The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) (29 page)

It wasn’t really hot chocolate weather, New Orleans being a September furnace. But the AC was on, and nothing else she could have mentioned would have been so perfect, so comforting.

This must be what a real mom is like
, Torian thought.

She couldn’t wait to question Sheila till they were sitting civilized around the table. “What’s wrong?” she said again.

Paulette said, “Come on, y’all.”

They followed her to the kitchen, and by the time they were there, Sheila seemed to be recovering her composure. She looked very pale.

Torian remembered something. “You were supposed to meet Joe Eddie … oh, no! You got mugged on the way.”

Sheila shook her head, wiping tears with the back of her hand. “He tried to rape me.”

“Joe
Eddie
?” Torian couldn’t take it in.

Paulette, fooling with ice trays, spun around, alert. “Sheila. You really okay? He just tried, or he did?”

“Oh, he didn’t. Uh-uh.” She shook her head vigorously. “Listen, I don’t weigh a hundred and forty-five pounds for nothing.”

Paulette gave her a dishtowel full of ice cubes. “Sit down, baby. Hold that on ya jaw.” She busied herself at the stove.

Torian sat down with Sheila. “What happened?”

“Well, I went to meet him when he was getting off work, and he said, ‘Let’s take a walk.’ So we walked to an apartment building, and he started to unlock the door. I said, ‘Where are we going?’ and he said, ‘My friend lives here. He’s letting us use the apartment.’ ”

Paulette said, “Uh-oh.”

Sheila nodded. “That’s what I thought. So I said, ‘I don’t think we know each other well enough,’ and he turned around and he hit me. Just like that.” Her face wore a look of utter bewilderment. “He didn’t say a word. Just hit me.” She rubbed her jaw.

Paulette said, “Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm,” as if she had heard it all before.

“Omigod. Then what?” said Torian.

“Well, I was so surprised, I grabbed my chin and said something dumb like, ‘What’d you do that for?’ And he backed me up in the entryway and groped my boobs. I was trying to fight him off, and he was laughing. Then he put an arm around my back to hold me and with the other, he tried to unzip my jeans. And suddenly I thought, ‘Holy shit, he’s trying to rape me.’ It just never occurred to me, you know?”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yeah, he said, ‘Come on, baby, you know you love it.’ Anyway, when it occurred to me what he was trying to do, I kneed him.”

Torian giggled. “Just like they tell you.”

“Guess what? It works. He fell back, and then I hit him in the stomach.”

Paulette said, “Good for you, girl,” and set a cup of cocoa in front of her.

“There was a taxi going by, so I just grabbed it. I told him to go to my house, and we were almost there when I thought of what was going to happen when I got there.”

“What?” said Paulette.

“Well, see, I sneaked out for my date, so they were going to kill me for that. And then I went out with someone I didn’t run by Uncle Jimmy first.”

“Why’d you do that, baby?”

“Well … I sort of knew they weren’t going to like him.”

“Why?”

“You know—he doesn’t go to high school, his family doesn’t know my family, all those stupid things.”

Torian said, “He’s quite a bit older, too.”

“But I never thought he was dangerous.”

“Honey,” Paulette said gently, “there might be a reason they got those rules.”

Sheila looked into her cup. “I know,” she said in a small voice.

Paulette got up again, as if repenting of bringing up an unpleasant subject. “Let me get ya some whipped cream for that.”

She squirted some into Sheila’s, then Torian’s cup. She looked at Torian when she spoke again. “Whenever an older dude goes out with a young girl, ya know what? He controls her.”

Sheila stuck out her jaw. “He didn’t control me.”

“Well, he tried, baby. He thought he could. He was cruder about it than most, but, believe me, they’re all like that, whether they mean to be or not—”

“Mean to rape you?”

“No. Mean to be the one in charge. It’s real dangerous and real bad.” She glanced at Sheila quickly. “Now, honey, don’t think I’m judging ya. I know why ya don’t want to go home. Ya think they will judge ya there. And punish ya, too—right?”

Sheila looked miserable. “I don’t know. I just feel like it’s my fault.” Her eyes filled and a sob came out of her throat.

Paulette put an arm around her. “Well, it’s not, baby. Don’t you forget that. It’s just plain not.”

“I feel like somehow they’d make it my fault.”

“Ya might be wrong about that, but we’re not gon’ argue about it. I’m gon’ give you a nice warm place to stay, but ya gotta do two things—first, don’t say where ya stayed, okay? ‘Cause this is illegal. I do it because I think there’s a need.” She smiled. “And I love kids.

“Second, do ya want to call the cops? They can’t come here, but ya might want to think about whether ya want to let that bastard get away with this.”

“Well, I don’t want him to get killed.”

“The cops won’t kill him, baby, why do ya think that?”

Sheila laughed. ‘Cause my Aunt Skip’s the cops— and she’d murder him.”

“Ya never going to tell her?”

Sheila shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. I feel so mixed up. I just don’t want to deal with it.”

“I know how ya feel, honey. But they might worry about ya. Want to give ‘em a call or anything?”

“I just can’t… talk about it yet. To them, I mean.”

“Well, what if I call ‘em? I’ll just say you’re all right and you’ll call back tomorrow or somethin’.”

Sheila looked uncertain, but a sudden calm had come over Torian, now that she knew her friend wasn’t badly hurt and hadn’t been raped. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do. She said, “No, I’ll call,” and Sheila shot her a grateful look.

“I’m going to call Skip instead of Uncle Jimmy.” She got no answer, but left a message saying Sheila was with her, and they’d be in touch soon. “Is she working tonight?” she said when she was done.

Sheila shook her head. “Probably out looking for me.” And then she smiled for the first time. “Or screwing. Steve just got here.”

Paulette winced. “Girl, girl. Y’all talk like sailors.” When they had finished their cocoa, Paulette said, ‘Torian’s already got a roommate, so I’m puttin’ ya in with Adonis.”

“That’s a girl?”

“That’s what Torian said. Why’s that a boy’s name?”

“Guess it isn’t.”

Torian slept as soundly as if she’d run a marathon.

Chapter Twenty

BOO THOUGHT: IS it raining? She listened, but heard nothing.

Why did I think that?

I must have heard something.

She saw that she was alone. Something didn’t feel right—that must have been it.

She remembered why Noel had left and she thought then that perhaps a dream had awakened her, that surely she had dreamed after so shattering a revelation, that her psyche must be struggling like a child thrown in the ocean to understand the thing that had happened to her.

What did I marry? Was I molested as a child and I’ve set up a replay?

Her gut told her it wasn’t that. It was something even harder and less acceptable, something about power, about control, something it made her angry even to consider. Angry at herself, mostly.

Shit. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. I’m supposed to have some sense.

What in the hell am I going to do now?

Get a divorce, I guess.

The answer—so simple, so straightforward—filled her with unutterable despair—not pain, but a feeling of clammy emptiness. She had a vision suddenly, a sort of hallucination, of a terra-cotta pipe that sweated freezing, filthy, foul-smelling liquid.

Stumbling, not really knowing what she was doing, she found her way to Joy’s room and nearly picked up the sleeping baby, wanting desperately to hold the child to her heart and hug her like a teddy bear.

She caught herself.
That’s right, Boo, pass on the pain to your daughter. Real mature idea.

Oh, shit, I need the cat.

She padded to the living room, turned on a light, and checked Melpomene’s favorite chair, an ancient rocker with a red cushion. It was empty.

I know where she is. She probably slipped out when I went to turn off the light in the slave quarters.

The red pillow on the rocking chair was an old one, having once been retired because of a cat-sized indentation in its middle. Boo had bought a new pillow, exactly like the old one, but during the renovation had put it on a shelf in the garage, giving Melpomene the old one out of pity. More than once, though, she’d found the cat on the shelf when Melpomene got caught between the house and its outbuilding.

She opened the door to the garage and there was Melpomene, curled up on the pillow, at eye level. But at the same instant she registered something else—the car was running.

The garage was filled with exhaust.

She held her nose and slipped into the garage, intending to circle the car from the back and turn it off. She didn’t look at the floor, so she actually tripped over her husband’s body before she saw it.

She knew that he was probably dead, but she didn’t stop—turned off the car as planned, and opened the garage door into the courtyard. Air rushed in as she knelt beside Noel. His body was cold.

Her scalp prickled and she began to sweat. Not knowing why, moving like a robot, she picked up the red pillow with the cat on it and brought it out onto the flagstones. The disheveled corpse of the cat made a tiny, agonized sound, and she was suddenly galvanized, no longer moving like a robot, but leaning over Noel, meaning to breathe into his mouth. She nearly vomited, realizing that he was dead before her lips met his. She was aware, as she bent over him, that his crotch was wet, that he had emptied his bladder in death. Yet her hand, having already begun the action, opened his mouth to clear it of obstructions. The night—early morning now—was warm, yet his skin was deadly cold.

Revolted, she fell back on her heels, then stood and staggered out to the courtyard. She touched the cat. Again, it made a feline moan.

She went in and sat by the phone, not wanting to phone 911, wanting more personal attention.

Why don’t I know any cops?

Her brain made a leap and she reached for her Rolodex. Langdon!

“Skip? I know it’s the middle of the night, but please pick up if you’re home. This is Boo Leydecker and my husband’s dead. Please pick up …”

“Boo, what’s going on?”

“Noel’s lying on the floor of the garage. The car was on.”

“Did you call nine-one-one?”

“He’s dead,” Boo said simply. “I’m calling you.”

“Call nine-one-one now. I’ll be right there. Stay out of the garage. Don’t touch anything.”

As she hung up, Boo felt taken care of, as if things were in someone else’s hands at last.

For once.

But what about when she leaves?

She felt the beginnings of panic and fought it off,
Okay, she’ll come; she’ll leave. I’m going to need someone. My mother lives in Alabama.

Noel’s mother?

Of course not.

Who then?

She couldn’t think of a soul. She realized with amazement:
I have no friends.

In a moment she heard sirens and went to get a robe. Looking out the window, she saw the pathetic furry lump on the red pillow.

* * *

Not knowing what Boo would do, Skip called 911 as she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The dispatcher would call Homicide, but Skip called as well, as a courtesy.

Steve heard the whole thing, of course. “Can I do anything? Drive you over?”

She considered. “I don’t think so. By the time we got the car, I could be there.”

She appreciated the fact that he hadn’t asked her why she was going. He would have gone for the excitement alone, she was pretty sure.

There was an element of that in her decision, as well— or at least, of curiosity; Noel was a major player in the Jacomine drama.

But mostly, she wanted to help Boo out, partly because she’d helped with Skip’s own problem, but it was more than that. Boo was a neighbor.

She ran the few blocks to Boo’s, hearing the sirens of emergency vehicles on their way as well.

A police car was already parked in front of the house. It was muggy out, with a slight drizzle, perhaps the beginning of the hurricane. The air felt edgy.

Boo was on the sidewalk, in a terry cloth robe that was much too hot for the morning. She was holding her baby—no, it was the cat, but she held it like a baby.

Skip said, “You okay?” Inane question, she thought. How could she be?

Yet Boo said she was, as if they were standing in line at a bank.

She shook her head, her face tragic, but her eyes dry. “I never thought he’d do this. I don’t know why, it just didn’t occur to me.”

“You think he committed suicide?”

Boo nodded. “Oh, God, we had a horrible fight. Will I have to tell them?”

“What was it about?” Skip felt let down, and she was ashamed—she simply saw no way this could connect with Jacomine.

“I said I couldn’t trust him with the baby—not to molest her.”

“Did you have evidence that he had molested her?”

“No, but… he was having an affair with the babysitter.”

“
Torian
?” It was out of Skip’s mouth before she could stop herself.

“You know Torian?”

Skip shrugged. “You know what the French Quarter’s like.”

“Omigod. Does everyone know she and Noel…”

“No. Someone would have said something.”

“Did you know Torian’s run away? She called here— for Noel. Can you believe that? I picked up to make a call just as she was declaring her love.”

“Do you think it was one-sided? Girls do get crushes.”

“Oh, no, I listened to the whole conversation. They were having a thing.”

“So you told him you heard it.”

Boo nodded.

“And what did he say?”

“He said he loved her and wanted to be with her. Something like that.”