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

by Julie Smith

  Skip waited.

  “I’m a pediatrician, you know that?”

  “That’s what Mr. Morgan told me.”

  “I’m a children’s doctor. I see some pretty ugly stuff. But this sickened me. About thirteen years ago, I started seeing a beautiful baby girl. Her parents didn’t have much money, and I always treated her more or less for free. Her and her brothers and sisters. I got more than one case like that.

  “But this little girl was one of the first babies I delivered after I went into practice. When that little girl was eight, she developed a brain tumor. It was malignant, but it was operable; the prognosis was good. If she’d had the operation, she’d be alive today.

  “The only thing was, her parents got talked into going to this faith healer. At first they didn’t put too much stock in what he was doing, but then they saw me in a picture with him in the paper and somehow, they got the idea from that he must be respectable. So they let him ‘heal’ their little girl and she died.” He shrugged. “That’s what they say now, anyway. I think they were just panicked; grasping at straws. And afraid of the expense. They never came back to me until it was too late.

  “But you know what about them? Try as I might, try and try and try, I never could get them to report it, they never would do a damn thing. Now there’s water under the bridge. Maybe they’d talk now. If they would, I would—but it would take both of us, I think.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Yes, I think it would.”

  “Dr. Washington, this man’s running for mayor of New Orleans—or did you know that already?”

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded. “I knew it. I just didn’t know what I could do about it.”

  “You could tell your story publicly. To a reporter from the Times-Picayune. Would you be willing to do that?”

  “I don’t see how I could. I don’t have any proof.”

  “I don’t think you have to accuse anyone of anything. Simply back up the parents, I would think—say that you saw the girl and she was ill, and that there was a very good chance of recovery if she had surgery.”

  “Let me think about that. Let me just think.”

  He crossed his arms and stared at the horizon for a few seconds. Finally, he nodded vigorously. “Yes. I’d be willing to do that. He caused that child’s death as sure as if he murdered her. The buck’s got to stop somewhere.”

  “Good. What would you think about my going to see the parents?”

  “I can’t give you their names, I’m sure you understand that.”

  “Of course. Confidentiality.”

  “Still, I could talk to them. Can you call me tonight?”

  “Of course.” He gave her a card and scribbled down a home number.

  Skip went out and got her own plate of catfish, and then she went back to every single person she’d already seen to try to pull some more names out of them. Nobody had any.

  She asked Adam Tardiff if she could have a list of his church members, and he said sure she could, he’d be glad to give it to her. There was Josephine Toups, then Dan and Evelyn Robichaux, and Robert Feran. That was everybody.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon tracking them down and drawing blanks.

  At seven o’clock, as soon as she thought it could properly be called “night,” she called Ralph Washington. “Good news,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. They’re ready to talk. First time they’ve been this way.”

  “Fantastic. Can I call them?”

  “Yes. They said I could give you their phone number.”

  “And you? Would you still be willing to talk to a reporter?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am, I certainly would.”

  The family name was Boudreaux. Judith and Bud were the parents, and the child had been named La Tasha. Skip saw them only briefly, standing at the door of their light green asbestos-shingled house. They didn’t tell their story, only confirmed what Washington had told her, and said they’d be glad to talk to Jane Storey. Two sadder- looking people she couldn’t remember seeing.

  “We think we did wrong,” the father said. “We so sorry now. We just so sorry. We want our little girl back so bad, and ain’ nothin’ gon’ bring her back.

  “We prayed and prayed about this thing, and at first we thought, Reverend Jacomine, he be doin’ the best he can, no reason to blame him, get him in no trouble he don’t deserve.

  “But now we mad. We think he shoulda known, at least coulda known he couldn’t really save our little girl. We change our minds after we hear a preacher talk about somethin’ we never heard about before. You know what hubris is, Miz Langdon?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, we didn’t used to, but once we hear the word, we jus’ looked at each other and we said to ourself, tha’s what it was with Reverend Jacomine. It was hubris kill our little girl.” He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We ready to talk about it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE GIRL STOOD uncomfortably in Potter’s office, shifting her weight, trying not to look at the floor. She had been a drug addict and a prostitute the first time he met her. She was seventeen at the time.

  She was a white kid, a skinny little thing. One of the boys in the church had found her in the French Quarter, sitting in a doorway crying. “Gimme some money, honey,” she had said to him. “You gimme some money and I’ll give you anything you want.”

  She was so dirty the boy dismissed it as a sexual overture.

  He said, “What you need the money for?” and she pulled up her dress to show him she had no pants on.

  “I got somethin’ you want,” she said.

  Later, telling the story, his eyes got big and he shook his head. “I’m a red-blooded boy, Reverend Jacomine, but this wadn’t right. Just wadn’t right.”

  “Are you on drugs?” he had asked her, and she shook her head. “Right now I’m shore not. Not even a little bit. Someone stole my money and I feel bad. I feel real, real bad. You understand what I mean?”

  He was an innocent boy, the son of longtime church members, but he had known she meant she needed drugs. He said, “Listen, I’ve got a friend who can help you,” meaning Paulette.

  The girl said, “Your friend got any rock?”

  He had ended up giving her some money and his phone number, which she had called eventually, and then he had taken Paulette to meet her.

  Her name was Abby. She’d been clean and sober for a year and a half, and she had her GED. During one of those long talks Paulette always had with the kids (she was like their mother and shrink rolled into one), Abby had said shyly that she wanted to be a detective, but she knew it wasn’t what real people did.

  Paulette was always saying the kids could do anything they wanted if they just put their minds to it, but there were a lot of ambitions Abby could have had that wouldn’t have been as easily satisfied.

  Because Potter existed, it was only a matter of a phone call, and he was glad to have a white female to work with. Especially a young, skinny, relatively plain one—a girl you hardly noticed. She could go a lot of places Potter couldn’t.

  He had put her on Langdon because she was the only white female he had, and she was pretty good, usually. Not very experienced, but she could think fast and she desperately wanted to please. He absolutely couldn’t do it himself—there was too much else to do right now, and most of his operatives were pretty ham-fisted.

  There were a couple of good ones, but Langdon was a cop—she’d notice young black men in a car. So he had sent Abby.

  He sat down and kept her standing. “How exactly did it happen?” he asked, his voice like a lit fuse.

  The girl’s lip trembled. “I don’t know.” Her whole body started to shake. “I don’t know. There was too much traffic on the Interstate. She has this ordinary little car…”

  “You don’t even know what kind of car she has?”

  “It’s a … you know, a beige, uh . .. a light-colored—”

  “You don’t even know. Abby, Abby, what am I going to
do with you?”

  She squared her shoulders. “It’s a little American car, sir. A Dodge or something.” She shrugged. “So’s every other car in Louisiana. I remember, you taught me that— people here like American cars.”

  “What else did I teach you, Abby?”

  “Potter, I’m just as sorry as I can be. I just … lost her.”

  “Now how’d you do a thing like that?”

  “Well, there were two or three of those cars all at once and, I don’t know, someone changed lanes and I thought it was her.”

  “I taught you, Abby. You’re a better operative than that.”

  “Well, sir, I…”

  He leaned across the table and raised his voice. “What really happened?”

  She jerked back, stung. Her voice hissed like a leaking tire. “I ran out of gas.”

  “You ran out of gas?”

  “Well, I didn’t know she was going to leave the city. I got as far as Breaux Bridge.”

  If Langdon had gone to Breaux Bridge, he knew where she was headed. But he wasn’t done with Miss Abby. He could have killed himself for this. It was a reflection on his judgment, one of his troops messing up like this.

  They just didn’t do it. It wasn’t done.

  He said, “You on rock again, Abby?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You act like you are.”

  She sat down involuntarily, as if falling into her chair, and her body began to shake with sobs. “I know I fucked up. I’m real sorry I fucked up.”

  “I will not have my operatives using foul language. Pull yourself together, please.” He waited a moment while the sobs subsided. Finally, he spoke more softly, letting her off the hook. “Give me the rest of your report.”

  She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. She straightened her spine and became businesslike, animated.

  She has the stuff, he thought. She’ll never pull that one again.

  “Wednesday afternoon about four p.m., she went to an address in the nine-hundred block of Orleans Street, stayed a few minutes, and left.”

  “What address?”

  Abby gave it to him.

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

  It was Noel Treadaway’s address.

  “At approximately ten a.m. Thursday, she went to the offices of Caplano’s Towing …”

  “That’ll be all, Abby.”

  “Hey. I’ve got some real good stuff. Don’t tell me you’re so mad you don’t even want to hear it.”

  “Submit in writing, please.”

  He stormed over to Daddy’s office. “We got a problem. Langdon’s tight with our new boy, the press secretary.”

  Daddy raised an eyebrow, unbelieving. “Treadaway? Who says?”

  “Intelligence.”

  “You sure about this? My press secretary’s a goddamn spy?”

  “Why don’t we call him in here and ask him.”

  Daddy nodded very slowly, very slightly, flicking his eyes toward the door.

  Potter marshaled his whole wiry body of energy, knowing full-out aggression was called for. He strode furiously to Treadaway’s office, the entire thing an act. Actually he was cool as a cucumber.

  “‘Treadaway!”

  “Yes?” The press secretary couldn’t have looked more shocked. Obviously, this wasn’t a man who was used to being called on the carpet, especially by a mere “campaign aide.”

  “Get into Daddy’s—Errol’s—office. On the double.”

  He cocked an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t move. “Something wrong?”

  He was arrogant. Way too arrogant. Probably a racist. “On the double.” Potter turned and stalked off. He was already seated, legs crossed, by the time the other man arrived, nervous but not wanting to seem intimidated. He had moved the other chair out of the way, so Treadaway couldn’t sit down.

  Daddy didn’t give him time to get his bearings, even time to cock another damned WASP eyebrow. “Noel, we had you in here to talk about our little police problem. You listened to us and you didn’t even say anything.”

  “I beg your pardon? Police problem?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” Daddy barked it.

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “What kind of press secretary are you, Noel? You can’t even remember a fucking talk we had earlier this week?”

  “You mean the cop on leave? I wouldn’t call that a police problem, exactly.”

  “Well, what kind of problem would you call it, Noel? You know more about it than I do.”

  Treadaway shook his head. Potter had to admit he showed a certain amount of guts. “Errol, I’m afraid we’ve got off on the wrong foot on this one. It seems as if we’re speaking at cross-purposes.”

  Daddy rose up out of his chair, his face threatening. “We’re not speaking at any cross-purposes, you son of a bitch. You’re lying ‘cause you’re scared shitless.”

  Treadaway spread his hands, palms up. “Don’t you think you should tell me what this is all about?”

  To his credit, he wasn’t scared and he wasn’t mad; he was detached. A thoroughgoing professional. Potter was impressed; knew he’d underestimated him.

  “It’s about you being a goddamn spy in my camp. How could you have the motherfucking nerve?”

  “Spy.” Treadaway nodded slowly and folded his arms, a man trying to get the hang of things. A damn good actor.

  Daddy turned to Potter and nodded at him. Potter consulted a small blank piece of paper he had in his hand, a prop. “Where were you at precisely sixteen hundred hours, Wednesday, September eighth?”

  He never hesitated for a second. “None of your damn business.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Daddy. “You were on my payroll at that time. I b’lieve it’s very much my business.”

  “I said it’s none of Menard’s damn business.”

  “Are you a racist, son? You’re a racist, aren’t you? That’s what’s wrong with you. You don’t want Errol Jacomine to get elected because that would be a victory for the black man. You’re working to defeat me. Right in the heart of my inner circle, and you’re a viper— a poisonous viper who will sting me unto death.” His voice didn’t rise; it got lower if anything, and more and more dramatic, yet resigned, as if this was what Jacomine expected.

  “Look, Errol, I’m working for you. If you don’t get elected, it’s just as much a defeat for me as it is for you. I don’t see what you’re getting at.” Cool as a breeze off the river.

  Daddy turned once again to Potter, who once again read from the fake cheat sheet. “At precisely sixteen hundred hours Wednesday, September eighth, Margaret (Skip) Langdon was seen entering your house in the nine-hundred block of Orleans Street, where she remained approximately twenty minutes, exiting at roughly sixteen-twenty hours.”

  “Langdon? The cop?”

  Neither he nor Daddy said anything.

  “Omigod. I think I get it. Do you guys have a tape recorder? I want to call my wife, and I want you to hear the conversation.”

  “Let’s use the speaker phone.”

  “We can’t. She’s a therapist. She won’t talk if a client can hear.”

  Daddy nodded at Potter, who got the recorder and attached it. Noel dialed, let it ring a couple of times, hung up, and dialed again. “Secret ring,” he said. “She’ll answer even if she’s busy.”

  When they played the tape back, it went like this:

  “Noel? Is anything wrong?”

  “It’s not that kind of emergency. It’s about a client of yours. Skip Langdon.”

  She drew in her breath. “How do you know about that?”

  “She was seen going into our house. I’m asking you.”

  “I saw her once a week ago. Then you got the job and I realized I had a conflict. When she came Wednesday, I told her I couldn’t be her therapist. But of course I couldn’t tell you because of confidentiality.”

  There was a little more, in which they said conciliatory things to each other—he was sorry he�
��d interrupted, she that she couldn’t tell him—but that was the gist of it.

  When Treadaway had played it, Daddy said, “Potter, what do you think?”

  Potter prided himself on being able to admit he’d made a mistake. A true leader could do that and move on. He said, “I think it’s genuine. Mr. Treadaway, we owe you an apology.”

  Daddy said, “If you ever, ever cross me, Noel Treadaway, you’re going to find out the meaning of sorry.”

  * * *

  Torian had almost gotten over her discomfort at having Sheila come over to her shabby apartment. Since she had told her about Noel, they’d achieved a new bond, almost of sisterhood. Nothing now could make her ashamed in front of Sheila, who was in possession of her deepest secret and therefore closer than anyone except Noel himself.

  A pattern had formed. Torian had joined the campaign. After school, she’d go down to Headquarters in the Central Business District and work awhile, then come home and Sheila would come over. That was on days when she couldn’t see Noel.

  It was boring, dirty work in a scroungy little office, an office where Noel didn’t work. That had disappointed her, and so had the work itself, at first—mostly phoning or stamping and stuffing envelopes—but she found it fulfilling. It made her feel as if she was doing something worthwhile, and people were getting to know her. They appreciated her efforts, and so did Noel. He had been so moved he had to sit down when she told him what she was doing. That alone was worth it.

  Another benefit was that she could always tell Lise she was at Headquarters when she was really with Noel. Not that Lise gave a damn what she did with her afternoons, but on the rare occasions she was home, they had to play that game where she pretended to be interested; it was good to have something to tell her.

  Lise was home more and more seldom, it seemed to Torian. She and Sheila had the run of the house. They could smoke as many cigarettes as they liked, and drink Lise’s booze if they were careful (though they didn’t have to be that careful; she drank so much it was easy to convince her she’d done it herself).

  Torian loved having Sheila around—such a relief from Loathsome Lise. And from her own tiresome, melancholy self. Fresh from a golden afternoon with Noel, alone in the shabby apartment, Torian could sink into such a depression she could only lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling with the lights off, so that the street light, through her lace curtains, made a lovely design on the wall, which only depressed her more. It was so beautiful, so delicate, in the face of so much misery. It seemed to heighten the minginess of the apartment and of her life, rather than to enhance them, to show them stark and drab by contrast.