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

by Julie Smith

  But the sergeant explained to her she didn’t think that was a good idea; Lovelace had better just wait for Langdon. She started feeling trapped, and wondered if she was. She thought about asking for a lawyer. She wasn’t a criminal, she was a victim—could they hold her against her will?

  On the other hand, what lawyer was she going to call, and how was she going to pay him? Maybe she should call Michelle—her parents could get her a lawyer.

  She was about to ask to make a call when Langdon appeared and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Skip Langdon.”

  Not Detective Langdon. Skip. Lovelace liked that. Langdon wasn’t playing games with her. And she liked the way Langdon looked as well. She was even taller than Lovelace. The shape of her face and her nose were what she thought of as Irish, though she didn’t know why. The eyes were slightly almond-shaped, and they were a vivid green. Maybe that was it. Then she had this curly, tumbling hair, which was pinned up, but barely, and smooth, pretty skin, brownish-gold, like a baguette.

  There was something about her that was very down to earth, casual even. Maybe, if you got right down to it, even a little sloppy. She was slightly overweight, for one thing, and her butt jiggled inside a pair of linen pants that tied with a drawstring and that were almost floods—but when you were as tall as Langdon, Lovelace had no idea how you ever got pants that were long enough. She had enough trouble herself. The cop’s tucked-in cotton tank top was a bit on the tired side, and sort of a khaki green that almost went with the beige pants, but not quite.

  She moved awkwardly, too, like a girl who’d never had ballet lessons. She didn’t seem even slightly intimidating.

  Lovelace said, “I’m Lovelace Jacomine. But you know that.”

  “Sit down,” said the detective, and they both did. “You have no idea how worried about you I’ve been.”

  “I heard you were looking for me.”

  “Night and day, young lady. Night and day.”

  She asked again, “How’s Anthony?”

  “He’s okay. They sent him home.”

  “How about the other man—the one with my dad?”

  “Not good.” A shadow crossed the cop’s face.

  “Dead?”

  The cop nodded, and Lovelace thought she looked as sad as if a relative had died instead of a man who’d tried to kill her. Skip said, “The other man is your dad?”

  “Uh-huh. Did you find him?”

  “He’s a pretty slick operator, you know that?”

  The cop was starting to play games. Lovelace hated it when someone answered a question with a question. She spoke sharply. “Is he okay? Tell me.”

  “Take it easy. I’d tell you if I knew. He got away. Tell me something, will you? Why does your own dad want to kidnap you?”

  “To take me to my grandfather.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “My grandmother told me. At least, a woman who said she’s my grandmother, but those two haven’t seen each other in a million years as far as I know. I can’t figure out why she thinks that.”

  “How about if you start from the beginning.”

  And so Lovelace did, beginning with her dad’s kidnapping her on the Northwestern campus and ending with the shoot-out at Judy’s Juice.

  When she had finished, Langdon had only one question, having apparently heard most of the story from Michelle. “Where,” she asked, “did you say your uncle Isaac lives?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  “I thought you said the Bywater.”

  Had she? “My uncle is a very strange, very wonderful man. He’s been terrific to me, and I’m not going to violate his privacy.”

  “Lovelace, a man got killed today, but he fired at me first. Do you realize what that means? He’d just as easily have fired at you.”

  “He would not. My dad wouldn’t let him.”

  “Do you think your dad would shoot your uncle—to try to get to you, maybe? How close are they?”

  Lovelace felt her heart leap to her throat, closing it. She tried to take in air, and couldn’t for a moment. She truly hadn’t thought of that. But she knew as well as she knew how to make carrot juice that the best thing she could do for her uncle was keep quiet.

  She said, “I really can’t tell you where he lives.”

  “If your grandfather finds out, he might kill him just for revenge—for harboring you.”

  “Kill his own son? Listen, my family’s nuts, but we don’t kill each other.” Not yet, she thought. At least not yet.

  Langdon said it. “Not yet, you mean. I’m telling you, Lovelace, we need to get your uncle some protection.”

  “If you can’t find him, how’s my grandfather going to?”

  “They found you, didn’t they?”

  For no reason, Lovelace felt her eyes fill. “They’re not going to find him!” She couldn’t believe the sound of her own voice, which seemed suddenly about eleven years old.

  Langdon glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go for a few minutes. Will you be okay?”

  Lovelace nodded, thinking, She’s leaving me to stew. How dumb does she think I am?

  It seemed hours before the cop came back, though it was probably only about forty-five minutes. In that time, Lovelace had gone back and forth a hundred times—should she tell her or not? In the end, she felt she had to respect Isaac’s wishes.

  Whatever way the cops had found her was probably the way her dad had—and if the cops couldn’t find Isaac, then neither could her grandfather.

  When Langdon came back, she had a list with her—of all the crimes her grandfather was wanted for. She also told the story of a body she had found; when she got to the part about the cigarette burns, Lovelace put her hands over her ears and screamed Isaac’s address.

  * * *

  By the time Daniel got back to Magazine Street, he had begun to hate the Langdon cop almost as much as his father did.

  He had gone through the kitchen of the juice bar, barged through the back door, and found himself in a small courtyard. There was a brick fence that he managed to scale with the help of a garbage can for a boost, and again he found himself in a courtyard, a pleasant one with a green metal table, on which someone had left a newspaper and a mug of coffee or tea.

  There was a side entrance to the courtyard, at the end of which there might be a locked gate—or it might be unlocked. This fence could be scaled as well, or he might simply be able to walk out the gate—but then again he might not, and cops would be coming over the brick wall in a minute.

  There was also the back door of a house.

  He grabbed the paper and the mug, tried the door, and to his relief found it open. He went in, closed it, turned the key, which had been conveniently left in the lock, and listened. Behind him, he heard men scrambling into the courtyard. Inside the house, he heard a kind of dull roar, as if plumbing was in use.

  Reasoning that the cops would do as he had, assess the situation and pick the easiest exit, he listened. Someone tried the door and then he heard running.

  He crept upstairs, where there were two bedrooms facing each other, saw that both were empty, and noticed a third door, which was closed. The sound of running water came from behind it—apparently a bathroom. Silently, he opened the door, and saw a closed shower curtain. Whoever was behind it was going to scream when they realized they weren’t alone. Man or woman, they’d remember Psycho and wail their lungs out. If there was a window on the other side of the curtain, Daniel was dead.

  He thought of jerking the curtain back and commanding silence, but the person would almost certainly scream anyway. He had to prolong the silence as long as he could. This door, too, had a key in it. He closed and locked it.

  Then he took off his cap, shades, and shirt, exposing a black T-shirt. He was unzipping the legs of his old safari pants, the kind that could be turned into shorts in thirty seconds, when the person in the shower startled him by bursting into song. It was a sadly off-key version of “Amazing Grace,” delivered in a female
voice.

  You wouldn’t start a song, he reasoned, if you were about to turn the shower off. Also, since it was a woman in there, she might put on her makeup or dry her hair before she came out of the bathroom. And he was ready to go.

  So he shoved the bundle under one of the beds, very gently unlocked the bathroom door, slipped quietly downstairs, and walked out the front door. Seeing a cop across the street, he made as if to lock the door and walked down the porch steps, bold as a banker. When he was far enough away from the house not to alarm the showering woman, he shouted, “What’s going on?” to further establish his bona fides. The officer only shook his head and continued his search. Summoning all his will power, Daniel began to whistle “Amazing Grace.”

  Walking briskly, as if he had to be someplace, but not so fast as to seem alarmed, he made his way to his truck, where he noticed for the first time that he was shaking so hard he could hardly find his keys. All he could think about was how angry his father was going to be.

  But to his utter surprise, the elder Jacomine, fiddling at his desk, broke into a smile when his son entered the house. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Dad, we fucked up.” Might as well get it over with.

  “Oh, yeah, I know. Been listening to the radio. Thought you were the one down, boy. I’ve been worried.”

  “You have? About me?” Daniel was unaccountably touched.

  “You’re my son, aren’t you? Why wouldn’t I be worried?” His dad did not get up to hug him, but then he never did that. This was as good a reaction as could be expected.

  “We didn’t get her, Daddy.”

  “I know that, boy. I know that. Just tell me what happened. How’d you get away?”

  So he got to tell that part first, which was a blessing, as his father would say. When he told about unlocking the bathroom door, his father actually shivered. “Boy, you got balls of steel.”

  Daniel shrugged. “I spent years learning how to survive.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you. Real proud.” And without warning, he leaned back in his chair and laughed until he had to reach for a tissue to wipe his eyes. “So the woman in the shower might not figure out what happened for days.”

  “Could be years if she doesn’t clean under her bed very often—and from the look of it, she doesn’t.”

  “Still, there’s the locked back door. And you brought the paper and mug in—damn clever to think of that, by the way.”

  Daniel basked in his father’s too-rare praise. “She’ll just think she did it herself. You know how people are—she’ll say to herself, ‘I must be crazy; I did that and forgot about it.’”

  “You didn’t tell me how my granddaughter is. How’d she look?”

  “Great. Except for being bald.” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand kids anymore—she dyed her hair black and cut it so short she almost looks bald.”

  His father actually laughed. “She probably thinks that’s some sort of disguise. So tell me something else, boy.” The laughter was gone now. His father leaned forward on his desk, eyes narrowing. His dangerous look. “How’d a smart boy like you let Devil-Woman follow him to that juice bar?”

  Well, fuck.

  He wasn’t going to take this. He’d done so well even his father admitted it; he wasn’t about to get blamed for something he didn’t do. “Daddy, I swear on my darling mother’s head—” that ought to get him “—I didn’t get followed. I didn’t spend all those years in Idaho learning survivalist techniques so I could do a damn-fool thing like that.”

  “Well, how do you account for the fact she got there at the same time you did?”

  “If she’d followed us, we’d never have gotten as far as we did. The woman’s a detective—she did what we did; looked up Isaac’s last employer.”

  His father stood up. “Detective, my fucking foot. Son of a motherfucking bitching bastard. That woman’s the spawn of the demon Lilith and the clove-footed beast from below.” He was spitting. “’Therefore says the Lord God … behold, I am against you; and I will execute judgments against you in the sight of the nations. And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again…. You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious chastisements—I, the Lord God, have spoken.’”

  His voice dropped, and it was low and terrible. “God will be the instrument of her destruction and he will work through me and he will work now! Not soon. Not when all my petty plans are laid. He will work immediately! The female beast from the darkest corner of hell must be destroyed before we can proceed with our master plan—before justice can be done for the people of these great United States. She stands in our way and she must be removed.”

  Even to Daniel, he sounded nuts. All he could think was, Thank God he’s mad at her instead of me.

  It could so easily have gone the other way.

  “We’ve got to escalate this Shavonne thing. Forget that fucking Dorise; forget all that finesse and careful planning. God doesn’t have time for that. God wants to act now.

  “Go get Shavonne. Go get her right now. Don’t even change your clothes. Just go get her.”

  “Uh… Daddy… I don’t actually think I know a Shavonne.”

  His father seized the heaviest thing at hand—the stapler on his desk—and threw it at him. It caught Daniel square in the forehead, in the spot damn-fool kids like his daughter called “the third eye.” The kind of pain it caused was something like a cut and something like a heavy blow and, oddly, something like a tickle, yet the way a tickle would be if it were the worst pain in the world.

  Daniel staggered backward, automatically throwing a hand up to his forehead. It came away wet and red. Blood filled his eyes. He hit a table leg and staggered. His father gave no sign that he noticed. Instead, he picked up his phone and said, “Get Dashan Jericho over here,” in a voice so thick with menace. Daniel feared for Dashan.

  His father looked at him again and for the first time seemed to notice the blood. He said, “Son, let me get you something for that.” He walked out of the room and came back with a towel. It was the first time in memory Daniel had known him to get something for himself, much less for someone else. “We’ve got to get you better,” he said. With one hand he handed the towel to Daniel, with the other he guided him into a chair. Daniel sat there applying pressure to his wound, feeling befogged and slightly nauseous, until Dashan arrived.

  Dashan began his greeting, which would have been, “Hey, Daddy,” Daniel thought, but he got no farther than the first “D.”

  “Dashan, where’s that little girl go to school?”

  “Shavonne?”

  “Of course, Shavonne. Look alive, son. Who’ve you been working on? You have been working, haven’t you, Dashan?”

  “Of course, Daddy. Dorise and I are thick as thieves.”

  “Well, I don’t give a shit about Dorise. Your assignment was to get as close as you could to Shavonne. Now, where’s she go to school?”

  “McDonogh Number Forty-three, Daddy. Her teacher is Mrs. Pearl Rivers, and the principal is Felix Pitre.”

  “Fine. Now you two boys go over there and hold it up at gunpoint. Get that kid and bring her here. You get followed and the Lord will take his vengeance.”

  “Daddy, there’s no need for that. I’ve been doing my work. Shavonne’ll leave with me. She loves me.”

  Daniel’s dad screamed. “Did you hear me, you jackass? Did I say use guns or didn’t I? What did I tell you?”

  “Yessir. You said use guns, Daddy. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “And I mean use guns. See that at least one shot is fired, you hear me? And nobody gets hurt and nobody gets followed.”

  “Yessir.”

  Daddy nodded. “Good. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

  This last was so incongruous Daniel almost wondered if his dad was dru
nk.

  “Let’s go, Dashan.”

  “What happened, brother?” Meaning his wound.

  Daniel winced, knowing it would set Daddy off again. His father was around his desk before either of the others saw him move. “I’m going to kick both your butts.” He raised his foot and kicked Dashan into the wall. “Get up, boy,” he said to Daniel. “Now turn around.”

  In the car, on the way over to the school, Dashan said, “Man, you must have done something really bad. He’s so mad at you it’s getting on me.”

  “Well, my man, usually he is. But this time it’s not me he’s mad at. It’s somebody else.”

  “He sure is mad.”

  “Yeah. So we better not fuck up—what you know about burglary?”

  Dashan said, “Are you kidding? I’m a computer nerd.”

  “Okay. Let me think about this.”

  They drove around until they had a plan, though in the end it was all Daniel’s plan. Daniel had spent his life studying survival; Dashan had spent his bent over books. He could drive, Daniel thought.

  The first thing—to buy some time—was to cut the phone lines. That should be easy, as most public buildings have phone boxes outside. They went to buy supplies: wire cutters, coveralls, a couple of new caps. They already had plenty of guns.

  Daniel left Dashan in the car, sweat running down his cheeks. He’s not going to last, Daniel thought. I just hope he gets through this one.

  In his coveralls, cap, and shades—this time the reflecting kind—Daniel found the phone box and cut the wires. Then, toolbox in hand, he went to the principal’s office and asked for Shavonne Bourgeois’s room number.

  The secretary was a black woman of about thirty, with straightened hair and about sixty extra pounds. She had a round, pretty face and wore no makeup. She was chewing gum.

  She said, “If you need to leave something for her, I’ll see that it gets there.”

  Daniel might have argued with her, might even have tried to sweet-talk her, but there was no time for that. He said, “Take me to her, darlin’.”

  The woman looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t believe someone would talk to her like that.