by Julie Smith
“You were so brave,” said Peggy, hands ruffling brown curls, so nervous Skip wondered if she’d recently quit smoking. “I don’t know what it is about this place.”
“This place?” asked Cindy Lou.
“The quality of medical care. I had real bad PMS and they told me I’d have to have a hysterectomy. So I called my old doctor in Minneapolis and she told me to take vitamin B6. I told that to my doctor here and you know what he said? He said, ‘Oh, sure, go ahead and take the vitamins if you really want to; but in New Orleans women usually want hysterectomies.’ ”
Steve gave her the smile she seemed to be craving. “Did they work?”
She returned the smile with added wattage: “Like a miracle. I’m the only woman in town with non-raging hormones.”
It looked as if Nini’d lost out if Steve was what she’d come for, but apparently he wasn’t. “Di, I really have to ask you something. I’m thinking of having a breast reduction and your story terrified me. Just the way you described that man…” She dug in her fingernails and squeezed, apparently unaware of the spectacle she was creating. “I got the willies the worst kind of way. The thing is, I’ve got a weird feeling about this guy I went to. I mean, everybody says he’s the best, but I just don’t know. What if … I mean, I swear to God, I’d rather go around with these”—she literally held them up, and an impressive pair they were, too—“the rest of my life.” Finally she blurted, “Could you possibly consider telling me who it was?”
“Oh, gosh. I don’t think so,” said Di. “I don’t think I should.”
“Oh.” Nini looked as if she were fighting tears.
“Why not?” said Missy.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to get sued.”
Alex said, “Why would you get sued?”
“What if it got in the paper or something?”
“You’re the one who should sue, not him.”
“I don’t know. I just don’t feel I should.” Di had turned pink; she looked so uncomfortable, Skip wondered if she’d made the whole thing up.
Cindy Lou said, “Di, why are you protecting this man? He maimed you, he mutilated you, he insulted you, he injured you, and he’s obviously caused you great mental anguish. He can’t sue you and you know it. You’ve got nothing to fear from him, but he ought to worry about you, girl. I bet he does, too. And here are you are saving his ass. Now, I know you’re codependent ’cause you said so, but that’s not a good enough reason. I want to know why you’re protecting this criminal.”
“You’re right!” Di had slammed a hand on the table, causing everyone’s coffee to shimmy and spill. Shocked at herself, she apologized and removed the fractious hand with her other, as if it were a miscreant pet. “You’re absolutely right,” she said again. “Why the hell am I shielding him? He can keep on doing that and doing that…”
“Unless somebody speaks up,” said Cindy Lou.
“Okay. Okay, here goes. I’m saying it in front of witnesses, okay? Everybody listening? It was Robson Gerard. Also known as ‘Bull.’ ”
Nini squealed. She was apparently given to dramatic displays. “That’s him! That’s my doctor!” She couldn’t know the “criminal” was Sonny’s father.
Possibly no one else but Missy and Sonny knew either, since last names weren’t used in the group. Did Di know? Skip glanced at Sonny and Missy, who were taking it as she might have expected—they were rigid, staring straight ahead, not looking at Di, not looking at anyone.
Di was holding Nini’s hands now. “Oh, Nini, I’m so glad I told. Don’t go to him. Don’t let that monster touch you.”
“Oh, Di, oh, Di. What if I had? Oh, my God, what if I had?”
Steve caught Skip’s attention and rolled his eyes—the whole thing was just too Southern for words.
Cindy Lou had an innocent look. Innocent verging on smug.
Skip felt hands massaging her shoulders, and then soft breath in her ear. “Let’s get out of here,” whispered Alex.
“What’s wrong—you don’t like mutilation stories?”
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
The way he’d stomped out of the apartment the night before, she’d never have expected him to speak another word to her. Surely, she thought, the average man would have quit by now, would have put her down as a mental case or a nasty tease.
Okay. Maybe he had got something on his mind besides another try: She reached for her purse, for the reassuring heft of her .38.
“Meet me at Bruno’s.” A bar in the same block.
“Five minutes.”
There was no one to cover her but Steve or Cindy Lou. Choosing brute strength, she dropped Steve a note: “Pretend you’re going to the men’s room. Follow me to Bruno’s. Stay out of sight.”
Alex was waiting with a gin and tonic for her, which she took and pretended to sip.
She said, “I thought you thought I was crazy.”
“I was wondering something,” he said. “Why haven’t you mentioned you’re a cop?”
“Oh. Someone at Cookie’s told you.”
“That’s not all they told me. I found out how your dad’s Don Langdon, the society doc, and how you went to McGehee’s, and how you’re the black sheep of your family. I heard all that stuff and I got into thinking you were really down on yourself.”
She was taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
“Look, you’re so used to thinking of me as the next thing to a rapist, you forget I’m a psychologist. You don’t share in the group. You never talk about your work. You just say you have a dumb civil-service job. You’ve obviously got a self-esteem problem because you aren’t a success.
“I thought that’s why you kept blowing hot and cold. You wanted to have sex with me, but you didn’t think you could handle it. Then last night on the way home I figured out what was really going on. The way you weren’t a bit freaked out by those chickens. The way you always keep your backpack with you. How you asked me to go out last night, just like you hadn’t practically kneed me in the balls the night before.”
“I only threatened to.”
“I finally got it. You saw the chickens and you thought I did it. I even mentioned the Axeman, neatly bringing him together with the chickens. So you decided I was the guy. And instead of telling your sergeant or whatever you’re supposed to do, you thought you’d do a little unofficial sleuthing. Think how great it would look if humble Skip Langdon, the one with the self-esteem problem, brought in the Axeman all by herself. So you tried. But you freaked yourself out and ended up sniveling.”
“Not a nice way to put it, Alex.”
“But true.”
“Well, at least you don’t think I’m crazy anymore.”
“No, but I still think you’ve got a self-esteem problem. You’re ashamed to admit what you do for a living.”
“I guess you’re right, in a way. I’m not ready for people to know.”
“You’ve got to face it, Skip. If it’s not what you want to do, then you’ve got to quit doing it.”
“I’m almost ready to talk about it in the group.”
“Talk about it to me.”
She put her untouched drink on the bar. “I really can’t. I’ve got a date. But I do promise to quit stuffing my feelings. And with the help of my higher power, I’m going to try to open up more to my recovery. I guess that’s all I really have to say, except that I’m just really grateful to be here tonight and I want to thank you for sharing.”
“Always leave ’em laughing.” He gave her a friendly wave as she left.
He came out seconds later, followed by Steve, having apparently taken just time enough to throw some money on the bar, and looked both ways. For her? Was he trying to catch up with her?
Or follow her?
He went back to the coffeehouse, started to straddle the hog, then shrugged and went back in, maybe remembering Nini and Peggy.
Skip gave Steve the high sign and watched him follow. Then she got in her car and waited. Sonny came in wi
thout Missy, maybe having taken her home and come back. For about forty-five minutes nothing else happened, and then Alex left with Peggy astride his bike. He took her to her car and went home, having apparently struck out yet again. The lights were out, which Skip assumed meant Lamar was asleep, which probably meant Alex would stay home.
Home, then? Did that mean she could go home? She didn’t dare.
She went back to PJ’s to see if any coffee-drinkers were left. There were none.
Home now?
Yes.
Home to a message from Steve: “I want to see you.”
It all fell away—her tiredness, her despair of ever catching this creep, her worry, even, momentarily, her puzzlement about Alex. Desire mushroomed in her; not sexual desire, but simple desire to see Steve, to be with him, to be with someone she loved.
She phoned him at Cookie’s, invited him over, and stepped into the shower. She met him at the downstairs entrance in a white terrycloth robe, hair dripping, feet in thongs.
“Miss Elegance.”
“Mmmm.” She couldn’t be bothered answering. She just wanted to bury her face in his neck.
“But you smell good.”
She’d thought they’d talk first, but later wondered why she had thought that. She would have opened her robe and thrown her legs around his waist, ridden him right there in the tiny, dingy entranceway, if she’d been small enough. As it was, they ended up on her apartment floor—she’d folded her sofa bed for company and they couldn’t stop to unfold it.
Steve said, “Women are crazy, you know that?”
“Why?”
“They always want to shower first and then make love.”
“In this town, you’d better.”
“All women are like that.”
“All women? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“I read it somewhere.”
She got up, found her robe, and tugged it on. “Want something to drink?”
“Something alcoholic. I’ll never be able to sleep after all that coffee.”
“Who asked you to come, by the way?”
“To coffee? Di.”
“To the meeting.”
“Haven’t you heard? Ninety-six percent of the population’s codependent. Why should I be in the healthy four percent?”
He followed her in the kitchen, winced as roaches scattered. “I’ll never get used to that.”
“How about a Dixie?”
He accepted it and she made herself an iced tea, hoping it would counteract her returning weariness.
“That was the weirdest conversation with Alex. Did you hear it?”
Steve shook his head.
“He’s figured out I’m a cop. He even knows I asked him out yesterday because I thought he was the Axeman. But he seems to think I don’t have the backing of the department—that I’m just some dummy with a theory. And he pretty well let me know he wasn’t even slightly nervous about me.”
“That’s creepy. Just how some super-arrogant psychotic would react.”
“Yeah. Or some arrogant but innocent bystander.”
“I’m serious. Maybe he was throwing down the gauntlet.”
“Maybe. But he’d have to be really crazy to do that.”
“The Axeman’s not a well human.”
“I wonder what Cindy Lou would say.” The phone rang. “Maybe that’s her calling. Has to be. If it’s not Jimmy Dee.”
At the mention of her landlord, Steve winced. She answered happily, a musical “Hellooo,” and the next thing she said was “Oh, shit.”
Steve mouthed. “What is it?” and she turned her face, finger in her ear.
When she hung up and turned around, he said, “Oh, my God.”
“What? You’re white. Do you feel okay?”
He got up as if to steady her but she moved back. “I’m fine.”
She hated this in herself. Some people blushed when they were in love, Skip lost her color when she’d had a shock. She’d gladly have traded. “There’s been another.”
“Someone you know?” She thought he asked because she seemed so upset, and it was almost true, almost someone she knew. Should she tell him? Hell, she’d have to interview him—might as well do it now and save time.
“I can’t tell you yet. You’re a witness.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t see anything.”
“You’re an alibi witness.”
“Oh. I guess I am.”
“What happened at PJ’s after I left?”
“Sonny and Missy were gone by the time I got back from Bruno’s. No problem about covering you, by the way. You’re certainly welcome.”
“Sorry. Thanks.”
“Sonny came back in a few minutes. He said Missy’d lost her keys—he’d had to let her in with his. He didn’t find them, but he stuck around. After a while Alex left with Peggy. Then Sonny left again. And finally Di and me and Cindy Lou. I’d say we were all out of there within half an hour.”
“What about Abe and Nini?”
“Nini? Oh, the one with the red fingernails. I forgot about those two. They got into a conversation and probably never noticed we were gone. Come to think of it, it was a really intense conversation. Like when people are really attracted to each other. You know, like they don’t notice when they’ve finished their drinks and kind of just sit there running their mouths until closing time? And the next day can’t remember a damn thing they said, but still can’t wait to see the person again.”
“Come on. How do you know he wasn’t trying to recruit her as a client or something?”
“They kept leaning toward each other and touching. Making a lot of eye contact.”
“What time would you say you left?”
“About ten-thirty, I guess.” Abe and Nini had been gone when Skip returned after seeing Alex home. It was after midnight now.
“Do you mind telling me who’s dead? I’m getting a little tense.”
“Abe Morrison’s baby-sitter.”
Depression hovered like a black and smothering air mass, something like smog, but thicker, almost vaporous. Tendrils of it had wafted into Skip’s car, and pillowy cushions of it that would engulf and swallow her seemed poised for ambush in the heavy night outside.
On the way to the scene she had to fight to stay centered, not to give in to despair and fall asleep or cry, maybe scream. She focused on the task ahead, tried not to blame herself for the murder of a teenager, not to wonder what she could have done to prevent it. Stayed at Alex’s all night?
Asking herself the question, straight out like that, she realized that right now she didn’t have much confidence in him as a suspect. If he knew she was a police officer and he was the Axeman, surely he wouldn’t have confronted her about it; it just wasn’t wily.
But who knew what a crazy person would do?
That wasn’t the point. The point was whether she’d given it her best shot or not. She remembered going back to PJ’s, how worried she’d been about the others—damn! She just hadn’t felt she could baby-sit Alex when there were so many other suspects. And then she’d lost them all. They’d scattered before she could get to them.
The thing that bothered her most was that Abe had announced at the meeting that he had a baby-sitter that night—that a teenage girl was alone at his house. Should they have made their investigation public? Would that have made people more cautious? Maybe. Maybe someone like Nini, for instance, wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with a man from the group. Maybe Abe would have worried more about his children, wouldn’t have said that, would have gone home earlier.
But they hadn’t really been sure….
Anyway, it was Joe’s decision, not hers.
She knew nothing could be done, that all the hindsight in the world wouldn’t bring the girl back to life. But she couldn’t shake this heartbroken feeling she had, this sense of inadequacy, as if for once she’d had something really important to protect and she’d blown it.
She wasn’t normally squeamish
, but she dreaded seeing the body.
Abe lived in an old-fashioned white-frame raised bungalow on Hampson Street in the Carrollton section. It wasn’t a great house, probably a rental, but it had a small porch and a small yard, and it was a pretty good neighborhood. In fact, it was a gorgeous street. But plenty of middle-class white people—lawyers, professional people of Abe’s ilk—thought nothing Uptown was safe anymore and would no sooner have their kids grow up here than send them to public school. Abe, being “from away” as New Orleanians said, might not know about that.
Joe and Cappello were at the scene. It was Cappello who had called, and she looked almost as pale as Skip. Joe wasn’t much better.
The victim, Jerilyn Jordan, was lying on the couch, the scarlet A above her, written in lipstick this time, not blood, and it wasn’t scarlet, it was a sort of bluish-pink.
She had been strangled, but not with hands. A striped cotton scarf, in shades of fuchsia and rose, had been wound about Jerilyn’s thin neck.
The girl looked about sixteen. She had short brown hair and her limbs were honey-colored, though her face was engorged and purplish now, marred by darker purple hemorrhages. She was wearing a pair of white shorts, a blue T-shirt, and sandals. “Straight-A student,” said Cappello, and that was all Skip needed. She was blinking back tears before she could stop herself, turning away so the others couldn’t see. Never since she’d been in Homicide had she experienced anything like this hopelessness, this feeling that she could have done better, she could have stopped it. This feeling of involvement.
The coroner hadn’t yet arrived and they had no estimate of time of death.
Abe hadn’t been able to give much of a statement so far, saying only that he came in, found her, panicked, ran straight to his kids’ room, found them okay, hustled them out the back, and drove them to his wife’s house before calling the police. Officers had been dispatched to both addresses and Abe had been taken to police headquarters for further questioning.
“Is anyone doing the neighbors?” asked Skip.
Cappello shook her head, looked grateful. “Not yet. You want to?”
Skip nodded.
“Jerilyn’s parents live next door. They know. They came over when they saw the first car that got here—wouldn’t you if you knew your kid was here and a police car drove up?”
