House of Blues

obviously making an effort to pull herself together. When she
did, she said, "I want a lawyer."
    * * *
    On the way back to headquarters, Abasolo did his best
to be consoling: "Maybe the gun'll turn up in the debris of
Anna's house."
    But it didn't.
    Nor was it in the car Evie had driven, or the one
Reed had driven.
    Anna denied that either she or her thugs had taken a
gun from either of the women. Maurice Gresham—now in the throes of
a massive Internal Affairs investigation—also denied it.
    Dennis had undoubtedly disposed of it—either sold
it to buy drugs or chucked it to protect Reed.
    In the ensuing days, Skip brought him in repeatedly
for questioning, and she brought Reed back as well. Still Dennis
insisted Evie had shot her father—though Skip could swear he now
looked sheepish when he said it—and still Reed said nothing, though
she becarne red in the face and she sweated under questioning. Her
foot tapped the floor and she shredded more than one tissue.
    One day, when Skip was spending an unproductive hour
with her, she caught an expression, a set of her mouth, that reminded
her of Anna Garibaldi, and she realized something that astonished
her:
    They're practically the same person.
    They both went into the family business, where
they were totally subservient to the men.
    They're both good little girls who never for a
second stepped out of line; just conformed to the prevailing culture
and waited for pats on the head.
    Did what they were supposed to do, and volunteered
for more. Suffered put-downs every day and worked all the harder to
be a credit to their sex. Probably built up a storehouse of
resentment someone like me couldn't begin to comprehend. I'd have
blown up the damned fish company. Burned the restaurant down. They
just bowed a little lower, and scraped a little deeper.
    Then one day they both rebelled.
    Big-time.
    Evie, under further questioning, only grew more
rocklike, though a sullenness entered her demeanor, especially on
days when she seemed to be suffering a hangover.
    Susan Belvedere, the Deputy D.A. assigned to the
case, was married to a man who had dated Reed in tenth grade and said
she wouldn't hurt a fly—she'd be too sure she was going to hell for
it. Yet Susan believed Evie's story with the fervor of Skip herself.
Long before she began her aggressive questioning of Evie, before Evie
even got as far as the can opener, Skip had had a feeling. Evie was
too relaxed, too easily waived her right to an attorney, to be
worried about a murder charge.
    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