Free Mean Woman Blues by Julie Smith Page A

confidence he’d be able to.
    Being cops, they could park where they wanted, and Skip suggested the Napoleon House. “You might as well absorb a little color while you’re down here.”
    Once again, Shellmire turned thumbs-down. “It’s a CC’s kind of night.”
    “Why?”
    “Lightning never strikes twice.” CC’s was a coffeehouse in the same block where she’d been shot at.
    “I didn’t think you were a superstitious kind of guy.”
    “I’m not; we’ve got agents covering the block.”
    She laughed. “Fat lot of good that’ll do.”
    He shrugged and ordered coffee for both of them. “Look, I’ve been working all day to get you some protection…”
    “Just me?”
    “Hell, no. Everybody down to Angel and Napoleon.”
    “Napoleon’s safe: they’ve got to know how much we hate each other. They know everything else.”
    “Skip, I’m afraid you were right back at the station. We can’t really do anything. I’m just as sorry as I can be.”
    She leaned back and looked at him, waiting for more.
    Now that the bad news was over, he was all business. “Can you get them to pack up and go away?”
    “For how long?”
    “Long as it takes.”
    “Dammit Turner, I hate it when you say dumb stuff.”
    “Intelligence isn’t my strong point.”
    “Wrong. We’re both here because you’ve got some ideas about how to get him.”
    “I don’t. I thought you might.”
    “I’m out of ideas. I thought Daniel’s sentencing might flush him out.”
    Shellmire took a long pull on his coffee and patted his mouth with a handkerchief, eschewing the paper napkin the coffee shop had provided. “Well, it did in a way. What’s happened to the other son?”
    “You mean The Artist Formerly Known as The White Monk? He’s moved on to great things; he even asked to paint me.”
    “And did you pose?” Shellmire was a bit of a slob, but he could be attractive. At the moment his face was lit up with amusement.
    “Twice,” she said. “Nude.”
    “Right.”
    In fact, the first part was true: She had posed twice. She liked The Monk.
    Shellmire said, “Who else was Jacomine close to, besides that Owens woman?”
    “Ah, yes, the first wife. The one he had kidnapped.”
    “That was her story. We never were sure she wasn’t working with him, but we watched her for six months after he disappeared. Phone taps and everything.”
    “Nothing?”
    “Nada.” He chewed his lip. “How about the pregnant woman?”
    “Ah. The lovely Bettina. Still scot-free, damn her.”
    “Sore point?”
    “You got it.” Bettina was a follower of Jacomine’s who’d claimed she’d been held against her will and forced to have sex with all the men of The Jury, Jacomine’s vigilante organization. Her baby— evidently a product of her time with the group— had turned out to have a congenital disorder that required hours of attention each day. And Bettina herself, not very bright but extremely good at people-pleasing, had managed to convince the D.A.’s office they couldn’t find twelve people who’d convict her of anything at all, much less conspiracy to commit murder. She’d pleaded out and ended up with probation.
    For all Skip knew, Bettina wasn’t guilty of anything more than being young and dumb, but it still pissed her off that the woman had so easily walked away from a human train wreck.
    Shelllmire said, “Any other followers?”
    “Doing time.” That, at least, was gratifying, but unless Jacomine wanted to mastermind a jailbreak, they were never going to be any use to him again, thus no use to Skip and Shellmire. “Look, I should be going.”
    “Don’t go yet. We’re just getting started.”
    But she wanted to go; the conversation was making her anxious.
    “Would you like me to sweep your house?”
    “Sure.” This was something she hadn’t thought of. “Could you do Steve’s too?”
    “Consider it done.”
    He sent someone out the next day and reported later that both her phone and Steve’s were tapped.
    So