House of Blues

Victorian love seat upholstered in
crimson velvet. Grouped around the love seat were six or eight wooden
chairs, not turned to face each other for conversation, but also
confronting the door. Each chair was occupied by a man or woman,
black or white, young or old—it was an artfully mixed group that
gave a peculiar impression of courtiers surrounding a king. The king
rose to greet her. When he did, so did everyone else, and Skip knew
instantly there was something very wrong here. The king stepped
forward. "Hello, hello, Detective Langdon. I am Errol Jacomine.
May I congratulate you on the wonderful job you did with the Kavanagh
case and express my deepest sympathy about your partner."
    " You seem to know a lot about me." Way
too much .
    " Why, you're a very famous young lady."
When he smiled, they all did.
    He was average height, even a little short, and
slight, with a bit of a bulge at the center. His face was some kind
of crude cross between Cajun and redneck—dark hair, fine nose, but
mean little eyes and sinewy neck. He parted his hair on the side, and
it was a little curly, slightly unruly, which must have given him
fits. He looked like the sort of person who'd expect every hair to
toe the line. Even if she hadn't felt she had to hose off the smarm
after shaking hands with him, she couldn't see what could possibly
make him a charismatic leader, though apparently he was to at least
the eight people in this room.
    "It's an honor to have you here. Please sit down
and we'll have some tea."
    " Oh, no thanks, I just have a question or two
and then I'll be off."
    He nudged a hand under her elbow and began to edge
her toward the love seat.
    "Nikki will simply not have it. She's been
baking all day." Indeed, there was a delicious bakery odor in
the air.
    One of the parishioners, if that's what they were,
had closed the door behind her (Nikki having disappeared, presumably
to fetch the tea). The others still stood stiffly.
    "I really must be going." She sounded like
a parody, but she liked it. It was properly distancing.
    "You must certainly not be going. You must
indulge us all—we've been curious about you."
    " It sounds as if you've indulged your curiosity.
"
    "How's that?"
    " You know everything about me."
    "Not everything, Detective. You still have some
secrets. For instance, I don't know yet how I can help you."
    She was disconcerted to find she was sitting on the
love seat; she wasn't quite sure how he'd done it.
    Instantly, someone held out a chair for the Reverend
Mr. Jacomine, and in almost the same second, two more people wedged a
small table between the two, so that Skip was facing the Reverend Mr.
over the table.
    And then all but two of the others sat down. The
whole thing was so carefully orchestrated it frightened her to think
what these people were capable of—what Jacomine was capable of, to
have subdued them so completely.
    "These are our people," he said, throwing
his arm out in an arc that seemed to take in the world. "I
thought you might like to meet some of them so you'd know the kind of
work we do. That's Ruby, who was addicted to painkillers when she
came here.
    "That's Fred; he had two convictions for armed
robbery; he's been with us four years now and he has a good job.
That's Mimi right behind Fred. She was a crack whore at this time
last year. Ah, here's Nikki."
    Nikki in the nick, Skip thought. She was embarrassed
at knowing so much about perfect strangers.
    Nikki had tied a black apron over her white dress,
and had placed a black cupcake hat over her headband. The effect was
ridiculous—pretentious in the nineteenth century, absolutely
unacceptable, Skip would have thought, in a 199os biracial
organization.
    Nikki set cups, saucers, and a tray of cookies on the
table. Skip was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. They had
researched her and they were going to a lot of trouble for what
should have been a five-minute interview. Something was wrong here.
She wished she had some backup.
    " Could I use the phone a second?"
    "Ruby." Jacomine raised a hand and made a
gesture so fast Skip couldn't follow it. It reminded her of a command
for dogs.
    Ruby disappeared, and as Skip watched her go, she
felt her hand catch fire. "Ouch." She snatched it back,
knocking over a lamp in the process, and saw that Nikki had spilled
tea on her. Her eyes swept back from the lamp to the room just in
time to see Jacomine mouth something at Nikki. She couldn't tell what
it was, but the expression in his eyes was