The Axeman's Jazz

the best I could. I really wasn’t trained for anything, but I could get a job now and then, when I needed to. But I couldn’t afford to pay very much for child care. So when the girls were real young, Jackie in second grade and Mary Leigh in kindergarten, I think, I arranged for them to go and stay with some neighbors after school. That was the Ellzeys. Mary Leigh started wetting the bed a few months after they started staying there. I didn’t know much about child psychology, but I knew
something
was wrong. Wouldn’t you have thought that?”
    “Um,” said Cindy Lou. “What
was
going on?”
    “Well, I never found out. Mrs. Ellzey said she didn’t know and the girls never would say, only just shrugged. But when I asked if they wanted to stop staying there, they both said yes, and then I quit work for a while so I could be with them and Mary Leigh stopped wetting the bed. Whatever it was, Jackie never seemed bothered.”
    “It sounds like you had a really tough time.”
    “Oh, it wasn’t all bad—not even mostly. We had some good times too. Especially when Jimmy was home and he wasn’t depressed.”
    “Whatever happened to Jimmy?”
    “Nothing good.”
    “I wonder if you could tell me, though. For my records.”
    “Well, he died. Had a heart attack when Jackie was about fifteen.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Cindy Lou.
    For the first time, Mrs. Breaux’s eyes misted over. “It was probably for the best, in the end. He was a very, very unhappy man. A lot of the time, anyhow.”
    Skip thought of Tom Mabus, seemingly so unhappy, so deeply depressed for so many years and then rallying, making one last stab at life just before he died.
    “And Mary Leigh? Where’s Mary Leigh now?”
    “Mary Leigh died. Now, that really is a sad story.” Her eyes were dark pools of regret.
    “Oh, dear.” Cindy Lou looked so sympathetic probably even O’Rourke would have spilled his guts. “When did it happen?”
    “When she was nine. Or ten, was it? Nine. She was hit by a train. You have to remember this was over forty years ago and we had trains then. It was in Alabama, when we were visiting the girls’ grandparents. She was on her way to the swimming pool to meet a friend. Only one person saw it, old Mrs. Cleland on her way home from the grocery store. She said Mary Leigh just stood too close to the tracks—one minute she was there and the next she was gone.” She put her hand over her face, apparently to hide tears. “Mary Leigh always was in too much of a hurry. She was an impatient child right from birth. If she didn’t get her bottle right then, she’d tune up and cry.”
    Skip was frankly reeling, but Cindy Lou remained impassive. She smiled, bringing Mrs. Breaux back to the present. “Di’s certainly done well,” she said.
    Mrs. Breaux sent back the smile. “She was the first in her family to go to college. Always smart, Jackie-girl. But she didn’t finish—smart, but she had a short attention span. She ended up going to nursing school instead.”
    “And she did finish that?”
    “Oh, yes. Not that I really wanted her to. Frankly, I raised her to marry well. I never did, so I wanted my daughter to have the opportunity.”
    “I see. And did she?”
    “She sure did.” She looked as proud as if it had happened yesterday. “Married Walt Hindman. You know, of Hindman Construction?”
    Skip did know, having been told by the D.A. who’d handled Di’s child-abuse case. When Cindy Lou raised an eyebrow at her, she nodded ever so slightly. The Hindmans were very big in New Orleans. Their firm had been used at one time or another by practically everybody who was socially important.
    “The Hindmans are a fine family,” said Cindy Lou, winging it.
    Mrs. Breaux nodded. “Wealthy. But in the end he turned out to be one of Jackie’s bad ideas.”
    “He drank?”
    “No, it wasn’t that. He was abusive.” She looked away when she said it, not meeting either woman’s eyes. The momentary role of proud mom had evidently crumbled under a desperate need to talk turkey—which seemed to fade as swiftly as it had emerged. “Jackie sure got two lovely children out of it, though.” She got up and walked to a table at the rear of the room, extracting two framed pictures from a large collection. One she gave to Cindy Lou, one to Skip. Skip got a brown-haired, wholesome-looking girl, somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties. “That’s LiLi,” said Mrs. Breaux. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
    “A