P.I. On A Hot Tin Roof

by Julie Smith

  “Yeah? What next?”

  “I don’t know how far it went. But I think she did it just because she could.”

  “Kind of like Bill Clinton.”

  Ms. Wallis nodded. “I think she would have dumped Royce once she was married to Buddy and turfed him right out of the castle. But then—here’s the one thing we know for sure: One of them killed Buddy in a fight in his own house. So she must have gone to Plan B.”

  Eddie said, “The question is, which twin has the Toni?”

  “Huh?” Ms. Wallis asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Ms. Wallis, Ms. Wallis. I forget how young ya are. What it ain’t is some hip-hop lyric. Know what home perms are?”

  “I think they still have them.”

  “It’s from an old perm ad. Wonder if Langdon’ll be able to charge either one of them.”

  “She will, or she’ll die trying.”

  ***

  It took a few days, but one morning Talba got the call from Jane Storey: “It’s Royce.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Royce Champagne has been charged with the murder of his father. FYI and all. Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s the reasoning?”

  “They’ve got a witness, but they’re not saying who it is.”

  “Oh.” It could be only one of two people.

  “But get this,” Jane said. “They’ve both been charged in Suzanne’s murder.”

  “Both? How could that be?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  Chapter 26

  Talba took a ride out to the Champagne house, where she found Adele working in the garden, wearing jeans for once.

  “Hi.”

  Adele stood up, brushing off her hands. “They’ve charged my grandson—you heard?”

  “I hear they have a witness. I’m just hoping her name doesn’t start with ‘L.’”

  “Thank God Lucy didn’t wake up that night—at least she’s saying she didn’t. Come in, why don’t you. I’ve got some iced tea made.”

  They drank the tea in the sunroom. Adele looked smaller, older, and a whole lot sadder. The lines from her mouth to her chin reminded Talba of a marionette. She couldn’t remember noticing that before. “I couldn’t get past Suzanne,” Adele said. “Yes, he’s my grandson, but my God! He killed his own wife!”

  Not to mention his father, Talba thought.

  “Buddy. Jesus. Anybody might have killed him. Had all of Celeste’s money, and still sold himself for hams. The man was bent, that’s all. He enjoyed being a crook.”

  Talba had thought a lot about that. “Some kind of power thing,” she mused.

  “Oh, yeah. Buddy loved to play the big man. Listen, I heard the argument they had. I wanted to kill him myself. It wasn’t anything to do with Kristin. That was Royce’s story to the cops, but it wasn’t anything like that. He was so shamed by his own father, he wouldn’t even tell them why he killed him.”

  “What happened, Adele?”

  “You know how big this house is.” She flung out an arm to illustrate. “You can’t hear anything from one room to another. That’s why I’m hoping and praying Lucy really did sleep through it. I was awake when it happened. I came downstairs for a nightcap and heard them arguing in the library. You know what it was about? Buddy’s damned greed. That was all in the world there was to it. Royce was furious that he’d cheated those poor shrimpers—specifically that Cheramie man. He was trying to get him to pay ’em and shut down that goddam loser of a marina. Then Buddy started yelling at him—berating him for being a failure. Jesus, I was mad! I wouldn’t treat a roach the way he treated that boy. I was tempted to go in there and smack him down myself. But what I did was fix myself a bourbon and water, and go back upstairs. With the rest of the bottle.”

  “You didn’t actually see the murder?”

  “Oh, God, no. That’s how I rationalized not saying anything. Buddy could have gone out after the argument, you know? I didn’t know Royce did it. But then when that message thing came out, I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. Anyhow, that night I had my drink, and then another, and I read for a while. And then I did hear someone on the second floor. I thought it was Lucy going to the bathroom, but it must have been Royce getting the tape. Anyhow, at the time, I didn’t think much about it. I just had yet another drink and went beddy-bye. Slept very damn soundly, I might add.”

  “You never heard Buddy fall?” It seemed to Talba the house might have shaken a bit.

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not. But he was probably sitting down at the time. He probably didn’t fall. Royce probably got to the end of his rope and threw the blackamoor at him in a rage. But he must have calmed down and realized all he’d have had to do to cover it up would be wipe his prints off the statue, make the tape, and get someone to help him move the body. But he wouldn’t have known how to make the tape himself. That’s why he must have called Kristin.” She winced. “That and the fact that he thought he could trust her because he was screwing her. He and Kristin could easily have gotten Buddy out of there, and no one the wiser.”

  “But someone was, apparently.”

  For a moment, Adele looked puzzled. “Oh. You mean Suzanne. I guess she woke up. Or somehow figured it out. Or maybe Royce was fool enough to think if he killed her, that psychopath Kristin really would have married him, the idiot.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eye. “Goddammit, he never had a chance.”

  Privately, Talba disagreed. He’d had at least two chances to keep blood off his hands and he’d blown them both. “Why,” she said, “do you think he killed Suzanne? Kristin could have done it—she was the one who ended up with LaGarde’s gun. Maybe he gave it back to her after they shot Buddy.”

  Adele sighed. “She has an excellent alibi.”

  Talba remembered that Kristin had offered to alibi LaGarde when the heat was on him. “Not her father,” she said.

  “No. People in her office. Clients. She was in the office all day—had meetings straight through. Oh, yes. Little Kristin looked after herself.”

  “So did Royce really try to frame her—with the gun?”

  “Hell, no! He was a fool to the very end. It was the bitch’s idea to frame her dad. Royce killed Suzanne and gave the gun back to her, poor trusting idiot.”

  “But how do you know that?”

  “I know what my grandson told me,” she snapped. “Kristin thought that alibi thing would protect her. She didn’t count on a conspiracy charge.” She paused and then put all the venom she possessed into what she said next. “Idiot!”

  It seemed to be Adele’s favorite word of the day.

  Her conjectures about the murder seemed far too well thought out to be theory only. Talba suspected that Royce had told her the story before Suzanne was killed, and counted on her silence on that one also. She was still confused about one thing, but she didn’t quite know how to ask it. “So they planned the setup together, but who actually fired the shot to make it work?”

  “Are you kidding? That bitch Kristin. Royce could never do a cold thing like that.”

  Her faith in her grandson was touching, but Talba tended to agree with her. Kristin was definitely the cooler of the two customers. She finally asked the main thing she’d come to find out. “How’s Lucy?”

  “Terrible. Refuses to see Dr. Watson any more. Hates him. Hates me.”

  “She’s not answering my calls, either.”

  “Hates the world.” Adele shook her head, apparently to shut out anything and everything. She’d begun weeping, and got up to find more tissues.

  Talba took the hint and left, but she had a tiny bit of a plan—there was one thing she might be able to do for Lucy. She called Cindy Lou Wootten, a psychologist she knew who sometimes consulted with the police department, and asked for a name.

  “Let me call Skip,” Wootten said. “She knows somebody.”

  “Skip? How would she know a kid shrink?”

  “Trust me—she does
. I’ll get back to you.”

  The name she got from Langdon was Joanne Leydecker, known to one and all as “Boo.” “I’ve already called her,” Langdon said. “She’ll meet the kid. How you arrange it is up to you.”

  “Boo? That’s a name?”

  “B-o-o.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “The short version is, she’s a woman who’s had a lot of trouble. She’s also a great shrink. I went to her myself.”

  “But this is for a kid.”

  “Well, she specializes in kids now. She has an adopted son who’s also had it hard and somehow they ended up with each other. Trust me, nobody in Louisiana but this woman can understand what Lucy’s been through. If Lucy likes her—and she will—she’s the right person. But it’s going to be up to you to get them together.”

  “So what’s the story, Skip?”

  “It’s not up to me to tell it.”

  Two weeks later, at Reggie and Chaz, Princess Lucy returned for her sophomore performance. Raisa and Darryl were there, and so was Boo Leydecker. Lemon Blancaneaux was the emcee. Serenity Prayer Jones was too drunk to read, but the Baroness did (though her introduction was somewhat longer than her poem). She was dressed uncharacteristically in black, with a red scarf tied round her head.

  “I didn’t title this one,” she said, “because I thought I’d let you decide what it’s about. Could be life itself maybe, or your best friend—it could be any kind of betrayal. Hope it’s not your husband, though. ‘Haiku.’”

  Haiku

  A kiss before it

  Rips a nasty line of blood

  From your fine smooth skin.

  She ended with her usual line, “The Baroness myself thanks you.” And, as always, she curtsied, but this time she didn’t get her usual appreciation. The audience seemed more or less stunned.

  Lemon came back onstage. “Hey, Baroness, what’s up with that shit? That was cold.”

  “Oh, come on, Lemon. It was only a little trickle of blood. Haven’t you ever had a cat? Know how they jump out of your lap and scratch your hand in the process?”

  “That’s about a cat?”

  “If you like,” said the Baroness. “Go put a Band-Aid on it.”

  “I’m gon’ have to put a Band-Aid on this show,” Lemon said. “I’m the one bleedin’ over here. Bet a fourteen-year-old kid could do better than that. Okay, y’all, let’s all welcome, for the second time at Reggie and Chaz, that poetic prodigy, the teenage mistress of metaphor and mystery—the Princess Lucy!”

  Lucy was dressed in a short, kiltlike skirt with little pleats, a navy zip-front hooded sweater, and black canvas boots, each of which was decorated with a cat’s skull (ears miraculously intact) and a pair of crossbones. She had lost still more weight, which would have been becoming if she hadn’t been so pale, and even that might have been dramatic if not for the sprinkling of zits on her fair skin. She looked like what she was—a kid going through a hell of a time. “That was so transparent, Baroness,” she said. “But a Band-Aid’s not gonna do it—I think I need a full body cast. Don’t y’all worry about it, though—it’s just that teenage angst thang. This is a little thing called ‘Santana.’”

  Before she started to read. Raisa’s whisper could be heard in the silence: “What’s that mean. Daddy?”

  “Later.” Darryl whispered, and Lucy said again:

  Santana

  I turn East, hoping for dawn

  And instead hear the rumble

  That signals winds of change,

  That roar and tear,

  Cold and furious

  Through the chaotic quiet.

  Uh-uh. No way.

  I’m going South—

  Where the sun burns and blinds

  But dries my tears

  As it warms my frozen marrow

  And thaws my fury

  And unleashes it,

  Searing through hide to naked bone.

  Raw and ragged, I flee West

  Into the rain, which pelts, relentless,

  Till I am in above my head.

  The water soothes.

  It calms.

  It rinses Yesterday.

  It rushes and cascades

  Like love itself.

  It drowns hope

  And then recedes

  And I see that it has worn away

  The stone that took

  A billion years to build

  And nothing is left

  Except the solid wall of North.

  I walk into the mountains

  And I see the stones

  The wild cascades have missed,

  Outcroppings of a thousand ranges

  That cannot be blown away

  Or burned

  Or worn down smooth—

  A plain of desolation that

  Might hold my weight.

  But these new rocks are hard and sharp

  And bruise and beat and tear.

  I want the winds again.

  I want the East!

  I CRAVE SANTANA!

  But I am like that Irish falcon,

  Turning and turning—

  Nor knowing where to turn.

  Lucy stopped and curtsied, ever so sweetly. “The Princess myself thanks you.”

  She got the applause that usually went to the Baroness. Lemon took the stage again and said, “Hey! What y’all think of that? Young lady been readin’ Yeats! Prayer, you and everybody else better wake up and start writin’—we finally got a literate poet up here. Stealin’ all y’all’s thunder. Only fourteen, ladies and gentlemen—the Princess Lucy!”

  More applause. Lemon seemed to have taken a shine to her.

  Lucy was radiant. She turned to Boo, whom she had barely met before the reading. “Whatcha think, shrink? Am I crazy or what?”

  “What do you think—are you?”

  “Right. Just like all of them—always asking questions.”

  “Well, you asked me a dumb question. You know the answer. You really want to know what I think?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Well. I’m going to tell you anyhow. I think we should go South—that is, if you want to work with me.”

  “South?”

  “That’s where the energy is—all that lovely anger. Besides, you’re a redhead. Lots of fire there. Slouch on over at six Tuesday. You’ve gotta get out of that widening gyre.”

  “Daddy,” Raisa asked, “what’s ‘santana’ mean?”

  “I don’t know. Something like nirvana, Luce?”

  “It’s a warm breeze,” the girl said.

  “Or a hot wind,” Talba added, “depending on how you look at it.”

  THE END

  Author’s Note and LAGNIAPPE: Talba Wallis (aka the Baroness de Pontalba), had actually composed an ambitious new poem she planned to read, but she wanted it to be Lucy’s night. The Baroness, like so many artists, writes to understand her life. Here’s what she made of the events that kicked off her career as a fake maid:

  The Day They Busted

  Big Chief Alabama Bandana

  by the Baroness de Pontalba

  It was just eleven days

  Before the meanest Mardi Gras in fifty years—

  The time we had that shootin’ up near Josephine Street

  At the Muses Parade

  And then a reveler died at the Endymion Ball

  Reachin’ for a pair o’ beads—

  The long pearls, I like to hope.

  (The Superdome folks said wasn’t nothin’ wrong with that platform—

  She should never been standin on that chair.)

  Could be right.

  And that was just the, start of things.

  Next thing, they had to close the river—

  (Little boat hit a big one.)

  And all the cruise ships takin’ all the locals out

  Who was fleein’ the city for Mardi Gras

  Couldn’t leave

  And everybody got sent home with they money back

&nbs
p; And all the people comin’ in for Carnival

  Ended up in Gulfport, Mississippi

  ’Stead of takin’ off they shirts for beads

  (The long pearls, I like to hope)

  Down on Bourbon Street.

  And then a whole front of thunderstorms

  Closed down Lundi Gras

  At the river,

  And the Zulu King and Queen

  Arrived at the Spanish Plaza by automobile

  ’Stead of their traditional pleasure barge

  (Though Rex braved the river)

  And all day Fat Tuesday the rain come down

  In little squalls

  That kept some of the toughest Indian gangs drinkin’

  Inside Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-In-Law Lounge,

  Lest they get they feathers ruffled

  Or worse yet, they spankin’ new museum-quality suits

  Waterlogged

  And worse for wear.

  But none o’ that ain’t happened yet

  On that perfect February Sat’day

  When the Poison Oleanders

  Played they songs and calls out behind the Old Mint.

  And inside, they had a bead workshop for little kids,

  Which Big Chief Alabama Bandana single-handedly

  Presided over

  Before he played his gig,

  His first in three years, due to a little slip that

  Cost him precious time up in Angola prison.

  (It could happen to anyone.)

  And Big Chief Alabama had on his new suit,

  The one he’d made for that Mardi Gras he missed so long ago.

  When they took him away,

  Which normally he’d’a saved for The Big Day itself,

  But he just couldn’t wait.

  Well, the chief played a beautiful gig.

  Played his fool heart out,

  Inspired like he was ’cause he was home at last and

  It was Carnival time

  And his mouthpiece was there in the crowd,

  An angel to him ’cause she

  Got him out on a technicality

  (And that was also her name),