The Axeman's Jazz

hand. “Skip Langdon.”
    “They told me Homicide was this way.”
    “Yes. Everybody’s out but me, and I was just leaving. Who were you looking for?”
    “Somebody on the Axeman case?” She looked as undecided as she sounded.
    “I could probably help you. Would you like to sit down?”
    Gingerly, Shoemaker sat, and leaned toward Skip. “I have this crazy idea about the murders. I don’t know…” She flushed in embarrassment. “I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I just thought I ought to tell somebody.”
    Skip nodded encouragingly, smiling on the outside, groaning inwardly.
    “Linda Lee Strickland? You know, the girl who was murdered?”
    Skip nodded.
    “When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought I knew her. I just couldn’t place her, that’s all. But I did know Tom Mabus. I heard all about the murder on the way to Schwegmann’s—on the radio?” She had the Southern woman’s tic of ending statements with question marks. Once again, Skip felt obliged to nod.
    “Poor Tom—I didn’t know him very well, but he was somebody who was working very hard and I respected him for that. Well, anyway, when I heard his death was connected to that girl’s, I remembered where I knew her. They were both in the program.”
    Skip searched her mind for relevant “programs,” but didn’t come up with anything.
    “Programs, I should say,” said Mary Shoemaker. “I think the AA people just say ‘program,’ but everybody else is usually in more than one.”
    “More than one what?”
    “Oh. The twelve-step programs? You know them? Like AA and OA and everything?”
    “I know AA….”
    “OA is Overeaters Anonymous. And then there’s Al-Anon and Coda…. There’s lots of them.”
    Skip’s pulse pounded in her head. “Ms. Shoemaker, would you mind looking at some pictures for me?”
    She pulled out a picture of Tom Mabus, one she’d gotten from his daughter, and three other pictures as well. She laid them out for Mary Shoemaker.
    “Do you know any of these men?”
    She pointed to Mabus’s picture. “That’s Tom. But he was younger then. It’s an old picture, isn’t it?”
    “Well. Yes. You certainly did the right thing by coming in today. I think this information could be very important, and I’d like to introduce you to somebody else if you have a moment.”
    She got Cappello, took Shoemaker to Joe’s office, and let her tell her story. Cappello was as excited as she was, literally licking her lips. “Ms. Shoemaker, which one of these programs are you a member of?”
    “Oh, I go to lots of meetings—Coda and Al-Anon, mostly, and OA; but I’ve been to Emotions Anonymous and once I went to Sex Anonymous.” She blushed. “I mean, I don’t really have that problem—you know, sex addiction?—but a friend took me.”
    “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Coda is … ?”
    “Codependents Anonymous. And Al-Anon is technically for spouses of alcoholics, but anybody can go. People who aren’t alcoholics even go to the regular AA meetings now.”
    Skip watched Joe struggle with that. Finally, he said, “Why?”
    “You get inspired by other people’s stories.”
    “But why not just go to Al-Anon or Coda or something?”
    “Well, they probably do that too, but maybe there isn’t a meeting at the right time or place or something.”
    “You mean you don’t just join a group and go to that one?”
    “Oh, no. It’s not formal at all. You just go to any meeting you want.”
    Skip was getting a bad feeling and she could sense the others were too. Cappello asked the question on both their minds. “Can you remember where you met Linda Lee and Tom?”
    “Well, I saw Tom a lot. You probably wonder how I knew his last name.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Oh, maybe you didn’t know we don’t use last names. In the program? But Tom and I went to lunch after a meeting and he paid with a credit card.” She sat back, looking embarrassed. “I peeked.”
    “Lunch. So it was a daytime meeting. Do you remember which one?”
    “That was Al-Anon, I think. At the Perrier Club—that’s a place where a lot of the meetings are held. Anyway, I know I saw him at lots of meetings. And I’m not sure where I saw Linda Lee. I never talked to her—I just know her face.”
    “So Tom went to Al-Anon.”
    “He did, but I’m starting to think I’m not really explaining myself very well. He probably went to lots of meetings.”
    “How many?”
    “Well, I usually go to two or three a