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

by Julie Smith

  “I thought it was what you wanted.”

  She bit down the next thing it came to her to call him— “sicko”—and settled for “Sorry, I don’t have sex on the first date.” The words echoed in the dark.

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me?” Once again his voice was petulant.

  She didn’t answer.

  “How about the second date?”

  She started running toward the main road, knowing he couldn’t follow before he’d turned out the lights and locked up. But something crashed out of the brush, nearly sending her up the nearest tree.

  EIGHTEEN

  “SKIP!”

  “Adam.” She stopped, panting, heart in throat. “Let’s get out of here before he sees us together.”

  When she had recovered her breath, she thanked Abasolo for sticking close to her, and for giving her a chance to handle it when Alex jumped her.

  “That wasn’t exactly on purpose.” He was smiling; his fine teeth gleamed in the dark. “I was just about on him when you yelled—scared me as much as you did him. I mean when you said, ‘knee you in the balls,’ I paid attention.”

  Knowing it was a compliment, that he was saying he knew she hadn’t needed him, Skip gave him a friendly cuff. “Oh, shut up.”

  “You saw the chickens?” she said.

  “Yeah. Ugly.”

  “What do you think of him—Alex?”

  “The guy’s not normal.”

  “But is he the Axeman?”

  “Well, he didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Come on, I’m almost as big as he is. Maybe he was working up to it.”

  “Maybe.”

  The Covington police were incredulous. They said there were a lot of perverts around, but “ain’t nobody in St. Tammany Parish mean enough to murder a flock of innocent chickens.” They said, sure, the New Orleans crime lab people could come collect the chickens, they’d be happy about that. But were things so quiet the New Orleans department had nothing better to do than investigate fowl deeds in another parish?

  Neighbors confirmed that the Campbells were in Europe and that they’d been told an Alex Bignell would be in and out. Some had heard his hog, but no one had seen him or anyone else on the property. No one had heard the hog—or any vehicle—earlier that day. A careful inspection of the chicken graveyard failed to turn up a scarlet A.

  Skip was feeling let down when Abasolo finally dropped her off at home.

  She played her messages. Her old friend Cookie Lamoreaux had phoned, asking her to an Axeman party the next night; and so had Di, which surprised her. She hadn’t thought of twelve-steppers as raging party animals.

  She checked her inner-child phone lists, old ones she’d gotten from Di. They showed that the Campbells were indeed regulars at the meetings.

  What did it all mean? Heedless of the hour—it was now after one—she phoned Cindy Lou and asked.

  “Chickens?” squealed the woman she admired most in the world. “You’re calling me about chickens?”

  “Serial murderers kill animals, don’t they?”

  “Yes, or they’re cruel to them. That’s part of the profile, both as children and adults.”

  “Well, at the risk of repeating myself, what do you think it means?”

  Fully awake now, Cindy Lou sounded serious. “I hate to say it, babe, but realistically speaking, I think it’s got to be the Axeman, and I think it confirms he’s in the group—or she is, if you want to be picky about it. One of the victims came out of the group, the owners of the house are big in the group, they’ve had parties for the group at the house, and the whole group probably knows they’re not at home. Now what does that add up to?”

  “Exactly what we were thinking. But why kill chickens?”

  “Listen, Skip, I know you don’t want to hear this, but that could be pre-crime behavior. We know about one guy that knocked off neighborhood dogs before committing murder.”

  “But why now? After he’s already killed two people?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Well, sorry I woke you up.”

  “But I’ve sure as hell got an opinion on who it is.”

  She had given Cindy Lou an account of the whole evening, including some parts left out of her report to Cappello. “Alex, by any chance?”

  “Yeah, but there’s one thing that doesn’t make sense if he’s it. Why aren’t you dead?”

  But she knew the answer; must have known it intuitively all the time she was with him. Because the Axeman was smart. He wouldn’t kill her at a house to which he was known to have the key. Maybe he liked to play with his victims first.

  At 8:15 A.M., as soon as Alex had roared away on his hog, Skip marched up to his door with a clipboard, rang the doorbell, and awaited her first glimpse of the long-suffering Mrs. Bignell. Instead, a dried-out old coot answered the door, so shockingly indicative of what Alex’s rough handsomeness would shrink down to that she drew in her breath.

  Wearing khakis and a salmon-colored shirt with an alligator on it, he was a dapper old thing even at this time of day. She spoke to him in the ingratiating interrogatives of the true Southern girl (if not woman).

  “Mr. Bignell? I’m Margaret, from the planning department? I wonder if we could talk a little?”

  “Sure, sure. Good mornin’, good mornin’.” His manner was hearty. “Come in, won’t you? Would you like some coffee?”

  She said she would and was led into a bachelor kitchen, more redolent with the smell of yesterday’s coffee grounds than with the new brew. He seated her across from him at a yellow Formica table and, while he got her coffee, kept up a running commentary on the weather.

  “You ever seen anything this hot? I mean, it’s been hot before, but not like this. I’m tellin’ you we got to get those rocks back on the moon.”

  Finally, he sat down and asked what he could do her for. She gave him a spiel about possible plans for developing the neighborhood and how “the department” wanted the neighbors’ opinions first.

  “Development!” He made the word a sneer. “You mean high-rises. Forget that crap.”

  “I can see you’re not the one Carol Meier talked to. Whoever that was seemed to take a different attitude.”

  “Elec!”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “My worthless son.”

  “I didn’t quite catch the name.”

  “Elec. Short for Alexander.”

  She had heard it lots of times as a child, had never known it came from Alexander. Hearing it now, she felt the twinge of inadequacy she always did when confronted with things Southern that she didn’t get. Was this simply a mispronunciation of Alex or another nickname?

  “Could be.” She flipped through pages, finally saying, “August ninth. A Thursday.” Since Linda Lee had missed work on Friday, the presumption was that she’d died Thursday night.

  “Nope. I was home. I always watch ‘Cheers,’ don’t miss it for any reason.”

  “Could Carol have talked to you, then?”

  “Is she good-looking?”

  “Mr. Bignell!”

  “Now, you call me Lamar, you hear? I asked because if she was good-looking—looked anything like you, for instance—I’d have remembered.”

  “Must have been someone else.”

  “Nope. My son’s never been here after seven o’clock— not once the whole three months he’s been here.”

  “Oh, well, that explains it, then. We sent someone around another night—the Tuessday after, I think the fourteenth, and nobody was home at all.” Tom Mabus had been killed the day before his body was found.

  “Well, Elec wasn’t, you can bet on that. I bet I was, though. Prob’ly answerin’ a call of nature. Sometimes…”

  She changed the subject quickly. “I wonder if I could ask how many residents live here?”

  “Just two—me and ol’ Elec.”

  She smiled encouragement, knowing her smile was watts and watts away from belle quality, but hoping that at his age he was too bli
nd to notice.

  “Just the two of us now,” he said. “Wife died six months ago. Boy come to help me. Ha! Lotta help he is.”

  “Oh?”

  “How’d I get a boy like that? Just answer me that one. Other people’s boys are doctors, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers. You know what mine is? He’s a psychologist.”

  “I always thought that was a pretty respectable profession.”

  “Well, that ain’t the whole story. Ain’t the whole story by a long shot. That’s what he was trained to do, and if he did it, wouldn’t be the best thing, but wouldn’t be the worst either. Kind of sissy profession—silly too, ’specially when you think of Elec in it. Things that boy doesn’t know about how people’s minds work’d fill a whole library. But that’s the worst you can say. It’s a job, anyway. I wouldn’t call it a profession. Only trouble is, he doesn’t do it. Now he’s got up on his hind legs, rared back, and said the whole thing’s a crock. And him with a Ph.D.!”

  “Umm. Umm.” (This was one of the few Southernisms Skip knew. It was something she’d heard black people say when white people went raving on about something or other.)

  “Boy’s fresh out of money. S’posed to support me in my old age and here I am supportin’ him.” He got up and rummaged in a cabinet until he’d found a box of supermarket doughnuts, which he opened unceremoniously on the table. “Take two, they’re small,” he said. “And butter ’em while they’re hot.”

  “Thanks.” She eyed them warily.

  “What do you think of a boy like that? Tell me, I’d like to know.”

  For once, I feel kind of sorry for him. Aloud, she said, “Maybe he’s just changing careers.”

  He snorted. “Changing careers! You know what he says he’s doing? Says he’s working on a book! Now, who does Elec think he is, trying to write a book?”

  Was it possible he really didn’t know his son was a highly successful author? “Well, I don’t know,” she said cautiously. “Maybe he took a writing course or something.”

  For some reason that tickled Lamar’s funny bone. He slapped his knee and had himself a good old laugh. “You’re all right, you know that? He ought to, that’s for sure. See, Elec’s written a book or two before; but piss-poor? You can’t even imagine. All kind of whiny stuff that just shows what’s wrong with America today. My son the grown-up crybaby. No wonder those books never did a damn thing. Really stumped his toe on that last one. I don’t think it sold but three copies in the whole country, and his mother bought one of them—not me, nosiree, I wouldn’t waste my money. And now here he is tryin’ to write another one—or says he is. I got no idea what that boy does all day.”

  “As long as he’s home at night.”

  “Home at night! Well, that’s a good one. I’d like to know the last time he was home at night. Can’t really expect it, though. Him and me never did get along. You know, even when he was a little boy he wouldn’t do right. Other boys liked to play cowboys and war and everything, what did Elec do? Always lyin’ around with his nose in a book. I knew he wasn’t ever gon’ be a man’s man. Always Mr. Intellexshul. Always thought he knew better’n his old man. Don’t know what his mama saw in him.”

  “They were close, were they?”

  “Well, we got divorced early on and he spent most of his time with her. Guess that was all the comp’ny she had—had to make the most of it. He’d come stay with me and wouldn’t lift a finger, that boy. Way she spoiled him’d make you want to puke.”

  “You must have remarried, then. You mentioned your wife’s dying last year.”

  “Did. I remarried the same old woman. If you can feature such a thing.” Once more he laughed and slapped his leg. “We wasn’t really apart that long, tell you the truth. Minute Elec left home, that woman wanted me back. She just never could stand to be alone, that was her problem.”

  “Oh, Lamar, you can’t fool me—I’ll bet you were glad to have somebody to take care of you.”

  “You shore are right about that! Lordy, lordy, those years we were separated, I never even learned to open a can of soup for myself! Why, I had dust mice looked like cocker spaniels!” He was laughing up a storm now, hugely enjoying himself—to the point that Skip wondered if he hadn’t doctored his coffee.

  She looked at her clipboard as if prompting herself. “What kind of work do you do, Lamar?”

  “Little as possible.”

  “Don’t blame you. Don’t blame you a bit.” She waited, but he didn’t continue. “Are you retired?”

  “I guess so,” he said. “Wife had some decent insurance. Miss her, though. She had a mouth on her, but I miss her. Never thought I would.”

  “You married her twice—you must have liked her.”

  “Best woman I ever saw. But you know about women.”

  Skip got ready. She knew what was coming.

  “Can’t live with ’em,” he said. “Can’t live without ’em.”

  He got up, found a brown bottle, and held it up to her. “Want a little something in that coffee?”

  When she shook her head, he poured an amber stream into his.

  She consulted her clipboard again, inventing as she went along. “It says here this is a two-income family.”

  He nodded. “Jonelle worked. Night nurse at Touro.”

  “And you, sir?”

  “Well, I did this and that. That time we were divorced, I set up as a painting contractor. Pretty good, too. But you know what? There’s not a good way to paint, not a good way in the world. You’ve either got to spray it, roll it, or brush it on. None of ’em work worth a damn, compared to everything else—you know, like cars and computers and things. So I got me some ideas. I did some inventin’, got some patents.”

  “Ah.”

  “Problem was gettin’ the parts manufactured. Make a long story short, I just never figured out how to do it.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Oh, well. Why should I work? My wife did. Keep ’em barefoot, pregnant, and bringin’ home a paycheck, you got a happy woman. You just got to make one thing clear—she better turn that check over to little ol’ you.”

  Skip had heard Allison Gaillard flirt-tease and she could more or less simulate the cadences. “Now, Lamar,” she said, letting one corner of her mouth turn up, but not the other, going heavy on the eye contact. “Is that what she did?” Her syllables were low and soft, as gently coaxing as if she were begging him to touch her breasts.

  He laughed. That tone always made them laugh when Allison did it. It worked, she thought with surprise. “ ‘Course she didn’t. But what you gon’ do? Can’t live with ’em. Can’t live without ’em.”

  “Lamar, you’re a character, you know that? I bet living with you was the hardest thing she ever did.”

  He twisted himself into a pretzel, just dying laughing at what he apparently thought was affectionate joshing. While he was splitting his sides, she thought about Steve Steinman and how much fun it would be to tell him she’d finally gotten the hang of being Southern, that all you had to do was dip your dart in curare, then wrap it up in silk and velvet before you threw it. Your victims never knew what hit them—even when they were taking it out on their own victims. Before you knew it, there was poison all over the parish, but also yards and yards, miles and miles, of gorgeous, tattered fabric.

  When Lamar saw her to the door, he kept her there for five minutes, extracting promises to visit again, swearing he was going to write to her boss and tell what a good interviewer she was, how she’d gotten all his secrets without even trying. Sweat was running down his face by the time he let her go. “Whew,” he said. “Weather’s out of control. We gotta get those rocks back on the moon.”

  What all that accomplished she wasn’t sure, except that, so far, Alex’s dad hadn’t alibied him for the night of either murder. If he were ever arrested, of course, it might be a whole different story—suddenly Lamar might claim he and his son had spent the evening playing gin rummy.

  With the Axeman’s JazzFest only hours away, her palms sweating
as if she were about to have her appendix out, and no idea what else to do, she decided to talk to Abe’s ex-wife and to Missy’s aunt.

  Cynthia Morrison had other ideas. A pinched brunette with too much red lipstick, she said she was sorry, she and her ex-husband were “on terms that prohibit giving personal references.”

  “To tell you the truth,” said Skip, “he didn’t give you as a reference. His law firm has applied for a contract with the city, and frankly it would be very embarrassing if they got the job and something surfaced later. Your ex-husband would be the man assigned to the position, and we just don’t know enough about him. He seems to be new in town, and to tell you the truth, nobody really knows him but you.”

  “Are you kidding? Know somebody you’re married to? I’m the last person in town who knows the guy.”

  Skip wasn’t about to quit now. “It sounds as if you know him a little too well.”

  Morrison drew in her breath, made her face a mask. “He’s the father of my children. I’m not going to stand in the way of his getting a job.”

  “I’m getting the feeling you’re withholding something.”

  “Not at all. Provided it’s a middle-level job at an unimportant agency, I’m sure he’ll do it perfectly well.”

  “Does he have any history of violence, Mrs. Morrison?”

  She sucked in her breath again, and this time there was a note of alarm in her voice. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just routine.”

  “I’m sorry. I really can’t help you.”

  Was there something there or was she just being ornery? Morrison swallowed and spoke again. “None that I know of.”

  But do you suspect something? Skip couldn’t read her. It was obvious she wanted to get at Abe somehow or other—was she wrestling with her conscience, trying not to lie? Holding something back to protect her children? Or was she afraid of him?

  Ms. Sally Enright, aunt of Missy McClellan, lived on the top floor of a wonderful old Queen Anne house that was now a duplex. It was a funny arrangement, Skip thought, a girl in the city living with an aunt. But if she could see anyone doing it, it was Missy.