Crescent City Connection

problems.”
    “Hell, Daddy, we all got problems.”
    “Not like Isaac has.”
    “What do you mean?” Daniel felt a thrill of alarm. Though he hadn’t communicated with him in years, Isaac was still his baby brother. He thought it odd that he felt frightened on his behalf.
    “He’s got demons. The boy’s got demons.”
    He hoped his father didn’t mean his brother would harm Lovelace. “I’m going back to New Orleans.”
    It was a short drive from Baton Rouge, but once there, he hardly knew what to do. For want of a better idea, he went to the registrar of voters—and found no Isaac Jacomine.
    Daniel sat in his car, gripping the steering wheel. It shocked him that he knew almost nothing about his brother, had no idea of his interests, marital status, even his educational level; hadn’t thought of him in years. But then there was so much difference in their ages.
    And we were never a close family,
he thought.
    Isaac had been a child preacher, coached by his mom and dad; but then he’d had something else as well. Not faith, exactly—all kids believed in God and Santa Claus. More like a radiance. Some kind of thing that actually made you believe.
    For the first time in memory, Daniel felt moisture in his eyes. Isaac had been a damn cute little boy.
    What a weird thing to remember. What’s wrong with me?
    * * *
    The FBI would have got to Skip sooner or later if she hadn’t acted first—Jacomine or not, she was a pretty key witness. She hoped this way they’d take her more seriously, be more inclined to include her in their investigation.
    Working with the feds had advantages—like better equipment, more and better manpower. For instance, they already had data on the other letters The Jury had sent. Each one had been mailed in the city to which it was addressed, or one close by, but big deal—one person with relatives and friends could have done it. It wouldn’t take an army of fanatics.
    Another good thing about the feds—they had the means to get to the wife, the one in Central America. Within a day, they’d subpoenaed the pertinent records from the Christian Community, figured out where she was, and talked to her. Naturally, she said she didn’t know anything, but there’d be follow-ups.
    The other thing was, Skip needed all the help she could get in any form she could get it. The brass was so desperate for a sucker for their new heater case that she was assigned to work full time on it, with Abasolo detailed to help her as she needed him. Skip asked for a task force and was almost laughed out of the captain’s office: “Wait a minute, Langdon. Things moving too fast for you here? This isn’t the chief’s murderer we’re looking for—we’re trying to find the guy who shot the chief’s murderer. You unclear on the concept or something? Listen, don’t knock yourself out on this one—you don’t solve it, nobody’s gonna get bent out of shape. Just make it look good.”
    Skip was so mad she could feel the blood rush to her face. She literally couldn’t remember feeling this angry. She spoke without watching her tongue: “Unclear on the concept! Captain, please. The Jury is a huge national case. The whole country’s eyes are on us.”
    The captain leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know, I kind of like these creeps. Makin’ our job easier, aren’t they?”
    “He was just blustering,” Tarantino said as they walked back to Homicide. “He’s what I call a ‘goat-getter’—baits people for no reason.”
    She was still smoldering: “He didn’t give me the task force.”
    “Skip, you’re got to look at it from the point of view of the department. If you hadn’t caught that asshole Bazemore, you’d have your task force right now. Because he got us where we live. We can’t afford to expend a lot of manpower on what’s really just … a principle.”
    “Surely you don’t believe that.”
    Tarantino shrugged, apologetically, she hoped.
    In a way, she could see it. If Jacomine weren’t involved she wasn’t so sure she’d give that much of a damn herself.
    Cindy Lou was waiting in her office. “Come on, girl, let’s go to lunch.”
    Skip looked at her watch. “I don’t know if I can take the time.”
    “Come on, now. We’ve got business. And let’s get that good-looking pal of yours, too.”
    Abasolo was two cubicles over, and listening. “You must mean me,” he said.
    They went for pasta at Semolina. “Look,” said Cindy Lou when they’d ordered about