by Julie Smith
I just wonder what Auntie thinks when her young niece spends the night with her boyfriend.
But the minute she walked in, she could see that Ms. Enright was no ordinary Southern aunt. She was blond, overweight, dressed in a pair of black shorts and a pink tube top that would have fit Missy, and rather beautiful. She had the kind of skin that looked as if it would break if you touched it, but was unmarked by wrinkles (though she must have been on the lying side of forty-five). Her hair was caught up in a ponytail on the right side of her head—a ponytail that swung halfway down her back. Her feet were bare, unless you counted the toenail polish. Her face was heart-shaped and she was one of those heavy women who don’t gain weight above the neck.
“Come in.” She led Skip into the most interesting room she’d seen in New Orleans. The walls were covered with traditional art—masks, sculptures, paintings, and artifacts from just about everywhere, as far as Skip could see. There was one deep, comfortable sofa, but other than that, the furniture was equally exotic, much of it Asian. The rugs were many and colorful—Chinese, Persian, Iraqi—and an antique Chinese kimono was encased in a comer of the room, displayed as an artwork.
“What is it?” said Enright, and Skip realized she’d gasped.
“No wing chairs.”
Enright laughed.
“It’s a breathtaking room.”
“I travel a lot.” She sat down and motioned Skip to do the same.
Deciding on a different strategy for this interview, Skip had already identified herself as a police officer. But Missy’s aunt seemed far sharper than she’d expected. She wasn’t sure her plan would work.
Playing for time, she said, “You travel for your work?”
“Sort of. I run a business out of my home—designing clothes that I have made up in various cheap-labor countries. And then, of course, I have to go to more exotic countries still to get inspiration.” She paused only for a second, having made the clear statement that she was in the middle of her workday. “How can I help you, Officer?”
“I’m investigating a string of burglaries in your neighborhood.”
“Damn!”
“I know. The last thing you want to hear about.”
Enright got up and walked to the door. “I’ve really got to do something about this door.”
It was one of those with a window in it, a window that could be broken, the deadbolt turned by a hand reaching inside. “You’re not kidding—with all this art.”
“What should I do?”
Skip was about to suggest calling the department’s community relations officer when she remembered she was posing as someone from Burglary. She shrugged. “You could have the whole door replaced.”
“That’s it! It’s ugly, anyway. I could buy a beautiful door.”
Hoping she was sufficiently distracted, Skip seized the moment, giving the dates of the two murders. “I was wondering if you saw or heard anything on either of the nights the burglaries occurred—the ninth and the fourteenth.”
“Excuse me a moment.” She padded off and came back with a leather Filofax. “Let’s see—last Tuesday and Thursday.” Her voice turned wry. “I’ve really got to give you guys credit for promptness.”
Skip felt a blush starting. “We’ve been kind of overloaded.”
“Oh, I know—so many of the damn things.” She waved a hand, letting Skip see that her nails had been painted with the natural colors reversed—white with pink half-moons. “What time were the burglaries?”
“Well after dark, we think. Let’s say after nine.” After the latest twelve-step meetings were over.
Enright sighed. “I was home both nights. Some social life, huh? Didn’t hear a thing. Who got hit, by the way? The Livingstons?”
“To tell you the truth, I can’t talk about it.”
“I just thought it was across the street, since you’re asking me.
“Could I ask if anyone else lives here?”
“Just my darling niece, Missy McClellan.” Her friendly features softened even more. “Missy McClellan from Hattiesburg, Mississippi?” She said the sentence with a question mark, like a Hattiesburg girl. “Poor Missy.”
“Poor Missy?”
She waved her trompe l’oeil hand again. “Little girl in the big city. Very earnest. I love her to death in spite of it.”
“Can you remember if she was home on those nights?”
“Gosh.” She was quiet for a moment. “She’s almost never home—she’s got a boyfriend, and that’s not the half of it.”
“Oh?”
“She’s ‘in recovery.’ Or don’t you know the phrase? God, grant me the serenity to put up with it.”
“You mean from drugs or something?”
“No, no. That’s just a phrase they use in those damn meetings she goes to. She goes to at least one a day, can you fathom that? I mean, is there a group for meeting addiction? There’s one for everything else.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute.”
She left again, came back carrying schedules of several different meetings.
“She’s had these tacked up on her bulletin board forever.”
Some had been circled in red, presumably Missy’s favorites. “Tuesday and Thursday both. Well, she probably wasn’t home.”
Skip wondered if Sally Enright had noticed what she had— that Missy apparently attended a group for incest survivors.
Cappello caught her as she arrived back at the office: “Task force meeting in fifteen minutes. Assignments for the big night.”
Everyone looked about as desperate as she felt. No one had come up with a single fact that pointed to one suspect over another. Except for Skip and Abasolo.
Joe was in very nearly the worst shape of all. He seemed to be holding panic just below the surface. Something bad was bothering him. It was the pile of dead chickens. He turned to Skip. “How would you feel,” he blurted, “about being used as bait?”
“You mean make myself an easy target for Alex?” She’d already thought of it.
“Look, I’ll lay odds he’s it. We can put guys on him, but we just don’t know who might get in his path that can’t take care of themselves. You can.”
“I was going to suggest it myself.” If I managed to get up the nerve. I didn’t think you’d go for it.
She had thought Joe would find her too inexperienced, might not quite trust her with something this big. “The only thing is, he probably hates me after last night.”
“All the more reason to kill you. Okay, Langdon has an invitation to the party—the teddy bears’ picnic itself. It’s at Diamara Breaux’s house, starting at seven p.m. I want you all to be there. Langdon is specifically assigned to Alex. Abasolo, you take Di. These are still our best two suspects. Cappello and Hodges, play it by ear. O’Rourke, park outside and cover Langdon if she leaves with Alex. If he leaves alone, he’s your baby. Let him out of your sight and you’re dead. Langdon, what’s your plan?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll call him and ask for a date. If he says no, I’ll try to cozy up to him at Di’s. If he doesn’t go for it…”
“See that he does. Okay, everybody, I’ll be in the office, monitoring everyone’s whereabouts. You all have your assignments. I want you calling in every forty-five minutes.”
They discussed a few more details, deciding on staggered call-in times, setting them for each officer. But they adjourned unsatisfied, still worried. It was a good plan as far as it went, but they all knew concentrating on Alex might be a mistake—there were about twenty other suspects that were nearly as good.
Alex wasn’t home. Thanking her stars he didn’t share a machine with his dad, Skip left a message saying she was sorry they hadn’t had a chance to “really get together” the night before and asking to see him that night.
The she consulted her twelve-step schedules. On the third try she found Alex hunkered down and looking bored at an Al-Anon meeting at a church on the river side of Magazine.
He brightened and signaled when s
he walked in.
Through the remaining half-hour of the meeting she sweated, wondering how the hell she, Skip Langdon, was going to be seductive enough to get him to forgive, forget, and agree to see her that night.
In the end she relied on everything she’d ever seen in the movies. She stood very close to him, touching his arm, touching her thigh to his, as she apologized for her precipitous behavior the night before. She said she’d been thinking about him all day and she really wanted to see him that night; she felt she’d made a big mistake. She licked her lips, having read somewhere that men think that’s a seduction signal. She’d never felt like a bigger ass in her life.
But it worked, after a fashion. At least the apology did— she wasn’t sure about the sexual grandstanding. Because Alex, suddenly, was treating her like his best pal, practically hitting her on the arm like a great old comrade. He happily made a date with her, but didn’t seem the least bit interested in being alone with her. He wanted to go to Di’s party and hit a few others as well. She wondered about that, but he did ask her to meet him at the first stop. That might be a good sign—the Axeman would want to keep his quarry in sight, yet not be seen arriving with her.
As she drove home, hoping to find something that vaguely resembled a party outfit, she reflected that her rejection of the night before certainly hadn’t seemed to hurt his feelings. She wondered if he had any.
NINETEEN
DI HADN’T HIRED a whole jazz band, but a single clarinetist was tootling away in an atmosphere oddly subdued, to Skip’s way of thinking.
When she had helped herself to fruit juice, she realized why—it was the first New Orleans party she’d ever been to at which no liquor was served. She felt as if she were in church.
So this is how twelve-steppers boogie down.
She went to the refreshment table. No oysters here—live food though they might be—but there were lots of nice green pepper slices and bits of cauliflower, plenty of chips without salt, and a couple of vegetable dips. Nothing, Skip noticed, containing any dairy products. There was something resembling cheese, but a bite convinced her it was some sort of soy concoction.
All the crackers and pita were whole wheat. But there was hope—it was apparently a potluck and people were still bringing things.
A man with hair combed over his bald spot seemed intent on methodically devouring everything on the table. As fast as something was put down, he ate it, peppering the air with staccato, bossy questions. “Does this have wheat in it? Does anybody still eat wheat? Is that hummus ready yet? Who’s that blonde in the miniskirt?”
She wondered if he was in OA.
“Skip? I want you to meet somebody.” It was Missy, taking care of the lonely newcomer. “This is Chris.”
“Hi, Chris.”
Chris didn’t answer, but Missy said, “Chris is an architect at that firm down on that corner—you know the one. He built half the buildings on the West Bank. And not only that, he teaches yoga and he’s an expert horseback rider. And a gourmet cook. And his sister just moved to town, she’s a lovely girl too, and Chris is a single father with two kids, seven and ten.”
There was certainly enough conversational material there. “Hi,” said Skip again.
Again Chris said nothing.
Sonny was hovering near his lady love, looking rather askance, she thought, at his apple juice.
“Ich! It’s an animal.” The man with the bald spot spat into his napkin. Apparently somebody’d brought some clam dip.
She saw Jim Hodges in the kitchen. Moving closer, she heard someone say, “How do you know Di?”
And he answered, “I don’t. To tell you the truth, I’m a friend of the clarinetist.”
Who knew? It might even be true.
Adam Abasolo came in with a huge spray of flowers. Di opened the card, pronounced them from “Ernest,” proclaimed that she didn’t know Ernest, and then fell hook, line, and sinker for whatever brand of flattery Abasolo was handing out.
Skip saw her take his arm and lead him to the ersatz bar. Out of the comer of her eye, she thought she caught something—an involuntary movement perhaps. But pivoting quickly, she saw only Sonny, staring at the bar as if he wished he could turn water into wine.
The hum of conversation wasn’t picking up. Do these people talk, or are they all like Chris? she wondered. And if they do, what do they talk about? She took a tour around the room.
“Janet Shirley’s the best. Non-force manipulation. You never feel a thing.”
“But Jenny Walker does X rays. Don’t you think you need X rays?”
Evidently a conversation about chiropractors.
“…so I left the workshop three days early. I couldn’t concentrate on Asian medicine with the worst cold in Louisiana history.”
Workshops. Of course. The speaker wore crystal earrings.
“What she does then is she takes a piece of your clothing and she can tell you how many husbands you’ve had and which of them were alcoholic.”
Psychics.
“I really can’t digest anything but broccoli anymore and sometimes a little bit of rice. My system’s just too sensitive, too finely tuned.”
Anorexia?
“No, really. Enlightenment through sex. And it’s a lightning path, too. You can do it in one lifetime.”
Seduction.
And the speaker was her date. He was talking to a slim young blonde with blue eyes that hadn’t seen much beyond a Catholic girls’ school. She wore her hair in a pageboy tucked behind her ears so you couldn’t see how wet it was back there. Skip’s nerve endings stood on end. If he took her home, went into her house, they couldn’t follow. He could strangle her and they’d know when he went in and when he left, but she’d still be dead.
She kissed Alex on the cheek, hoping to put the girl off. “Skippy, baby.” He put an arm around her, pal-like, and kept talking to the girl, ignoring Skip. In turn, she wrapped her arm around him, rubbed his love handles. She leaned against him, nuzzled an ear, then danced out of reach, hoping she’d be more attractive that way. Unfortunately, she ran—literally—into Abe.
“Hi.” He had a mouthful of guacamole, but that didn’t stop him from talking. “Great party, huh?”
“A little quiet, maybe.”
“I was just thinking that. Say, there’s only this one guy. Do you think the Axeman’ll count that as a band?”
She was surprised to realize it was the first mention of the party’s purpose.
“Abe, do you think there really is an Axeman?”
“You mean did the media make him up? Hey, two people died.” His voice was angry, his face starting to get red.
“You don’t have to get mad. I was just making conversation.”
“Well, I didn’t think that was funny.”
“Sorry.”
Abruptly, he left her. Di arrived with Jillian, very short, very fat, wearing a vintage dress, strapless and black, with humongous boobs spilling out of it. Because she was so short, everyone was literally forced to look down her dress. Things jiggled.
“You’re a newcomer?” Her voice was tiny—such a baby sound you could hardly believe it belonged to an adult. She stroked Skip’s arm as if she were an animal.
“Yes. I moved to town fairly recently. You?”
Jillian smiled and rocked on her feet, not answering at first. She didn’t seem to want to talk. Finally she said, “I don’t really live here. I’m a student.”
“And what are you studying?”
“Law.” She smiled and sort of purred. “I want to be a criminal lawyer. A prosecutor.” Said in that tiny voice it was laughable.
“Interesting field.”
She smiled and purred some more, still stroking Skip’s arm.
“Excuse me, would you?” Skip said. “I have to find someone.”
“I really liked what you told me.”
Skip hadn’t told her a thing. I wonder if I should have mentioned chiropractors. Or vegetables maybe. I know—new paradigms.
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The crowd was getting thicker now, and the musician was taking a break. Tapes had been substituted and people were starting to dance. Oh, boy. Bunch of honkies on fruit juice. Get down, you party animals!
It was starting to look like a party, but it still didn’t sound right. For fun, she started a few more conversations, and she saw that it wasn’t just the lack of booze or the right subject that was responsible. She dragged out her vegetables and her paradigms, but a lot of these people were like Jillian and Chris. You talked to them; they didn’t really talk back. Just smiled and nodded, sometimes rocked; often purred. Seemed eager to please, even overly nice. But really didn’t try to connect. She wondered if they were on something, but couldn’t think what it might be, unless it was the high you get from fasting.
On the whole, she thought, I’d rather be in Chalmette.
She looked around for Alex, didn’t see him. Her heart in her mouth, she threaded her way through the crowd, probably looking as tense as she felt, because Abasolo caught her eye and pointed to the bathroom.
Alex came out, hair combed, face washed.
“Looking good,” she said, and meant it.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Oh, boy. Now the fun begins.
“Meet me at…”
“Actually, I walked over.”
“Okay. We’ll go together.” He had acquiesced awfully easily. Did that mean she wasn’t the target, that he didn’t mind being seen with her?
“Tell you what, though. I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”
She went out, signaled O’Rourke in a car across the street, and waited, noticing that the streets were mobbed with Axeman revelers. Many wore T-shirts bearing the skull and crossed axes that some enterprising entrepreneur had made the official emblem of the evening.
For fun (Alex’s idea) they took a tour around the Quarter. Banners with skulls and crossed axes hung like bunting from the balconies. Jazz blared. Camera crews crawled merrily through the streets, taping, interviewing, shining lights, stirring up excitement. Vendors hawked not only T-shirts but rubber axes, souvenir plastic clarinets, saxophones, complete ceramic jazz bands, and theatrical blood, which was also in evidence on plenty of jolly celebrants. The T-shirts said festive things like I SURVIVED THE AX ATTACK and THEY ALL AXED FOR YOU. It beat hell out of Mardi Gras.
