The Axeman's Jazz

at Tulane right now. Someone we were very lucky to get—an expert in forensic psychology. In fact, a nationally known expert on serial killers.”
    “You talkin’ a shrink, Joe?” asked Hodges.
    Joe nodded, looking a little guilty, as if he’d betrayed the police code of ethics. “I think she’s going to be a tremendous help to us, and I want you all to listen carefully to what she has to say, and to utilize her services to the maximum.”
    “Man, you must really be desperate.” By virtue of his age, Hodges could get away with remarks others couldn’t.
    Nervously, Joe glanced at his watch. “She ought to be here now.” He left the room.
    O’Rourke said, “This ought to be right up your alley, Langdon. Everybody Uptown goes to shrinks, don’t they?”
    “I wouldn’t know, Frank; I don’t live Uptown.”
    Joe returned with Dr. Cindy Lou Wootten, possibly the only non-blonde in the Western hemisphere who could make Abasolo’s eyes go dark with lust at a second’s viewing. Skip thought she’d never seen such a naked statement on a man’s face. In spite of herself, she found it sexy.
    Dr. Wootten (“Call me Cindy Lou, I’m just a psychologist”) was easily the best-looking woman Skip had personally seen (not counting the likes of Meryl Streep and Kim Basinger), and Skip had gone to Ole Miss, where everyone looked like a Streep or a Basinger. Wootten was spectacular, and it wasn’t only her beauty—Skip was willing to bet she wasn’t “just” anything, despite her self-deprecation.
    She was about five feet ten, thin, willowy, with straight Lauren Bacall hair, high cheekbones, and clothes that managed to be both crisp and fashionable; also to look like a million dollars. Her jewelry was tasteful and expensive; even in the heat, her makeup was perfection.
    She was black.
    She carried herself like the first woman president, exuded a confidence that made Skip squirm with envy. She talked like an actress portraying a tough public defender given to street slang to get through to her clients. Or so it seemed to Skip, so incongruous was her earthy speech with her sophisticated appearance.
    “Anybody here thinking, ‘This broad’s no expert on crime, I know as much about crime as she does,’ has got another thing coming. I grew up in Detroit, ladies and gentlemen, I was an expert before I was two and a half; and you could say I had some hands-on expertise by the time I was fourteen.
    “But just in case you think that’s all, I’ve got a few meaningless graduate degrees in psychology, I did my clinical internship in a federal prison, I’m well-published in the forensic end of the field, and I’ve consulted for the FBI. You wonder what I’m doing here, I got a grant; we academics’ll go anywhere for a free ride, or anyway, I used to think that before I experienced the Crescent City in August. Whoo-ee, never again. Now let’s talk about the Axeman.” She took a breath.
    “This guy doesn’t look like a sex killer. He kills men, he kills women, he doesn’t care; and he leaves their clothes on. So right away we got a little problem. Most of what we know about serial killers comes from an FBI study of thirty-six convicted sexual murderers. Although they were all sexual killers, and we think our man isn’t—or our woman, if that’s the case—all we can do is use what we’ve got.
    “Okay now. I don’t mind telling you up front, the FBI looks at things a little differently from the way a psychologist might. They’re not so much interested in why a person murders as how he does it. So the data we’ve got is descriptive. Only problem is, when I give you the lists of characteristics the study isolated, some of you are going to see yourselves in there. A lot of the responding murderers were daydreamers and compulsive masturbators as children, for instance. Anybody like that here?”
    An uncomfortable titter riffled through the room.
    “But then they were bed-wetters and fire-setters, too. They destroyed property, some of them, and engaged in self-mutilation. You don’t see all that every day.”
    “Hold it a minute,” said Hodges. “When we get a suspect, how’re we supposed to know in advance if he liked to masturbate when he was a kid?”
    “Easy,” said O’Rourke. “Forget the ones who spent their childhood in a coma.”
    This time the laughter was more of a catharsis—for some of the officers. Skip and Cappello weren’t among them.
    “Well, you’ve got a point there,”