The Axeman's Jazz (Skip Langdon Mystery Series #2) (The Skip Langdon Series) (40 page)

“He must be crazy. You look like a million dollars.” But even as she spoke, she felt a twinge of resentment.
What about me?

“Really?” said Di. “Do you honestly think that?”

“You’re gorgeous. Everybody says so.”

“Yes, but you. Right now. Do you really think so?” She held up a hand. “Look closely before you speak. Look at my neck and under my eyes.”

What the hell’s wrong with her?
Missy thought. And then it dawned on her that something was. Di wasn’t herself. Without thinking, she went into helper mode; this was what she did best and often she did it unconsciously. “What’s the matter, Di? You seem really down.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong. I eat nothing but live food. I never cook anything. I don’t know why it’s not working.”

“You’re on a diet? You haven’t lost as much weight as you wanted?” She looked doubtfully at Di’s perfect proportions.

“Oh, Missy. Oh, Missy.” They hadn’t left the kitchen—had been standing companionably, lemonades in hand—so there wasn’t a box of tissues handy and Di had to grab for a paper towel. Before she applied it to her features, Missy saw them twist in misery. Di turned away and sobbed, probably, Missy realized, so she couldn’t see her looking ugly. “Missy, I’m getting old.”

“Old?” Missy didn’t get it.

“I found this guy really attractive, but when I talked to him, I gave him my best smile, flirted and everything, I realized he was just being polite. I might as well have been his mother.”

Missy couldn’t suppress a giggle. “His mother? Oh, Di, I don’t think so.”

“I have something to say to you, Missy. It’s the sort of thing I don’t say because I don’t talk about age, I don’t think it’s important. But today I think it’s important.”

“What is it, Di?”

“I have a feeling that young man is twenty years younger than I am.”

Twenty years! What was with Di? She couldn’t possibly be twenty years older than anyone, that was ridiculous. And Missy guessed the new guy was quite a bit older than she herself was—he could be thirty, maybe.

She laughed. “Di, you must have found the Fountain of Youth.”

“Missy.” She looked terrified. “Missy. What if there isn’t one?”

SKIP KNEW THAT if she had too many Diet Cokes, she’d have to go to the bathroom and maybe miss Di if she came out. But it was hard to pace yourself when you had all day. And she had to face the fact that the day was quickly dwindling. So far she had had exactly one glimpse of her quarry—when Di had come out on the balcony to speak to Missy. Now Missy had gone, and she was Di’s only visitor of the day. It made for a boring Sunday.

And the thing that happened when you were bored was that you thought about things. You couldn’t stop thinking about things. You couldn’t make your mind stop because your butt was sore and you didn’t want to think about that. As long as your suspect stayed inside, there wasn’t anything to watch, so you couldn’t think about what was actually happening. You’d already thought about sex until the subject had all the vitality of a discarded condom. And thoughts of food only made you hungrier. So things were what was left. Meaning the case.

Which was starting to be a sore subject because Skip was so angry at herself. What had seemed so obvious yesterday now seemed as phony as your comer S&L. What had seemed utterly damning evidence now seemed fraudulent. What had seemed a diabolically clever move on Di’s part—calling the cops about the typewriter—now had another possible explanation. She had almost completely switched over to the theory that Di was being set up.

There were a few delicate little questions she needed to ask, but now that Di knew she was a cop, she didn’t think she’d get any answers. The microscopic inquiries would seem so threatening Di would clam up and call a lawyer. But sitting there sipping her long-running and ever-warming Diet Coke, she conceived a brilliant plan. Well, perhaps not brilliant, but she gave herself points for creativity.

It was simple. First of all, Di obviously had a crush on Steve. And Steve, often to her regret and inconvenience, had out-of-control detective fantasies. Why not put both these situations to perfect use? Why not, in fact, have Steve go in as her proxy? Ask the questions she couldn’t?

Maybe it’s sensory deprivation. Maybe I’m just desperate to talk to him.

She tried, but she couldn’t talk herself out of it. She phoned and asked him to meet her at the bar, and when he walked in wearing khaki shorts and a magenta T-shirt, her stomach flopped over the way it had when Bo Chantlan had shot a rubber band at her at Sunday school in the fifth grade. How did she stand it when he wasn’t here? How the hell had her vacation gotten so screwed up?

“Hi, handsome.”

“From you that’s a compliment.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I get the feeling you really don’t say that to all the guys.”

“Yeah, you right, as we say down here.”

“I know I’m right. Compliments aren’t your strong suit.”

Weren’t they? But she couldn’t let herself get distracted now. “Steve, I need your help.”

“Anything.”

She explained what she wanted.

To her surprise, he balked. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“What! You usually have to be physically restrained from playing detective.”

“I love the way you restrain me.”

“Next time I’m using handcuffs.” Flirting sure beat the hell out of staring into space. She pulled herself together. “Wait a minute. What’s wrong? I thought you were going to jump at this.”

“That woman gives me the willies.”

“Oh, come on. If I can sit here all day looking at her door, you can take a half-hour of astro-chat.”

“I didn’t really tell you the whole story. She got pretty physical.”

Skip settled back in a pout. “Oh, great.”

“Hey. You’re jealous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She meant it. And she was shocked at the realization. She was actually very secure about Steve, really believed he loved her. When had that happened?

Anyway, jealousy wasn’t the reason she was pouting. It was because this news bolstered her theory all the more. “Look,” she said, “the way you told the story before, it looked as if she was using you as an alibi. But this way’s different—if she really thought she was going to seduce you after the meeting, she wasn’t going to have time to kill anybody.”

“You said yourself maybe she kills when she’s sexually frustrated.”

“Yes, but I never had a lot of faith in it. Tell me the truth. Do you honestly see Di as a killer?” This was unfair because he didn’t know about her rap sheet.

He thought about it. “On the surface she seems too flaky, but a lot of flakes can get it together when they need to.”

“Oh, hell. Well, let me appeal to your sense of justice. I think she’s innocent. I think someone’s trying to set her up, that someone being a murderer who’s already killed three people.”

“All right, all right.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes, but here’s what I’ll expect in return….” When he had told her, and she had fought down the urge to simper like the Ole Miss girl she was, they went over his cover story.

Di looked great when she came out on the balcony. She was wearing shorts that showed off smooth thighs, slim ankles, gorgeous legs. The combination of dark, dark hair and white, white skin gave her an indescribably delicate look, like a porcelain figure, endlessly fascinating in its fragility. Shadows seemed to form on white expanses of neck and chin, faint blue ones that were probably illusions caused by the outlines of veins.

If only she wouldn’t open her mouth.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, and congratulated himself on remembering the Southern “hey” for “hi.” “You want to be in a movie?”

When she had let him in to discuss the situation, he said, “Did I ever tell you I’m a filmmaker?”

“A producer?”

She had sat him on her Victorian settee and he felt large and awkward, beset by pillows. She sat next to him, with a decent amount of air between the two of them, but not so much that he couldn’t smell her perfume. Why would she be wearing perfume on a quiet Sunday at home?

She wasn’t. She put it on while I was coming upstairs.

That should have heartened him, made him sure of his success, but he felt uneasy about what he was doing. Fraudulent.

And I was once a reporter. How times change.

“Not a producer,” he said. “That’s far too grandiose a title for the kind of films I do—small ones. Twenty-minute, thirty-minute masterpieces that make the rounds of the festivals and even win occasionally.”

One will win sometime
. He had made only three.

“I’ve decided to do an Axeman film—if I can get the money for it. Anyway, that’s what I meant about being in movies: I’d love to interview you when the time comes.”

“Is that really why you’re here, Steve?” There was no mistaking her tone. It was that of a woman who was used to being appreciated. He ignored it.

“Not really. I’m here because I heard about your typewriter.”

“My typewriter? But I don’t have a typewriter.”

“The one you called the police about. I started talking to some cops for the film, and they told me the Axeman’s letters were typed on it.”

She gasped. “Oh, my God. He was in here!”

“How did he get in, Di?”

“I must have left the door unlocked.”

“And if you didn’t? Does anyone else have a key?”

“No! Well … I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. I don’t know.” She was starting to fall apart.

“Know what else they told me? He didn’t strangle Jerilyn with his hands—he used a scarf.”

She gasped again, and this time he could see she was frightened. The scarf meant something to her.

“It was a cotton scarf made in India, a long striped one they said, in reds and pinks.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“What is it?”

“I have one like that.”

“Di, are you okay? Do you want me to get you some water or something?”

“Oh, my God.”

“Hold it. Are you afraid you’re a suspect? Listen, if you’ve got a scarf like that, you can’t be the Axeman, right? Because his scarf’s around Jerilyn’s neck.”

“I lost it. I left it somewhere.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “With my lipstick.”

“With your lipstick? You left your scarf and lipstick somewhere?”

She nodded.

“Where?”

But Di didn’t answer, just sat there as if in shock. He had to hand it to Skip, she was definitely on to something. He got up, as if pacing, went straight to the book Skip had mentioned, and plucked it from the shelf. “I have this too,” he said. “I got it because it has the Axeman story in it.”

“What is it?” she said.

He handed it over to her.

“This isn’t my book.”

“Whose is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how it got here.”

He made his voice very concerned, nauseatingly sanctimonious: “Have you been having blackouts, Di?”

“No! Listen, you have to go now.” She rose to emphasize the point.

But he had an odd feeling that if he did, she would phone the person she was protecting, give him a chance to wriggle out, and probably endanger herself. He stood, but instead of going, he walked to the French doors, the ones that led to the balcony.

“Steve? Steve, what are you doing?” There was fear in her voice. Perhaps she thought he meant to close them, had decided
he
was the Axeman.

He stepped onto the balcony and signaled Skip in the bar across the street. She stepped into the light.

“There’s Skip,” he said. “Were you expecting her?”

“Skip? Oh, my God. Skip?” Di joined him on the balcony.

“Skip!” called Steve. “Come up.”

Di rushed to let her in, apparently having decided her presence wasn’t the worst idea in the world—perhaps she was still afraid of him. Or perhaps she just wasn’t thinking clearly.

Steve didn’t give her a chance to gather her wits. “Skip, whereyat?” he said as if he hadn’t seen her in a week or two. He didn’t give Di a chance to wedge a word in. “Skip, Di says she lost her scarf and her lipstick.”

“Lipstick,” said Skip. “Fiesta, right? He wrote the A in Fiesta.”

“Oh, Jesus.” She had scrunched her hands into semi-fists and wedged them up against her mouth, maybe trying to get it to stay shut. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What’s going on? What’s going on here?”

Skip said, calm as a Valium addict: “Someone’s setting you up, Di. He strangled Jerilyn with your scarf, and then he wrote the A with your lipstick. Or did you do it yourself?”

“No!”

“Then he planted the typewriter.”

“And the book,” said Steve.

“And the book. You think he’s a friend of yours, but he’s trying to get me to arrest you. You probably gave him the keys yourself.”

“No!” She had crossed her arms under her breasts, her hands holding her elbows so tightly they looked like claws. “I left my extra set on the table.” She indicated a dark, carved one. “I keep it there and when someone comes, I throw it to them from the balcony. It’s gone, though. I wondered if he forgot to give it back.”

“Who, Di? Who? Alex?”

“Alex?” She wrinkled her brow as if trying to remember who on earth Alex was. “Not Alex. Sonny. I was at his house. I forgot some things—I put on fresh lipstick—” She interrupted herself. “That’s why he didn’t come Thursday! I went by his house twice, once after I left PJ’s and then when Steve left here. He was going to follow me home, but he didn’t. He just left me at PJ’s. Oh! Steve, I didn’t mean—”

Steve said, “Missy didn’t lose her keys. Sonny came back to PJ’s make sure Abe was still there.”

“I’ve got to go,” said Skip.

What she needed were Di’s keys. But she needed a search warrant to get them. Okay, okay. She’d get one. But first Sonny. He wasn’t under surveillance. Somehow, she felt desperate to find him, just to pin him down, to know where he was before she called Cappello.

She went back to the bar and called the hospital. He’d been there, but he’d gone home sick. She said she was Missy and asked how long ago he’d left. An hour.

Then he ought to be home. But he wasn’t. At least he didn’t answer his doorbell. She tried phoning and got no answer.