82 Desire (4 page)

Four

IT WAS SATURDAY morning and Skip had been up since seven-thirty. Life was complicated. The whole place was in an uproar, not just her own space.

Skip had the slave quarters—now called the garconnière—at her best friend Jimmy Dee Scoggin’s house. Jimmy Dee shared the Big House, as they’d taken to calling it, with his two adopted children, his late sister’s kids, Sheila and Kenny, and a black-and-white dog called Angel.

Steve Steinman, who was staying with Skip, also had a dog—a German shepherd named Napoleon. Skip hated Napoleon and Napoleon hated her. In fact, Napoleon hated just about everybody except Kenny and Steve.

Normally, all this made for a pretty lively household, but with the tension in the garconnière and one other little detail, it was currently chaos.

The other detail was Jimmy Dee’s friend Layne. Jimmy Dee’s beloved, if the truth be told. Jimmy Dee was gay, a fact that had turned out to be easier for the kids to accept than anyone thought it would, and Layne was about to be a new addition to the family. Everyone was thrilled about it. The kids loved him. (“His main virtue,” Dee-Dee said wryly, “is that he isn’t Uncle Jimmy.”) And Steve was crazy about him, which was a great tension-reliever, since he wasn’t entirely insane for Dee-Dee himself.

However, Layne’s moving in meant getting a room ready for him, which required more than the normal amount of effort, since Layne was a puzzle designer by trade. This meant any amount of paraphernalia, including games from just about every country in the world.

And that translated to building cabinets and bookshelves, which necessitated a house full of workmen.

That put everybody on edge, just about all the time. Skip was just as happy to be going over to Steve’s cottage to help him sand kitchen cabinets. “Can I help?” Kenny asked wistfully. “Anybody can sand.”

“Okay, sure. Get Angel and come on.”

From where they all stood in the courtyard, they could hear Dee-Dee and Layne arguing in the kitchen. “But I need to have things where I can see them.”

“Well, I need to have them where I can’t.”

Kenny looked forlorn. “They were so nice to each other before all this started.”

Skip laughed. “So were we.”

And now Steve looked hurt. “I’m still nice to you.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve always been the difficult one. Everyone knows that.”

Kenny said, “Oh, never mind, I guess I’ll stay there.” He went back into the house, elephant-legged shorts flopping about on skinny legs. His feet looked like Nike-clad boards attached to his ankles. His shoulders slumped.

Steve said, “Now see what you’ve done.”

“Damn!” She went after him. “Kenny! Kenny, I was just kidding. Come on—moving’s one of the five most stressful things you can ever do. Nobody means anything. We’re just discombobulated.”

She could have bitten her tongue, knowing he was going to ask about the other stresses. His mother had died a few years ago. He knew firsthand about stress.

But he said nothing, just kept walking, shoulders slumped.

Dee-Dee stared at her. “What’d you do to him?”

“Oh, nothing. He’s upset because everybody’s snappy.”

“Oh, God, is it all worth it? Maybe we all just ought to go for a hike.”

Skip shrugged. “Cabinets to sand.”

But Kenny turned around. “Yeah. Maybe we ought to.” He was the rare kid who didn’t mind doing things with adults.

Skip saw he was smiling. “Y’all have fun.” She rejoined Steve in the courtyard.

He said, “Listen, I’ve been thinking. You need a day off. Why don’t you stay home and wash your hair or something?”

“You know what? That’s not a half-bad idea.” She did need a day off.

They drank another cup of coffee and she kissed Steve good-bye. She was puttering about the kitchen thinking about flopping down with a good book when her pager went off, a rare thing for a Saturday morning.

“What the hell?” she said aloud, and looked at it. It registered a number she didn’t recognize. “Oh, well.” Wearily she dialed it.

A woman answered, and she identified herself. “Detective Skip Langdon.”

“Oh.” The woman sounded surprised. “I get Sandra.”

In a moment, a younger woman came to the phone. “Yes?”

“Someone there paged Detective Skip Langdon.”

“I paged Detective Langdon.”

Skip said, “Yes?”

“You’re Detective Langdon? Something’s funny here. I’m looking for a man.”

“Something’s funny all right. ‘Cause I’m not one.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.” The woman hung up.

Skip shrugged and went back to loading the dishwasher. In a moment her pager went off again. It was the same number. Impatiently, she dialed again.

The woman said, “I’ve thought things over. Somebody gave me your card. Said he was you. I think we need to talk about it.”

“Okay. Talk.”

“Uh-uh. Not on the phone. How do I know you really are Detective Langdon?”

“Listen, it’s my day off. Why don’t you come in first thing Monday morning?”

“The man who gave me your card—I found him rifling a friend’s office. He hit me and chased me, and somehow got to my house before I did. He said he’d kill me if I screamed, and he threatened to kill my mother. Then he blindfolded me, gave me your card, and said call him in the morning. I was going to call Public Integrity—maybe it’s good I didn’t.”

“My card doesn’t have my pager number on it.”

“No. It was written on the back.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m not telling you till I can see you.”

It didn’t matter—Skip had her number. But she didn’t like the sound of this. “Okay,” she sighed. “Meet me at my office in half an hour. You know where the Third District is?”

“No.”

“Seventeen hundred Moss Street.”

Skip got there first, carrying yet another coffee. She read the paper while she waited.

And in about ten minutes, an African-American woman arrived, a young, pretty one with gorgeous hair, large of butt and bust, stuffed into black jeans and a white T-shirt.

“I’m the woman who called. Talba Wallis.”

“Sit down, Ms. Wallis.”

“If the guy wasn’t you, who was he? He knows where I live. How the hell could he know that?”

“You better start from the beginning.”

“I’ve been working with a private detective—Gene Allred.”

Skip nodded as if it meant something. She had no idea who that was.

“I went to his office yesterday and this guy in a ski mask was there. I told you the rest.” She ran through the story again, in slightly more detail. “I thought maybe Gene was in some kind of trouble, maybe in jail—I kept calling him and getting no answer.”

“Did you try him at home?”

“I don’t know his home number.”

“Let me try a couple of things.” Skip tried the phone book and she tried Central Lockup; he wasn’t listed and he wasn’t in jail.

“Can you describe the man?”

“I never saw his face, but he was white and tall. Thin, I’d say.”

“What were you working on with Allred?”

“I can’t really talk about that.”

There’d be time enough to insist, if a crime had been committed. “Could I see the card the man gave you?”

“Sure.” She handed it over.

The pager number was there, in Skip’s handwriting.

There was nothing to do except get Wallis’s address, and Allred’s. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait a minute. Is that all? What do you think happened to me?”

“I think you know more about that than I do. But you don’t want to talk about it.”

“It wouldn’t be ethical.”

What the hell. Allred’s office was in her district, and practically on the way home. She wasn’t going to be happy unless she swung by and took a look.

The door was unlocked. As soon as she opened it she knew by the stink there was a corpse in there.

She stepped in and closed the door behind her, grateful for air-conditioning, yet her nose was still deeply offended. There could be no doubt this was a crime scene, but it would help, she thought, to know how many corpses were in there, and if they were human or rodent.

The place was a wreck—papers and file folders everywhere.

She stepped over and through a sea of strewn paper on the way to the inner office, which was likewise strewn. Glancing around, she saw that the mess came from filing cabinets in both rooms.

Allred, if it were he, was in the second room. He had fallen backward, one hand over his head, a big hole in his chest. He was fortyish, with thinning blond hair, dressed in olive polyester—the fabled cheap suit of private-eye patter. His face was ghost-white, the blood having had plenty of time to sink to the bottom of his body. Curiously, an arm had been thrown over his head, a finger pointing. His mouth was open slightly, almost in an O, and his eyes were wide open, staring in perennial amazement. A parade of bugs marched in them.

Rusty-looking stuff—the man’s blood—spattered the floor and his clothes.

Okay, fine, one corpse. Human. Male.

She knew enough to call it in, and she couldn’t justify contaminating the scene any further. She stepped into the hall, radioed the dispatcher, and waited for a district car to get there.

That done, she was free to find a phone and call her sergeant.

“Skip. It’s Saturday—haven’t you heard?” Abasolo’s voice had an edge. She’d probably caught him in bed with someone.

“AA, I’ve got a corpse that has my name on it. Young lady paged me at home, told me a wild story, and showed me one of my own cards, with my pager number on it in my handwriting. Said a dude she found at the crime scene in a ski mask chased her, threatened her, then gave her my card and said to call him in the morning. And there’s one other thing. I’ve got a bad feeling the card might be the one I gave Bebe.”

“Come on. You must give out cards all the time.”

“Let me call Bebe—I called you first. What do you think, by the way?”

“The guy said he was you?”

“Implied it, anyway.”

“I think you were right the first time. That’s a corpse with your name on it.”

Skip found more change and gave Bebe a call. “Ms. Fortier, Skip Langdon.”

“Oh, Skip. Call me Bebe.” She sounded nervous. “Do you have any news?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t. But I need to check something out with you. Remember that business card I gave you?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“Do you still have it?”

“I guess so. I put it in my purse.”

“I know this sounds dumb, but do me a favor and check, will you?”

Skip could almost see her shrugging. “Sure,” she said, and left the line.

She was back in a moment. “It’s funny—I can’t find it. What’s this about?”

“It may have come back to me in an odd way. Has anyone had access to your purse?”

“Not in the house. The cleaning lady hasn’t been here. My daughter’s coming in from Wisconsin, but she isn’t here yet. Oh, wait. I left it on a counter yesterday—in a drugstore. Only for a moment, though—you know how you do when you’re shopping?”

“Was it in your view at all times?”

“No. In fact, I thought I heard someone in the area and I went back to retrieve it. Nothing else is missing, though.”

“Okay. Well, it’s probably nothing. I just wanted to check it out.” She went back to the scene.

Another officer had now arrived, and had had time to put on that disgusted look policemen get at a nasty crime scene. “Can you get over this? Right in his office—somebody probably killed the poor bastard for five bucks.”

The coroner’s van came, and then the crime lab—Paul Gottschalk walked in full of questions. “Phew-ee, how come no one smelled him before?”

“You couldn’t with the door closed. I know—I was first on the scene. The question is, how come nobody heard the shot? If it was a shot.”

“Potato, probably. Look—see that spot over there—betcha anything that’s potato.”

Some months ago, there had been an extremely well-publicized murder in which the perps had stuck a potato on a gun barrel as a silencer. Now everyone was doing it.

Maybe that accounted for the surprised look on the dead man’s face—if you saw a potato, you had to fear the worst.

Skip turned to Denton, the coroner’s deputy. “Check his pockets, will you? I want to know if it’s Allred—the guy who belongs here.”

Denton pulled on gloves, knelt, and turned out the pockets, unearthing a wallet with driver’s license and credit cards.

“Yep. Seems to be.”

The papers proved nothing, of course, but they were a good indication. “Do you have a home address?”

“Uh-huh. Louisa. Not a great neighborhood.”

Gottschalk said, “You want all this paper put in boxes?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

She wondered if she was actually going to get through them. “I’d like to look at his Rolodex—could you dust it and pass it over?”

She couldn’t leave the crime scene until the body had—she might as well do something to amuse herself.

She looked up Fortier first, just to satisfy her curiosity, but neither Bebe nor Russell was in the file. In fact, there wasn’t a single name she recognized except that of Talba Wallis, a young lady she wanted to see almost immediately.

She called her. “I need to see you at my office this afternoon—say at three o’clock.”

“Now look. Just because I was nice enough to—”

“Ms. Wallis. Be there.” Skip hung up.

When they had taken the body, she canvassed the neighbors.

No one had heard the shot, though two admitted hearing a crazy woman yell for help the morning before.

One of them shrugged. “I couldn’t go look. I was on the phone.”

The second had the grace to look frightened, if not contrite. “I was alone. I locked the door until it stopped.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yes. I dialed 911 and got a busy signal.”

Maybe she had and maybe she hadn’t. Today was Saturday and hardly anyone was working. Probably many more people had heard Talba screaming. Skip wondered if any of them had called the police.

Next she headed for Louisa, a block-by-block street, in terms of safety and degree of gentrification. Gene Allred’s block wasn’t one of the good ones. It was altogether an odd place for a white man to live, but maybe he’d won it in a poker game.