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

by Julie Smith

  “She’s a phenomenon.”

  “Better than Ti-Belle?”

  “Much.”

  “But nobody told me. I mean, her parents or anybody.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it? Oops, sorry.” He had knocked a plate of jambalaya out of a kid’s hand. The kid started to cry, but they couldn’t stop to comfort him. On the other hand, going wasn’t a lot different from stopping. The crowd was not only thick, but lazy; no one was moving fast.

  “Steve, how did you recognize her?”

  “I didn’t at first. Who could? She looks as black as anyone I ever saw. But she sang this song—this amazing, haunting song about a guy who taught her about music. It was sad, Skip—when you know who wrote it. It’s all about how she had nothing in her life, how hopeless she felt, and this dude gave her a new life.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Well, the folks went crazy, and so the Boucrees announced the name of the song and said it was her own composition. ‘Blues for a Brother.’ How does that grab you?” It was hard to hear because she was ahead of him—had to be to use her badge to push through the crowd.

  She was pondering, thinking it was still a big leap, when he said, “Then I remembered ‘Turtle Blues.’ Who was the last person you heard sing that?”

  She was puzzled. “I don’t even know it.”

  “Janis Joplin used to sing it. Remember, Melody’s a Joplin fan? She sang it too. See, there’s a line about Janis in the brother song, so I put it together. And then of course there were these amazing blue eyes.”

  Skip looked at her watch. Time for the set to be over. They were close, but she didn’t hear music. Had the Boucrees already finished? She held her badge over her head and yelled, “Police! Coming through!”

  It helped some, for a while, but as they got closer to the Ray-Ban stage, it became apparent the Boucrees were still playing—they were doing “Tell It Like It Is,” and they sounded great. The audience was entranced, so much so that even loud cries of “Police!” didn’t do much to break the trance.

  They finished the song and thanked the audience. Rwanda Zaire, who looked so much like a black woman Skip thought Steve might have been wrong, took a bow, and the crowd shouted for more. She disappeared. The crowd kept stomping and yelling. Skip and Steve were nearly there.

  The Boucrees started their encore—without Rwanda. Good. She’d be joining them in a minute.

  Skip leaped over the barricade, ran to the side of the stage, just behind the musicians. People tried to stop her, but only till they saw the badge. “Where’s Rwanda?”

  The man in charge, a good-looking white man with gray hair, older than she’d have thought, looked confused. He shrugged, opened his arms. Skip didn’t have time for conversation. “Did she leave the stage?”

  He scanned the area. “She must have. Tyrone was looking for her.” He pointed. “She could have gone to the trailer.”

  But she wasn’t there and there was no evidence she had been. She could simply have slipped away, via the backstage barricade opening, and then left the fairgrounds. It would have been easy from here.

  And then she could have gotten a taxi or one of the shuttles that ran between the fairgrounds and other places.

  But where would she head? Skip had to wait till the end of the damn song to ask the Boucrees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Melody took a bus to the Jax Brewery, one of the shuttles, and then walked to the hotel, cursing herself for forgetting a change of clothes. She was dying in the caftan. And she was so high from the performance and the hash that she could barely remember why she’d left the stage. That the end of the road had come. Suddenly she didn’t feel even slightly suicidal.

  She felt hot, restless; eager to get the makeup off and get into some shorts. In seven minutes flat she was dressed, white, but still black-haired. She’d put the wig in a ponytail. She planned to sneak out without paying the bill, and after that she wasn’t sure what to do—just get away to think, that was the extent of her plan.

  Was there, finally, a way she could work this out? That she could go back home to her mom and dad and be safe? She didn’t think so. She thought she’d probably end up in jail. If she got lucky.

  But she had to think. Maybe she’d overlooked something. She’d never experienced anything like the rush she got on that stage, and it just killed her that she’d had to bug out. Life seemed suddenly worth living.

  She bounded down the stairs, still riding the crest of the high, and heard a familiar voice. She stopped dead. The person she least wanted to see was talking to the desk clerk, undoubtedly asking for her.

  Melody cursed herself. It would have been so easy. Someone could have watched her leave, seen her board the bus, and then it would have been a simple matter of going to the Jax Brewery to wait for it. Or if the bus got there first, as it obviously had, to prowl the streets looking for the only woman for miles in an African caftan. The only reason Melody had got this far had to be that her tracker had guessed wrong, thought she’d turn downtown, and had searched there first. After that, all you’d have to do was try the other way, asking bums, anybody who looked like they’d been there awhile, if they’d seen the spectacle Melody had made of herself.

  Oh, dumb, dumb, dumb! I could just kill myself!

  She eased up the steps and out of sight. She’d registered as Janis Frank, which would probably mean nothing to anyone else, and anyway, the hotel probably wouldn’t give out her room number. Still, she was a minor … there might be ways to pressure them. Or bribes.

  She looked for a back way. There were only stairs that led to a basement, a filthy sweltering hellhole with lots of nasty scraping noises; rat sounds.

  She hid in a barrel of heavy cardboard, and as she huddled in the hot, filthy dark, the hash turned on her. Each scrape of a rat’s toe seemed like doom, her killer come to drag her off to her fate. The heat was so oppressive she couldn’t breathe. She’d be dead soon.

  But she hadn’t meant to go this way. Her body would be found stuffed in a stupid barrel in a fetid basement, and it wasn’t fair, she could sing! She’d proved that today.

  It could have been the start of a great career. Should have been. But she was going to die here; of suffocation, if the killer didn’t get her first.

  A sob escaped and a new wave of panic swept over her. She couldn’t stay where she was. She’d been crazy to think she could hide here. She was overcome with a desperate need to get out of the barrel, to breathe some air. She was like an animal caught in a trap. But getting in the barrel had been a lot easier than getting out was going to be. She’d pulled a wooden box up to it and stepped on it. To get out she had to raise a leg practically over her head and then step down, hoping to reach the box. She was sweating gallons.

  She missed the box. And came crashing to the floor, barrel and all, hitting her head on the box. The pain was excruciating. Yet not nearly so bad, she thought, as the noise, which reverberated like an explosion.

  She tried to sit up, heart threatening to rip her ribs out, and the last thing she remembered was the sensation of slipping, her mind slipping, her soul, not her body: the ghastly feeling that meant the end of consciousness.

  It was quiet when she woke up, groaning, still sweating, head aching, but nothing more threatening than rats were approaching. She lay there with her eyes closed, listening to the quiet, grateful for it. She’d been out only a moment, she thought. She had to get away, someone could have heard the crash, could be on their way.

  She couldn’t move. She didn’t know whether it was from the fear or the fall, but her body was giving the orders and it was saying stay put. Her teeth were chattering again, her legs were weak and twitchy, her heart pounding, sweat pouring, stomach heaving.

  It’s the hash. I shouldn’t have had the hash.

  That helped—remembering there was a physical reason for her body turning on her. She felt calmer. Gradually the twitching stopped, the sweating stopped, even some of the fear left.
>
  Not fear—I’m going to die anyway. Paranoia.

  Still no one came. The danger must be over. Cautiously she sat up. The sick feeling was gone, her energy had come back; her body surged with it.

  She left the basement and found a back exit, slipped out. She heard the clang of a streetcar, a friendly, beckoning sound. On a streetcar she’d be safe. She could hide there, and think. She got on but didn’t think, kept her mind blank, just holding herself together, shivering once again in fear.

  She got off at Audubon Park and went to the zoo, hoping for grounding, some communion with the animals that would connect her with something; with the Earth perhaps.

  Ti-Belle had told her something once she said she’d never told anyone. Two things. That she was running from something, someone was after her, Melody didn’t know who—an ex-boyfriend maybe—but Ti-Belle couldn’t go back; could never go back home. And that she’d turned tricks. Melody wasn’t sure why she told her this; she’d probably been stoned. Or maybe she’d had a kind of premonition—seen something of herself in Melody.

  Melody knew she couldn’t live like this, like she was living now. Always afraid, not knowing what to do next. Having no home, no parents.

  Could she turn tricks? She thought about it. Picked out a stranger, a fairly young, slightly puffy white man wearing a baseball cap. Could she have sex with him? She thought about it.

  Maybe. But he’d probably smell bad.

  She picked out another one. An old guy, his face destroyed by gravity. She’d hate to see his chest, his shoulders. Could she do it with him? She imagined his hands on her, his mouth … and felt her gorge rising. She swallowed hard, repeatedly, till the sensation went away.

  She didn’t think she could do it. Not if she was going to throw up in his face. And shoplifting was too dangerous. If she got caught, she’d get sent home.

  Okay. Think about it again. What about home?

  Suddenly she could remember being at the zoo, this zoo, with her mom and dad. She was on her dad’s shoulders and there was a gibbon there, its throat swelling with its odd, wonderful, mischievous cries. Melody could remember pointing at it, unable to keep her eyes off, and her mother laughing.

  I want my mommy and daddy.

  She did. She’d been trying to keep the feeling at bay for the past few days, but that was what she wanted. She wanted a career and all that, of course, or her mind and her heart did, but she, Melody, in her soul wanted her family back.

  Could she have it?

  Suddenly she saw that she might have if she hadn’t run away, that running away was the worst possible thing she could have done. Now it was too late … the police would come, her parents couldn’t protect her, there wasn’t a way out.

  Who am I kidding? I don’t have parents.

  The more she tried to think of a way out, the more depressed she got. She told herself it was the hash, but she couldn’t shake it and after a while she quit trying. The time had come. She would die.

  She sat for a long time watching the alligators, wondering if she dared jump in with them.

  Go out with a splash.

  They didn’t bite you in two; she’d heard they dragged you down and drowned you.

  It could be quiet.

  It could even be peaceful. She might experience the rapture of the deep.

  But when she thought of them chasing their prey, fast, threatening on those short powerful legs, like speeded-up film, the next image was always the same—teeth and blood; red and white; splashing, flailing. No screaming, just the sound of the alligators, a sort of snorting as she imagined it, maybe something to do with dragon stories.

  It wasn’t the way to go.

  But going out with a splash had merit. She could turn her death into art. It couldn’t be beautiful, that would require a white robe and flowers, something along those lines, far too elaborate at this point.

  What then? Poetic? Ironic?

  Yes. Yes to both.

  I know! I’ll die singing.

  I’ll fry singing.

  It was so perfect it made her laugh.

  The tricky part was getting back to the garage, but she did it the same way she’d gotten out—took a bus out Airline Highway and got off by Schwegmann’s. She went in and got some twine and a paring knife; her last purchases.

  Then she followed the railroad tracks as far as she could and took surface streets to the garage.

  She felt light, exhilarated. The paranoia had left and a feeling of certainty, of solidity, had taken its place. She knew this was the right thing. Her only regret was that there would be no flowers in the vase she would use.

  What should she wear? Her wig, certainly. Rwanda Zaire was a part of her now. Anyhow, it looked better than what was underneath.

  Anything else? It was either shorts and T-shirt, bra and panties, or nothing. Nothing would be far the most dramatic, but somehow she couldn’t stand the thought of poor Joel or Doug finding her naked. There was something pathetic about it.

  I’d be so obviously dead meat.

  The thought of her own dead body didn’t frighten or repel her; seemed right somehow. But she hoped finding it wouldn’t be too hard on the person who did. She especially hoped the wig didn’t slip when she fell, making it look like she had two heads. Would she fall? She hoped she’d slump gracefully over the piano, but didn’t think it likely. Electrocution made you jerk around. She’d seen it in a movie once.

  Her most prized possession, her little electric piano, was going to be her instrument of death.

  As it had been her instrument of life, had kept her going when the depression wouldn’t let up. It had poetry and it had irony.

  She would leave her clothes on.

  She pulled the piano to a space underneath a shelf; there was already a vase there, from the time her parents had sent her flowers when the Spin-Offs won the Battle of the Bands. She filled the vase with water and tied the string to it. Pulled it.

  Perfect. The water spilled on the piano wire. And now she had a nice puddle to put her feet in, just to make double sure.

  With the paring knife, she cut a piece of insulation off the wire. A pretty big section so the water couldn’t miss.

  All that remained was to pick the song. This was important, the most important part of all, even though no one would ever know.

  Something elegiac? At jazz funerals they did gospel songs at the wake service the night before, and dirges on the way to the cemetery. On the way back they did celebratory songs: “The Saints” and “Didn’t He Ramble.” She’d heard two versions of the tradition. One held that at the wake, to the tune of “Down by the Riverside” and the like, the idea was to reminisce about the “good life” of the dead person, and the joyous songs celebrated his “bad life.” But she hated that. That was what she despised most about religion as she’d been taught it: joy must be bad.

  Forget it. I’m not a Christian.

  Another version said the dirges were for the mourners, to say good-bye, to express their sadness, and the send-off songs celebrated the release of the dead person’s soul. That worked better for her. Release: that was the idea.

  “Breakaway.”

  The words were perfect. Perfectly metaphorical. And the thing had symmetry—it was almost the first song she’d ever sung professionally.

  Did she dare do it twice? No. Once was dicey enough. Someone might hear and come to investigate.

  She’d do it once and pull the vase on the last line.

  Maybe before if I feel like it.

  She refilled the vase, plugged in the piano and took off her shoes. She was careful not to let the wire drag in the puddle, not to wet her feet quite yet. She felt an odd tingling in her lower torso, whether belly or lower still she wasn’t sure, but it was vaguely sexual. Some kind of prickly excitement.

  And why not? This was the greatest adventure of all.

  She started to sing:

  “I’ve made my reservations,

  I’m leaving town tomorrow,

/>   I’ll find somebody new and there’ll be no more sorrow.”

  God, this is fun.

  “That’s what I say each time,

  But I can’t follow through

  I can’t break away from … you

  make me cry

  I can’t break away,

  I can’t say good-bye

  No! No! No no no no! No! No! No! No! No no no no! No! No!

  I’ll never ever break away from you!”

  I wish I could do it twice!

  “I made a vow to myself

  You and I are through

  Nothing can change my mind

  ‘Sorry’ just won’t do.”

  For the first time since she’d had the great idea, she was sad.

  If I die, I can’t ever do this again.

  “That’s what I say each time,

  But I can’t follow through

  I can’t break away from … you

  make me cry

  I can’t break away,

  I can’t say good-bye

  No! No! No no no no! No! No! No! No! No no no no! No! No!

  I’ll never ever break away from you!”

  I have to do it. There’s no choice.

  “Even though you treat me bad

  Little words are so fine

  You have got a spell on me

  That just can’t be broken.”

  But I don’t want to.

  “I’ll snatch your picture down. And throw it away. There’ll be no waiting ‘round for you to call each day.”

  Yes, I do. I really, really do.

  The end was near, and it was so perfect, the part where it said, “I’ll never ever break away from you.” That was the problem, she couldn’t break away, she just couldn’t; she’d tried and it didn’t work. So now she was pulling a different kind of breakaway, guaranteed to work and keep working.

  She would sing like she never had before. She’d put the full force of her young body into the last two lines, go out with a bang as well as a splash.

  “That’s what I say each time, but I can’t follow through …”

  I can. I’m going to.

  Her fingers were starting to itch. Irma did the last line repeatedly, dragging it out and out and out before the final “you,” and Melody would too. She’d pull the string on the “you.” She could feel her muscles gathering. The music would carry her—she could feel the momentum—