The Axeman's Jazz

never use it in there. Anyway, first I was embarrassed and then I was mad. I knew how it was going to affect Missy. I knew she’d be really worried about me.” He leaned down, stroked the dog for comfort. “The girl wasn’t raped, was she?”
    Skip was so taken aback by the change of subject, she almost asked, “What girl?”
    “We don’t know yet,” she said.
    “Poor Missy,” said Sonny, as if she were the victim.
    Missy’s living room light was on and so was the porch one, ready for a visitor. Realizing Sonny had called her after all, Skip cursed herself for telling him about the Axeman. But at least it saved endless explanations and the tedious footwork of dodging questions.
    Missy did an odd thing. As soon as she saw Skip, she let held-back tears come to her eyes and threw her arms around her, clung to her like a child needing a big sister. “Oh, Skip, I’m so glad you’re here. Sonny’s coming, but he said you’d want to see me first.”
    She looked about fifteen in her Lanz summer robe. “I’m so glad to have a friend in the police department.”
    She was so winning, this girl. Who wouldn’t like her? And yet Skip knew that deep down Missy felt no one did, that she worked so hard at being liked to hide her imagined worthlessness. Skip had her problems with her own father, but for now she was just grateful she’d been spared Missy’s ordeal.
    “Sonny’s told you what happened tonight?”
    “Yes. And everything else—about the Axeman being someone in the group.”
    “I didn’t say that…”
    “But he thought you thought that.”
    Well, he’s right
. “We don’t have a suspect yet.”
    “It’s so creepy.”
    “It is. It’s horrible to think someone you know might be a murderer. Listen, Missy, I hate to do this, but I have to ask you what you did tonight after you left PJ’s.”
    She shrugged. “Sonny brought me right home. That was all.”
    “Do you live alone?”
    “I live with my aunt, but she left for Thailand this morning. That’s why Sonny’s so freaked out—because I’m all alone here. Oh, Skip, I’m so worried about him. And of course he’s worried about me. But he’s working through something really painful. Something he won’t talk about.”
    “Is it something to do with the new puppy?”
    She smiled. “Isn’t he cute? I got him for him. I thought it might help because he’s so sad about this grandfather stuff. It only started coming up the last few days. It’s something about his whole family. I think he thinks they blame him for his grandfather’s death.”
    “That’s nothing. Knowing Sonny, he probably blames himself.”
The same way he thinks it’s his fault Linda Lee got killed because he didn’t have coffee with her.
    “Isn’t that the truth? That’s just what he’s like. Maybe that’s why he’s more like that than most people. Because of his grandfather, I mean.”
    “I guess most little kids blame themselves when there’s a death in the family.”
    “But Sonny’s an extreme case. It’s why he decided to become a doctor. He didn’t do it because his father and grandfather were doctors. It’s because he’s still suffering guilt about someone dying that he couldn’t save.” She turned mournful blue eyes on Skip. “It’s so sad, isn’t it?”
    Skip tried to smile. Enough of this. “He’s worried about you too, kid.”
    Afterward, she went back to the office, but Cappello sent her home. Sent herself home as well, calling a task-force meeting at eight: “Last thing I want on my hands is a bunch of ornery cops who’ve been up all night.”
    Skip got two hours’ sleep, but it was better than nothing.
    By eight-thirty, they’d identified everyone at the meeting except two people and eliminated twenty-seven as suspects.
    There were fifteen people who hadn’t yet been interviewed or who had no alibis, among them Skip’s four and the two they hadn’t yet identified. All of them were possible suspects.
    Of the thirteen who had been identified, four had criminal records, including Di and Alex. They decided to concentrate on these four, assigning full-time surveillance to all of them. Skip got Di.
    O’Rourke was assigned to go over the phone list with various witnesses, and then to go over the many lists and diagrams composed over the past few hours by the task force—lists of people who’d been at the meeting, diagrams of the meeting room, each chair bearing the name of its occupant. This way they hoped to identify the last