The Axeman's Jazz (Skip Langdon Mystery Series #2) (The Skip Langdon Series) (37 page)

He was probably just one of those people who bumbled through life going from one crummy little job to another, living off their relatives when things got tough. Still, somewhere or other he’d gotten together enough money to buy a fancy motorcycle. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder how.

He’d asked her to meet him at his father’s house in Lakeview. So where did Alex live, she wondered? Who the hell was he? She wondered if what she was doing was wise, and immediately shook off the notion.

I’m not like that. I’m going to do what life offers and not be afraid.

Alex had seemed shaken the night before. In the meeting, when he talked about his rage, he had sounded coldly furious, yet conjured for Di an instant vision of a different Alex, red-faced and bulge-veined, near-apoplectic, cold only in the recollection.

Afterward, he had seemed very different indeed. Almost frightened. He had spoken to her with humility, a new deference: “Why didn’t you tell me you were a therapist?”

“Iguess it never seemed important.”

“Di, I’ve got a problem. Have you ever worked with old people?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I never have.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, I haven’t read much about them. What do you know about Alzheimer’s?”

“A little.”

“Could you recognize it?”

“Probably. Why?”

“My dad’s started to worry me. I used to think he was just an old poot. But I swear to God he’s getting worse.” She could have sworn she saw worry in his face, but it was only a flicker and might have been her imagination. If Alex had emotions, he hid them well.

He said, “Could you—I don’t know—look at him or something?”

“Well, I don’t have an office or anything. I’m only practicing a little right now.”

“Come to lunch tomorrow. At his house.”

“His house? Why not yours?”

“I’ve been staying there. I’m too worried to leave him alone.”

“Alex, if it’s that bad, you already know the answer.”

He took her hand as if he needed something to hold on to. “Di, please. I really need another opinion.”

“Someone’s already seen him?”

“I mean another besides mine, which doesn’t count.”

He had told her he’d say she was his girlfriend, which was part of the reason she’d agreed to do it. It would be fun to see Alex pretend to act solicitous. Aside from that, of course, she was glad to help. She’d seen plenty of Alzheimer’s—ought to damn well be able to recognize it.

The old coot who answered the door smelled like he’d already had a beer or two, but not necessarily a bath. “You the girlfriend?”

She gave him her hand. “I’m Di.”

“Lamar. Hot, idn’t it?”

“Unseasonably.”

“They gotta get those rocks back on the moon.”

She heard Alex’s voice: “Okay, Dad, it’s all yours.”

He appeared behind his father, in jeans as usual, meager hair still wet from the shower.

“Too late, son. She’s already here.”

“Hi, Di.” To his father, “I’ll entertain her till you’re ready.”

“Ready now. If she don’t take me like I am right now, she ain’t gonna take me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t take you. Not as far as the corner grocery store.”

Di was tired of standing out in the heat. “Maybe I’d better leave and come back.”

“Elec, you lamebrain. See what you’re doing?” He gestured Di into the house. “Come on, come on, come on, come on.”

The house was dark and mildewy. The furniture looked ancient; the place probably hadn’t been cleaned all summer. A putrid smell from the kitchen said nobody’d taken out the garbage lately.

“I thought we’d eat in the backyard,” Alex said.

“You crazy, boy?” He kicked his son in the shin. “It’s a hundred degrees out there.”

“Ow.” Alex held his leg and hopped around the room. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you old bastard?”

“Who you talking to like that?”

Di resisted the urge to hold her ears.

Skip, parked just down the block, wondered if they always yelled at each other, these two, routinely shattered the quiet of this most domestic of streets.

A man who was setting his sprinkler looked toward the Bignell house in surprise. As soon as he’d gone back inside, Skip got out and slipped to the side of the house. The windows were closed for the air conditioning, but she could see in. The three of them were standing in the living room, Di looking a little awkward, the other two conscious of nothing but each other, faces full of fury, bodies wary, poised against attack.

“You talking to your dad? You got the fuckin’ nerve to talk to your dad like that?”

Di said, “Fellows, don’t you think—”

“Who the hell do you think you are, toots?”

Di smiled. “Now, Lamar, I’m just—”

“Who the fuck are you?”

She was suddenly very solicitous, voice very phony pseudo-soothing. “I’m Di, Lamar. Alex’s girlfriend. Remember now?”

“Why the fuck would I forget whose goddamn girlfriend you are. I wouldn’t want you. No way would I take you whether you was lamebrain’s pick of the week or not. You’re skinny and you haven’t got a brain in your head. Why the fuck would I want you?”

“Language, Dad. This is Lakeview.”

“Language, my ass!” A look passed between Di and Alex. Skip didn’t know what to call it exactly, but thought it wasn’t conspiratorial. There was something excited about it. “I don’t give a shit what kind of fucking language I use. I don’t give a fuck!”

He picked up a pillow from the sofa and threw it at Alex. His son started toward him, but Lamar was gone. Out the door. Beating it down the street, hollering, “Fuuuuuuck! Does everybody hear me? Fuck you, you shitheads!”

Skip fell into step behind him. “Hey, Lamar, whereyat?”

He stopped and turned around. “Hey, Margaret. Margaret, zat you? What you doin’ here, you pretty little thing?”

“Came to see Alex, but I saw you first.”

“No, I saw you first, before lamebrain did, so I get to flirt with you.” He seemed to have forgotten his mission. “Now you come on in and I’ll fix you some iced coffee or somethin’. Sho’ is hot out here, ain’t it?”

“Sure is,” said Skip. “Wonder why that is?”

“We gotta get those rocks back on the moon.”

She led Lamar up the walk to his house, walking past Alex and Di, who had started to give chase, but stopped when they saw Skip. Following Lamar’s lead, she ignored them, giving him her full attention and wondering why he’d taken a fancy to her.

But there were more important things to figure out—like what she was going to tell Alex she was doing here, and how to extricate herself in time to keep Di in sight.

As she chatted aimlessly with Lamar, an idea came to her: a plan that made losing Di for a bit worthwhile.

“You know what?” said Lamar. “You remind me of my ex-wife.”

Di and Alex stared speechless after Skip and Lamar.

Finally Di said, “What’s she doing here?”

“Who cares? What did she do to him? Hit him with a nice stick?”

“Nightstick?”

“Forget it. Listen, what do you think?”

“I think your dad’s a case and a half.”

“Yeah, well, so do the neighbors. The question is, is he demented or just mean as hell?”

“Does he get depressed?”

“Depressed! How would I know? Think the old fart’s going to come complaining to me?”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “He’s really a case.”

“Well, you’re a lot of help.”

“I’m sorry, Alex, I can’t do miracles. Why don’t you take him to see somebody?”

“I brought you to see him.”

She started to get into her car. “Is he eating a lot of animal fat?”

“Animal fat!”

“Maybe you should try him on raw vegetables.”

When Alex joined them, Lamar and Skip were sipping iced coffee at the yellow vinyl table, oblivious of the pernicious garbage smell.

“ ’Bout time, lamebrain. I gotta clean up. Don’t know what Margaret’ll think of me.” To Skip he said, “Kid hogs the bathroom, what you gonna do?”

And he left, docile as a doe.

“Why does he like you so much?”

“Probably thinks I’m going to arrest you. What was Di doing here, anyway?”

“None of your business. What are you doing here?”

“Well, uh … it’s not exactly police business. I mean, you still have the right to remain silent and everything, but you could also yell at me, I guess. It’s my mom.”

“Your mom?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Elizabeth and she’s a compulsive over-eater. She’s in Al-Anon too.”

“Elizabeth! Well, well, well. I feel you and I are getting to know each other better and better.” He didn’t sit, but hovered over her.

“You know her?”

“Oh, yes.” He said it as if he’d been sleeping with her—at the very least fending her off. He’d probably make his own mother sound like a slut.

“Well, she certainly knows you. She was a fan of yours before I was.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Don’t worry, she won’t blow your cover. She takes anonymity very seriously—as you might imagine, considering what a social climber she is. But maybe you don’t know about that.”

“It figures.”

“Anyway, she doesn’t know I know you, of course. And she was bragging about how she’d met you through the program—in fact had seen you around for a while and then finally connected your face with the one on your book jacket. Now I’m getting to the embarrassing part.”

“Will I like it?”

“Well, you’ll like seeing me squirm, anyway. See, she’s the original woman who has everything and her birthday’s coming up.”

“You want me to sign a book? That’s all this is about?”

“Uh … not exactly. She’s already got all your books. I was hoping you might sell me some silly memento.”

“A torn T-shirt or something? I’m flattered, but I’m not Mick Jagger. I don’t exactly have a stash of souvenirs for fans. What did you have in mind?”

Skip was so genuinely embarrassed by what she was doing that she felt herself flush. So much the better. No pain, no gain. “I don’t know. I thought maybe an old manuscript page or something. Maybe you could write a note on it.”

“You’d pay money for that?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know what kind of jerk you think I am…”

“And you don’t want to.”

“For God’s sake, I’ll give you a whole chapter. Whatever you want.”

“Great.”

“Something from
Fake It Till You Make It?”

“Actually, she likes the earlier books better, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Big deal. None of them are trouble. They’re all on the hard disk.”

He left her alone while he went to print something out, and came back with a sheaf of still-untorn computer pages. “How about this one, on ‘Unconditional Love’? That ought to get her, huh? Oh, brother: I was the turd of turds when I wrote this.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Do you think my father has Alzheimer’s?”

“No.” But she considered. “I mean, how would I know? You’re the psychologist.”

“Yeah, but I’m his son.”

He chatted her up a little more, wrote a sweet note on the chapter, and saw her out with a pat on the shoulder. Funny what a little flattery would do for a person’s personality.

It was gratifying to watch Alex behave like a normal human being for a change, but she hadn’t accomplished her mission. She still didn’t know whether he owned a manual typewriter.

SINCE THERE WAS no way to tell from the outside whether Di was in, she phoned. When the machine answered, she was annoyed with herself, felt at loose ends. And so when she saw someone else going into Di’s building, she simply slipped in behind, saying, ‘Hi,’ as if she belonged. Not for any special reason, simply for lack of anything else to do. And that was why, she told herself, she happened to try the door. Yet when it opened she panicked.

Oh, well. If Di was home, she could make up some excuse.

“Di?” she called.

No answer. Oh, well again. A quick look and who would know?

Skip, this is breaking and entering.

Not really. We’re friends. I didn’t find her home and came in to leave her a note.

Liar.

Well, the door was ajar. I had a weird feeling—had to look in and make sure everything was okay.

No matter what games she played with herself, she couldn’t find a way to justify what she was doing.

Neither could she stop herself.

But she did leave the door ajar, thinking she’d use the last explanation if it should prove necessary. And with her first step in the door her attention was so riveted she couldn’t have left if her conscience had attacked her with a cattle prod. Thrown casually on the back of the sofa, as if it had annoyed the wearer, prompting hasty removal, was a scarf almost identical to the one that had killed Jerilyn Jordan. It was a cheap rectangle of Indian cotton, a long neck scarf fringed on the ends. Like the one around Jerilyn’s neck, it was striped, but in shades of taupe and aqua rather than fuchsia and rose. It was the sort of inexpensive accessory women sometimes bought two or three of, in different colors. As soon as Skip saw it, she realized shed seen it earlier—Di had been wearing it as a belt.

Skip took a quick survey of the living room, and one other thing caught her attention. There was a famous collection of Louisiana stories, some of them folktales, some historical. It was the most accessible source of information about the original Axeman. Funny she hadn’t noticed it before, when she’d perused Di’s books for the sort a hypnotherapist would have. Had Di had it in her bedroom, copying the Axeman’s give-me-jazz letter?

Since the light was on in the bathroom, she looked there next. On the counter were the usual perfumes and toiletries and some other things, apparently just pulled from one of the vanity drawers—hair color and discolored vinyl gloves, used at least once before in the rejuvenation ritual. Gloves like those the Axeman probably used.

Putting them on to avoid leaving prints of her own, Skip opened the drawers and found more gloves, a whole box of them. She took a clean pair and replaced the used ones.

Di’s bed was made, her bedroom in perfect order except for the outfit she’d worn that morning, which had been tossed on a chair. An armoire held clothes, but there was also a closet. Skip looked first through an antique bureau, finding a drawer containing a pile of scarves, at least two being different-colored twins of the two she’d already seen.