The Axeman's Jazz

need some twelve-step advice.”
    “For your case.”
    “Yes. Do you mind?”
    Elizabeth shook her head. Her mouth was set in a way that let Skip know she’d done something wrong, but she had no idea what. Probably just the old story—being a cop in the first place.
    “By the way, this is completely confidential. Is that okay too? I mean, you probably shouldn’t even tell Daddy.”
    Her mother perked up at that.
    It’s because she thinks I need her. That’s what gets to her
.
    And she had a moment of deeply pitying her mother, thinking what a horribly vulnerable position hers was, how easily manipulated she must be. And yet knowing that she herself couldn’t do the manipulating, wasn’t yet able to stand up to her even in an adult way, in fact was still terrified of Elizabeth’s own manipulations.
    “I don’t really know how to approach these people. I need to talk to some of them without letting them know I’m a police officer. What I’m wondering is, can I just call them?”
    “Of course. That’s what the phone lists are for. But you’re not going to do anything to embarrass me, are you?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t.” It had always been like this. She was supposed to know things she didn’t.
    “I’m friends with those people, Skippy. Well, at any rate, we’re acquainted. If you question them and they find out you’re my daughter, it’ll reflect on me.”
    “Oh, I see what the problem is. I’m concentrating on another meeting. Another program entirely. Not yours at all.”
    “How do I know the people in it aren’t in mine as well?”
    “None of them were there the other day. That’s all I can tell you.”
    “I don’t know if it’s good enough.”
    Skip felt as if she’d fallen into a spider’s web and couldn’t disentangle herself.
    She rose to go. “Listen, I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you. I promise I’ll stay away from your territory.”
    Her mother looked suddenly stricken. “But didn’t you want me to help you?”
    “You
have
helped me, Mother. I wanted to know if it was okay for me to call people out of the blue, if they’d think that was odd.”
    “Well, it might be a little odd if you haven’t actually talked with them.”
    “But if I have I can call them? Do I need to have a problem? Or can I just ask if they want to get together?”
    “I think you can do that. I’m pretty sure you can. No one’s ever called me, but”—she cast down her eyes, would have blushed if she did that sort of thing—“I wear a wedding ring.”
    “I see.”
    “Really, I think you can. I think quite a bit of romance happens in these groups.” She pronounced it
ro
mance.
    “But do women call each other—for coffee, maybe?”
    “Probably. I don’t see why not.” She was looking enthusiastic, eager to please. Skip realized her mother was probably socially isolated from these people—that to have any kind of relationship she had to volunteer her services, to “help,” and that that wasn’t what these groups were about. But she’d pretend she knew the answer to get Skip’s approval.
    Skip sighed. The answer didn’t matter much anyway—she was going to have to talk to her assigned suspects one way or another. At her request, when they divided up the background checks, she’d been given Missy, her boyfriend, Alex, Di, and Abe. She’d made personal contact with all except Missy and the boyfriend, and she had a feeling about those two, especially about Missy—that they were like her mother, they’d talk too much just to be accommodating.
    But by far the best suspects were Alex and Di, because of their priors. To get in the mood she drove by their respective houses.
    To her surprise, the pirate on the Harley-Davidson lived out in Lakeview, in Ozzie-and-Harriet land, the last place she could imagine him. His street was the very exemplar of Fifties domesticity, overhung with shade trees, divided by a neutral ground, so tame kids here probably walked instead of ran. The houses were modest, the yards nasty-neat.
    Despite all that rampant sexual energy, Alex must be very, very married. Anyone who’d live here had to be.
    In the light of day she could see that Di’s building wasn’t a funky one like hers. It was new, but, like all Quarter buildings, perfectly in keeping with the prevailing architecture. Inside, it was probably a palace of mod. cons., mirrored closet doors, and jets in the bathtub.
    As long as she