For the Love of Jazz

by Shiloh Walker

  “Did you ever remember any of it, Jazz?”

  “No,” he answered. “I never remembered anything after we got to the lake. The time between then and waking up in the hospital is a blank, like it never happened.”

  Shoving off the rail, he turned to look at her. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he told her, staring at the face, so lovely, so pretty. How could he not have recognized her in the doctor’s office? If he hadn’t been half-hysterical with worry about Mariah, half-mad with guilt, he would have. Even when he had stared through the window at her, her hair pulled neatly back, all professional in her little white coat, his heart had started pounding, his chest had felt tight. Somewhere inside, some part of him had recognized her.

  God, he loved her. His whole life, he had loved so few people. Three had been the Kincaids, and he had put one of them in the ground. “I shouldn’t have come,” he repeated, shaking his head and starting down the stairs.

  “Jazz…”

  He paused, turning to look at her. “I remember the first time I saw you. Beau had beat me something bad the night before and Alex wanted your daddy to take a look at me. I figured he would be better than the social worker. Not that it did much good. I didn’t know that he had to tell her anyhow.

  “You asked if somebody had hurt me,” he reminded her, the wind ruffling his hair, the sun setting behind him. “Then you told me that when you were older, you’d fix it next time I was hurt.”

  He sighed, looking past her, past the house, into the distance. Some ten miles away was a lake hidden in the woods, and a long gravel road. It was there that his entire world had shattered around him. Sixteen long years ago, and he had yet to put it all back together.

  “I’m hurting now, Annie. But there’s not a damned thing you or any other doctor can do about it.”

  With that, he turned on his heel, climbed into his car and left.

  But he stared at her through his rearview mirror until the turns in the road blocked her from his sight.

  Chapter Five

  Desmond sat in his office, puffing at one of his Cuban cigars. Remembering what his daughter had said to him on Sunday, he sat muttering. Thinking. If Jazz hadn’t been driving in the condition he was in, this wouldn’t have happened. Alex would still be alive.

  Jazz lost him, too.

  But it still doesn’t seem right, after all this time. I can’t picture him driving that car into that tree, drunk or not.

  How many times had that boy been cited by cops for speeding? More times than Desmond could count. And how many tickets? Scads. But accidents? Not a one. Accused of wanton endangerment? Zero. Reports of drunk driving? Nada.

  Remembering back, he thought of the concealed glee he’d seen in Larry Muldoon’s face. Breathing in the heady scent of smoke, he pondered it a moment. He had always thought it was because Larry hated anybody who had more than he did and he saw this as a slap to Desmond.

  But maybe it was something else.

  Slowly reaching for the phone, he stabbed out his cigar. Hell, the least he could do was some nosing around, see what turned up.

  When the call came in, Larry just happened to be sitting at his desk filing a report on some punk ass who had been hotdogging around town. Otherwise, he may not have learned anything about it. As things happened, he overheard Darla Monroe saying, “Those records being so old, it’ll take me a bit to find them. None of the records before 1990 are in the computer. What day was the accident?”

  She hummed under her breath, jotting down a date. “Seven-thirteen-eighty-four. Got that, right? Alex and Jazz, right? Well, Dr. Kincaid, I’ll get that information as soon as I possibly can.”

  Darla glanced up as she jotted a note down on her huge desk calendar. She met Larry’s beady-eyed stare with cool blue eyes. “Is there a problem, Deputy Muldoon?”

  “Oh, no. I was just wondering what old Doc Kincaid was wanting. Was that about his boy?”

  Darla didn’t like those eyes. And she didn’t like Muldoon. She never had and Darla knew she wasn’t alone. With his beady eyes, sallow face and overall sour disposition, there just wasn’t much about him to like. But there was something off about him, something that wasn’t quite right. Smelling the stench of old sweat on him, Aqua Velva and spearmint gum, she stifled a shudder. Man, did he give her the willies or what?

  “What he wants isn’t much concern of yours, is it?”

  “Don’t go getting all hoity-toity on me, girl,” he snapped. Across his forehead was a film of sweat and it seemed to Darla he looked nervous. “I was just asking a friendly question.”

  “I doubt you’ve ever asked a friendly question in your life,” she responded, covering her notes with a legal pad. As the phone rang, she gave the clock a pointed stare and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol now?”

  No toxicology report. Desmond tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip. Why in God’s name hadn’t there been a tox report? And the investigating officer’s report wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

  Larry Muldoon, he thought with disgust. He read the report through once. Then a second time. And a third—he might have read it again, but he wouldn’t let himself.

  There had been no investigation. Who had been sheriff then? Blackie Schmidt. Frustrated, Desmond threw down the report and dragged his hands through his hair. If he hadn’t been so grief stricken…

  Buddies with the Muldoon family. The Muldoons didn’t inspire ambiguity. People either feared them, hated them—or they were cut from the same cloth, like Blackie had been. Fortunately, Larry was the only one left. Beau’s youngest brother died in a motorcycle wreck four years earlier. Those three had run wild and loose throughout the county.

  Of course, there was a little girl, Marlena? Marlene? Yes. Marlie Jo, a quiet, timid little thing, if Desmond was remembering right. She didn’t seem to fit with the Muldoon clan, quiet where her brothers were loud, polite where they were cruel.

  Shaking his head, Desmond muttered, “Stop stalling.” With a hand that was still steady, he reached for the reports once more, this time flipping through until he found the mortician’s report.

  The post-mortem… God, reading those words was like driving a dagger into his chest. How could his beautiful boy be dead?

  Multiple facial bone breaks, multiple lacerations, cardiac tamponade—bruising to the sternal area.

  Cardiac tamponade.

  Consistent with bruising noted on victims with a history of blunt force trauma. Blunt force trauma. The sort of trauma one encountered after being on the receiving end of a steering wheel going into your chest.

  The bruise going across Alex’s chest—he read the description.

  Closing his eyes, Desmond leaned back in his chair. Why didn’t I see this sooner?

  Why hadn’t anybody else? Had his grief and shock blinded him? Or was it a willingness to believe that Jazz McNeil had done exactly as they’d said he would? Had Jazz ruined Alex’s life, just as so many people had said he would?

  Or had Alex ruined his?

  Desmond pushed back from the desk with a tired sigh, rubbing the back of his stiff neck with his hand. The haunted look in the boy’s eyes had never left him. He wondered if he had done the wrong thing in not questioning the report. Questioning, hell, he had downright refused to even look at any of it.

  And Desmond knew well enough why nobody else had investigated further. Even after the Kincaids had taken Jazz in, most of the town still looked at him and saw the stepfather they had both feared and hated. Hated, yes. Despised, yes. But if Beau had so much as whispered, “Jump,” more than half of the population would have done just that.

  Why did they remember Beau, and not Jazz’s real father?

  “Why didn’t you remember his real father?” Desmond asked himself.

  Rubbing his hands over his stubbled face, he grumbled under his breath. If nothing else, he had to agree with Anne-Marie. It didn’t fit.

  Gripping the steering wheel with sweaty hands, Larry watched as Doc Kinca
id stepped out of his house. The doctor had a strange, thoughtful look on his face and didn’t seem to notice the patrol car. Larry continued on down the street slowly, circled the block, and came up behind Desmond as he entered the heavier flow of traffic on Main Street. Larry dropped back several car lengths and continued to tail the doc’s fancy, gun-metal gray Mercedes.

  Twice he had to wipe his palms off on his pressed khakis, leaving damp trails down them. As the old man turned off Main Street, headed out of town and hit the highway, sweat started to trickle down the back of Larry’s neck. When the doc punched the gas pedal to the floor and hit seventy in roughly ten seconds flat, a grim smile of satisfaction came on Larry’s face as he flipped on his flashing lights.

  The Kincaids liked speed, that was certain. Sure as the sun rose and set, the moment the road opened up, both father and daughter hit the gas.

  The wailing siren split the air as he got on the bumper of the German car. Shoulda bought American, you pissant, he thought, idly imagining himself keying the side of that expensive piece of machinery.

  “What’s the hurry, Doc? Gotta a baby to de-liver out here?” Larry drawled.

  “I’m not an obstetrician or a general surgeon, Deputy. You know that as well as anybody,” Desmond said, teeth clamped around a fat cigar that smelled of foreign, aromatic tobacco. The heady smell of it went straight to Larry’s senses and had him yearning for a taste.

  “Yeah, it’s the daughter that does that sort of thing, ain’t it? No, wait. She works with kids. You getting pretty old to still be cutting around in somebody’s chest, aren’t ya, Doc Kincaid?”

  “Apparently not or I wouldn’t still be practicing.” The doctor sucked on the cigar and blew a smoke ring in Larry’s direction before saying, “You just write out that ticket, son.”

  “Where you headed in such an all-fired hurry?” Larry asked, not even reaching for his pad.

  “Out to see a friend,” Desmond answered, staring straight ahead, drumming his fingers on the smooth, leather-covered wheel.

  “That wouldn’t be the McNeil boy, would it?”

  “He’s hardly a boy anymore,” Desmond responded. “But, yes. I am heading out there.”

  “Don’t you think it was time to let bygones be bygones, Doc? I know you miss your boy, but it’s been near twenty years now.” Larry’s sweaty hands had to close twice around his pen before he was able to dig it out of his pocket.

  With an amused smile, Desmond asked, “Do you really think I would wait sixteen years just to pound on him a little? Have some imagination, Larry.” He puffed a little more on the cigar and stubbed it out in the ashtray before raising his eyes to the deputy. “Now are you going to give me that ticket so I can be on my way?”

  Mouth slack, skin pale, he looked from his cruiser back to the Benz, at the doc sitting in his high-priced car in his fine clothes. That damned McNeil brat, he thought with hatred. All his damned fault. If he hadn’t come back here…

  His hand itched, burned almost and before he even realized it, he was reaching for his gun. He had a moment to watch as Desmond’s eyes narrowed. He imagined planting a bullet between those eyes, those smug knowing eyes. A huge blast of air sounded in his ears as an eighteen-wheeler hurtled down the highway, followed by several pickups.

  The final car in the procession was a fire-engine red Mustang convertible. The car pulled up behind Larry’s cruiser and the muscles in his arm went slack as Anne-Marie Kincaid climbed out, her heavy fall of black hair flowing free to her shoulders.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said, crouching by the car, unaware of the tension in the air. “I saw you sitting here while I was heading back into town. I was heading out to see you, thought you’d like to go get a late breakfast.”

  “Miss Kincaid…”

  She swung her head around and looked up with mossy green eyes fringed with heavy lashes. “Dr. Kincaid, Deputy,” she corrected, rising to her feet. In her heeled boots, she barely reached five-foot-five but that didn’t keep the snooty little bitch from glaring down her patrician nose at him.

  He tipped his hat at her and said, “Doc Kincaid. I’m in the process of writing your daddy a ticket.”

  “Go right on,” she offered, gesturing with her hand. A lock of hair drifted in her face and she tucked it behind her ear with a neatly manicured hand. She slid her hands in the pockets of her jeans and leaned back against the car with her booted feet crossed neatly at the ankles.

  He started to write out the ticket and cursed silently as he saw his hands shaking. The doc’s daughter kept standing right there, chatting with her father; it didn’t matter a bit that he wasn’t chatting back. He mumbled an order for the elder Doc Kincaid to turn over his license and after snagging it, stomped back to his cruiser.

  Sitting in the seat of his cruiser, he leaned his head back against the headrest and tried to steady his ragged breathing. Godamighty, had he been planning to shoot him?

  Already, Larry could see the neat little hole his sidearm would have left, could see a dazed look entering the doc’s eyes while his brain died before his heart received the message.

  He’d never killed before, but had thought of it, imagined it.

  And right now, he was yearning for it. He was going to do it, too, because if he didn’t that damned doctor was going to cause a shitload of trouble. All on account of that no-good bastard, McNeil.

  Behind him, Anne-Marie watched Larry walk away and she frowned. There had been a weird tension in the air when she pulled up, a tension she could have cut with a knife.

  Then she looked back at her father and studied his face. He looked normal—a little tired maybe, but nothing major. It was Larry who was acting odd. Or more odd than normal, at least. The moron had a serious ego issue, all puffed up with self-importance and he had a habit of bullying people around. Probably an inherited trait. Anne-Marie didn’t remember his brother well, or any of the others, but she’d heard the stories. Troublemakers, almost every single one.

  “Everything okay, Daddy? Larry sure is acting weird?”

  “Larry’s got a bee up his—” He cut that sentence off before he finished it and gave Anne-Marie a grin. “If she was alive, your mama would skin me if she heard me saying that.”

  Anne-Marie laughed. “I imagine Mama heard worse from you, Daddy.”

  “Hearing worse from me, and then not caring that I say it around you are two different things,” he replied.

  She shrugged. “I don’t really think it would bother Mama that you tell me that Larry has a bee up his ass, Daddy. It’s nothing more than the truth.” Pushing her hair back, she rested her elbows on the car door and asked, “So you wanna buy me breakfast?”

  Reaching out, Desmond ruffled her hair. “I had something I wanted to do…” Then his eyes closed. “But maybe I’m not ready to do it yet. I’d love to buy you some breakfast.”

  They heard a car door slam and looked up, watching as Larry came stomping back. “Just let me get my ticket here from this fine officer and we’ll meet at the diner.”

  Her hand in his, Mariah looked around the brightly colored room, filled with laughing, gay voices and women wearing black, nylon capes over their clothes. With her free hand, she pushed her long bangs out of her face and asked, “Can I have my hair cut any way I want?”

  “Depends on which way you want it,” Jazz answered, signing the appointment book.

  “Who’s gonna do it?”

  “Going to,” he corrected absently, stroking Mariah’s thick cap of curls. Looking around the room, he saw several hairdressers at their stations, all chatting with their customers.

  His eyes narrowed on one face in particular, a growl sounding low in his throat. Maribeth Park, her platinum blonde hair falling around her face, sat in a chair, flipping through a magazine. She looked almost exactly the same. Her hair was straight now, the frizzy, big-haired look replaced by a smooth, sleek cut. Her brows were waxed and her skin was a deep gold that probably required many visits to the tanning bed. She looked jus
t a little older, still on the skinny side and still as pretty as a picture. And just as soulless.

  “Hello. Are we here for a cut?” a chirpy voice asked.

  He looked at the cute, cheerleader-type redhead at the desk, dragging his attention from Maribeth, who had just raised her head and looked at him. A cat’s smile was gracing her face as she rose.

  “I’ve got an opening, Laura. Widow Shoemaker canceled. Had to take her cat to the vet,” Maribeth said, strolling slowly up to the desk.

  “Well, that’s fine—”

  “No. We’ll wait,” Jazz said, looking away from Maribeth. He looked up and down the aisle, his eyes landing on a familiar face. “Isn’t that Mabel Winslow?” he asked, pointing towards a large, heavyset woman with a wide smile and heavily mascaraed eyes. Mabel had been the only one he had allowed to touch his hair as a child.

  “Yes, but she won’t be able to do it for a while yet. She’s in the middle of a perm,” Laura said.

  “We’ll wait. Let’s go sit down, angel,” he said, turning away. When a hand landed on his arm, fingers tipped with fire-engine red, he looked at the hand, and then at the hand’s owner. “You’d be wise to stay away from me, Maribeth.” Eyes narrowed and cold, he added, “Very wise.”

  Eyes were turning their way and Maribeth removed her hand at the gentle clearing of a throat from behind her. She turned and met the mild gaze of her manager, the little tramp with the authority to fire her. Just as her mama had fired Maribeth’s mama several years back. “We keep the customers happy, Maribeth,” Laura said before calling, “What’s the name, sir?”

  “Mariah McNeil,” he answered, leafing through a magazine while the pretty little girl at his side neatly lined up her crayons on the arm of her chair.

  Although he didn’t look at any of them, he felt it as damn near every person in the room turned to stare at him. He focused on the magazine as though it were prize-winning material. Next to him, Mariah smiled at Laura. “I’m getting my hair cut,” she said brightly. “It’s a rat’s nest.”