The Axeman's Jazz

at the present time.” She knew she sounded like an automaton, but a flat “no” would have been a lie.
    He drew himself up, squared his shoulders, appeared to find some inner strength in becoming Abe the Lawyer. “I’m going to talk to you. I know and you know I could refuse or I could call a lawyer, but I also know you want to move fast on this. And this came too damn close to my girls for me to stand in the way. So I’m not going to make you wait while I wake up a lawyer. I’m innocent and I want to go home after I’ve talked. Fair enough?”
    Skip shrugged. It depended on what he said.
    “Okay,” he said. “After you left PJ’s, I got talking with Nini. Everyone else left and I asked her if she wanted to go to the Maple Leaf. They have Cajun dancing on Thursday nights. I taught her how.”
    “What band was there?”
    “Band?”
    “Who was playing?”
    “I don’t know. All Cajun bands sound the same.”
    “What time did you leave?”
    “I guess about eleven, eleven-fifteen. She has to work tomorrow.”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Yes, but I wasn’t ready to go home.”
    “Did you go to the Maple Leaf in separate cars?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you didn’t take her home?”
    “No. I just walked her to her car.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then I went home.”
    “Okay. Very carefully describe what happened then.”
    “I drove home. I parked. I went in and”—he thought about it a moment, apparently decided on a courtroom delivery—“saw Jerilyn lying on the couch with the A above her. And all I could think of was my kids. That they might be dead too.”
    “How did you know Jerilyn was dead?”
    “I didn’t. I just assumed it.”
    “Think back.”
    He took a minute. “I was nervous because the door was unlocked. I guess that was it. When I went in, I was already afraid. The light was off. I turned it on and I saw the A first. And then I smelled something. I didn’t know what it was, but thinking back I guess it was urine. Did you see her?”
    Skip nodded.
    “She looked dead, didn’t she? She looked so dead.”
    “Did you walk over and look carefully?”
    “I didn’t even pause. I was in the kids’ room in about a half a second.”
    “Did anyone besides the members of the group know your kids would be alone with a sitter tonight?”
    “My wife. Jerilyn’s parents. And anyone they told, or Jerilyn told.”
    Skip had already asked the parents if they’d told anyone or if Jerilyn had. They hadn’t and didn’t think she had—not even her boyfriend, with whom she was currently fighting.
    “Did you get Nini’s phone number?”
    He looked puzzled. “Why?”
    “Did you get it?”
    “She gave me her card.” He pulled it out of his pocket.
    Skip copied Nini’s name and number. “What time did you get home?”
    “I didn’t look at my watch.” He was testy.
    Skip waited.
    Finally he said, “I guess about ten minutes after I left the Maple Leaf.”
    “And when did you get to your ex-wife’s?”
    “About ten minutes after that.”
    “Excuse me a minute.”
    Skip hunted up Cappello. “Do we have an estimate yet on time of death?”
    “The coroner came about midnight. He said no more than two hours earlier. So sometime after ten; that’s going to be about the best we can do.”
    She went back and told Abe to go, but not to go home; there’d be a police seal on the door. She wondered if he’d go to his ex-wife’s house and whether she’d take him in.
    Cappello called Skip in. From Skip’s pilfered phone list, the members of the task force had identified nineteen people who’d been at the meeting the night before, and fanned out to talk to them. Alex, Di, Sonny, and Missy had been left to Skip.
    “Nini?” said Skip.
    “Hodges has already seen her. She verifies Abe’s story. Says she got home about eleven thirty-five.”
    “Pretty damn precise.”
    “She was keeping a close watch on the time. Worried about getting enough sleep.”
    “What about Abe’s ex-wife?”
    “She had a blind date last night—perfect alibi because he never saw her before. Other than that, she seems okay, no criminal record. She didn’t mention the baby-sitter to anyone.”
    “So it still looks as if it’s in the group.”
    “Joe thinks it’s pretty certain and so do I. You?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You can forget that stupid undercover business. There’s no reason to hide anything now. Go to Di’s first, will you? Maybe she’ll give you the phone list.”
    “Want to come?”
    “No