stop it. And that dumb Joelle said, ‘You think you’re man enough to do it?’ And his daddy said, ‘You better watch Nolan. You don’t know how crazy he is.’”

  The rest of it came out in the interrogation room, and it appeared everything his mother had said about Bazemore was true, and more: You couldn’t imagine how crazy he was, or how reckless, or how twisted and dim-wi
tted. He was more like a stray bullet than a loose cannon, faster and surer and scarier and a lot more deadly.

  First he waived his rights, saying the Miranda decision was a liberal tool for coddling criminals, and a white man couldn’t get a fair trial in this country nohow. Then he lit the cigarette Skip gave him and grinned. “I done it,” he said. “I done it and I’d do it again. I’d mow down every goddamn jungle-bunny cop and judge and politician in the country if I had time, and when I got done with that I’d start on the Jews. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Oh, my God.” Skip had spoken involuntarily. He sounded so nuts, she worried he’d get off on an insanity defense.

  Still, she and Jerry Boudreaux led him through the details, trying to pick holes in his story, making him fill in every gap. They ran his rap sheet and found he had a history of assault and one attempted rape.

  Then they brought Joelle in and questioned her. If anybody was ruing the day, it was she. Nolan beat her routinely, and also beat her four-year-old son; she wanted to leave, but didn’t have the money.

  Cappello called Skip into her office. “You’re not going to believe what they’ve been running on TV—his dad’s been giving interviews saying he supports his son no matter what he did because somebody has to stand up for white people.”

  Skip plopped down in Cappello’s extra chair. “Nobody’s that stupid. Everybody knows how that sounds—even the worst racist knows in his heart of hearts it won’t fly in public.”

  “Ed Bazemore says it’s time to blow the lid off all that.”

  “Hold it. His son gunned down an innocent man in front of his house. Surely he knows the kid’s gonna fry for it.”

  Cappello shrugged. “These are not normal people. Have you noticed that? Abasolo went to execute the search warrant on Bazemore’s apartment—said it was filthy, by the way—and found it full of white supremacist tracts and newspapers. Quite a few weapons, too.”

  “Great. I’m thrilled. Or I’m going to be thrilled as soon as I’m through throwing up.”

  “The brass want a Hollywood walk.”

  Skip made a face. “Oh, no.”

  “Buck up, Langdon, it’s your big moment. The media’s all notified. When do you want to do it?”

  Skip shrugged. “Oh, well. What can it hurt? Give me fifteen minutes to put on lipstick.”

  She was kidding about the lipstick, though she figured Cappello probably took her seriously. In her shoes, the sergeant—ever image-conscious—would have meant it.

  A Hollywood walk was basically a photo op. The prisoner had to be taken from Headquarters to what was now grandly called the Intake and Processing Center (“central lockup” in simpler days). This could easily be done without going outside, but that wasn’t sexy. When the superintendent of police got shot, the department damn well wanted everyone to know it got its man. Hence, a short walk from the garage door at the rear of Headquarters, about half a block up White Street, and over to the booking facility on Perdido.

  A short walk with more media people in attendance than there were cops in the building.

  Bazemore’s hands were cuffed behind him. Skip at one side, Boudreaux at the other, cameras everywhere. People eddied and swirled, shouting inane questions. Skip felt as if she’d been up for two days.

  Perhaps, she thought later, she should have been more alert. In retrospect she had no idea where her attention had been when she heard the shot.

  Bazemore stumbled and went down.

  Reporters scrambled, some tripping over wires and falling as well.

  Skip stared down at her prisoner for no more than a second— a split second, it couldn’t have been more—and immediately jerked her head up to the Broad Street overpass. A man was there, running. Traffic had slowed. But she had no shot, given the number of civilians both here and there.

  She simply watched, frozen, unbelieving, as the man ran, holding what was apparently a high-powered rifle.

  When they turned Bazemore over, his nose was gone.

  * * *

  Skip spent the next morning giving statements to other officers and avoiding giving any to the press. Cappello was handling that.

  The letter came with her other mail—the only piece that wasn’t junk, but she would have noticed it anyway. It was in a plain white business envelope, with her name and address neatly typed, plain as you please. The arresting part was in the upper left-hand corner, where the return address should have been. It was only two words: The Jury.

  It had been mailed the same day Nolan Bazemore was shot. Skip called Cappello. “Sylvia, come over here.” Cappello took one look and immediately came to the same conclusion Skip had. “Omigod. Let’s get the bomb squad. And the crime lab.”

  They left it there, not touching it, till the bomb squad had pronounced it safe and the lab had dusted. Then, carefully, and in the presence of witnesses, Skip slit it open and read.

  Dear Detective Langdon:

  We wish to congratulate you on your swift and excellent work in apprehending Nolan Bazemore, a blight on the city of New Orleans and indeed on the entire country, which used to be worth something. That’s right—used to be. This used to be a country where it was safe for old ladies to walk down the street in the middle of the day, where public schools were excellent and every child assured a good education, where neighbors took care of each other, cared about each other, and where crime was negligible. In the event a crime was committed, the criminal was entitled to a fair and speedy trial by a jury of his peers, twelve good men and true, and more often than not, justice was done. At any rate, we certainly expected it to be, and if it was not, we were surprised. We were shocked and we were outraged.

  To our eternal sadness, this is no longer true. We no longer permit our grandmothers to walk alone (or our children, for that matter), we accept the decrepitude of our schools, many of us carry guns against the rising tide of crime, and we do not expect justice. We have become a nation of cynics. We expect judges to sleep on the bench, juries to acquit, and lawyers to get rich.

  Why is this? It is because we do not care anymore. Because we are beyond caring. Because we do not see why we should care because we know the situation is hopeless. Our situation is hopeless.

  We are too defeated to have any hope.

  We know that the people selected to serve on juries will be poorly informed, poorly employed, possibly below average intelligence, and easily influenced by unscrupulous lawyers. We believe this is how the system has evolved. Yet we do not care enough to try to correct it.

  Are we willing to serve on juries ourselves? Certainly not. We have bigger fish to fry. We have our jobs and our families—we cannot be troubled by a little thing like justice. And so the system has been subverted. And so we are without hope.

  In Chief Albert Goodlett we had a chance at a real change in one of our major cities. In the only city in the world, possibly in the history of the world, that currently has two officers on Death Row. In what is possibly the worst police department in, once again, the history of the world.

  There is much in a name. Chief Goodlett was a good man. An honest man. A competent man.

  And he was shot to death by an unworthy enemy, an enemy of the church, the state, the Lord—of our very system of justice and the only decent chance it has had in years.

  Nolan Bazemore was scum. He was not fit to lick the boots of Chief Albert Goodlett, and there will not be a single detractor among those who read this letter, black or white. This is not a racial issue. Yet Nolan Bazemore was a racist—an ignorant racist peckerwood who deserved to die. Nolan Bazemore was guilty of cold-blooded homicide and he was guiltier still of another outrage—of destroying our Hope! Just when we had Hope, he destroyed it.

  Had he stood trial, Nolan Bazemore, poor as he was, ignorant as he was, would have had a lawyer, and that is right and good. But that lawyer would have had that courtroom full of psychiatrists. They would have presented a defense that would have shamed us all as Americans and there is not a one am
ong us who is not aware of it. We would have heard that Nolan Bazemore was deprived of love, he ate too many sweets, or he had a rare disease that caused hatred of people of color, and we would have watched helplessly as he was found innocent of the murder of a good man.

  This is the truth, fellow Americans—there will not be one who reads this letter who expected him to be convicted, any more than Billy Ray Hutchison was convicted. Because we do not expect our system of justice to work, and we are not disappointed. IT DOES NOT WORK!

  And so we The Jury claim responsibility, as the newspapers say, for the trial, conviction, and execution of Nolan Bazemore. It saddens us deeply that such action is necessary and yet we know that it is, and you, Detective Langdon, know that it is, and you, fellow Americans, know that it is.

  We refer you to the Bible:

  Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

  Romans 12

  In anger and in wrath I will execute vengeance.

  Micah 5

  If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will requite those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh.

  Deuteronomy 32

  He said, I will rise, I will cover the earth … That day is the day of the Lord God of hosts a day of vengeance, to avenge himself on his foes, The sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of your blood.

  Jeremiah 46

  The letter was signed, “Very sincerely yours, The Jury.”

  A “c.c.” note indicated the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and New Orleans Times-Picayune had also received it, along with various television stations.

  Sergeant Adam Abasolo had come up behind them as they were reading it. “Well,” he said. “Gets my attention.”

  “That,” said Skip, “says it all.” She felt her lips tight against her teeth.