Crescent City Connection
Read Crescent City Connection Online
Authors: Julie Smith
“If it’s gritty realism you’re craving, gently simmered with spicy suspense and marvelously memorable characters, Smith is the perfect New Orleans tour guide … [A] powerful tale of justice gone awry. Crescent City Kill’s finale is Smith’s strongest finish yet, wired to blow at the slightest shudder …. The inevitable showdown rakes in more than just good vs. evil…. Julie Smith never fails to turn up the New Orleans heat.” —The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
“A superbly written piece of drama even by Smith’s high standards. There are plenty of subplots to keep things moving … [and] a wonderful description of the city’s bizarre Easter parades.” —The State (Columbia, SC)
“SERIOUS SUSPENSE … The style of the novel is characteristically Smith, full of surprises. The author presents seemingly unrelated plots, from divergent viewpoints, then tantalizingly reveals the grand connection.” —Santa Barbara News-Press
“Sizzle[s] with action, making this the most memorable of the Langdon novels. In the Rev. Errol Jacomine, Smith has created an adversary equal to the deadly Professor Moriarty who battled Sherlock Holmes nearly a century ago.” —Monterey Herald
“If you like your mysteries Cajun style, you may enjoy Julie Smith’s Skip Langdon series … Smith knows the territory—and it has paid off handsomely.” —Rocky Mountain News
“Fans of Kindness of Strangers and House of Blues will enjoy Crescent City Kill … Smith invokes a number of major issues, including cults and vigilante justice.” —New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Surprising … Smith’s colorful characterizations and the showdown with Jacomine make this an excellent addition to the series.” —Publishers Weekly
“Intriguing … Smith’s fans will no doubt relish the return of Jacomine, the psychopathic (yet charismatic) preacher.” —Booklist
(in order of publication)
NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
JAZZ FUNERAL
DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
HOUSE OF BLUES
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
82 DESIRE
MEAN WOMAN BLUES
The Rebecca Schwartz Series
DEATH TURNS A TRICK
THE SOURDOUGH WARS
TOURIST TRAP
DEAD IN THE WATER
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
The Paul Macdonald Series
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
The Talba Wallis Series
:
LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
LOUISIANA LAMENT
P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
As Well As:
WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK
NEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)
Formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL
A Skip Langdon Mystery
BY
JULIE SMITH
booksBnimble Publishing
New Orleans, La.
Crescent City Connection
Copyright 1997 by Julie Smith
Cover by Nevada Barr
ISBN: 9781617507618
Originally published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First booksBnimble Publishing electronic publication: March 2012
eBook editions by eBooks by Barb for booknook.biz
For Lee Pryor, my adored husband.
One
THEORETICALLY, THE POINT of Mardi Gras is that it precedes Lent, though it often seems no one remembers but the odd priest or nun. In New Orleans, no sooner do the Mardi Gras parades end than new revelry, in honor of Saints Joseph and Patrick, begins, with massive food altars and the throwing of cabbages from floats. Some people do go on diets during Lent, or at least give up sweets, though there is little talk of forswearing alcohol or cigarettes.
In general, if truth be told, Lent is a fitful time. Some days are balmy, some humid and sticky, some below freezing. It can seem as if the city is just marking time until JazzFest.
But officially, it’s over at Easter and sure enough, the mood seems to change overnight. Good Friday is often gray and chilly, yet Easter Sunday generally dawns bright as a sequin.
It’s a big holiday for most families, even those who aren’t Catholic. To out-of-towners, used to nonobservance, it’s a bit of a shock to see the young men still in their Saturday night eyeshadow rush home at mid-morning to wash their faces for Easter lunch with their mothers.
Since New Orleans is well known as the city where too much is not nearly enough, there are no fewer than three Easter parades, all in the French Quarter.
The first one consists of a caravan of horse-drawn carriages making their way from Arnaud’s Restaurant to Jackson Square, where the occupants, ladies of fashion known as the Friends of Germaine Wells, alight to promenade before going to church at St. Louis Cathedral.
There is irony in the name they have chosen, as Ms. Wells, daughter of Count Arnaud and the late owner of the restaurant bearing his name, was no lady, it is said. Or at least her friends were no gentlemen. To be perfectly honest, rumor has it Ms. Wells’s head was easily turned by a tattoo.
That head, however, nearly always sported outrageous hats, hence the Easter connection. The ladies of the Friends go all out. Some go vintage, some contemporary, some head-to-toe purple, some delicate peach. And these are only their frocks. Hat diameters have been known to reach a good thirty inches, and chiropractors to retire on the resulting sore-neck proceeds.
Before reaching the square, the ladies will have begun at Arnaud’s for hat-judging and a Bloody, and after church, they’ll return for brunch and more Bloodies.
About that time, Chris Owens’s Easter parade begins. Ms. Owens is a Bourbon Street club owner and renowned dancer, though not a stripper. Be that as it may, she does bare quite a bit, and everyone agrees it’s a splendid-looking body for anyone, much less a woman said to be somewhat Tina Turner’s senior.
Besides herself, Ms. Owens’s parade features a number of ladies, some in carriages, some in cars bedecked with pastel balloons, all wearing the requisite eye-popping hats. Many drip chiffon veiling, some sport bunny ears. These ladies, unlike Ms. Wells’s friends, cover a range of ages, from eight or nine to well over eighty, judging by appearances. Those in between frequently display ivory fields of bosom and unsubtle makeup. They throw nice beads to the masses.
Around two o’clock, as the last of Ms. Owens’s carriages disappears down Bourbon Street, the day’s first drag queens begin to venture out. Theirs is the least formal parade of the day, consisting mostly of afternoon saunters between Good Friends Bar and the Rawhide. Full drag frequently occurs, with all its high-heel teetering, but the point, as in the other parades, is hats. The gentlemen’s hats can get outrageous (sometimes reaching three feet across), but for once, not that much more outrageous than those of their female counterparts. Easter’s an all-out kind of day for everyone. Biblically, it will be recalled, Easter signals renewal, resurrection, a rising of the spirit.
For Skip Langdon, newly returned to work after a leave of absence, resuming her job as a homicide detective was more like Lent than Easter—more fitful than triumphant, more gray than sunny, more edgy foreboding than happy expectancy. In short, morale that spring in Homicide—indeed in the whole department—was so low she couldn’t close herself off.
There were four detectives in the car—everyone in Sergeant Sylvia Cappello’s platoon—on their way to a crime scene: A sixty-two-year-old woman had opened her door to a barrage of gunfire.
“D’y’all hear? Cooper’s leaving.” The speaker was young, cynical beyond his years and experience.
“Shit. That makes three this week.”
“Fuck. What we doing here? Let’s take a vote—anybody in this car wouldn’t be out of here if they could?”
Another senseless shooting. Another resignation. Another hot, crowded ride because there was no money for more cars.
Skip tried to turn her mind off. If the job wasn’t meaningful, what was? She wasn’t waiting to collect a pension. She was too young for that, didn’t have enough years in and didn’t want to go anyway. She’d gone back to work after what amounted to an involuntary leave of absence (though technically it hadn’t been) because she loved the work, because it was the only thing she’d found to do with her life that truly pleased her, that made her feel alive and healthy and useful.
But the mayor, when new blood was so sorely needed, had appointed a superintendent who was no more than a political pal.
The City Council had decreed that officers who didn’t live in the city had to move back to be considered for promotion. And every mugger in town had heavy artillery; every other mugging, it seemed, turned into a murder. Two cops were currently on Death Row.
The best way to get through was not to think about it.
This shooting was in the Seventh Ward. The victim’s two sons and three daughters were on the sidewalk, one of them cradling a baby, some of them holding toddlers’ hands, all of them crying.
The case wasn’t Skip’s—it belonged to Danny LaSalle, who assigned her the family. She walked over to the distraught little knot of humanity, and almost immediately one of the sons got in her face, or would have if he’d been tall enough—Skip was six feet tall and he was about five-six. “What y’all collectin’ ya salary fo’? Who wanna kill my mama?”
“Who do you think would?”
Evidently defying him, one of the daughters stepped forward. “Somebody want Herbert.”
Bingo
, she thought. “Herbert?”
“Rudolph boy.” The woman pointed to the short dude.
Skip said, “You Rudolph?”
“Tawanda don’t know her pussy from her asshole. Nobody want Herbert.”
It went like that for a while, but the story came out: Herbert ran with a bad crowd, Rudolph and his wife kicked him out, he sometimes stayed with his grandmother.
Herbert would probably know who wanted to kill him, and therefore who had mowed Granny down like some enemy soldier, but by now he was probably halfway to East Jesus, having no doubt killed a two-year-old who got in the way when he tried to retaliate on behalf of Granny.
Christ
, Skip thought,
I’m thinking like O’Rourke.
Frank O’Rourke, the nastiest cop in Homicide.
Nonetheless, when they left the crime scene, Herbert was by far the best lead they had. They found him at his sister’s in New Orleans East, bare-chested, wearing baggy pants and black running shoes, passed out on his nephew’s bed. The little boy had answered the door promptly, trustingly, as his great-grandma must have done. He’d apparently been watching television, lying on the floor in the living room. There was no one else in the apartment. The TV was so loud it had masked their entrance.
LaSalle said, “Herbert, wake up.”
The sleeping man had a well-muscled torso. His body jerked, a hand reaching under the pillow.
“Police. Freeze.”
He didn’t—the hand came out with a gun in it.
Danny shot him. It was over in a millisecond.
Skip ran back to the living room and gathered up the nephew, soothing him, lying to him.
She wasn’t that good with kids, or so she told herself. But she took this one on as a project, and it was harder than watching his uncle get shot.
Herbert died within the hour. After wading through the red tape surrounding the shooting, Skip was sent to interview his girlfriend, Renee.
