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

by Julie Smith

  “Um. Three people dead? Couldn’t he just join Toastmasters or something?”

  “Oh, Skip, you’re the funniest thing.”

  “What makes you think it’s a man?”

  “A man?”

  “You keep saying ‘he.’ ”

  “Oh, I know it is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Once again speaking as a therapist, it’s not a woman’s crime.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, for one thing, he calls himself the Axeman. What woman would do that?”

  A clever one. One trying to fool somebody. Or a crazy one. You, maybe. Skip took a bite to avoid having to answer.

  “For another, he strangles. A woman wouldn’t be strong enough.”

  Goose bumps broke out on Skip’s arms. Her scalp prickled. “Who do you think is doing it, then?”

  “Abe.” Di’s eyes were bland, her voice matter of fact.

  “Why Abe?”

  “Intuition.”

  “Wait a minute. That was a pretty strong statement. It must be more than intuition.”

  “No. Just a feeling.” She smiled without showing teeth and Skip knew why—they probably had canary feathers stuck between them.

  “Tell me something. I never get feelings like that. Would I if I knew hypnosis?”

  “Oh, sure. It can really put you in touch with your inner self.”

  “Not to be confused with my higher power.” She was sorry the instant she said it. But Di seemed barely to notice.

  ”Same difference.”

  “How would I go about learning? Could I do self-hypnosis?”

  “Not only could but should—it’s the only way to go. You could learn from books. And there’s lots of good tapes available.”

  “How about a hypnotherapist? Wouldn’t that be the best way?”

  “That would be good.” But she didn’t seem entirely convinced. In fact, Skip got the idea she was a little uncomfortable.

  “Can you recommend one?”

  “Gosh, I really can’t. But you could try the phone book. I’m sure there must be lots of good ones still practicing.”

  “Well, who trained you?”

  “That was so long ago…” She let the thought trail off and her face went vague, but Skip kept intense eyes on her. It did no good. She only smiled the toothless smile again.

  “Gosh, Di, you’ve never told me about that part of your life.” She knew she was being transparent, but she was getting the idea that Di was so self-involved she didn’t take in information like other people.

  “Oh, well, I was very successful. I had patients standing in line, practically. And I made a lot of money too.”

  “I thought Walt supported you.”

  This time she gave Skip a smile with some teeth in it. “He does. I spent it all—all the work money. Going to Europe and things.”

  “Where did you work?”

  “Oh, out of my home mostly. Most therapists do.”

  “You never had a job-type job?”

  “Oh, sure. I worked at a little place out on Airline Highway. I don’t even know if it’s still there.” She shuddered. “Worst experience of my life.”

  “Why?”

  “I hate authority. Don’t you?”

  Skip left feeling disoriented, even a little battered. Di had certainly come up with some innovative ideas, at least in her own mind. Not exactly clever, but transparently self-serving. Skip rubbed her head.

  What makes a person so dim?

  But she knew the answer—utter self-absorption. And if Di was the Axeman, the self-absorption might work to Skip’s advantage. Know-it-alls had to tell people how much they knew; and in doing it, they gave things away. By claiming to be a voodoo priestess, when in fact she’d probably simply read a book about voodoo, she had given away something important—that she was a liar.

  Probably she’s no hypnotherapist either. In a way it’s a shame about that annuity—it’s probably kept her from doing anything with her life.

  But it certainly hadn’t kept her from having fantasies.

  If Di was the Axeman, what was her motive? Was it the one she suggested—to get attention? Surely not. Even if that was part of it, there had to be more. Maybe it was something from childhood—she’d been hurt and now she liked to hurt other people. Shrinks were always coming up with that one. Skip sighed.

  It’s probably right most of the time.

  She went back to her office and turned to “Clinics” in the Yellow Pages. There were pages and pages of them. She tried hospitals, then mental health. And sure enough there was a place on Airline Highway: The New Resources Pavilion. She dialed, asked for personnel, and got no answer. Well, it was a Saturday. She asked for administration, and still got nowhere. Finally, in desperation, she said to the operator, “I’m trying to find out about someone who used to work there. Who could I ask on a Saturday?”

  “Well, I been here forever. Who was it?”

  “Jackie Breaux.”

  “Lord, yes. Jackie Breaux. Haven’t thought about her in ten years.”

  “What did she do there?”

  “She was a nurse.”

  “Is there anyone there today who might remember her?”

  “Let me look.” The friendly voice was back in a minute. It was funny, Skip reflected. Some people were wildly suspicious when you weren’t up to anything and others were incautiously helpful when they ought to keep their mouths shut. “I’m going to connect you with Suzanne LeHardy. She’s been here for umpteen years.”

  LeHardy was the charge nurse on the third floor and she’d worked with Jackie Breaux for two years. Jackie had been a psychiatric nurse.

  Skip said, “I’ve got a job application from her and I’m trying to make a decision over the weekend. Hope you don’t mind my calling.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, there seems to be some confusion. She’s applying for a job as a therapist, specializing in hypnotherapy. I thought she worked there in that capacity.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “Maybe I misunderstood. Did she ever assist in hypnosis sessions or anything like that?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Well, let me rephrase that: No. Not in any legitimate way.”

  “Oh, gosh, that sounds ominous.”

  “Well, Jackie’s a good worker, she just… doesn’t go by the rules.”

  “Were you her supervisor?”

  “For part of the time, yes.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why she left?”

  “Oh, gosh, should I tell you? I have a feeling personnel might have its own policy on that. I think you’d better call back Monday.”

  Skip said she would. If there had been patient abuse, it would certainly help her case.

  She went in to see Cappello. The way she told it, Di’s door had been not only ajar, but nearly wide open. Skip had seen the scarf in the living room and about that time Di had come home. They’d had lunch, she’d gone to the bathroom, and seen the gloves there. She’d seen a typed grocery list on Di’s refrigerator, leading to the speculation that maybe she owned a typewriter. She had a criminal record (though she glibly explained it away) and she’d lied about other things. There was the possibility of patient abuse at her job.

  Cappello said, “Did you actually see a typewriter?”

  If Skip said yes, Cappello would want to try for a warrant and that would mean lying to a judge. She wasn’t about to do that. “Just the note,” she said.

  Cappello shrugged. “I hate to take a chance on a warrant at this point, but bring her in and talk to her. See if she’ll admit to having a typewriter and let us compare it with the Axeman’s notes.”

  Skip thought she should have been exultant on the way back to Di’s, but she wasn’t. She wondered what was wrong. Had she gotten too close to Di? Did she like her? Well, yes, she did. Even though Di was a perpetual bullshit machine who thought the world revolved around her, there was something likable about the woman, some
sense of meaning no harm. Could you murder three people and still exude that? Maybe, if you were a sociopath. People liked sociopaths, even juries. Why shouldn’t Skip?

  Di wasn’t alone. She was with two uniformed officers.

  “Skip. I know you’re in Homicide,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you with this—you know these officers?”

  Introductions were made and then Di explained: “After you left, I went through the house one more time, just to make sure nothing was missing. But guess what?” She sounded genuinely puzzled. “I found something that isn’t mine. I mean, somebody was in here, but they brought something rather than took anything. What kind of burglar is that?”

  “What did you find?”

  “A typewriter. An old portable typewriter.”

  Skip felt sweat on her neck, at her waist, her armpits.

  Oh, shit.

  “I guess we’d better confiscate it,” she said. “We’ll get the crime lab to dust it. You wouldn’t have any gloves I could borrow, would you?”

  “Skip, could I ask you something? What kind of burglar would do this?”

  “Are you sure it isn’t yours? Maybe you lent it to someone and they returned it.”

  “I’ve never even owned a typewriter. And I certainly wouldn’t have one now. If I needed something like that, I’d get a computer.”

  There were no prints on the typewriter. But that was of minor interest considering the real news—it was the one on which the Axeman had written his notes.

  I wonder, thought Skip, if there’s a suicide hot line I can call.

  Cappello was as close to losing it as Skip had ever seen her. “Did you actually step into Di’s apartment?”

  “That’s about all I did—stepped in to call Di.”

  “And that’s when Di came home? She actually found you in her apartment?”

  “Oh, shit, Sylvia. I’ve been kicking myself around the block about this. I know what a lawyer could make of it—I planted the evidence, but miscalculated; Di came home too soon.”

  “Di’s thought of that too. Count on it.” Cappello spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen, I’m sending someone else to watch Di tonight. You take the night off, okay?”

  If Di’s the Axeman and she gets off because I screwed up, I’m going to die. I’m just not going to be able to get through it.

  In fact, I might die anyway.

  She was so depressed she didn’t even phone Steve. She went and got a joint from Jimmy Dee, and tried to think of a way out.

  TWENTY-NINE

  SUNDAYS WERE GREAT as far as Sonny was concerned. Casualties from the Saturday-Night Knife and Gun Club were more or less taken care of—oh, there might be one or two still lying on gurneys if there was a bed shortage, which there usually was, but they were going to make it. And if they didn’t, it wasn’t Sonny’s fault.

  There could be an auto accident, but there probably wouldn’t be. Some amateur handyman might cut his hand or something. Maybe a kid would fall and break a leg. An old lady could be sitting in church and notice her ankles were swollen. Everybody’d be too hung over to commit violent crimes.

  If every day were like Sunday, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting through the damn rotation. He strode in the back door of the hospital, whistling, in a hell of a mood. Hardly a soul stirred in the waiting room. A tired-looking black woman with a toddler at her heels was shaking an old man sitting in a wheelchair near the wall. He had fallen forward in sleep—no telling how long he’d been waiting. “Daddy? Daddy! Oh, my Lord, he’s in a coma!”

  She was hysterical, or maybe nuts, but Sonny was in a great mood. He was supposed to be a healer and this morning he felt like one. He walked over to the woman, thinking to help, and as he did, the old man fell to the floor. Sonny dropped and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. The man’s wrist was cold.

  The woman was wailing, “I had to go back home, be with my baby. I couldn’t stay; I just couldn’t stay. Now my daddy’s done gone into a coma and I couldn’t be here to do nothin’ about it.”

  Sonny felt as cold as the man on the floor. Woodenly, his arms heavy and mechanical, those of a toy soldier, he started doing chest compressions, knowing there was no use. The triage nurse rushed by, came back with help.

  When they had him on a roller, Sonny leaped aboard, straddled him, and kept working, looking into a pair of fixed and dilated pupils. Futilely they went through the motions—the shock, the IV, the tube; when he saw the flat line on the monitor, he didn’t even wait for the charge resident to say the phrase “DOA.” He stopped working, and left, his own chest constricted. He had thought of going out again, to get out in the air, but he’d forgotten the man’s daughter would still be in the waiting room.

  “My daddy? My daddy?” she said, unable to ask the question.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I couldn’t stay with him; I wanted to, I just couldn’t.”

  “It’s not your fault, there was nothing you could do. It was just your daddy’s time.”

  “My daddy ain’t dead. He ain’t dead! He just in a coma.”

  He probably shouldn’t be dead. Probably wouldn’t be if he’d gone to a private clinic, if he hadn’t been a poor man who’d had to sit for hours in a waiting room, silently slipping through the cracks, dying with no one even noticing.

  He left her without another word, went back outside, stood on the ramp, and took deep breaths.

  It shouldn’t have happened, it shouldn’t have happened.

  Blood pounded in his ears along with the refrain. It wasn’t my fault; didn’t happen on my shift.

  Why couldn’t he convince himself?

  He went in with a black cloud over his head, engulfing him. Before, he had been quick of step, senses alert, a healer. Now he felt as dead as the man on the floor, as depressed and guilty as his daughter. About as much like a healer as the bewildered kid hanging on to her.

  The thing wouldn’t lift. All morning he went through the motions—asking questions, comforting, helping out where he could—and it was all empty action, all performed by a robot. Sonny was hovering somewhere above himself, not the one doing the work at all.

  Missy brought sandwiches at mid-afternoon, and he was surprised to see her, had forgotten she was coming. He wasn’t hungry at all.

  She said, “Want to go up on the roof?”

  “Sure.” He was surprised to find that he did, that once more he longed for air, for relief from these yellowish tile walls, from this suffering. He was surprised to find he had any preferences at all.

  Knowing he hadn’t eaten before he left home, she had brought egg salad on whole wheat, a sort of delayed breakfast. She’d found potato chips without salt (she disapproved strongly of salt), had sliced carrot sticks, and had even somehow dug up some peanut butter cookies, his favorite.

  He was annoyed by her solicitude. By her relentlessness, by her neediness, by her inability simply to let him be.

  She flapped her T-shirt against her skin. “Whoo. A breeze, finally. You have to go this far up to find one. Honestly, I think we’ll have to shave that poor little dog of yours—he gets so hot, he just sits and pants. He was so cute after you left this morning. You know what he did? He tried to get up in my lap, but he couldn’t reach, so he figured out how to get up on the coffee table and jump on the sofa from there. Wasn’t that smart?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Sonny? Sonny, what is it? You’re not even eating your sandwich.”

  “Missy, you’re not my mom.”

  “I didn’t say I was your mom. I’m your girlfriend and I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Oh, Sonny.” She rubbed his thigh, looked pleadingly into his eyes. He could have thrown up.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “Would you leave me alone for once? I get so damn tired of your everlasting loving care, I could jump off this roof.”

  “I just want to help.” Her voice was low, almost a whi
sper, and she looked down as she spoke, as if in shame, a little girl chastised.

  “Well, back off.”

  “You don’t know how bad I feel for you when you’re this way. It’s as if your pain is my pain—don’t you understand that?”

  “You know what, Missy? All this helpful mothering you’re always doing is really just a bid for attention. You want to feel okay about yourself, so you find somebody to help. Well, guess what? It’s not very goddamn helpful!”

  “Sonny, you’re yelling!”

  “The more I know you, the more I don’t see you growing up. You’re stuck in childhood, always looking for that nice daddy you never had—you can’t stand to see me sad or moody or anything else for a minute because then I’m not being your damn daddy.”

  He was starting to gibber, but he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t seem to get back on a logical train of thought. He knew he was mad at Missy, even though he might not be too clear about the reasons, and that was good enough. He just wanted to yell, spit out whatever came into his mind, at high volume.

  “You think you’re the only one in the world who was ever molested? You’re making a goddamn career out of it, Missy. When are you going to get over it? It’s time!”

  “Sonny! Oh, Sonny!”

  “I’m sick and tired of having to be so fucking understanding all the time. Oh, Missy’s like this because her life’s been so hard. She doesn’t know when to quit because there weren’t any boundaries in her family. Boundaries! Goddamn shrinky word! You taught me to say it yourself. Well, when are you going to get some goddamn boundaries? When are you going to learn that I’m me and you’re you, and to fucking leave me alone once in a while?”

  Her fist came down in the middle of his chest. “You fucker!” It was a meaningless insult, two syllables of nothingness, but her tone was as jagged and dangerous as a bread knife.

  Sonny! Oh, Sonny! He remembered the desperate look in her eyes as she had said it, realized he hadn’t taken it in, and should have.

  Her open hand connected with his ear, with the whole side of his head, knocking him sideways. He wouldn’t have thought she had that much force in her, couldn’t understand what he had unleashed.