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

by Julie Smith

“No. But the guy’s running for office—what do you expect? And you’re vulnerable right now.”

  “Sylvia, this is scary as hell. Political candidates aren’t this organized. These people are a bunch of robots.”

  “I really don’t think it’s up to me to comment on that. I’m telling you as a friend that people here are hot under the collar. Think about it. Our lines are tied up, and people’s time is being wasted. And you’re doing what you’re not supposed to do—”

  “I’ve got a right to …”

  The sergeant raised her voice. “Skip, I’m telling you as a friend. I really think you should listen.”

  How to make them stop? she thought. I haven’t even started yet. How do they even know about me?

  There could be a leak somewhere—maybe in the coroner’s office.

  Surely not. But what else? How else could they know?

  Jamal Broussard. The note in the mailbox.

  But to know about that, they’d have had to follow me.

  She got dressed and went to the towing company where Broussard worked.

  * * *

  He was slightly shorter than she was, and a body builder. He had a neck like a five-gallon can and a chest like a fence. His hair was short, but he had a mustache, which gave him a bit of Aaron Neville sensuality.

  “Skip Langdon,” she said, and realized she couldn’t produce her badge. For a moment she was tongue-tied. Finally, she said, “Did you get my note?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Lady, I got a job to do. You want to tell me what you want?”

  “I wonder if I could talk to you about Nikki Pigeon.”

  “I don’t know no Nikki Pigeon.”

  “Her sister says you do.”

  “I don’t know her, and I don’t know her sister, and I don’t know you. What you mean comin’ down to my place of bi’ness, tryin’ to get me fired?”

  “She’s dead, Mr. Broussard.”

  “Who dead?”

  “Nikki.”

  He gave her a long look. She thought she saw something flash in his eyes, just for a second, something more like fear than sorrow. “I don’t know no Nikki, and I don’t appreciate you comin’ down here. You gon’ go now?”

  “I know you were friends, Jamal. Don’t you even care how she died?”

  “You get out of here.” His voice became a roar. “You get out of here now.“ He’d gotten so angry so fast there had to be something there.

  He could still be in the church, she thought.

  * * *

  Tanya Pigeon came to the door in dirty khaki trousers that hung on a frame that looked ten pounds lighter than a day or two ago. Her T-shirt had been pulled on with no bra, and her hair hadn’t been combed. Skip didn’t think she was going to live long.

  “You gon’ give me some money?” she said, and she sounded half-loaded.

  “Why should I give you some money?”

  “ ‘Cause I’m hungry. I ain’t had nothin’ to eat all day.”

  “Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “I don’ feel good right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you some money. But I have some bad news for you.”

  For a fraction of a second, Skip thought she saw something besides dullness in her eyes.

  “It’s about Nikki, ain’t it?”

  “She’s dead, Tanya.”

  “How you know? You see her?”

  “I saw a video of her. The coroner would like you to come down and look at it.”

  “I have to do that?”

  “No, you don’t have to. I just thought you’d like to know what happened to your sister.”

  “She gone now. Nothin’ else matters.” Her voice was softer, as if the news were actually sinking in. “She never did no drugs or nothin’, and now she gone. I thought she did good when she went off to the quarters to dance. Then she come back, she got a job at a restaurant. She was doin’ real good.” She sniffed. “And now she gone.”

  “She’s been gone for a couple of months.” And you never even noticed.

  “He done it. That holy father of hers. He the one did Nikki. Oh, yeah. He the one.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You know. The one she runnin’ from last year when you come aroun’. You know the one.”

  “Errol Jacomine.”

  “Yeah, he the one. Nikki afraid of him. She never get over bein’ afraid.”

  “I didn’t even say how she died.”

  “Well? What happen?”

  “She was found with her skull cracked. Could have fallen, might have been mugged.”

  Tanya snorted, “You don’t think he done it, you blind in one eye, cain’t see out the other.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t a drug dealer?”

  “You listen or not? Nikki didn’t do no drugs. I already tol’ you that.”

  “Maybe it was someone who thought she was you. Or someone trying to get at you.”

  “Oh, no. No way. Look, I be a mess; no two ways about it, I be a mess. But I jus’ buy, I don’t do no sellin’. I don’t owe nobody nothin’ ‘cause I’m so fucked up ain’ nobody gon’ give me credit. Nobody in hell be bothered killin’ me or any of my kin jus’ ‘cause they related to me. You put that idea outcha head, Miss White Po-lice.”

  “‘Tanya, it just doesn’t compute. Nobody who was clean could live with somebody as bad off as you.”

  Tears came to Tanya’s eyes and she wiped them away with a fist. “Well, my kids had to. See, I be like this when Nikki come back from that church thing. She stay to take care of the kids. She mighty nice to me and the kids both.”

  “Where are the kids now?”

  “They gone.”

  “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “They just gone.”

  “You mean they died?”

  “No. They just gone. I b’lieve Ms. MacAlou got ‘em right now.”

  “Who’s Ms. MacAlou?”

  She just shook her head, more tears flowing, and stepped back inside the house.

  * * *

  Without giving it a second thought, Skip headed for Headquarters, having failed to heed the morning’s warning. Cappello and Tarantino had to be filled in—this was too serious to keep to herself.

  She wasn’t prepared for a reception that would have frozen a team of huskies.

  Cappello first looked puzzled. Then, manipulating her body subtly, like a yogi about to move into a pose, she withdrew from Skip, wrapping herself in an invisible cloak of separation. “What are you doing here?”

  Skip noticed she didn’t use her name.

  “I need to talk to you and Joe.”

  “Langdon, you need to go home.”

  “Can we go into your office?”

  Cappello turned and walked toward it without answering. Skip had never seen her so angry.

  When they had entered the sergeant’s private space, Skip said, “Yesterday I ID’d a body—remember Nikki Pigeon, that witness in the Hebert case?”

  Cappello shook her head. Her voice was glacial. “You’re not supposed to be working.”

  “Actually, I did this before we talked. I would have thought you’d be glad to have a Jane Doe ID’d. She was killed around the end of June.”

  The sergeant said nothing, if anything pulling her muscles tighter against her skeleton, further from Skip.

  “She had a cracked skull. Her sister says Jacomine did it.”

  “Does she have any proof?”

  “Of course not.” Skip was beginning to get royally pissed. “Last I heard, it’s our job to get proof.”

  “Not your job. Nothing is your job right now. That case has been investigated. Go home.”

  “Don’t you want to even—”

  “I want you to stop persecuting a perfectly decent man who may be the only honest politician in the state of Louisiana. If Jackson’s elected, we’ve got the same old machine as we ever had; the same old asleep-at-the-wheel c
hief; the same old institutionalized corruption. If Perretti is, God knows what could happen—he’ll probably start a race war. With Jacomine we might have a chance.”

  “Sylvia, he’s a psychopath.”

  “Get some help, Skip. You’re a damn good officer and I don’t want to lose you. For Christ’s sake, get some help.”

  “As a matter of fact, I was trying, but Jacomine seems to have co-opted my therapist, along with everyone else in this goddamn town.”

  For the first time, Skip saw compassion in Cappello’s brown eyes. Pain almost.

  Chapter Seven

  THE DAY GOT no better. Scarcely believing she’d said what she had to Cappello, practically accusing her, she’d literally gone back to bed, hunkering in embarrassment. She slept the sleep of the depressed.

  Now and then she woke and thought she should get up and eat something, but instead she closed her eyes again.

  She might eventually have turned on the television and fallen into its socially acceptable but druglike haze if she hadn’t had dinner plans approaching a command performance.

  Her dad, who had barely spoken to her since she went on the job, was finally coming around. Three of these invitations had come lately—to dinner at the family home on State Street—and she’d successfully fielded them all. But this time she felt sorry for her mother when she called, and she realized it was childish anyway, putting off the inevitable, acting as cranky as her dad.

  But it was going to be a strain, and she didn’t feel up to it now.

  Yet she was stuck with it. Her mother had even called to remind her.

  She got up with half an hour to spare and then dithered over what to wear, finally settling on black linen slacks, a green silk T-shirt, and a cream blazer. She wasn’t sure the blazer worked, but it was all she had.

  Sheila and Kenny were in the courtyard with Angel, a white blur with one black eye and one black ear, racing about like a type A on a deadline.

  Kenny said, “You look nice, Aunt Skippy.”

  Angel, who’d grown nearly as large as Napoleon, Steve Steinman’s shepherd, leaped up on her, leaving a black smear on the blazer.

  “Damn!” she shouted, and the terrified dog, possibly thinking she’d said “down,” yelped and retreated.

  “Oh, Auntie, I’m sorry.”

  Skip sighed. “It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

  “It looks shitty,” said Sheila.

  “Sheila, could you please refrain from four-letter words?”

  She heard the testiness in her voice and saw that Sheila looked nearly as hurt as Angel.

  “I’m sorry, honey. It’s not my day.”

  “Well, you don’t have to yell.”

  That made Skip mad again. “And you don’t have to be snotty.”

  She left without saying good-bye, the smear still on the jacket, her whole being out of sorts.

  * * *

  Her mother met her at the door, dressed in beige linen—dressed up, in fact, and Skip wondered if she’d misunderstood, if it were someone’s birthday.

  She pecked at her mother’s cheek. “You look nice. Is someone else coming?”

  “Oh, yes, didn’t I tell you? Camille and Conrad are already here. And the Gilkersons are on the way.”

  Skip strove to keep her face under control. The Gilkersons were her parents’ age and her brother Conrad might as well be, for all the youthful exuberance he exhibited. Just being around them made her feel like a criminal, so constricted were their likes and dislikes, so strongly did they disapprove of almost everything.

  On the other hand, she liked Camille, her brother’s wife. Camille might share the beliefs of the others—Skip had no idea—but she was too polite to let it ruin the conversation.

  Her father came in and pecked her. “Skip. How’s it going?” As if there weren’t years of partial estrangement between them.

  Camille gave her a hug, Conrad barely nodded. “How’re things at the cop shop?”

  “Actually, I’m taking a leave of absence.”

  She watched as her father’s face fell, thinking how ironic it was that he’d stopped speaking to her because she had joined the police department and had seemingly only started again because she’d done so well it reflected on him.

  Her mother handed her a glass of white wine and went to answer the door.

  “Why is that?” her father asked, trying to keep the disapproval out of his voice.

  This is about the way it looks, she thought. It’s always about that.

  As a child, she had been used as a lever to pry the Langdons into desirable social circles. She had to go to certain schools, attend certain birthday parties, join particular clubs, and reflect well on the family. It was this last that—not knowing what was expected of her—she had trouble with.

  Her mother came in with the Gilkersons. Nan had a perfect small-waisted body, brown hair that had been lovingly labored over, and a face that hadn’t yet been lifted, but was probably being regularly peeled. Ted had white hair, a slightly too-pink face, and a middle as convex as Nan’s was concave.

  “Ah. The prodigal daughter.” Ted kissed her and she realized he’d been drinking.

  Her father looked disconcerted, and she could see that he didn’t want to continue the conversation, didn’t want even Ted, his best friend, to know the bad news, whatever it might be.

  “How are things on America’s worst police force? When are they making you chief?”

  Conrad said: “I’d be ashamed to say what I do if I were you.”

  “We’re mighty proud of Skip,” her father said, his face red.

  Skip thought: Hoist on his own petard, and felt sorry for him.

  Her mother, who spent most of her time fighting with her father, seemingly for sport, rushed to his defense as she always did when a third person attacked. “It’s not her fault the cops are killing each other. Is it, Skip?”

  Skip smiled. “I’m innocent.”

  She wondered if her parents, too, had been drinking. It was nice to have them on her side for once. She hoped it would continue awhile.

  “What’s the inside story on that?” Nan asked. She accepted a drink and settled on a sofa.

  “You know as much as I do. This young cop’s accused of robbing a restaurant and shooting her former partner, who was on a paid detail there.”

  Conrad said, “And that was the same week a Tulane student claimed she got raped by a cop.”

  “Hey, nobody’s perfect.” They laughed, but Skip was stung, not so much by their jibes as by the fact that she had to defend a department that really was as corrupt and inept as they thought. She was suddenly touched by her father’s pride in her accomplishments—he probably had to put up with this kind of garbage a lot.

  She tried to keep it light, obediently telling war stories until her mother called them to dinner.

  Ted Gilkerson, who’d now had a couple of martinis in addition to whatever he’d swizzled earlier, wouldn’t leave her alone. “It’s the mayor who appoints the superintendent, right? If we had a decent mayor, we might get a decent chief.”

  “I like the mayor,” said Camille, but he bulled on ahead.

  “Only reason we got the kind of police we do is, the powers that be want it that way. Right, Skip?”

  “I don’t know, Ted. I think the problems are ingrained over generations.”

  “Good mayor could stop ‘em. We gotta get that asshole outta there.”

  “Well, since he’s not running for reelection, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “There’s always a machine guy. Jackson’s it this time.” Jackson had been accused of taking kickbacks when he served on the city council. In fact, he’d resigned over it.

  “Know who I like?” said Camille. “I just love Errol Jacomine. Now he talks sense.”

  Skip felt her stomach turn over.

  Her mother said, “At least he’s not a racist. Perretti might be.”

  “My man!” said Conrad, raising a clenched fist. Skip
couldn’t conceive how the two of them could be made of the same genetic material.

  “I agree with you, honey.” Their father addressed himself to Camille. “I really think he’s got something to offer.”

  Skip said, “I know him. There’s something wrong with him. He’s a very, very bad man. And I don’t think Perretti’s really a racist.” She shrugged. “Just another Louisiana opportunist.”

  “I think he believes what he says, and I think he’s going to kick ass,” said Conrad. “I’m voting for him.”

  “Sweetheart, you can be so heartless sometimes,” said Camille. “Jacomine’s done stuff the others only talk about. He’s gotten people off drugs, he’s cleaned up neighborhoods, he’s worked for good candidates …”

  Skip noticed everyone was nodding except Conrad. “I’m voting for him,” said her father.

  She was losing her appetite fast.

  * * *

  Lise had gotten stuffed peppers somewhere, and some broccoli. She had supplemented these with frozen corn and called it dinner.

  I could have cooked, Torian thought. I could have shopped. I could have made something real. She won’t do it herself and won’t let me do it either. She doesn’t have any idea what I can do or who I am.

  “How was school today, dear?”

  Torian shrugged and pushed some of the pepper around on her plate.

  “‘Torian, for heaven’s sake. The least you can do is answer when I speak to you.”

  With a huge effort, Torian heaved her shoulders up. “School was school,” she said. “Just like always.”

  “What are you taking this year?” School had started a week ago.

  “Mother, please! I’ve told you six times.”

  “Then you’d better tell me a seventh, young lady, because it suddenly slipped my mind.”

  It’s because you drink so much, Torian thought.

  She said, “English, P.E., algebra two, piano, ancient history, and French.”

  “I don’t think I like your tone of voice.”

  “You asked me what I was taking.”

  “Fine. And you answered me.”

  They ate in silence for a while, awkwardness spread before them like a picnic cloth.

  Lise couldn’t stand it—Torian knew she’d blink first. “I wish you’d have a little appreciation for what I try to do for you.”