The Axeman's Jazz

anybody.”
    “Did he belong to any social clubs, or maybe a church? A bowling league? Anything?”
    Edna shook her head. “We tried and tried to get him interested in something. He’s been a loner ever since Mama died ten years ago. Seemed like he never got over it. Never cleaned the house, always kept the shades down, even in the daytime….”
    “That house never would have got cleaned at all if Edna didn’t do it for him every now and then.”
    “We asked him to live with us, but he wouldn’t. He lost weight and looked sadder and sadder, I swear, as the years went by. I guess he was one of those people who aren’t happy unless they have someone to take care of.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Well, Mama was a handful.”
    Darryl snorted. “Alcoholic.”
    Edna nodded. “Yes, she was. He had to work real hard, raising me, taking care of the house, doing everything Mama was supposed to be doing. And then when I was gone, seemed like she got even worse. But after she died, he never had no interest in anything—not even much in me, to tell you the truth. I guess he really loved her.”
    “Don’t see how anyone could.”
    “Darryl!”
    “I’m sorry, Sugarplum. But you know how she was.”
    “Are you his only child?”
    Edna nodded.
    “Do you have children?”
    Darryl withdrew, stony. Edna said, “Our daughter’s autistic. She doesn’t live with us.”
    ”I’m sorry. I asked because your father had a teddy bear.”
    “A teddy bear?” Darryl sounded furious. Edna was silent.
    “A teddy bear was found near the body, as if he’d been holding it when he was attacked. I’m wondering—do you know of any children he was close to?”
    “No, I don’t. He was always so sad about Rochelle.”
    “Your daughter?”
    Edna nodded. “I wanted him to go into therapy.”
    “Sheeit!” said Darryl.
    Edna cast him a furious look. “He was miserable, Darryl. You never saw an unhappier man.” “Should have gone to church.”
    Edna looked at Skip beseechingly. “He wouldn’t even do that. Wouldn’t do a thing to help himself.”
    “Did he ever mention a Linda Lee Strickland?” Edna and Darryl simply stared.

SIX
    THE MORNING DAWNED hot as the night before, and Skip awoke in clammy sheets. After Edna’s meat freezer of a home, she had slept with only the breeze from the ceiling fan, naked and lonely. She hit the snooze alarm and lay in bed awhile, thinking of Steve and missing him, enjoying one of the principal pleasures of the long-distance romance.
    Thirty minutes later, in a crisp white blouse and slate-blue skirt, carrying her suit jacket, she arrived at work, lewd and lonesome thoughts forgotten.
    She was puzzling about the case, looking forward to talking it over with Cappello and Joe, getting some ideas—she was out of her own.
    But her stomach lurched as she arrived on the third floor. The halls were full of reporters and television cameras—why, she didn’t know, but it couldn’t be good. She pushed through, into Homicide. Cappello was in Joe’s office.
    “Langdon! In here!” Joe sounded furious.
    “What is it? Did somebody leak the scarlet A’s?”
    “Worse. I swear to God it’s worse.”
    With a pair of tweezers, he handed Skip a letter, typed on plain white paper. “Look at this.”
    It said:
    Dear Broadcaster:
    You probably remember me. The first time, I wrote to the print media, but there was no television then. I also used an axe. That, of course, would be messy in this day and age and I have two perfectly good hands to strangle with. So forget the axe, but I’m still who I am. My signature is awritten in blood. I kill whom I need to kill, both women and men.
    As I mentioned before, they never caught me and they never will. I am not a human being, but an extraterrestrial. (Or perhaps that is the best way you can understand it.) I am what you Orleanians used to call the Axeman—make no mistake, I’m back.
    It’s me.
    I’m baaaaaack.
    Hi, Mom.
    Honeee, I’m hooome.
    I have killed twice this time, in the Quarter and near Gentilly. Ask the police. I left my signature.
    Maybe you know my song. It has two names: “The Mysterious Axeman’s Jazz” is my preference, but it’s also called “Don’t Scare Me, Papa.” I am no one’s papa! I am the Axeman! I am the walrus! (Just kidding.)
    Here’s the deal: It’s the same as before. Jazz is the lifeblood of this great city of ours—it was then and it is now. It’s the only constant, the only universal. My spaceship