The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  “I don’t feel too great.”

  She had brought him a drink and been solicitous all afternoon, but he pleaded illness and left early.

  He came in from the garage and there was Torian, standing with her back to him, holding Joy up in front of the big mirror over the fireplace. “There’s your nose, and here’s your eye …”

  He saw his own reflection behind theirs, and Torian’s face took on a look of such beatific happiness it was as if the babysitter and his daughter had become the Madonna and child.

  “Hello, Noel,” she said, and put down the child. “Joy, honey, go get your Pooh. Show Daddy your Pooh.”

  He watched his child toddle out of the room. At the same moment, he and Torian stepped towards each other, their arms going round each other as if they had done it a thousand times.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  He hadn’t realized how much he loved her, or what love would feel like. She made him ashamed of every relationship he’d ever had. He was a taker and a user. He knew how to get women, and he did. In this arena, at thirty-three, he was as much a virgin as Torian.

  The job had come through—just today—and that only confused things. He wanted desperately to leave Boo, to get out from under the lie he was living, but he couldn’t do that now, not for months.

  His life was split by lightning as jagged as the flash that bisected the sky. It was killing him.

  Boo was waiting for him in white shorts and T-shirt, the way Torian had dressed that day, and the sight made his throat constrict. It was like a parody.

  She was tall, nearly as tall as he was, and slender, though not so thin as Torian. But where Torian was dark and mysterious, Boo was blond and ordinary. Where Torian was languid, Boo was brisk. Where Torian was sensitive, Boo was mindlessly cheerful.

  “You got caught.” She smiled at his bedraggled appearance.

  He shrugged. “I was walking. I couldn’t see stopping.”

  “Want a beer?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  He went quickly into the kitchen, hoping she hadn’t seen his face. Living with her, keeping his real life from her, was getting harder and harder. Every day he felt less like her husband, more oppressed by their life together. He was increasingly aware how few decisions he made, how much of their life was about what Boo wanted.

  For instance, she had wanted to buy this house. “Do you realize we’ll be under construction for two years?” he had said, and her eyes shone.

  “Oh, please, Noel. Think how much fun it’ll be to bring it back to life.”

  So far she had brought only one room back (besides her office)—the baby’s, which she had painted peach, a color he loathed. They both liked antiques, they could agree on that. But her taste was fussier, and when they disagreed she always won. As a result, the rooms already seemed too full, too formal, too overdone. He couldn’t get comfortable in them.

  He got his beer, changed into dry clothes, and rejoined Boo, flopping in a chair that was too small for him. This room, the living room, now had only a few items in it, just a table and chairs, to perch on really, while sanding and painting went on.

  “I got the job.”

  “The one you wanted?”

  “And the other one.”

  “Whee!” She jumped up and hugged him. “You got both of them! I knew you could do it.”

  “This is something I really believe in, Boo. Frankly, I never thought I’d get it. It means more to me than anything I’ve ever done.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m going to die of suspense.” He hadn’t told her because so many things had fallen through lately—he no longer talked of details, just of interviews and meetings, to let her know he was trying.

  “Are you ready for this? Errol Jacomine’s press secretary.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?” But she was wearing a look he didn’t understand—he could have sworn it was distress.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. That’s great.” But she looked oddly tense. He wondered if, deep down, in a place she didn’t even know about, she wanted him to fail. “It’s just that … I thought he had a press secretary. I never dreamed it was even a possibility.”

  He shrugged. “She’s left the campaign.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Personality conflict,’“ Jacomine says. “Probably incompetence and he just doesn’t want to say so. He’s a very ethical, very fair man—he wouldn’t go out of his way to ruin someone’s reputation.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you realize we actually have a chance to have a decent mayor? Somebody who’s not a crook, not a racist, not tied up with any machines, and doesn’t owe anybody. You know what that could mean to this town?”

  “I thought you liked Perretti.”

  He took a swig of beer. “Never. Not for a minute. I just thought he was the best of the ones who could win. But I’m starting to look at things differently. People are so damn fed up. Errol could win, Boo. He could really win.”

  “Nonsense. He will win. With you at the helm.” He thought the way she said it sounded slightly insincere.

  She smiled. Forcing it? There was something very odd about her demeanor.

  “What was the other job?”

  “You’re not going to believe this—Perretti’s press secretary.”

  She raised her glass to him. “When you bounce back, you really bounce.”

  Chapter Four

  SKIP HAD COME back from the therapist’s feeling oddly cheated—as if she’d finally discovered an escape hatch, only to find it locked. She lay down on her bed, supine, assuming the position in which she’d spent so many hours since her depression began.

  Maybe I should quit. Just quit and go to work for Perretti anyway. Maybe it’d be worth it.

  What am I saying? I don’t want to work for any of those assholes.

  There were seven candidates in the race, but four were considered out-and-out losers. That left Seymour Jackson, a mob-front black man; Perretti; and Jacomine.

  A crook, a possibly racist wild card, and a psychopath. Great.

  What do I care who gets elected?

  She lay there and let the question seep through her.

  Maybe Jackson was the best choice, representing as he did machine politics as usual.

  But he’ s not going to win.

  The big money was split between him and Perretti, which diluted their influence and gave Jacomine a huge advantage. Jacomine could do it. He’s got people mesmerized.

  I’ve got a real bad feeling about it. I think the guy’s capable of murder and worse. He’s crazy, and you don’t know what crazy people will do.

  Even that didn’t satisfy her, couldn’t justify the violent reaction she had to him, the urgency she felt about knocking him out of public life.

  Why do I feel this way?

  He’s evil. He’s got to be stopped.

  Oh, come on, you don’t even know what evil means.

  I don’t have to, I can smell it. I can feel it.

  She thought her heart beat faster.

  She sat up, feeling oddly excited. Okay, you’re alive— on leave, but not dead. Good.

  So what? Where did that get her?

  Wait a minute. Hold on. Just because I’m not a cop doesn’t mean I’m not a detective. I could treat this just like a case.

  She thought back to the time she’d first met Jacomine, how suspicious she’d been, and how she’d been sure she’d find a disaffected church member who’d confirm what she thought. She had lucked out, in spades, with a woman named Nikki Pigeon.

  Suddenly, thinking of Pigeon, her place in politics was so clear she couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t thought of it earlier. All she had to do was locate Nikki and a few more like her, turn their names over to the Times-Picayune, and she could stop the juggernaut. It was elegantly simple; preposterously easy.

  For the first time in weeks she felt like getting out of bed.
/>
  * * *

  Skip had cleaned up Nikki Pigeon’s story for her therapist. Seeing Boo’s incipient skepticism, she wasn’t about to present it in all its gore and ugliness. Nikki had talked to her with a swollen mouth, the result of a blow from Jacomine, she said.

  Skip could remember her words: “I honestly think he’s evil. I don’t know if I ever met anybody else I felt that way about.”

  Skip knew what she meant. Jacomine made her scalp prickle as no human being ever had and only one other thing could: tarantulas.

  Nikki had said he got people “under his control and made them do things.”

  “Like what?” Skip had asked.

  “Sex.”

  “What else?”

  “Causes and shit. Like work the phones for some politician he wants to get elected. You know? That kind of shit. Then, the politician gets elected, I bet he makes him do what he wants.”

  And now Jacomine was running for mayor himself, probably having called in quite a few markers. If he won, he wouldn’t stop there: he’d go for the governorship.

  “They plannin’ somep’n,” Nikki had said. “What, I don’t know. But somep’n. Gotta be. Why else put together an army of zombies?”

  Maybe she was just being paranoid. But maybe this had been the plan all along: political power.

  All that was speculation, but Nikki had also told tales of compulsory sex, sadistic punishments, public humiliation, and violence. But she’d been unwilling to file a battery complaint because she was afraid Jacomine would kill her.

  It would make great reading in the Times-Picayune. The hard part would be talking Nikki into it.

  Skip had originally found her by calling all the Pigeons in the phonebook. She went down the list again until she found Tanya, on Baronne Street. Best to go over there, she thought, though probably no one would be home in the daytime.

  Still, what else have I got to do?

  She remembered the once-proud house gone to ruin, the depressing apartment within. To her surprise, a woman’s voice answered her knock.

  “Nikki?” she said. “It’s Skip Langdon.”

  A woman she’d never seen opened the door. “I remember you.”

  “Tanya? I don’t think we’ve met.” Tanya was too thin, addict-thin, and Skip’s heart sank; she knew Nikki’s sister had children.

  “I remember your name. You the only one Nikki talk to. She hate them bastards. Precious Lamb or whatever.” She meant Jacomine’s church: Blood of the Lamb Divine Evangelical Following. He’d recently shortened the name to the last three words.

  “How’s Nikki doing?”

  “Don’ know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Nikki ain’ been home for a while.”

  “You mean she’s still living with you?” Skip had pictured her with a place of her own by now.

  “Ever since she lef’ the nutballs. Oh, she had boyfriends; gone for a while now and then. You know. But this time she been gone a good while. She mighta got married or somethin’.”

  Skip’s neck started to prickle. “How long’s a good while?”

  “You mean how long she been gone?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, le’s see. Befo’ the fo’th, I know that.”

  “The fourth of September? That was two days ago.”

  “The fo’th of July. We was s’posed to go see our people that day, out in the country. Nikki gon’ drive, but she ain’ home.”

  “The third? That was the day she didn’t come home?”

  “Sometime befo’ that, I b’lieve.”

  “Has she called or anything?”

  “No. She ain’ called.”

  Skip wanted to shake her. She said, “Aren’t you worried at all?”

  She was instantly sorry. Tanya said, “I got my chirren to worry about. I got myse’f, my house, how I’m gon’ pay the rent.”

  And where you’re going to get your rock. “Did you report her missing?”

  “No. I ain’ report her missin’.” She might be an addict, but she hadn’t completely numbed her feelings. Her eyes were so full of tragedy Skip’s heart went out to her. She rummaged in her purse. “Could you use some money for your children?”

  “Yes’m, I could.”

  Skip handed over thirty dollars, hoping it would get spent on groceries, and wishing Tanya hadn’t felt a sudden servile need to call her “ma’am.” “By the way, how did Nikki happen to leave?”

  “I don’ remember. Guess she went out, just didn’t come back.”

  “Went out with a man?”

  “I s’pose.”

  “Any idea who? Was she dating anyone in particular?”

  “I don’ know.” That was probably right. Skip was having less and less hope that any of her money was going to get to the kids.

  “To tell you the truth, what I really want to do is talk to people like Nikki, who left that awful church. Did she have any friends like that?”

  An odd new look came into Tanya’s eyes, something almost like hope. She nodded several times. “Yes’m, sho’ did. She had a friend like that.”

  “He was from our neighborhood. Young boy, barely out his teens. Nikki brought him into the church I b’lieve. And then he come to her when he got out, ‘cause he need a friend. See, he wadn’t no boyfriend, jus’ a frien’ boy. People’s all messed up when they come outta there.” She contorted her face. “All messed up. Some bad things happen to Jamal. Ummm. Ummm. Real bad things.”

  Nikki had told Skip that Jacomine forced not only the women, but the men as well to have sex with him. She supposed that was what Tanya meant.

  “Jamal who?”

  “You know, my chirren ain’ had nothin’ but cereal all week.”

  Skip realized what the look like hope had been about. She opened her wallet for Tanya to see. “I have one twenty left. But I really need to find Jamal. Can you tell me how to find him?”

  Tanya looked downright triumphant. “Yes’m, I can. He Jamal Broussard.”

  Skip handed over the money.

  “And he drive a tow truck.”

  “Uh-huh. And where does he live?”

  “I ain’ know that.”

  “Okay, who does he drive for.”

  “I ain’ know that. But he drive a tow truck. Sho’ do.”

  Oh, well. She needs the money more than I do. She thanked Tanya for her time and went home for another session with the phone book.

  * * *

  A Jamal Broussard lived on North Prieur, but there was no answer, no machine, and no assurance in the world it was Nikki’s Jamal. That meant four pages of “Towing” listings.

  She had said, “May I speak to Jamal?” fourteen times when someone finally said, “It’s his day off.”

  “Oh. Well, this is Lorraine at Federal Express. Does he still live on North Prieur?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I b’lieve he does.” The voice was that of a young female dispatcher, slightly husky, strong New Orleans accent: probably a completely guileless person. How refreshing, Skip thought, and thank God it’s only me pulling this shit.

  Jamal’s house was a rundown shotgun in a black neighborhood where there was quite a bit of foot traffic. Skip got out of the car and knocked. No answer, but lots of stares from the neighbors.

  She could have waited for him, but she couldn’t see the point. She knew where he worked, and she could catch him there. For the moment, she contented herself with a note in his mailbox: “Jamal—Nikki Pigeon may have mentioned me. She told me what happened to her in the Following, and I hear you had a bad time, too. Maybe we can help each other.” She signed it, thought twice about leaving her phone number, but in the end couldn’t see any harm in it—it wasn’t her address, after all, and right now she wasn’t a cop.

  She went to the coroner’s office and found her favorite deputy, Wayne Kerlerec. He was a short man with hair in a brush cut, stocky but soft, a man who obviously believed in lots of fried seafood and no exercise. He was married with two children
, and remained relentlessly cheerful despite the gory nature of his work.

  When she arrived, he was mopping up blood after an autopsy. “Hey, Miss Skip. You missed the excitement. Six homicides in twenty-four hours.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Oh, yeah. Drive-bys, a couple of ‘em. Gangs, prob’ly. Young kids. Mmmmm. Mmmm.” His lips set only briefly, before he smiled again. “What can I do you for? I thought you were on leave?”

  “I am, but you know—there’s always something.”

  “A little moonlighting?”

  “Something personal.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Young, black Jane Doe—late last June sometime, or early July. Before the fourth.”

  He finished his mopping up. “Let me get to my list. How old did you say she was?”

  “Not sure, exactly. Between twenty-five and thirty- five.”

  “Here’s one. I got one for you. June twenty-eighth exactly—that be about right?”

  Skip nodded.

  “Somebody found her lying on the sidewalk with a cracked skull—like she tripped and fell. Okay, it was off Jackson Avenue, near the St. Thomas Project. No purse on her, but you know what that place is like. Wouldn’t put it past half the bozos live there to take it off a corpse. The other half would mug her for it.”

  Skip got a sudden tight feeling in her stomach—if Jacomine had done her, he’d done her right. Without witnesses, there’d be no point in reopening the investigation. “Can I see the video?”

  “Sure.”

  When the office first instituted the videos, it struck Skip as a little odd, since a picture of a corpse is a still by definition, but she had to admit it made all the difference—photos wouldn’t do it, and this saved the family the actual sight of their smashed-up loved one.

  The tape showed what the office called a face and bust shot—more or less head and shoulders.

  “That’s her.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name’s Nikki Pigeon. She had one sister, Tanya, on Baronne Street, but lots of luck with Tanya. She’s probably too strung out to make it over here.”

  The investigation was undoubtedly closed, and she could think of absolutely no argument to take to Cappello. It was just another piece of the dark, tortured picture she was forming of Errol Jacomine. Without much hope, she phoned Tanya herself.