Jazz Funeral

participate, plan strategy. It might have driven her crazy if she hadn’t truly enjoyed working with him. Cappello, her sergeant, was great, she was just fine, but she was a little on the brisk, close-mouthed side. Joe had a sweet, avuncular quality that made Skip love him and ascribe to him Buddhalike wisdom he probably didn’t have. Steve had once accused her of hero worship where Joe was concerned, and she knew it was true. He was her mentor, the lieutenant who’d had her transferred to Homicide, who’d believed in her at a time when she hardly believed in herself. Thanks largely to a certain sergeant named Frank O’Rourke.
    She ran down the events of the night before for the other three, and threw in reports from the coroner and the crime lab. Ham’s death had been placed at about twenty-four hours before the body was found, give or take. And no prints had been found on the weapon or the open wine bottle. So there was no physical evidence.
    Joe said, “You found Brocato about seven?”
    “Seven-thirty.”
    “And when did the girl leave the Rosenbaums’?”
    “About five-thirty the day before.”
    “That’d be about the right time, wouldn’t it?”
    Skip nodded.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. We gotta find her. We gotta find her fast. Carlson, what do you think?”
    He shrugged. “Either someone’s got her or she’s in the Quarter; they all end up in the Quarter.”
    “Well, how the hell do we find her?”
    Carlson leaned back in his chair, undaunted by Joe’s impatience. “Now that’s a right int’restin’ question. They do pretty well over at VCD—used to work there myself.” He meant Vieux Carre District, the French Quarter station, where Skip had worked before coming to Homicide. “They leave flyers, that’s one thing; and they got some good connections. Quarter people are funny—some of ‘em’ll only talk to people they know. I’d call over there if I was you—no sense banging your heads against the wall.”
    Joe nodded at Skip, who nodded back.
    “There’s a few little tricks, though. The kids are like cockroaches—sleep all day, come out at night. If they do come out in daylight, they might go to Jackson Square—it’s free entertainment. At night they go to bars, usually after midnight—way after. There’s a few I can give you the names of. We closed down most of the bad ones a year or two ago—on North Rampart Street. But there’s still a few where they can go to meet some friendly chicken hawks and kiddie pornographers.”
    Cappello winced.
    Skip said, “Somehow I can’t see Melody getting into—”
    “Get desperate enough, they all do. See, these kids don’t think of sex the same way you do. Lot of them have been abused, especially in homes where the mother’s remarried or got lots of boyfriends. To them, it ain’t exactly an expression of true love. More like a way to make a few bucks.”
    “What I meant was, I don’t see how she could be that desperate—she’s been gone less than thirty-six hours.”
    He ignored her. “First thing they learn’s they can’t get jobs—too young, no experience, no references, half the time no brains. Oh, sure, they might luck out—get to be a waitress or busboy. Whoopie-do. But most of ‘em are gonna peddle their ass one way or another. Even if it’s just dancin’ at Bayou Babies. But don’t get the idea that’s any great deliverance from evil—you go in there and see some fifteen-year-old kid shakin’ her booty six inches from some guy’s Adam’s apple, I guarantee you you’ll want to throw somethin’. And that’s nothin’ to what goes on upstairs. I never been there—I know this plumber got called over there. Says they got mattresses all over the floor and cribs along the sides. The kids sleep naked all over the place, anywhere they fall down, I guess. No tellin’ how loaded they have to be to get through that shit.”
    “Who goes up there?”
    “Preferred customers, I guess. I don’t know.”
    “So we should look at Bayou Babies.”
    “Hell, I knew this mother looked there six times in a week, all different times, never did find her daughter. Kid was dancin’ there, though. They all change their appearance, and they hang together, help each other. Lie for each other. They form packs is what they do.” He turned to Skip. “You know how many buildings in this city are unoccupied?”
    She stared at him, didn’t have a clue what he was getting at.
    “Something like thirty percent. Kids see