The Axeman's Jazz

was so near home, she went there to make a phone call. I wonder, she thought as she opened the door to nothing in particular, if I should get a pet.
    No. Jimmy Dee would be jealous
.
    She called Eileen Moreland at the Times-Picayune. “Would you consider doing a favor for a long-lost Kappa sister?”
    “Not if it’s Skippy Langdon, who never gave a goddamn about Kappa or even the school or the whole United States of America, for all I know.”
    “You recognized my voice after all these years.”
    “You’ve been on my mind, to tell you the truth. Actually, I was going to call you.”
    “What for?”
    “Well, you know they keep me in the women’s ghetto here. So I’m always trying to think up interesting features—I think you’d be one.”
    “Me!”
    “You’re in Homicide, I hear. How about something like ‘The Lady Always Gets Her Man’?”
    “News travels fast. But here’s some more. There are several women in Homicide.”
    “Better still. I’ll do them all.”
    Great. Just what she needed when she was semi-undercover on the biggest murder case in the city.
    “I don’t know; I’m kind of publicity-shy.”
Especially right now
.
    “Oh, come on, Skippy. I get so bored around here.”
    “Let me think about it. Fair enough?”
    “Oh, pooh.”
    “By the way, are outsiders ever allowed to use your library?”
    “I could get you in. Especially if you’d think real hard about that interview.”
    “Well, you know I will.”
    It was weird; whenever she talked to true Southern belles, Skip found herself picking up their speech habits.
    An hour later, she knew nothing more about Di or Abe and precious little else about Missy. But Missy’s name had been mentioned once, as the date of Sonny Gerard, in a picture caption. The young man in the picture was the one with her at the meeting, and Skip knew exactly who he was now. Everybody, especially everybody whose father was a doctor, knew his dad, “Bull” Gerard, possibly the best plastic surgeon in the city. Certainly everyone who’d gone to McGehee’s did—he’d bobbed half the noses in the school.
    And then there was Alex. Alex was a celebrity of sorts. Even Skip had heard of him, she realized, though she hadn’t recognized his name till she had it in context—and anyway, she’d had no idea he was in New Orleans. He was Alexander Bignell, the hot pop psychologist and author of seven self-help books based on his workshops.
    So far as Skip could tell from the clips and from previous things she’d read about him, he’d been sort of a prince—never quite king—of pop psychology. But his eighth book,
Fake It Till You Make It
—just out a year ago—had denounced all of his previous work, that of most of his colleagues, and in fact a good part of modern psychology. In it, he’d more or less admitted to being a charlatan and suggested that so was everyone else in the field and all their ancestors as well—including Freud and Jung.
    The
Picayune
reviewer seemed to think he’d gone crazy. A wire story that had run with the review indicated that so did the psychology establishment. A third story explained the assault charge—he’d apparently slugged the reviewer at a literary reception, but the journalist had declined to press charges.
    Skip dashed out to the nearest bookstore to get his book and got John Bradshaw’s latest as well. Then she went back to phone a few suspects.
    “Di, it’s Skip. From last night? I really enjoyed talking to you, and I’m kind of new in all this; I was just wondering—”
    “I could sense you were new, but you know what, they’re really right when they say, ‘Keep coming back.’ I know it sounds stupid, but it really does work. Listen, I know what you’re feeling, though. At first you kind of need somebody to talk to; I mean, the whole thing is so overwhelming.”
    “I was wondering if we could get together. Tonight maybe.”
    “Tonight! My goodness. Well, let me see—I do have a meeting….”
    “After your meeting?”
    Skip heard pages ruffle, presumably pages of Di’s calendar.
    “Okay. I could do that.”
    In a way it had been almost too easy, but she realized she’d come across as a soul in trouble. By tonight she was going to have to have a problem.
    She tried Missy next, but her phone was busy. She took a deep breath and dialed Alex. He said, “Skip? Skip? Oh, yeah, the one with the curls.”
    “Big broad. Does that help?”
    “What can I do for you, big lady?”
    “Well, I’ve