Crescent City Connection (17 page)

And in the morning, the answer was obvious—she’d have to stay here till her mother got back from Mexico. Jacqueline wasn’t good for much, but she could probably get Lovelace out of this one.

But how to make it through till then? Isaac obviously couldn’t afford to support her, and anyway, she had to have something to do. She’d done temp work before and she could do it again.

She found a coffeehouse, where she perused newspaper ads, and from which she made a quick call to her roommate.

Michelle squealed. “Omigod. You’re alive.”

“Have you reported me missing?”

“I didn’t till yesterday afternoon, but by then I was out of my mind. I hope I did right. They said you’d been called home unexpectedly.”

“And you believed that?”

“I’ve been tearing my hair out, Lovie. I called your house in Florida and nobody answered. Tomorrow I was going to go to the cops—or at least a shrink.”

“Well, I’m okay, but this is dicey.” She ran down what had happened, and then admonished Michelle not to breathe a word to the authorities even if they tied her up and tortured her.

“Hey, no problem. I never heard of you. The last thing I want is your grandfather in my life.”

That done, Lovelace registered at three different employment agencies, and spent the rest of the day prowling around. She hadn’t been to New Orleans before, and she found it had a strange, languid air to it, an anything-can-happen kind of feeling. It was a hot day—much too hot for March—but she found herself oddly energized, excited somehow. By what, she wondered? The weather? It made her feel languid and sexy and kind of exuberant, but she didn’t think that was what the excitement was all about. It was partly the beauty of the architecture—Lovelace wanted desperately to go to Paris, which she hoped would look like this. It was partly the beauty and the foreignness, and partly the weather, too. But there was also a kind of
rife
feel—as if every moment was a bud that could open up into some wonderfully unexpected flower, something as exotic as it was irresistible, something lush and bruised and dangerous. She thought it no accident that so many vampire stories had been set here.

She walked by the river, strolled the French Quarter, and explored the Faubourg Marigny. She felt something like an American in Paris and something like a time traveler. Who she didn’t feel like was Lovelace Jacomine, conscientious (if not brilliant) student at a midwestern university. This place was nothing like Evanston and nothing like Florida and nothing like anywhere she’d been.

The next day she was in an ordinary, airless office, filing for an oil company.

By ten
A.M.
she started to cough; by noon she was sure she was choking. It was the mold, people said—in a city this old, it got to you. If you had allergies, they kicked up; if you didn’t, they kicked in.

She went out at lunch and had an extraordinary thing called crawfish bisque and then, because she was intrigued, the dessert they called bread pudding. Every bite was an adventure and not only because she liked the stuff—because she was trying to figure out how it was done.

Partly because her mother was so lame, Lovelace was a good cook—someone in the family had to be. As she was trying to figure out how you turned day-old French bread into the dessert she was eating, it suddenly occurred to her that there were other ways to make a living besides slaving in an office.

She went back to finish the afternoon’s work, feeling not nearly so choked. The frog started to leave her throat, her voice to return to normal.

She finished out the week at the oil company because Lovelace was conscientious by nature—and because she needed the money.

Meanwhile, she read the ads and even applied for a restaurant job or two, but she knew she wasn’t going to get them—she didn’t know how to fake the references.

She also felt weird about trying to fake the work itself. How did you translate little quantities into big ones? Just for openers. She was sure there was a lot of professional stuff she’d be expected to know that she didn’t. But it occurred to her she didn’t have to work for a restaurant. All she needed was a job cooking. Maybe for an old lady or an old man who couldn’t manage anymore. She daydreamed about the kind of house her employer would live in—ten thousand square feet in the Garden District, perhaps; rooms no one had entered for years; dust an inch thick on the ancestral brocades; a garden that was a tangle of ancient climbing roses choking out sedate camellias.

Of course, she’d probably have to cook on a woodstove.

But who else would need a cook?

Maybe a young family with a mom like hers—one who was never home. A divorced lawyer or doctor, somebody like that. White canvas at the windows instead of precious tatters. Maybe she could even live in.

On Sunday the ad ran in the Times-Picayune for exactly the kind of job she wanted: “Part-time cook for family of four. No Louisiana dishes. Low fat.”

Her heart pounded like John Henry’s hammer. She didn’t answer the ad.

ONE GOOD THING about working with the FBI—they were everywhere. Skip and Shellmire stayed in Atlanta while special agents in Chicago checked out Lovelace Jacomine. Skip was waiting in a conference room when her partner came in. “She’s not at Northwestern. Her dad told them she’d come home unexpectedly.”

“Daniel phoned them?” It sounded far too pat.

“He’s her dad, right?”

Skip was irritated. “Well, where’s home?”

“Fort Lauderdale, according to their records.”

“And have your crack agents been there yet?”

“We should have a report in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, they did talk to her roommate, whom they found uncooperative. They think she knows somethin’.”

“What’s her name?”

“Michelle Greene.”

“They just questioned her a little and took no for an answer? That was it?”

“Not exactly. That’s where we come in. Apparently, she never reported Lovelace missing—what does that say to you?”

“She knows where Lovelace is.”

“Yeah. She’s so hinky they didn’t want to let her go, but what were they gonna do? She hasn’t committed a crime or anything. They want to know what we want to do about her.”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to see her. Want to come?”

He laughed. “I kind of thought you’d say that. But no thanks. You’re the Jacomine expert.”

She called Cappello to say she was going—didn’t ask; told her. There was no question of being sent—the department didn’t have the money for a trip like this. Skip would have to pay for it herself, and, given that, Cappello wasn’t about to put her foot down.

She got lucky and got a flight almost right away. The agent who met her in Chicago had a report on the Fort Lauderdale end—the neighbors said no one was home, and apparently no one had been for weeks. He took her to Michelle Greene.

Shellmire had briefed her on everything in Michelle’s school records—she was from Charlotte, North Carolina, where her father was a banker and her mother was a lawyer. She’d been a straight-A student in high school and president of the student body. At Northwestern, she was doing well, and in her spare time, she did fund-raising for AIDS research. In short, she was the kind of girl who probably had no reason to think she didn’t own the Earth.

Still, if anyone could intimidate her, it was the FBI.

She was a bit crumpled right now, at least so far as her posture went. But her blond hair still looked shiny, her eyes were bright, and the close-fitting T-shirt that came just to the top of her jeans was fresh as ever. It was chartreuse.

Skip could see the girl’s exhaustion, but she didn’t have an impression of much else before she introduced herself—all she knew was that something changed immediately. Michelle sat up straighter, seemed suddenly alert.

She had said, “Hi, Michelle. I’m Detective Skip Langdon, New Orleans Police Department.”

She wondered if Lovelace had known about her, remembered her from the earlier case involving her grandfather, and mentioned her to her roommate. “You know me?”

The girl shook her head, looking confused.

“I thought Lovelace might have mentioned me.”

“No. May I see your badge?”

“Sure.”

Michelle examined it in detail. Hardly anyone ever did that. It was New Orleans, then—perhaps that meant something to her.

Playing the hunch, she said, “You know who Lovelace’s grandfather is?”

Michelle stiffened, and seemed to grow paler. She nodded.

“He’s wanted for murder. You know that.”

The girl only blinked.

“He kidnapped my niece and almost had her killed.”

Once again, she saw Michelle react. Her body swayed backward slightly, as if she’d been struck by an invisible fist.

“What is it, Michelle?”

The girl shook her head.

“Listen, this is no time to keep girlish secrets. Lovelace isn’t in trouble, she’s in danger. This is not a guy who messes around.”

The last sentence was true, anyway. As for the rest, for all Skip knew, Lovelace was even now cleaning her rifle, having mowed down Nolan Bazemore.

“What sort of danger?”

“Suppose you tell me.”

“You know what I hate about cops? You expect everybody to spill their guts and you never give anything away.”

“Okay, that’s off your chest. It’s the nature of the job, and there’s nothing either you or I can do about it. I repeat, your friend’s in danger. You want to help or you want to waste time we could use trying to get her out of it?”

The girl looked almost sheepish for a second and then regained her composure. “I prefer being treated with respect.”

Skip chose to take it as a bargaining point—to give the girl what she asked for, as she might give another witness a cigarette. She had a feeling this one was dying to talk—all she needed was an excuse.

She sat down. She’d been standing, in fact standing close, invading Michelle’s space and making her look up. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “Listen, let me tell you something about myself and what I think. I’ve had several encounters with Michelle’s grandfather and he’s slightly less dangerous than Hitler, I’d say, but quite a bit nastier than Charles Manson, whom he resembles in certain ways.”

“What ways?”

Michelle was trying to take control of the interview, and Skip was willing to let her have it for a while. There was no harm repeating public information. “He’s a nasty little man with a strange charisma I don’t understand—but that seems to attract people who want to be told what to do.” She smiled. “Nobody like you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not everybody sitting in an interrogation room at the federal building is quite so uppity.”

Michelle blushed. “Well, I—”

“You’re obviously an intelligent person in charge of her life, and you’re right—I should treat you like one. So here’s the story—he’s wanted for murder, and anybody he’s close to or who he’s ever been close to could be in danger. You could be in danger, just because you know Lovelace.”

“What about Lovelace’s dad?”

“What about him?”

“Where does he fit into this?”

Somewhere
, Skip thought.
Or else why’d you bring him up?
She said, “You asked me to treat you with respect and I’m going to ask the same thing of you. Frankly, I think you mentioned him because you know more about that than I do. Look, Michelle, your roommate’s been gone for days and you never reported it to anybody.”

“I told your—colleagues—” she said the word as if it were “servants” “—that she told me she was going home for a while. To me, she wasn’t missing. So why would I report her missing?”

“Why would she go home in the middle of the semester?”

“She needed a break.” Michelle looked uncomfortable, as if wondering how far to go.

“About that respect you mentioned—excuse me, how dumb do you think I am?”

“That’s what happened.” Now she was sullen, a little girl who’d been lectured.

She’d been telling the same story for hours and didn’t seem about to deviate. Skip did what every police officer hates doing almost more than anything else—gave her a piece of information: “No one’s home in Fort Lauderdale. Where do you think she is?”

“How would I know?” She flailed her arms, irritated.

That was the wrong reaction. “Aren’t you surprised to hear she isn’t where she said she was going?”

“She could have gone there and left.”

“Look, maybe you think cops are dumb.”

“No, I—”

“You aren’t surprised because you already knew. You know where she is, Michelle. And she’s very likely in danger.
Very
likely. I don’t care what she told you about her grandfather, or about anything she’s doing—the plain truth is, he’s a homicidal maniac. Is she your friend or isn’t she? It’s that simple. If she is, talk to me.”

“You really think it has something to do with her grandfather?”

“You think it has something to do with her dad. He called the school and said she was at home. She isn’t. He’s a man with no known address. Am I getting through to you?”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“She’s in over her head, Michelle. She needs somebody to pull her out.”

The girl put her hand to her mouth and nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

Skip waited, not saying anything, letting the girl gather her thoughts.

“Her dad kidnapped her and drugged her. But she got away. She’s okay.”

“How do you know that, Michelle?”

“She called and told me. And said not to tell anyone. To keep it quiet.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“She had … problems, once. She was depressed. Spent time in a psychiatric hospital. She thinks her dad can use that against her any time he wants—he can just say she’s suicidal or something, or she’s crazy, and people’ll believe him instead of her.”

“Look. The FBI isn’t trying to track her down because her dad says she has mental problems—that should be obvious, shouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t make sense.” She was finally working it out.

Skip said, “Where is she, Michelle?”

“She’s with her Uncle Isaac. In New Orleans.”

“Her Uncle Isaac?”

“Yeah. Is he—uh—involved with her grandfather?”