Jazz Funeral (Skip Langdon #3) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  “I’ll never ever break away from— Never ever break away from—”

  Irma did it five times, to be exact, but who was counting? “Never ever—”

  “Melody!”

  She came back from the tunnel she’d been in, the odd gray space between death and life. Or perhaps she merely awoke from the deep trance of the music. She never knew, knew only that her mother’s voice brought her back to consciousness. She screamed.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  Surely her mother didn’t know, couldn’t tell from such a cursory glance, but nonetheless Patty strode instantly to the other side of the garage and unplugged the piano.

  “Young lady, what have you done to your hair?”

  It wasn’t the tearful reunion a daughter might have hoped for, but Melody reminded herself that Patty knew she hadn’t been kidnapped and murdered; knew she’d run away and knew why. Patty had reason to kill her, not save her. Yet she had saved her, had disabled her weapon, seemingly without even thinking about it. Still, this hint. Somewhere deep in Melody’s gut was a yearning that gnawed and burned; the way a bullet wound would feel, she thought—deep, hot pain.

  “Hello, Mother. Did you hear me sing?”

  Patty nodded. “I didn’t know it was you at first.”

  “I saw you at the Oriole.”

  “I’ve been frantic, Melody. I’ve been trying to find you for days, just to talk to you. Look, the cops may have had the same thought I did. For all I know, they’ve been watching the garage. I have, when I could manage. So let’s be fast.” She opened her purse. “This is for you.”

  She held out a packet of money, went back for another, held it out as well. “It’s fifty thousand dollars. That’s the best we can do. Your father and I understand why you did what you did; we agree you have to leave, it’s the only real answer right now.” She looked at her watch. “Come on. I’ll drive you to the airport.”

  “I suppose you already have a ticket for me?”

  “I’ll buy you one. To wherever you want to go.”

  “My father doesn’t know about this.”

  “What?”

  “You’re lying. You killed my brother, didn’t you? And now you think you can get rid of me just as easily. You never wanted me in the first place. I was just a convenience for you.”

  “I didn’t kill Ham and you know it.”

  “The hell I know it! Nobody else could have.” Melody didn’t shout the words, didn’t hurl them as she wanted to. She could speak only in a hoarse whisper. Her throat was nearly closed against the rage inside, boding rage, a force all its own, gathering itself into a maelstrom, a heavy thing sucking desperately downward, roiling and circling endlessly upon itself, gathering black, ugly energy as it circled.

  Her mother spoke calmly. “You’re a child. You don’t know anything about the world.”

  “I’m a child! I’m a child and I don’t know anything about the world! And you’re fucking kicking me out.” She was trying to grasp it, that her mother could do this. She was conscious of an odd ringing in her ears, as if she were falling through space so fast the pressure kept changing.

  “Watch your mouth, Melody.” Her mother’s own mouth curled in annoyance, and that was the only emotion Melody could see on her face. There was something else there, but it was not a feeling, not anger or self-pity or love for her child, nothing so human as any of these. It was a terrifying determination, a steeliness, an adamacy so unyielding it made Melody think of pictures she had seen of New York, of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building. This thing, this obduracy, this force, seemed as solid, as impossible to move, as one of those.

  It frightened Melody, but it fueled the rage.

  It’s not right. This isn’t a mother!

  She knew that. She might be a child with a child’s knowledge of the world, but she knew she had been cheated, she deserved better.

  “Watch my mouth? Watch my fucking mouth! You kill my brother and try to buy me off and all you can say is don’t say fuck? Well, fuck, Mother!” She was screaming now, the whirlpool had worked its way past the block of fear and grief in her throat. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fuck you, Mother!”

  “I swear to God I don’t know why I don’t just leave you here to kill yourself. That’s what you were trying to do, wasn’t it? Why don’t you do it. Melody?” She plugged the piano in again. “We’d all be better off.”

  “You want me dead.” She said the words slowly. It took a moment to sink in. And then she flew off the piano stool, knocking off the carefully placed vase of water as she did it, but she had moved too fast, she wasn’t touching the piano now. She was pummeling her mother, tearing her hair out, kicking her. Yelling,

  “Die, you bitch! Die!” Even when Patty fell over and hit her head on the concrete floor of the garage, Melody didn’t stop. Simply jumped on top and beat her all the more. Even when she heard a command that brooked no argument: “Stop! Melody, stop!”

  She didn’t. But then she felt strong arms grab hers, pud her off, and by then it was too late to face the intruder, to turn around. It was all over anyway. Her energy was spent, the maelstrom dissolved. She felt hot and ashamed, couldn’t believe what she’d done. The sight of her mother crumpled on the floor made her want to cry. But it didn’t stop her from fighting.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The girl writhed and twisted in Skip’s arms like some species of giant worm. Skip heard herself saying over and over: “It’s okay. It’s okay, Melody,” as if the girl were listening, or cared. She might as well have been in a coma for all she probably heard. And meanwhile she was dragging Skip around the garage like a teddy bear.

  Finally she changed her tactic and shouted, “Melody, be still!” and the girl came out of it. Quit fighting, twisted, and looked up at her. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Detective Skip Langdon, NOPD.”

  Melody went limp. “Oh. It’s over.”

  “No, it isn’t.” It was Patty. Skip had nearly forgotten about her. She whirled, still holding Melody.

  Patty was holding a gun in both hands. Skip’s heart leapt to her throat. How had Patty gotten her gun?

  But it wasn’t hers. It was probably one she’d pulled from her purse, one of the little gifts from a doting husband. Uptown ladies wouldn’t be caught dead without. In New Orleans, people didn’t just complain about crime, they all thought they were Dirty Harry.

  “Patty, it’s okay. Put the gun down.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Drop the gun first and we’ll talk.”

  “Let her go or I’ll shoot.” Her voice had risen.

  Gingerly, Skip let Melody loose, but the girl didn’t move.

  Patty said, “Melody, step to Skip’s right.”

  She obeyed, rubbing her elbows as if she were cold.

  “Patty, everything’s under control now. Give me the gun.”

  “Shut up!”

  “She’s going to kill us,” said Melody. “There’s nothing else she can do now. She tried to buy me off, but I didn’t go for it. So she has to loll me.”

  “Shut up!”

  Skip said, “Patty. Think about what you’re doing.”

  “Ham was my father! My own mother slept with her stepson and lied to everybody for the next seventeen years. Did you ready think I’d go away quietly, Mother? I’d just take your money and go? Just because I had no father and no mother either?” She spat out the last sentence as if it were poison she’d somehow ingested.

  Skip was terrified. This was guaranteed to push Patty over the edge. She spoke in the calmest voice she could muster. “Melody, we can talk about all that later. For right now, let’s just—”

  But Patty interrupted as if mother and daughter were alone. “I had to, goddammit! You think I wanted to? I had a sick mother and a family to support, and a husband who was too drunk to get it up. What the hell was I supposed to do?” Skip made a quick calculation: Ham had been thirty-four when he died, and Melody was now sixteen. All
owing for pregnancy, that meant Ham must have been about seventeen at the time—and rather a geeky kid, according to Alison. Patty had been twenty-three and must have looked like a Christmas package to a boy like that. If she’d wanted him, she could certainly have had him. But the question was, why would she want him? By all accounts she was devoted to George and always had been.

  “I loved your father very very much. Melody.”

  “Which father, Mother?”

  “You selfish little bitch—you wouldn’t know what it’s like to love anybody but your own bony little self. I had a whole family to take care of. And you know what? Your father hated me. We know now it was the booze, but he swore at me, he called me names—I’m going to tell you something you should know, young lady—he even raised his hand to me.”

  “My father wouldn’t hit anybody.”

  “He threatened me! He threatened to divorce me!”

  “Oh.” The look on Melody’s face said she finally understood why her whole world had been destroyed. It was so wise and so sad, tears sprung to Skip’s eyes, the last thing she needed now.

  “But he wouldn’t,” said the girl, “if you had a baby. George just wouldn’t do that. You were going to lose your meal ticket.”

  If she had a baby, legally George would have to support the child. But there was probably more to it than that. Patty had probably calculated—quite correctly—that he would want the baby even if he didn’t want her; and so he’d stay married to her.

  “You don’t understand a lot of things, little girl, and this is one of them. I loved your dad more than anything. I sometimes think I use my mother and family as an excuse because I wanted to keep him so bad.”

  A wised-up woman a moment ago, Melody was now the jeering teenager. “Oh, sure you did! Oh, sure! And my dad saw right through your game. He wasn’t nasty to you ‘cause he was a drunk, Mother. He was trying to get rid of you because he saw through you! He saw what a money-grubbing, gold-digging bitch you were!”

  Skip said, “Melody, why don’t we—”

  But it was too late. Patty had fired and Melody was lying on the floor; Skip couldn’t tell if she’d been hit or dropped down for protection. Patty took a step back.

  Skip held out her hand. “Patty, it’s okay. We’ll get some help right away. Just give me the gun and it’ll all be okay.”

  She fired again. Knocked off her pins, either by the impact or the shock, Skip hit the floor as well, aware of searing, burning pain. And blood. Lots of it, pouring out of her, pouring onto the floor.

  Melody screamed, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” and sat up. She seemed fine, hadn’t been hit.

  Skip stared up at her executioner, wondering if she’d keep firing, one shot after another, to make sure she was dead.

  But Patty pointed the gun at Melody. Her eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying, and her hands were shaking. She kept staring at the girl, losing her grip a little more and a little more, her hands getting shakier and shakier. Skip didn’t say a word. This was a woman capable of shooting her own daughter, at least at that moment. She was having trouble with it, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it. Hoping Melody would have the sense to keep her mouth shut, Skip held her breath. She saw Patty bunch her muscles, gathering her strength, and braced herself for the report. But Patty didn’t move. A tear fell from her left eye.

  And then she turned and bolted, dropping the gun.

  Skip scrambled up, ignoring the pain, and ran after her, chased her down the street, tackled her, hit her in the face she was so mad. Blood dripped onto her, onto Patty’s nose, and she screamed. The blood had come from Skip’s head. How long could she stay conscious?

  Melody said, “Don’t move.”

  She was pointing Patty’s gun at the two of them. Damn! Why hadn’t Skip thought of that scenario?

  “Uh … do you need your cuffs?”

  “That’s okay. I think you should put the gun down, though.” She put a knee in Patty’s back, pulled her cuffs from her belly pack, but saw that simple cuffing wasn’t going to be good enough. She was going to pass out any second, and Melody still had the gun; if Patty tried to run, she might shoot her.

  “Come on,” she said, but Patty didn’t budge.

  How much strength did she have left? Mustering all of it, she dragged Patty off the sidewalk and cuffed her to the rail of an iron fence.

  Then she put out her hand for the gun. Its comforting heft in her palm, she gasped, “Call 911.” And sat down gratefully, waiting for oblivion. Melody pulled off her T-shirt, applied it to Skip’s head, and disappeared.

  But as her breathing slowed, Skip realized she didn’t even feel faint. And yet she must have lost a lot of blood, not to mention having a bullet in her skull. She pulled herself up and caught her reflection in a car window.

  The bullet wasn’t in her after all. She was fine. But what she saw made her feel a lot fainter than the wound—the thing had taken out a path of hair as it traveled along the right side of her head.

  Well, no way was she going to the hospital. No way! These two were hers and she was doing the questioning.

  O’Rourke was surprisingly docile about it.

  Maybe he thinks I’ll bleed to death.

  She got some first aid from colleagues while she waited for George Brocato and two lawyers to arrive—one for Patty and one for Melody. After Melody conferred with her father and lawyer, Skip joined her in Juvenile. She seemed in good spirits, glad to see Skip. “Hi. You look good. Do you feel okay? You were really white for a while.”

  She’d been wearing Rwanda’s wig at the garage. Now her hair was a lifeless white, with the purple streak Flip had described.

  She managed a smile, and it was pretty. There was something about her face—an alertness, an eagerness, a willingness to meet the world—that reminded Skip of the look in the eyes of a six-week-old kitten. A look of optimism a cat would outgrow the first time it met a German shepherd. A baby-animal look so vulnerable, so hopeful, it made you want to rush right out and repair the hole in the ozone. Skip had done nothing but worry about this child for a week, and now Melody was worried about her.

  “I’m fine, thanks, but my hairdresser had a stroke.”

  “You should get a CAT scan.”

  “I will. How about you? You okay?”

  Melody nodded.

  “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “They told me you were looking for me. Thanks, I guess.”

  “I almost caught up with you once. At Madeleine Richard’s. But someone else got there first.”

  “My mom, I guess. I think she borrowed my Aunt Des’s car. Is she all right?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet.”

  “I’m sorry I beat her up.”

  “I guess you were mad.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  George cleared his throat.

  Skip took the hint. “Do you feel up to talking?”

  George said, “Does it have to be now?”

  “It’s okay, Daddy. I’d rather.”

  “Only if I sit in,” said George. He was wearing a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, dressed for a Sunday. Tension showed in every inch of him.

  Melody said, “Ummm. I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “Uh, could it be just Anthony?” Her lawyer.

  “There are things you don’t want me to hear?”

  “Not yet. I’ll tell you, but not yet, okay?”

  Skip got Melody some coffee, and when they were settled, she said, “Melody, I have to ask you something important. Did you actually see her kill Ham?”

  Melody opened her mouth to answer, closed it again, stared out the window for a while. Finally she said, “I guess I heard it. I didn’t want to think that’s really what it was, but”—she looked down at her lap—“I guess it was.”

  “What happened. Melody? You overheard them fighting?”

  “Well, I had a bad day that day—”

  “I know all about Flip and Blair.�
��

  A slight tinge of pink appeared on Melody’s cheeks. Even with the blond and purple hair, her young skin managed to look healthy. “I guess you do. I went to Ham’s all upset and just let myself in, as usual. But he and Patty were yelling so loud they didn’t hear me.” Patty, not Mother.

  “I heard my name, so I tiptoed down the hall and listened. He was trying to get her to do something, I guess—it must have been about selling the business. They had this offer that they were all fighting over. Patty had a vote, but she always took my father’s side. He didn’t want to sell, but I guess Ham did. I know he’d put a lot of his money into Second Line Square and he’d lent a lot to Ti-Belle. I guess he needed the sale because he needed money.” She shrugged. “I mean, I’ve had several days to try to piece it together, and that’s what it must have been. I guess she refused and he threatened her—and that’s about where I came in. He said he’d tell Dad and he’d tell me. About—you know. But then, I didn’t know. That’s why I listened.

  “I couldn’t believe what he said. I couldn’t forget it, though: ‘What would Melody think if she knew I was her father?’” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “I still don’t believe it. Do you know how it is when you’ve thought one thing all your life—the most basic thing, the simplest thing—and that thing isn’t true? Your world’s upside down— nothing is right. You just can’t figure anything out. And then there was Blair and Flip and all—I just didn’t have a life anymore. I had to leave. I don’t believe what a baby I was. How innocent.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because when I left, I thought that was the worst thing that could happen to me.”

  She must have awakened the next day to the news that her brother was dead and known then that her mother was the murderer—and that she was the only witness.

  “You poor kid.”

  Melody looked away, embarrassed.

  “What happened when you heard all that? Did you say anything?”