House of Blues (48 page)

Then there was her story.

As Evie told it, Skip had felt the tightening in her
stomach that meant she was hearing an unpleasant truth—not what she
expected to hear, or what she wanted to hear, but what every cell in
her body told her was true.

"
What do you think?" she asked Abasolo.

"I don't blame her. I'd have done it too."

"
Who, goddamn it? Who don't you blame?"

"For Christ's sake, Skip, if Evie shot her dad,
why the hell would Reed clam up?"

"To protect Evie?"

"Uh-uh. Not Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes. She'd
get her the best legal counsel, all that kind of crap, but she'd feel
deep, deep in her little civics-lesson heart that her sister, 'though
still my sister and I love her, must Pay her Debt to Society.'
Believe me, I know the type."

"Why, AA, I wouldn't have thought a rogue like
yourself would go in for those babes."

"I don't. They go in for me—they all want to
reform me."

"
That makes sense. Reed reformed Dennis."

"I guarantee you it makes sense. It's why I'm
single today."

Despite her best efforts and those of Susan
Belvedere, and all the support Abasolo could muster, they still had
no physical evidence and two witnesses with different stories.

There was simply no way to take the case to court.
But they could at least take it to the grand jury.

Or so Skip thought until Belvedere showed up shaking
her head one day. "Sugar got to my boss."

"Sugar! What are you talking about?"

"The Heberts are pretty damned influential in
this town, did you know that?"

"
I know they were connected. Is that what you
mean?"

"I don't know if that entered into it. All I
know is, yesterday Sugar turned up and had a conference behind closed
doors. The next thing I knew I was told to drop the grand jury
investigation."

"
No!" Skip couldn't take it in.

"
I'm sorry, Skip. I'm just as sorry as I can
be."

Belvedere looked as if
someone had died.

* * *

"
It happens," said Cappello. "You've
got to let it go, Skip. The old fart had it coming."

She didn't mean it, of course.

Skip knew her: Though she had small children like
Reed, though she knew that if Reed were convicted, Sally might be
left to the tender mercies of Dennis and Sugar, Cappello would have
locked Reed up and thrown away the key if she could have. She was
trying to make Skip feel better.

But nobody could these days.
 

30

She came home from work and fell immediately into
bed, unable to read or even watch television. She tried spending time
with Dee-Dee and the kids, but they didn't cheer her up, she brought
them down. The kids didn't need that; they had enough trouble.

Sometimes she'd see Angel after a few days—or was
it weeks?—and she'd have tripled in size. She'd panic: I'm missing
it. She's growing up, the kids are growing up, and I'm not even there
for it. Still, she could do nothing. She couldn't stay awake. And
when she was awake, she didn't want to be.

She dreamed sometimes of the night in the Conti
Breezeway, saw Jim's face as he lay wounded on the ground, and when
she saw Augustine Melancon's face, it was not the terrified baby face
of a teenager caught in a nightmare, it was a Satan mask and it spoke
to her, droning and much too slow, like a record played at the wrong
speed.

"Your turn now," it said, and she would
wake up sweating. In the dream, she thought the figure was predicting
her death, and sometimes she would tremble afterward, unable to go
back to sleep.

But in daylight she'd remember what she knew it
meant, what she always forgot when she dreamed it: It meant it was
her turn to kill.

It was funny. For the longest time she was afraid to
go to sleep for fear of dreaming. Yet she never dreamed the thing she
feared, never saw tiny Shavonne crawling across that floor to her
mama. She did all the time in her conscious hours. Every time she saw
a pair of pink jeans or a pair of flip-flops, or even, sometimes,
just a small black girl with braids, Shavonne came to her like an
acid flashback.

Sometimes when that happened, she would very
deliberately switch channels—take her camera across the room to
Delavon lying dead of her own bullet. She wanted to avoid hiding
behind his daughter, to break the denial she knew was there, to
understand, deep in her belly, that she had taken a human life.

And yet the image of Shavonne hurt her more deeply
than that of Delavon. Indeed, she found it almost unbearable, and
sometimes, in the office, brushed at her head when it came, as if a
swarm of bees surrounded her. People stared. Cappello brought her
coffee and asked if she were all right.

She said she was, she always said she was, because
she knew the job was the only thing holding her together right now,
and she could not risk being transferred. The pressure to perform was
enormous.

The funny thing was, at work she was a hero. The
round of applause the day after the shooting was just the beginning.
She got a Medal of Merit, a little gold button shaped like a badge.
She got congratulations from people whose names she didn't even know,
strangers who stopped her in the hall. She finally gave Eileen
Moreland an interview.

Eileen didn't ask her, she asked the superintendent,
and he all but ordered her to do it.

"Heroic Female Cop" was great publicity for
a department that sorely needed some.

"Oh, Skippy, don't be such a pill," said
Eileen. "It's a chance to get things off your mind."

Sure. Heroic Female Cop's supposed to tell the whole
city about her depression. About the recurring nightmares. The
superintendent would love that one.

She ended up saying, more or less, that she did what
she had to.

As if it were original.

As if it were the end of the story.

As if police officers were automatons.

And then she had to deal with a second round of
congratulations.

Joe Tarantino, her lieutenant, encouraged her to take
the sergeant's test, saying she was "ready" now; she'd
"matured." She was "seasoned."

All words that mocked her.

You're mature if you shoot somebody? A seasoned
cop is a killer? What the hell am I doing here?

She was there because it was her job and it was the
only identity she felt she had right now; she needed it to maintain
contact with the Earth. But even at headquarters she couldn't check
her hopelessness at the door.

Cindy Lou told her she should be in therapy, but she
couldn't seem to get around to finding a therapist and making an
appointment. She certainly wasn't going to do it at work, where
everyone, including O'Rourke, could hear.

And when she wasn't at work, she was either asleep or
just couldn't get up the energy to find the phone book. She couldn't
shop or cook either. She ordered greasy po' boys from the Verti Marte
or the Quarter Master, and her clothes got tighter.

Her appetite was erratic, but she never lost it
completely.

Mostly, she ate because she was hungry, not because
it gave her pleasure.

Steve Steinman, worried and sure he could cure her,
came for a weekend and went home more worried. She did with him what
she did with her other friends, with Cindy Lou and Jimmy Dee, even
with the kids and Darryl—she listened politely, ate and drank at
appropriate times, even laughed at the proper places, but didn't
contribute much.

"Darling, the sparkle is gone," wailed
Dee-Dee. "You do not shine and glitter from twenty paces. You
are no longer a walking Christmas tree, a spinning Ferris wheel, a
revolving klieg light.

Quite simply, you are not Margaret Langdon. You are a
pathetic and flagrant impostor." He was begging her to take a
little time of! Everybody knew how to save her.

But weeks went by and she
didn't get better.

* * *

Her doorbell rang one Saturday.

Convinced it was one of the drunks who prowl the
Quarter pushing bells for amusement, she ignored it. But it rang
again and she came alert—the pranksters didn't break stride when
they rang, much less waited for an answer.

She was sleeping as usual, but thought it might be
one of the kids, locked out or something. She roused herself: '"Who
is it?"

"
Tricia. Back from the dead."

She was too disoriented to answer right away.

Tricia said, "Are you speaking to me?"

I can barely remember who you are.

But she said, "Of course. I'll be right out,"
and remembered too late that Tricia was a drunk.

Well, if she's drunk I'll send her away. It's the
middle of the day, she'll be fine. But she knew she wouldn't. She
would take care of Tricia if she needed her; caretaking was one of
the few things for which she could still find energy.

Something about guilt, probably.

"I brought you something? Tricia was holding a
beribboned package.

Probably a peace offering.

She looked good in a T-shirt and shorts that showed
legs shiny gold from the sun. Her eyes were bright and clear.

Now she has her sparkle, Skip thought. She does
glitter at twenty paces.

"You look wonderfu1." Feeling a surge of
warmth for her old friend, she held out her arms for a hug.

"I do, don't I? I'm on a pink cloud."

"What does that mean? You're in love?"

"It's something we say in AA."

"Oh. AA." Skip let it hang there.

They walked back to the courtyard, where, for once,
there were no kids and no puppy.

"Want to sit out here?"

"
Perfect."

Skip left and came back with a couple of Diet Cokes.
"Tell me about the pink cloud."

"It's that great feeling you get when you get
all the toxins out of your body." She spread her hands, as if
displaying her purified form. "And your life is going somewhere
again, and you're surrounded by nice, supportive people. Of course,
it doesn't last—we all know that—but it feels great for a while.

"Clean and sober for a month. Congratulate me."

"Tricia, that's wonderful."

"I went through a seven-day treatment program.
On the streets three weeks—I'm a new person." She saluted with
her Coke. "And you were there when I hit bottom."

"
You mean the scene in front of Maya's?"

"Oh, God, that was nothing. I bet I've thrown
ten of those fits in the last six months. I mean having you see
me—you know, in that place."

"Maya's?"

"I thought I'd die. I swear I did."

"
I don't get it."

"
You wouldn't think embarrassment would do it,
would you? You'd think having a wreck or beating your kid—now that
would sober you up. But there you were, my oldest friend, and you
thought I was sober and doing great, and there I was, holding onto
the chandelier for dear life." She shook her head. "I can't
explain it. All I know is, I thought, ‘What the fuck has become of
me?' "

Skip laughed. "Rather unseemly for a McGehee's
girl."

Tricia covered her head with her hands, as if to
hide. "Life is too silly, isn't it?"

Skip was unconvinced; it had seemed deadly serious
lately.

"Anyway, it was all your doing." Tricia
handed her the package.

"So I brought you a present."

It contained a framed picture, a pen-and-ink drawing
of a large, proud, black woman. With very few strokes, the artist had
captured a state of mind that said, "I am a goddess and don't
you forget it."

In spite of herself, Skip was touched. "Carol
Leake. I have one of her watercolors."

"You're kidding."

"I'll show you." She realized that her
oldest friend had never been inside her home.

Tricia exclaimed appropriately over its adorableness,
the tastefulness of its decor, and the beauty of its artwork,
including the aforementioned Carol Leake, which, upon inspection,
proved to be a study of the same model who'd sat for the drawing.

The warmth she felt for Tricia was increasing by the
moment, as the broken bond mended itself, as she remembered the
things they'd been through together, over so many years. Somehow the
fact that Tricia had picked this drawing by this artist, whom Tricia
couldn't possibly have known she admired, made her feel known.
Understood.

Part of something ongoing; something that might last.

But it wore off.

They hung the picture, Tricia advising on the exact
right spot, and settled themselves once more. And after a while
Tricia began to annoy her.