House of Blues (25 page)

"
Tricia? Is that you?"

"Skip, I've got him."

"I beg your pardon?"

"
I've got Dennis."

She sat up. "You what?"

"Come on, goddammit. I'm on Esplanade." A
beautiful street, but not a safe one. "He came to Maya's—I
followed him for you."

"
I'll be right there."

She jumped out of bed, reaching for shoes, badge,
radio, cuffs, and gun. "Back soon," she said to Steve, and
left without even combing her hair, which was probably so matted from
sleep she looked like a bag lady.

She double-parked in front of the address Tricia had
given her. Her friend was there, looking slightly the worse for wear.
Skip didn't know whether Dennis had a gun or not, couldn't predict
what would happen if he came out. The thing to do, she thought, was
scope out the scene a little and then get some backup.

But first, get Tricia out of there.

She remembered the scene from the other night. If
only she's not too loaded.

Suddenly, Tricia pointed. "There he is!"

A figure just emerging from the side of the building
broke into a run.

"
Stay where you are," she yelled to Tricia,
and took off after the runner, radioing as she ran. When she had
given her location, she shouted, "Halt! Police!" aware that
in shorts and T-shirt she didn't cut a very impressive figure.

He paid no attention.

"
Halt or I'll shoot." Of course she
couldn't, couldn't even fire a warning shot.

It occurred to her to yell his name, but she thought
that might make things worse. There was nothing to do but catch him.
He was running away from the river, into ever darker and more
dangerous territory, but right now she was about the most dangerous
thing around.

Feet, fly, she commanded. Come on, feet, do it.

She thought he was slowing, and poured on a little
more speed.

He was slowing. The gap was closing.

He's been to Maya's, and his drug of choice is
heroin. If he's fucked up, I'm surprised he can run at all.

She felt confident, drawing on the reservoir of
energy her nap had created. It was almost fun, pounding down
Esplanade at top speed in the middle of the night.

She could hear him breathing now.

"Give it up, Dennis," she said, and he
couldn't resist looking around, shocked to hear his name. Her heart
raced as she recognized the face in the picture she'd been carrying.

He tried to speed up, but the backward glance had
finished him.

This is going to hurt, she thought, and threw herself
down in a tackle. He managed one more step before he went down, and
she fell full on him, not even scraping her bare legs on the
pavement. He tried to fight, but she pulled her gun from the back of
her shorts: "Don't even think about it."

She identified herself.

"Am I under arrest?"

"I need you to come to headquarters with me.
You're a suspect in the murder of your father-in-law."

"Forget it."

She shrugged. "Okay, then. You're under arrest."

She cuffed him and read him his rights. Now how to
get him to headquarters? She couldn't see frog-marching him back to
her car. However, a figure came into view—Tricia, screaming and
crying, who hadn't heeded her admonition to stay put.

Just what I need.

By now people were starting to peek out their
windows, the boldest even venturing outside.

She heard a siren, and then a district car came into
view. An officer started to open the door, but seeing a wild woman
with a gun, quickly jumped back inside. "It's okay," she
shouted. "Langdon; Homicide. I need help with a suspect."

Gingerly, the young man—very young, she
noticed—opened the door again.

"Let's get him in your car."

Looking as if he might cry, he walked forward,
apparently still not convinced she was a police officer. "For
Christ's sake, my badge is in my pocket. Reach in and get it."

He relaxed and helped her wrestle Dennis into the
car.

"I've got to check the building he came out of.
Can you call for another car?"

"Here comes one."

Sure enough, another district car was arriving.

"
Okay, take this guy to Homicide, will you? Say
he's Dennis Foucher, and they'll know what to do till I get there."

"Dennis Foucher! You've got to be kidding."

Without answering, she went to Tricia, who had thrown
her arms around a tree and appeared to be howling at the moon.

"Trish? Come on, babe. It's okay; I'll take you
home in a minute."

Tricia let go of the tree and transferred herself to
Skip, getting her wet with tears and slobber. "Oh, Skippy, I
fucked up again."

Skip didn't know whether she meant by getting loaded
or by shouting when Dennis came out.

"Everything'll be okay."

"Ohhhh, Skippy."

Skip broke the grip Tricia had on her shoulders. "Can
you walk? That's it; that's good. All you have to do is get to that
car—you can wait there a few minutes."

"I'rn not getting in any police car."

"Tricia, could you cooperate, please? I'll get
you home as soon as I can."

Pouting, Tricia obeyed. She left with one of the
newly arrived officers while Skip went with the other to check the
building. They knocked, got no answer, and entered to find a rented
room with a few personal items, but no Reed, no Sally, and no obvious
clues as to where they were. She needed a warrant to do a real
search. She asked the district officers if one would stay to secure
the room until she could return with it. Then she got Tricia off her
hands.

"Vl/here do you live?"

"It's okay; you can just drop me on a corner or
something."

"Now you know I can't do that. Are you staying
at your parents' house?"

"No, really, anywhere's all right."

Skip sighed. "All right. How about Darryl's?"

"Oh, no. I can't bother Darryl again. He'd kill
me."

"What's wrong with just telling me where you
live?"

"Well, I'm not going home yet."

So that was it. "You want to go to Maya's?"

"
No! Uh . . . no, of course not. I was only at
Maya's for you, Skippy. I wanted to find Dennis for you because I
fucked up so bad the other night."

"
Okay, where then?"

"Listen, really. That's the only reason I was
hanging there. I'm going into treatment right away, I swear; I just
wanted to do this one thing for you."
 

17

Back in her car, her head beginning to clear, Skip
realized she was barely disappointed at all not to have found Reed
and Sally. She hadn't expected them. After Toni's story, she had
known in her heart that Dennis was traveling alone.

He was waiting for her at headquarters. She found one
of the officers on the night watch. "Is his lawyer on the way?"

"He says he doesn't want one."

"You're kidding."

"Looks like your lucky day."

"
I'm way overdue for one."

Hours later, after she'd gotten her warrant and
conducted her search, she joined Dennis in an interview room. "I've
been looking for you."

He didn't answer.

"I hear you don't want a lawyer."

"That's right. I just want to tell my story and
go home."

"Go home? You really think you're going home?"

"I haven't done anything."

"Oh, no? As it happens, I just searched your
room. I found some white powder in there."

"Are you trying to bully me?"

"
I'm trying to impress on you the seriousness of
your position."

"
I told you—I want to cooperate."

"Okay. First things first. Where are Reed and
Sally?"

"I don't know."

"
You don't know."

A sob came out of him. "I feel like shit. I just
feel like shit."

"You kind of look that way too." He wasn't
the Dennis of the photograph. He was thinner and he obviously hadn't
shaved since he left home. Skip didn't think he'd bathed or changed
clothes either. "And smell that way. "

He looked surprised, as if personal grooming were
something from a strange country that he could barely remember
hearing about.

"
Dennis, what happened the other night?"

He looked at her out of eyes that seemed surrounded
by bruises, the skin around them was so dark. "Evie came. She
took Sally."

"
Evie? Who the hell is Evie?"

"
Reed's sister."

"Wait a minute. You're telling me Reed has a
sister?" And nobody's mentioned it? Am I going crazy here?

"Yeah. Evie. It's a long story."

"Well, in that case, maybe you could just tell
me some other time. I got things to do, you know?"

"
Huh?"

"Start talking, Dennis."

"She came in and tried to get Sally. Naturally,
we resisted. I mean, Arthur did—he was closest to Sally. So Evie
shot him."

"How'd she get in?"

"
Rang the doorbell. Reed answered it, for some
reason."

"
What reason?"

He closed his eyes and thought. He opened them.
"Arthur asked her to. He was always ordering her around."

"Then what?"

"
Reed came in, with Evie behind her. Nobody'd
seen her in more than a year. She said hello and Arthur didn't say
anything—just went on eating as if she wasn't there. Then Reed
asked her if she was hungry—and she said no, she just came to get
Sally."

"Came to get Sally."

"
Uh-huh."

"Was she going to take her to the playground or
what?"

"Sugar didn't tell you any of this?"

"
Sugar was there?"

"No. No. Sugar was gone. I mean, she didn't tell
you about Evie?"

"You tell me."

"Well, she claimed Sally was hers."

"Claimed. "

"She was Sally's biological mother."

"Ah. Maybe you'd better tell me all about Evie
before you go any further."

He looked down at the table between them. "I
should know. She used to be my girlfriend."

"
Before you met Reed?"

"Oh, God yes. That's how I met Reed. See, Evie
was the bad sister. She and I were junkies together, and when we ran
out of money, she said she had this rich family we could get money
from even though they hated her. So we went to see them, and I saw
Reed and—" He stopped, his eyes filled with tears. "She
yelled at us. Both of us. She'd never seen me before in my life and
she yelled at me. She really made me feel like shit." He
shrugged. "But then I fell in love with her."

"Just like that?"

"Sometimes I think so. I mean, I was always
attracted to her. She was healthy and beautiful, and Evie was wasted,
you know? And so was I. But I got to know her over a long period and
she got me to clean up. I mean, to want to clean up.

"So I did. She got me into treatment. And that
was it for Evie and me. She was a junkie and I was clean and
sober—what could we possibly have together? But now Reed—she was
another matter. I sometimes think that's why I went into treatment in
the first place—so she'd notice me; maybe she'd consider me."

"
What happened?"

"
We fell in love and got rnarried." He
laughed. "Just about over Arthur and Sugar's dead bodies. You
know, I wasn't only a junkie. It wasn't only that. Half my family's
black—did you know that? And then there's my accent."

He spoke with the trace of a working-class accent. He
had probably worked hard to get rid of it.

He shook his head. "Mm mm mm. All that goddamn
hard work. And now I'm a junkie again. Shit!" He looked
completely dejected. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if he were
about to cry: "One minute we were having dinner, and the next,
there she was. With a gun."

Skip wanted him back on track. "She's Sally's
biological mother."

"Yes. See, she cleaned up too—a couple of
years later. She showed up at a time when we were kind of hoping for
a baby, but we weren't bent out of shape because Reed wasn't
pregnant—it wasn't like some big deal. But then Evie offered us
this great opportunity—she was pregnant and she couldn't keep the
baby. See, she'd gotten sober and converted to Christianity—she was
in some group or other that she said was really different. Different
from what, I never knew, but whatever keeps you sober. She was sober,
she looked good, and she said she'd just gone back to school. But she
wasn't going to be able to finish if she had to take care of a baby.
So would her only sister and her ex-boyfriend like to adopt her baby?
she said. Well, of course we would. Who wouldn't, in our position?