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

  “Mama? Mama!” She ran to Kiva and grabbed one of her bare legs. She looked up at Skip and said gravely, “My daddy dead.”

  Skip felt feathers start to fly in her stomach, the beating of wings in there.

  The child nodded. “Daddy dead. Daddy day-edd.” She seemed taken with the rhythm of it.

  “Somebody told her?” Skip said inanely.

  Kiva looked at her as if she were speaking Russian.

  “I have to sit down for a minute.” Skip’s knees were buckling, her neck was wet with sweat. Her heart pounded.

  * * *

  Later, in her office, Cappello paced, the twin lines between her eyes drawing closer together.

  Skip sat, a hand over her eyes, speaking raggedly. “It was like a flashback. I swear; I saw Shavonne. Crawling. I saw her like it was real.”

  Cappello held up a hand, palm out: Don’t tell it.

  “Look, it’s never happened before. You know it hasn’t. It’s not going to happen again.”

  “Skip, I’m worried about you, don’t you see that? This case has about as much chance of getting solved as Jimmy Hoffa’s murder. But Dickie just arrived—he doesn’t know about Delavon, and he doesn’t know you. What he knows is, you couldn’t do a simple interview today. What if he talks about it? You want it to get back to O’Rourke?” O’Rourke was her nemesis, a sergeant who hated her for no reason.

  Skip shrugged helplessly. “Sylvia, it happened. I can’t take it back.”

  “Skip, you’ve got a problem. If you don’t do something about it, I’ll have to send you to Cindy Lou.” Cindy Lou worked for the department on a contract basis.

  “She’s my best friend—how can she be my psychologist?”

  Cappello made her voice low, so Skip would have to pay close attention. “I’m your friend, too, and I’m trying to tell you something. If I send you to Cindy Lou, this becomes a departmental matter. Do you follow?”

  Skip realized she hadn’t really understood. If Cappello sent her to Cindy Lou, it wouldn’t be for a friendly pep talk—it would be to have her fitness for duty evaluated.

  She stared at the sergeant, thinking, I didn’t know I was that bad.

  “Skip?”

  “I need to think, Sylvia. Can we talk again after lunch?”

  Cappello smiled, and Skip understood that she really was her friend. “Sure.”

  She needed to think and she needed to talk—with her good friend who happened to be the department psychologist. Cindy Lou’s familiar voice floated over the phone: “Hey, girlfriend. Lunch?”

  “My treat. I need advice. Bad.”

  “Girl, you’re right about that.”

  “Somewhere private.”

  “No such place.”

  They ended up whispering at Semolina. “I blew it on a case today. I had a flashback of some kind.”

  “Uh-huh.” Cindy Lou didn’t even look up from her pasta, seemed to shrink into herself—just a friendly pair of ears, nonthreatening, non-judging.

  Skip told her what had happened at the project, but there was no need to fill in the background. Lou-Lou had been around when it happened, had spent hours talking to Skip about it, had been there through the long months of depression.

  “I think,” Skip finished, “Cappello wants me to take a voluntary leave of absence.”

  “‘Tell me something. Are you enjoying your work right now?”

  “No. But I’m not enjoying anything. You know that.”

  “Do you want to take a leave?”

  “No! God, no.”

  “Why not?”

  Skip thought a minute, thought of the long days with nothing in them, days in which her mind could wander and hark back, showing her Shavonne again, crawling across the floor; days when the image wouldn’t leave her. “I’m afraid to,” she said.

  “Afraid of what?”

  But Skip couldn’t say it, not even to her best friend. “I don’t know,” she said. “What would I do all day?”

  Cindy Lou crossed her legs and pinned her with a hard stare. “Go into therapy.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Why haven’t you done it already?”

  “I don’t know, I thought … I guess every night I thought I’d wake up fine the next morning.” She was quiet a moment. “I guess it just didn’t occur to me.”

  Lou-Lou snorted. “It’s not like no one suggested it.”

  “What?”

  “Skip. I’ve mentioned it a million times. So has Jimmy Dee.”

  “You have?”

  “Those very words: ‘Maybe you should go into therapy.’ And you usually say, ‘Maybe I will if things don’t get better.’”

  “Oh. Well, I …” She was so surprised she couldn’t go on.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know why I haven’t. I really don’t.”

  “Listen, I haven’t wanted to say this before, because I know how important your job is to you. But I think you should know how precarious things are. Here’s a little statistic—eighteen months is the average amount of time policemen stay on the job after killing someone.”

  Skip felt her mind go blank. “Why? What does that mean?”

  Cindy Lou shrugged. “You should know better than I. Think about it.”

  “I don’t have to. My job means everything to me—I’ll do anything to keep it.”

  Cindy Lou rifled her purse and came up with a card. “I’ve got a friend who just moved to your neighborhood—she’s a fantastic therapist, and I think you’d like her.”

  Skip took the card. “Joanne Leydecker.”

  “She’s called Boo.”

  “Her clients call her Boo?”

  “Probably. She’s smart and incredibly down to earth— absolutely no bullshit about her. She just might be right for you.”

  At the moment, doing anything at all, going anywhere, seemed such an effort that the fact that Boo lived five minutes away was the most appealing thing about her.

  Suddenly, the idea of not having to go to work, not having to go through the motions of her life pretending she was really living it seemed like a soft, warm bed.

  Chapter Two

  BOO APPROACHED HER phone, as always, with a towel for the dust. It was sawdust and plaster dust and brick dust and the dust of old paint, sanded away for the new. Dust was her life these days; dust and contractors and Joy, her baby. Her husband and her practice were secondary.

  She dialed and was almost relieved when her husband wasn’t in his office. She had one tiny thing to tell him, and he hated it when she wouldn’t chat. He’d been brought up the New Orleans way; you took things slow and easy. He made friends with waiters when Boo just wanted them to take her order. He knew every shop owner in the French Quarter, and they’d only moved here a few months ago. Boo didn’t even know the clerks at Matassa’s, though she popped in for something nearly every day. To her husband, any conversation that lasted less than ten minutes was plain rude.

  It was convenient, but slightly odd that no one answered, she thought. It was mid-afternoon. He was always there. Was anything wrong?

  She smiled at herself. When she couldn’t get someone, or didn’t hear from them—even when they didn’t return her call—she was always sure something was wrong.

  Real well-adjusted, Boo. Some shrink you are.

  She’d left herself five minutes for chitchat. Now she could have a yoga break before the new client. She was feeling refreshed by the time the doorbell rang.

  “Skip? Hi, I’m Boo. It’s this way—we’re sort of under construction.”

  “Beautiful house. And it’s going to be gorgeous. Omigod, is that what I think it is?”

  Boo had led her client nearly halfway to the back entrance. She saw that the workmen had left open the door in the living room wall.

  “Uh-huh—the lady who owned it before turned the porte cochère into a garage. Can you believe it?”

  “Do you know how rare that is—a garage in the Quarter?”

  “We did
n’t when we bought the house, but everyone remarks on it.” She kept walking, out the back, across the courtyard, and into the outbuilding.

  Her client looked it over appraisingly. “So you made the slave quarters into an office.”

  Boo nodded. “It’s the only thing finished so far. That and the baby’s room.”

  The office was pale pink, furnished with antiques that were good but not pretentious. The chairs were covered with chintz —cheerfulness was the least she felt a therapist ought to offer.

  “What a pretty room,” Skip said, and Boo motioned her to a chair containing a longhaired gray and white cat.

  Skip picked the cat up, producing a soft protest.

  “Melpomene! What are you doing here?” Boo shooed the cat and looked sheepishly at Skip. “Hope you’re not allergic.”

  “No, I love cats.”

  “Cindy Lou tells me you’re a police officer.”

  “Uh-huh. Also your neighbor. You can’t have lived here long.”

  “We moved from Uptown about four months ago— why, with a year-old baby, I’m not sure. Well, yes, I am. We fell in love with the house.”

  “Ah. You’re a real estate junkie.”

  “We used to just look—but this place got us.”

  “I love Creole townhouses—I’d like to do what you’re doing, restore one.”

  “You do need a therapist.”

  T They both laughed a little nervously, as each party contemplated the segué from pleasantries to the business of the hour. Finally, Boo said, “How can I help you?”

  “Well, I’ve been depressed. Do you know any jokes?”

  Boo smiled, acknowledging the stab at humor.

  “I had a couple of real bad things happen at once. I lost my partner …”

  Boo gasped. Most of her clients had relationship problems.

  “And I went after the asshole who killed him.”

  She paused so long Boo prompted. “He got away?”

  “It would have been better if he had.”

  Is she saying what I think she is? Boo waited.

  “I found him. And he tried to kill me. And I shot him.”

  Boo nodded, trying not to show emotion. “You did what you had to.”

  “He had a seven-year-old daughter.”

  “My God.” What would it do to Joy if something happened to her father? Or me? How would she possibly cope with it?

  The young cop told the story in detail, her green eyes troubled, and as she talked, Boo developed an affection for her, a respect that she often felt when hearing a client’s story, seeing her suffering laid out as if on a gurney. It was amazing what the human mind could cope with, how it could wrap itself around a problem and find a way out.

  But the woman before her had killed a man in front of his wife and child, and she had no previous experience to help her through it, no psychic armor to protect her.

  I wish I could build her some. I wish I could mend the hole in her.

  She was a big woman, at least six feet tall, and a little overweight—twenty pounds, maybe. But the weight looked good on her; gave her substance. Her brown hair was wild and curly—Boo thought she must wear it up on the job.

  She was young—probably slightly over thirty—but she gave the impression of strength and intelligence. Boo was willing to bet certain men were threatened by her, probably some of her colleagues included.

  Her eyes were what impressed Boo the most—those green, compassionate, troubled orbs that looked as if they had seen too much.

  I want to make her smile. I want her to be happy.

  It was her weakness and she knew it—as a human being that is, because she gave too much; but in her job, it was her strength. She could not rest until she saw the glint of laughter return to her clients’ eyes.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Skip was saying. “Being a cop is my identity; it’s my life. It’s the only thing …” She stopped.

  “Go ahead, tell me.”

  “I was going to say the only thing I’ve ever loved.”

  Boo waited.

  “But that isn’t true. I love my friends and the children, my best friend’s children … and …”

  “And?”

  “My boyfriend, I guess.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Oh, of course I’m sure. Sure I love him. I’m just insecure.”

  “Is there a reason to be?”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded impatient. “Could we get back on the subject?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I did love anyone before I had this job.”

  “Not your parents?”

  “I guess, but that’s another story. What I mean is, this job sort of solidified things for me. It made me … I don’t know—it made me want to live, I guess.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well, I hate to sound clichéd, but I guess I mean I get my self-esteem from it.”

  “Do you think that’s still true?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it isn’t, but it’s still my life.”

  “Of course.”

  “What would I do if I didn’t have it? I can’t even think about that.”

  “I don’t think you have to. You still have it.”

  “Not for now I don’t. I’m on leave for six months.” She brought a hand down on her thigh. “What am I going to do all day?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  She sat back, and Boo thought the pain in her eyes was searing. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you ever find that sometimes you know things you don’t know you know?”

  Irritation flashed across Skip’s face: Don’t give me that shrink-talk. And then her expression smoothed into thought. Finally, she said, “Maybe. What are you getting at?”

  “You could look at this as an opportunity.”

  This time she didn’t bother to conceal her annoyance. “Well, I don’t.”

  I guess I’d feel the same, Boo thought. She said: “What would you think of doing a little exercise with me?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Okay, get comfortable. Now close your eyes and leave the morning behind you.” She spoke slowly, to induce a light trance. “Let go of the past and the future, and take a breath …”

  She led Skip, in imagination, to “a beautiful place where all things are possible.”

  “See if there’s anyone there,” she said.

  “Yes. There’s a woman wearing a diaphanous gown. A muse or something.”

  “Good. Ask her to give you what you need.”

  Skip was silent for a while. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “Okay. Let’s go deeper. To your left, find a path that leads downward. Follow the path and tell me who you meet…”

  Almost instantly, Skip gave a little gasp and a jerk. She kept her eyes closed for almost a minute, and then let them fly open. “I did get something.”

  “Good.” Boo was a little taken aback. She’d planned to lead her client gradually back up the path to consciousness, ever so nurturing and gentle, but Skip had taken matters into her own hands.

  “It’s not what I expected. It’s the last thing I expected.” She was shaking her head. “It was Errol Jacomine.”

  “The mayoral candidate?”

  Skip nodded, licking her lips, excited. “This worked, you know that? There really is something I care about— I just forgot about it, that’s all. I mean I didn’t think I could do anything, but I have all this free time.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What do you know about Jacomine?”

  “Just that he’s the minister of a multicultural church. He seems to have done a lot for drug addicts and people down on their luck—I mean, really a lot. My impression is, he’s a real grassroots, serious kind of guy who puts his money where his mouth is.”

  “My God.” Skip was shaking her head, a hand over her mouth in horror. “I think that’s what most people think.”

  “And w
hat do you think?”

  “He’s a psychopath. He’s dangerous as hell.”

  She was so adamant Boo started to wonder if this was a projection. Was there more to Skip Langdon’s emotional state than she’d thought?

  “I met him last year on a case. He was sitting down with eight or ten members of his flock. When he stood, they stood, and I’ve never been so sure in my life that something was badly wrong. I mean badly.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “They were obviously under orders to watch his every little move and carry out some prearranged scenario.”

  “Every organization has rituals. Especially churches.”

  “Maybe you had to be there—trust me, this thing was sinister as hell. And sure enough, I found a disgruntled member who left because he abused her. She spilled something, and he made her wear burlap underwear or some damn thing—which he called sackcloth. And there were sexual things.”

  “Rape?”

  “More like droit du seigneur. The church ladies were just sort of on call.”

  Boo raised an eyebrow.

  “So I told the department’s intelligence guy—you know, the one who’s supposed to know about cults? And he said Errol Jacomine’s a good guy, and I should leave him alone.”

  “Jacomine’s got a following,” Boo said, trying to keep it neutral. In fact as far as she could tell, he was beloved by those who knew him.

  Skip was looking more lively than she had at any time during the session.

  Boo asked, “How does all this affect your life?”

  “Well, I think it’s preying on me—it’s contributing to my general black, dark mood. And I realize the thing I want most in the world right now is for him not to get elected. I could work on Perretti’s campaign, or Jackson’s …” She stopped. “Uh-oh. No, I can’t. I’m still a police officer. I can’t work on a campaign.” She looked utterly dejected. “For a minute there, I thought I could actually do something useful for once.”

  “I’m sure you’ve done many useful things in your life.”

  Skip gave her another cut-the-shrink-talk look. They were all like this at first, till they got used to the vocabulary.

  And the nurturing.

  Boo felt strongly that there wasn’t enough nurturing in the culture, and that most people had a hard time accepting it—but then, perhaps those were just the ones who ended up in therapy.