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

by Julie Smith

  Torian said nothing. What was there to say?

  Lise said, “Well?”

  “I do, Mother. I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me.” She had to say this at least once a week. Lise never let her forget what she was fucking trying to do for her, as if Torian had asked for it, as if her greatest desire in the world was for prefab stuffed peppers and frozen corn, and a mother who’d go out later and fuck her brains out, leaving Torian to watch television or drink Lise’s booze or rob convenience stores if she felt like it.

  I wish I was fucking my brains out.

  It bothered her a great deal that Noel didn’t consider her adult enough to have sex.

  “There are laws, darlin’ girl,” he’d finally said. “They’d toss my ass in jail and throw away the key.”

  As if she would tell. As if she, Torian Gernhard, who loved him, couldn’t be trusted. That distressed her as much as anything else—that he didn’t trust her. It frustrated her so much she wanted to bite something.

  Lise is over forty—why does she get to fuck and not me? She’s too old to enjoy it.

  But then, why does she do it?

  Why does she consider that more important than behaving like a mother?

  Because she’s pathetic, that’s why. She probably confuses sex with love. She thinks if she sleeps with old Charles he’ll keep coming around.

  Which I cordially wish he wouldn’t. Who would want him, anyway?

  Lise’s eyes filled. “I wish you really meant that.”

  Really meant what? Torian could barely remember what she’d said.

  Oh, yes, that she appreciated Lise’s efforts.

  God, I wish I lived with my father!

  She said, “I wish you’d stop asking me to say it.”

  Lise said nothing for a while, just ate mechanically. Torian thought it was possible she’d get off light, but out of the blue, her mother started sobbing. “You heartless little bitch! You don’t understand anything and you don’t know anything, and you don’t care about anyone. You haven’t got a decent bone in that skinny little body you’re so goddamn proud of. You haven’t got a second for anyone but your own selfish, pathetic little soul. Well, let me tell you something, young lady—you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are!”

  Torian gasped, terrified. What had set her off? What was wrong with her?

  It’s so unfair, she thought. She must be crazy.

  I’ve never said a word to her about my body. I’m not proud of it—where on Earth did she get that idea? I’m ashamed of it—I don’t have any boobs, and my legs don’t even go together at the top and my butt’s too big. How could she think something like that? And where does she get off saying I don’t care about anybody? I love Noel. Love him. I ‘d do anything for him. And Daddy, too; and Sheila. How could she say something like that?

  And I don’t think I’m smart at all. Certainly not compared to Noel. I mean, I’m smarter than Lise, but that’s nothing. It doesn’t mean I think I’m smart. Why does she think all this stuff?

  Lise got hold of herself long enough to stare at Torian for a long time, nearly a minute, Torian thought later, tears rolling out of eyes so hurt you would have thought Torian was dead, not sitting here being berated by a crazy woman.

  Torian stared back, afraid to look away, afraid Lise might hit her or jump out a window, or pick up a frying pan and throw it—she had no idea what was going to happen next, she just knew her mother had flipped her wig and might be dangerous.

  Should she run?

  Instead, Lise ran. Got up, overturning her chair, and fled the room, her butt wobbling in the cotton pants she was wearing.

  Torian sat stunned for a minute, not at all sure what was happening.

  I’m eating dinner, she told herself. Dinner is what’s happening.

  She forked a bit of the pepper and chewed for a long time.

  Eating was definitely not what was happening.

  Feeling dazed, she got up and scraped the plates into plastic bags, which she tied and dumped in the garbage. She put the lid on tight, the whole procedure being designed to guard against the roaches she hated so much and which pervaded the Quarter. There wasn’t a single roach in her father’s house in Old Metairie.

  Mechanically, she washed the dishes, and put away the plates, listening for any noise at all from her mother’s room. She heard nothing.

  Finally, feeling curiously empty and lonely, her throat tight, she went to her own room, wishing she could call Noel. She did her homework, which took about forty-five minutes, and then she did hear her mother stirring about the apartment. Her body tensed. She wondered if Lise would knock on her door. When she didn’t, Torian’s muscles let go, and she fell back on her pillow.

  She wrote a poem, which was what she always did when she felt sad, but it failed to satisfy her. It was a poem about confusion, which was all she knew right now, all she could write about, and that wasn’t helpful.

  She thought about Noel, about what it would be like to live with him, but the thought was so frightening she had to stop. She had to wait at least three years. Wasn’t that it? They could have legal sex when she was eighteen, he had said, and there was absolutely no chance they were breaking that particular law—he had been clear on that.

  She felt the ache between her legs that she always felt now when she thought of him.

  I can’t wait three years.

  I have to wait three years to graduate, too—to get away from Lise.

  Why is everything always in the future? Why can’t I have anything now?

  She lay there awhile, her cheek against the pillow, wondering how long she would have to be unhappy until one good thing came to her.

  I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. There ought to be something I can do.

  It occurred to her that there was.

  There was a way she could stand side by side with Noel, a way she could function in the adult world, a way she might even get to see him every day, or at least sometimes, in a perfectly normal way. No one would suspect a thing, and she’d be doing something useful with her life, maybe even something fulfilling.

  Noel had told her how much he thought of Errol Jacomine, what his becoming mayor could mean to the city. And Torian could help. In some small way, she could help. She would go down tomorrow and volunteer as a campaign worker.

  * * *

  Boo had put on a pot of red beans that afternoon. All that remained was to cook the rice and put together a salad. She was bustling about doing that, having put Joy in her Johnny Jump-up, and thinking about Noel.

  Something was wrong with him, but she didn’t know what. She had the vague feeling it was her fault.

  Oh, come on, Boo you’re a shrink.

  That doesn’t mean you aren’t supposed to be a good wife.

  I have this weird feeling I haven’t been lately.

  She heard the garage door open and the car drive in. Her hand went to her hair, straightening.

  Noel came in. “Aren’t you a pretty picture.”

  “A little wilted from the heat.” Automatically, she kissed him. “Are you hungry?”

  He shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Good, let’s have a drink before dinner. I’ll just finish up the salad.”

  Noel took Joy out of her seat and did Daddy things— throwing her in the air, making her laugh. Boo felt almost happy with the three of them in the kitchen, for a few minutes able to forget her disquiet.

  Noel went to change, and she cut up a tomato. She was thrilled with this new job of his, thinking it was just what he needed at the moment. He’d been a very good, extremely respected television reporter who quit to write a book—not journalism, but fiction, something he’d always wanted to do. She wasn’t sure what the story was, or even if Noel knew. She just knew it was important to him.

  But he hadn’t seemed to be making that much progress, and then they bought this house, and that distracted him further. It was deemed that Boo’s office needed to happe
n first, and so it would be awhile before Noel’s was finished.

  Consequently, he’d taken a small office in a building owned by friends of theirs. It was a little damp, a little depressing, at least to Boo’s mind; she much preferred fresh paint to noble rot.

  She had no idea if he was getting anything done there—he didn’t talk about it, and had even snapped at her when she tried. But what she thought was that he was used to the daily ego massage of being on television, and, even if he was writing Moby Dick in there, he needed a quick fix to keep him going.

  Consequently, this press secretary thing was just what the doctor ordered.

  Especially since she was so distant lately. It wasn’t easy overseeing the contractors and taking care of the baby and also keeping her practice up. Still, that shouldn’t take away from her marriage.

  Why am I putting it last? she wondered. I swear to God I’ll do better.

  She had changed into an ankle-length flowing dress, and pinned her hair up, for openers. And she had gotten ice cream for dessert, despite the fact that she hated to have sweets in the house, due to her penchant for eating things she shouldn’t.

  What a selfish person I am, she had thought as she bought it, realizing how seldom she did something extra.

  She poured Noel a glass of wine, a Chardonnay of which he was particularly fond, and which she’d also taken the trouble to get today.

  Returning in shorts and polo shirt, he kissed the back of her neck.

  She said, “How was the first day at work?”

  “A little weird. I have a feeling it’s going to be a thrill a minute. And maybe not in a good way.”

  “Woo. Let’s go in the living room.”

  She waited until he was comfortable in one of the chairs, and then sat on the floor, looking up at him. They had sat like this a lot, early in their courtship; for some reason, it appealed to her.

  “‘Tell me everything,” she said.

  “Did anyone ever tell you politics is a dirty business?”

  “That’s somewhere else, right? Certainly not in Louisiana.”

  “Apparently some cop is trying to discredit our boy.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know exactly. She’s got a wild hair about him, for some reason. I’m not sure exactly what went on, but I think she met him on a case and took a dislike to him. Probably just your basic redneck racist.”

  Boo’s heart had speeded up when she heard the pronoun. “What’s her name?” she asked.

  “Langdon, I think. And some nickname. Skip, maybe.”

  “Ah.” Confidentiality required that Boo keep her mouth shut.

  “Have you ever heard of her?”

  Boo shrugged. “I think so. She gets her name in the paper now and then.”

  Noel nodded. “So I gather. But since I never covered police—” He shrugged. As a reporter, he had considered crime beneath him.

  “Anyway, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about the way campaigns are run. Jacomine’s got this scary- looking aide named Potter Menard—sunglasses, power grooming, like the Ton Ton Macoute.”

  “Or the Farrakhan guys.”

  “Yeah.” A shadow passed over Noel’s face. “Anyway, Jacomine said to him, ‘You know what to do,’ and Menard gave this kind of curt nod like, ‘Sure, Godfather.’ ”

  “What? You think she’s in danger?”

  “Of course not. I’m sure they’ll tell me what’s happening as soon as I start catching on to things. But it did have this sort of eerie feel. Kind of like a contract killing.”

  Boo was fighting panic. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding?”

  He leaned over and touched her cheek. “Hey. What’s wrong, baby? This is me, Noel. Am I a bad guy?”

  She shook her head, trying to smile.

  “And this is just a crummy mayor’s election, not the governorship or anything. It’s not important enough to bother doing anything criminal—you know what I mean?”

  “I’m not so sure, Noel.”

  She sipped her wine. How could he be so naive?

  In a town like this, which was more like a banana republic, it was probably all about who got appointed to what and how much they paid to get access to a particular till.

  “Oh, come on. I’m a hardened newsman, remember? Believe me, there is nothing bad going on with Errol Jacomine. He’s a prince among men, and I’m going to get him elected. Everything’s all right. Do you believe me?”

  She smiled. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

  But she had purposely avoided her husband’s query. She wasn’t at all sure everything was all right. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up.

  Chapter Eight

  THERE WAS A phalanx of volunteers in the office when Noel got there. They were making phone calls and writing letters, Potter overseeing them.

  When he could catch Potter’s eye, he said, “What’s going on?”

  “Come in here.” Potter led him to his private office. “This is our organization in action. You want to know how we’re going to stop that cop? We’re going to work at it.”

  “Doing—uh—what?” Noel felt a little flustered.

  “I’m going to give you a lesson right now.” He gave Noel an appraising look. “I think you’re going to be good at this.”

  He dialed a number and spoke to Noel again. “Listen up.”

  “Sergeant Sylvia Cappello,” he said, and waited.

  Then: “Sergeant Cappello? This is Potter Menard with the Jacomine campaign. I understand you have an officer named Skip Langdon in your platoon. You know, she’s working with Marvin Perretti’s campaign, and I’ve—

  “She’s not? Well, I don’t mean to contradict, but I believe she is.” He listened a moment. “We know perfectly well she is, Sergeant.

  “How do we know? Why, people call us and give us information—people from all over town. Sergeant, I don’t know if you realize it, but that woman is creating quite a disturbance in this town. Look, I wouldn’t bother you with that, it’s our problem, really. It’s just that I’m disturbed by some of the rumors I’ve been hearing. She can look all she wants and she won’t find any dirt on Errol Jacomine—that’s just not going to happen—but you understand, a candidate has to be—frankly, Sergeant, according to our information, this particular officer has an unhealthy obsession with sex.”

  Of all the things Noel expected to hear, that was the last. He could imagine the sergeant’s puzzlement. What does that have to do with anything? she must be wondering. What is this guy getting at?

  She’d probably tell him that.

  In a moment, Potter hung up, looking satisfied. “What’d you think of that?” he asked.

  “‘To be honest, I didn’t see the point of it. If I’d been the sergeant I’d have told you to fuck off.”

  “Oh, she did. She did.” He chuckled, obviously extremely pleased with himself. “Yeah, she must be a straight arrow. Not many of ‘em out there—most people would have wanted to know what I meant by ‘obsessed with.’ They’d want to know how the rumor got started— you know, just what their officer had been doing and what she was likely to do.

  “You see what I’m gettin’ at here? It makes Langdon sound unstable. That’s because she’s a woman. Now if it were a man, I’d have said I’d heard he was violent. But sex is best for a woman.”

  Noel was wondering if campaign work was really the right career path for him. Maybe I’m just naive, he thought. I don’t know anything about how campaigns really work. Maybe this stuff is just routine for these guys.

  Trying to keep an open mind—at least to keep the ice out of his voice, he said, “Look, I don’t see the point. She hung up on you, right?”

  “Yeah, but she’s going to think, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’ She’s going to know her officer’s been up to no good, but she ain’t going to know what kind of no good. It’s brilliant, you see that? ‘Obsessed with sex’ could mean anything. Maybe it means she says unprofessional things;
maybe nothin’ like that; maybe she sees sexual misbehavior everywhere she looks—maybe the sergeant better be above reproach herself with that woman around.”

  Noel was trying to sort out this information in his own mind. He said, “What about all those other people who’re placing calls—are they spreading the same rumor?”

  “Oh, hell no, my man. Hell, no. We got a lot more than one trick up our sleeve. Some of ‘em are callin’ all over, trying to get some real dirt on her; some are just complaining that she’s doing such a thing to a fine man like Errol Jacomine; some are saying they heard she’s really unreliable.” He chuckled again. “Yeah. ‘Unreliable’ is good. Even ‘unstable’—I got a few people on that one. Alcohol and drugs, we got some folks on those. Actually, not drugs so much because she probably isn’t on ‘em. But alcohol and sex are good, because everybody fucks and most people drink a little. If they don’t it’s because they’re in AA, which means they used to, and that’s even better—sounds like they fell off the wagon.”

  Stunned, feeling his way, Noel said, “You must have worked in a lot of campaigns.”

  “This is my first, my man. What do you think? Am I a strategist?”

  “Where’d you learn this stuff?”

  “Oh, I’ve had some teachers.” He laughed, a more expansive laugh than the smug chuckles he’d been emitting.

  “What are you saying? Are you spying on Perretti’s people spying on us? Is that what it is?”

  Potter nodded. “We got some of that going on. Don’t think we don’t.”

  “So they’re doing the same thing.”

  “All that and more, my man. You can take that to the bank. I’m gonna teach you, too. I’m gon’ teach you everything I know.”

  “Well, there are some things I think I’d rather not know.”

  “What, you don’t want to be in on this? This is the fun stuff.”

  “I think I’d better stick to writing press releases.” He got up and went into his own office, feeling disoriented and a bit unbelieving, not sure if things were coming apart at the seams or if he, hardened reporter that he was, was getting exposed for the first time to the real world.

  He sat there for a while, covering his face with his hands, not sure what to make of anything. He had looked for some stability in this job. It was a time in his life when he couldn’t write, he wasn’t sure why. The book had been going slowly, painstakingly, more a matter of grinding pain than creative fulfillment.