House of Blues

Deep in her gut, she felt he was telling the truth.
    The more time she spent as a police officer, the more
she was coming to trust her intuition. It seemed a contradiction in
terms that intuition should come with experience, but even the most
grizzled cops talked about it. Guys without a metaphysical cell in
their bodies. Who wouldn't be caught dead in a church, say, unless
someone had died.
    Her brain did a kind of mental "oof," and a
black curtain dropped somewhere in her psyche as she remembered that
someone had.
    And yet, the curtain swung down and swung back in a
few moments, more or less of its own accord. The loss of jim was
going to be a raw wound for a long time, perhaps would never
completely heal. But it was starting to scab over.
    She pulled on a pair of loose-fitting linen pants and
an olive silk T-shirt, kissed Steve good-bye, and left in a
coffeeless daze, thinking to get caffeined-up at work.
    As she sipped, she considered her situation.
    Oh, hell, she suddenly thought, and looked in the
phone book for an Evie Hebert.
    There wasn't one.
    And of course, Evie could be calling herself Skip
Langdon for all she knew. Nothing to do but start at the beginning,
and that was Hebert's.
    To her distress, Sugar was there; Skip had hoped to
find Nina alone.
    "Officer Langdon," said Sugar, "could
you please tell me what's going on? Last night, Grady called me at my
house and said Dennis was back and needed his house, could I please
go home? Can you imagine? Not even offering to put me up. Not even
thinking about my things, over at Dennis and Reed's.
    " Now Dennis won't answer the phone, and I can't
find anything out. What happened? What's going on?"
    "Grady didn't tell you?" She thought Dennis
had probably filled him in.
    " Nobody tells me anything."
    Skip considered. ''Let's sit down," she said.
"You have a right to know. But I'd appreciate it if you'd keep
it to yourself."
    When they were seated, she said, "First, let me
tell you that we still don't know where Reed and Sally are."
    With her right hand Sugar batted away the
irrelevancy. "Grady told me that."
    "Okay, here's what Dennis said. I'm afraid
there's some very bad news—your daughter Evie is involved."
    Sugars mouth pulled tight at the corners and a
furious look blazed in her eyes. Skip found the expression unnerving,
wildly inappropriate for a person who was being told her oldest child
had murdered her husband. It was so full of anger and hurt that they
spilled over and filled the room.
    " I'm sorry," Skip said when she had
finished her story.
    Sugar said nothing.
    Skip made her voice businesslike. "I need to
know anything you can tell me about how to find Evie."
    " I don't know how to find Evie."
    "This is important, Mrs. Hebert. Think back to
the last time you saw her."
    " Why are you making me do this?" Sugars
face turned ugly and liquid; her voice was harsh.
    " I'm sorry. I know its hard for you. But I think
if you mull it over, you'll understand why its important." She
couldn't see trying to explain something so obvious. "Is Nina
here?"
    "Nina? What do you want Nina for?"
    She stood up. "I'd like to talk to her. Excuse
me, will you?"
    She found Nina in her own office. "How come
nobody told me about Evie?"
    " Evie?" Nina sounded hurt and puzzled.
"What does Evie have to do with anything?"
    I guess thats my answer. "She may. It turns out she may."
    "Oh?" Her face was a mask of curiosity.
    "Do you have any idea where she is?"
    Nina shrugged. "No. I don't think shes been
heard from in a couple of years."
    "Think back carefully to the last time you saw
her. I need to know anything you can remember—"
    Sugar barged in, interrupting: "I remembered
something. She was born again—that must have meant she was a member
of a church."
    She looked extremely pleased with herself.
    " Ah. Did she happen to say what church?"
    "Why, no. She didn't."
    Nina said, "Something with 'lamb' in it."
    " Good. Mrs. Hebert, does that ring any bells?"
    Sugar looked disconcerted. She spoke to Nina: "She
told you that?"
    "You mean the name of the church?" Nina
shrugged. "She hardly talked about anything else."
    Sugar said, "I don't believe you."
    Nina didn't speak. She sat impassively waiting for
more.
    "If she'd talked to anyone, it would have been
me. I mean, I am the girl's mother."
    "Well, if I'm not mistaken, she did tell me."
Her tone said: This woman's going to drive me
crazy if I don't kill her first.
    Skip said to Nina. "Do you remember anything at
all about the church?