Mean Woman Blues (29 page)

One of the soldiers— feds, she knew, but they looked like soldiers— walked up to the car, and said, “It’s clear.”

“Where’s your husband?” her captor asked.

“My husband? He’s at work,” she said stupidly. “Why? What’s this about?”

The man who’d cuffed her read her her rights.

They drove her to the federal building, took her inside, took off the handcuffs, and left her in a room, alone. She was too numb even to cry.

After a long while, two men came into the room, with a woman, a tall woman with wild, curly hair. They didn’t bother to introduce themselves. The woman looked familiar.

One of the men said, “Mrs. David Wright?”

She knew she didn’t have to answer, but maybe things would go easier if she did. Still, she was furious. “That’s a matter of record,” she snapped.

“Very well. We’d like to ask you some questions, Mrs. Wright. Before we start I’m going to read you your rights.”

“Somebody already did.”

“We’re going to do it again.”

Oh, God, she didn’t want to listen again. She could ask for a lawyer right away and end the session, but she was out of her mind with anxiety— absolutely couldn’t sit there till a lawyer arrived. When the second man had finished, she snapped again, “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

“Sure. It’s about harboring a fugitive.”

“What fugitive? What are you talking about? We’ve never even had a houseguest.”

One of the men spoke kindly. He was a rumpled man, a little soft-looking, not what she imagined an FBI agent would look like. “Are you aware that your husband uses an alias?”

“You mean Mr. Right? The name he uses on television?”

The other man sneered.

“No, David Wright. Are you aware of his other name?”

“What other name?”

“Errol,” the nice one said.

“Errol? Errol Wright?”

“Errol Jacomine.”

“Errol Jacomine?” She came suddenly alert. “I know who that is. That’s the guy from New Orleans who… uh…” She couldn’t think what he’d done, exactly. “Wait a minute! Isn’t he a serial killer or something?” She looked at the woman, and saw on her face a look of such misery, such tragedy, that she had to look away. She knew that it was for her. It was not the woman’s misery; it was hers. The woman was suffering on her account. And at that moment she began to grasp what had happened to her.

She needed to say it: “You think that my husband is Errol Jacomine?” She was aware that Jacomine had never been caught.

The woman looked as if she were about to cry.

“How long have you known him?”

She shrugged self-consciously, suddenly feeling stupid and gullible. “Almost a year. We were married two months ago. We met on his show.” The words seemed to march out of her mouth on their own, like some strange little parade. Two months with a perfect stranger? She looked at the woman’s face and she thought about the night he hit her, the way his eyes had narrowed, become mean little slits. Animal eyes. At the time, she’d thought,
This is a stranger.
Thought it, and at the same time not allowed herself to think it.

She looked at the woman’s face, and she knew that the face didn’t lie. “Omigod,” she said. “Omigod.”

Remember to breathe
, she told herself.

“I don’t know his people. He said he was the last of his family.” And then a ray of hope shot through her. “No, wait. He has pictures. Of him and Rosemarie Owens’s husband… I forget his first name. He can’t be Errol Jacomine; he was in Dallas all that time… when… uh… He can’t be Errol Jacomine. He knows people.”

“What people?”

She searched her memory. “Rosemarie! She’s a very well-known woman in town. My family knows her. He was in her crowd.”

“Shit!” someone said, one of the men, maybe both of them.

Karen was remembering that she and David had been to Owens’s house, the two of them, and that David knew everyone there. He was no stranger; he had friends, he had bona fides. It was all a big mistake. She was about to say more, but no one was interested anymore. The other three were exchanging glances. The bad cop— the unrumpled one— got up and left the room.

“What’s happening?” she said.

For the first time, the woman spoke. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”

That confused her. “What happened to me? You know about the baby?”

The two of them looked straight at her, pointedly didn’t look at each other. The man said, “What about the baby, Mrs. Wright?”

Karen spoke to the woman. “How do you know about that?”

“Talk to me, Mrs. Wright,” the man said, and she had a sudden, terrible fear that he was going to send the woman away.

Karen said, “Who are you? Who are you both?”

The man said, “Special Agent Turner Shellmire. And this is Detective Skip Langdon, New Orleans Police Department. She’s here in an unofficial capacity only.”

Langdon.
This was why the woman’s face was familiar. Her picture was on Karen’s husband’s bulletin board, with a thumbtack through the nose. He hated her. Maybe she was framing him for all this. Maybe that explained it. But she was sympathetic, Karen could sense it. No cop was that good an actor.

“I can’t talk to you?” she said.

“You need to talk to Agent Shellmire.”

Karen had been distracted by those few moments away from the issue, taken a few moments to collect herself. She breathed deeply. These people had broken into her house, handcuffed her, falsely imprisoned her, and bullied her. And her father was one of the most influential men in Dallas.

Not that she could trust him.

But she’d have to. Surely he’d come down and get her out of this.

Suddenly she had a better idea. “What if I want to talk to you?” she said to the woman.

“You need to talk to Agent Shellmire,” Langdon repeated.

That was unacceptable. These people couldn’t do this to her unless they arrested her. She blurted, “Am I under arrest or am I free to go?”

They both shifted uncomfortably. No one answered. Finally, Shellmire spoke. “Excuse us for a moment.” They left her alone again.

They haven’t decided
, she realized.
They’ve gone to talk about whether they believe me.

They were back in ten minutes. She stood up without giving them a chance to speak. “I’m going to leave now unless you arrest me.”

Shellmire said, “Sit down, please.”

“You’re not letting me go?” She couldn’t believe it.

“We’re arresting you.” Just like that. No explanation, no nothing.

“For what? I haven’t done anything.”

“For harboring a fugitive.”

Tears of fury flowed into her eyes. She kept her voice even. “I’d like to talk to my attorney.”

“Very well,” Shellmire said.

She phoned her uncle, State Senator Guy McLean.

Isaac couldn’t move. He was in a strange bed. Nothing felt right. In fact, something hurt; he just wasn’t sure what. And in his dream, there was something awful happening. Something very scary that only he could stop. It was a really unpleasant dream, one of those disconcerting early-morning dreams. He stirred and tried to go back under. Instead, his mind drifted, and came to focus: Terri. This was no dream. He had to save Terri.

His eyes flipped open.

“Isaac! Omigod, you’re back!” It was Lovelace who was squealing, not Terri. She wore denim shorts and a halter T-shirt that covered only half her midriff.

“You had your navel pierced.” He was riveted.

“Omigod, you’re fine!” She bent over his bed to hug him, jarring something that really hurt. “I’ve got to get a nurse in here.” She fiddled with some mechanism on his bed.

He realized for the first time that he was in a hospital room. It was his head that hurt. He tried wiggling his toes and fingers; things seemed to work okay.

“What happened?” he said, like someone in an old movie, but Lovelace had no time to answer before the room was overrun with doctors and nurses welcoming him back to the world with their own little agendas.

First a nurse came in and then a doctor, a female neurosurgery resident. They told him where he was— Charity Hospital in New Orleans— and what had happened— that he had a gunshot wound to the head, a grazing wound, he was very lucky, but there was a slight skull fracture and he was probably going to have something called “postconcussion syndrome.”

He couldn’t follow very well after the word
gunshot
. “Someone shot me?”

“You don’t remember? Well, that’s very normal; there’s nearly always memory loss with a concussion. You may also feel groggy or confused, have headaches; you could even hallucinate.”

“I think I’m hallucinating now.”

Lovelace laughed, but the doctor said, “No, you’re not.” All business.

Who the hell had shot him?

The doctor asked him a series of questions about the year and the season, the date, the state, the city, and other things. She asked him to remember three words for three minutes, and, absurdly, to count backward in serial sevens from one hundred.

That one he failed immediately. “Ninety-two,” he said.

“Ninety-three,” Lovelace chimed in, eliciting a glare from the doctor.

There were other questions, including a strange little task that involved folding paper, and a reflex check and a neurological exam.

Except for the sevens, he felt he did pretty well. “So I’m not brain-damaged?” He finally got up the nerve to touch his head, and felt bandages.

“The initial tests show no substantial structural damage, but your postconcussion symptoms could be quite variable.”

God she was a stick. He looked at Lovelace. “Well, the hell with that. Am I bald?”

Uptight as she was, the doctor chortled. Lovelace howled, literally laughed till she cried. Brain-damaged or not, Isaac knew the joke was nowhere near that funny, knew his niece was just relieved that he was coherent. He wished the two of them would shut up because he had a much more important question to ask. “Is Terri okay?” he said. They kept right on laughing, didn’t even hear him.

He tried it louder, raising his voice a little. “Hello out there. Is Terri okay?”

They wound down. Lovelace said, “Sure. She sat up all night with you. She’s just gone home to rest for a while. Let’s call her.”

“Ummm. Just a second. How did I get here?”

Both of the women looked dismayed. “Someone shot you,” the doctor began.

“In New Orleans?”

She nodded patiently. “Remember? We’re at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.”

“I remember something about Dallas.” He couldn’t remember anything much, except driving aimlessly, looking for Terri. “I dreamed Terri was in terrible trouble. You sure she’s okay?”

Lovelace said, “Yeah, she’s fine. But I think you were in Dallas. The cops found a used plane ticket at your house. Do you remember why you went there?”

* * *

When he couldn’t get Langdon, he’d driven to the airport and caught the first plane to Dallas.

Not until he was airborne did he start planning what to do. He couldn’t go to the Dallas cops. He’d already considered that. They’d think he was crazy, and precious time would be lost.

He rented a car and drove to the Bluebonnet Motor Lodge and thought,
No wonder she left; anybody would.
Which made him think she might be all right. But why hadn’t she called?

The desk clerk who’d been busy when he called, a Hispanic-looking man in his forties, also couldn’t remember a Terri Whittaker, which nearly drove Isaac crazy; Terri had only been there three hours ago, and she wasn’t exactly forgettable. Finally, he pulled out his wallet and set it on the counter, feeling slightly cheesy. He had no clue how to offer a bribe without being offensive. He finally settled on “Hey, I know what might help. She was here for the
Mr. Right
show; they would have booked her.”

The clerk beamed as if he’d had a revelation. “Oh, that lady. Sure, I remember her. Miss Hesler booked her. She lef’ in a hurry.”

Isaac felt a vein twitch in his neck. “A hurry?” He tried to speak nonchalantly.

“A lady come for her. She call from the lobby, and all of a sudden your frien’, Miss…”

“Whittaker.”

“Miss Whittaker come, lookin’ around her, kind of, like she just packed and she think she’s forgotten something.”

“Was the lady Miss Hesler?”

“No. I never seen her before.”

“What can you remember about her?”

“Nice car.”

“
Nice car
?” Isaac was close to losing it. Who remembered people by their cars?

“Brand-new Lexus.”

“Okay, brand-new Lexus. What color Lexus?”

The man thought about it. “I didn’ notice.”

He figured the damn Lexus was white— they all seemed to be. But he sure as hell didn’t know anybody who drove one, and didn’t see how Terri could. So the question was this: Was the Lexus woman dangerous? He had to assume so; so far as he knew, Terri had no friends or acquaintances in Dallas.

He needed Langdon. But how to get her? He didn’t have either her home or pager number with him. He left a message at the Third District.

He ended up driving the streets with his cell phone on, hoping Terri would phone, hoping to catch a glimpse of her somewhere, somehow. “Go to Deep Ellum,” the desk clerk said. “That’s where the action is.” He went; saw nothing. Drove more; saw more nothing. Eventually, he found himself a hotel only slightly better than the Bluebonnet.

He slept for a few hours, waking up early and thinking what a foolish thing he’d done, flying to Dallas to try to find Terri. He should have waited till morning, and now it
was
morning and he wasn’t even in New Orleans where he damn well ought to be. He tried her again, and again didn’t get her. He got up and headed to the airport; he’d made a return reservation for nine a.m.

On the way, he called Langdon at her office again, leaving another message, begging them to track her down and have her call him. Having no idea if they would or not.

Mentally, he ticked off avenues he’d followed, trying to decide if he’d left out anything.
Lovelace
! he thought. He hadn’t called his niece. The thought filled him with panic. Anxiously, he dialed her number.