The Axeman's Jazz

woman who had to get married or go back to school if she didn’t want to live on the edge of poverty the rest of her life.
    Apparently, Linda Lee had been working on the former; the only books in the apartment were the ones on the front table, most of which had titles like
Smart Love
. There were two by John Bradshaw on other subjects, but all the rest seemed to be self-help books geared to relationships. Skip sighed. Linda Lee had been Cinderella looking for her prince. But what had she had to offer him?
    It was almost eerie how little of herself she’d left in the apartment. There were no magazines, no letters—she had probably gotten her news from television, and phoned her relatives rather than writing.
    The address book was the only thing remotely useful—and all it contained were Curtis Ogletree’s number, that of Simonetti’s Restaurant Supply, and ten or twelve more in Indianola, Mississippi.
    Neither of the building’s other occupants, Mr. Davies nor Mr. Palmer, was home. Skip canvassed neighbors in nearby buildings, those few who weren’t sweating it out nine to five, but no one had known Linda Lee, had ever seen anyone of her description, or had heard or seen anything relevant.
    So Skip went over to Simonetti’s and asked for Lucy McKinnon. McKinnon was an older woman, apparently what passed for an office manager at the small operation, and she seemed to have taken quite a shine to Linda Lee, who’d answered the phone and done clerical work. A “gal Friday” in less enlightened times.
    She’d often asked Linda Lee to lunch, but Linda Lee had usually said she “had plans.” McKinnon thought that a little odd, since often Linda Lee walked out of the office carrying her brown bag. But not too odd—it occurred to her that Linda Lee couldn’t afford to go out for lunch but didn’t want to say so. Or perhaps met someone for picnics. McKinnon doubted that, though, because sometimes she brown-bagged it in the rain.
    Skip went back to the office, hoping the coroner had had time to notify Linda Lee’s next of kin, Mr. and Mrs. Garner Strickland of Indianola, Mississippi.

TWO
    WHAT DID YOU say to a small-town woman whose daughter had been murdered after less than two months in the big city?
    If you were Southern, you said you wished there was something you could say, and please let you know if there was anything you could do. Even Skip knew that and she knew virtually nothing about how to be Southern. You had to say that, when all the while what you really wanted was for her to do something for you. Tell you everything.
    As it happened, Skip had found no one was more motor-mouthed than those suffering the first pangs of grief. Later they would talk only about themselves—what they’d been doing when they got the call, how the news had been broken, how they’d reacted. But at this stage they’d talk about the victim.
    Linda Lee was a good girl, took care of her baby brother when she was only six and a half, didn’t make straight A’s but did well enough, active in the MYF (“that’s Methodist Youth Fellowship”), and didn’t deserve the life she’d had. Her marriage hadn’t worked out and now she was dead.
    Skip tried to keep her voice neutral. “She was married?”
    “Five years. To Harry Beaver. Everybody liked Harry. He seemed like a wonderful husband for Linda Lee.”
    “But he wasn’t?”
    “Well, see, Harry drank. Nobody knew it, of course, because he was always so jolly and nice. I mean we knew he drank; we just never saw him drunk. Did you know you can be a complete alcoholic and never get, you know, commode-huggin’ or anything? When she told us, that did help explain why she never did get pregnant. I guess if you’re always full of booze—oh, well I shouldn’t talk about that. And also why he never had no real ambition. Like to broke Linda Lee’s heart, though.” She stopped to get control. “Oh, that poor, poor girl.”
    “How long have they been divorced?”
    “Oh, I don’t even think it’s final yet. She filed just before she left town.”
    “How did Harry take it?”
    “Well, he was broken up about it. He just loved that little girl to death.”
    “Do you know how I could reach him?”
    “Oh, are you gon’ break the news? Thank you so much—I just don’t think I could stand to do that. Here’s his number.” She rattled it off. “Or else you might try over to the sheriffs office. Harry’s a deputy here in Sunflower County.”
    “Mrs. Strickland,