Jazz Funeral (3 page)

Skip pushed her way past them, badge held high. “Police,” she said. “Everybody stay back.”

She rang the doorbell.

“Miss Thiebaud! Police!”

The door opened and she saw the look in Thiebaud’s eyes. Gratitude.
Thank God you’re here
, said the eyes.
You take over and be the grown-up
.

Skip walked in and closed the door behind her, turning the lock. There was a purple backpack on a chair in the foyer. “What is it?”

“Ham. Ham’s dead.” Thiebaud turned around and padded toward the kitchen. Halfway there she said, “I think. I think he’s dead.”

Ham Brocato was lying on the floor with a kitchen knife in his chest, buried almost to the hilt.

He wore jeans and a black T-shirt with something written on it, Skip couldn’t tell what. He was very white, very pale, as if lividity were well along, as if his blood had already settled on the other side of him. The floor was black with dried blood. But even if he hadn’t been so pale, even if the spilled blood hadn’t been so dark, you could have told from his eyes that he was dead. They were open, cloudy, staring at nothing.

He had been cooking. Smoke filled the house, along with the smell of burned roux. The stove was still on, very low, under a heavy iron pot. Neat piles of chopped vegetables sat on the kitchen counter—onion, green pepper, scallions, tomatoes. There was a pile of shrimp too, lying on the white butcher paper it had come in. It stank. The vegetables looked withered. Two nearly washed wineglasses were upended in the dish drain. An open bottle of wine sat half empty on a kitchen counter.

Thiebaud looked at Skip anxiously. “I’m sorry,” said Skip.

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Thiebaud’s face twisted and she threw herself against a wall. Something came out of her that could have been a sob, but was more like an anguished sound with no name, a sound loud and almost musical; unconsciously so, Skip thought.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I have to throw up is all.”

“Listen, I’m going to have to ask you to go outside. This is a crime scene.”

“I can’t—” She put a hand to her mouth and started down the hall, made it only halfway.

Damn! Who knows what else she did before I got here?

“I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside.”

“This is my house!”

“Is there someone out there who can take care of you?”

“I have to brush my teeth!”

Skip put a hand firmly on the small of her back and guided her to the door. “Does Ham have family members here?”

“Oh, my God! George and Patty—they’re invited. And Melody. Ham’s little sister. Oh, no! That poor little girl!”

“Okay, we need to tell them. Anybody else?”

“I don’t know.” She seemed to be having trouble thinking.

“Ms. Thiebaud. Look at me.”

Dully, the other woman faced her.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“Hell, no. I’ve already thrown up. Why? Do I seem out of it?”

“A little. My name’s Skip Langdon, by the way.”

“And you’re a cop? What kind of cop?”

“I’m in Homicide.”

“Oh. You mean someone called you? You knew?”

“No, of course I didn’t know. I’m just a guest. But I need you to help me now. Can you?”

Her eyes went dull again. “I don’t know.”

“Can you tell me who else I need to talk to? Who else here was close to Ham?”

“Ariel—Ham’s assistant.”

“That’s all?”

“All I can think of.”

“Okay, here’s what I need you to do. Go out in the crowd, find a man named Steve Steinman, and send him to me. And don’t tell anyone what’s in here. Leave that to me.”

“Ham’s video producer?” She looked baffled. “Is he a suspect?”

“We’ll talk later.” Skip had to give her a gentle shove to get her out the door.

The errand served a dual purpose. Skip needed Steve to call Homicide—she couldn’t use the phone in the house, for fear of disturbing prints. And she wanted to keep Thiebaud away from the family members. The nearest and dearest were always the most likely killers—and if Ham hadn’t died in a crime of passion, Skip didn’t know what you’d call a knife in the chest while playing Cajun chef. Better to keep the suspects separated.

A quick tour of the house showed the only out-of-place object was the purple backpack. On a service porch were folding tables, boxes of glassware, tablecloths, plates—all the rented equipment you’d need for a big party.

Otherwise, everything was immaculate, perfectly ordered, every bed made, every surface dusted—as if the place had just been cleaned for a special occasion. The house was strangely impersonal, as if decorated from a catalogue; better than a Hilton, say, but not much better. The living room was oddly like the bedroom—generic. But not done up with wing chairs and Audubon prints which was
de rigueur
in New Orleans homes of a certain class. More anywhere-USA generic. Nothing especially went with anything else, nor did anything clash.

It was the last place you’d expect people like Ham and Ti-Belle to live. But the chatelaine was just up from the bayou country, Skip thought, and hadn’t yet gotten into decorating, had barely had time to buy fabulous clothes.

The guests were banging on the front door, kicking at it, ringing the bell. What to do with them?

The last thing she should do was let them disturb a crime scene, but there were a hundred people outside and more arriving all the time. One thing she might do was detain people for questioning, but most of them probably hadn’t seen much. Ham had been dead a long time—maybe since yesterday. Yet she didn’t have official word of that. She thought the best thing was to have the family, close friends, and caterers stay, send everyone else home.

She found a phone on a slightly battered nightstand next to a king-size bed covered with an ordinary quilted spread, champagne-colored, clearly bought from a department store, and not recently. She was looking at it longingly when she heard Steve’s voice.

She let him in, explained the problem, and told him to tell her sergeant, Sylvia Cappello, that Skip wanted the case. “Just tell her I’ve got it,” she said, “and I’ll talk to her soon.” She watched his eyes come alive with vicarious excitement—he had a layman’s yen to be a detective. “And tell her I need two more officers; plus a marked car for crowd control.” He envied her, she could feel it. She understood, but she had her own envy—he didn’t have to face that crowd. It was increasingly nervous and ugly, threatening to break in and ruin the only part of the scene that might not be totally hopeless.

She stepped outside and held up her badge. “Ladies and gentlemen …” This was a crowd that was ready and waiting. She had their attention at once. “We need your cooperation. I’m going to have to ask you to step back a little bit for just a few minutes.”

But they surged forward instead. Skip would have given her Marcy Mandeville for some backup, but she didn’t even hear sirens yet. Thiebaud was near the door, leaning against a handsome man in his early sixties who had his arm around her. He was graying, had a large head on a pair of large shoulders. Despite the informality of the occasion, he was wearing a suit. The singer was white, rigid. Without warning her eyes rolled back and she started to fall. Her companion struggled to catch her.

Attention shifted to Ti-Belle, and then, almost simultaneously, a marked car squealed around the corner. Skip breathed a sigh of relief. She got Thiebaud seated on the ground, head forward on the flagstones. The singer came around. “What is it?”

“You fainted.”

The man knelt.

“George!” Thiebaud reached for him, he still squatting and trying to keep his balance, she trying to lean close enough to get some comfort, finally having to hop over on her butt. Giving up the balancing act, he sat down and held her.

Ham’s father, Skip thought.

Feeling awkward, finally standing herself, Skip found herself looking into the terrified blue eyes of a woman whom she took to be Mrs. Brocato. She was much younger than her husband, if that was who the man was; barely older than Ham. A very beautiful woman, the classic creamy blonde, dressed expensively, and like her husband, a little overdressed—if there was such a thing in New Orleans.

“Mrs. Brocato? I’m Skip Langdon with the police department.”

“Oh.”

Thiebaud wailed, “George, he’s dead! I can’t believe it.”

People always said they couldn’t believe it. But it was out, and at least Thiebaud had held her tongue until now. Patty Brocato’s face cracked, but the fear in her eyes didn’t resolve itself, give way to shock or grief. Instead she looked more frightened still. A maverick sound fell out of her throat, and she drew in her breath. Finally she said, “Melody?” the word almost a whisper, as if she didn’t dare speak it.

It was a question, but Skip wasn’t sure what the answer was. She said, “Your daughter? Ham’s sister?”

Patty Brocato nodded, eyes alert, fixed on Skip.

“She isn’t here. Is she with you?”

Patty shook her head, hand at her mouth. “She’s gone.” It was a whisper. Her head kept shaking, shaking. Her son was dead, her daughter was “gone,” and none of it was happening, said the head. Skip understood the impulse.

George Brocato struggled to his feet, pulled Thiebaud after him, kept an arm around her. “What happened?” he asked.

“We’ll talk. Can you wait a minute?” As if they had something better to do. Skip told the uniforms to get the names of everyone at the party and send them home. As fast as they’d go.

Then she told the Brocatos their son had been murdered. Thiebaud filled in the details. More officers arrived, and two coroners’ assistants. “I have to leave you for a moment.” She got another officer to sit with them while she went back inside to preserve the one piece of evidence she knew must exist yet was so fragile it could be destroyed with the flick of a finger.

She went into the ordinary bedroom with the ordinary bedspread. She’d noticed an answering machine near the phone, and she wanted to know what was on it. The messages were all for Ti-Belle—and there were lots of them, apparently a backlog of several days.

That wasn’t good enough. She returned to a room that looked like a study, one to which she’d paid little attention when she toured the house a few minutes before. The walls were wood-paneled, the furniture utilitarian, masculine. There was a computer, fax machine, copier, CD player, and other machines, some she didn’t recognize. She had no doubt every one of them was state of the art. The answering machine looked as if it would hold an entire library of messages. Carefully, keeping to the edge so as not to destroy any prints, she punched the button marked “messages.” The tape rewound for so long she nearly decided not to listen, just to tell the crime lab to get the two machines.

But then she thought, maybe just one or two, and ended up playing them all. She’d been right. There was important evidence here. The tape might even help the investigation fix the time of death. Most of the callers had left the day and time.

Most of the messages were of two types. There were frantic ones from various people—mostly from Ariel, Ham’s assistant, asking where the hell he was. These had all been made today, indicating Ham simply hadn’t been anywhere he was supposed to be all day.

The other type of message, interspersed with the “where-are-you” ones, began the tape—on Tuesday night, apparently—and continued throughout Wednesday. These were from “Dad” and “Patty,” desperately trying to find their daughter Melody.

Skip went into the kitchen, where she now found Paul Gottschalk from the crime lab and told him what she had.

Back outside, she found George holding both women’s hands, the three standing almost in a circle, making a barrier with their backs against the other guests. Skip felt for them, wished she could take them someplace private to talk.

“This is an awful thing,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She let a beat pass. “Ms. Thiebaud, could you leave us for a few minutes?”

“Ti-Belle,” said the singer, and left, eyes glazed. It seemed a strange time to get friendly.

George spoke before Skip had a chance. “Detective. We have to tell you something. Our daughter’s missing.”

Patty broke in: “Could someone have kidnapped her? They killed Ham and they—could they have taken her?”

“Can either of you think of a reason why anyone would want to kill him?”

“No!”

“No.”

“Or Melody?”

“Melody!” Patty screwed up her face to cry, apparently not having dealt with the idea her daughter could be dead.

George simply said “No” again, and patted his wife’s hand.

“Was Melody here with Ham yesterday?”

Patty spoke again. “We kept calling and calling—Ham wasn’t home. But Melody—”

George said, “Patty.” Just the word. As obvious as kicking her. He was telling her to shut up.

Skip said, “Mrs. Brocato, I take it you’re Ham’s stepmother?”

“Yes.”

“And Melody is his half sister?”

“They couldn’t have been closer if they were full blood. Even with the age difference.”

George said, “Melody’s only sixteen. Ham was thirty-four.”

“Why do you think she was here when Ham was killed?”

“We don’t,” said George.

Patty said, “But if they kidnapped her—”

“Mrs. Brocato, why would she have been here?”

Her husband answered the question. “She goes to Country Day. It’s such a short walk, she often comes over after school.”

“Is Ham usually home?”

He shrugged, and Skip saw what he was trying to avoid saying—Ham wasn’t.

“Does she have a key?”

He nodded. Skip remembered the purple backpack on the chair in the entrance hall.

“What happened yesterday? When did you last hear from her?”

Patty said, “When I dropped her off, she said she was going to a friend’s house after school. I was supposed to pick her up about five-thirty. But she wasn’t there.” Patty had trouble saying the last few words, and for a moment she looked her age, looked like a woman who’d had children and suffered, not merely like a perfect shape on which to hang lovely clothes.

She put a hand over her mouth until she was back in control. “Blair—her friend—said Melody had left about half an hour before. Just left, without saying good-bye. Blair said she had no idea why. She was on the phone at the time—heard the door close, but that was it.” Patty shrugged. This was obviously old material to her, a road she’d been down all too often in the last few hours. “I came here to look for her—it was so close—I was sure she’d be here. But no answer. Nothing.”