The Axeman's Jazz

serving of fish. From several feet away, she could feel the restlessness, the raw energy of the man. Very deliberately she put down her wine glass. He was like a dragon blowing hot breath.
    “Alex, this is moving much too fast.”
    “Sit down and eat. Later I’ll show you the moon in the woods. It’s why I brought you here. Have you lived with anyone?”
    “No.”
    “This man you mentioned at breakfast. Is he jealous?”
    “Not very.”
    I’m not even sure he’s still in the picture.
    “Have you ever been with anyone really jealous, someone violent?”
    She shook her head, not liking the way this was going.
    “You’d think you could see it coming, wouldn’t you? But you can’t. It’s just like betrayal.”
    She seized on what seemed, by comparison, a relatively safe topic. “Have you been betrayed a lot?”
    He showed teeth, as usual when something upset him. “Just about every day I get betrayed. Do you think I’m doing something wrong?”
    What the hell is going on here? Is he playing stupid sex games or is he violent? Or is it me?
    “Betrayed by whom?” she said. “By women?”
    “By everyone. My publisher wouldn’t do
Fake It Till You Make It
. I had to sell it to a stranger. You want to look at the moon?”
    No!
    But how to say it?
    “Let’s go,” he said.
    “No coffee?”
    “Later.”
    She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.
    “Women and their purses,” he said. “What earthly use do you think you’re going to have for that?”
    “I might want to hit you with it.”
    “So you do like to play rough.” He tweaked her ear. “Let me get a flashlight.”
    It had been just dark when they’d arrived and by now the moon had had plenty of time to rise. There was much more light, quite a lot now, but trees blocked out the sky. Alex said they’d have to walk to a clearing to get a really good view of the moon. He led the way down a well-worn path, hardly needing the flashlight. There was the faint scent of ozone in the air and Skip worried momentarily whether it would rain before they could get home on the bike.
    Alex said, “Here we are.” She stepped into the clearing—a small one with a rustic bench in the middle—and automatically looked up.
    “It’s full!” Full and gorgeous. She hoped the Axeman wasn’t susceptible to its pull.
    “Jesus, what the hell is that?” Alex stepped backward, nearly landing on her foot, and trained his flashlight on the ground.
    “It looks like a chicken.”
    It was, and there was another one lying beside it, both dead. Near these two were others, arranged more or less in a pile, or perhaps just left as they fell.
    Skip wanted to bend down to examine them, but didn’t dare put herself at such a disadvantage. The heads of some were grotesquely askew. Alex kicked one; the head flopped, leaving no doubt the neck was broken.
    He said, “The Axeman strikes again.”
    Skip’s forearms erupted in goose bumps. “The Axeman?”
    “He strangles his victims, doesn’t he?”
    “Yes, but the last I heard he wasn’t killing chickens.”
    “Well, somebody strangled those.” He knelt and picked up one chicken after another, feeling their necks. Skip knelt also, keeping her distance, also feeling the carcasses. No question. Strangled.
    “They must be freshly killed,” said Alex. “They don’t stink yet, and in this heat…”
    “You act like you’re conducting an investigation.”
    “That’s it. I am Hercule Poirot, gearing up my little gray cells.”
    “Hey, you don’t think this is creepy at all?”
    “You got down and touched them. The average woman wouldn’t do that.”
    She shrugged, trying like hell for casualness. “They’re only chickens.”
    “They’ve been murdered.”
    “Oh, come on, Alex.”
    “What other explanation could there be? And, by the way, who did it? The Campbells aren’t home—I’m the only one who’s supposed to be here.”
    She looked him square in the eye: “Did you do it?”
    A glimpse of what could have been surprise passed over his features, and then he started laughing; loudly and inappropriately. She felt for the gun in her backpack, ready just in case. When he’d gained control, he said, “You’re something, you know that? There’s a mad strangler loose in this town, you’re all alone with me, and you just asked if I strangled a dozen chickens.”
    “Just curious.”
    “You aren’t acting even a little afraid.”
    “I’ll ask again. Did you do it?”
    “Come here.”