Big Easy Bonanza

street. They turned onto it and flew. Skip was glad they were flying—she didn’t want someone to phone the Boston Club and break the news ungently.

The King Is Dead
    PITRE ROUNDED UP the others while Skip went to the ladies’ room to get Bitty. Bitty fled from her and stood still, once outside, staring wildly around as if disoriented. “I’ll take you to the others,” Skip said, and led her to the small third-floor room they’d been assigned. She tried to be fast, unobtrusive, but a hush fell as she walked through the crowd with Bitty St. Amant, elegant, fragile Bitty, Skip towering above her, the two of them looking like beauty and the beast.
    Pitre, who’d taken off his hat, nodded at her. She called Bitty by her last name, as she had been taught—a girl whose daddy was from Mississippi wasn’t on a first-name basis with parents of peers. “Mrs. St. Amant,” she said, “I’m so sorry. Mr. St. Amant’s been killed.”
    Skip could see that they were prepared for the worst. When two cops turn up looking somber in the middle of a Carnival party, the best news one could expect would be a nonfatal accident. But being prepared didn’t help.
    Bitty and Marcelle wailed together in one high, desperate voice. Bitty fell, automatically it seemed, into Tolliver’s arms. Skip saw his face twitch in pain and then she looked at Henry. She couldn’t tell what she saw on his face, but if it was grief, it was mixed with something else—something a little like triumph, Skip thought. But Henry was a mean brat she’d never liked. Perhaps she was making it up.
    Before she had time to ponder further, she was holding Marcelle, who was sobbing against her uniform. She seemed to have fallen as automatically on Skip as Bitty had fallen on Tolliver. Skip thought it odd that neither had chosen Henry. But then Bitty changed partners. She held Henry as if she were the daughter and he the father, shaking and holding tight to him. She seemed very small and thin in her plum-colored suit. Tears welled in Henry’s eyes and escaped. Skip thought she might have been wrong about him.
    Pitre withdrew. Skip didn’t know how long she held Marcelle, who kept saying, “Daddy, Daddy,” over and over, loud at first and then more softly, crying till she was cried out. When she stopped crying, Bitty did too, as if brought up short, and for a moment they all stared at one another. Then Pitre came in again with a couple of homicide detectives who’d just arrived. They were two of the department stars, Frank O’Rourke and Joe Tarantino.
    Skip told the story of what she’d seen, in a small room the club lent them, and then Tarantino said, “Stay while we interview these people. You know them, don’t you?”
    “Yes.” Everyone in the department seemed to know her life history.
    “Maybe they’ll feel more at ease with you here.”
    They called Tolliver in. He wasn’t his handsome, dashing self. His skin was oatmeal, his posture a memory.
    “Mr. Albert, did you leave the party at any time?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Would you check and make sure you have the key to your apartment?”
    Looking vague, as if the request hadn’t registered, he pulled out a leather key case and showed his apartment key.
    “Does anyone else have a key to your apartment?”
    “My cleaning lady.”
    “Anyone else?”
    Tolliver hesitated. “Why? What’s this about?”
    “Could you just answer the question please?”
    “Mrs. St. Amant does.”
    “Did you see Mrs. St. Amant leave the party?”
    “
What
is this about?”
    “Did you, sir?”
    “No!”
    “Do you know anyone who was planning to dress as a cowgirl today? Or Dolly Parton?”
    “No.”
    “Anyone who owns such a costume?”
    “No.”
    “Do you own such a costume?”
    “No. Why are you asking me these things?”
    “Because, Mr. Albert, someone dressed as Dolly Parton shot Chauncey St. Amant from your balcony.”
    He already looked like a man who’d just lost his best friend. Now he turned from oatmeal to cream of wheat. He sagged against the chair back. “No. You’re mistaken.”
    Tarantino raised an eyebrow at Skip.
    She said, “I saw it. I know your house, Tolliver. It was your balcony.”
    “I live in an apartment. It couldn’t have been mine.”
    “It was your apartment.”
    “Did anyone,” he finally asked, “see Dolly coming out?”
    Instead of answering, O’Rourke said, “Is there a back door?”
    “Yes.”
    O’Rourke sighed in resignation. Dolly had probably