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

by Julie Smith

  But they all broke up when Faylice said, “Yeah, Paulette. This be a great time for ghost stories.”

  They got the candle lit again, the one on the floor, and kept it shielded with their bodies. Paulette brought quilts from the beds, not so much because they were cold, as for comfort. Then she did tell about the loup-garou.

  “Really, really bad people who want to do really, really bad stuff, go rub themselves with voodoo grease, and then their eyes get red and their nose gets pointy and they grow fur, just like a wolf.”

  Sheila doubled over. “Gimme a break, a Cajun werewolf? He doesn’t say ‘I’m going to eat you all up,’ he’s like, ‘Ya gumbo or ya life.’ ”

  “You laugh. He’s a werewolf, but he’s like a vampire, too. Giant bats drop them down ya chimney, and they suck ya blood and turn ya into a loup-garou.”

  “Yeek, I’m terrified.”

  “After he sucks your blood,” said Faylice, “he goes, ‘Merci bien. Laissez les bon temps rouler.’ “

  Torian said, “I hear something,” and went to the window. “Headlights.”

  “What?” Paulette stood up slowly, an impressive form in the candlelight. She muttered, “I got to get something,” and she went to a round table with a drawer in it, a shiny-finished table, maybe the best piece in the room. The thing she got was a gun.

  She said to Torian, “Get away from that window.”

  Torian moved to her left, in front of an old-fashioned, dark-stained china cabinet. Another tree crashed onto the house, which shook so hard the cabinet fell over, taking Torian with it. The cabinet, filled with dishes, had a glass front. The noise it made as it hit the floor was about twice as loud as the tree crash, and full of the ominous jingle of breaking glass and crockery.

  Not sure where she was cut, or how badly, Torian was afraid to move. Her left leg was numb, her right one hurt so bad she wanted to howl like a loup-garou, but she stuck her fist in her mouth instead. Lying face up, she could see through the window as the approaching car stopped and someone got out.

  Paulette fired.

  * * *

  When she knocked at Boo Leydecker’s door, for a minute Skip questioned her own good sense. Here was a woman she hardly knew who’d just lost her husband. What made Skip think she could show up with a strange kid?

  She left Billy in the car, and talked fast. “Boo, listen, I need an emergency therapist. I found this kid hiding in the closet of a house where he heard his father getting killed. Apparently, he doesn’t have any family, and I can’t get to the police station.”

  All her instincts had been right. She saw Boo’s horror give way to compassion, and then that replaced by something else, something like hunger. She needed someone she could help—maybe that was how she got through crises.

  “Of course. Bring him in.”

  “The phones are out, and so’s the radio tower. I need you to call my sergeant and fill her in as soon as you can.”

  “Certainly. But why are you out in this?”

  “Emergency. I have to get to LaFourche Parish.”

  “You can’t go in that.”

  Skip stared down at her drenched clothes. “I’m going home to change.”

  “I meant your car. There might be flooding—you need four-wheel drive.”

  Skip realized she was probably right.

  “Take mine. I have an Explorer.”

  Skip accepted quickly. What a mom, she thought. Cindy Lou’s a therapist who’s always attracted to the wrong man—here’s one who’s got to take care of you.

  “There’s a gun in the glove compartment—normally I’d remove it, but I guess with you it’ll be okay.”

  Skip only nodded, barely registering the information. Lots of middle-class women carried guns in their cars. She’d gotten used to it.

  She parked the Explorer on the sidewalk, which was strictly illegal.

  She heard Steve stirring as she came in the house and started up the stairs. As she came in the bedroom, he said, “I’m awake. You can turn on the light.”

  “There aren’t any lights. Listen, I need you.”

  “You sure do. You look like you’ve been out in a hurricane.”

  “I’ve got to go back out. I think Sheila’s in Lockport.”

  “Where the hell’s that?”

  “LaFourche Parish—near Houma. About forty or fifty miles on Highway 90.”

  “You’ve got to be crazy. You can’t drive that far in a hurricane. There’ll be flooding.”

  “So we’ll wade.” She was peeling clothes as they talked. She now pulled on a dry pair of jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, and a pair of rain boots. She got out her rain parka. In its pockets, she slipped her gun, a couple of pairs of handcuffs, and, just for good measure, her radio. “You in or out?”

  He swung his legs onto the floor. “I’m your man.”

  She stopped long enough to give him a lazy smile. “You sure are, baby.”

  “Hey, we’ve got a gas stove. Let’s have some coffee. Dee-Dee called, by the way. Ten or eleven times.”

  “Oh, God. What’d you tell him?”

  “The first time or the last? I started out with ‘Don’t worry, everything’s under control,’ and progressed to…”

  “Spare me, okay?”

  While he made coffee and dressed, Skip tried her radio and phone once again, to no avail. It bothered her to leave Mike Aaron’s murder unreported, but it bothered her a lot more to imagine the animals who’d tortured Aaron getting hold of Sheila and Torian. No way was she going to pop by Headquarters and fill them in—they probably couldn’t do anything till the storm was over.

  * * *

  Highway 90 was a sometimes desolate stretch of road, lined near New Orleans with junk-food joints and mini-malls, finally giving way to swampland. This part was pretty in the daytime, but so low that water could be seen a few feet from the road at the best of times. A boat might have been a better idea than a car.

  Skip and Steve took turns driving, Steve first. Skip filled him in, then napped for a while, but it was a very little while. She was bone weary, but she was also wired.

  When she woke up, she looked through Boo’s collection of CDs and chose Bonnie Raitt for boogying down the road. Steve said, “Here’s the part I don’t get. When we get to Lockport, how do we find Paulette’s old man’s house?”

  “Well, I’ve thought about that. We could ask somebody.”

  “Just any old body who happens to be out walking in a hurricane?”

  “Yikes! You’d better stop and let me get that.” A huge limb was blocking the road. It took both of them to move it.

  The wind was so strong they had to lean on each other to get back to the car.

  Skip said grimly, “It’s getting worse.”

  “Maybe we can outrun it.”

  But there was no outrunning it. What with flooding and debris in the road, they were crawling. The only good news was that they might just avoid the heaviest and deadliest part, what meteorologists call “the eyewall of the storm,” the part that surrounds the eye, at least till they got to Lockport.

  After an hour, they changed places, and Skip realized instantly that Boo was right—she’d never have made it in her own car. The Explorer was much higher off the ground, so that they could go through deeper water than most cars could handle. A couple of pontoons wouldn’t have hurt either.

  The flooding could have been a lot worse—they were plain lucky—but there was certainly debris. Occasionally there was the shock of something hitting the car—and not always branches. Pieces of houses and boats were in the air as well. And tires, for some reason. With the rain pounding down, visibility was nearly nonexistent. About the best she could do was follow the white line whenever she could find it.

  But for the first time that night, Skip felt like a police officer again—like the well-oiled machine that knew how to get the job done, no matter how dangerous, no matter how sticky. Like she could get enough distance not to blow it.

  She had been operat
ing in a panic for hours, adrenaline pumping through her veins, and along with it the heightened awareness and almost superhuman performance it can bring. It was a drug, though, and it could make you edgy.

  After Steve had made the coffee, he had pressed his large, comforting frame to hers long enough for her body to absorb some of his calm and strength. It was funny— she usually thought of herself as the one who had to handle crises, but she was beginning to develop a new respect for Steve—to see him in a different light entirely. Just because he wasn’t a cop didn’t mean he couldn’t handle emergencies—he’d already proven himself a cool and competent burglar.

  At the moment she was almost pathetically grateful for his presence—and for the coffee he’d made and packed in a thermos. The music was helping, too.

  They had made it nearly to Des Allemands when they saw light ahead.

  Steve said, “Roadblock.”

  Hope flickered briefly in Skip’s vitals. Backup? she thought, and then realized it was a pipe dream. Every available state and local policeman would be dealing with the storm. She could plead on her knees, and it wouldn’t do any good.

  The officer standing in the rain looked about twenty. He had a chubby, pink-cheeked face and a haircut that looked as if it had been done by a girl friend with a razor. He also had a don’t-fuck-with-me look about the eyes that plainly announced he wasn’t enjoying his day.

  She said, “Hi. Kind of wet out, huh?”

  He didn’t answer, instead let his nasty eyes bore through her, silently asking how this uppity piece of road furniture dared address him.

  Skip recognized the expression: it was one way of dealing with intrusive civilians. It was no fun on this side of it. Quickly, she produced her badge. “New Orleans police. I’ve got an emergency in Lockport.”

  “Let me see your commission card.”

  She showed him that as well, but instead of glancing at it, he studied it for a long, maddening time, looking back and forth from her picture to her face.

  Does the word “emergency” have too many syllables for you? she thought, and gritted her teeth to keep from saying it.

  Finally, he said, “What kind of emergency you got?”

  “Kidnapping. Three teenage girls.”

  “Kidnapper’s not goin’ nowhere. This road’s impassable. We been here for four hours, issuing warnings— just closed it half an hour ago.”

  “You’ve been here four hours?”

  “Sure have.”

  “Have you seen a white female adult, late twenties, with two white female juveniles and one black one?”

  “Plate number?”

  He had to be kidding. She answered in bureaucratese, a language she thought he might be able to grasp. “That information is not available.”

  “Make and model of car?”

  “Look, if you’ve stopped every car, you’ve looked inside. Just tell me—have you seen anybody like that?”

  “Nope.” He spread his hands. “No mixed groups at all. Doesn’t matter, nohow. The problem is, you’re not listening. What I’m trying to tell you, this road’s impassable.”

  She was tired of playing games with him. “I’m a police officer. Let me through, please.”

  “Now you know I can’t do that. How you gonna drive on a road that’s impassable?”

  “That’s my problem.”

  His tone changed from a kind of neutral stubbornness to a sort of nasty triumphant purring. “Listen, be a good little girl, why don’t you. You’re a New Orleans police officer. So why don’t you just go on home to New Orleans? When the storm’s over, we’ll handle your little kidnapping for you, right up here.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re preventing another officer from doing her job? Is that what I just heard?”

  He turned red. “You bitch.” He responded more to her tone than anything else, she thought. She sounded like a schoolteacher dressing down a class.

  “Call your commander and ask him what to do, please.” She knew he had to do it, and so did he. He turned redder still, and when he was in the car, he fumbled in his pockets for a long time, finally extracted a cigarette, lit it, and sat there smoking, not making a move for his radio. It was probably out anyway.

  She mouthed, “Fuck you, asshole!” not even bothering to shout, and drove through the roadblock.

  The young cop leaned on the horn, but that was all he could do.

  Steve leaned out the window and hollered, “Fuck yoooooooooou!”

  “I already said that.”

  “It needed saying again. Besides, you ever seen a grown man explode in an Explorer? Not a pretty sight.”

  She put a hand on his knee. “Hey. Thanks for keeping your mouth shut.”

  “I’ll probably recover in fifteen years or so.”

  As they crossed the Company Canal, Steve asked for the second time, “How’re you going to find Paulette’s dad’s house?”

  “I’m going to ask somebody.”

  “Like maybe a cop?”

  “Well, I thought of that. Don’t think I didn’t think long and hard about it. The trouble is, you can’t know how these small-town guys are going to respond. They might say, ‘let’s go, not a minute to waste’; or they might keep me around for hours asking questions and waiting for the rain to stop or their shift to be over.” She glanced at him. “We’ve got to move now, Steve. You game?”

  “Hey, I didn’t get up in the middle of the night so I could wimp out at the last minute. Hey, stop!”

  Skip slammed on the brakes. “What’s going on?”

  He pointed. “There’s a light in that window.”

  The windows of the house had been taped rather than boarded, and from one came a glow, probably produced by a hurricane lamp.

  “And there’s a boat in the yard. Obviously these people didn’t want to evacuate—they must think they can get away in the boat if things get tough.”

  Skip went in alone. She was met at the door by a man in T-shirt and shorts. Though it wasn’t cold, further back in the room a woman huddled under a blanket. “I saw your lights, and I’m desperate. Do you have a phone book? Or better yet, do you know Denis Thibodeaux?”

  The man shook his head, puzzled. “Come in, come in. Renee—she needs a phone book.”

  The woman moved fast. She brought the book, looking worried. “Ya all right, out in that? Ya want to stay here with us?”

  Skip didn’t have to fake looking regretful. “I have an emergency. Here’s the address—where’s Terrebonne Street?”

  The man nodded vigorously, indicating he was now in control. “Ya keep goin’ on Highway 1. Ya gon’ pass a lot of streets with women’s names and some named fa trees. Ya keep goin’ and goin’, and finally ya gon’ come to a house already decorated fa Hallowe’en. And here it is, first week o’ September!”

  “Decorated how?”

  “Bats and pumpkins and things in da windows. Ya see dat, and da next street’s gon’ be Terrebonne. If ya pass da Valentine Bridge, ya’ve gone too far.”

  Terrebonne was a mean little road, pebbles dumped on dirt. The car shook. If they’d crawled before, they were snails now.

  The night was black as dirt, but they could make out a little by their headlights. Homes were mingy little dwellings, many of them trailers, windows boarded against disaster.

  As they drew near, they heard gunshots, close together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THE MAN’S VOICE was so loud Torian thought he must have brought a megaphone. She hadn’t heard his car over the noise of the storm, but his voice was deep and commanding; terrifying. “Paulette. Don’t shoot, baby. We’re here to help you.”

  Sheila and Faylice had lifted the cabinet off her, just a little, and Sheila was looking under it. “I think you’re cut. I think I see blood. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Ya’ll stay down,” Paulette snapped.

  “We’ve got to get this thing off her.”

  “Be careful, that’s all.” Her gaze never left the window
.

  Between them, the girls righted the thing and Torian looked at her legs. The right one was cut, the one that hurt so bad, but the cut didn’t seem to be in the same place that hurt. She tried moving the left one and found the feeling gradually returning to it.

  “Oh, shit, look at that,” said Faylice, and went into the kitchen. Kneeling, Sheila held Torian’s hand, her body between Torian’s face and her leg, shielding her from her own wound. But Torian could feel the sticky wetness.

  Paulette said, “Y’all stay down!” Then to Torian’s surprise, she answered the man outside. “Who’s that— Potter Menard? Is Daddy with you? I need to talk to Daddy. Bad. Lemme talk to Daddy.”

  Faylice socked a folded dish towel on to Torian’s leg. Torian winced.

  “I gotta apply pressure.”

  The man shouted: “Give up the girls, Paulette. Kidnapping is nothing to mess with.”

  “Y’all really think you can get ‘em away?”

  Sheila whispered, “Why is she talking to him?”

  “She must be tryin’ to find out somethin’—like where he standin’,” said Faylice. “So she can shoot him.”

  Torian’s leg hardly hurt at all now, except where Faylice had her hand, was pressing as hard as she could.

  A tinkling sound made her neck prickle. “What’s that?”

  Faylice’s eyes were huge. “It come from the back.”

  Paulette apparently hadn’t heard it.

  Sheila pinched the flame of the candle they were using, wax poured into heavy glass, the kind carried both by botanicas and by convenience stores in hurricane country—good for magic spells and storms. She flattened herself against the wall next to the doorway from the hall. A man stepped into the doorframe, and Sheila swung the candle like a baseball bat.

  The man doubled over, just as the first shot came through the window. Paulette shot back and almost immediately started cursing.

  Seizing the advantage, Sheila whacked the man on the head, now at her chest level. He staggered a little, and she hit him again. A third time.

  “Shit,” said Paulette. “Shit! How the fuck I’m s’posed to know how many of ‘em out there?”

  The man staggered a moment more before his knees buckled. He thudded to the floor, his head rolling to the side. Torian couldn’t see his face.