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

  Praise for JAZZ FUNERAL, the third novel in the SKIP LANGDON SERIES from Edgar-winning author Julie Smith.

  “A genuinely moving mystery … It’s always a pleasure to spend time with Skip, a no-nonsense, level-headed heroine in a wild and reckless city.”

  –THE BALTIMORE SUN

  “Skip doesn’t miss much as she probes the victim’s tangled relationships, remaining all the while a consistently convincing character herself, grumbling about her boss and anxious about her long-distance significant other. Smith’s Big Easy setting is a lively blend of big city and gossipy small town.”

  –PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “A super protagonist, well-defined characters, and musical highlights make this essential.”

  –LIBRARY JOURNAL

  The Skip Langdon Series (in order of publication)

  NEW ORLEANS MOURNING

  THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ

  JAZZ FUNERAL

  DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)

  HOUSE OF BLUES

  THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

  CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)

  82 DESIRE

  MEAN WOMAN BLUES

  Also by Julie Smith:

  The Rebecca Schwartz Series

  DEATH TURNS A TRICK

  THE SOURDOUGH WARS

  TOURIST TRAP

  DEAD IN THE WATER

  OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS

  The Paul MacDonald Series

  TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE

  HUCKLEBERRY FIEND

  The Talba Wallis Series:

  LOUISIANA HOTSHOT

  LOUISIANA BIGSHOT

  LOUISIANA LAMENT

  P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF

  JAZZ FUNERAL

  A SKIP LANGDON MYSTERY

  BY

  JULIE SMITH

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  Jazz Funeral

  Copyright 1993 by Julie Smith

  Cover by Nevada Barr

  eBook ISBN: 9781617507250

  Originally published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint song titles:

  CPP/Belwin,Inc.: Excerpt from “Breakaway” by Sharon Sheeley and Jackie DeShannon. Copyright 1963 (Renewed 1992) EMI UNART Catalog Inc. Used by permission of CPP Belwin, Inc., P.O. Box 4340, Miami, Fl . 33014. International Copyright Secured. Made in U.S.A. All rights Reserved.

  Strong Arm Music: Excerpt from “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin. Copyright 1970 by Strong Arm Music. All rights reserved.

  www.booksBnimble.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First booksBnimble electronic publication: April 2012

  Digital Editions (epub and mobi formats) produced by Booknook.biz

  DEDICATION

  For six young artists I admire: Brooke Smith, cook; Tom Petersen, humorist; William Petersen, guitarist; Marigny Pecot, sculptor; Erinn Harris, writer; and Aliza P. Rood, actor.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The newcomer is told three things by the old New Orleans hand: don’t walk on the lake side of the Quarter, don’t drink the water, and always take a United cab.

  He is sometimes surprised to find the lake side is nowhere near a lake, but quite near what natives call the “projects,” housing so poor and mean it would make a preacher think about mugging, just to even things up. Only one project is near the Quarter, the Iberville. Others are scattered throughout the city, as is crime, which is said to be so prevalent, Uptown gentlemen have taken to presenting their ladies with handguns for their purses. The ladies, in turn, dare not step out of their cars at night and stroll up their own front walks without pistol cocked and at the ready.

  The newcomer is puzzled. Is this because urban crime came late to Louisiana, with the crack plague that hit the rest of the country, and the natives haven’t yet adjusted? Or is it really, as they say there, worth your life not to heed the warnings?

  Now and then the city does lose a tourist, but Californians and such are nonetheless bemused by the syndrome of pistol as fashion accessory.

  And by the other advice.

  “Why not drink the water?” they will ask, and they will be told with a shrug: “This is a Third World country.” On further questioning, one is told something about sewage and chemicals, but the Sewerage and Water Board says the city’s water is some of the purest in the nation. The first answer is probably the one that counts.

  It is a position with which it’s difficult to argue. New Orleans, though technically a city, is more like a nation unto itself; though legally a piece of America, it’s Caribbean in its soul, as exotic an adventure as exists short of navigating the Amazon.

  The question of the cab has never been solved.

  Steve Steinman, in town for one of the country’s better bashes, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, was puzzled as usual over the bizarre customs of the City that Care Forgot. He was haranguing his hostess. Detective Skip Langdon of the New Orleans Police Department.

  “So I asked three people on the street. You know what one of them said? You’re not going to believe this. ‘Because most of the drivers are white.’ How do you stand the way people talk in this town?”

  “I never heard that.”

  “Well, the next one said United’s more reliable, and the next one said they’re the best. I said, ‘What makes them the best?’ and he said he didn’t know, he’d never taken a cab in his life, that was just what he’d always heard.”

  “Me too.”

  “That they’re the best?”

  “Well, not exactly. Just that that’s what you’re supposed to do: ‘Always take a United Cab.’ It’s like ‘wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.’ You hear it so early on, you never question it.”

  “Some detective,” he grumbled.

  Skip liked this: the banter, the endless, meaningless, companionable nattering. She wasn’t used to the luxury.

  But it was a challenge, living in one room with a man. The world seemed made of elbows and laundry.

  When Steve Steinman wasn’t there, those wretched times when he was at home in L.A.—most of the time—the studio was an echo chamber, a place for listening to Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, a cell to while away the lonely hours, to contemplate the melancholy of a gloomy Sunday.

  But it was getting more cheerful, Skip reminded herself. She had painted it cantaloupe. She’d bought
a painting by Marcy Mandeville, the artist whose work she’d coveted since her college days; and she’d upgraded her Goodwill sofa bed to one from Expressions. Her landlord, Jimmy Dee Scoggins, had kicked in a new taupe carpet. The place was cozy. It was fine.

  It was only lonely on nights when Steve called and the sound of his voice made her ache. Or nights when he didn’t call and she ached for the sound of his voice. Or other nights when, for no reason, her suddenly girlish heart went Southern on her and gave birth to the blues.

  Usually when he was in town he didn’t stay here. Or technically he didn’t. He stayed Uptown with Cookie Lamoreaux, in a house with more rooms than most hotels. This time she’d thought she could handle having him here. And I could, she thought now, if I just had a living room.

  The place even smelled different. Not bad—she just needed to open the windows more often. She had to laugh at her own old maidishness, and then at her quaint phrasing.

  “What are you laughing at?” She’d picked an inopportune moment. He had just buttoned his shirt and was admiring himself in Skip’s newly purchased full-length mirror. “Something wrong with the outfit?”

  “Don’t be silly. I was laughing at myself.”

  “Well, why don’t you just change? I mean I know it’s an informal party, but …” He let his voice trail off.

  She was lying on the sofa, wrapped in a towel, having flopped down because there simply wasn’t room for both of them to move about at once. And there was another reason.

  “I don’t know what to wear.”

  As if on cue, a singsongy voice floated up the stairs: “Margaret Langdon!”

  “Dee-Dee. Hot dog.”

  She jumped up, smiling.

  “You’re going to the door like that?”

  “I always do. He dresses me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I don’t mean he hooks my bra or anything. He styles me.”

  Steve gave her the kind of look Jimmy Dee gave her when she mentioned Steve. In a way, they were rivals for her, she was coming to accept that. But they weren’t rivals in the usual way. Jimmy Dee was gay. He probably couldn’t have admitted he was jealous of Steve, or wouldn’t have figured it out. He never said so, seemed always surrounded by an admiring throng, but Skip knew how lonely he was. A lot of his friends had died, and he didn’t have lovers anymore. Or not often, not much outside his fantasies. They were best friends, she and Dee-Dee, she and her older, gay, eccentric landlord. He played at straightening her out—she was the depressed one, according to him—and she drew comfort from it. But she knew he needed someone to love. As did she. And he lived only steps away—in the building’s slave quarters.

  So when Steve Steinman had entered her life, Dee-Dee had reacted with as much testosterone as if they were married. And Steve, sensing male possessiveness even when it wasn’t supposed to be there, had reacted accordingly. The fact was, they hated each other, and both knew it would hurt her to admit it. So they contented themselves with snipes, which she simply put up with. She kept thinking it would work itself out.

  She flung the door open and hurled herself at the somewhat smaller frame of her dapper landlord, nearly burning herself on the joint in his mouth.

  With one hand Dee-Dee removed the joint, and caught her waist with the other. “Ah. Just in time, I see. You need me, don’t you?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he handed Skip the joint and strolled to her closet. Skip didn’t want any, and handed it to Steve, who toked enthusiastically.

  Jimmy Dee was also going to Hamson Brocato’s party, but he was still hanging about in an old pair of shorts and a faded purple T-shirt. His impeccable casualness made cool seem the invention of middle-aged gay lawyers rather than high school hooligans a third his age.

  “It’s casual,” he said. “How about your linen thing?” He pulled out a dress he’d made her buy, a kind of jumper, or over bare skin, a sundress.

  “A dress?” She wrinkled her face up.

  “Well, I certainly don’t care what you wear! Why not just pour your tiny body into that gorgeous blue uniform?” He was going into his swish act, which was funny, but always intimidated her when he did it around hair and clothes—made her as unaccountably subservient as bossy hairdressers did. She was six feet tall and statuesque. Well, Junoesque. Goddesslike, the normal Dee-Dee said. The swishy Dee-Dee called her tiny.

  “Okay, okay, I just don’t know if it’s very flattering.”

  Steve said, “It isn’t.” Which wasn’t like him at all.

  “Oh, it’ll do. Turn your backs.” Normally she’d have dressed in the bathroom, but tonight she didn’t want to leave the men alone together. She searched for a neutral topic. “Jimmy Dee. Tell Steve about Ham.”

  Hamson Brocato, their host for the evening. He cut quite a figure in New Orleans, which automatically made him an object of interest for Steve, who couldn’t get enough Big Easy lore. And, along with something called the Second Line Square Foundation, he was currently Steve’s employer. Dee-Dee’d known him all his life.

  “Well, he’s producer of JazzFest,” Dee-Dee said with a shrug.

  “Oh, come on,” said Skip.

  Steve knew what Hamson did. And Dee-Dee knew he knew. Ham had hired Steve to make a promotional video for his pet project, arguably a very good cause—and for Steve, a very good opportunity.

  “Well, hell.” Jimmy Dee was contrite. He could tell Skip was pissed. “Okay, where to start?”

  “Where’d he go to school?”

  “St. Martin’s. Why?”

  “Just checking to see if you knew.” Skip knew it was his little joke—everybody in New Orleans knew where everyone else had gone to high school. And if they didn’t, they asked—usually in the first ten minutes of knowing someone. “Start with the po’ boys.”

  “Always a fine idea. I’ll have an oyster one. Dressed.”

  Steve said, “Make mine potato.”

  Skip sighed. “Okay, I’m ready. How about a gin and tonic instead?” The pot wasn’t providing much social lubrication.

  The men turned back around. “The po’boy,” said Jimmy Dee, “is undoubtedly—despite blackened redfish, Paul Prudhomme, Oysters Rockefeller, Galatoire’s, and the beignet—the zenith of New Orleans cuisine. What I would order for my last meal if I were a convicted felon. Oyster, of course. Not merely the world’s greatest sandwich, but possibly the world’s greatest meal.”

  “Hear, hear!” Steve was definitely interested.

  “This town’s equivalent of the hero, but the very comparison is a travesty and an outrage.”

  “Yes, but what does it have to do with Hamson?”

  “Be patient, my boy.” It was like telling fire to be cold. “You’ve heard, perhaps, of George Brocato?”

  “No.”

  “Well now, he was a poor boy. Or so the story goes. Hence the name.”

  Skip spoke between clenched teeth: “Dee-Dee, you’re being tedious.”

  “Am I?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I thought I was building dramatically.”

  “To?”

  “Poor Boy’s Po’ Boys, of course.”

  “Ooooh.” Steve sighed, contentment personified. “They just came to L.A. Oh, man! Fast food heaven. I don’t know how they do it.”

  “Well, the high prices help.”

  “Oh, man, worth every penny. Cheap at twice the price.”

  “You’re a real believer.”

  “It’s like having Mother’s in L.A. Or Mumfrey’s. Are you trying to say Ham’s the Poor Boys scion?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So George is the dad, huh?”

  “Right. You’ll probably meet him tonight.”

  “Well, I wondered why Ham had so much money. Oh, man, maybe they’ll serve po’ boys tonight.”

  Skip thought she’d never seen Steve reduced to such a pure level of infantile pleasure.

  It was the eve of the second weekend of JazzFest, second biggest annual party in the world’s most seriou
s party town—a Wednesday, with JazzFest to swing once again into full gear in another few hours. It would wail Thursday through Sunday, as it had the previous Friday through Sunday. When it was over, some 300,000 people would have had their ears massaged and palates tickled at eleven stages and sixty-four food booths.

  In other towns, thought Skip, festivals lasted one weekend, and weekends started Friday evening at the earliest. But here they were, kicking this one off on Wednesday. Sometimes she was glad she hadn’t stayed in San Francisco, where she’d once fled. Back there, she thought with distaste, you had to be up and jogging at six. Here, that was considered a good time to go to bed.

  The party they were going to was a benefit to which Steve had been invited because of the little job he was doing for Ham, the promotional video for Second Line Square. Second Line Square was Ham’s dream, some said his obsession. Ham had a plan to keep JazzFest going year-round—or something approaching that.

  He wanted a permanent structure, down by the riverside, that would house an ongoing festival of New Orleans music and become, according to his dream, the city’s leading tourist attraction. The Jazz and Heritage Foundation’s own two projects, the Heritage School of Music and WWOZ, the jazz radio station, would be housed there, with the Heritage School much expanded. Preservation Hall would move there too, if Ham had anything to say about it. Five or six important groups would play at once, every night, and there would be lectures, films, interviews with artists, every cultural experience that could be dreamed up to showcase the city’s musical heritage. There’d be food and crafts booths too, but all carefully monitored, only the highest quality. It would be New Orleans’ answer to the Grand Ole Opry.

  The place would be self-supporting—which meant it would have to be huge, and therein lay part of the problem. People said the same things they always said about development—it would wreck the view, it would take up space that ought to be park land, it would create parking problems, and it would cost too much. So Ham had failed to muster support from the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, which ran the festival. It was a bitter blow, but certain commercial interests needed hardly any convincing at all to pump money into it, and so he had started the Second Line Square Foundation, which was currently in the process of whomping up support.