Big Easy Bonanza

evidence, goddammit! Why didn’t he goddamn bring it in?”
    “Oh, he did.” Her adrenaline was kicking in. She could manage a pseudo-sweet condescending semi-smile. “To me.” She knew she was being bitchy, but she told the story of how Cookie Lamoreaux had recommended her and only her, and she also told a lie. “I looked at it and saw nothing also.”
    Tarantino spoke. “I don’t get it.”
    “Well, Steve and I were just having lunch and he reminded me about it—”
    “How did he happen to think of it, Langdon?” asked O’Rourke.
    “We weren’t discussing the case, O’Rourke. I just told him we were having problems with it. And he asked if it would help to see the film again. Knowing what we know now, I suddenly realized it would.”
    Tarantino said, “We better look at it, Frank.” To Skip: “Where’s Steinman?”
    He had already set up the room for viewing, closed the blinds, threaded the film onto the projector, and faced it toward the far wall, to serve as a screen.
    After introductions were made, Skip noticed that Tarantino was nervous about something, but she couldn’t figure out what. He cleared his throat. “Uh, Mr. Steinman. Would you mind waiting outside?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “This is kind of a delicate case…”
    “But there’s nothing on that film I haven’t seen. This is crazy.” He stared past the giant shoulders at Skip. Unsure what was going on, she shrugged but said, “Why don’t you have some coffee, Steve? We’ll call you back in a minute.”
    Sulkily, he showed Tarantino how to run the machine and then suffered his banishment. Tarantino ran the film.
    When it was done, Skip thought the relief in the room hung as thick in the air as cigar smoke. Apparently O’Rourke and Tarantino hadn’t seen what she and Steve had.
    O’Rourke said, “Big deal. Where does that get us?”
    Tarantino was more cautious. “I don’t see anything.”
    “Go back to where she’s doing the gun tricks.”
    Tarantino obliged, and held the frame. Skip said, “See that sconce on the wall behind her?”
    “What the fuck is a sconce, Miss Uptown?”
    “Let her talk, Frank. It’s the flower pot thing.”
    Skip said, “It’s still on the wall. We can measure its height, and we’ll get Dolly’s.”
    Tarantino said, “Wait a minute. I remember that thing. Seems to me it was up pretty high—about six feet or so. Albert was about six feet tall, wasn’t he?”
    “At least.”
    He drummed his fingers. Dolly’s head was well below the sconce. “How tall’s Henry?”
    “About five six or seven, I think. But there’s something else. Remember how Tolliver seemed puzzled about the bunting? Said he hadn’t draped it and didn’t know anything about it?”
    No one said anything.
    “The murderer took an extra precaution in case he—or she—was seen. He stood on something to disguise his height. And that’s what the bunting was for—because otherwise you could have seen through the ironwork.”
    Tarantino said, “I’m startin’ to remember something. Look at that thing, Frank. Remember, one of the plants was sittin’ in a chair? I wondered about that.”
    “I did too,” said Skip. “But it didn’t occur to me until I looked at the film again that Dolly moved it so that she’d have room for something else—the thing she needed to stand on. I think I know what it was too.”
    “Son of a gun. So do I.”
    And she knew that Tarantino had done what she had on her lunch hour—brought the murder scene piece by piece back into his memory. Even if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t matter—they had the crime-lab photos. The pictures would show the little pile of clothes in the middle of the carpet and the holster draped across the needlepoint footstool that was jutting out at such a funny angle—as if someone had kicked it. Or moved it and returned it hurriedly, simply flinging it down, not bothering to place it properly.
    “That little stool thing. I bet that was it. Let’s see—it’s about six inches high, so if Henry’s five six…”
    Skip interrupted. “Did you notice there’s a difference in the distance at the end? When the camera jumps around?”
    Quickly, Tarantino ran the film to the end. There were two shots—one with Dolly’s masked face to the camera and the one at the end, showing the back of her head, which must have been taken after she stepped off the stool. The distance between her head and the sconce was blatantly apparent. It wasn’t any six