The Axeman's Jazz

backfired.
    It was an old building, poorly kept, the real-estate market being so soft no one could afford to fix anything up.
    One of the VCD guys was smoking out front, making Skip long momentarily for her uniform. (She’d had to buy clothes for her transfer, having had hardly a rag in her closet before it came through.) At the moment, she was wearing a basic-black skirt—she’d bought three of them—with a beige silk blouse and a pair of flats. She had had the courage not to wear heels, but a rare moment of social insight had suggested she really couldn’t skip pantyhose. So at the moment her legs felt like sweaty sausages.
    “Hi, I’m Langdon.”
    The uniform smiled. He was cute. “Apartment four.”
    She hoped to God the AC was on.
    A man called down the stairwell, “Are you a friend of Linda Lee’s?”
    She shook her head, tried to look friendly as the old guy came into view. “I’m from Homicide.” She showed her badge.
    He looked nearly eighty, thin, with shrunken shoulders. He frowned, but not so much, she thought, with displeasure as with the fear of giving it. He reminded her of her grandfather, her father’s father back in Mississippi.
    He extended his hand. “Curtis Ogletree. I’m the manager. Thought you might want to talk to me.”
    “Thanks. In a minute I’ll knock on your door if I may— I’ll just have a look first.”
    “I better go in with you.”
    “That’s okay. I can handle it.”
    But he tried to follow her. A true Southern man, she thought, determined to do his duty no matter how unpleasant for himself, how inconvenient for others. By God, he was going to be helpful. Her grandfather had driven her nuts, actually removing her paper dolls from her tiny hands, cutting the clothes out himself, never understanding why she screamed in rage and frustration.
    Who knew what Curtis Ogletree felt responsible for? Perhaps he didn’t think he should leave the owner’s property unattended; more likely, he was trying to be gallant, to protect a lady about to be in distress. Perhaps he thought he’d catch her if she fainted. The corners of her mouth twitched even as she soothed and shooed him—he was about five feet nine, 140 pounds; she was six feet tall and didn’t tell her weight.
    She sighed, closing the door of the woman’s apartment. Linda Lee, Ogletree had called her, but Skip didn’t know if it was a first and last name or two firsts. Instantly, her gorge rose. Yes, the air conditioner was on, had probably been on for days, but Linda Lee hadn’t died today or even yesterday. Skip clapped a tissue over her mouth and nose. Her eyes watered. The door opened behind her, the cute officer’s partner arriving, a guy with a beer gut.
    “Pretty bad, huh?”
    “Why don’t you wait outside?”
    He shot her a grateful look, and she hoped he’d remember one day when she needed a favor.
    She drew close to Linda Lee (if that was her name), a white female adult. Very white indeed. Short hairdo, almost prim. Not much makeup. Her neck had what might be bruises on it, but they were faint, possibly due to lividity. Purge, or white froth, had come out of her mouth and nose. There was no blood, no wounds that Skip could see, and there was nothing around her neck. But there were those marks, as if she’d been strangled. Strangled bare-handed.
    She was wearing olive-drab baggy pants and a shirt open over a tank top, as if she were going out at night, expecting a cool breeze off the river. Or perhaps, Skip thought, she had chubby arms and she was self-conscious about them. A small, fashionable black bag was still slung over her shoulder, crossing her chest in mugger-foiling mode. More evidence that she was going out—or she’d already been.
    Had she opened the door to her boyfriend, had they fought? Had he arrived with a snootful, to accuse her of cheating on him? Or had she been out and come home with someone who’d strangled her?
    Either way, the bag was chilling, struck a perfunctory note that gave Skip goose bumps. No preamble, no foreplay. No signs of a struggle. Just murder. Skip looked at Linda Lee’s hands. Surely she had fought her attacker. There would be skin under the nails.
    Skip didn’t see any. Maybe Linda Lee hadn’t thought to scratch, had only grabbed and pulled.
    She lay nearly underneath a table just inside the living room. On the table was a lamp, a tray for mail, and a neat pile of books. On the wall above the table was a red A, written in what looked like