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

by Julie Smith

  Once again, Torian dumped in the piles Faylice had readied. She watched as the other girl ground bay leaves, measured thyme and pepper, counted little balls she said were allspice.

  “Hey, y’all. What’s for dinner?” A new girl had arrived, probably the owner of the suitcase and underwear Torian had seen in the other bedroom.

  Paulette said, “Where’ve you been, young lady?”

  “Went for a bike ride. Saw your bike and went for a spin. Rides pretty good.”

  Faylice turned around. “How you know how to ride a bike?” She sounded furious.

  “Everybody know how to ride a bike. You tellin’ me you don’t?” The girl started to laugh.

  Faylice looked as if she could fall through the floor; Torian thought she would have turned bright red if she’d been white.

  The new girl was the color that black people call red, and she had a few freckles on her nose. She looked much younger even than Faylice, only eleven or twelve, and she was skinny, with legs that went on and on like stilts. Like Faylice, she was wearing white shorts, but hers were very short, and her little buttoned sleeveless top, though made of T-shirt knit, fit snugly and was clearly meant to be sexy. Since the girl hadn’t yet grown breasts, it wasn’t quite that, but Torian gave her points for intent.

  Her hair, which had apparently been straightened, was held back with a yellow print cotton scarf tied on the side. She was young, but she had a lot of fashion sense. When she smiled, as she was doing now, you could see a gap between her front teeth, which gave her a perennially delighted look. She looked like a kid without a care in the world.

  “Who you?” she said.

  “I’m Torian. Who you?” Something about the girl made her laugh.

  “Adonis.”

  “Adonis?”

  “Somethin’ wrong with that?” Adonis was suddenly a little package of muscle and gristle.

  “No, it’s a beautiful name.”

  “Faylice say it be a boy’s name.”

  Torian kept quiet. She desperately wanted Faylice’s respect—and friendship if she could have it—but she couldn’t see lining up with her on this one. Something about Adonis, cheerful, freckled little biker that she was, was a tiny bit threatening.

  Adonis opened the refrigerator and came out with a handful of carrot sticks. “Y’all want some?”

  Faylice and Torian shook their heads, all but turning up their noses. Adonis sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “So what chew doin’ here, little white ghost? Tha’s what the Chinese call y’all—you know that?”

  “I needed to be away awhile.”

  “Why?” Adonis put a foot on the table, but removed it at a look from Paulette.

  “I don’t want—I don’t think I can talk about it yet.” She hoped that didn’t sound too lame. The truth was, she was embarrassed to talk about it in front of Faylice, whose life seemed so much harsher, whose courage so much stronger. “What about you?” she asked.

  Adonis stood up again, looked in the gumbo pot, grabbed a spoon, and tasted. “Bleeaghh.”

  “You don’ have to eat it, Miss Smartie,” huffed Faylice.

  Adonis spun around to face Torian. “Ain’ nobody home where I live.”

  “You can say that again. Ain’ nobody home in ya haid,” Faylice cut in.

  Torian said, “I don’t see what you mean.”

  “I come home from school one day; they all gone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My mama, her man friend, my two little brothers. They all gone.” For a moment she looked like the forlorn child she was. Then she turned back to the gumbo and began shaking pepper into it. Faylice got up and wrestled the shaker from her hand, not speaking, just doing what had to be done.

  “What do you mean? Was—um—was there a fire or something?” Torian’s imagination was going wild. A fire was the least of the possibilities that occurred to her.

  Something like a bark came out of Adonis, something that was probably supposed to pass for a laugh. “No. There wadn’t no fire. Jus’ wadn’t nothin’. Nobody home. No furniture. Oh, yeah, there was some piles of dirt and cardboard. And a broom. Case I wanted to neaten things up.”

  Torian was still trying to wrap her mind around this one. “What happened. Where were they?”

  Adonis shrugged. “Don’ know. Lady nex’ door say she saw ‘em loadin’ up and leavin’. I ran all the way back to school. Thought maybe they meant to pick me up there, but I was already gone.” She shrugged again. “They wadn’t there.”

  Torian looked beseechingly at Paulette. Could she be hearing right?

  Paulette said, “The two boys are the boyfriend’s children; Adonis isn’t.”

  “He like me! I know he like me. Too much, my mama say.”

  Paulette raised an eyebrow and bit her lip, as if to keep from saying the wrong thing.

  Torian had been horrified by Faylice’s story, but this was the one that haunted her as she tried to go to sleep that night. She tried to imagine arriving home to find your family had left you, leaving not so much as a note or a message with a neighbor.

  Just split. Gone.

  If that doesn’t make you feel like a piece of shit, what does?

  She wondered how Adonis could keep smiling, could do anything at all except lie down and feel sorry for herself. She hadn’t found out how she came to be at Paulette’s and couldn’t imagine what would become of her.

  Maybe Paulette’ll adopt her.

  But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Paulette had probably seen a dozen kids like Adonis. She didn’t keep her strays. She just fed them and patched them up.

  I can’t stay here. I’m ridiculous.

  At breakfast the next morning, she stared into her coffee cup—Paulette was letting her drink regular coffee; Lise made her dilute it. “I think I better go home.”

  She had deliberately gotten up before her two companions.

  “Why?” said Paulette. “You think anything’s better today?”

  “I think I’ve got to be better.”

  “You’re the child. The folks around you are s’posed to be the grown-ups.”

  “I’m not like Faylice and Adonis.”

  “Oh? You too good for ‘em?”

  “No! They’re—they’ve got real problems. I’m just some spoiled white kid.”

  Paulette was standing at the stove. She looked over her shoulder. “Is that what ya mama says? Ya daddy, too, maybe? Listen, dawlin’, ya lucky ya don’ have problems like those girls got problems, but ya got ya own problems. Don’ feel like ya haven’t.” She turned around. “You want some toast?”

  Torian didn’t, especially, but she nodded. What she wanted was Paulette’s continued attention, this unexpected mother kind of thing. Paulette didn’t speak while she made the toast, but when she had two perfect golden pieces, she put each of them on a plate, gave one to Torian and sat down across from her.

  Lise never makes me toast. And certainly never has breakfast with me. Thank God for that part.

  “Ya came here, now ya know ya aren’t the only one with problems. But ya do have problems, baby. I’m not sayin’ ya don’t. Me, I used to be a drug addict.”

  “You? But you look so healthy.”

  Paulette nodded, as if proud of her addiction. “I did every drug I could get my hands on, till I met Daddy. Reverend Jacomine. I owe my life to that man. You ever do drugs, baby?”

  Puzzled, Torian shook her head.

  “That’s my girl. Don’t you ever start, either. It’s just a way of not thinking about what ya real problem is. Trouble is, it dodn’t solve it. Postpones it, tha’s all. I’d give my life for Daddy, you know that? He helped me that much; he means that much to me.”

  Torian felt slightly tense, not sure whether this was the standard anti-drug lecture or some bid to become a disciple of Errol Jacomine. She sort of hoped it was the latter.

  “He’s a wonderful man,” she said, hoping the simple sentence wouldn’t convey her deep longing f
or someone wonderful in her life, someone she could believe in completely, not just a little bit in a certain area at a certain time of day if she were lucky.

  But Paulette seemed ready to go on to other things. “What happened to me was somethin’ like what happened to Adonis, ‘cept I was much older. I was about your age, and I had two loves in my life—my little brother and my little sister. I was those kids’ mama. Really. My mama never stopped to think about that—she jus’ up and left.” She took a bite of toast and looked thoughtful while she chewed it. “I don’t know. I jus’ don’t know who took care of them later on.”

  “You mean you just came home one day and everybody was gone—like Adonis did?” Surely something that cold couldn’t have happened twice.

  “She took me to my daddy’s house and never came back for me.”

  “I wish my mama’d do that.”

  “Thought you had baby sisters. Wouldn’t ya miss ‘em?”

  “My dad’s kids.” She guessed she had to stick to her story about having two of them.

  Paulette nodded. “Well, I understand, then. Because it was my sister and brother I missed. My mama never was much of a mama. My dad—he drank, and he didn’t have no interest in me, so I ran away. Tha’s how I got to New Orleans. I hitchhiked down here, and I didn’t have a penny, and I met a man who said he’d take care of me. He turned me out and got me on drugs.”

  “He was a pimp?”

  “Sho’ was, baby. He was a pimp. Finally, when I met Daddy through a friend, and I got off drugs, I knew what I wanted. Know what it was?”

  Torian shook her head.

  “I wanted my little brother and sister back again. So tha’s what I told Daddy and he told me he could give me that. And he did. He helped me open up this place for kids like you—every day a new kid comes, I get my little brother or sister back.”

  “Do you get paid for this?”

  “No, baby, I don’t get paid. I got to work full-time, doin’ somethin’ else, just to keep it open. I’m a carpenter, baby. Tha’s where I got these muscles. You ever seen a lady carpenter? Daddy told me I could do it. He encouraged me even though I thought I’d never get a job. But he said he’d give me one. Sho’ enough, he did, and now I do a lot of work for folks in the church. But, listen, tha’s not what I want to say to you.

  “I know ya thinkin’ of goin’ back, but I want ya to stay here a few days and think about things. Ya know, Daddy’s real worried about ya, and so am I. Because ya got a problem ya don’t even know about. Ya main problem’s not ya mama, honey, it’s ya boyfriend.”

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t even got a boyfriend.”

  “Sure you have. Noel Treadaway’s ya boyfriend. Ya know when I met that man who turned me out? I was jus’ your age and he was Noel’s.”

  “Noel’s not a pimp!”

  “No, sweetheart, I didn’t mean that. But there’s somethin’ wrong with a grown man who’s hanging with a kid.”

  “We’re in love.” Torian could feel herself slouching, pouting, behaving like the kid Paulette described.

  “Yeah. That’s what my man said, too.”

  “He’s not trying to get me to have sex. He refuses to have sex with me.”

  “That’s a funny kind of love, ain’t it, baby? Look, all I’m sayin’—this dude’s trouble for ya, one way or another. I just want ya to think about that, okay?”

  Torian got up. “I’m leaving.” She was pulling her few things together when Paulette called up to her.

  “‘Torian. Somebody to see you.”

  Noel! It had to be. No one else knew she was there.

  She raced down like a kid whose dad has come home, but it wasn’t Noel at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Reverend Jacomine! I look terrible. I mean—”

  “I just came by to make sure you’re comfortable.”

  “You did? You came by to see me?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. You’re busy.”

  “Well, you were a mighty upset young lady yesterday. I was hopin’ you’d be feeling better today.”

  Torian gave Paulette a glance. Had she called him? No, there wasn’t time.

  A funny thing, though—Paulette was looking at the Rev as if he were God.

  But he was looking at her, Torian. As if she were the center of the universe. “You feelin’ better, Miss Gernhard?”

  She loved the way he called her that. She still couldn’t figure out why he was here. She couldn’t believe he cared so much—about her, a perfect stranger—that he’d come out to see her.

  “I feel—fine.”

  “Paulette said you’re ‘bout ready to go home. I thought maybe you didn’t like it here.”

  “Oh, I do. I love it. I just thought—I mean, everyone else has real problems. I just felt kind of trivial, I guess.”

  “Well, not at all, Miss Gernhard. We’d love for you to stay as long as you like.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “One more night? Just to get a fresh perspective? For me?”

  Torian smiled. “Sure. What can that hurt?” The longer she was away, the more Lise and her father would worry. Who knew? They might even miss her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  LISE THOUGHT: HAVE I got a sinus headache? I must have a sinus headache. My head couldn’t hurt like this if I didn’t.

  Her cranium felt as if it would explode, which was the way sinus headaches made her feel, but at the same time, veins throbbed; muscles twitched.

  She held some ice to her head, and when that didn’t help, she got out some more ice and poured vodka over it. She had called her ex-husband, but he didn’t answer. Somehow, that was a relief. She didn’t think Torian was with him—whatever else you said about him, at least he had a rudimentary sense of responsibility, meaning he’d probably have let her know if Torian were there.

  She had called Sheila, of course, but the little bitch denied even talking to Torian in two days, which Lise didn’t believe. They spent hours on the phone every day and if each didn’t know every move the other made, Lise would be astonished.

  Suddenly she thought, I know! The babysitting people. She likes that woman.

  “Mrs. Treadaway? Oh, right, Miss Leydecker. Dr. Leydecker, I mean—you’re a shrink, aren’t you?”

  “Not really. But I am a therapist. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Sorry. It’s Lise Gernhard. Torian’s mother. I haven’t seen Torian and I wondered—”

  “Haven’t seen her? Since when?”

  “Well, I—” She stopped, too ashamed to tell the truth.

  “This morning.” Lise hadn’t seen Torian the morning after the fight—she’d spent the night at Charles’s. Then the next night, she’d come home late and assumed her daughter was asleep. Now it was the morning after that. She had no idea how long she’d been gone.

  “I’m sorry. We haven’t seen her today.”

  “I just thought—she and I had a fight last night, and she’s told me about your talks.”

  “‘Talks?”

  “Oh, yes. She idolizes you. I think you’re the only adult she listens to.”

  The woman—her name was Boo, wasn’t it?—laughed in a way that wasn’t a laugh, that came out like a snort, as if she were just filling the air until she thought of something to say.

  Lise thought, I wonder what I did to make her nervous.

  Finally Boo said, “I’m sure that can’t be true.” Then, quickly, “Listen, I’ll send her home right away if I see her.”

  Well, Lise hadn’t really thought she was there. Discouraged, she had another drink and thought about it.

  That proved the right thing to do, because once she thought it through, there was really only one explanation. She ran a comb through her hair and walked over to Sheila’s.

  The uncle answered the door, and Lise recognized him. “Oh, hi. I’ve seen you at Matassa’s.”

  “Hi. Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I’
m Torian’s mother. Sheila’s friend?”

  “Oh, of course. Come in.”

  He’s kind of cute. A little old for me and a little short, but—wait a minute, isn’t he gay? Didn’t Torian say that?

  She really had no idea, but someone might have said it if Torian hadn’t—it was that kind of neighborhood. He wasn’t married, that part Lise was pretty sure of. Which probably meant he was gay—that was where she’d probably gotten the idea.

  He said, “Do you mind coming in the kitchen? I’m making dinner.”

  She followed him into as beautifully equipped a kitchen as she’d seen in the French Quarter. He was cleaning up after breakfast. An enormous woman stood against a counter, wearing jeans and holding her purse, as if waiting for him.

  “Skip Langdon,” he said. “This is Torian’s mother—uh—”

  “Lise. Are you Sheila’s aunt?”

  Sheila, coming into the room, snorted.

  Lise turned around. “There you are. Listen, it’s you I want to talk to.”

  The girl smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Gernhard.” She was maddening. There was no question she knew where Torian was—hiding out in Sheila’s room, probably.

  “Where is Torian?” Only when Sheila stepped back, as if frightened, did Lise realize she was shouting.

  The large woman took a step toward her, and Lise remembered who she was—the cop who lived in back. In fact, now that Lise saw the cop and heard her name, she realized the cop was someone she had seen on television. She was quite a famous cop in New Orleans, and not only that, she was at least six feet tall.

  Wait a minute, I haven’t done anything illegal. I’m just here to find my kid.

  A wave of righteousness washed over her. She saw no need to do anything different.

  “I don’t know where she is,” said Sheila, and her voice was whiny. She was a little younger than Torian; Lise remembered what an awful age fifteen was.

  “She has a boyfriend, hasn’t she?”

  Good. The girl looked alarmed.

  “She’s probably holed up in some fleabag with some dude with dreadlocks and nipple piercings. Right, Sheila?” Lise was deliberately exaggerating, making it worse than it could possibly be, to back Sheila in a corner, make her want to explain how cute and clean-cut little Jeffrey or Jason really was. But oddly, the girl seemed to be relaxing.