Crescent City Connection (Skip Langdon Mystery #7) (The Skip Langdon Series) Page 4

  There was indoor plumbing, but everything leaked. There was a gas stove, but it was about fifty years old and didn’t always light. There were naked bulbs for light.

  The only bedding was worn sheets and army blankets. The sheets were soft and nice, but she couldn’t hack the sandpaper wool of the blankets—indeed, had pitched a tantrum until she was allowed to bring her own twin-sized duvet, which her father had ridiculed and called her “sissy cover.”

  Pretty soon, he was calling her Sissy, and so were all his friends. Of course it beat Blubberface, but that came later and didn’t last. Sissy stuck.

  She was so unhappy that summer, she actually missed her mother. God, her mother! Jacqueline the Queen. If her father was a minimalist, Jacqueline was his antithesis. Her apartment was so full of frills and pillows and fuss you had to struggle for breath. Jacqueline had more clothes than Macy’s and more makeup than Maybelline. She loved to go partying with her boyfriends, and she stank of gin on weekends.

  Her dad hated to party, hated almost everything, Lovelace included, and Jacqueline was way at the top of the list. But he did love to drink. Her mother said she worried about it and even asked Lovelace if he’d ever “touched” her.

  She’d answered, “Of course, Mom—what do you think? How’s he going to hit me if he doesn’t touch me?” and her mother had laughed. Lovelace hadn’t figured out why until years later.

  Actually, Lovelace liked it when he drank—he tended to get woozier and woozier until finally he’d just fall asleep, which left Lovelace more time with the Cokes, Oreos, and books.

  The feeling she had now was similar to the one she’d harbored that whole summer—trapped, but not hopeless. She’d get out, that much was certain, but she had to bide her time. She had to wait, and get through. Just get through.

  “You have to pee or anything?”

  She didn’t know how to answer, but she was damned if she was just going to lie there. She made some sort of hum through her gag.

  “Baby, I hate having you tied up like that. You want me to take the tape off?”

  She hummed again, as loudly as she could.

  “Well, let’s stop up here. You can go behind some bushes.”

  He stopped the car and cut the tapes, even rubbed her wrists.

  “Now you go pee, but don’t try to mess with me. I’ll just catch you.”

  She knew he would. Besides, it was better to gain his trust a little, hope he’d let down his guard. Maybe next time she could talk him into a gas station bathroom, and that would be it—she’d be free.

  When she came back, he was holding out a Coke to her, its top already popped. It was cold, and she needed it.

  “Can I sit in the front—with you?”

  “You know I’m different now, Lovelace.”

  She made her eyes go wide. “Really?”

  He opened the door for her—she’d won a concession.

  “I’m not conservative anymore—I’m a liberal.”

  She didn’t know what she’d been expecting to hear, but it wasn’t that. Even in her confused state of mind, she recognized that it was an extremely odd thing for a kidnapper to say.

  What the fuck do I care? she wanted to shout. You’re a sickie and a weirdo and I hope you rot in hell. Why the fuck do I care what your damn politics are?

  “Nooo!” she said, drawing it out, as if shocked out of her mind. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Hey, I saw the light. I bet you thought it would never happen.”

  “Did it—” she couldn’t think of the phrase “—Did it… uh… come in a flash of…” Of what?

  “You making fun of me?”

  She was feeling a little odd, as if she couldn’t quite follow the conversation.

  “Making—uh—fun? Of course not, I wouldn’t…” Her hands felt slightly numb and her brain was just… not… revving… up.

  At the last minute, she got it: the Coke.

  The can slipped through her fingers and started dribbling out its contents as a flicker of fear passed through her. Till now, she had thought only of making her move, of biding her time until the right moment.

  She saw that she had underestimated her adversary.

  The fear left and as she went under, she felt a darkness, a heaviness, a cottony weight descend upon her, and she recognized it.

  She knew it.

  It was her old friend Depression.

  * * *

  Skip arrived home to find Steve glued to the television like the people in the airport, riveted by news of Billy Hutchison’s assassination.

  “Oh, no. Not you, too,” she said.

  “Hey. Me and the whole world. You mean you don’t want to know about this stuff? It’s not every day the good guys get somebody. Refreshing for a change.”

  She sat down. “You’re kidding. Right?”

  He laughed and pulled on a long-neck Dixie. “Reality check here. This is me, Steve. Not some raving redneck.”

  She got up again, breathing easier. “Yeah, well,” she muttered, “lines are getting a little blurry.”

  “Tell me there’s not a piece of you that’s going, ‘Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.’”

  She winced.

  “See. There is. You don’t want to think about it, but there is.”

  “It’s creepy. It gets you on a real childish level.”

  “I know. I think I’m going to go make a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “I’ve got to get ready for a healing.”

  As she stood in the shower, it occurred to Skip that Steve hadn’t even asked her how it went with Aunt Alice. When she came out, the phone was ringing.

  It was Layne: “Do we have to wear, like, black robes or anything?”

  “They didn’t mention it.”

  “Okay. I’m at the Big House. Kenny’s dressed up in a little suit and tie, all ready for weirdo-church.”

  She heard Kenny in the background: “Hey, man, come on.”

  He was probably wearing jeans but Layne had hit on a central truth about him: Kenny was a born Good Boy. He just couldn’t help it, which Skip thought must be impossibly annoying to his rambunctious sister, Sheila. Yet he wasn’t a goody-goody at all.

  Somehow, he instinctively understood grown-ups’ rules, and for some reason had no wish to break them. She didn’t get it, having been not a bit like that as a child. Either she’d instinctively gotten everything wrong, or she was so appalled by what she was expected to do that her subconscious simply filtered it out, with the result that she felt like an alien in her own family. She was the child of brazenly social-climbing parents who used their children to get them into the right parlors. Skip had a way of becoming embarrassing once her parents were in—knocking over the ancient porcelain, perhaps, or innocently asking little Eugenie’s mom why she didn’t put vodka in everyone’s iced tea, since she always took hers that way.

  She still hadn’t mastered the mores of Southern womanhood and probably never would.

  Being a police officer took up a lot of the slack, since she wasn’t expected to spend all day backbiting or arranging flowers. Also, it was so eccentric a job for an Uptown girl, she could more or less march to her own tune.

  Sheila was a lot like Skip. She meant well, she was just clumsy.

  Beyond all that, Kenny had something more than social instinct—he had an abiding sweetness and openness—not exactly innocence, he was a French Quarter kid, after all. But he didn’t condemn any human activity on the basis of being different (a convenient attitude for a child whose only “parent” was a gay uncle), and he wanted to experience things. He’d insisted on going to the witches’ circle, though Uncle Jimmy had scoffed and Sheila said the whole thing gave her the creeps.

  “Good-bye, chickens,” said Dee-Dee when the three piled out the door. “Bibbity-bobbity-boo, now.”

  Kenny said, “They say, ‘blessed be,’” and Skip had no idea how he knew.

  “Well, blessed be the free-of-sneezes.”

  Dee-Dee was like that—th
e perennial joker. But the simple fact was, Layne’s allergy threatened the relationship. After what the kids had been through—their father had first deserted, then their mother had died—he truly would sacrifice his first love in years before he’d find Angel a nice home in the country.

  The witches, whom Skip had met on a case, were having the ritual at the home of a new member who lived in Old Metairie, about as nonthreatening a neighborhood as existed anywhere— the kind with bikes parked in the driveways and shaggy sheep dogs lying on the porches.

  The new witch was named Melinda, and nothing, to the best of Skip’s memory, like anyone else in the coven. She was a chirping, bird-boned woman in her thirties, with short blond hair and tiny features. She wore white shorts and a black T-shirt that looked as if it had been ironed.

  The other witches—all women—awaited in a living room full of Hurwitz-Mintz furniture. There wasn’t a single thing to indicate an affinity with the occult, until Kit, the high priestess, started unpacking small objects from a basket.

  She spread a scarf on the coffee table to serve as an altar cloth, and placed on it candles, a chalice, a knife in a case, and a few other more-or-less commonplace items, including a plate of cookies.

  She said, “Kenny and Layne, do you know anything about all this?”

  Kenny nodded, all eagerness. He had said something once about learning about paganism in school, and Skip suspected he’d also read up on it.

  Layne, in contrast, blushed and shook his head.

  “Well, don’t worry. It’s not spooky or anything. Every coven’s different, but in ours, which we call the Cauldron of Cerridwen, by the way, we wear different-colored robes at different times of the year.”

  “Why?” It was Kenny, of course.

  “You know about the three aspects of the goddess?”

  He shook his head.

  “Maiden, mother, and crone—and the year follows the goddess’s phases. In spring, we think of the maiden, and so we wear white—then red in summer, and black in winter.”

  They left to put on their white robes, and when they returned, the atmosphere had subtly changed, grown more contemplative.

  Kit said, “Everyone ready?”

  They were silent a moment, and then Melinda lit a white candle, saying what appeared to be a prayer to the East. Then someone lit a red one, for the South, and so it went until all the directions had been invoked.

  Skip had seen this before, and she found it calming and energizing at the same time. She looked at Layne and Kenny. Kenny, wide-eyed, might as well have been at Disneyland. And Layne, the sophisticated, hyperintelligent pal of Jimmy Dee Scoggin, was soaking it up, though slightly wary.

  Kit picked up the knife and used it to cut out an imaginary circle to serve as a temple. And after that was done, Skip thought she felt the atmosphere change again. She couldn’t have described it, really, except to say it felt cozier, as if a real circle existed.

  The high priestess lit two more candles, invoking deities associated with the healing arts, Brigid and Asclepius.

  “In Cerridwen’s Cauldron,” she said, “we sometimes plan the ritual and sometimes we invent it on the spot. We thought since we didn’t know Layne, we wouldn’t plan this one. So we can’t tell you what to expect.”

  “You mean anything can happen?” Layne sounded nervous.

  Kit spoke almost sharply: “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen—we’re going to heal you. Now tell us about your allergy.”

  “I—uh—sneeze around Angel. And I can’t breathe, and my eyes water.”

  “And what helps? Anything?”

  “Being away from the dog. And of course—from Jimmy Dee.”

  He almost cringed as he mentioned the last part. Kit said, “Anything else?”

  “Hot soup. That’s about it—but of course, it only relieves the symptoms.”

  Kenny said, “I brought some,” and reached into his backpack. He pulled out a soup can: “Chicken. Magic works by metaphor, doesn’t it? I just… thought I’d bring this. I brought a picture of Angel, too—in Layne’s lap.”

  He passed the picture around, showing it first to Layne, who rubbed his nose as he took it. “I think I’m going to sneeze just looking at it.”

  Melinda said, “Why don’t we just—you know—set up an astral cauldron and make some allergy-curing soup?”

  A couple of coven members said “Yeah!” Apparently this was something they’d done before.

  But Kit looked hard at Layne. “I want to touch him, too. Anybody else?”

  Layne blushed and drew back.

  “It’s okay. You’ll be fine if you just do what Kenny said. Think of it as metaphor.”

  Skip noted privately that that wasn’t exactly what Kenny had said.

  “Do you mind?” said Kit.

  Layne said, “No. Of course not.” But he looked scared to death.

  “Here.” Kit placed a chair in the center of the circle. “Sit here and close your eyes if you like.”

  She passed her hands from his head to his feet, close to the body, though not actually touching, despite what she’d said.

  “I don’t feel any energy blocks. Janna?”

  Another woman did the same thing. She let her palm hover between his shoulder blades. “There’s something here.” She began pulling at air, hands working as if pulling a rope out of Layne’s body.

  Each witch took a turn. Some pulled the rope out—toxins, maybe, Skip thought—some laid on hands, some didn’t touch, but held their hands for a while in front of a certain part of his body, and breathed loudly, as if through their palms.

  When the last one had had a turn. Kit said, “Skip?” Skip passed and she turned to Kenny.

  Without a word, almost in a trance, Kenny did exactly what the witches had done—checked Layne’s aura, if that was what it was—with his hands, and then, suddenly, he began making sweeping movements an inch or so from Layne’s body, and flinging out his fingers, metaphorically removing something.

  He said, as if he’d written it in advance:

  Allergy, go!

  Allergy, leave!

  Heed the spell

  That I now weave!

  Angel be pure!

  Layne be cured!

  Allergy, go!

  Allergy, leave!

  “So mote it be,” said all the witches in unison, as if the whole thing were scripted.

  “So mote it be,” Kenny repeated, leaving Skip flabbergasted and wondering if Layne was, too.

  This is too weird, she thought. Here I am with a thirteen-year-old boy trying to cure his gay uncle’s lover with witchcraft. No wonder I didn’t fit in on State Street.

  It was weird, but it was making her feel good—oddly elated, as a matter of fact.

  Kit said, “Kenny, will you help me smudge him?”

  The boy nodded as if he did this every day, and took the smoking twig of sage she gave him. When the two of them had ritually cleansed Layne’s body with the smoke, they sat down. “Shall we do the meditation? Everyone close your eyes and get comfortable. Let’s fire up the cauldron now, and make a nice healing soup for Layne. I think it needs some love in it, so I’m putting that in first.”

  “I’m going to put in aspirin,” said Melinda. “Can’t hurt.”

  “Mushroom pizza,” said Kenny. “Layne’s comfort food.”

  Janna said, “Eucalyptus keeps fleas off dogs, and in this soup it keeps allergies off humans. Also fleas, if Angel has any of those.”

  “I’m putting in patience,” said a woman named Suby. “It might take a while, but that allergy’s out of here.”

  “Stinging nettles,” said Kit. “An herbal allergy remedy.”

  Skip was trying desperately to think of something when suddenly she remembered: “We forgot the chickens. Here go two. And some carrots and onions for flavor.”

  “Mmmm. Lots of thyme, to make it savory.”

  “A dash of white wine.”

  “Some dumplings.”

  And so
it went until the brew was thick and nutritious. “Now, Layne, take as much as you need. And everyone else have some, too—maybe you have an allergy also, or maybe something else is bothering you—a hangnail, a backache—chicken soup will cure it. Everybody have as much as you like, and when we’re done, we’ll send the rest home with Layne.”

  It was silly—Skip knew it was silly—but she took plenty of astral soup for her fear—the fear she had about the kids, about Steve and Jimmy Dee—the fear that wouldn’t leave her until she got Jacomine. Unless the witches’ brew worked, of course.

  Oh, well, as Melinda said about the aspirin—can’t hurt.

  They were back in the car before Skip thought to ask Kenny about the rhyme he’d made up.

  He shrugged. “I just thought I’d write a spell,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  She looked at Layne, who touched the top of the boy’s head, awkwardly trying to say thanks. Skip could almost see him biting back whatever he’d really thought about the ritual.

  Instead he asked, “What’d you guys think?”

  Kenny said, “Cool,” more or less his only positive adjective.

  “But what was cool?”

  “Well, the rhymes for one thing—especially mine.”

  “They don’t strike you as … childish?”

  “Well, sure they do, Layne. That’s the point.”

  “Oh.”

  Skip had to laugh. “Yeah, I like that, too. I really do.” There was something else she liked that she couldn’t put her finger on—it was the second time she’d been to one of these things, and she’d noticed it before. Both times, a kind of peace came over her afterward. She wasn’t the type who craved religion, but this stuff was sweet.

  Kenny is, too, she thought. Sometimes she worried about him—she was afraid he was so nice he’d get hurt.

  Four

  STEVE OPENED THE door, a drink for her in hand.

  “What’s this for? Think I need it after a hard day conquering allergies?”