by Julie Smith
“Oh, shit.”
“It was grim. Anyway, they said she came over about six-thirty and they never heard a peep till they saw our guys. They were watching television. They said she sat for Abe now and then, liked the kids, didn’t mind him. That’s about it. You can talk to them again if you like.”
Skip intended to. No matter how much it hurt to sit through an interview with two people who had just lost their daughter, she was going to do it. She was going to talk to everyone on the block, and do it now, even if they cursed her up and down and threatened to sue the city.
But when she had done it, and had interviewed the other neighbors, she was no further ahead than before. Everyone loved Jerilyn, most thought Abe was okay, and no one had seen or heard anything except one woman who heard a car door slam at around ten or ten-thirty, maybe eleven, and a ten-year-old boy who wasn’t sure. He’d gotten up to go the bathroom and maybe had seen a car leave the Morrisons’. But maybe it had “just been going down the street.” He didn’t know what time that was, but he’d gone to bed at ten-thirty, so it had to have been after that. He couldn’t describe the car.
Everyone was scared shitless, and most of them, those who had known Jerilyn, were heartbroken as well, their faces drawn with the pain of a child’s death and the urban-crime fear the city lived with. The bogeyman had come to their block in his nastiest, cruelest form.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE ENTIRE AXEMAN task force had been called in, Cindy Lou included, but they weren’t yet all there. Those who were were drinking coffee, comparing notes, trying to reconstruct who sat where at the inner-child meeting, trying to remember every face, every name, to make sure no one slipped through the cracks. It had been a fairly large group, about forty people—though four of them were cops and one was Cindy Lou.
Abe was waiting for her, disheveled, pasty, and sweaty, hair standing on end as if he’d run his hands through it over and over.
“Skip. What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t they tell you I’d be here?”
“Detective Langdon. They said Detective Langdon.”
“Well, that’s me.”
”I didn’t know.” He seemed disoriented. “You’re a cop.”
She smiled sweetly, sat down across from him. “And you’re the Axeman.”
She wouldn’t have thought he could lose more color, look any more distressed, but he seemed to shrink suddenly, a balloon stuck with a pin. “I could have lost my daughters,” he said.
She was just thinking she’d never seen a lawyer act less like one when he rallied. “Did I hear you right?” he said. “Did you accuse me of being the Axeman?”
“Are you?”
“Am I in custody?” Skip gave up any thoughts of calling in the paramedics. He was going to be fine.
She shook her head. “What happened after I left PJ’s?”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Not at the present time.” She knew she sounded like an automaton, but a flat “no” would have been a lie.
He drew himself up, squared his shoulders, appeared to find some inner strength in becoming Abe the Lawyer. “I’m going to talk to you. I know and you know I could refuse or I could call a lawyer, but I also know you want to move fast on this. And this came too damn close to my girls for me to stand in the way. So I’m not going to make you wait while I wake up a lawyer. I’m innocent and I want to go home after I’ve talked. Fair enough?”
Skip shrugged. It depended on what he said.
“Okay,” he said. “After you left PJ’s, I got talking with Nini. Everyone else left and I asked her if she wanted to go to the Maple Leaf. They have Cajun dancing on Thursday nights. I taught her how.”
“What band was there?”
“Band?”
“Who was playing?”
“I don’t know. All Cajun bands sound the same.”
“What time did you leave?”
“I guess about eleven, eleven-fifteen. She has to work tomorrow.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t ready to go home.”
“Did you go to the Maple Leaf in separate cars?”
“Yes.”
“So you didn’t take her home?”
“No. I just walked her to her car.”
“And then what?”
“And then I went home.”
“Okay. Very carefully describe what happened then.”
“I drove home. I parked. I went in and”—he thought about it a moment, apparently decided on a courtroom delivery—“saw Jerilyn lying on the couch with the A above her. And all I could think of was my kids. That they might be dead too.”
“How did you know Jerilyn was dead?”
“I didn’t. I just assumed it.”
“Think back.”
He took a minute. “I was nervous because the door was unlocked. I guess that was it. When I went in, I was already afraid. The light was off. I turned it on and I saw the A first. And then I smelled something. I didn’t know what it was, but thinking back I guess it was urine. Did you see her?”
Skip nodded.
“She looked dead, didn’t she? She looked so dead.”
“Did you walk over and look carefully?”
“I didn’t even pause. I was in the kids’ room in about a half a second.”
“Did anyone besides the members of the group know your kids would be alone with a sitter tonight?”
“My wife. Jerilyn’s parents. And anyone they told, or Jerilyn told.”
Skip had already asked the parents if they’d told anyone or if Jerilyn had. They hadn’t and didn’t think she had—not even her boyfriend, with whom she was currently fighting.
“Did you get Nini’s phone number?”
He looked puzzled. “Why?”
“Did you get it?”
“She gave me her card.” He pulled it out of his pocket.
Skip copied Nini’s name and number. “What time did you get home?”
“I didn’t look at my watch.” He was testy.
Skip waited.
Finally he said, “I guess about ten minutes after I left the Maple Leaf.”
“And when did you get to your ex-wife’s?”
“About ten minutes after that.”
“Excuse me a minute.”
Skip hunted up Cappello. “Do we have an estimate yet on time of death?”
“The coroner came about midnight. He said no more than two hours earlier. So sometime after ten; that’s going to be about the best we can do.”
She went back and told Abe to go, but not to go home; there’d be a police seal on the door. She wondered if he’d go to his ex-wife’s house and whether she’d take him in.
Cappello called Skip in. From Skip’s pilfered phone list, the members of the task force had identified nineteen people who’d been at the meeting the night before, and fanned out to talk to them. Alex, Di, Sonny, and Missy had been left to Skip.
“Nini?” said Skip.
“Hodges has already seen her. She verifies Abe’s story. Says she got home about eleven thirty-five.”
“Pretty damn precise.”
“She was keeping a close watch on the time. Worried about getting enough sleep.”
“What about Abe’s ex-wife?”
“She had a blind date last night—perfect alibi because he never saw her before. Other than that, she seems okay, no criminal record. She didn’t mention the baby-sitter to anyone.”
“So it still looks as if it’s in the group.”
“Joe thinks it’s pretty certain and so do I. You?”
“Yeah.”
“You can forget that stupid undercover business. There’s no reason to hide anything now. Go to Di’s first, will you? Maybe she’ll give you the phone list.”
“Want to come?”
“No thanks.” Cappello sighed and Skip knew she did want to, wanted to be out on the street. “I’m going to stay here and act as message central.”
If Skip hadn’t be
en in such a grim mood, she’d have found it comic, what she had to do next—change identities in front of people’s very eyes. She was tempted to go home and put on a uniform—it would lend authority—but wasn’t about to take the time.
To Di’s intercom she said, “Police. Skip Langdon.”
In a moment Di appeared on her balcony, flowing pink nightgown spilling boobs. “Skip, what is it? Why are the police here?”
“I’m a detective, Di.” She held up the badge. “I need to talk to you.”
“Now?”
Di was so sleepy (or such a good actress), it took a while to persuade her, but eventually Skip was seated in the incense-smelling living room, candles lit for illumination. She had thrown a T-shirt over her nightgown and looked almost as good with no makeup as she usually did. Skip wondered if that was the purpose of the candles.
“A couple of things, Di. I need you to tell me what you did after you left PJ’s.”
“Why?”
“Just tell me.”
“But why? Something bad’s happened, hasn’t it? Why are you here in the middle of the night?”
“There’s been a murder.”
She shrank back, covering her heart with her hand. “Who?”
“For right now, I’m going to ask the questions, Di. Where did you go after you left PJ’s?”
“I came home.”
“Alone?”
“No. Steve came with me—the new guy from the group.”
He hadn’t mentioned that—only that he’d walked her to her car. “Steve Steinman?” she said.
Di looked blank. “I don’t know. The big guy. Cute.”
“How long did he stay?”
“An hour—two, maybe.”
“Till midnight?”
“Maybe not. Maybe till about eleven.”
“May I ask what you talked about?” No, I may not. Did I?
“What we talked about? I don’t know. He told me about L.A. He used to live there.”
“And he left around eleven?”
She shrugged. “About that, I guess.”
“Did you go out again?”
“No.”
“Talk to anyone on the phone?”
“No.”
“A young girl was murdered tonight. A sixteen-year-old straight-A student. Do you know anything about it?”
“Do I? Why me?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Of course not. But who? What girl?” She was getting upset, voice starting to give way, tears welling.
“It was Abe Morrison’s baby-sitter.”
“Oh, no!”
Skip didn’t say anything.
“Sixteen?”
Skip nodded.
“Nooo! A little girl!” She got up and started throwing things, magazines she’d had stacked on the floor, a book from the coffee table. It was so sudden, Skip would have thought it an act if not for the anguish of her cry.
Skip stood. “Di, take it easy.” She reached for Di, thinking to steady her, and caught her eye. A strange look passed between them. Skip couldn’t have said what it looked like to Di, but to her it seemed like mother to child, herself being the mother.
Di’s shoulders sagged. “I can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting a child.”
“I know. Nobody can.” It wasn’t the time to bring up certain little unpleasantnesses—if Di was sticky about the phone list, she’d have to get a court order to get it. “I was wondering. Would you mind if I borrowed the phone list from tonight?”
“The phone list? I only have the one copy. Do you want someone’s number?”
“I’ll copy it and return it first thing tomorrow.”
As if hypnotized, Di glided to the bedroom, came back with it. She looked puzzled, but at least didn’t ask any more questions.
Skip counted twenty-eight names. She said, “Did you happen to notice how many people were at the meeting?”
“Forty-two.” Di answered automatically, belatedly came alert. “What does that have to do with anything? Skip”—long pause—“could I see your badge up close?”
“Sure.” Skip produced it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to doubt you. I just don’t see what the meeting has to do with a murder … and it’s hard to see you as an authority figure.”
Skip grabbed on to the last part, hoping to distract her. “I know; I should have worn my uniform.” She flashed as much of a smile as she could muster. “I just thought you could help me with the names of people who aren’t on the phone list.”
“But if they aren’t on the list, that means they don’t want to be called.”
“This is a murder case.”
“Wait a minute.” She finally seemed to get it. “You suspect someone in the group.”
Skip shook her head. “We don’t have a suspect yet. We just want to talk to everybody who was there. Ask them if they know anything.” Do I have to spell it out for you?
She was caught between her innate cop’s need not to tell one fact more than she had to and her need to be polite enough to get Di to help her. She couldn’t come back tomorrow. Di was going to hate her before she left.
Di looked at the phone list. “I know all these people. The new black man is named Jim—he came to my party with the musician. The man who delivered my flowers was there too—Adam. The cute one. That’s two more.”
“How about the short guy in the corner?”
“The one with the glasses? Oh, the other one. With the chipped tooth. I think his name’s Chuck.”
“You wouldn’t know his last name, would you?”
Di shook her head.
Tediously, laboriously, Skip brought up every face she could remember, and most of them Di was able to connect with a name on the phone list. The others she knew only by first names.
But this is only a first shot, Skip thought. We’ll get them. Eventually, we’ll get them all. If it matters.
She had a feeling the Axeman was someone she already knew.
“You’ve been a big help, Di. Now I wonder if we could talk about your criminal record.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re Jacqueline Breaux, aren’t you?”
She looked alarmed. “How do you know that?”
“I know that, and I know you have a criminal record.”
Tears came, but Di was quiet. She seemed to have spent her passion a moment ago. “I thought that was in the past,” she said at last. “Excuse me a moment.”
She found a box of tissues, plucked one, and sniffled. “You think I abused my own kids and now I’ve killed a child?”
“You choked a child, Di.”
“I didn’t!”
“You pleaded guilty to it.”
“Could I ask you something? How do you think I live?” Her voice was alive with indignation, challenge. She was no longer the victim, but her own champion, full of self-righteous fury.
Oh, boy, thought Skip. She said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I have no visible means of support. I was convicted of abusing my child. Do you really think that eighteen years later I’m still getting alimony from the husband who had every reason to divorce me? Don’t you wonder how I can afford this apartment? Living like this? Do you think I knock over gas stations, or what?”
“Well? What?”
“I’m being paid off, that’s what. If you don’t believe me, look up the court records of our divorce. They’ll show you something you won’t believe. I got custody of the kids. Me. The supposed abuser. My husband didn’t contest it. You know why? Because that was part of the deal too.”
She picked up a candle and began to play with it. Skip had the feeling she was an ex-smoker, would have smoked a cigarette a decade or so ago. “I knew he was rough with the kids. I just didn’t know how rough. Remember my share? I had a rough childhood too. I didn’t know what was normal. I just didn’t know.” She blew the candle out, lit it again. “I did know he choked Bennett. I caught him, and I stopped i
t, but I didn’t know it had gone so far. It was just one of the things he did that I didn’t like. I was always stopping him and he was always telling me I was spoiling the kids, I was too soft on them, they were already ‘rotten as mud.’ That was his phrase, ‘rotten as mud.’ That’s what he said about a couple of little kids who’d been beaten. Beaten and other things. I never saw the marks on Bennett. Not till the police got there. A neighbor noticed and called them.”
Her voice was strong, getting stronger. “Do you know who I was married to? Walt Hindman. Do you know him?” She scanned Skip’s face for a reaction.
“Everybody knows the Hindmans.”
“Walt Hindman wasn’t about to get hauled into court for child abuse. So it was all nicely hushed up. I pleaded guilty and it was the best deal I ever made. He got out of my life and out of my kids’—and in addition to everything else paid all our shrink bills for the next ten years. I got generous child support and an annuity for the rest of my life. And he put both the kids through college.” For a moment her face grew soft. “He didn’t mean to be a bad father.” She caught herself. “Listen to me, making excuses for him. He was an animal, I know that now. I just thought that was pretty much the way everyone was. And I wasn’t innocent, I know that too. I let him get away with it. But I faced that and I’m stronger for it.” She sounded it. Or she was a very good liar.
Skip said, “Do you have anything on paper?”
“Lots of stuff. But nothing admitting he did anything.” She turned up her palms, smiled her most ethereal smile. “All you’ve got is my word for that.”
TWENTY-FIVE
IT WAS NEARLY three when she banged on Alex’s door. Lamar answered, wearing a pair of pajamas that were probably as old as she was. He looked wizened and sad in them. “Hey, Lamar. Remember me?”
“Step in the light there. I think I do, I just can’t call your name.”
“Margaret. But you can call me Skip this time.”
“Well, I know I’ve met you somewhere.”
“Is Alex home?”
“Elec? You want to see Elec?”
“Dad, what the hell’s going on?” Alex had walked into the living room.
