The Axeman's Jazz

know that now. I just thought that was pretty much the way everyone was. And I wasn’t innocent, I know that too. I let him get away with it. But I faced that and I’m stronger for it.” She sounded it. Or she was a very good liar.
    Skip said, “Do you have anything on paper?”
    “Lots of stuff. But nothing admitting he did anything.” She turned up her palms, smiled her most ethereal smile. “All you’ve got is my word for that.”

TWENTY-FIVE
    IT WAS NEARLY three when she banged on Alex’s door. Lamar answered, wearing a pair of pajamas that were probably as old as she was. He looked wizened and sad in them. “Hey, Lamar. Remember me?”
    “Step in the light there. I think I do, I just can’t call your name.”
    “Margaret. But you can call me Skip this time.”
    “Well, I know I’ve met you somewhere.”
    “Is Alex home?”
    “Elec? You want to see Elec?”
    “Dad, what the hell’s going on?” Alex had walked into the living room.
    “Alex, it’s Skip. I’m a police officer.” Remembering he knew that, she said, “I mean I’m here on police business.”
    “Po-lice!” said Lamar. “Now I recognize you. You’re the questionnaire lady.”
    “Dad, you know this woman?” Alex had on a pair of undershorts and one of the nastier scowls Skip ever hoped to see.
    “Shore. This is that good-lookin’ one I was tellin’ you about. The one with the nice big bottom.”
    “What the fuck is going on?”
    Skip held up her badge. “Could I come in, please?”
    Lamar let her in while Alex went to find a pair of pants. “Lamar, I’m real sorry I woke you up. Why don’t you go on back to bed?”
    “Well, I’m up now. What’s Elec done?”
    “Were you awake when he came home?”
    He thought a minute. “Nope. Didn’t even know he was home.”
    “What time did you go to bed?”
    “Oh, ’bout nine or ten.”
    Alex stomped back in. “Dad, for Christ’s sake, go back to bed.”
    “I’m not doin’ it.”
    “Sit over there, then. And be real quiet.” He pointed to a Naugahyde recliner, probably hoping his dad would fall asleep in it.
    Skip wasn’t crazy about having an audience, but she decided not to argue. “Alex, where’d you go after we talked tonight?”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    “A girl got murdered tonight.”
    “What girl? What does this have to do with me?” His voice went up on the last word; it sounded slightly whiny.
    “I need you to answer a few questions, please.”
    “Well, I need you to leave my house, please.”
    Damn these sophisticated witnesses.
    He could make her leave and apparently he knew it.
    “Alex, this is serious.”
    “I don’t care. It’s your problem. I don’t have to cooperate with you and I’m not going to if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
    Angrily, Skip fumbled in her purse for the picture of Linda Lee she had brought. “Did you know this girl?”
    “This girl!” He looked at the picture and then back at Skip, upset for once, knocked off his pins. “What about this girl?”
    “You knew her, didn’t you?”
    “This girl wasn’t murdered tonight. What the hell’s going on here?”
    “Answer the question, Alex.”
    “This is the one who got the axe. I thought that was her. I saw her picture and I thought it was the same girl. But then I thought it couldn’t be. Her hairdo was different or something. She came to our group once. The teddy-bear group. I asked her to go for a motorcycle ride. That’s really her, isn’t it? I never knew her name.”
    “She didn’t mention it on the motorcycle?”
    “She didn’t go.”
    “How many times did you see her?”
    “Skip, what the hell is this all about? It’s three A.M. and this happened two weeks ago.”
    “I told you.”
    He put it together instantly; Di never had gotten it. “Another Axeman murder! Who?”
    “A girl named Jerilyn Jordan. A high school student.”
    He showed no emotion. “I never heard of her.”
    “What time did you get home tonight?”
    “Why me, dammit? I don’t know the girl.”
    She saw that he would just badger her until she told him. “She was Abe Morrison’s baby-sitter.”
    “Abe Morrison? Oh, Abe from the group. Did he do it?”
    She didn’t answer, but his mind kept working. “Hold it a second. Wait a minute. That’s two from the group. More or less from the group, connected with it. You think the Axeman’s from the group, don’t you?” He sounded excited.
    “Alex, it’s late. Could you just answer the questions,