Mean Woman Blues (31 page)

A dangerous flush spread over his face; Skip hoped she’d never have to work with him again. She’d burned her bridges. “We won’t be needing your services any longer, Officer Langdon.”

She said, “Yes, you will,” rose from her chair, and left.

He’d need her services, and he was going to get them, whether he wanted to or not. She wasn’t going to be in on any FBI action, but now she could damn well talk to Karen.

Shellmire was waiting for her outside Hargett’s office. “He threw me off the case.”

“Shit!”

There wasn’t time for more before Hargett opened his door and shouted, “Shellmire, get in here!”

Feeling slightly dazed by the speed at which things were going, Skip left the building— to make Hargett happy— and pulled out her phone on the sidewalk.

Her only shot was Karen. She figured if Senator McLean had come riding so handsomely to her rescue, he’d probably know where she was going. She phoned his office and asked for him.

“Who may I say is calling, Ma’am?”

“My name’s Skip Langdon. I’m a police officer who met his niece this morning.”

“Just a moment.”

To her surprise, she was connected almost immediately with the senator. “Officer Langdon. I’ve heard about you. Karen likes you; that ass Hargett hates you.”

She laughed. “Well, that was quick. Actually I didn’t get a chance to talk to Karen before Hargett threw me out, which he did, five minutes ago. Listen, Senator, she’s been through hell, and there’s a good chance it’s about to get worse. I’m unofficial here, but I think I can honestly say I know the man she married better than anybody else in America; I need to talk to her, and she needs to talk to me. Any chance you can put us in touch?”

“Up to her,” he said. “You got a cell phone? This is a hell of a thing.
Hell
of a thing.” She pictured a handsome, white-haired man shaking his head; for all she knew he was as ugly as Jacomine before the doctors.

She gave him her number, rang off, and waited— but not for long. Karen called back almost immediately.

“Officer Langdon! I…”

“Call me Skip.”

“Skip. I’m dying to talk to you. I think you know things— about me.”

“You mean about what you’ve been through?”

“What I’m going through.”

“Look, can I see you?”

“Please. Yes. Please. I’m at my uncle’s house. Just get me a pack of cigarettes on the way. Ultralights.”

“What brand?”

“Any brand.” She gave Skip the address. “I feel so… I don’t know. Like I’m running on empty.”

Skip was about to reholster her phone when it rang. It was Shellmire: “Bad news, Skip. They found a body at Owens’s house. No sign of either Jacomine or Owens. We’re trying to figure out if any of her cars are missing.”

“Whose body, for Christ’s sake?”

“Young white male, shot in the chest. No I.D. yet.”

“He’ll go after Karen next.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll lean on Hargett.”

“Fat lot of good that’ll do.”

“Skip, for what it’s worth, he made a big mistake dumping you. You’re getting a rotten deal all around.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my day, but at least I’m doing better than that poor bastard at Owens’s house.”

But not a hell of a lot better
, she thought.

* * *

Karen hated that throw-your-weight-around thing the McLeans always did. Until today, that is. Until today.

When they tell you your husband’s America’s Most Wanted and threaten to lock you up, you’ll do what you have to. Even form an alliance with a fat, pink-faced, perspiring fool like Scottie Frentz.
He must be happy now
, she thought.

He’d been trying to date her for years. Now he’d had the chance to be her rescuing knight.

Still, she had to give him his due. He’d made short work of the overbearing, asshole feds who wouldn’t even let her talk to a cop in the same room with them! What the hell was up with that? Was it some kind of sexism? It seemed to her like the worst form of petty bureaucratism.

Of course, even that couldn’t keep her out of jail. Being processed was the most humiliating thing she’d ever experienced— and she’d gotten the short form. Scottie said they could have drawn it out for hours.

She was unexpectedly angry. It felt good. Actually, it felt great. And she had David Wright to thank for it. She was getting her second wind now, thinking things through, and there was a hell of a lot to think about. She wouldn’t have felt like this before she went on his show and got a new life and married him and learned by his fine example— learned to be strong, to care about people who needed caring for. She would have just been some scared little tangle of raw ganglia, afraid to open her mouth, afraid of the feds, afraid of the McLeans, afraid of her ex-husband, just plain scared of everything. And hopeless.

Right now she had hope— hope that her life as she knew it wasn’t over, that David Wright wasn’t Public Enemy Number One, that there was all some big mistake, and that she could untangle the whole thing— with the use of McLean clout if she needed it. So far it was standing her in good stead.

Her uncle must have made some high-level phone call— maybe to the governor or something— because she really didn’t think that fat fool Scottie Frentz was capable of getting her out of that place by himself. He’d also made her agree to stay with him and Carol Ann, to keep an eye on her, maybe. She’d insisted on going home to get clothes, however, and for more than one reason.

Scottie sat happily on her sofa, reading magazines and drinking coffee, while she packed a suitcase. That left her all the leeway in the world to include the emergency cell phone her husband had given her when they were first married. “
If anything ever happens, turn it on
.”

“Anything like what?”

“If we get separated.”

“You mean like a terrorist attack or something?”

“Baby, don’t even think about that! But take the phone, will you? I’ll feel better.”

So what did that mean? That he was Errol Jacomine and he foresaw this? In that case, what did he expect from her? That she was going to go running into the arms of a serial killer? Or whatever he was. Not exactly a serial killer, she was pretty sure, if that was the sort of person who tortured women before filleting them. But he’d killed people. Jacomine had killed people.

She kept shoes in boxes on a shelf in her closet piled three deep, and in one of the boxes, in one of the shoes, was the cell phone. She hadn’t thought about it since she put it there.

When she got to the guest room of her uncle’s house, she turned it on and plugged the charger in. And then, unhappily, she called her parents, fortunately getting only the machine.

She was all alone in her uncle and aunt’s house and feeling odd. Not sad, not angry, but strangely excited. And kind of coolly distant, like she couldn’t really
feel
what was going on in her life, like she was watching a movie or something. If she had to put a name to the way she felt, “curious” might be as close as she could get. Curious and on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was dying for a cigarette, though she hadn’t had one since she first started to work for the station. She’d started smoking when the thing happened with Charlie and hadn’t stopped until it was over.

She was about to go get a pack when the call from the cop came. Skip Langdon was one woman she wanted to talk to. She asked her to bring the damn cigarettes. She showered and changed clothes, to give herself something to do, taking the cell phone into the bathroom with her. She didn’t know if David would even remember it.

Having dressed in jeans and a tank top and little slide sandals, she tidied the pillows in the living room and in so doing, noticed something odd: a car on the street that shouldn’t be there.

Her heart jumped into her throat.
Okay
, she thought,
if they want me, why don’t they just come get me?
And who was “they”? It sure wasn’t her husband out there.

She phoned her uncle (who was being exceptionally nice to her), but he couldn’t help because she didn’t have the plate number. And he said whatever she did, don’t go outside to get it; he’d call the Dallas cops to come check it out.

Skip Langdon got there while she was making iced tea, carrying a plastic Walgreen’s bag. Karen was all hopped up. “Check out that car. Somebody’s watching me.”

Karen watched the cop make a show of studying the car, finally saying, “I wouldn’t worry about it,” and that was how she found out the feds had her under surveillance. Why the hell else would the cop tell her not to worry?

“Are you alone here?” the cop said.

Karen nodded. “Want some iced tea?”

Skip said, “Thanks. Are you scared?”

Karen considered.
Probably not
, she thought,
if that car was only feds
. “No,” she said finally. “I’m just… discombobulated. Did you bring the cigarettes?”

“Sure.” The cop handed over the pack. She followed her into the kitchen and took a glass of tea, saving Karen the trouble of fixing a tray. They went back and sat on the newly tidied sofa in the living room, Karen bringing an ashtray she’d found in the pantry.

She lit up, feeling guilty.

“It must be an awful thing,” the cop said, “having your world come apart like this.”

Karen shrugged. “I guess I’m in denial. I don’t feel like my world’s come apart. I guess I won’t really understand anything until I talk to my husband.”

“You sure are in denial, girlfriend.” The cop spoke harshly and then she settled down. “Look. Tell me about your life together. And I’ll tell you what I know about him.”

Karen didn’t want to talk at all, just wanted all the information this woman could give her. She felt light-headed from the cigarette and wanted to blame what happened next on that. But maybe she needed to talk more than she thought she did. In the end she told the cop all about the show, and David’s slow courtship of her, and their happy life together, and her new work, her fledgling foundation, Right Woman.

When the cop said, “You said something about a baby. Are you pregnant?” Karen was shocked. She’d forgotten for a minute. Forgotten in the rush of love she felt for her husband now that he wasn’t there. Her eyes filled. “I had a miscarriage.”

“Oh?” The cop let the silence fill the room.

“It was two days ago,” Karen said. And then, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right, then. Are you okay with talking about Rosemarie Owens?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Skip frowned then, but whatever that was about, she put it aside. “Does she live with a man? Maybe a houseboy or…”

In spite of herself, Karen laughed. “You mean her very much younger ‘husband,’ Billy Bob Bubba? Oh, excuse me, I think his name is Todd. He’s an ex-Dallas Cowboy.”

Skip looked very serious all of a sudden. “Todd who?”

Karen thought,
What the hell does it matter?
but something in the woman’s manner was intimidating. She searched her memory. “Todd Lyman, I think. Layton, maybe. Something like that.”

Skip said, “Excuse me a minute,” pulled out her cell phone and made a call: “Hey, Turner! Any I.D. yet on that guy they found at the Owens house? She lived with a man named Todd Lyman or Layton. Oh, you did? Okay.” She rang off.

Karen picked up the past tense like a dog grabbing a scent. “What’s happened?”

“Todd’s dead. Somebody shot him at Rosemarie’s house.”

Karen’s hands fluttered. “David…”

“No sign of either him or Rosemarie. May I ask you something, Karen?”

“Sure.”
How can it get worse?
she thought.

“Did you know your husband was once married to Rosemarie Owens?”

That almost made her laugh. “No, uh-uh. He was her husband’s best friend. Not Todd, the real husband. That’s the connection. David wasn’t married to her.”

“Oh, really? He was if he’s Errol Jacomine. They got married in their teens, ran away to Alabama, had one son, Dan, now serving time for crimes he committed with his father. Anyway, he and Rosemarie split up, and years later he married Irene, whom he renamed Tourmaline. He likes to control everything, Karen. Haven’t you noticed that? They had one son, Isaac.”

“Where’s Isaac now?” It was kind of an automatic question, just making conversation. This had nothing to do with her.

“He’s an art student in New Orleans. Where he lives with his girlfriend, Terri Whittaker.”

There was something familiar about the name. A shiver ran up Karen’s spine.

“Terri was a guest on
Mr. Right
earlier this week. Haven’t you wondered about the timing on all this?”

Karen lifted her iced-tea glass but somehow missed her lips. She busied herself wiping spilled tea while she thought about timing. That was the night David hit her. The night he changed.

“Isaac was shot yesterday morning in New Orleans.”

Karen didn’t get it. “What does that… mean?”

“It means he put out a contract on his own son.” Skip’s voice was gentle. “He found out before the show that Terri’s boyfriend was Isaac, and he knew Isaac would watch. He was the one person in the world who might both watch the show and recognize him.” She smiled. “I would have recognized him. I’d know him anywhere. But I had no reason to see the show.”

“You’re telling me that you actually know Errol Jacomine and that he’s my husband?’

The cop pulled a videotape out of the Walgreen’s bag.

“You can see for yourself. We’ve got lots of tapes of him. He ran for mayor of New Orleans, you know. He’s always got something grandiose going.”

Karen felt as if a ghost had laid a cold hand on her neck.

Like running for president?
she thought.
Would that be grandiose enough?
God, what a fool she’d been!

Skip was staring at her, assessing. She was holding up the tape. “You up for this?”

Karen nodded, not speaking. She wasn’t sure she could speak.

She led Skip into a little den on the first floor where her uncle and aunt liked to watch the news and sat down while Skip popped the tape into the machine.

At first, she didn’t get it at all. “
That’s
Errol Jacomine?” The weak-chinned little rodent with the redneck accent was no more her husband than Harrison Ford was.