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

by Julie Smith

  The rest were already seated. That was good. She waved the gentlemen back down when they made to stand, which relieved her father of the dreadful responsibility of a duty kiss. To smooth things over, she babbled.

  “So sorry I’m late—I can only stay for a drink. We got a very strange case today and I have to work.”

  “What do you do, Skip?” asked Mrs. White.

  Oh, no—Conrad hadn’t briefed them. She saw her father flush, her mother’s fingers tighten on her glass.

  Camille said, “She’s a homicide detective—can you believe it? Skippy, you just can’t know how I’ve been dying to meet you—we’ve never had anything remotely so exciting in our family.”

  And so the talk politely turned to her “interesting” career choice.

  Camille was short and cute: short, curly brown hair, blue eyes, tiny little nose, milky skin—skin to kill for, as a matter of fact. She wore a halter-top blue dress that perfectly set off a figure that belonged on a teenager. She couldn’t have been sexier if she’d worn a lace teddy and couldn’t have been more proper in a business suit.

  She was the sort of woman guys like Conrad must construct from their own dreams of perfection. When Conrad introduced her to his senior partners, their eyes were going to light up like the neon nipples of a sign on Bourbon Street. In the first second they knew her, they were going to flash forward, seeing her fitting in at social events through the decades, tossing her head and making precisely the right coquettish remark, never embarrassing, just borderline-bawdy. Just perfect.

  Conrad had probably told her about his sister the black sheep and the little problem with Dad. And, of course, she’d figured out the perfect way to handle it.

  “How did you get promoted to Homicide? I mean, you’re so young—it’s a big honor, isn’t it?”

  “I had a friend.” It was true. If it weren’t for Joe Tarantino, she’d have left the police department in the first place, and in the second place she’d still be giving drunks directions in VCD. Joe had talked her into staying on, had said she had terrific potential, that she was a good officer who was going to be excellent. A few months later there’d been some personnel changes and Joe was head of Homicide now. Skip had nearly fainted when he’d had her transferred to his division. He hadn’t been bullshitting. He’d meant it. He really thought she was good.

  She’d never been a student, having flunked out of Newcomb and barely made it through Ole Miss. Before that, she’d so poorly understood her environment that her parents had made her feel wildly incompetent—and she was, she’d wryly admitted since. But police work was something she could do. She was big and she was physically adept; maybe in this atmosphere her size and strength gave her the confidence to use the brains that really were what made her good. She didn’t know. All she knew was she felt she’d come home.

  “You can’t fool me, Skippy. I’ve heard about you.”

  Aghast, Skip glanced at her father. But he was smiling benignly on the whole domestic scene. Camille was handling the whole thing as adeptly as Conrad must have known she would.

  “Alison Gaillard just thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. She’s always telling Skippy Langdon stories.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow—she’d probably had no idea her daughter had renewed an old acquaintanceship with Alison, and that was going to raise Skip about a hundred points in her estimation. Her dad looked positively giddy.

  She wondered if it would be impolitic to ask Camille if she’d ever considered joining the diplomatic corps and decided it would probably break the mood.

  She admitted to herself that she liked the girl. What wasn’t to like? Nothing that showed, that was for sure, but there was certainly something suspect about her—she was about to throw away a perfectly good life on Conrad Langdon. Something had to be wrong with her.

  Skip ordered a Perrier.

  “Yes,” said the waiter, “Perrier.” He gave it the American pronunciation, not so subtly correcting her. Skip’s thoughts turned instantly to Steve Steinman. That was the sort of thing that could keep him going for an entire afternoon. Why in New Orleans, with its touted French heritage? he would ask. She would explain that it was probably because there was a Perrier Street that was more Perri-than-thou rather than Perriay, and that would get him going again. As far as he was concerned, New Orleans was Mars.

  “What are you smiling about?” Conrad managed to make it an accusation.

  Oh, certain things the Kama Sutra doesn’t even mention.

  She considered it, but in the end wimped out. “Just having fun.”

  Camille said, “Tell us about your new case.”

  “Oh, gosh, I can’t really. Not at this stage.”

  “Skippy.” It was a voice she hadn’t heard in nearly a quarter-century—her mother’s, commanding a small child. The message was clear: For once, your stupid “career” is doing us some good. Don’t screw this up as usual.

  She gave her mother what she hoped would pass for a big friendly smile; it felt more like a baring of teeth. “Sorry, Mother; rules is rules.”

  Her dad said, “Oh, come on, Skippy. You know it won’t go any farther.”

  Skip was close enough to childhood to be resentful. For nearly two decades you had to follow rules you didn’t even know existed half the time, with nasty consequences if you didn’t; then suddenly the enforcers turned criminal.

  She breathed deeply. “It’s not really dinner-table talk.”

  Mrs. White, who lived up to her name perfectly, with pale skin and prematurely gray hair that looked more blond than otherwise, said, “Ooh, then, by all means tell us. I never miss ‘Murder She Wrote.’ ”

  Dear God.

  “Well, a baby died. He was born addicted to crack, and he was in the hospital for months and then the mother took him home and he was back in the hospital the next morning with half a dozen broken bones.” It had been her case, but it was three months old.

  A flush, only partly from his bourbon and water, spread over Camille’s father’s face. “They should pack them all up and send them back to Africa.”

  “It was a white family.”

  “A what?”

  “White, Mr. White.” Half of it had been.

  She looked around at the downcast faces of her parents and Camille, the furious one of Conrad. “I’m sorry. Police work just isn’t pretty.”

  Her mother’s mouth pursed. No one said anything.

  The waiter hovered. “Ready to order?”

  Skip said, “I really have to go.”

  They all said good-bye, perfectly polite except for her dad, who seemed once again to have tuned out her existence. Camille insisted on walking her out.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry about my dad. I hope you won’t think we’re all that way.”

  What on earth can Conrad have done to deserve this paragon? Do you suppose he can fuck?

  She hugged Camille and wondered if they could be friends.

  After a quick change at home—to khaki slacks and a white shirt—she once again rang Mr. Palmer and Mr. Davies, Linda Lee’s most immediate neighbors. Mr. Davies, the one who traveled, thought he’d seen Linda Lee once, but he wasn’t really sure. He’d certainly never heard any noise from her apartment. Mr. Palmer had spoken to her once or twice and thought her very nice; he was horrified she’d been murdered—that’s the kind of city it was nowadays—but couldn’t shed the slightest glimmer of light.

  Plenty of people in nearby buildings hadn’t been home that afternoon. Skip tried them now. Most were home and none knew anything.

  It was only eight-thirty and she’d practically wrapped up her entire investigation. She went over to Mama Rosa’s and got a meatball sandwich. What Joe had said was right—it probably wouldn’t be the least bit productive to show Linda Lee’s picture around, but neither would going home and turning on the tube. She couldn’t believe this woman hadn’t known anyone in the neighborhood. Somebody, somewhere, must know her, know something about her.
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  First she went into every place that was open within a six-block radius—and got nothing. Okay, she’d come back tomorrow, when more places were open.

  Next, bars. She tried to put herself in Linda Lee’s place.

  Where would I go if I were new in town, didn’t know anyone, and wanted a drink?

  Home.

  Okay, that suggested wanting something more than a drink. Just to get out of the house maybe. What else? Local color? Company? Music? Guys?

  If guys, then what? A quick and dirty lay? True love?

  True love! Who’d go to a bar to find love?

  But the answer was all too obvious. Someone with no place else to go. Someone with no other ideas and very little imagination. Someone stupid. Linda Lee might easily have been the first, and even the second. She might have been stupid too. But with those books about relationships, Skip didn’t think she’d have gone out looking for cheap sex, and probably not love either. More likely she’d wanted a change of scenery, some conviviality, a little noise, maybe some music—anything but the same four walls and the dead quiet, a quiet she knew wasn’t about to be cut by the sound of a ringing phone.

  So almost any place would do. Someplace nearby, convenient, would be the obvious choice. Good. There were probably no more than eight or nine hundred bars in the Quarter.

  Pat O’Brien’s was perfect—colorful and completely safe, full of tourists, lots of activity, and a beautiful courtyard. No one could be lonely at Pat O’Brien’s. But if Linda Lee had been there, no one had seen her.

  Oh, well, it was a good place to start—kind of got the blood up. Cosimo’s was a thought, the Absinthe Bar, the Napoleon House; probably not a hotel bar, and no place with a cover. Would she have walked all the way to Snug Harbor and Café Brasil? Probably not. Even keeping it fairly local and fairly selective, eliminating the hotel bars and obvious tourist traps, it was going on two o’clock and she’d chewed off her lipstick by the time she hit the Abbey. Shit! Claude was working. With utter amazement, she realized she hadn’t thought of him in months.

  “Skip! Whereyat, babe?” He leaned over for a kiss.

  “Beat. Can I have a Coke?” He got her one.

  “Haven’t seen you around, dawlin’.” Not a word of reproof. And why should there be? He probably hadn’t thought of her in months either. He was six-five, and had a gorgeous mustache and the cutest butt in the parish. Who knew how many women he had, not counting his wife.

  “Fell in love.”

  “Nice guy?”

  She nodded. “It’s more than I can say for you.”

  He laughed loudly, showing teeth like piano keys. There were times when she simply hadn’t been able to resist him. “You got my number, honey.”

  She showed him the snapshot. “Do you know this girl?”

  “Uh-uh. I don’t think so. Something happen to her?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of weirdos out there.”

  “Any in here?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started.”

  “Sure you don’t know her?”

  He stared at the picture again. “Not really—she’s not that different-looking. You know?”

  She knew. The whole idea was crazy. She didn’t even know what night to ask about. “Listen, I gotta go.”

  “Take care of yourself.” She could have sworn she saw affection in his eyes. All those months they’d been sometime lovers and it had never occurred to her they were friends. She guessed they were.

  THREE

  SONNY GERARD ORDERED a second gin and tonic, strolled out to the patio, and came back in, sitting once again at the bar. He rubbed the knot between his shoulders with his left hand, wondering when the gin was going to start working. It was a great muscle relaxant, but that wasn’t the whole point—he also wanted to obliterate his feelings, to be in a place where no one knew him and he knew no one, where he could play Clint Black on the jukebox and lean on the machine if he wanted to, letting the bass pulsate through his fingertips, turning him into somebody else. Somebody simple, somebody with a dozer hat and love of country-western music, somebody with a girlfriend named Rae Lynn and nothing to do but drive a truck or work on an assembly line.

  He could pretend here. Here nobody knew about all the stuff he was supposed to be; it was like a secret window he could open and get a breath of air. He did it about once a month—told everybody he knew he had an emergency with someone else, like a teenage girl who says she’s sleeping over at a girlfriend’s when she’s somewhere she shouldn’t be.

  It was a one-time Quarter tourist bar turned neighborhood hangout—now so ordinary nobody Sonny knew was ever going to wander in for any reason, even slumming. He never spoke to anyone when he came here, just had a few drinks and listened to the kind of music he was supposed to hate and didn’t think about a goddamn thing most of the time.

  Tonight he was thinking all too hard—about what it would have been like to be born in Lafayette or Natchitoches or even Slidell, into a blue-collar family without a care in the world except making some kind of crummy salary, just enough to get along, and maybe going to church on Sunday to make up for drinking too much and cheating on his wife.

  What could it have been like to have a childhood in which he didn’t have to make all A’s, then didn’t have to keep up a 3.8 average, get into the best fraternity, get into med school, get the prettiest girl, all that stuff you had to do if you were Sonny Gerard? He wondered if other people who were born not to be ordinary thought about it at all. About what a burden it was. What a pain in the ass.

  He thought about it all the time. Did the triumphs outweigh the effort of it? Yes. They did. That was why he kept it up—that and the fact that he truly wanted to do what was right. It would have been nice if he’d never known about it—his life as Sonny Gerard. If he’d been born Joe Blow and the question hadn’t come up.

  “Sonny? Aren’t you Sonny?”

  He turned. Standing beside him was a woman he knew from somewhere but couldn’t quite place. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Di. From the program. Maybe you don’t remember me.”

  “Di. Of course.” They hadn’t spoken before, but he’d noticed her, found her very attractive. “Buy you a drink?”

  “Oh.” She looked dismayed, as if he’d insulted her.

  “Hi, Di,” said the bartender.

  “Hi, Floyd. The usual.” She gave him two dollars. To Sonny, she said, “I guess you took me by surprise. I don’t drink. I live across the street.” The bartender laid a stack of quarters in front of her. “Floyd gives me change for the washer and dryer.”

  “You’re doing laundry tonight?” She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a low-cut T-shirt showing cleavage.

  “I was, but it’s so hot.” She sat down and fanned her face.

  “A Coke or something?”

  “Ice water.”

  Sonny ordered another gin and tonic for himself. “Maybe we should go out on the patio.”

  “I can only stay a minute.”

  Up close, he saw the tiny lines under her eyes, the softness of her half-exposed breasts, and realized she was probably as old as his mother. What could he possibly have to say to her? From her right ear hung a star, from her left a crescent.

  “Di for Diana? The goddess of the moon?”

  “And the Huntress. Did you know she was supposed to be immune to falling in love?”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m not even named Diana.”

  “Diane.”

  She shook her head.

  “Diamond.”

  “Diamara.”

  “Ah.” He took a sip of gin, not knowing what to say next. “Diamara.”

  “My birth name was Jacqueline.” She pronounced it Zhakleen.

  “That’s a beautiful name.”

  “It wasn’t me. I’m born again.”

  “How did you come up with Diamara?”

  “You were almost right the first tim
e. I am partly named for Diana but, I have to admit, partly for diamonds, and Mara is a name for the goddess.”

  “Mara or Mera?”

  “I just pronounce it Diamera. It’s really spelled with an A. I had to do it that way so it would come out a master number.”

  Sonny knew there must be a way to answer her. He tried to think what it could be.

  But she said, “Do you know anything about numerology?”

  “Oh, yeah. Numerology. I had a girlfriend once who was into it. Something about names and numbers. But you aren’t supposed to change your name, are you? Isn’t that part of the deal? You have to use the one you were born with?”

  She smiled, a priestess passing on the word. “I do it my way. That’s the way a nine person is, which is what I am; meaning my reality number is nine.”

  “Uh, could you run the system by me again?”

  “Let’s do your name. Okay—Sonny: S is one, o is six, n is five, the second n is five, and y is seven. Twenty-four, right? So that makes six—two plus four. That’s your key number. S is your cornerstone, so that’s one, and o is your instinctive desire, which is the same as your key. A six has a strong sense of duty and responsibility. Is that you?”

  Sonny felt a twinge of guilt. “Usually, I guess.”

  “You could be a banker, maybe, or a musician; or a doctor or lawyer.”

  Sonny’s head was awhirl. There was something wonderfully elfish about this woman, with her tangle of black curls, full breasts, and tiny waist. She might be twice his age, but she looked like a teenager, seemed more like the sister he’d never had. He was on the verge of asking, in envy, how she could put aside her reason, simply dive in and play such charming games with herself, when it occurred to him the question might be rude. He didn’t know exactly how, but he knew there were things about her he didn’t understand. He had a feeling answers wouldn’t necessarily come from direct questions.

  He wanted to know more, but he felt like a kid around her, didn’t have a clue how to keep her with him.

  “What name do you want?”

  “Me?”

  “Besides Sonny?”

  “I don’t know. Arthur, maybe.”