The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) (38 page)

“Ya know that man ya got the mustard on? That was real good work, by the way. That’s some dangerous man.”

Torian said, “How about the Rev?” Her illusions had pretty well been shattered, but she had to check.

“Oh, yeah. Daddy. That’s what we call him in the church. Y’all know that?”

“Well, what about him?”

“I guess y’all need to know. Daddy can do anything. I mean sure, he can heal the sick and all that kind of stuff, but the other thing he can do is anything he wants. If he wants something done, it gets done. He doesn’t want something, that thing’s gon’ disappear.”

Torian felt a prickling at the top of her head, as if some loathsome bug had gotten into her hair. She had a bad feeling Paulette had used “something” as a euphemism for “someone.”

She said, “But…the police…” She didn’t want to confront it either.

“He’s got church members everywhere ya look— probably in that police department, I wouldn’t be surprised. Worse yet—he’s got judges, people like that. Y’all hear what I’m sayin’? He gets away with things.”

Sheila said, “Wait a minute. Hold it. We’re just kids. Why would he want to kill us?”

“I’m not sayin’ he does, precious. I’m just sayin’ if he did, can’t no cops protect ya.”

“And he might.”

“Well, now, I don’t know.” But she did, Torian was sure. What had seemed to her fury that afternoon was really fear, she thought. At that moment, she knew she’d do anything for Paulette—because she was surer than sure that her own mother would never have done such a thing, would have been too drunk to summon the energy.

Sheila wasn’t going to let it drop. “Paulette, come on. Why would he want to kill us?”

She sighed. “ ‘Cause he’s gone crazy, sugarplum. Y’all know stuff that could wreck his damn ol’ campaign.”

“We don’t know anything! And anyway, you don’t kill people over stuff like that.”

“Well, okay, precious lamb, then Paulette’s gone crazy.”

“I don’t see why we can’t just go to the regular police and say we need protection. My aunt’s a cop, you know.”

“Honey, half the time he’s got somebody watchin’ ya aunt.”

Torian said, “But there’s Noel. Noel wouldn’t let him get away with anything.”

Paulette shook her head; her eyes were so sad Torian thought she must be thinking of all the bad things that had happened to her; she knew thinking of Noel set off that reaction in her.

“Y’all just don’ understand what you’re up against here.” She seemed to curl into herself. “Killin’. I could see killin’. Some things got to be done. But killin’ children! Uh-uh. No, ma ‘am on that one.”

“Adonis,” said Torian. “What happened to Adonis?”

“She got away, honey. Daddy didn’t know she was there, and she saw what was happenin’ and hid till they left; and then she snuck out. She didn’t think I saw her. It’s better that way.” Her smile was so big that Torian didn’t doubt her.

Faylice, who had been rocking herself, her eyes as sad as Paulette’s, spoke for the first time in a while. “Suppose he doesn’t catch us? What are you going to do with us?”

“Well, idn’t that the truth? What am I gon’ do with y’all?” She was trying to be hearty, but, finding she couldn’t make it fly, she switched gears. “Le’s just get through the storm, okay? Then we’ll worry about that.”

Shortly after that, the lights went out. Paulette made a big thing about how they had to eat everything in the refrigerator or it would spoil, and sure enough, they’d found some potato salad and ham in there that really did need to be eaten. And then Paulette had tried to get them to sleep, but they were too keyed up.

So they drank some leftover coffee they found, and Torian and Sheila taught the other two to play hearts. Paulette didn’t really cotton to it, but Faylice shot the moon about an hour into the game, and that got everyone’s competitive spirit up. They played through the night, listening to the wind rip branches from trees, the rain like a drum, sitting on the floor in case something flew through a window. Every now and then one of them would go to the window to check on flooding.

Halfway through the night, Torian became alarmed— the water was getting high, and the worst part of the storm was yet to come. Paulette pooh-poohed it, saying you could drive a car through that, no problem. “You know what y’all’s trouble is, Toreen?” This was the nickname she had given her charge. “Y’all are just ol’ city gals. Growin’ up here in bayou country, the way I did, ya get on speakin’ terms with nature. This is nothin’ but a l’il ol’ storm. Storms come and storms go, and Lockport stays. It’s here now and it’ll be here tomorrow. So y’all just settle in and enjoy it. Ya hear that creakin’ and groanin’? When we were kids, we used to think that was just good entertainment. Le’s tell ghost stories, why don’ we? Y’all know about the
loup-garou
?”

A tree fell against the house. One of its limbs came through the kitchen window, shattering their nerves along with the glass. Torian saw Paulette start, and watched her mouth tighten, trying to keep up a front for the kids, who screamed unabashedly.

Rain poured in; the candles blew out. The howling and groaning was in the room with them.

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 operating 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.