by Julie Smith
“Ah, Mrs. Owens. I’m sorry to bother you, but your granddaughter, Lovelace, has disappeared and I thought…”
“I beg your pardon, could you say the girl’s name again, please?”
Oh, Christ. I wonder if she even knows she’s got a granddaughter.
“Lovelace. Daniel Jacomine’s daughter.”
Rosemarie made some kind of a sound—something midway between a sob and a gasp—but said nothing.
Skip said, “Look, it sounds as if you’re pretty surprised. I wonder if you even knew you have a granddaughter.”
“I really don’t…”
“We have a situation here. The girl may be in grave danger. Your ex-husband, Errol Jacomine, is the subject of an intense investigation both by our department and by the FBI. I need you to cooperate with us. Now. There isn’t time to think this over.”
“My God. That must be what the FBI wants. What’s happening?”
“Your granddaughter was kidnapped—”
“Kidnapped? From where?”
“From Northwestern. Where she’s a sophomore.”
“Jesus. She’s grown up.”
“Mrs. Owens, could you hear me out, please?” Skip started from the beginning. “Your son, Daniel, has one daughter, Lovelace, who’s twenty and a sophomore at Northwestern. He’s divorced, but there’s no custody question—that’s long since been settled. However, several days ago, he kidnapped Lovelace and drugged her. Lovelace escaped and we have no idea where she is. We also have no idea where Daniel is, but we suspect he’s with your ex-husband, Errol Jacomine, who I’m sure you know is an extremely dangerous man, wanted in at least two murders. We believe your granddaughter is in a great deal of danger.”
“Well, this is quite a bit to swallow.” Indeed, she sounded choked.
“I’m sure you understand we wouldn’t call you if we could possibly have avoided it.”
“Detective Langdon, all I can say is you must be a mighty desperate woman. I haven’t seen my son Daniel since he was seven years old—I believe he’d be over forty by now. And I certainly haven’t seen or heard from Errol Jacomine. To answer the only question you’ve actually asked me so far, no, I wasn’t aware I had a granddaughter. What on Earth can I possibly do for you?”
You’re right, she thought. I’m as desperate as they come. And you sound like one cool customer. She said, “Well, you’ve answered one of my implied questions, which was ‘Have you seen Errol Jacomine lately?’ Let me expand on that. Have you any idea where he is?”
“None whatsoever. When we left Savannah together at the respective ages of sixteen and fifteen, we didn’t get any farther than Alabama. I was a young mother waiting tables while trying to take care of my child. Daniel’s father didn’t care any more about him than he did about that poor dog he killed that used to bark all night and keep him up.”
“Your dog?”
“The neighbor’s. Earl took care of Daniel while I was at work, which usually meant he invited his buddies over to play cards and threw the kid a peanut butter sandwich now and then.”
“Did he work?”
“Well, he brought in a little money. Yes, he did. I have to give him credit for that.”
“What did he do exactly?”
“Why, he preached in a garage. And passed the collection plate. He had fliers printed to advertise himself—just like he was putting on a play.”
“At sixteen he did this?”
“For a while he did what I did—waited tables—and I swear I believe he robbed a store now and then, although he never admitted it. But he did have sudden influxes of money. Meanwhile, he met a very interesting charismatic preacher—he’s dead now, I heard—that Earl kind of learned his trade from. And I’ll tell you something, Detective. Earl was good. Not-a-dry-eye-in-the-house kind of good. That man could preach the pants off the choir—and did, too. Why, yes he most assuredly did.”
“Is that why you left him?”
“Oh, no. That’s not why I left him. You have no idea why I left him, young lady, and you don’t want to.”
Oh, I do. I do. She said, “Actually, I had a few encounters with him and I’m a lot more puzzled about what anyone would be doing with him in the first place.”
“Well, I can tell you about that. I can tell you a lot about that. You’ve probably read about me in People magazine and the New York Times and all those kinds of things and what you see is the Rosemarie of today. When I think back to Rosemarie at fourteen, I could just cry.” The words were pouring out of her so fast she was tripping over them. Skip suspected her life with Jacomine was something she didn’t often think about and couldn’t talk about—with anyone.
“Rosemarie in those days was a plain little thing—to look at me today, you’d never believe it. Plain and scared. I lived completely in my head, was what I did. I read a lot. I’ll bet that surprises you, doesn’t it? You probably think I’m just some brassy blonde who marries rich men, but let me tell you something, honey. You don’t get out of Savannah unless you’ve got some idea what the outside world is like. You die of claustrophobia or become a drunk. I knew the world through books, and I wanted to see it. I wanted to go places and meet people!
“But I was this plain little pudgy girl from the most ordinary family you can name—my daddy was an accountant, and my mama was a cashier in a drugstore. They were Southern Baptists, and they made me go to church twice a day on Sunday and once on Wednesday night. Now, how was a girl like that gonna go anywhere or do anything? I wanted to see England; I wanted to see France; I wanted to see someone’s underpants. How old are you, Detective?”
“I’m, uh—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. You’re under thirty, aren’t you? Or maybe around there—you’ve already made detective. However old you are, you have no idea what the world was like then. My mama told me that people didn’t have sex outside of marriage unless they were very, very low-rent. But you see, I read novels, so I knew they did—outside Savannah, of course. I bet you think Peyton Place never existed before the TV series.
“My mama never touched me that I can remember. Now, isn’t that pathetic? I don’t even remember her hugging me. Are you getting a picture here, Detective?”
Rosemarie had become so excited Skip had to hold the phone an inch from her ear. “Are you saying the combination made you—uh …”
She was about to say “vulnerable,” or something like it, but Rosemarie finished for her: “Hot to trot. I was easy prey for somebody like Earl Jackson, who preyed on … easy prey. I remember the first time he touched me, walking me home from school. Put his arm around my waist, and I thought I’d burn up. Is he still as ugly as he ever was?”
“He’s not my type.”
“Little weasely-looking fellow. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be touched. By anybody. And then, too, he knew quite a few ways to tap into interesting sensations I didn’t know the human body was capable of. Poor a specimen as he was, I always wondered what he saw in me—well, I think I know now.
“First of all, I was a real easy target. Second, I had such low self-esteem he could pretty much push me around any old way he wanted. Third—and maybe this is important—he had this Pygmalion thing.”
“I beg your pardon?” Skip hadn’t expected to hear her say that—Rosemarie was an odd combination of sophisticated and down-home Southern.
“He wanted to make me into the woman he wanted. Like a Stepford wife or something. I lost weight and got pretty sexy for him, which was his downfall in the end because then I figured out he wasn’t the only fish I could catch. But that wasn’t why I left him. Uh-uh.
“What happened was I got pregnant and we ran away. I had no more idea what a baby was or how to be a mama than I knew how to fly. I wanted to see the world, and I saw Dothan, Alabama.
“I wasn’t a good mama. I was a lousy mama. I had zero patience with my child, and I yelled at him and swatted him sometimes, when he got to be three or four. But I knew one thing—I knew you weren’t
supposed to suck a baby’s penis.”
“I … what?” Did I hear her right?
“I guess I caught you off guard there. Well, Earl got pushier and pushier and more and more abusive, bashing me around, telling me what to do, treating me like a slave, to tell you the truth. And he wanted me to do weird sexual things—I’m not going to go into that right now. But you asked me why I left him. I left him because, when Daniel was a baby he’d cry and keep us up at night, and Earl wanted me to suck his penis to keep him quiet. I told you you didn’t want to know. You just don’t know what life with that man was like.
“I found myself an older man who was sweet and gentle and didn’t mind supporting my kid. But then I screwed up—I found myself a much younger man, and the older one threw me out. I had no skills and no place to go—that’s when I took Daniel back to Savannah and dropped him off. I became a flight attendant, and the rest is history.”
“You met somebody else?”
“Oh, many. Many, many somebody elses. But the hell of it was, I finally fell in love, and look what happened to me.”
Skip was thinking that the younger woman who’d taken her husband was probably a clone of the younger Rosemarie when the other woman said, “What goes around comes around. I don’t blame her. I swear I don’t—she saw a chance and she grabbed it. I blame him—I thought the old goat loved me.”
“Did you ever hear from him again?”
“Who? My husband?”
“Errol Jacomine.”
“I never did and I never will.”
“Just in case—it’s very important that you contact me if you do.”
“You have my word. I’ll call you the instant I hear from him, or hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.”
Another road leading nowhere, Skip thought. Still, it answers the question “What kind of woman would marry Errol Jacomine?”
She could see why Aunt Alice had said this woman was the love of young Earl’s life—she had a hard edge to her; might even be as ruthless as he was. And he hadn’t yet subdued her.
He wouldn’t like that, Skip thought. It would prey on him.
Twelve
AFTER DELAVON DIED, Dorise had gone back to church, and she had found comfort there. In fact, she didn’t understand why she’d ever stopped going. When she had a problem, she could put it in the hands of Jesus. But there was another side to it—oh, yes, there was another side. You had to keep up your end—you couldn’t let Jesus down because that was letting yourself down.
When Troy brought her Meredith Clemenceau’s earrings, she had screamed as if someone died. Shavonne came tearing from the back of the house, where she was watching television, crying, “Mama! Mama, you all right?” and the poor little thing’s white shorts were wet, with a trickle of urine still running down her leg.
“Oh, my Lord, what have I done!” she hollered. “I’ve scared my child so bad she’s gone and pissed herself. Troy Chauvin, you get on out of here. You get on out of here and don’t you never come back. And don’t you worry none about your sorry ass—I ain’ gon’ tell nobody what you done ’cept the Lord Jesus Christ and he already know. That’s who you gon’ have to answer to. That poor little dog. That poor, poor little dog. For shame, Troy Chauvin!” She pressed the earrings back into his hand and slammed the door.
Shavonne stood there with her mouth open so wide a bat could have flown in.
Dorise dropped to her knees and hugged her as tight as she knew how. “It’s okay, baby. Everything okay now.” Shavonne burst into violent sobbing, and Dorise realized that was what she’d said before—that time when it wasn’t okay and would never be for Shavonne, ever again.
“Baby, I jus’ had a fight with Troy—it ain’ nothin’ more than that, I promise you, baby. You all right. Ya mama’s all right. Okay, baby? Look at me now?”
Shavonne obeyed for about a split second before she ran, and the terror on her face was enough to make Dorise howl again, as she had when she saw the earrings. This time, she held her tongue, though, and fought the impulse to chase her daughter. Shavonne needed a minute alone, she thought, to change her pants and get her bearings.
Dorise sat on the couch and thought about the little white dog, unable to believe the man who had made love to her so sweetly could do a thing like that. She wondered if he took drugs, or if he’d been drunk, or if he was just plain mean and she’d never noticed. The thing was so incomprehensible, her own part in it so overwhelming, she couldn’t even cry.
“Forgive me, Jesus,” she said to the air. “Forgive me, Lord. I never meant to hurt nobody, even that hateful Meredith and her husband—I sure didn’t mean to hurt no poor little animal.”
If Troy could do that to an animal, what could he do to a person? she thought. Suppose she’d become involved with him and he’d hurt Shavonne? She went in to comfort her child.
Shavonne was lying on her back in bed, crying. “Mama, I peed myself.”
“Honey, you were scared to death. Mama’s so sorry to scare you like that.”
“Mama, what Troy do make you scream like that?”
“He just surprise me, honey. He say something let me know he got a mean streak, and I felt so disappointed I scream out.”
A mean streak like your daddy had, she thought. But even Delavon wouldn’t hurt no animals or children. I mus’ be getting . Jesus, don’ let me get no worse! Please help me find a good man sometime.
She had got Shavonne into bed and told her a bedtime story and was just beginning to feel peaceful again when the phone rang. It was her boss asking her to come to the office the next morning.
Jesus, don’t let the po-lice be there, she prayed.
She prayed all night long she’d be able to handle it all right. When she arrived, she saw that everyone was there who’d worked at Meredith’s that day, and they were called in individually. That meant she was probably okay.
When it was her turn, she acted as if she couldn’t have been more surprised and said “darlin’” and “honey” a lot and she could tell she was the last person anybody in the company would suspect.
She worked hard at her popularity and it was paying off. Now I just gotta pray nobody else gets blamed for what I done, she thought to herself, but she didn’t think anyone would. If fingerprints were found, they’d lead to Troy and that trail would lead straight to her. What she had to do was keep him out of her life.
Well, no problem, she thought. He the last man I want to see.
Shavonne stayed at a friend’s house that night, and Dorise called her sister. She was so lonely and—when you got down to it—so depressed she had to talk to someone. Her sister said, “Girl, you sound awful. What’s wrong wit’ you?”
“I’m not seeing Troy no more. He didn’t turn out the way I hoped.”
“You picky, girl, you know that? You just too picky.”
Dorise wasn’t about to tell her the truth. When she didn’t say anything, her sister said, “How’s my little sugar-pie?”
“Shavonne sleepin’ over at a friend’s house.”
“She is? Well, let’s go, girl. Le’s go out.”
“I don’t think so. I think I’ll just sit home and watch the tube.”
But her sister came to pick her up in half an hour, dressed for meeting men. “Come on, girl. Put on somethin’ show off your nice behind. We gon’ go listen to some music.”
Feeling more or less like she was in a trance, having very little mind of her own, Dorise followed orders.
Her sister took her to a place outside the neighborhood, a place with a whole new crowd. Dorise had a few drinks and felt better.
A fine-looking man talked to her, too, a man who worked for a painting contractor, but she couldn’t get interested to save her life.
She was afraid of him. She was afraid of any man right now.
But it was so hard being alone, trying to raise a child alone. And then there was the specter of sex. She’d forgotten all about that little thing until Troy reminded her so vividly.
/> It sure was like cigarettes and drugs—once you had some you wanted more and more and more.
She craved male attention and she was nice by nature, so she just didn’t have it in her to shine the fine-looking man, and in no time at all he seemed to have gotten it into his head that she was just dying to leave with him.
“Can’t do that,” she said. “It’s a school night.”
“You go to school?”
“My little girl does.”
“You got a little girl? I love kids—always wanted to have some myself.”
“Listen, I gotta go.”
“At least give me your phone number.”
“Maybe I better get yours, darlin’. I don’t want to take no chances you won’t call.”
She tore it up as soon as she and her sister were in the car.
“What you do that for?”
“I just don’t know what to believe and what not to believe these days. I been wrong my only two tries, and I just can’t afford to do it again.”
“You gon’ be a nun or what?”
“I’m gon’ pray about it. See what I can figure out.”
She entered her empty house feeling more depressed than ever.
* * *
The Monk was in the gallery courtyard painting an angel when he realized he was humming to himself. He had had an uncontrollable urge to abandon his pregnant painting for a while and paint more angels that looked like Lovelace.
And why not? He had to pay for it by dusting every piece of African art in the gallery—because that was the deal he’d made with himself—but painting the angel made him so happy, that was nothing.
She makes me happy, he thought. It’s her—having her around.
“Hey, Monk,” said Revelas, “I ain’ never heard you hum before. ’Zat break your vow or not?”
The Monk smiled and shrugged his shoulders. In his opinion, it didn’t, but he thought the idea was kind of funny. He felt lightheaded, even a little giddy, as if he were in Paris or something. He felt like humming and he didn’t care who heard him.