The Axeman's Jazz

soup?”
    He looked crestfallen. “Got it in one, Officer.”
    “It’s delicious.” The night was still warm. What she wanted was a gin and tonic, but the soup was probably better for her. Most of the alcohol would have cooked off, no doubt Jimmy Dee’s subtle way of sobering up his guests to go home.
    She looked around to see if anyone she was dying to see was there and wished for Steve Steinman. She’d thought of phoning him when she was called off the job and decided it was way too late. Even if anyone at Cookie’s was up to answering the phone, she couldn’t handle the big reunion scene. She was too let down, barely up to a cup of soup at her neighbor’s party. The adrenaline had started wearing off. In a few minutes, she’d be sleeping as soundly as the dummy in the corner. Where had Jimmy Dee gotten such a thing?
    “Hey, Skip. You know Carlton Lattimore?”
    She turned around to see Cindy Lou Wootten with the father of her best friend from high school, arms around each other, obviously entwined in more than one way. A perfect end to a perfect evening.
    She nodded stiffly. “Hello, Mr. Lattimore.”
    “You don’t have to blush, honey. Lynn and I are separated.”
    To her horror, Skip knew he was speaking literally—she was blushing, her face hot with the shame of a child who’s caught the adults at play. “I didn’t know you two knew each other,” she said.
    Cindy Lou said, “Nobody did, till tonight. It’s our maiden public appearance.”
    “And how do you know Jimmy Dee?”
    “Oh, we don’t. We came with some friends of mine.”
    Of course. Certainly not friends of Carlton’s. Jimmy Dee was probably as horrified to see him as Skip was. Carlton was a stuffy old coot—and old he really was, even for the dad of a friend. He was also loaded, married to a younger woman, and not the sort to get divorced—for financial was well as social reasons. And he would no more be seen in public with a black woman than spit in his soup. What the hell was wrong with both these people?
    She answered mechanically as Cindy Lou asked her a thousand questions about how the night had gone, whether the Axeman had shown himself, if an arrest had been made. It was too much. Not only had she failed professionally, but Cindy Lou had failed her. She was the closest thing Skip had to an idol, and she turned out to be not only human, but not very bright in a certain area. Granted it was the area in which almost no one is very bright, but it didn’t help Skip’s mood any.
    She slunk off to bed as soon as she could extricate herself.
    And was gratified to find a good-night message from Steve Steinman on her machine: He loved her. Even if she did date murderers.

TWENTY
    THE NEXT MORNING Joe was jubilant. To him, the bottom line had been getting through the night without a body on page one of the
Picayune
.
    She wished she could match his mood. A body still might turn up.
    And they still didn’t have a good suspect. Alex, their best bet, had gone straight home after he left Skip. Di had never left her apartment. Cappello had followed Sonny and Missy to one other party, then home. Abe had stayed late at Di’s, and O’Rourke, returning from following Alex home, had followed Abe to a few bars, then home.
    “We got through this,” Joe told the task force, “and we should all be proud. But we have to hit this investigation even harder now. We have to think of new ways to go, ways to kick this thing out of neutral, get it into high gear.”
    But what was left? They were already backgrounding everybody they could trace who’d lately been to the inner-child group. So far, connections with the victims just weren’t emerging.
    “The group meets tomorrow night and I want you all there.”
    Skip said, “I just had a thought.”
    O’Rourke said, “Oh, shit.”
    “Can it, O’Rourke,” said Joe.
    “I was thinking,” Skip continued, too excited even to be annoyed, “that Cindy Lou might go to the group too. She could meet all these types and give a better evaluation of them.”
    Joe turned to Cindy Lou: “What do you think?”
    She shrugged. “Worth a try, I guess.” Her enthusiasm would not have inspired regiments.
    Later, she got Skip aside. “So what’s the deal on Carlton Lattimore?”
    “He’ll never leave his wife, Cindy Lou.”
    “He has left her.”
    “He’ll go back.”
    Cindy Lou sighed.
    “You can do better.”
    “What the hell’s wrong with me?” Cindy Lou said, and turned away to hide her