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

  THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

  A Skip Langdon Mystery

  BY

  JULIE SMITH

  Praise for THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS, the SIXTH book in the Skip Langdon series by EDGAR AWARD-WINNING author Julie Smith.

  “No one writes about New Orleans, its steamy charms and its seamy sins, as well as Ms. Smith. She catches the tricky nuances of Louisiana speech as well as the sights, smells, and sounds of the Delta City.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  “Skip’s grittiest, most disturbing adventure yet… Like a good Grisham: taut, fast, and thrilling, but with a lot more heart and soul… . Whether she’s concocting delectable murder and mayhem in the Golden City or stirring it up Cajun style in the City that Care Forgot, Julie Smith is still the best tour guide going.”

  —The Clairion-Ledger

  “As usual, Smith serves up a gritty, gripping story along with a big helping of action and a pinch of humor, all appropriately seasoned by the wonderfully steamy seaminess of New Orleans.”

  —Booklist

  The Skip Langdon Series (in order of publication)

  NEW ORLEANS MOURNING

  THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ

  JAZZ FUNERAL

  DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)

  HOUSE OF BLUES

  THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

  CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)

  82 DESIRE

  MEAN WOMAN BLUES

  Also by Julie Smith:

  The Rebecca Schwartz Series

  DEATH TURNS A TRICK

  THE SOURDOUGH WARS

  TOURIST TRAP

  DEAD IN THE WATER

  OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS

  The Paul Macdonald Series

  TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE

  HUCKLEBERRY FIEND

  The Talba Wallis Series

  LOUISIANA HOTSHOT

  LOUISIANA BIGSHOT

  LOUISIANA LAMENT

  P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF

  As Well As:

  WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK

  NEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  The Kindness of Strangers

  Copyright 1996 by Julie Smith

  Excerpt from Crescent City Kill copyright © 1997 by Julie Smith

  Cover by Nevada Barr

  ISBN: 978161750758

  Originally published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.booksbnimble.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First booksBnimble Publishing electronic publication: July 2012

  Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  To Elisa Wares and Leona Nevler, as brilliant and sensitive a team as a writer could hope to work with.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter One

  SOME FIND IT amusing that the coroner of New Orleans is a gynecologist. Few know that the city’s first black mayor is buried next to Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen—by request, the tour guides say.

  Even those who have lived there for years and those who were born there and those with the sensitivity of a barnyard beast and those who have spent the last twenty years drunk in the gutter can feel the strangeness of the city, its seductive perversity.

  It hangs in the air like the cooking smells that pervade the streets and the old houses. Sometimes when you enter a Creole cottage, you could swear there’s a pot of red beans simmering somewhere, but the scent comes from the brick itself perhaps, or from the ghosts that everyone talks about as freely as they gossip about their neighbors.

  The smells are unmistakable and complex; mysterious; elusive. Yet oddly pleasant and reassuring—delicious, even.

  The strangeness is like that. After you give in to it, it is a warm embrace, and more than that. It is like the endless variations of a lover’s fingers on your body; familiar and yet different; titillating, yet safe and warm.

  Each new discovery, each seeming contradiction is surprising, yet perfectly expected. Because they’re pieces of the crazy quilt, even the repugnant aspects, like the city’s (indeed the whole state’s) cynical style of political corruption, and the stupid ones, like drive-in daiquiri stands, are somehow tolerable. If you are not willing to give in to it, you generally leave town in a hurry.

  Skip Langdon had done that, almost the minute she was old enough. Eventually she had come back, and bit by bit she had begun to give in, to let the thing wash over her, an inevitable tide of events.

  For months now she had felt as if she would drown.

  Becoming a cop was in some ways the most constructuctive thing she’d ever done; it had given meaning and focus to her life.

  Lately it had turned on her.

  Some days were better than others, but this wasn’t one of them. It was Sheila Ritter’s fifteenth birthday, and Sheila was the closest thing she had to a daughter. If ever there was a reminder that life goes on, this should have been it, and was.

  That wasn’t the point. The life cycle wasn’t in question. The problem was that it simply didn’t cheer her up to remember that.

  She couldn’t explain it any more than she could predict when she was going to burst into embarrassing tears. All she knew was that a feeling of hopelessness had come over her and would not leave.

  Sheila was the niece of Skip’s landlord and best friend, Jimmy Dee Scoggin, who had become Sheila’s guardian and that of her younger brother, Kenny, when his sister died. Though he had now had nearly a year and a half to adapt to fatherhood, Jimmy Dee hadn’t. Sheila was having her first boy-girl birthday party, and he was a wreck. Railing about the impossibility of making it through a teenage party alone, he had invited no fewer than four adults to help him weather it.

  Skip’s presence and that of Layne Bilderback, the man Jimmy Dee loved but barely saw anymore, due to Layne’s fierce allergy to the children’s dog, were de rigueur. But he also required assistance from Darryl Boucree and Cindy Lou Wootten, or said he did. It was just an excuse to have them over, Skip thought, and indeed they were all fulfilling their responsibilities by eating pizza and drinking wine around the kitchen table. Music of a sort issued from the room where Kenny and Sheila usually watched TV.

  The adults were talking about the upcoming mayoral election, a subject that made Skip’s stomach cl
ench for reasons she couldn’t get anyone to understand. She knew something about one of the candidates that terrified her— knew it, didn’t imagine it—but when she brought it up, everyone dismissed her. She found this puzzling and alienating, so she kept her mouth shut tonight, and tuned out the conversation. That left her with her own thoughts, which weren’t pretty.

  “I’ll go check on the kids,” she said, and slipped away, aware that she was making people uncomfortable, the way she’d forget to laugh when anyone said something witty or got to a punch line.

  The lights were on in the elegant parlor Jimmy Dee called the family room. A few kids were dancing, but most were just talking. Sheila was standing very close to a tall, short-haired, slightly overweight boy whose chubby cheeks flamed. Skip could see panic in his eyes and despite her mood, it made her smile.

  Sheila was tall and a little too heavy—like Skip herself—but even at thirteen she’d had a sexual presence. At fifteen she was developing confidence.

  She had dark, shiny long hair, luminous skin, and cheeks nearly as bright as her shy swain’s. Skip had often noted that adolescence will cause some feature or other to gain temporary prominence—noses or Adam’s apples on the unlucky. Sheila had been lucky—ripe, pouty lips dwarfed her other features.

  Another boy came up behind her, touched her lightly on the waist, and she turned to him, a belle accepting her due. The other boy, the panicked one, looked hugely disappointed.

  You never know what you want, Skip thought, till it’s taken away.

  She checked the room for Kenny, who had been bribed to stay in his room and not embarrass Sheila with his puerile, if exemplary, presence. Apparently the promise of a fishing trip had worked.

  Music blared, conversation buzzed. All seemed in order except for the girl on the sofa, who looked like Skip felt. She was beautiful, this girl, as slight and wispy as Sheila was opulent. Her hair was dark and hung to her shoulders, a little messy, as if she never thought about it. Her skin was light—much lighter than Sheila’s—and her oversized feature was her eyebrows, which were bushy and strong, and which most kids would have plucked. She wore jeans and a white T-shirt, and looked as if she’d just lost her best friend.

  Which is possible, Skip thought, remembering her own youth. I wonder how bad I’ll embarrass her if I talk to her.

  But there was something so sad about the girl that Skip was drawn to her. If misery loves company, she’ll adore me.

  She sat down, not next to the girl, but close enough to talk. “Hello. I’m Skip.”

  “Oh. Auntie.”

  That was what Skip liked the children to call her, but they seldom did. “You know about me.”

  “Oh, yes. Sheila talks about you all the time. I’m Torian, by the way. Torian Gernhard.”

  “Oh, of course.” Torian was a neighbor, one of the few kids in the French Quarter. She and Sheila had met that summer when Torian saw her walking Angel, the black and white dog that Layne was allergic to. They were best friends, Jimmy Dee said, but this was the first time Skip had seen her.

  She was looking neither at Skip, nor apparently at anything else. Gently, Skip touched her arm. “‘Torian. Is something wrong?”

  “Wrong?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. “With me?”

  “You’re sitting here all alone.”

  “Oh. I’m just tired.”

  Skip smiled. “Okay. I didn’t mean to be pushy.”

  “Oh, you weren’t.” Torian smiled back, warming to Skip, perhaps. “It’s okay. Sheila says you’re a cop.”

  “Does she talk about all of us?”

  “Sure. But I know Jimmy Dee and Layne. Is Darryl here tonight?”

  “Uh-huh. Do you want to meet him?” Of course Sheila would have talked about him—he was her grown-up crush, and Skip had a thing for him herself.

  Torian nodded serenely, suddenly interested, not nearly so sad.

  Skip took her into the kitchen. “This is Cindy Lou Wootten. Do you know about her?”

  Torian nodded. “The psychologist. Also known as Lou-Lou.”

  Skip said, “Sheila talks about us.”

  “Woo. I hate to think,” said Lou-Lou, and everyone laughed except Torian.

  “And this is the famous Darryl.”

  Darryl gave Torian a grin that would probably cause her to run a fever. “Famous for what?”

  “Sheila said you found her that time.”

  Sheila had once run away, and Darryl had tracked her down. Skip was in the rescue party as well, but apparently Sheila hadn’t noticed.

  Darryl was a tall, lanky black dude, with glasses and a fabulous smile. He was a bartender, high school English teacher, and musician, the last of which would have made him cool even if he hadn’t had the mercurial charm of a con man who’d missed his calling. Skip figured his female students would never forget him—she knew Sheila wouldn’t.

  “Sit down,” said Skip. “Want some pizza?”

  Torian nodded, not taking her eyes off Darryl.

  “Hey, Darryl. Wanna dance?” It was Sheila, galumphing into the room as if she were Kenny.

  “No way. I’m too old for that stuff.”

  Sheila came up behind him, dropped a hand on each shoulder, and squeezed. “Oh, come on.”

  “Uh-uh. That’s for young people.”

  “You’re young.” She slid one of her hands to his neck and moved her fingers ever so slightly.

  Skip gave Jimmy Dee a discreet look, and saw something like terror on his face. Probably afraid he’s going to have to stop it, she thought, but not to worry.

  Darryl said, “Is there a bug crawling on my neck?” and slapped at Sheila’s hand. “Ooooh, what’s this?” He grabbed it and stared for a moment, holding it suspended. Then he brought up the other hand and touched the palm. “Hey, you’re a Virgo. Right?”

  “Oh, right, Darryl, it’s September fourth, of course I’m a Virgo.”

  “It’s right here in your palm. See that? Know what else? It’s gonna rain. See? It’s right there.”

  “Oh, great. We’ve had hurricane warnings for days. Big deal, it’s going to rain.”

  “We’re not getting Hurricane Faye. Uh-uh, it’ll be another. See that little line?”

  “Hey. My palm’s supposed to be about me.”

  “There’s your life line—look. It’s real long. You might make it to sixteen.”

  Giving up, Sheila jerked away. “Okay, don’t dance. Come on, Torian.”

  Obediently, Torian followed, big sad eyes raking the adults as she left.

  As soon as they were out of hearing range, everyone except Jimmy Dee burst out laughing.

  He covered his eyes. “One day I’m going to kill her.”

  Skip said, “What’s the matter with the other one?”

  He shrugged. “She’s a real serious kid, that’s all.”

  * * *

  Skip slept most of the next day, which was the way she spent most of her free time these days.

  On Monday her sergeant, Sylvia Cappello, gathered up her brood like some mother animal taking them out to forage: “Hey guys, back to the scene of the crime.”

  They’d been to the St. Thomas Project the day before, and three days before that. Homicides were getting to be so common there it made you wonder who was left alive.

  Skip piled in the car with the rest of her platoon—there were so few police vehicles, they traveled in a pack.

  The victim would be a kid, she thought. The motive would be drugs.

  It was an article of faith among Homicide detectives that kids in some of the projects didn’t care whether they lived or died, and more or less expected the latter. Skip thought that was probably right, and it depressed her to see the same thing day after day—kids killing kids, misery in their mamas’ eyes, hardness in the survivors’.

  But then, everything depresses me.

  Her stomach flopped. Everything except my job. What’s happening to me?

  She sat up straighter, hoping that would help.

&n
bsp; It was raining, the tail end of a weary storm that had once been a hurricane, but had cooled down. Nonetheless, the car window was open. Skip turned toward it for air.

  Someone poked her in the ribs. “Ain’t that right, Langdon?”

  “ ‘Isn’t,’ Dickie, ‘isn’t.’ ”

  “Well, idn’t that right?”

  “Isn’t what right?”

  “Perretti gets elected, we’re out of a job—he’ll burn the damn place down.”

  The car shook with police humor. Perretti was the right-wing candidate for mayor—or so he wanted to be perceived. He wasn’t going to burn the projects, and he wasn’t going to stop crime by hiring a neo-Nazi police chief who could “get the job done,” but he was probably going to wear out his vocal cords promising he was.

  Skip hated him and was probably going to vote for him, which made her hate herself.

  There was a knot of people in the courtyard of the project, some of them witnesses Skip knew from other homicides. It made her slightly sick to realize she’d interviewed a couple of them three or four times.

  The body was crumpled up in a doorway, Lloyd Rogers, a young man in jeans and a T-shirt that didn’t cover his belly, a fat young man with short hair and a pair of running shoes that had probably cost a hundred dollars or more.

  A child of seventeen or eighteen.

  He had been shot in the chest with an automatic weapon.

  It wasn’t Skip’s case, it belonged to the one named Dickie, a young, cocky dude just transferred from Robbery. He asked Skip to talk to the guy’s wife.

  “Wife! He’s barely old enough to date.”

  He pointed. “She’s the one over there. In the pink shorts.”

  Her name was Kiva, and she looked about Sheila’s age.

  Kiva said, “Let’s go to my auntie house. She stay over there.” They walked across the courtyard.

  “How long were you married?” asked Skip.

  “Oh, we ain’ married exactly; we just always be together.”

  Skip thought: What’s “always” to someone her age?

  Her aunt looked fifty and was probably thirty-five. She had the stringy-necked, flat-assed body of a longtime crack addict. A baby clung to her, a light-skinned girl of about two or two and a half, chubby legs sticking out from blue rompers trimmed with red plaid ruffles, her hair decorated with barrettes in crayon colors. She had on a Barney T-shirt stained with chocolate milk.