Childhood damage spurs murder

When I selected “Axeman’s Jazz” by Julie Smith. I wasn’t expecting such a wide cast of characters this second book in the Edgar Award-winning Skip Langdon mystery series.

It is August and very hot in New Orleans. Now a homicide detective, Skip Langdon is counting the hours until her trip to see Steve Steinman in California but gets a horrific case instead.

A young woman, Linda Lee, has been strangled in her apartment. The killer has used her lipstick to write a large ‘A’ on the wall but left no other evidence. Skip learns that the woman was divorced and new to the area. Her only social outlet seems to have been attending Twelve Step programs.

Within days, Jim Mabus is dead. The M.O. is the same as Linda Lee’s.

In the early 1900s, the city had been stalked by a killer known was the Axeman. He was never caught and now this killer is claiming to be the Axeman sending taunting letters to the police. They get a break when that both victims attended recovery meetings.

Skip is shocked to learn how many groups exist and meetings happen any time of day or night. Hoping to find out more about the two victims she decides to attend meetings undercover. By the end of the first meeting Skip’s head was spinning. So many sad, angry, lost and hurting people all needing support and validation.

Suddenly, she has almost a half-dozen individuals to research.

• Di – beautiful, ageless, group leader and a complete mystery.
• Alex - middle-aged psychologist, author of self-help books and always hoping to score with the ladies.
• Abe – divorced lawyer who moved here to be near his kids and he’s a very angry man.
• Sonny -struggling med student from a medical family. He feels he can never measure up and carries a load of unwarranted guilt.
• Missy- troubled young medical professional with a need to nurture everyone and deeply in love with Sonny.

During a tense meeting, Di shares that her post-cancer reconstruction was botched by an arrogant doctor, Gerard. No one knows that he is Sonny’s father. Then Abe vents about having to find a babysitter in order to attend the meeting.

He later he finds the sitter strangled and a lipstick ‘A’ on the wall. All signs point to volatile Alex as the killer, but they discover that the scarf used to strangle the babysitter belonged to Di and the typewriter used by the killer is found in her apartment.

It looks bad yet Skip’s gut says that Di is being set up. While talking with Di, Skip gets a sudden insight goes to talk to Sonny, but he’s not at the hospital or his home. So, she heads for Missy’s house and is nearly knocked down by Alex as he leaves.

He tells her that Sonny is with Missy and they are arguing. Skip can easily hear what’s being said and listens in horror as Sonny jerkily explains that each time a patient died on his shift he felt compelled to take a life in atonement. He’s convinced that he can cause death just by touching a patient.

During a harrowing stand off, Sonny explains that his beloved grandfather died because at age four, he had been in charge of the old man’s medication. His father insisted that Sonny forgot to put the medicine away and his grandfather overdosed. He was only four but received brutal punishment for his supposed error.

Skip knows that such a childhood would cause lasting damage to any child. When the ordeal is over, all she can feel is sorrow for the injured boy Sonny was and rage at the man who hurt him so badly. Skip wants to quit but realizes that she needs to continue to work in order to find justice for all the voiceless victims of abuse and violence.

We should never leap to judgment because there is no way to know what another person has endured. YOUR public library has many great books that will make you think. Plan to stop by soon so you can check it out.