Mean Woman Blues (9 page)

Skip grinned after him, as silly as any adult around a two-year-old. “Sweet baby.”

“Ohhh, you don’t know. You don’t know what a devil that child can be.”

Considering his suspected paternity, Skip was startled by the aptness of the phrase. The baby was light tan, a color that could easily mean a white father. “What’s his name?” she asked.

“Jacob. You know Daddy. He liked names out of the Bible.” She meant Jacomine, of course; his whole following called him Daddy.

Skip deliberately misunderstood. “So his father was the Reverend Jacomine?” It nearly killed her to give him the title.

Bettina sat down, motioned Skip to do the same, and gave her visitor the full benefit of. her too-large teeth. “All children are the son of God. You know that, Sister.”

She’d never called Skip “Sister” before, and never again would be soon enough. But it might mean they had a rapport going; Skip sure wasn’t going to ruffle it. She said, “You’re looking good, Bettina. How’s everything going?”

The other woman, sitting on the wooden settee, rocked back and forth, turning what looked more or less like an instrument of torture into an imaginary rocking chair. She smiled again, this time barely parting her lips. Hot red-orange lipstick, walnut-colored skin, and fuchsia scrubs formed a fascinating play of color. “Doing good. Doing real good. Got me a nice, good-paying office job, working for Ochsner Home Health.” She pulled at her sleeve. “They give you a choice. You wear these or pantyhose, nothing in between. What would you pick?”

Skip smiled back at her, as if they were neighbors passing the time of day. “I’d wear those if they looked that good on me.”

The comment apparently made Bettina uncomfortable; evidently she was so used to using compliments to her advantage she felt attacked when one came back at her. Her smile flicked on again (though she kept the wattage down), and she said, “What brings you around, darlin’?”

“I was wondering if you’ve heard from Daddy.” Calling him that was worse than calling him Reverend.

Bettina surprised her by saying, “Ohhhh, Ms. Langdon, I just wish I
would
.” She seemed to have forgotten the story that had kept her out of jail.

Skip was about to comment when suddenly the television blasted at them like an explosion. Jacob, bored and curious, must have unwittingly cranked up the volume. Great broken-hearted wails began to layer themselves on top of a booming aspirin commercial.

Bettina was on her feet in an instant. “Goddamn motherfuckin’
shit
!” Without so much as a glance at Skip, she disappeared down the hall, screaming at her kid the whole time. “Jacob! What the
fuck
you think you’re doin’? Can’t you use the sense God gave you?” And then there were pounding sounds, a kid being systematically hit, louder and louder wails, and the television went off.

Slowly, Bettina walked back in, for all the world as if Jacob weren’t sobbing his heart out in the background. For a second, Skip wondered if she should make sure he was all right but decided the sounds she’d heard were probably no more than a palm slapping against a disposable diaper. If Bettina didn’t treat him any worse than that, she probably wasn’t going to do him any physical harm; though she might end up raising another criminal.

Bettina’s temper tantrum had passed like a squall in a harbor. Once again she gave Skip that too-broad smile and spoke in that saccharine voice. “Every day I pray for my Daddy’s safety, and I pray to hear his voice, and I pray to be reunited with him. In my heart of hearts, I know the good Lord’s keeping him safe, and I’m grateful for it every minute of the day.”

“You haven’t heard from him at all?”

“Oh, my Lord, my Lord. I only wish my savior, Jesus Christ in heaven, would send my Daddy home to me.” She sounded almost as if she were in a trance.

Skip absolutely couldn’t believe, given her official story, that Bettina could speak this way to a police officer.

“So you’ve forgiven him for holding you prisoner?”

“Lawd, he didn’t mean nothin’ by that. Daddy just thought it was the best thing for me.”

“What would you do if he called you?” she asked.

Anguish replaced the longing on the woman’s face. “Well, I couldn’t do anything, Detective Langdon. You know that. Not and stay out of jail.” She bit off the last sentence, for a moment sounding furious.

But almost immediately the rapt look came back, along with the spun-sugar tones. “I’d just give anything in the world to know he’s alive and all right. Anything in the world.”

“If you hear from him, are you going to call me?”

“You know I’ve got to.”

And we both know you won’t
, Skip thought. She felt unsettled, as if her business with the woman were unfinished. Bettina’s longing to hear from Jacomine, so freely and ingenuously expressed, was frightening, but then so was everything about the man.

She stood and said her good-byes. On her way out, she saw a familiar pear-shaped figure dodge into a doorway across the street. She wondered if Shellmire were following her— acting as unofficial bodyguard— or if he’d decided on his own to come see Bettina. She ignored him, knowing an acknowledgment could be a Judas kiss, and he, in turn, ignored her. He phoned a couple of hours later, catching her at Steve’s. “Bettina went to a pay phone about half an hour after you left. Did you notice a phone in her apartment?”

“No, but who doesn’t have one?”

“Yeah. Could be she’s in touch with him.”

Skip felt her neck prickle and her cheeks get hot.

Shellmire said, “We can do a few days’ surveillance. Maybe we’ll get something.”

“Thanks, Turner. I appreciate it.” She got off the phone, heart still pounding. The agent’s diligence should have been reassuring, but she found her mind drifting in a thousand paranoid directions. She drank two glasses of wine, inducing an uneasy slumber, and sometime in the night Steve woke her. “You were having a nightmare.”

She was clammy with sweat. The damn termites again.

“You haven’t eaten all day?” Isaac sounded as if he didn’t believe it. “They
have
to feed you.”

Terri felt sulky. No one believed her about anything any more. Probably if she mentioned her name was Terri, he’d challenge her on that. “They didn’t, okay?” she snapped.

Isaac pulled into a McDonald’s.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re getting you some food. Now.”

“No.”

“Terri, you’ve got to eat.”

“I can’t eat. I’ve got to go home. Just take me home, all right?” She heard herself snapping and whining, but she couldn’t help it.

Isaac drove her home without another word, the lie between them hovering ominously in the background. She got out of the car alone, ran inside, ripped off her clothes, and got in the shower. When she emerged, some twenty minutes later, she staggered, weak and disoriented, to the kitchen, but there was nothing in the refrigerator. Literally nothing that wasn’t in a jar or bottle or didn’t have green stuff on it.

She lay down on her bed and cried, thinking of the chocolate cake she’d thrown at Isaac’s door the night before. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours?

She didn’t know how long she lay there before someone knocked. Frightened, she looked through the peephole, half expecting the police. It was Isaac, holding a fast-food bag. She flung open the door, feeling calmer and very much ashamed of herself.

“I’m sorry I was such a butthead.”

“No, I’m sorry. I brought you some food. I’ll leave. I know you want to be alone. I just—”

“No, come in. I feel better. I’m really sorry.”

He came in shyly, holding the bag at arm’s length, as if offering it to a slavering beast.

Nestled in the paper bag was a shrimp po’ boy— her favorite. She fell on it while Isaac made her some iced tea.

She drank a little: The sandwich had made her thirsty. And she said again, “I’m so sorry.”

“Would you rather have some wine?”

She managed a smile. “I guess I would. I think there’s some in the fridge. From about a week ago. You?”

“I’ll get it.”

He got her a glass, handed it to her, and eyed her warily. “Terri, what happened?”

She sank back into a chair. “I was thinking about it while I was in jail. They gave us foam pads to sleep on, but I couldn’t sleep. I think I know. I think it’s something to do with that mix-up I had at the bank— you remember that?”

“Yeah, those fines. I thought you had it all straightened out.”

“You know, I remembered something they said the last time we talked. They said they turned it over to security.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know. By then, I was so over it I just…”

“Terri!”

“Isaac, don’t yell at me!” He fell back against the sofa he was sitting on. She realized he hadn’t yelled at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I can understand.”

“No, I do. I want to see if I can get it straight in my head.” She looked down at the floor and up again, flinging her still-wet hair out of her eyes, surprised by the color of it. She couldn’t believe she’d done a stupid thing like dye it blue to annoy her mother. “Remember when I talked to my friend Ronnie?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, his voice nervous, as if he expected her to do the yelling.

“Well, I was doing such a bad job of keeping track, I had all these fines, and Ronnie said I needed a second account to keep everything straight. See, here’s what I didn’t know. Sometimes, when checks come in to banks, like other people’s banks, you follow— ?” He shook his head. “Like, say, my account’s at First Carnivore, and my client’s account is at T. Rex. Well, then, I deposit her check, but my bank holds it for seven days to make sure it’s cleared.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “They just say it’s a policy, but I don’t think it always is. I guess it’s because I never have enough money to cover the check if it bounces.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with what happened.”

“Well, I didn’t know they were doing it, and I’d think the checks had cleared, so I’d just write checks of my own, thinking I had money in the bank. But I didn’t. And then the bank would charge me a fine every time I didn’t.”

“For the overdraft.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She felt her shoulders go up in a big, defensive shrug. “I don’t know how banks operate. I mean, how could I know? See, they’d take out twenty-two dollars a check, and I wouldn’t know it, then they’d put through the new checks I’d written, and they wouldn’t clear, plus the old ones, and they wouldn’t clear
again
. And I’d get charged again. Only I wouldn’t know.”

“Terri.” His voice was accusing. “Surely you’ve had checking accounts before.”

She shrugged again. “I have, but if I bounced a check, I’d pay the fee. It was no big deal. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“But what about your records?”

“Well, I never wrote anything down. I just couldn’t be bothered. And I never saved bank statements either. I’d never had a problem. I’d think,
OK damn,
and I’d pay the fee. I just… never banked with a bank like this. But, anyway, I got all messed up, and my mom bailed me out—” She stopped, noticing her unfortunate choice of words. “I mean, she said she’d lend me five hundred dollars to get me out of trouble, and my friend Ronnie, who works at a bank, said he’d straighten everything out for me. So I went to see him—”

“You mean at a different bank?”

“Yeah, and he opened a business account for me. Then I’d just deposit money at whichever bank was convenient and write checks at both accounts. But when my mom gave me the $500 check and I took it to the first bank to straighten the whole mess out, no one would talk to me.”

“What do you mean no one would talk to you?”

“They said, ‘You need to talk to someone in security,’ so I asked for security, and the same thing happened. No one would talk to me there either. I deposited the five-hundred-dollar check, and after that, they never sent me any more bills. I thought it was fixed.”

“Oh, Terri!”

“I know, I know. Basically, I just ignored it, which I know was bad on my part.”

Isaac was silent, probably thinking what a dummy she was. Finally, he said, “You’re telling me they never told you they’d filed charges?”

She shook her head.

“Terri, that’s not right. You went there in good faith. It’s just wrong. You’ve got to call the D.A. and explain.”

“Yeah.
Somebody’s
got to understand.”

He stayed with her that night and held her, making her think everything was going to be all right.

But she found out the next day that she couldn’t call the D.A. and explain. Tiffie told her so, strongly: “
Whatever you do, don’t call the D.A.! I’ll see if I can get the charges reduced…
”

“To what?” Issac asked.

“I don’t know. She said I did do something illegal, even though I didn’t know it was. It’s called check kiting.”

“I’ve heard of it, but I never really knew what it was.”

Tiffie had explained, but the truth was, Terri didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “Tiffie just said it’s when you write a check and there’s no money in the bank.”

“It can’t be that. It’s some kind of scam.”

“Well, how could I have been running a scam? Look, I’m an artist; this stuff makes no sense to me.
They
were the ones charging me twenty-two dollars a check and never telling me, or not until it was too late. Think about it. That’s more than two hundred dollars for ten checks: my rent, the phone, a couple credit cards… I write that many checks every month, and there’s no money left over. None. You know how much two hundred dollars is to somebody like me?”

Isaac only nodded. She knew he knew.

Tiffie, whose lips were as thin as her tiny little waist, wanted to plead Terri out and get her six months probation. Which meant Terri would officially be a felon.

She ate all the time now, when she wasn’t smoking, and bit her nails, worrying that her parents would find out. She stopped going to class, and one day, instead, had her cards read in Jackson Square. “Look for a sign,” said the reader. “Look for a sign and follow it.”