Killer On A Hot Tin Roof

by Livia J. Washburn

  These things and a lot of others from Williams’s plays, like that “kindness of strangers” line, have worked their way into the collective consciousness, to use a phrase that proves I’d been spending too much time around professors, especially a certain professor. Will always listened when I talked about thetour business, though, so I figured I ought to pay attention when he talked about academic matters.

  Anyway, to get back to the festival, after an opening night reception and ceremony, it was four days of panel discussions, paper presentations, theater performances, readings, and some things that were more just for fun, like dinners and musical performances. Professors like to cut loose and let their hair down, too, I suppose, although I’d never been around a bunch of them actually doing that. I figured that might prove to be interesting, although I didn’t really expect anybody to get out of line.

  I had a charter bus waiting to take us from the airport to the St. Emilion Hotel–in the French Quarter, right around the corner from Bourbon Street–which was serving as the headquarters hotel for the festival. As the bus pulled up in front of the lovely old three-story building with its wrought-iron railings along the balconies, I felt the elegance and charm practically oozing from it. The French Quarter, more than any other part of New Orleans, had fully rebounded from the devastating tragedy of Hurricane Katrina several years earlier. That wasn’t surprising, of course, since the French Quarter represented more tourist dollars than any other part of the city. I don’t mean that to sound cynical. It’s just a fact of life.

  As the bus came to a stop, I stood up from my seat just behind the driver, turned to face the passengers, and raised my voice. “All right, folks, this is the St. Emilion Hotel. This is where we’ll be staying for the next five nights. I think you’ll be very pleased with your accommodations. The St. Emilion is one of the nicest hotels in New Orleans, which means it’s one of the nicest hotels anywhere in the world.”

  It was expensive, too, but the group rates made it at least somewhat affordable. The university was probably picking up some of the tab for the professors, too, but that wasn’t reallymy concern. Will and I got off the bus and I asked him to let the concierge know that we were here while I supervised the unloading.

  That proved to be an unnecessary request. Before Will could even get through the big fancy wooden doors, they swung open and a whole squad of uniformed porters marched out to take over the bags and see that everybody got inside. A short, dapper black man in an expensive suit came out, too, spotted me, and crossed the narrow sidewalk toward me.

  “Ms. Dickinson?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m Dale Gillette, the assistant manager of the hotel. I want to welcome you and your group to the St. Emilion and let you know that everyone on the hotel staff is dedicated to making your stay as pleasant and memorable as possible.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you,” I said. “It looks like you’ve sure got everything under control.” Escorted by the uniformed porters, my clients were going inside to check in.

  Of course, not everything could go smoothly. Sometimes I think it’s a law of the universe. I heard a raised voice say, “No!” and turned to see Dr. Michael Frasier clutching one of the carry-on bags to his chest like it contained some sort of treasure.

  “I said I’ll take it,” he told the porter who obviously had reached for the bag. “Just leave it alone.”

  The porter looked confused, and so did Howard Burleson, who stood next to Frasier. The porter said, “Of course, sir. I was just trying to help. I meant no offense. If you’d like to carry that bag, it’s fine.”

  “Of course it’s fine,” Frasier snapped. “It’s my bag.”

  Burleson raised a gnarled finger. “Actually, Doctor, I believe it’s mine.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m carrying it.”

  I didn’t have any idea what the old man could have in his bag that would get Frasier so worked up. Some of the other members of the group were starting to look around at him, though, and I didn’t want the scene he was making to get any bigger than it already was. I was about to try to smooth things over when Dale Gillette beat me to the punch.

  The hotel’s assistant manager stepped forward and motioned the porter back. He said, “Allow me to expedite the checkin process for you, sir. If you’ll just come with me to my office, you won’t have to stop at the desk. We’ll see to it that you get right up to your room without any delays.”

  The offer of special treatment seemed to mollify Frasier. He nodded and said, “All right. Mr. Burleson has to come with me, though.”

  “Of course,” Gillette murmured.

  “I can’t let him out of my sight,” Frasier added.

  “I understand,” Gillette said without hesitation, even though he almost certainly didn’t. He just wanted to get Frasier to shut up and get into the hotel. Since I wanted the same thing, I was more than happy to let Gillette coddle him.

  The three of them went into the hotel through a side door that Gillette opened. Burleson couldn’t muster more than a shuffle, so it took a few moments.

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” somebody said in disapproving tones. I turned and saw Dr. Tamara Paige glaring at Frasier and Burleson as they disappeared into the hotel with Dale Gillette. She went on: “Frasier acts like a total jerk and then gets special treatment because of it.”

  “I agree with you,” I told her. “It’s not fair. But the assistant manager of the hotel wanted to do something to help, and I didn’t want to make things worse.”

  “Then you should have left that blowhard and the old fraud back in Atlanta.”

  I pointed out the same thing Dr. Jeffords had earlier. “We don’t know that Mr. Burleson’s a fraud. He seems like a sweet old man to me.”

  Dr. Paige frowned. “It doesn’t matter how sweet he is. He’s still lying. And everyone at the festival will realize that when Frasier trots him out and tries to pass him off as something he’s not.”

  I didn’t see how she could be so sure about that. I was beginning to get the impression that if Dr. Michael Frasier said “up,” Dr. Tamara Paige was going to say “down.” I had seen situations like that before, where anything one person said or did was wrong, according to one particular other person. I knew what the reason for that attitude usually was, too.

  So I didn’t say anything else to Dr. Paige. I went over to Will instead and asked quietly, “Dr. Frasier and Dr. Paige … they used to be an item, didn’t they?”

  He frowned and said, equally quietly, “I don’t like to gossip–”

  “Sure you do,” I broke in. “Everybody likes to gossip, even professors.”

  His frown went away and a faint smile replaced it. “Maybe especially professors. Academia is fraught with passion, intrigue, and drama.”

  “Uh-huh. Sort of like a Tennessee Williams play. What about Frasier and Paige?”

  Will shrugged. “There were rumors, not long after he came to the university…. If they were involved, though, it didn’t last for long. And, I suspect, from the hostility that’s existed between the two of them ever since, that it didn’t end well.”

  “You know which one of ‘em broke up with the other?”

  Will shook his head. “Not a clue.”

  “When it comes to men and women, it’s always a little like junior high, isn’t it, even at a university?”

  “Maybe even more so.”

  “Yeah. The place is fraught.”

  He grinned and said, “Everybody else is inside. Maybe we’d better get checked in, too.”

  That sounded like a good idea to me. All the luggage had been toted in, and we were the last ones on the sidewalk. I thanked the bus driver and tipped him. We were supposed to have a bus to take us back to the airport the day after the festival ended, but it might not have the same driver.

  As Will and I stepped into the hotel lobby a moment later, its opulence almost overwhelmed me. To begin with, the floors were polished marble in some places and polished wood
in others, and the shine would almost blind you. What kept it from casting a glare over the whole place were the thick, gorgeous rugs that were placed here and there where heavy, overstuffed armchairs and sofas were arranged in conversation pits.

  Then there were the vaulted ceilings, the crystal chandeliers, the potted palms, the beautiful paintings on the walls, and the slowly revolving ceiling fans with teak blades. The long registration desk was topped with the same marble that could be found in the floor. Music played softly from hidden speakers, and the air was crisp and cool and dry, as if the humidity from the street outside wouldn’t dare try to come in here.

  The registration desk was to the right of the lobby, a restaurant and bar to the left. Straight ahead lay a short, broad, marble-floored corridor where the elevators were located, and when I looked along it, I saw an indoor garden at the far end, surrounded by an atrium. I knew from studying the hotel’s website that each room on the second and third floors had a private balcony overlooking that garden. The rooms were accessed from hallways that ran around the outside of the hotel, ratherthan from the atrium. A massive stained-glass skylight cast shifting patterns of color over the lush plants in the garden.

  Will let out a low whistle. “Fancy,” he said. “I’m glad the university is paying part of the cost for this, or else I’d never be able to afford it.”

  I didn’t tell him that he was echoing the same thought I’d had a few minutes earlier. I just linked arms with him as we went over to the registration desk. Several of the professors were still checking in, but as Will and I walked up, one of them finished and the clerk looked past him at us, and asked, “May I help you?”

  The professor was still standing at the marble-topped counter. As he turned away, he nodded to Will and said, “Dr. Burke.”

  Will returned the nod. “Dr. Keller.”

  The professor was a bulky, sort of sloppy man with a fringe of dark hair around a mostly bald head. He reminded me of Jake Madison in that if I’d seen him on the street, I never would have taken him for a professor. That would have been right in Madison’s case but obviously not in Keller’s.

  I looked after him as he crossed the lobby toward the bank of elevators, and said quietly to Will, “Are you sure he’s not like a Teamster boss or something?”

  Will laughed. “Ian Keller is one of the foremost authorities in the world on American literature, with an emphasis on Southern authors of the twentieth century. He’s written books on Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, and Tennessee Williams himself.”

  “Okay. He looks more like a gangster to me.”

  “I’ve never heard anyone who has a bad word to say about him. He’s brilliant.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “His books would probably be over my head.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Delilah,” Will said. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. Some of these people couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag without a syllabus to guide them. You’ve got more sense than they ever will. Plus, you can solve murders.”

  I shook my head. “Bite your tongue. My murder solvin’ days are over.”

  We stepped up to the desk. I told the clerk my name and Will’s name, and within a couple of minutes we had the keys to our rooms, which were both on the third floor. A porter was standing by with a rolling cart that had our bags on it. He followed us to the elevators.

  It had been a pretty easy trip so far, a little friction here and there, but nothing serious. You get some of that on any tour. You can’t put several dozen people together for four or five days and have all of them get along all the time. And with a group like this, where everybody knew everybody else, it was even more likely that there would be a spat here and there, like the sharp comments that Drs. Frasier and Paige had tossed back and forth about each other like darts. Strangers would at least try to be on their best behavior around each other.

  “You’re going to the opening reception this evening, right?” Will asked me as we walked along the third floor corridor toward our rooms. Our feet sunk so deep into the plush carpet on the floor that I wasn’t sure how the porter was able to wheel the luggage cart through it.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there,” I told him. I had an all-access pass that would get me into any of the festival events, since I didn’t know where I might be called upon to take care of the needs of my clients, but I planned to attend the panels Will was on if I could. Beyond that, I hadn’t figured out which of the events I would attend. I hadn’t even had a chance to study the schedule all that much. I wasn’t a scholar, though, so I figured I would avoid the day-long roundtable discussion of Williams and his work, whether Will was part of it or not.

  But a fancy cocktail reception followed by informal readings by the several well-known stage actors who were part of the festival … I figured I was up for that.

  “Good,” Will said. “We can have dinner first, or a late supper, if you’d prefer.”

  “Why don’t we make it supper?” I suggested. “I know a little café not far from here that’s good.”

  “All right. You know the French Quarter fairly well, don’t you?”

  “I’ve brought tour groups to New Orleans before,” I said, “just not to this literary festival.”

  “And I’ve been to the festival but never really explored the French Quarter all that much. We can combine our experiences.”

  “Yeah, that’s sort of what I had in mind.”

  “What’s this café like?”

  “Oh, you know, good food, dim lighting, soft music.”

  Will smiled. “Sounds romantic.”

  “Well, you heard what Howard Burleson said about what a romantic city New Orleans is.”

  “Are we going to find out if he’s right?”

  “We just might,” I said.

  CHAPTER 4

  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the hotel room floored me when I went inside. After all, I’ve stayed in some pretty nice places in my life. But the room at the St. Emilion was right up there. Boy, was it ever.

  The ankle-deep carpet continued from the hallway. It was the color of coffee with a lot of milk in it, slightly darker then the walls. A green, richly upholstered sofa and two chairs sat on three sides of a massive mahogany coffee table with a section of inlaid glass. Against one wall was an antique rolltop desk. Across from it was an old-fashioned writing table, although there was nothing old-fashioned about the high-speed Internet connection built into the wall above the table. A heavy, straight-backed chair with a cushioned seat and beautiful woodwork was pushed up to the table. Those furnishings were mighty nice.

  The bed put them to shame.

  It was a four-poster with an elegant canopy trimmed with lace and a spread of dark gold silk. Even though I knew it was a standard king-size bed, it looked enormous to me. What seemed like a dozen fluffy pillows were piled at the head of it. I felt a strong urge to dive right in the middle of them. The little kid in me experienced an even stronger impulse. I wantedto climb onto the bed and jump up and down. I didn’t do either of those things, of course. I mean, the porter was unloading my bags from the luggage cart, and Will Burke was still standing there in the hall, watching me take it all in.

  If they hadn’t been there, there’s no tellin’ what I might have done.

  As it was, I walked slowly across the room toward the curtained French doors that led out onto the room’s private balcony overlooking the garden in the atrium. The curtains were already open part of the way. I thrust them back even more and stepped up close to the doors so I could see out. Wrought-iron tables with colorful umbrellas attached to them were scattered through the garden. The plants were so thick that if you were sitting at one of those tables, it might seem like you were alone in the middle of a jungle, unable to see anyone else. White-jacketed waiters moved discreetly from table to table, delivering drinks from the bar. It would be a wonderful place to have a private conversation, shielded from view by the profusion of plants around you
and the brightly colored umbrellas above so that people on their balconies couldn’t look down and see you.

  I wondered what it would be like to share a bottle of wine with Will in one of those little hideaways. Maybe I would find out before the festival was over, I thought.

  The only feature that struck me as being somewhat out of place in the room was the huge mahogany entertainment center with the 42-inch plasma TV in it. The remote control lay on the bed and had so many buttons you could imagine using it to launch the space shuttle. As I turned away from the balcony, I picked up the remote control and stashed it in the cabinet next to the TV, then closed the doors. There, I thought, that looked better. Now it might almost be an old-fashionedwardrobe. Everything about the St. Emilion put me in an old-fashioned mood.

  “What do you think?” Will asked from the doorway.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said as I tipped the porter, who had finished carrying in my bags.

  “Is this what my room will look like?”

  “I doubt it. Every room here is supposed to be different. No cookie-cutter designs in the St. Emilion.”

  “I suppose I’d better go see.” He paused. “You want to come with me and check it out?”

  “Maybe later. I’m a little tired after the flight.” Actually, I was dying to try out that mattress.

  “Okay.” Will smiled. “See you later.” He started to turn away, then stopped again. “Should we meet down in the lobby and go to the reception together?”

  “That sounds fine,” I told him.

  It was about four o’clock now, and the reception started at seven at the theater where the performances would be held during the festival. The theater was in walking distance of the hotel, only about three blocks away. Everything was close to everything else in the French Quarter.

  “I’ll see you down there at six-thirty,” I went on. Actually, now that I thought about it, I was a little tired, and it might be a good idea to try out that mattress for real and catch a nap. If Will and I had that late supper, I might not get back to bed until after midnight.