The Axeman's Jazz (Skip Langdon Mystery Series #2) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  Skip found it hard to imagine that Leslie ever hadn’t been beautiful. She was forty perhaps, and beautiful now, dark, with high cheekbones, not afraid to let the first streaks of gray show. From the looks of her body, she worked out every day. She was absolutely the sort who made Skip feel like an ostrich, and she would have killed to look like her. How dare this woman speak so trivially, concern herself with such a pathetic excuse for an issue, when she didn’t have an excess ounce on her?

  Leslie paused in her narrative. “We were Jewish. I didn’t know anyone else who was. All the girls I knew were tiny little blondes. And then I started growing. Everybody said when I got my growth I’d lose my baby fat, but I didn’t. Whenever I was with them, I kept getting this weird image— of this great, lumbering female Godzilla walking through a field of Barbie dolls.” She made such a funny Godzilla face that Skip forgot herself and laughed loudly. Quickly she caught herself—surely her mother would know her laugh.

  “I thought that what being Jewish was about was being ugly. Being fat. I brought my friend Nancy home from school one time, and she said, ‘Oh, Leslie, I never smelled anything like your house. I hate my mother’s cooking—we never have anything but bologna sandwiches for lunch and overcooked roast beef for dinner.’ I don’t know why her mom wasn’t home cooking gumbo all day.” She paused to accommodate the titter that passed through the room.

  “My mother didn’t cook. We had a maid who did, but my mother taught her how to make all the Jewish dishes so no Jew had to cook on holidays. And she also made all the great New Orleans things and a pretty mean spaghetti. But when Nancy said that, I realized that it was bad to eat good food, that I could look like Nancy if only I would deprive myself, as she was naturally deprived, on account of growing up in a Gentile household.

  “I wanted to stop eating but I couldn’t. I’d starve myself for a while and then I’d binge. And then I learned how to throw up after bingeing. Anyway, to make a long story short, I ended up almost dying. I spent a long time in a hospital, and I was really grateful to be there and to have discovered this program and my higher power.

  “Meanwhile, my friend Nancy had long since married someone from Pennsylvania and moved away. And then she got divorced and came back. I was really happy to see her and felt like we really had a friendship this time. I mean I felt good about myself and didn’t have to feel inferior because I was Godzilla anymore, and it was great. I’d been abstinent for a long time and I thought I really had a lot of recovery.

  “But anyway, what happened this week was, my husband moved out. He told me six months ago he was in love with Nancy and said he didn’t want to break up our home and asked me to go into therapy with him and everything like that…”

  Her voice was steady, her delivery matter-of-fact—not overly dramatic, not wooden. “But none of it worked, and he moved out and moved in with Nancy. And last night I almost asked him, I almost called him up and said, ‘Is it because of my thighs?’ “ She laughed, and so did everyone else, apparently glad for the momentary tension release.

  “And then when I didn’t call him, even though I’ve been abstinent for … well, eighteen months this time, I almost went into relapse. It’s so hard not to get into that trap of eating to make yourself feel better because your self-image is bad because you’re so fat. Stuffing your face along with your feelings. I had one hand on the refrigerator door when the phone rang and it was Susie asking me to lead the meeting tonight, and I thought, I can’t go into relapse now. So that’s how my higher power works for me. Realistically, I know I’m not fat, but I know I will be if I’m not careful. And so because I’m feeling that way, I guess I’d like to hear from other people about self-image. Right now is a really hard time for me and I’m just glad I have this group, that’s all. Thank you.”

  Skip felt tears in her eyes, almost felt she should applaud, wondered what would happen next. Would people tell Leslie what a great gal she was and how she shouldn’t feel so bad about herself?

  They didn’t.

  Several raised their hands and Leslie recognized the Toyota-size guy. He said his name was Robert.

  “Hi, Robert,” chorused the group.

  “You know how there’s supposed to be a thin guy inside every fat guy? Well, I never had one. My dad was fat, my mom’s fat, my uncles are fat, my grandfather was fat, and my brother was fat. We’re Vic.” His audience laughed politely, knowing he referred to a local cartoon character who was a food giant.

  “Can you imagine what our refrigerator looked like when I was growing up? You couldn’t even conceive of the size of pots my mother made red beans in. And she never cooked one pot, it was always two.

  “It was like growing up in the desert and never seeing a tree. You think the whole world’s made of sand and scorpions. I don’t think I ever saw a thin person until I was in first grade. Then the kids started to call me names. You know what? I didn’t even mind because I had a great self-image. I thought fat was how you were supposed to be. I didn’t feel ugly at all because everybody at home always told me I was handsome.

  “My father died a few years ago, and that was sad, but I did fine for myself. I married a gorgeous, lovely woman and had two beautiful children. I never paid any attention at all to what those doctors said. Sure people died early in our family, that was just our genes. But two months ago my brother died. My brother did fine too. You know what? He also had a lovely wife and two beautiful children. You know what else? He was two years younger than I am. So I’m trying to get a new self-image. I’m trying to imagine what I’d look like thin. I’ve lost ten pounds, I’m working on it. I know I’m not supposed to work so hard, that my higher power will take care of it, but I’m new to this program, and I don’t really know my higher power yet, and I’ve never surrendered a day in my life. It’s a real hard thing, but I’m just glad to be here. I know there’s a thin guy in there somewhere and I really want him to get to know his kids, and be able to see them go off to college and get married.” His voice broke. Blinking back tears, he said, “That’s all. Thank you.”

  Once again, people responded only by raising their hands. To Skip’s horror, Leslie recognized Skip’s mother.

  “I’m Elizabeth and I’m a compulsive overeater.”

  “Hi, Elizabeth.”

  “I’m wearing black,” she said, “even though it’s the middle of the summer. If I weren’t wearing black, I’d be wearing vertical stripes.

  “Right now I’m only about five pounds overweight. Usually I’m ten. Lately, I’ve been trying really hard to accept myself as a person who weighs ten pounds over her ideal weight, but I’m afraid if I did that, I’d gain another ten pounds.

  “I recently figured out what I’ve been eating about all these years and that makes me feel empty, like I need to fill up. I know I eat because I’m nervous. Deep down I’m afraid people won’t like me; they won’t accept me. I haven’t got the right dress, I didn’t use the right fork, I don’t belong to the right clubs. I’m different. I feel really different from everybody else. I feel like somebody’s going to find out about me—that I’m really from Mars and I’m just faking it. Actually, I’m from Monroe. In this town that might as well be Mars.”

  Skip noticed a hard set to her mother’s mouth. She had worked hard, Elizabeth had, at becoming a fixture in New Orleans society, had devoted her life to it (had nearly ruined Skip’s life trying to make her into a social asset). Being from Monroe was a bigger hardship for her than it would have been for the average citizen. Ordinarily, Skip’s lip would have curled with distaste—she hadn’t a moment’s time for her mother’s social-climbing—but larger, more disturbing emotions roiled within her.

  A piece of her felt for Elizabeth, saw her in a new light. Her voice was different from her social voice or her mother voice. Could it be that this was what she really sounded like, stripped down to plain Elizabeth Langdon, no roles? Skip honestly didn’t think she’d have recognized this voice over the phone. It sounded sincere, not a word she associat
ed with her mother.

  Elizabeth used everything and everyone to get what she wanted, yet covered her ruthlessness with a patina of dizziness. She was a genius at organizing a charity drive, but hopeless, for instance, at cooking. It was as if so much of her energy went into her life’s work she had none left for life. The notion of her mother as a feeling person, someone with insecurities, touched Skip’s heart.

  But Elizabeth’s portrayal of herself as alienated, out of it, different from everyone else, was unbelievable, out of the question. It made Skip furious. She felt angry spots pop red on her cheeks. Her mother had spoken in that unfamiliar voice, the one that sounded … sincere.

  But that isn’t how she is, it’s the way I am. Skip was the one kidnapped by aliens and dumped in foreign territory—all Elizabeth had done was move from Monroe. It wasn’t fair, and that wasn’t half the story. Skip had been bullied, browbeaten, and beleaguered all her life by a harpy of a mother trying to get her to conform, to be like everyone else, when Skip had no more idea how to do it than she knew how to summon the flying saucer that had set her down on an inhospitable landscape.

  How dare Elizabeth, if she knew how it felt! Worse, how dare she claim feelings in common with Skip? That was almost the toughest part to take.

  Oh, Skip, don’t be such a baby.

  She scrunched down smaller, hoping her mother couldn’t see her, and tried to get her mind off herself. Fortunately, conditions were right. The next speaker told riotous stories of stealing cakes, eating them in locked bathrooms, replacing them so no one would know—but getting the flavors wrong.

  When it was over, Skip knew the jig was up: everyone stood and joined hands in a circle. She was trapped—couldn’t leave without making a spectacle of herself and couldn’t hide in the circle. But Elizabeth gave no sign she saw her.

  To Skip’s horror, everyone closed eyes, bowed heads, and said the Lord’s Prayer.

  Then things got worse. A squeeze went around the circle. Skip felt both her hands being jerked up and down. “Keep coming back,” said the group in unison and in rhythm with the jerks. “It works if you work it.” Two last emphatic jerks.

  She felt embarrassed and used. Was “used” the right word? “Manipulated,” perhaps. At any rate, forced to participate in something that wasn’t her idea, to conform. She hadn’t been given a choice and it made her mad.

  Her mother left, eyes straight ahead, but most people stayed to socialize. Skip found the phone lists—kept, she was glad to see, in a spiral notebook, which meant those of many past meetings were available. Quickly, she looked over the last four or five for “any Toms or Linda Lees,” as Joe had put it, and found two Toms. Better still, she discreetly removed last week’s.

  She left starving and picked up a shrimp po’ boy on the way home. She couldn’t help wolfing it, in fact felt compelled to, and decided OA wasn’t for her. Or maybe she just felt compelled, period. Compelled to stay in motion, to avoid stopping and thinking about what she’d been through. She compared the phone numbers of the two OA Toms with Tom Mabus’s number—no match. She started dialing numbers from the pilfered list, trying to coax out last names, saying she was looking for a friend named Linda Lee. In a few minutes she’d reached seven answering machines and four human beings, two of whom had revealed last names and none of whom knew a Linda Lee (though one had once met a Linda at a meeting).

  When she took a break to get a Diet Coke, the phone rang and she cringed.

  No wonder I’m being so compulsive about the damn phone list.

  But it wasn’t her mother.

  “Skippy, it’s Alison.”

  “Alison Gaillard, guess what? I went to OA today.”

  “You want to meet a fat guy? Anyway, I thought you were already booked.”

  “Alison, have you ever noticed I could stand to lose a few pounds?”

  “A lot of people in OA are thin—especially the women.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh, all right. So I went a few times.”

  “Is everyone in town into this stuff?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? But a lot of people dropped out. You may have heard, those people don’t drink.”

  “I thought that was just AA.”

  “It’s just not a party crowd. Which brings me to the reason I called. I’m having an Axeman party. Come and protect the rest of us. You could even wear your uniform.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. I knew it was going to happen. I was just thinking what a nightmare that whole thing’s going to be—if we don’t catch him by then. Sort of a mini-Mardi Gras.”

  “Listen, Skippy, the party’s on even if you do. Please come!”

  “I have a horrible feeling I’m going to be working.”

  “I hope not—you won’t believe the band we’re having.”

  And then the dreaded call did come.

  “Skippy, I thought I ought to let you know I saw you at the meeting.” Skip stifled a sigh as she realized her mother’s voice was back to normal—too sugary, trying too hard to please; phony as Naugahyde. “I know why you were there and I just wanted to let you know I won’t blow your cover.”

  The TV words sounded strange with no r’s, pillowed into a softness that belied their origin.

  “Mother. Thanks for calling. I guess you noticed I was hiding.”

  “That’s why I didn’t speak to you.”

  “Well, thank you for that. But I need to ask you something important—what do you mean you know why I was there?”

  “Well, you just said you were hiding.”

  “Did you mean you thought I was on a case?”

  “Of course I thought you were on a case. You wouldn’t be caught dead at a meeting like that.”

  Did she dare press it anymore? She thought not. There was no way an Uptown matron could know which case she was on. But she had to hand it to her mother—she had great instincts. Any other mom would see her overweight daughter at OA and rejoice. How had Elizabeth figured it out? She decided, for the moment, not to ask.

  “I didn’t think you would either.”

  “Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  “I liked the way you talked in there.”

  “Well, it wasn’t for you, it was for me. I didn’t see you till later. And I was mortified.”

  “Mortified! Why?”

  “What I said was personal.”

  Oh, brother. “Well, I’m sorry I overheard it. But I really liked it. You sounded so real.”

  “Real! What do you mean by that?”

  “I just liked it, that’s all.”

  “Well, I don’t mean to pry, but I was wondering about your case. If the police are coming to OA meetings, it must mean something.”

  Oh, it does; it does. And what do you do when you have a potential great source with a mouth like a tuba and not an ethical bone in her body?

  Run for cover.

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Skippy, please. Did I ever tell you what Santa was bringing?”

  “Well, look, I really can’t discuss departmental business, but you know how women go to those meetings and kind of put their purses down and get all involved and don’t pay attention?”

  “You’re looking for a pickpocket.”

  “Well, I can’t really say, but anyway, whatever it is, we’ve had several complaints. And I mean several. I just think I need to warn you to be careful when you go to the meetings. In fact…”

  “What, Skippy?”

  “Maybe you should consider not going for a while.”

  “Because of a pickpocket?”

  Damn, she’d gone too far. “Just a thought, that’s all.”

  “It’s not a pickpocket! Skip Langdon, you tell me what this is all about.”

  It was the voice of a parent speaking to a five-year-old—a bullying parent, and she heard it as such. Normally, she realized, she would simply have responded
without recognizing it, but the professional dilemma was giving her distance. She was still so busy trying to resolve her problem that she could listen to what was happening, be objective about it. I must have heard that voice a thousand times, she thought, and realized with a pang how different it was from the one shed heard in the meeting.

  “I’m really sorry, Mother, but you know I can’t discuss department business.”

  “You lied to me!”

  “Mother, I really need your help. Were you serious about not blowing my cover?”

  “Well, if there’s danger, I think people ought to know about it.”

  She spoke slowly, hoping her voice sounded calm. “Listen, it can’t hurt to watch your purse, can it? It would really help me if we could leave it at that right now.”

  “How dumb do you think I am, Margaret Langdon? Do you think I’ve forgotten you’re in Homicide?”

  Oh, shit!

  But, exasperated, she found herself laughing. “I forgot you knew. Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I was there for the same reason you were.”

  “I know you weren’t. Even if you are fat as a pig, you wouldn’t go to OA any more than you’d go to church on Sunday. The way you neglect your spiritual life is just outrageous.”

  “That’s not true, Mother. I’m praying for a higher power to come to my rescue right now.”

  But when she’d finally gotten off the phone, it didn’t seem funny at all. She noticed she was sweating, even though the AC was on high. Her hands trembled. She hadn’t realized Elizabeth still had so much power over her.

  She stripped to her underwear and sat on the floor, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. She had a dozen books on meditation, wanted its promised solace like some people want to quit smoking, but she could never seem to sit still long enough to make it work. At the moment attempts to empty her mind resulted only in the ping-ponging of disjointed thoughts.

  Was her mother in danger? Had she sacrificed the personal for the professional?

  Surely, surely, surely not. There’s a million twelve-step groups. What are the chances the killer’s in that one?

  But something Elizabeth had said echoed in her mind: There’s a lot you don’t know about me.