Mean Woman Blues

Kevin O’Malley. “Hey, guess what? I found Billy.”
    She pricked up her ears. There could be something in this for her. “Congratulations. That’s great.”
    “And I’ve got something else for you— a whole new cache of cemetery art.”
    “No kidding.” She picked up a pencil; this could be good.
    “Yeah, we ran the picture, and we got a tip about where he was. I went over there to take a look, and no one was home, so I, you know, kind of peeked over the fence. And there it was, all this stuff, just sitting there in some guy’s backyard.”
    “Oh. Well, thanks for calling. I’ll go over and take a look. Where is it?”
    “Five eighty-nine Spain Street.” Skip could hear papers raiding somewhere in the station. An ordinary sound, but at the moment it seemed to come from a great great distance. Her whole life had just split apart. “Some guy named Steve Steinman owns the building.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Skip had only a moment of pure fatalistic understanding— the sort you might have if you looked up and saw a meterorite headed for Earth— before the news hit her bloodstream like a jolt of caffeine. Her heart accelerated and her stomach flipped over. She went into hyperspeed.
    First, she fished the morning paper out of the trash and checked for the woman’s name and address: Mary Jones, 4805 St. Charles. A black curtain seemed to fall around her; she knew there was no Mary Jones at that address, but she had to go through the motions. First she tried the phone book, then she took a ride. The house was a mansion, as were all the dwellings on this part of the showiest street in New Orleans. Ringing the bell with little hope, Skip was greeted by an African-American woman in a maid’s uniform. She didn’t even bother to smile and make her manners. Just blurted, “I’m looking for Mary Jones.”
    “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “This the Gerson residence.”
    Skip produced her badge. “Police,” she said. “May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Gerson?”
    There followed an uncomfortable twenty minutes in which Skip tried to pry coherent answers from a half-potted Mrs. Gerson, with help from the maid, a Hazel Brown, both of them, in the end, agreeing that no Mary Jones nor in fact any Jones at all had ever worked there, nor was Hazel herself related to a Mary Jones.
    It was about what Skip had expected. Hazel could have an acquaintance, even a daughter, who knew the address through her. Or “Mary Jones” could have made it up out of whole cloth.
    On the way back to the Third District, she cursed Kevin O’Malley for not suspecting something, but on the other hand, what did it matter to him what the woman’s address was? She had a great story to tell; who cared whether it was true? No one could get hurt by it.
    Skip pounded into Abasolo’s office and closed the door. “A.A. I’ve been set up.” She knew what was going to happen, but she was too mad to be afraid, even for Steve. “You know that stupid story this morning about the missing statue named Billy? The reporter just found it. Acting on an anonymous tip, he went to a certain address, climbed a fence, and found a cache of what he suspects to be stolen cemetery art, including the statue of Billy. Guess whose address?”
    “Skip, for Christ’s sake, quit pacing. Sit down and try to calm down.”
    “Steve Steinman’s, Adam. My boyfriend’s.”
    Abasolo whistled and sunk down in his chair. “Have you checked it out?”
    “Are you kidding? I checked out the woman, but no way am I going over to Steve’s alone; for all I know, the
T-P
’s got photographers lying in wait. Steve’s in L.A., by the way. The last time I saw him was three days ago, and there was no statuary of any kind in his backyard. And, no, I haven’t phoned him.”
    “Do it now, with me as a witness. We’ve got to get permission to search. Don’t tell him what it’s about.”
    “Shit!”
    “Skip, calm down, for God’s sake. We’ve got to do it by the book.”
    For all his talk of calm, she noticed a muscle twitching in his jaw.
    She made the call, and they were out of there, on the way calling for a district car to meet them there. (A.A. thought of everything: “What if the
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team is there? You want to look like a couple of dirty cops sneaking around?”)
    But the street was its usual quiet self. Skip let them in with her key, and when they opened the back door, the sight that greeted them caused the same words to issue from both pairs of lips: “Oh,