Jazz Funeral
Authors: Julie Smith
Praise for JAZZ FUNERAL, the third novel in the SKIP LANGDON SERIES from Edgar-winning author Julie Smith.
“A genuinely moving mystery … It’s always a pleasure to spend time with Skip, a no-nonsense, level-headed heroine in a wild and reckless city.”
–THE BALTIMORE SUN
“Skip doesn’t miss much as she probes the victim’s tangled relationships, remaining all the while a consistently convincing character herself, grumbling about her boss and anxious about her long-distance significant other. Smith’s Big Easy setting is a lively blend of big city and gossipy small town.”
–PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A super protagonist, well-defined characters, and musical highlights make this essential.”
–LIBRARY JOURNAL
The Skip Langdon Series
(in order of publication)
NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
JAZZ FUNERAL
DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
HOUSE OF BLUES
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
82 DESIRE
MEAN WOMAN BLUES
:
The Rebecca Schwartz Series
DEATH TURNS A TRICK
THE SOURDOUGH WARS
TOURIST TRAP
DEAD IN THE WATER
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
The Paul MacDonald Series
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
The Talba Wallis Series
:
LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
LOUISIANA LAMENT
P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
A SKIP LANGDON MYSTERY
BY
JULIE SMITH
booksBnimble Publishing
New Orleans, La.
Jazz Funeral
Copyright 1993 by Julie Smith
Cover by Nevada Barr
eBook ISBN: 9781617507250
Originally published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint song titles:
CPP/Belwin,Inc.: Excerpt from “Breakaway” by Sharon Sheeley and Jackie DeShannon. Copyright 1963 (Renewed 1992) EMI UNART Catalog Inc. Used by permission of CPP Belwin, Inc., P.O. Box 4340, Miami, Fl . 33014. International Copyright Secured. Made in U.S.A. All rights Reserved.
Strong Arm Music: Excerpt from “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin. Copyright 1970 by Strong Arm Music. All rights reserved.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First booksBnimble electronic publication: April 2012
Digital Editions (epub and mobi formats) produced by
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For six young artists I admire: Brooke Smith, cook; Tom Petersen, humorist; William Petersen, guitarist; Marigny Pecot, sculptor; Erinn Harris, writer; and Aliza P. Rood, actor.
CHAPTER ONE
The newcomer is told three things by the old New Orleans hand: don’t walk on the lake side of the Quarter, don’t drink the water, and always take a United cab.
He is sometimes surprised to find the lake side is nowhere near a lake, but quite near what natives call the “projects,” housing so poor and mean it would make a preacher think about mugging, just to even things up. Only one project is near the Quarter, the Iberville. Others are scattered throughout the city, as is crime, which is said to be so prevalent, Uptown gentlemen have taken to presenting their ladies with handguns for their purses. The ladies, in turn, dare not step out of their cars at night and stroll up their own front walks without pistol cocked and at the ready.
The newcomer is puzzled. Is this because urban crime came late to Louisiana, with the crack plague that hit the rest of the country, and the natives haven’t yet adjusted? Or is it really, as they say there, worth your life not to heed the warnings?
Now and then the city does lose a tourist, but Californians and such are nonetheless bemused by the syndrome of pistol as fashion accessory.
And by the other advice.
“Why not drink the water?” they will ask, and they will be told with a shrug: “This is a Third World country.” On further questioning, one is told something about sewage and chemicals, but the Sewerage and Water Board says the city’s water is some of the purest in the nation. The first answer is probably the one that counts.
It is a position with which it’s difficult to argue. New Orleans, though technically a city, is more like a nation unto itself; though legally a piece of America, it’s Caribbean in its soul, as exotic an adventure as exists short of navigating the Amazon.
The question of the cab has never been solved.
Steve Steinman, in town for one of the country’s better bashes, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, was puzzled as usual over the bizarre customs of the City that Care Forgot. He was haranguing his hostess. Detective Skip Langdon of the New Orleans Police Department.
“So I asked three people on the street. You know what one of them said? You’re not going to believe this. ‘Because most of the drivers are white.’ How do you stand the way people talk in this town?”
“I never heard that.”
“Well, the next one said United’s more reliable, and the next one said they’re the best. I said, ‘What makes them the best?’ and he said he didn’t know, he’d never taken a cab in his life, that was just what he’d always heard.”
“Me too.”
“That they’re the best?”
“Well, not exactly. Just that that’s what you’re supposed to do: ‘Always take a United Cab.’ It’s like ‘wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.’ You hear it so early on, you never question it.”
“Some detective,” he grumbled.
Skip liked this: the banter, the endless, meaningless, companionable nattering. She wasn’t used to the luxury.
But it was a challenge, living in one room with a man. The world seemed made of elbows and laundry.
When Steve Steinman wasn’t there, those wretched times when he was at home in L.A.—most of the time—the studio was an echo chamber, a place for listening to Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, a cell to while away the lonely hours, to contemplate the melancholy of a gloomy Sunday.
But it was getting more cheerful, Skip reminded herself. She had painted it cantaloupe. She’d bought a painting by Marcy Mandeville, the artist whose work she’d coveted since her college days; and she’d upgraded her Goodwill sofa bed to one from Expressions. Her landlord, Jimmy Dee Scoggins, had kicked in a new taupe carpet. The place was cozy. It was fine.
It was only lonely on nights when Steve called and the sound of his voice made her ache. Or nights when he didn’t call and she ached for the sound of his voice. Or other nights when, for no reason, her suddenly girlish heart went Southern on her and gave birth to the blues.
Usually when he was in town he didn’t stay here. Or technically he didn’t. He stayed Uptown with Cookie Lamoreaux, in a house with more rooms than most hotels. This time she’d thought she could handle having him here.
And I could
, she thought now,
if I just had a living room
.
The place even smelled different. Not bad—she just needed to open the windows more often. She had to laugh at her own old maidishness, and then at her quaint phrasing.
“What are you laughing at?” She’d picked an inopportune moment. He had just buttoned his shirt and was admiring himself in Skip’s newly purchased full-length mirror. “Something wrong with the outfit?”
“Don’t be silly. I was laughing at myself.”
“Well, why don’t you just change? I mean I know it’s an informal party, but …” He let his voice trail off.
She was lying on the sofa, wrapped in a towel, having flopped down because there simply wasn’t room for both of them to move about at once. And there was another reason.
“I don’t know what to wear.”
As if on cue, a singsongy voice floated up the stairs: “Margaret Langdon!”
“Dee-Dee. Hot dog.”
She jumped up, smiling.
“You’re going to the door like that?”
“I always do. He dresses me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t mean he hooks my bra or anything. He styles me.”
Steve gave her the kind of look Jimmy Dee gave her when she mentioned Steve. In a way, they were rivals for her, she was coming to accept that. But they weren’t rivals in the usual way. Jimmy Dee was gay. He probably couldn’t have admitted he was jealous of Steve, or wouldn’t have figured it out. He never said so, seemed always surrounded by an admiring throng, but Skip knew how lonely he was. A lot of his friends had died, and he didn’t have lovers anymore. Or not often, not much outside his fantasies. They were best friends, she and Dee-Dee, she and her older, gay, eccentric landlord. He played at straightening her out—she was the depressed one, according to him—and she drew comfort from it. But she knew he needed someone to love. As did she. And he lived only steps away—in the building’s slave quarters.
So when Steve Steinman had entered her life, Dee-Dee had reacted with as much testosterone as if they were married. And Steve, sensing male possessiveness even when it wasn’t supposed to be there, had reacted accordingly. The fact was, they hated each other, and both knew it would hurt her to admit it. So they contented themselves with snipes, which she simply put up with. She kept thinking it would work itself out.
She flung the door open and hurled herself at the somewhat smaller frame of her dapper landlord, nearly burning herself on the joint in his mouth.
With one hand Dee-Dee removed the joint, and caught her waist with the other. “Ah. Just in time, I see. You need me, don’t you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he handed Skip the joint and strolled to her closet. Skip didn’t want any, and handed it to Steve, who toked enthusiastically.
Jimmy Dee was also going to Hamson Brocato’s party, but he was still hanging about in an old pair of shorts and a faded purple T-shirt. His impeccable casualness made cool seem the invention of middle-aged gay lawyers rather than high school hooligans a third his age.
“It’s casual,” he said. “How about your linen thing?” He pulled out a dress he’d made her buy, a kind of jumper, or over bare skin, a sundress.
“A dress?” She wrinkled her face up.
“Well, I certainly don’t care what you wear! Why not just pour your tiny body into that gorgeous blue uniform?” He was going into his swish act, which was funny, but always intimidated her when he did it around hair and clothes—made her as unaccountably subservient as bossy hairdressers did. She was six feet tall and statuesque. Well, Junoesque. Goddesslike, the normal Dee-Dee said. The swishy Dee-Dee called her tiny.
“Okay, okay, I just don’t know if it’s very flattering.”
Steve said, “It isn’t.” Which wasn’t like him at all.
“Oh, it’ll do. Turn your backs.” Normally she’d have dressed in the bathroom, but tonight she didn’t want to leave the men alone together. She searched for a neutral topic. “Jimmy Dee. Tell Steve about Ham.”
Hamson Brocato, their host for the evening. He cut quite a figure in New Orleans, which automatically made him an object of interest for Steve, who couldn’t get enough Big Easy lore. And, along with something called the Second Line Square Foundation, he was currently Steve’s employer. Dee-Dee’d known him all his life.
“Well, he’s producer of JazzFest,” Dee-Dee said with a shrug.
“Oh, come on,” said Skip.
Steve knew what Hamson did. And Dee-Dee knew he knew. Ham had hired Steve to make a promotional video for his pet project, arguably a very good cause—and for Steve, a very good opportunity.
“Well, hell.” Jimmy Dee was contrite. He could tell Skip was pissed. “Okay, where to start?”
“Where’d he go to school?”
“St. Martin’s. Why?”
“Just checking to see if you knew.” Skip knew it was his little joke—everybody in New Orleans knew where everyone else had gone to high school. And if they didn’t, they asked—usually in the first ten minutes of knowing someone. “Start with the po’ boys.”
“Always a fine idea. I’ll have an oyster one. Dressed.”