Mean Woman Blues

by Smith, Julie

  “Promise me.”

  “Who was that first guy— the one on Chartres Street?”

  “Neil. Neil Gibson, like Mel. Real easy name to remember. He bought fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stuff from us.”

  Skip felt slightly sick.

  Joe said, “I gave you something; now you give me something. I want to make a deal.”

  “Give us the other names, and we’re through here. We can take a break.”

  “Can I have another cigarette?”

  “Two names, Joe, and then we’re through.”

  The man hunched over, thinking, and came up with a face full of fury. “Fuck you cunts! Just fuck you! I try to cooperate, and you just take advantage.”

  Hagerty burst in, her voice soothing. “Now take it easy, Joe. You just take it easy.”

  “Fuck you! I want a lawyer.”

  Sometimes it went like that. Out of the blue, they got scared and balked. Skip and Hagerty tried to cajole him, but in the end they had to give up and let him call his lawyer. But they’d gotten a lot— more than they had a right to count on. Hagerty was excited. “Skip, this is gonna be big. A whole lot bigger than we thought.”

  “I gotta go talk to A. A.”

  “What’s wrong? Hey, we did great in there.”

  She went to find Abasolo. “Okay, here’s what we got. Three Mr. Bigs, and we know the name of one of them.”

  “What about the other two?”

  “He clammed up. Asked for a lawyer.”

  “Shit. Let’s see how LeDoux’s doing with Jerome.”

  “A.A., wait a minute. I know the guy.”

  “What you know Mr. Big? Who is he?”

  “Antique dealer named Neil Gibson. He’s a friend of Jimmy Dee and Layne’s; I’ve had dinner with him.”

  “Christ!”

  “I’ve been to his Mardi Gras party. I can’t work this case.”

  “That’s all? Dinner and a party? That’s the whole thing? That’s no conflict.”

  “A.A., I just can’t do it. I couldn’t look Jimmy Dee in the eye.”

  “Langdon, look at me. This is your old buddy, AA. They love you out in TV-land. Christ the mayor loves you. You can do it, and you’re gonna do it. You’re gonna get a search warrant and if you find anything, you’re gonna slap the cuffs on him and bring him in. This city needs that, you understand? We need a victory. We need a bigger budget for more recruits. We gotta get better equipment. How do you think we’re going to get it? Here’s how: You’re going to be our little Cemetery Angel.”

  “You don’t get it: People love Neil Gibson too. It’s going to be divisive.”

  “Who loves him? Rich, white, Quarter rats? Everybody else is gonna hate him.”

  “Oh, hell. It doesn’t matter.” It didn’t if he was guilty; he was just like anybody else, no matter whose friend he was. “All right, A.A. Whatever you say.”

  She got the warrant, served it, found stolen art, and marched her pal Neil down Chartres Street in handcuffs. It was one of the worst moments of her career.

  She got the two others too— William Marks and Michael Layburn, also prominent antique dealers. Layburn was the biggest catch of all: A well-known preservationist, he was particularly active in Save Our Cemeteries.

  Whether A. A. gave them the nickname or they made it up, the media did dub her the Cemetery Angel.

  She could have died.

  Almost the worst part was losing her decorator. Jimmy Dee just didn’t have the stomach for it anymore; she had to make do with the burly straight guys. One of them picked up Dee-Dee’s idea for Mardi Gras beads and music, though he chose marching tunes instead of Bach. Despite Skip’s own conflicts, the Madonna Market opened on such a festive note that she was able to muster up the requisite smile wreaths.

  She dressed carefully for the occasion, in a plum-colored pantsuit that brought out her green eyes. Her job, she figured, was to be a hostess. It wasn’t all bad. People cried when they found their lost possessions; some of them hugged her.

  It was nearly noon when a young woman approached her with a picture of a lost statue, a little boy who looked too sweet to be real, dressed in some kind of elaborate, maybe Victorian, outfit. She was nearly frantic. “I can’t find Billy. Billy just ain’t here.”

  This was the down side. A lot of the stolen stuff would never be recovered. But there was something unusual about this young woman: She was the only black person in the place. Skip noted this only in passing— no time to worry about it now— and grabbed another officer, one of her burly decorators. “Hey, have you seen this statue?”

  He screwed up his face. “I think so. It sure looks familiar.”

  “Got any idea where it might be?”

  “Let me look in the back.” Seeing the avid look on the woman’s face, he made his escape.

  Skip was trying to think of something comforting to say to her when she felt someone’s presence, someone listening just over her shoulder. It was Kevin O’Malley, a new kid from the Times-Picayune, whom Skip had just met. He was trying to horn in on the conversation. Seeing his notebook, the young woman took the opportunity to glom on. “Hey, you a reporter? Could you help me— just listen a minute. I can’t find my mama’s Billy. Please talk to me. Maybe you could publish this—” She held up the picture. “Maybe somebody know where he is.”

  The kid lit up. He’d found exactly what he wanted, or thought he had. Skip felt slightly uneasy about the woman, but Kevin was a big boy. If the woman’s story rang false, it was up to him to figure it out. Skip left the two of them alone and moved on. It was only a tiny vignette in a very long day, forgotten in an instant, remembered only when she saw the next day’s paper.

  Once again, the Times-Picayune made a hero out of her. The paper ran plenty of pictures of crying people, so overcome by finding their wandering statues you’d have thought they were all Michelangelos. As a sidebar, it also ran a piece about people who’d been disappointed, including the young woman looking for “Billy.” The reporter had granted the supplicant’s wish and published Billy in all his glory. If Skip hadn’t been so cynical, it would have brought a tear to her eye.

  But cynic that she was, she didn’t give it a thought until that afternoon, when she got a call from Kevin O’Malley. “Hey, guess what? I found Billy.”

  She pricked up her ears. There could be something in this for her. “Congratulations. That’s great.”

  “And I’ve got something else for you— a whole new cache of cemetery art.”

  “No kidding.” She picked up a pencil; this could be good.

  “Yeah, we ran the picture, and we got a tip about where he was. I went over there to take a look, and no one was home, so I, you know, kind of peeked over the fence. And there it was, all this stuff, just sitting there in some guy’s backyard.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks for calling. I’ll go over and take a look. Where is it?”

  “Five eighty-nine Spain Street.” Skip could hear papers raiding somewhere in the station. An ordinary sound, but at the moment it seemed to come from a great great distance. Her whole life had just split apart. “Some guy named Steve Steinman owns the building.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Skip had only a moment of pure fatalistic understanding— the sort you might have if you looked up and saw a meterorite headed for Earth— before the news hit her bloodstream like a jolt of caffeine. Her heart accelerated and her stomach flipped over. She went into hyperspeed.

  First, she fished the morning paper out of the trash and checked for the woman’s name and address: Mary Jones, 4805 St. Charles. A black curtain seemed to fall around her; she knew there was no Mary Jones at that address, but she had to go through the motions. First she tried the phone book, then she took a ride. The house was a mansion, as were all the dwellings on this part of the showiest street in New Orleans. Ringing the bell with little hope, Skip was greeted by an African-American woman in a maid’s uniform. She didn’t even bother to smile and make her manners. Just blurted, “I�
�m looking for Mary Jones.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “This the Gerson residence.”

  Skip produced her badge. “Police,” she said. “May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Gerson?”

  There followed an uncomfortable twenty minutes in which Skip tried to pry coherent answers from a half-potted Mrs. Gerson, with help from the maid, a Hazel Brown, both of them, in the end, agreeing that no Mary Jones nor in fact any Jones at all had ever worked there, nor was Hazel herself related to a Mary Jones.

  It was about what Skip had expected. Hazel could have an acquaintance, even a daughter, who knew the address through her. Or “Mary Jones” could have made it up out of whole cloth.

  On the way back to the Third District, she cursed Kevin O’Malley for not suspecting something, but on the other hand, what did it matter to him what the woman’s address was? She had a great story to tell; who cared whether it was true? No one could get hurt by it.

  Skip pounded into Abasolo’s office and closed the door. “A.A. I’ve been set up.” She knew what was going to happen, but she was too mad to be afraid, even for Steve. “You know that stupid story this morning about the missing statue named Billy? The reporter just found it. Acting on an anonymous tip, he went to a certain address, climbed a fence, and found a cache of what he suspects to be stolen cemetery art, including the statue of Billy. Guess whose address?”

  “Skip, for Christ’s sake, quit pacing. Sit down and try to calm down.”

  “Steve Steinman’s, Adam. My boyfriend’s.”

  Abasolo whistled and sunk down in his chair. “Have you checked it out?”

  “Are you kidding? I checked out the woman, but no way am I going over to Steve’s alone; for all I know, the T-P’s got photographers lying in wait. Steve’s in L.A., by the way. The last time I saw him was three days ago, and there was no statuary of any kind in his backyard. And, no, I haven’t phoned him.”

  “Do it now, with me as a witness. We’ve got to get permission to search. Don’t tell him what it’s about.”

  “Shit!”

  “Skip, calm down, for God’s sake. We’ve got to do it by the book.”

  For all his talk of calm, she noticed a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  She made the call, and they were out of there, on the way calling for a district car to meet them there. (A.A. thought of everything: “What if the T-P team is there? You want to look like a couple of dirty cops sneaking around?”)

  But the street was its usual quiet self. Skip let them in with her key, and when they opened the back door, the sight that greeted them caused the same words to issue from both pairs of lips: “Oh, shit.”

  The backyard was littered with urns and statues, crosses and gates, even a couple of the prized metal chairs. “Billy” was there, of course, but he was way beside the point. The point was, they’d been had or Kevin O’Malley had, and it was going to rebound nastily on Skip and Abasolo— and poor Steve.

  “All right,” A.A. said. “Here’s what we do. As of now, the task force is disbanded; neither you nor Hagerty nor LeDoux is to speak to any of the prisoners again. We’ll impound this stuff tonight and hope no media show up to whip our asses. No matter what happens, from now on, you refer all press inquiries to me. Oh, and one more thing: Tell Steinman to get his ass on the next plane back to town.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  She thought it through. A warrant could be issued for his arrest; that was why.

  They left the district officers to guard the trove, and, on the ride back, Abasolo called the chief to break the news that his great PR coup had become a disaster.

  When he was off the phone, Skip said, “Adam, thanks for sticking by me.”

  Abasolo said nothing. Again, his jaw worked.

  She couldn’t let it go. “You, uh, think maybe I helped myself while I was setting up the warehouse? You know Steve was out of town. So it would have been just me. Acting alone.”

  “Okay, for the record: How did that stuff get there?”

  “Somebody climbed over the gate, opened it, and unloaded a track.”

  “Why not you? You’re even friends with one of the suspects.”

  “He’s an acquaintance, not a friend.” She couldn’t believe Abasolo hadn’t gotten it. Absolutely couldn’t conceive of it. The scam was so obvious to her she hadn’t even bothered to spell it out. She pulled his own trick on him: “Think about it.”

  He didn’t speak until they got back to the station, and when he did, it was with resignation. “Jacomine.”

  She was cut to the bone. “You actually suspected me, A. A.?”

  He laughed. “Hell, no, Skip. You acted properly on this; you had no reason to come to me unless it really went down the way you say it did.”

  “Well, why’d you take so long thinking it over?”

  “I was just trying to think if it could have been anybody else. I guess it could have been— Neil Gibson, for instance. He knows who your boyfriend is, right?”

  “Right. And he might have had another cache of stuff he could have moved to Steve’s backyard, but, as a practical matter, who’d move it? All his crime buddies are in jail.”

  “He could find somebody. And it would be a hell of a lot better for us if it played out that way.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  “But we have to prepare for the possibility that it’s a blind alley. You can see exactly how the shit’s going to fly.”

  The expression seemed woefully inadequate when she looked ahead; the thing coming at her was more like an avalanche than a sewage shower. It began the next morning, with the publication of a picture of Steve’s backyard, probably obtained by climbing the same fence the dog poisoner used. The picture identified the home owner and included the information that he wasn’t available for comment.

  By the time Skip got to work, Kevin O’Malley had left her half a dozen messages. Foolishly, she picked up when the phone rang again. It was O’Malley: “Why didn’t you tell me Steve Steinman was your boyfriend?”

  That just killed her. Talk about your stupid questions. “Good morning to you too, Kevin.” Ever consider that I’m having a worse one than you are? “I’m referring all press inquiries to Sergeant Adam Abasolo. Let me transfer you.”

  She did so with an odd feeling of numbness in her fingers. Two days ago she was the department’s golden girl. Now she was officially dirty.

  Hagerty and LeDoux were like a couple of Rottweilers penned up in the middle of a sheep herd. They kept throwing themselves against their cage, stomping all over the station growling and barking. Skip had hardly put down the phone when they rampaged into her office. “Skip, we were set up!” Hagerty yelled, her voice shrill. “None of us ever saw that stupid Billy statue. We never had the damn thing! We all worked on the warehouse. We were there all the time; nobody could have walked off with anything. And we’ve got a really good inventory. We can prove nothing happened.” She took a breath through flared nostrils. “Goddamn Gibson! That’s who it was, wasn’t it? Viper in your goddamn midst.” She was pacing and waving her hands.

  LeDoux sat instead, still and deadly. “Somebody’s going down over this one,” he rumbled.

  “Guys, I appreciate the ‘we’ part but I’m the one who’s been set up.”

  “We should have known; none of our other victims are black. Hell, black people didn’t have that kind of money in those days. Some of those things date back to slave days. After that they didn’t go in for damn cemetery statues, what little money they did have.” Ledoux gave the word a kind of derisive emphasis, as if he was suddenly over angels and madonnas. “We should have known when we saw that woman.”

  In a way, Skip had known, at least that something was out of whack— perhaps they all had— but no one could say it; no one had even thought it through. She said, “What were we going to do? Treat her different because she was black?”

  “We just should have suspected something,” LeDoux grumped.

  Hagert
y said, “Damn, I hate this. Yeah, you were the one set up, but it reflects on all of us, goddammit. Like we couldn’t even protect the stuff. Like we’re as goddamn corrupt as everybody thinks.”

  It was true. Especially the part about what everybody thought. All the average reader would think was “corrupt police.” Which could work to Skip’s advantage; the department would pull out all the stops on this one, and not just for her.

  Skip thought for a minute. “We’re disbanded, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do a few things. Adam’s got people interrogating the prisoners now. We could try to find Mary Jones.”

  LeDoux snorted. “She probably comes from some neighborhood where people would rather take a bullet than talk to the po-lice.”

  “We could try to connect her to Hazel Brown; there might be a reason she gave the address she did, like maybe she didn’t think she’d be asked. Maybe it was the only one she knew that wasn’t her own.”

  Hagerty said, “There’s something about that Brown-Jones thing. Damn similar names. I’m willing to work on it.”

  Skip raised an eyebrow at LeDoux. “Danny?”

  “Hell. I’m just gon’ go find me somebody to kill.”

  Skip would have liked to work on Mary Jones herself, but Abasolo had strictly forbidden her to have anything at all to do with the case, and she had to agree with him. One false move and the already-dirty cop was covered in the aforementioned sewage.

  She tried to get back to her other cases, the things that had seemed so important a month ago, but all she could think about was Jacomine. Gibson really could have set her up; he was out on bail and easily had the means. But what good it would do him, she wasn’t sure. Jacomine, on the other hand, would do anything to take her out. Till now, she’d never considered anything like this; she’d thought only of violence from Jacomine.

  But it had his signature on it— a petty deviousness that would embarrass a child, coupled with a thoroughness that would do the marines proud. It would take several people to do it, and he’d always been good at getting volunteer armies together.