The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) (17 page)

Amen, Skip thought, but she held her tongue.

“Her doctor, alas, was bound by his own professional scruples. Naturally he could not reveal the details of the case, but he went so far as to volunteer that in his opinion he could not have helped Mrs. Morgan any further than he already had. I took comfort in that, Miss Langdon. I hoped that it was so, yet I could not help but worry that it might not be so in every case. This has weighed on my conscience, yet what was I to do?”

Skip said, “I wonder if you talked to other people who got involved with Jacomine?”

He nodded and dabbed at his left temple. “I can assure you that I did. Yet I was never able to elicit other than the highest praise for the man. And so I was forced to content myself with what I had done and to trust in God it was enough.”

Despite his pomposity, he said it with such obvious sincerity that Skip felt herself developing a soft spot for him. She asked if he would mind if she went to visit Hattie Morgan’s son.

Cowan nodded approvingly: “Mr. Aaron Morgan is a very intelligent young man. I would be happy to call him for you.”

Young Mr. Aaron Morgan proved to be somewhere in his early forties, and at least as handsome as he was intelligent. He was working a construction job, his wife had told the minister, and given him the address.

Skip arrived to find Morgan shirtless and shining with sweat. She had now and then seen as good a torso of muscles, but not often. “Mr. Morgan. I’m Skip Langdon from New Orleans. Dr. Cowan sent me.”

“Call me Aaron,” he said, and gave her the smile, the welcoming handshake that made country people famous for friendliness. “Who’d you say sent you?”

“Dr. Theon Cowan over at the Baptist Church.”

“That’s my daddy’s church. My daddy all right?”

“Oh, yes. It’s nothing like that. I wanted to ask you about another minister—Errol Jacomine, the one who tried to heal your mama.”

“You po-lice or somethin’? ‘Cause he a fraud. He a fraud as sure as I’m standin’ here.”

“Dr. Cowan told me about the thing in the jar and all that.”

“Hmmmph. Big ol’ turkey gizzard. He say she ‘pass’ the tumor. She didn’t pass nothin’ ‘cept away. Maybe his fault, maybe not, but one thing I’m tellin’ you, he didn’t help her none.”

“I’m wondering what happened to that big old turkey gizzard.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “Daddy had it buried with the body. Ain’t that too much?”

Trying not to show her disappointment, she shook her head as well. “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.” It was the Southern expression most useful for keeping your feelings hidden.

As if as an afterthought, she asked if Aaron knew anyone else who’d had a healing from Jacomine.

“I don’t b’lieve I do,” he said. “But I bet I know somebody who would talk.”

“Who’s that?”

“Man named Ralph Washington. Baby doctor here in town.”

The name was familiar. “I’ve heard of him. He’s a honcho in the NAACP, isn’t he?” He was the man with whom Jacomine had had his picture taken.

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that. What I know is, after my mama died, he come around askin’ questions just like you doin’. ‘Bout whether she thought she was healed and where that ol’ tumor went. Wouldn’t say why, but I had a feelin’ he had the same opinion I do of Mr. Jacomine.”

Skip looked at her watch. It was eleven-thirty, the perfect time to show up unannounced at a doctor’s office. He’d almost certainly be going out to lunch soon.

* * *

Naturally, he didn’t like being accosted on his way to a nice plate of catfish. Yet when Skip said the word “Jacomine,” he slowed and looked at her for the first time.

He was a light-skinned man, beefy for a doctor, young for a community activist. He had a gentle demeanor, yet a determined glint in his eye. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re here about Errol Jacomine?”

“I
am
waiting. I was hoping you would.”

He stopped. “Well, I will. I’ve got a thing or two to say about the Reverend Mr. Jacomine.”

“I came here to listen. Aaron Morgan sent me. I gather his mother was unsuccessfully ‘healed.’ ”

Washington’s face was hard now. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I tried to get that son of a bitch.”

Skip waited.

“I’m a pediatrician, you know that?”

“That’s what Mr. Morgan told me.”

“I’m a children’s doctor. I see some pretty ugly stuff. But this sickened me. About thirteen years ago, I started seeing a beautiful baby girl. Her parents didn’t have much money, and I always treated her more or less for free. Her and her brothers and sisters. I got more than one case like that.

“But this little girl was one of the first babies I delivered after I went into practice. When that little girl was eight, she developed a brain tumor. It was malignant, but it was operable; the prognosis was good. If she’d had the operation, she’d be alive today.

“The only thing was, her parents got talked into going to this faith healer. At first they didn’t put too much stock in what he was doing, but then they saw me in a picture with him in the paper and somehow, they got the idea from that he must be respectable. So they let him ‘heal’ their little girl and she died.” He shrugged. “That’s what they say now, anyway. I think they were just panicked; grasping at straws. And afraid of the expense. They never came back to me until it was too late.

“But you know what about them? Try as I might, try and try and try, I never could get them to report it, they never would do a damn thing. Now there’s water under the bridge. Maybe they’d talk now. If they would, I would—but it would take both of us, I think.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Yes, I think it would.”

“Dr. Washington, this man’s running for mayor of New Orleans—or did you know that already?”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “I knew it. I just didn’t know what I could do about it.”

“You could tell your story publicly. To a reporter from the
Times-Picayune
. Would you be willing to do that?”

“I don’t see how I could. I don’t have any proof.”

“I don’t think you have to accuse anyone of anything. Simply back up the parents, I would think—say that you saw the girl and she was ill, and that there was a very good chance of recovery if she had surgery.”

“Let me think about that. Let me just think.”

He crossed his arms and stared at the horizon for a few seconds. Finally, he nodded vigorously. “Yes. I’d be willing to do that. He caused that child’s death as sure as if he murdered her. The buck’s got to stop somewhere.”

“Good. What would you think about my going to see the parents?”

“I can’t give you their names, I’m sure you understand that.”

“Of course. Confidentiality.”

“Still, I could talk to them. Can you call me tonight?”

“Of course.” He gave her a card and scribbled down a home number.

Skip went out and got her own plate of catfish, and then she went back to every single person she’d already seen to try to pull some more names out of them. Nobody had any.

She asked Adam Tardiff if she could have a list of his church members, and he said sure she could, he’d be glad to give it to her. There was Josephine Toups, then Dan and Evelyn Robichaux, and Robert Feran. That was everybody.

She spent the rest of the afternoon tracking them down and drawing blanks.

At seven o’clock, as soon as she thought it could properly be called “night,” she called Ralph Washington. “Good news,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. They’re ready to talk. First time they’ve been this way.”

“Fantastic. Can I call them?”

“Yes. They said I could give you their phone number.”

“And you? Would you still be willing to talk to a reporter?”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am, I certainly would.”

The family name was Boudreaux. Judith and Bud were the parents, and the child had been named La Tasha. Skip saw them only briefly, standing at the door of their light green asbestos-shingled house. They didn’t tell their story, only confirmed what Washington had told her, and said they’d be glad to talk to Jane Storey. Two sadder- looking people she couldn’t remember seeing.

“We think we did wrong,” the father said. “We so sorry now. We just so sorry. We want our little girl back so bad, and ain’ nothin’ gon’ bring her back.

“We prayed and prayed about this thing, and at first we thought, Reverend Jacomine, he be doin’ the best he can, no reason to blame him, get him in no trouble he don’t deserve.

“But now we mad. We think he shoulda known, at least coulda known he couldn’t really save our little girl. We change our minds after we hear a preacher talk about somethin’ we never heard about before. You know what hubris is, Miz Langdon?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, we didn’t used to, but once we hear the word, we jus’ looked at each other and we said to ourself, tha’s what it was with Reverend Jacomine. It was hubris kill our little girl.” He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We ready to talk about it.”

Chapter Twelve

THE GIRL STOOD uncomfortably in Potter’s office, shifting her weight, trying not to look at the floor. She had been a drug addict and a prostitute the first time he met her. She was seventeen at the time.

She was a white kid, a skinny little thing. One of the boys in the church had found her in the French Quarter, sitting in a doorway crying. “Gimme some money, honey,” she had said to him. “You gimme some money and I’ll give you anything you want.”

She was so dirty the boy dismissed it as a sexual overture.

He said, “What you need the money for?” and she pulled up her dress to show him she had no pants on.

“I got somethin’ you want,” she said.

Later, telling the story, his eyes got big and he shook his head. “I’m a red-blooded boy, Reverend Jacomine, but this wadn’t right. Just wadn’t right.”

“Are you on drugs?” he had asked her, and she shook her head. “Right now I’m shore not. Not even a little bit. Someone stole my money and I feel bad. I feel real, real bad. You understand what I mean?”

He was an innocent boy, the son of longtime church members, but he had known she meant she needed drugs. He said, “Listen, I’ve got a friend who can help you,” meaning Paulette.

The girl said, “Your friend got any rock?”

He had ended up giving her some money and his phone number, which she had called eventually, and then he had taken Paulette to meet her.

Her name was Abby. She’d been clean and sober for a year and a half, and she had her GED. During one of those long talks Paulette always had with the kids (she was like their mother and shrink rolled into one), Abby had said shyly that she wanted to be a detective, but she knew it wasn’t what real people did.

Paulette was always saying the kids could do anything they wanted if they just put their minds to it, but there were a lot of ambitions Abby could have had that wouldn’t have been as easily satisfied.

Because Potter existed, it was only a matter of a phone call, and he was glad to have a white female to work with. Especially a young, skinny, relatively plain one—a girl you hardly noticed. She could go a lot of places Potter couldn’t.

He had put her on Langdon because she was the only white female he had, and she was pretty good, usually. Not very experienced, but she could think fast and she desperately wanted to please. He absolutely couldn’t do it himself—there was too much else to do right now, and most of his operatives were pretty ham-fisted.

There were a couple of good ones, but Langdon was a cop—she’d notice young black men in a car. So he had sent Abby.

He sat down and kept her standing. “How exactly did it happen?” he asked, his voice like a lit fuse.

The girl’s lip trembled. “I don’t know.” Her whole body started to shake. “I don’t know. There was too much traffic on the Interstate. She has this ordinary little car…”

“You don’t even know what kind of car she has?”

“It’s a … you know, a beige, uh . .. a light-colored—”

“You don’t even know. Abby, Abby, what am I going to do with you?”

She squared her shoulders. “It’s a little American car, sir. A Dodge or something.” She shrugged. “So’s every other car in Louisiana. I remember, you taught me that— people here like American cars.”

“What else did I teach you, Abby?”

“Potter, I’m just as sorry as I can be. I just … lost her.”

“Now how’d you do a thing like that?”

“Well, there were two or three of those cars all at once and, I don’t know, someone changed lanes and I thought it was her.”

“I taught you, Abby. You’re a better operative than that.”

“Well, sir, I…”

He leaned across the table and raised his voice. “What really happened?”

She jerked back, stung. Her voice hissed like a leaking tire. “I ran out of gas.”

“You ran out of gas?”

“Well, I didn’t know she was going to leave the city. I got as far as Breaux Bridge.”

If Langdon had gone to Breaux Bridge, he knew where she was headed. But he wasn’t done with Miss Abby. He could have killed himself for this. It was a reflection on his judgment, one of his troops messing up like this.

They just didn’t do it. It wasn’t done.

He said, “You on rock again, Abby?”

“No, sir.”

“You act like you are.”

She sat down involuntarily, as if falling into her chair, and her body began to shake with sobs. “I know I fucked up. I’m real sorry I fucked up.”

“I will not have my operatives using foul language. Pull yourself together, please.” He waited a moment while the sobs subsided. Finally, he spoke more softly, letting her off the hook. “Give me the rest of your report.”

She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. She straightened her spine and became businesslike, animated.

She has the stuff, he thought. She’ll never pull that one again.

“Wednesday afternoon about four p.m., she went to an address in the nine-hundred block of Orleans Street, stayed a few minutes, and left.”

“What address?”

Abby gave it to him.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

It was Noel Treadaway’s address.

“At approximately ten a.m. Thursday, she went to the offices of Caplano’s Towing …”

“That’ll be all, Abby.”