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

  An uncomfortable titter riffled through the room.

  “But then they were bed-wetters and fire-setters, too. They destroyed property, some of them, and engaged in self-mutilation. You don’t see all that every day.”

  “Hold it a minute,” said Hodges. “When we get a suspect, how’re we supposed to know in advance if he liked to masturbate when he was a kid?”

  “Easy,” said O’Rourke. “Forget the ones who spent their childhood in a coma.”

  This time the laughter was more of a catharsis—for some of the officers. Skip and Cappello weren’t among them.

  “Well, you’ve got a point there,” said Cindy Lou. “What you can look for are things like psychiatric problems, substance abuse, criminality, maybe a sporadic work record.”

  “Give me a break,” said O’Rourke. “Whose brother-in-law doesn’t have a sporadic work record?”

  Cindy Lou shrugged. “Your best bet’s classic police work—checking criminal records.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  She ignored him. “Okay, there’s something we need to look at right off the bat. Your crime scenes. The FBI classifies offenders as organized and disorganized.

  “The organized offender plans. If he’s a rapist, maybe he uses a condom so the police can’t analyze his sperm. He’s going to wear gloves, maybe, or wipe off his fingerprints. Maybe he takes the body away from the crime scene. The important thing is this: He plans the crime in such a way as to avoid getting caught. He’s usually smart.

  “The disorganized offender maybe isn’t so bright. He leaves a sloppy crime scene—fingerprints, footprints, every kind of thing. Sometimes he can’t resist keeping the bodies. One guy made drums and seat covers out of two women he kept around for eight years. After killing them, of course.”

  The requisite groan rose.

  “This kind of killer might use a weapon found at the scene and left there. Now, your guy brought his weapon—his hands—and probably wore gloves. But he did use available materials for his A—a lipstick in one case, and blood in another, obtained with a knife he found at the scene. So what does that suggest to you?”

  Cappello said, “Can you have a combination?”

  “Good. You sure can and in fact it’s pretty common. We’d know more about the Axeman if we knew how he was getting his victims, but just from the simple, clean crime scenes he left, I’d say he seems more like the organized type. Would you agree? Especially the officers who were there—Langdon? Hodges?”

  Both nodded. Hodges said, “I don’t know how much planning went into it, but it definitely didn’t look like any maniac had been there. More like an executioner. Did his job, did it well, and split.”

  “Okay. Leaning toward organized then. Unfortunately, a disorganized killer might be easier to spot—might look a little crazier if you want to use that term. Your organized killer is usually intelligent, socially and sexually competent, has a car in good condition, and does some kind of skilled work.”

  O’Rourke said, “Shee-it. How do you know that?”

  Cindy Lou smiled. “That’s the profile. But remember, the Axeman’s probably a combination. When you get to know him a little better, you might find out he’s high in the birth order, his father has a stable work history, he uses alcohol when he kills, he lives with a partner, he kills when he’s under precipitating stress, and he follows the crime in the news media.” She smiled. “Or you might not. The main thing is, I probably wouldn’t look for somebody on the fringes, a social outcast type. This person probably functions pretty well in the world.

  “Even if the profile didn’t say he was bright, I think the letter would indicate that. He’s got enough education to know about the original Axeman and enough brains to haul the story out again.”

  Skip said, “What about the E.T. thing?”

  “Two possibilities that I can see. First of all, he might believe it. But I don’t think so. These weirdos don’t usually become spacemen—more likely they see them or hear them. And this one doesn’t seem the type for that—that would be more the disorganized profile. The other thought is that it’s just a clever update of the original. Which fits with the organized profile. But you know what I don’t like? All that extremely childish stuff—’I’m baaack’ and that kind of crap. We’re talking a case of very arrested development here.”

  “I thought it was funny,” said O’Rourke.

  “We’re talking two cases.”

  Joe said quickly, “What about the A?”

  “The A suggests a need to be recognized and the letter confirms that. But this dude’s wily. Maybe he’s lying about it standing for ‘Axeman.’ It’s funny he picked that name when he doesn’t use an axe.”

  “But that was the name of the historical killer,” said Cappello.

  “Then why not use the historical weapon? There’s a false note there someplace. There’s a piece of every criminal—even little kids who raid cookie jars—that wants to confess. Maybe this guy started to write his name and some sane self-protective part of him pulled him back—and then he dreamed up the Axeman thing as a cover.”

  “Adam Abasolo,” said Hodges.

  Cindy Lou looked Abasolo in the eye. “You do look kind of dangerous.”

  Joe said, “Where do you think we should look for this creep?”

  “These organized types tend to move around. I think I’d check with the police departments in the immediate area—maybe there’ve been similar crimes.”

  Joe nodded. “We’d better do recent releases too.” He sighed. “And new arrests. Somebody with a similar record may have just gone to jail in another parish.”

  Since the letter had just arrived, Skip doubted it. But she knew it had to be checked. There’d be literally hundreds of names.

  They divided up sheriff’s offices, and Joe assigned Hodges to the State Department of Corrections. It was boring, tedious work. But it was the best bet they had.

  “I’ll have the veggie muff.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s like a muffuletta without the poisons.”

  Sonny settled on a more conventional sandwich, and when they were seated on a bench outside, he with a Coke, she with bubbly water, he found himself wondering what the hell he was doing here. Every restaurant in the city was air-conditioned and they were eating outside.

  Di said, “What a gorgeous day! I’m so glad you came by. I probably wouldn’t have come out at all, all day long, if you hadn’t turned up. We miss so much staying inside, don’t you think?”

  “I guess we do. I would have missed you, anyway.” He was embarrassed the instant it was out. He had come by her house to figure out who she was, to leave a note, to try to make contact sometime in the future, but without much hope. She had been on her balcony watering her star jasmine, and on impulse he’d asked her to lunch.

  But then had begun the long negotiation that had ended in this odd nibbling on a bench outside a health-food deli on Esplanade. “I only eat live foods,” she had said.

  “Oysters?” That was all he could think of.

  She had laughed. “Sprouts and things.”

  “Is that a live veggie muff?” he said now. “I don’t see any sprouts.”

  She laughed again, a laugh like a flute. He thought of the nymph who had been named Syrinx after a musical instrument (or perhaps she had been enchanted and changed into one). “I say ‘live’ when I really mean ‘raw.’ Raw foods are live to me.”

  “Ah. Raw eggs. Steak tartare.”

  She made a face. “You’re teasing, right?”

  “Uh-huh. If you think a muffuletta’s poison, I guess you must be a vegetarian. Don’t you even eat dairy products?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s the theory behind that?” He congratulated himself. He’d found a subject she liked; he was talking to her and she was answering, not treating him like a dope or a child.

  “Eating can change the world, did you know that? When you only eat live foods, like I do, t
he photosynthesis happens in your body and you begin to feel this energy. You feel all these cosmic connections.” She hugged herself. “Oh, Sonny, such a change is coming in the next ten years! We’re just at the beginning of it.”

  He was speechless, but she seemed to take his silence for rapt attention.

  “You have to understand that the plants are here for a purpose. The old way, eating animals, is going now, fading out—have you noticed?”

  “I do seem to know a lot more vegetarians nowadays.”

  She nodded. “The plants are here to teach us something, to enlighten us.”

  “Hey, listen, I went to Carrot U myself. First I had Professor Plum for Consciousness 101, but he was just an old fruit. Then I took Good Vibes from Dr. Zucchini, but he squashed all my ideas. So then I went out for the cornball team and life was just…” He paused, searching. “…a bowl of cherries.”

  She put a hand on his knee. “Sonny, you’re delightful, you know that?”

  He knew it was true. She brought out something in him, he didn’t know what. He could almost feel the flow of energy she talked about. Who was he to say she was wrong? Even he knew doctors knew nothing about nutrition. She talked like a Venusian, but maybe this elfin, slightly nutty woman knew more than he did. He could never have thought of all those puns with Missy. Being around Di energized him, kicked something into gear.

  “I’ll bet you’re a writer,” she said. “You’re so clever! A poet, maybe.”

  He preened. He wasn’t clever. He was smart, sure, like all the Gerards were smart, smart like a scientist, but his brother was the clever one, the only Gerard who was different. Before now, he’d no more thought he could make up a line of poetry than wrestle an alligator.

  He said, “No. Just a student.” He’d meant to leave it at that, not mention the suddenly mundane thing he actually did, but he realized that “student” alone sounded absurdly young. “A medical student,” he added.

  “In that case, be Jean-Paul.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I checked on those names for you. Jean-Paul is an eight—philosophical and mature; intense, determined. That could work for a doctor.”

  “You checked on those names for me?” He was so immensely flattered he had hardly heard what she said.

  “In either case, Arthur or Jean-Paul, your cornerstone would be one. Very creative and original. A visionary, really.”

  Now he was embarrassed. Surely he didn’t deserve this much attention. And he was no visionary. More like a plodder. He wanted to get the spotlight off him before it revealed unpleasant truths. He said, “What do you do, Di?”

  “Me? You mean my job?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m going to meetings right now. I go to three most days—I’m playing hooky today, but I’ll go tonight. I think I can go to two—two really good ones.”

  “I see.”

  “I guess I’d have to say my job right now is healing myself.”

  Absently, Abe wrapped the last crusts of his dreary sandwich in aluminum foil, not thinking about the task, looking miserably out his office window.

  Shit, I hate this place, he thought.

  He wouldn’t have to be here at all if it weren’t for goddamn Cynthia. Cynthia controlled the universe.

  Mine, anyway. And there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

  He had eaten staring glumly at the facade of the building across the street, possibly the only ugly building in the entire town, its architecture being possibly the only thing in town he could stand.

  Now he walked to the window and looked down on the street, wanting to take a walk but knowing the heat was killing.

  A lovely woman walked by—a lithe, very young one in a blue cotton dress. A blonde. He felt an unreasonable hunger rise up in his loins, a scary, uncontrollable tidal wave of a thing. He sat down again, dizzy, overwhelmed by the wave.

  He knew her number—Missy’s, not that girl’s. He had gotten it from the list. But she wouldn’t be home. What was the point?

  Automatically, he dialed it, the act performed by the robot that had taken over his body, that was being run by that tidal wave, that wouldn’t be stopped. Her machine answered—and then there was a click and she said, “Hello?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be home.”

  “It’s my lunch hour,” she said. “I forgot something.”

  “Missy, this is Abe. Abe from the program.”

  “Abe.” He could hear her taking a breath, searching her memory banks. “I think I know you.”

  “I was at Al-Anon Monday. I just wanted to tell you I was really inspired by what you said.”

  “Thank you.” She was hesitant, sounded properly flattered.

  “I thought … Well, I’m going through something too. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “I remember you now. You’re the one with the bald spot.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  Catching herself in mid-faux pas, she kept talking. “Oh, I didn’t mean… It’s really cute, I mean. My uncle has a bald spot. It’s sexy. Really. It’s nice.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I really do.”

  “Well, listen, would you indulge an ancient, ancient old man and—”

  “You’re not old.”

  “You wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me?”

  Silence.

  “I mean, would you like to have lunch Monday?”

  SEVEN

  “EXCUSE ME?”

  Since no one else was in the office, Skip was taking advantage of the solitude to check her teeth for bits of spinach, and re-apply lipstick. She planned to spend the afternoon re-interviewing Strickland’s and Mabus’s neighbors, catching any she might have missed.

  She was staring at her own reflection, not too much caring for it, probing teeth with tongue, when she heard the timid inquiry.

  “Yow!” She almost dropped the mirror. Looking up, she saw that the intruder was a tired-looking woman, a little overweight, with hair frizzed on the ends by an inferior perm now about six months old. She wore walking shorts and running shoes. “You startled me.”

  “I guess I should have said something before I got so close—I’m Mary Shoemaker.”

  Skip stood and offered her hand. “Skip Langdon.”

  “They told me Homicide was this way.”

  “Yes. Everybody’s out but me, and I was just leaving. Who were you looking for?”

  “Somebody on the Axeman case?” She looked as undecided as she sounded.

  “I could probably help you. Would you like to sit down?”

  Gingerly, Shoemaker sat, and leaned toward Skip. “I have this crazy idea about the murders. I don’t know…” She flushed in embarrassment. “I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I just thought I ought to tell somebody.”

  Skip nodded encouragingly, smiling on the outside, groaning inwardly.

  “Linda Lee Strickland? You know, the girl who was murdered?”

  Skip nodded.

  “When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought I knew her. I just couldn’t place her, that’s all. But I did know Tom Mabus. I heard all about the murder on the way to Schwegmann’s—on the radio?” She had the Southern woman’s tic of ending statements with question marks. Once again, Skip felt obliged to nod.

  “Poor Tom—I didn’t know him very well, but he was somebody who was working very hard and I respected him for that. Well, anyway, when I heard his death was connected to that girl’s, I remembered where I knew her. They were both in the program.”

  Skip searched her mind for relevant “programs,” but didn’t come up with anything.

  “Programs, I should say,” said Mary Shoemaker. “I think the AA people just say ‘program,’ but everybody else is usually in more than one.”

  “More than one what?”

  “Oh. The twelve-step programs? You know them? Like AA and OA and everything?”

  “I know AA….”

  “OA is Overeaters Anonymous. And then the
re’s Al-Anon and Coda…. There’s lots of them.”

  Skip’s pulse pounded in her head. “Ms. Shoemaker, would you mind looking at some pictures for me?”

  She pulled out a picture of Tom Mabus, one she’d gotten from his daughter, and three other pictures as well. She laid them out for Mary Shoemaker.

  “Do you know any of these men?”

  She pointed to Mabus’s picture. “That’s Tom. But he was younger then. It’s an old picture, isn’t it?”

  “Well. Yes. You certainly did the right thing by coming in today. I think this information could be very important, and I’d like to introduce you to somebody else if you have a moment.”

  She got Cappello, took Shoemaker to Joe’s office, and let her tell her story. Cappello was as excited as she was, literally licking her lips. “Ms. Shoemaker, which one of these programs are you a member of?”

  “Oh, I go to lots of meetings—Coda and Al-Anon, mostly, and OA; but I’ve been to Emotions Anonymous and once I went to Sex Anonymous.” She blushed. “I mean, I don’t really have that problem—you know, sex addiction?—but a friend took me.”

  “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Coda is … ?”

  “Codependents Anonymous. And Al-Anon is technically for spouses of alcoholics, but anybody can go. People who aren’t alcoholics even go to the regular AA meetings now.”

  Skip watched Joe struggle with that. Finally, he said, “Why?”

  “You get inspired by other people’s stories.”

  “But why not just go to Al-Anon or Coda or something?”

  “Well, they probably do that too, but maybe there isn’t a meeting at the right time or place or something.”

  “You mean you don’t just join a group and go to that one?”

  “Oh, no. It’s not formal at all. You just go to any meeting you want.”

  Skip was getting a bad feeling and she could sense the others were too. Cappello asked the question on both their minds. “Can you remember where you met Linda Lee and Tom?”

  “Well, I saw Tom a lot. You probably wonder how I knew his last name.”