Jazz Funeral (Skip Langdon #3) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  The room was dead silent. George stared at his wife as if at a stranger. Where was the shrew with the nasty, desperate wail? He hadn’t known she had this in her—this strength, this ability. It unnerved him.

  Somehow, it was done and they were out of the conference room, George feeling almost as if he were underwater. He had thought to work today, for an hour or so at least, but now he saw that that was impossible. He just wanted to get out of here; he wanted to look for Melody. But the receptionist hailed him as he and Patty walked by.

  A woman was waiting for them. He didn’t recognize her at first, though obviously she thought he would.

  “Hi,” she said, and smiled with her head tilted a little, tomboy-style. “I’m Skip Langdon. We talked at your son’s house.”

  Patty caught on first. “Oh, yes. Detective Langdon.”

  He took her in his office—it was small for three people, but he certainly wasn’t going to conduct a police interview in the reception room.

  She said, “It sounded like quite a meeting you were having in there.”

  George simply sat in stony silence. How dare she!

  “Listen, I’m sorry to be rude, but I could hear every word. And I’m afraid I have to ask you some fairly personal questions.”

  He raised an eyebrow, a gesture that always intimidated Ham and Patty, and sometimes some of the nephews.

  “I understand you and Ham had some business differences.”

  “Where in hell did you hear that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think that matters. I just need to hear the story from you and not somebody else.”

  “You heard right. Ham and I had our differences.”

  “I understand it was a pretty important difference.”

  “Could I ask how this could possibly matter to you?”

  “I’m trying to find out if he had any enemies, Mr. Brocato.”

  “Now wait a minute—”

  But she held up a hand. “Not you, of course. But things got pretty volatile in there.”

  “You honestly think one of his own relatives could have murdered him? Over a few sandwich stands?”

  She might as well have rolled her eyes for all her expression left to the imagination. “I just need to know his part in the business.”

  Patty nudged him, mouthed something. Why the hell didn’t she leave him alone?

  He said, “All right, Detective Langdon, I’m gon’ tell you everything. Why? Because I have nothing to hide. Poor Boys is considering selling out to a large conglomerate for a very tidy sum of money. S’pose to give ‘em an answer on Monday, but turns out we still can’t agree. Can’t even agree to go ahead and take a vote.” He sighed and resumed. “Many board members believe this is the best way to go and that we can still retain our power in the company if we make the right deal. Others believe that greater profits are to be made by pouring a little more money into our own small company and beginning to diversify. Ham was on one side. Patty and I are on the other.”

  “I see. Is Melody a shareholder as well?”

  “Well now, that’s a stupid question and you know it. We’re not about to let a sixteen-year-old vote, now are we?”

  His rudeness had the desired effect. Her cheeks reddened and her voice got a little louder. “Someone would have to vote her shares. Would that be you or Ham?”

  “What the hell are you—”

  Now she was spreading her arms, all coolness again. “Mr. Brocato, I take it a lot of money is at stake. They were two important players in a very big game.”

  “I vote Melody’s shares, dammit. Tell me something—why aren’t you out finding my daughter?”

  “I’d like to be, but I’m talking to you right now.” She enunciated very carefully, stopping just short of contemptuousness. And then her voice turned sweet as pie again. “However, I did find something out that you might want to know.”

  George could feel himself sitting up straighter.

  “Her boyfriend had dumped her.”

  “That sorry Phillips boy. I warned her about that little wrinkled-clothes so-and-so.”

  Patty said, “Flip? But he worshiped her.”

  “Anyway, that’s why she left Blair’s.”

  “Well, that explains it all.” Patty always did jump to conclusions. “She did run away, then.”

  “Oh, Patty, come on. Her brother’s dead!”

  The detective broke in. “If y’all don’t mind, I really need to fill in a few details about Ham’s life. The other night I felt as if—well, it wasn’t the best time to talk.”

  Patty said, “We appreciate that, Detective.” Why couldn’t she keep her damn mouth shut?

  “What do you need filled in, Ms. Langdon?” She’d given them a present—the news about Melody—and now she expected something back. Didn’t it embarrass her to be so transparent?

  “I was wondering if Ham had any enemies.”

  “Enemies! Ham? Why, Ham was the best-liked young man in Orleans Parish.”

  “He got along okay with his ex-wife?”

  “So far as I know.”

  “And Ti-Belle?”

  George merely nodded, not about to dignify that with an answer.

  “Melody?”

  “He loved that girl more than anything. They got along like wildfire, because of the age difference, I think—by the time she came along, Ham was too old for sibling rivalry. She was more like his niece than anything else.”

  “Can you think of any reason why Melody would want to run away?”

  “Well, sure,” said Patty. “The boyfriend.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Detective, we’ve been over and over this ground.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “In our own minds. With each other. Wouldn’t you in our position?”

  Langdon settled back a little in her chair and looked George in the eye. She smiled, friendly as a fox. “I guess I would. I wonder if you could tell me who Ham’s lawyer was.”

  “Jimmy Calhoun, I think. Why do you need to know that?”

  “Sometimes it’s helpful in these cases.” She was cagey, George thought. Not someone you’d want working against you.

  Patty said, “George, I think we should tell her about Andy Fike.”

  He shrugged. Why not?

  Patty did.

  And in the end George was glad. Because the smart-ass detective did a slow burn all during the telling of it. “Did you call the police at all?”

  “No.”

  “Are you crazy? Do you want your daughter found or not?”

  “We investigated on our own.”

  She put a hand over her face, shook her head and more or less moaned.

  She’d pretty much lost it. George liked that.

  After a brief and utterly unfruitful visit to Andy Fike, in which Fike acted as if he were the severely wronged party and even pretended he couldn’t remember what Melody was wearing, Skip sat down disgustedly at her desk. She would have liked to spend about half an hour running or riding a bicycle instead, to let off a little steam, but there was far too much to do.

  Ham’s financial problems worried her. He needed cash, pure and simple—she already knew that. And that would certainly explain why he was so eager to sell the family business. A man who needed cash might have been pretty active in campaigning among the board members to get his way; which in turn might have made someone wildly opposed want to get rid of him.

  Skip sighed. It was possible, but it didn’t seem likely. She dialed Jimmy Calhoun: Ham hadn’t left a will.

  “So what does that mean?” asked Skip. “Who inherits?”

  “Well, he never got around to getting divorced,” Calhoun said. “At least he didn’t do it through our firm. And, hell, we were at St. Martin’s together—he’d have come to me. Matter of fact, we had lunch a few weeks ago and I nagged him about it. He said I was worse than Ti-Belle.”

  “He did?” That didn’t square with what Ti-Belle had told her about the relations
hip.

  “Well, no, actually. But I did nag—thought he might want to marry that little Cajun before she got away. But I don’t know—he just looked kind of unhappy when I brought it up.”

  “So does Mason inherit?”

  “Absolutely. If there aren’t kids, the wife gets the loot.”

  When she got off the phone, she started to feel the first pangs of lunch lust. She thought of the tuna fish sandwich she’d brought, and decided it was going to be seriously inadequate. How to beef it up? Potato chips were too salty, a piece of fruit too wimpy. Now, an order of fries—that was more like it. And after lunch, she had a plan. A plan involving Ti-Belle. The phone rang.

  “Lunch?”

  “Cindy Lou Wootten. Where you been, girl?”

  “Working my butt off, same as you. But listen, I got to eat, you got to eat—and you’ve got a case to fill me in on.”

  This beat the hell out of a lonely tuna sandwich. “I’ve got a little chore out at the fairgounds—how about we eat at JazzFest?”

  “If you can get us in free, I’ll be there in ten.”

  “I think I can wait.”

  Cindy Lou Wootten was one of Skip’s favorite people. She could talk about suspects—indeed whole cases—in a way no one else could. She would analyze and postulate long after anyone else —even Steve—would have been bored silly, and she was nearly always right. And the best part was, it was perfectly ethical to talk about cases with her (which it wasn’t with Steve) because Cindy Lou was a psychologist who frequently worked with the police department. A forensic psychologist, schooled in the dark corners of the criminal mind.

  But mostly, Skip thought, she was street-smart. She was a black woman from Detroit who claimed to have learned everything she knew about crime before she ever got to high school, and Skip half believed her.

  She also happened to be the most beautiful woman Skip had ever seen; but better still, she had a way about her, a kind of confidence and poise that Skip thought she might develop if she lived to be seventy-five. Nobody messed with Cindy Lou, not even Skip’s nemesis, the contentious Sergeant Frank O’Rourke. O’Rourke had once tried, and come a cropper. And playing out that tiny drama, Cindy Lou had earned Skip’s undying admiration.

  There was only one thing about the brilliant, beautiful Cindy Lou—she fell for all the wrong guys and was perfectly cheerful about it. If it had been anyone else, she would have suggested therapy. But she seemed more or less to enjoy the melodrama in her own life. Skip didn’t get it; she was just glad she had Steve Steinman—she wanted no part of the dorks Cindy Lou brought around.

  As usual, the sight of her friend made Skip feel dowdy and cowlike. Just a hair bigger than petite—and quite tiny of waist and hips—Cindy Lou arrived in chamois-colored linen walking shorts with matching jacket and immaculate white linen tank top. Skip was wearing black cotton slacks with a pink T-shirt—functional, that was about it. Oh, well, she thought, it wouldn’t matter if I had the good outfit. Everybody’d still look at her.

  “After lunch I thought I’d go terrorize a witness—probably bring her back for questioning. Care to join me?”

  “Always a pleasure.”

  “Let’s take my car.”

  “You’re not going to terrorize my favorite Cajun singer, are you?”

  “Afraid so. Why—is she also your favorite suspect?”

  “It’s nearly always the wife or girlfriend—you know that. But hell, I don’t know anything about this mess. Fill me in.”

  Skip told her on the ride over. As they stood in line for soft-shell crab po’ boys, she got ready for opinions—Cindy Lou always had plenty.

  But she wasn’t her usual bantering self. She was very solemn, very focused. “You’ve got to find Melody. That kid’s in a heap of shit.”

  “Tell me about it.” Skip was slightly abrupt, angry to be told once more what she already knew. It was hot and her hair felt damp.

  Cindy Lou said, “You think she did it?”

  “What’s the motive? Everybody says she and Ham were so damn close and loving.”

  “So what does that tell you?”

  “Too close maybe. He tries something with her, she goes nuts and stabs him.”

  “Uh-uh, I don’t think so. A sixteen-year-old kid is nearly grown. If he was a sicko, he’d have done it earlier.”

  “Maybe he did and she got tired of it.”

  “The wineglasses bother me.”

  “Oh, give me a break. Anybody’d who’d screw their little sister wouldn’t draw the line at giving her alcohol.”

  “They might. People are funny, you know? But I don’t know—the glasses just have an adult feel to them. Like two people were talking and one of them said the wrong thing.”

  “Betrayal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Couldn’t that work for Melody too? Like maybe he said he was going to marry Ti-Belle and she got jealous? Or she wanted her band to play at JazzFest and he said no? Something like that?”

  Cindy Lou shrugged. “Let’s face it, there are only four choices—either she did it, she didn’t do it but she’s afraid she’ll be accused of it, or she saw something; and she ran away.”

  “Well, if we believe Andy Fike, she wasn’t kidnapped. What’s the fourth choice?”

  “A variation. She was seen seeing something and she’s being pursued. In which case, she could have been caught by now. Any way you slice it, she’s in a heap of shit.”

  Skip felt panic rising inside her. Yet she was helpless to do anything other than what she’d been ordered to do.

  “Who do you like best?” Cindy Lou said.

  “Ti-Belle, I guess. Just because she’s lying. But I can’t see a motive for her either. If she wanted to be with Nick, why not just leave Ham?”

  “You know the answer to that—the classic crime of passion. They’re having a friendly talk over a civilized glass of wine and he says, ‘Okay, get out of here, you Cajun slut. I never loved you anyhow—you dye your hair and give a lousy blow job.’”

  Skip laughed. “‘And not only that, but you can’t sing.’ That’s when she uses the knife—forget the blow job.”

  “Now you got it. That’s the sort of stuff people kill over.” Cindy Lou took a big bite out of her sandwich. “You know, we haven’t got a damn thing like this in Detroit.”

  “Must be why you’re here. Certainly can’t be the weather.”

  “You know why I’m here, honey. ‘Cause the average law-abiding southerner has a criminal streak two yards wider than any mob boss Detroit ever spawned.”

  “Listen. There’s something I think I need to tell you. The fact that the kid left on her own volition—and I guess we really think she did—doesn’t bode too well for her state of mind. We know for a fact her boyfriend dumped her for her best friend—there’s two big losses. Next she either kills her brother or sees him killed—big loss number three (even if she killed him), and number four if someone she trusts did. Then there’s the fear—either of the law or the murderer—which is also going to contribute to depression. And there’s the fact that she’s currently homeless and probably penniless. She probably feels like she doesn’t have a friend in the world.”

  “What are you telling me, Cindy Lou?”

  “I’m afraid she might be suicidal.”

  An imaginary clock ticked louder every second. “I never even thought of that.”

  “And by the way, I hope you’re not overlooking Andy Fike. Maybe he never saw Melody at all—just started that stuff to hide the fact he killed her and buried her in his courtyard.”

  Melody was becoming a flesh-and-blood kid to Skip—it was as if she’d known her and was missing her. She was starting to feel panicky every time she thought of the girl on the streets alone. “Cindy Lou, stop! She’s only sixteen.”

  “Well, you know how people are. No damn good.”

  “God, you’re professional.”

  “Honey, the more psychology I study, the less convinced I get that I’m ever going
to understand the human animal.”

  Skip was ready for a change of subject. She made her voice playful. “Well, that reminds me, Cindy Lou. Who’re you dating this week?”

  Cindy Lou took the last bite of her sandwich. “Whoa, that was good! Well, this week is right, babe. I just broke up with a guy who couldn’t decide between me and this cute blond librarian. Male.”

  Skip shivered. “Sounds dicey.”

  “Oh, no problem. He wouldn’t sleep with either of us. He was into spiritual relationships.”

  “You meditated together?”

  “Breathed. He was into breathing. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

  “I do it a lot, actually. Sweet potato pone?”

  Cindy Lou nodded, and they edged into the pone line. “This is different. You play music and trance out.”

  “No drugs?”

  “I’m telling you, girl—you get high. You get weird. I mean it.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you really need to get any weirder?”

  Cindy Lou ignored that. “So anyway, now I’m going out with this musician.”

  “Married?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Coked-up?”

  “AA all the way.””

  “Poor, then.”

  “Well, let’s put it this way. He’s doing pretty damn well for the amount of experience he’s had. I think he’s got a future.”

  “Uh-oh. I think I just got it. He’s young, right?”

  “And gorgeous.”

  “Okay, how young?”

  “Twenty-six.” Cindy Lou was thirty-four.

  “That’s not such a huge age difference.”

  “Yeah, but he lives with his mama.”

  “Well, gosh, Cindy Lou, big deal. You can always go to your place.” The truth was, he sounded a lot better than a lot of Cindy Lou’s bright ideas—especially if he was in AA. To be twenty-six and already done with addiction was a feat.

  “Yeah, we could. But then his mama has to look after the kid.”

  “He’s a single father?”

  “Yeah. Cutest little boy—you should see him.”

  “Okay, twenty-six, a single father, poor—”