The Axeman's Jazz

doll.” Cindy Lou traded with her.
    “And that’s Bennett.” The young man in the picture was a little younger—twenty-five, perhaps—and nearly blond. He looked so much like Sonny Gerard that Skip gasped before she caught herself.
    “What a hunk,” she said.
    When Di’s mother had returned the photos to their altar, Cindy Lou said, “Tell me, Mrs. Breaux, where did Di study hypotherapy?”
    “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. I suppose that was one of those courses she took and just never mentioned—she takes so many, you know.”
    Skip spoke up. “There’s a question I’m afraid we have to ask—just a formality, of course, but it’s one of those things. I wonder … has Di ever been arrested?”
    Mrs. Breaux flushed slowly scarlet, from neck to hairline. Tears sprang to her eyes. “How dare you bring that up!”
    Skip said nothing, silently entreating her companion to continue the role of the nice cop. Cindy Lou was a natural.
    “Oh, Mrs. Breaux, we’re so sorry to upset you,” she said. “May I get you a glass of water?”
    Mrs. Breaux shook her head, probably now as much in the grip of embarrassment as anything else.
    Skip said, “I’m sorry, it’s just something we have to know.”
    “I know it can’t be all that bad, Mrs. Breaux,” said Cindy Lou. “It doesn’t mean we’d keep her from getting the job. We just have to know, that’s all.”
    “The charges were dropped.”
    “You see? I knew it couldn’t be that bad.”
    “I’m sorry, I really can’t talk about that.” And even Cindy Lou couldn’t persuade her.
    When they were in the car, Cindy Lou said, “I wonder what it was like growing up in that family? I’ll bet those kids had a hell of a ride.”
    “Manic-depressive dad, you mean?”
    “And the day-care debacle. But there might be more. I mean, Mary Leigh did kill herself.”
    “Mary Leigh killed herself? How do you get that?”
    “She was standing too close to the tracks and then she wasn’t there? How does a train run over you if you haven’t actually stepped onto the tracks?”
    “Jesus. I missed that.”
    “Every family’s got one—an accident that was really a suicide, a suicide that was obviously a murder…”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “We had one in ours—a generation back. Great-Grandma is supposed to have walked right into the furnace in her house, but guess what? Great-Granddaddy was home all the time.”
    “You think he pushed her?”
    “She had no history of sleepwalking, drugs, or alcohol. Just one day she walked into the furnace.”
    Skip shrugged. “Could have happened.”
    “Well, how come she didn’t walk right out again? Or how come he didn’t hear her screams and come pull her out? ’Cause he closed the door and leaned against it, that’s why.”
    “What kind of furnace was that?”
    “Oh, who knows? Maybe it was really a fireplace of some sort—it’s oral tradition, that’s all.”
    “And you think it really happened.”
    “All I know is, when the old folks get drunk, they get to whispering. They think it happened. All except my grandpa and my great-uncle—their kids, get the point? You can never believe it of the people you’re close to. Suicide’s worse—to admit it happened means you contributed to it. And Di’s sister committed suicide. So by definition, Di grew up in a family situation that was pretty intolerable.”
    “She’s sounding more like a victim than a criminal.”
    “Criminals
are
victims, haven’t you heard?” Though Skip didn’t speak, she held up her hand—a gorgeously manicured one. “I know it sounds like some knee-jerk liberal axiom, but it happens to be true. They come from nasty families. And not all of them are from the ghetto either.”
    “So you think Di’s family could have produced a murderer?”
    “After what we just heard? Not a doubt in my mind.” They drove in silence for a few minutes. And then Cindy Lou said, “But just about any American family might. Particularly any Southern family.”
    “What makes you think we’re worse than the rest of the country?”
    “Living here. You’re such a bunch of blamers. I swear to God I’ve never seen anything like it. Somebody’s always taking the heat for something, and if they’re not, they’re cringing and saying, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,’ hiding under a table and scared to death.”
    For the second time since she’d met him, Skip thought of old Mr. Ogletree, the manager of Linda Lee’s apartment