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

by Julie Smith

  The same went for Paulette.

  How far, she thought, are these people willing to go? Are they planning to kill these children?

  She knew enough about cults to dread the answer.

  The kitchen door was solid at the bottom, with nine small windowpanes on top. There was no curtain.

  She cupped her eyes with her hands and looked in, daring to shine her light. The kitchen, unlike the neat exterior of the house, was a wreck. The contents of the cabinets had been more or less dumped on the floor. Broken dishes were everywhere.

  Though it looked as if the kitchen opened into the living room, it was difficult to see in there. Skip strained her eyes, but couldn’t make out much at first. Gradually, as she adjusted, she saw that this room was also a wreck—something white was everywhere, maybe feathers from pillows. Furniture was overturned. It was definitely a scene more appropriate to an earthquake than a hurricane.

  Who could go to sleep with a mess like that? So they must not be home, right?

  She knew that was a load of manure, but she also knew she was going in that house, one way or another. First, she tried the door, which was locked.

  But the front door might not be. If it isn’t, nobody’s home, because that would mean the last person to leave wasn’t Mike Aaron.

  It opened.

  A man was lying on the floor, arms outstretched.

  Head blown off.

  In each palm was a knife, nailing it to the floor. Tiny x’s had been cut on the chest, like the x’s on the tomb of Marie Laveau—but Skip didn’t think these were there for religious reasons.

  She had entered the house with her gun drawn. Automatically, she moved through the rooms, making sure they were empty. There were only two others—bedrooms, separated by a bathroom. One was decorated with posters; littered with toys—footballs; baseballs and bats.

  A boy’s room. The bed hadn’t been slept in.

  The other was obviously Aaron’s. It had an odd feature for a small house—a walk-in closet. At the back of the closet was a wall hanging, a beach towel with a scene from Aladdin on it, held up by pushpins. That struck her as so odd she took it down.

  Behind it, there was a small door cut in the closet—a square, something like a pet door, but bigger. She opened it, stuck her gun in, and shined her light.

  Huddled up, trying to make himself as small as the mouse whose hole this resembled, was a boy. Every muscle was tensed. His face was in profile, and he didn’t turn towards her, didn’t want to face his killer. A single tear progressed down his cheek.

  “Oh my God, you poor baby.” She lowered the gun and tried to get him to look at her, but he refused.

  If l were this kid, I wouldn’t look at me, either.

  “Look, whoever was here before, I wasn’t with them.”

  A sound came out of him, an intake of breath, tears being swallowed. It was a hopeless sound.

  “Something real bad happened here, but you’re gon’ be all right. You hear that, baby? Nobody’s gon’ hurt you, now; you’re okay now.” Her voice sounded like something she’d heard before, from someone else’s mouth. Its cadences were those of a black person.

  Betty Ann.

  The near-forgotten name slipped into her brain like a soothing unguent. Betty Ann was a woman who’d worked for the Langdons when Skip and her brother were preschoolers. While their mother was out doing volunteer work to raise her social status, Betty Ann had taken care of skinned knees and cut fingers. She must have talked like Skip was talking now.

  “I need you to stay here one more minute, sweetheart, then I’ll be back to get you. Can you do that for me?” Eyes still straight ahead, the kid nodded.

  Skip went and got a sheet to cover what was almost certainly the body of the boy’s father. It was hard to do, harder than looking at the shell that had been a person, harder even than finding the boy who’d lost his father. She was trained for these situations. But covering the body was tampering with a crime scene.

  Still, she simply wasn’t prepared to take a chance on that quivering kid seeing the mess that had been his father.

  If the scene hadn’t been so grim, she’d have had to laugh at herself. This was the third building she’d broken into in the last eight hours. She’d left her training pretty far behind.

  The boy was letting go a little now; still trying to hold back sobs, but no longer trying to be heroic about it. He looked at her. He was a pale little kid, ten or eleven maybe, his brown hair fashionably clipped so his scalp showed through, a mole near his mouth that somehow unmderscored his vulnerability. He was dressed like a skateboarder, in long, loose shorts and oversized T-shirt. “‘I heard the shot. Is he dead?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Kneeling, Skip held out her arms. “‘Come here, honey.”

  He didn’t hug her, but for the briefest of moments he let his head fall against her body.

  She said, “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “I don’t have anyplace to go.”

  “Honey, come on.” She tugged at his arm, and he unfolded. She saw that he was taller than she’d thought, and skinny, a little awkward, shoulders slightly hunched. He was barefoot.

  “Where are your shoes?”

  “In my room.”

  “You’re Mike Aaron’s son?”

  “Yeah. Billy.” He sniffed, the mention of his dad setting off more tears. “Who are you?”

  “Come on, let’s go get your shoes.”

  She sat on his bed and fiddled with her radio while he searched for his shoes and put them on. “My name’s Skip Langdon. I’m a cop some of the time.” To her dismay, the radio was dead, too—the tower must be out.

  She thought about it: no power, no phones, no radio. She couldn’t imagine what Headquarters would be like right now.

  I’m not taking him there. Not after what he’s been through. The realization was like a weight lifting, but it brought up a question: What the hell am I doing with him?

  I can’t take him to Steve. I need him myself.

  Jimmy Dee? Uh-uh. Kenny’s got enough trouble right now. She sighed. Cindy Lou, I guess. But kids aren’t her thing—and she lives so damn far.

  She said, “What happened tonight? Why were you in that little hidey-hole?”

  “Daddy and I were doing a storm-watch—you know? And then this car came along in the rain, and he told me to go get in the hole and don’t come out, no matter what. See, it’s a place he had put in. He was a drug dealer. When Mom died, he wanted me to come here, but he was afraid of some people he used to do business with. So we worked out this system.” He shrugged. “Daddy said it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than a foster home.” There was something about the kid that was a lot older than his years—he’d learned to accept what life sent him.

  “He told you he was a drug dealer?”

  “Well, it wasn’t like I didn’t know. My mom died of an overdose.” He tied his shoe and stood up. “Where are we going? I’ve got to call somebody.”

  “Right now, we have to get to the car. But we’re going to be soaked. Put some dry clothes in a backpack.” Though it meant a much longer trek to the car, she took him out through the kitchen. She couldn’t stand to think of him bearing for the rest of his life the memory of the bloody sheet in the shape of a cross.

  The wind seemed heavier, and probably was—the worst winds usually came at this end of the storm. The kid held one of Skip’s belt loops, and slipped once, nearly taking her down with him.

  Once in the car, she drove a few blocks and parked, wanting to think a little more about what to do with him. “Okay, let’s talk a minute. Who do you need to call?”

  He bowed his head and stared at his lap.

  He doesn’t trust me, she thought.

  She said, “Look, the phones are out. My police radio’s out. We can’t call anybody, but I could take you somewhere.”

  Cindy Lou’s.

  “Okay, the police station.”

  That was the last thing she expected to he
ar. She realized with surprise how resistant she was to it—aside from what he’d go through, Skip would be there for hours. She couldn’t afford the time. “Why are you so eager to go to the cops?”

  “A friend of mine’s in trouble.”

  “Look. Billy. A friend of mine’s in trouble, too. In fact, two friends, and they’re both kids. I have a feeling whoever got your dad is after my kids.”

  “Your kids?”

  “Yeah. One of ‘em’s mine—or sort of mine. She’s like you—her mom’s dead.”

  “What about her dad?”

  “He’s somewhere else.”

  “Oh. Deserter, huh?”

  “Billy, we have to talk. What happened in there?”

  He started to cry again. “They searched the house looking for Paulette. Dad’s girlfriend.”

  Skip’s heart pounded. “Was she there?”

  “No, but they thought she was. They didn’t find me, anyway. Dad said I was at a friend’s. They kept asking where was she, and had she been there, and I heard them hit him. I think …” he lowered his head and eyes again “… I think they did other stuff to him, too.”

  “Did he tell them anything?”

  “He didn’t know anything. That’s what they kept saying—tell them anything. Anything he knew about her.”

  “She was his girlfriend. He must have known something.”

  The kid didn’t speak, just looked away. She’d lost him.

  “Look. I think Paulette’s got my kid—these guys are after her, do you understand? I’ve got to get there first.”

  “Oh, come on. Think this is a movie or something?”

  “Billy, listen. There are no phones or radios. There’s no way to call the police. At this point, I’m her only hope. If your dad told them anything, tell me.”

  She watched the complex play of emotions on his face, from hopelessness to wariness to a little bit of hope.

  She said, “You like Paulette, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. She took care of me.”

  “Took care of you?”

  “You know. Cooking dinner and stuff. Dad tried, but he didn’t really know how.”

  “Have you any idea where she is?”

  He bit his lip. “My dad finally said … he said … her dad lives in Lockport. You know where that is?”

  To her dismay, she did. It was in that part of Cajun country known as LaFourche Parish, for Bayou LaFourche—maybe forty, fifty miles away, an hour or so in good weather. The problem was, you had to take Highway 90 to get there, and 90 flooded—might already be impassable.

  That settled it. She didn’t have time to slog either to the police station, or to Cindy Lou’s. She had to get Steve and get on the road.

  She racked her brain and finally came up with a possible babysitter. She had a neighbor who was both a mother and a therapist.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  THEY HAD LONG since lost power. They were sitting on the floor, the four of them, around a single candle, though there were others burning in the room. Paulette had made it as nice as she could, transparently trying to cheer the girls up.

  First, there had been a screaming fight with her parents, ending in her father getting so mad he pushed her. But he’d forgotten what a powerful woman his daughter was. She had picked up a kitchen knife and threatened him with it, cool as a moose. There was no doubt in Torian’s mind she’d have jammed it right in his stomach if he hadn’t backed down.

  Denis apparently thought so, too. He said, “That’s it, Paulette. Ya not my daughter anymore. Ya stay in this house and drown, you and ya little kidnap victims.”

  Tootie, with a look of hate, had stabbed out her cigarette on her own floor and ground it with her heel, apparently to mark the transfer of ownership to Paulette.

  They must really think the place is going to float away, Torian thought.

  When Tootie and Denis had gone off to their hurricane shelter, Paulette took the girls outside and made them look at the house. “See that? Two feet off the ground. Water’s gon’ come up past that? Naaaaah.”

  Faylice said, “Paulette, it does. I’ve seen it on television. And the windows aren’t boarded. We ain’t ready for this.”

  It was Sheila who asked what Torian was wondering: “Why couldn’t we just go with them to the shelter?”

  “Le’s go back inside, and we’ll talk about it.”

  When she had them gathered around her, she said, “Because I did kidnap y’all. We don’t know what po-lice we gon’ run into, or who mighta seen ya pictures on television.”

  “But Paulette—why’d you do it?” Sheila’s voice got that desperate, whiny tone it took on when she was frightened.

  “Ya know that man ya got the mustard on? That was real good work, by the way. That’s some dangerous man.”

  Torian said, “How about the Rev?” Her illusions had pretty well been shattered, but she had to check.

  “Oh, yeah. Daddy. That’s what we call him in the church. Y’all know that?”

  “Well, what about him?”

  “I guess y’all need to know. Daddy can do anything. I mean sure, he can heal the sick and all that kind of stuff, but the other thing he can do is anything he wants. If he wants something done, it gets done. He doesn’t want something, that thing’s gon’ disappear.”

  Torian felt a prickling at the top of her head, as if some loathsome bug had gotten into her hair. She had a bad feeling Paulette had used “something” as a euphemism for “someone.”

  She said, “But…the police…” She didn’t want to confront it either.

  “He’s got church members everywhere ya look— probably in that police department, I wouldn’t be surprised. Worse yet—he’s got judges, people like that. Y’all hear what I’m sayin’? He gets away with things.”

  Sheila said, “Wait a minute. Hold it. We’re just kids. Why would he want to kill us?”

  “I’m not sayin’ he does, precious. I’m just sayin’ if he did, can’t no cops protect ya.”

  “And he might.”

  “Well, now, I don’t know.” But she did, Torian was sure. What had seemed to her fury that afternoon was really fear, she thought. At that moment, she knew she’d do anything for Paulette—because she was surer than sure that her own mother would never have done such a thing, would have been too drunk to summon the energy.

  Sheila wasn’t going to let it drop. “Paulette, come on. Why would he want to kill us?”

  She sighed. “ ‘Cause he’s gone crazy, sugarplum. Y’all know stuff that could wreck his damn ol’ campaign.”

  “We don’t know anything! And anyway, you don’t kill people over stuff like that.”

  “Well, okay, precious lamb, then Paulette’s gone crazy.”

  “I don’t see why we can’t just go to the regular police and say we need protection. My aunt’s a cop, you know.”

  “Honey, half the time he’s got somebody watchin’ ya aunt.”

  Torian said, “But there’s Noel. Noel wouldn’t let him get away with anything.”

  Paulette shook her head; her eyes were so sad Torian thought she must be thinking of all the bad things that had happened to her; she knew thinking of Noel set off that reaction in her.

  “Y’all just don’ understand what you’re up against here.” She seemed to curl into herself. “Killin’. I could see killin’. Some things got to be done. But killin’ children! Uh-uh. No, ma ‘am on that one.”

  “Adonis,” said Torian. “What happened to Adonis?”

  “She got away, honey. Daddy didn’t know she was there, and she saw what was happenin’ and hid till they left; and then she snuck out. She didn’t think I saw her. It’s better that way.” Her smile was so big that Torian didn’t doubt her.

  Faylice, who had been rocking herself, her eyes as sad as Paulette’s, spoke for the first time in a while. “Suppose he doesn’t catch us? What are you going to do with us?”

  “Well, idn’t that the truth? What am I gon’ do with y’all?” She was
trying to be hearty, but, finding she couldn’t make it fly, she switched gears. “Le’s just get through the storm, okay? Then we’ll worry about that.”

  Shortly after that, the lights went out. Paulette made a big thing about how they had to eat everything in the refrigerator or it would spoil, and sure enough, they’d found some potato salad and ham in there that really did need to be eaten. And then Paulette had tried to get them to sleep, but they were too keyed up.

  So they drank some leftover coffee they found, and Torian and Sheila taught the other two to play hearts. Paulette didn’t really cotton to it, but Faylice shot the moon about an hour into the game, and that got everyone’s competitive spirit up. They played through the night, listening to the wind rip branches from trees, the rain like a drum, sitting on the floor in case something flew through a window. Every now and then one of them would go to the window to check on flooding.

  Halfway through the night, Torian became alarmed— the water was getting high, and the worst part of the storm was yet to come. Paulette pooh-poohed it, saying you could drive a car through that, no problem. “You know what y’all’s trouble is, Toreen?” This was the nickname she had given her charge. “Y’all are just ol’ city gals. Growin’ up here in bayou country, the way I did, ya get on speakin’ terms with nature. This is nothin’ but a l’il ol’ storm. Storms come and storms go, and Lockport stays. It’s here now and it’ll be here tomorrow. So y’all just settle in and enjoy it. Ya hear that creakin’ and groanin’? When we were kids, we used to think that was just good entertainment. Le’s tell ghost stories, why don’ we? Y’all know about the loup-garou?”

  A tree fell against the house. One of its limbs came through the kitchen window, shattering their nerves along with the glass. Torian saw Paulette start, and watched her mouth tighten, trying to keep up a front for the kids, who screamed unabashedly.

  Rain poured in; the candles blew out. The howling and groaning was in the room with them.