House of Blues (47 page)

She had too much pride to ask anyone, even Cappello.
She'd never know.

Abasolo came by and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"
You okay?"

"
Great."

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

She gave him a big insincere smile. He squeezed a
little harder, as if to show he appreciated the effort.

Because Reed and Sally had been through a week-long
ordeal, and because all hell was breaking loose, Reed had been sent
home with her child rather than questioned. She'd been asked to
return at nine-thirty to give her statement.

By then Skip had had coffee and talked to Jimmy Dee,
who said, "Tiny, precious darling, why didn't you come over to
Dee-Dee's and cuddle up with a little white puppy? Whatever were you
thinking of, trying to go through a thing like that alone?"

"
I must have been crazy, Dee-Dee. Never again."

"
Certainly not, my angel. Certainly not. Come
tonight; now promise!" His voice was so stern she didn't dare
argue.

Reed arrived looking like the restaurant queen of New
Orleans, in a wheat silk suit with cream blouse, silver Thomas Mann
pendant set with a carnelian, and matching earrings. She seemed to
have made quite a recovery. Skip wondered what it must have been like
coming home to a husband who'd become a heroin addict; a mother who'd
apparently decided to take over the job Reed had worked for her whole
life. She wondered if Dennis would clean up again.

"Let's go to an interview room. I'll just get us
some privacy and we can do it pretty fast."

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able
to."

"
I beg your pardon?"

"
On advice of my attorney."

Oh, boy. Here we go. "I see. Is he meeting you
here?"

"
Do I need him? He said just to say—"

Skip didn't wait to hear the rest of the sentence.
She said: "You'd better call him."

In the end it shook down this way: Reed was perfectly
prepared to tell the story of the Dragons lair, and adamantly
unwilling to talk about her father's death. Dennis must have done it.
He laid it off on Evie, and Reed wouldn't ga along with it. But she
won't incriminate her husband.

Still, there was another witness.

Evie had been taken to Baptist, rather than Charity
Hospital, probably at Reed's behest. Skip rounded up Abasolo—she
wasn't doing this without a witness—and paid her a visit.

Evie had on no makeup, and her hair was matted, but
she must have gotten a night's sleep. She was pale and thin, but Skip
could see the beauty that had captured Dennis, and Maurice Gresham,
and Manny Lanoux.

She introduced herself and Abasolo.

"You're the one Anna locked up."

"Don't remind me."

"You saved us—Reed and me. And Sally too, I
heard. You know what? Anna Garibaldi always did scare the shit out of
me. Long before this happened. She fell for the kid, though—I never
saw anything like it. She was all gloppy and goopy around her—like
caramel sauce or something. You could throw up."

Abasolo gave Skip an amused glance.

"
Is Sally okay?" Evie asked.

Skip nodded. "Fine. How about you?"

"
My throat hurts like a son of a bitch. The
smoke, they said. I can talk, though, as long as I keep sucking ice."
She pointed to a glass of ice chips, and helped herself to one.

"We want to talk to you, but I need to tell you
a few things first." Skip gave her the Miranda warning.

"Am I under arrest?" Evie asked calmly.

"Yes. Do you want an attorney?"

Evie waved a hand, pursing her lips impatiently.
"Hell, no."

"You're waiving your right to an attorney?"

"Yeah. Later for that crap."

Skip wasn't going to argue. "Tell us what
happened a week ago Monday night."

Evie sat back and sighed, and blew out her cheeks.
"Do I have to? It's too embarrassing."

That's the least of it. "I think you'd better."

"
That's the night I got drunk and decided to
reclaim my long-lost child. Pretty brilliant, huh?"

Abasolo smiled. He had a way about him.

"I don't know what got into me. I swear to God I
don't."

"
I do," said Abasolo. "I'm a drunk
from way back."

"Oh, no. You're not going to give me that Twelve
Step crap, are you?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. I mean, unless you
want me to."

She hesitated, once again waved a hand. "Ehhhh,
save it."

"What happened, Evie?"

"They let me in, and I demanded my fucking
maternal rights."

Skip could have sworn Evie's cheeks got slightly
pinker, as if she were blushing at the memory. "What was I
thinking of? I know less about children than W.C. Fields."

I don't cure what you were thinking of. Just tell the
story, goddammit. Skip thought she was going to pop, but Abasolo
nodded and gave Evie a polite smile.

Like he's flirting, Skip thought. God, he's good.

She shrugged. "Dennis tried to get the gun away
from me. Do you blame him?"

Very deliberately, Evie made eye contact with
Abasolo, who shook his head this time.

"We struggled—little me and great big Dennis.
I mean, I was commode—huggin'. I probably thought I could win. And
to tell you the truth, I almost did." She hesitated. "It
gets a little fuzzy. Anyway, I thought I was winning, but somehow or
other, the gun flew across the room. I mean, flew. Like it was shot
out of a cannon.

"Then it got really weird. When I think back on
it, it doesn't make sense. Reed picked the gun up, and Daddy tried to
get it from her. I mean, that's not the part I don't get—that was
just like Daddy. A hundred percent like him." Her face twisted
with dislike.

"Controlling goddamn bastard. You know how bad
he is? When I was in high school, we got this new electric can
opener. So I came home one day and said, ‘How do you work this?'
Grady showed me—he was always handy with stuff like that. You know
I have a brother, Grady?"

Skip nodded.

"But Daddy was in the kitchen, see. Getting some
iced tea or something. I started doing it, and I was a little slow
catching on. I didn't put the can in right and it was opening crooked
or something. I took it out and put it in again, but it still wasn't
quite right. Grady said, ‘That's right, you've just got to move it
a little to the left.' So I reached up to do that, and I felt someone
come up behind me, cover my body entirely with his body, so I
couldn't move, and just take the can out of my hand.

"
It was Daddy, of course. He said, ‘Neither
one of you can do a damn thing right,' and he stood there, with me
trapped between him and the kitchen counter, and opened the damn can.
What do you think of a man like that?"

Abasolo said, "Ummm." Skip shook her head,
as if in disbelief.

She thought: How awful to have spent thirty-odd years
being a father and have nothing more to show for it.

"Back to Monday night," she said.

"Well, I've had pretty much time to think about
it, see it from Reed's point of view, and I swear to God I know how
she felt. I swear to God I'd have done the same thing if it had been
me."

Skip waited, heart pounding.

"Anyway, he said, 'Give me the gun,' and he
reached for it, but she kind of waves it and says, 'I'll handle it,
Dad. Keep out of the way.' So he yells at her: 'Give it to me, Reed!'
and she turns to him for a minute, which is good for me—I'm
thinking maybe I can make some progress while she's distracted.

"What happened was, she says, 'It's my kid. Get
out of the way.' I mean, she yells it, actually. Let's face it, we
were all getting pretty excited.

"So what do I do, I take advantage of the
situation, get to Sally, grab her, and then I hear the gun go off I
think I'm dead, right? And Sally starts in like somebody's tearing
her apart. But I don't feel a thing and I look over there, and
blood's coming out of Daddy's leg like a fountain—way high up—I
mean, like right at the crotch. And he looks—I can't even describe
it—he's just got the most surprised look I've ever seen on a human
being. Somehow—I'm not sure what happened exactly—but the table
went over, and then I heard another shot. And Daddy went down."

She stopped, but Skip prompted. "Then what?"

"Well, something weird. Dennis said, 'Reed!' in
a weird voice. You know what voice I mean? Like when a kid's done
something wrong. You know, like you say, 'Sally!' if she throws her
supper on the floor. You know what I mean? Like Reed was a real bad
little girl.

"Anyhow, he said that, and then Reed yelled
back, 'Goddammit, he should have gotten out of the way.' I figured
they were going to argue for a while, so I took Sally and split."

"Taking the gun, of course."

"Are you kidding? What did I need the gun for?
And how the hell was I going to get it? I just turned around and ran.
Wouldn't you have?"

"Who shot your father, Evie?"

"What?" Evie looked bewildered.

"
You're lying. What really happened?"

Comprehension dawned in her eyes, but puzzlement came
out of her mouth. "Goddamn, motherfucker." It was an
expression of amazement, not an epithet. "You don't believe me."

"Why should I believe you? You're a drunk,
you're a junkie, you're a kidnapper—you're a murderer too, aren't
you?"

"I haven't been a junkie in years, goddammit!"

"But you are a murderer."

"You're trying to fuck me, aren't you?"

"Get real, Evie. You weren't the only one in
that room."

"
Oh." Evie let that sink in a minute. "That
bitch Reed wants to let me take the rap. Just when I
thought—goddammit! or course they'd play it that way. Of course. I
was always dirt to them and I still. A tear formed at the corner of
her eye. "Fucking Dennis too, I guess."

Skip felt unbearably sorry for her. She almost didn't
blame her for snatching Sally: A baby doesn't judge and doesn't
betray. As long as you feed it, it has to love you. There's nothing
else in its world.

Evie didn't speak for a
while, obviously making an effort to pull herself together. When she
did, she said, "I want a lawyer."

* * *

On the way back to headquarters, Abasolo did his best
to be consoling: "Maybe the gun'll turn up in the debris of
Anna's house."

But it didn't.

Nor was it in the car Evie had driven, or the one
Reed had driven.

Anna denied that either she or her thugs had taken a
gun from either of the women. Maurice Gresham—now in the throes of
a massive Internal Affairs investigation—also denied it.

Dennis had undoubtedly disposed of it—either sold
it to buy drugs or chucked it to protect Reed.

In the ensuing days, Skip brought him in repeatedly
for questioning, and she brought Reed back as well. Still Dennis
insisted Evie had shot her father—though Skip could swear he now
looked sheepish when he said it—and still Reed said nothing, though
she becarne red in the face and she sweated under questioning. Her
foot tapped the floor and she shredded more than one tissue.

One day, when Skip was spending an unproductive hour
with her, she caught an expression, a set of her mouth, that reminded
her of Anna Garibaldi, and she realized something that astonished
her:

They're practically the same person.

They both went into the family business, where
they were totally subservient to the men.

They're both good little girls who never for a
second stepped out of line; just conformed to the prevailing culture
and waited for pats on the head.

Did what they were supposed to do, and volunteered
for more. Suffered put-downs every day and worked all the harder to
be a credit to their sex. Probably built up a storehouse of
resentment someone like me couldn't begin to comprehend. I'd have
blown up the damned fish company. Burned the restaurant down. They
just bowed a little lower, and scraped a little deeper.

Then one day they both rebelled.

Big-time.

Evie, under further questioning, only grew more
rocklike, though a sullenness entered her demeanor, especially on
days when she seemed to be suffering a hangover.

Susan Belvedere, the Deputy D.A. assigned to the
case, was married to a man who had dated Reed in tenth grade and said
she wouldn't hurt a fly—she'd be too sure she was going to hell for
it. Yet Susan believed Evie's story with the fervor of Skip herself.
Long before she began her aggressive questioning of Evie, before Evie
even got as far as the can opener, Skip had had a feeling. Evie was
too relaxed, too easily waived her right to an attorney, to be
worried about a murder charge.