Big Easy Bonanza

inches. It was more like a foot.
    “Holy God!” said Tarantino. “I’ll get Duby.”
    Duby was smoking. The atmosphere changed as soon as he walked in, got thicker in more ways than one.
    “Look, lieutenant.” Tarantino’s voice was excited. “We got it. I swear. With the confession and this, we could do it, I’m not kiddin’. Look at the back of her head—jus’ look at that—and look at that flower thing! No way it could have been Albert. And no way it was the kid. Dolly was about five feet tall. Period. It’s right there in living color. And we got a five-foot suspect who just confessed.”
    Skip was mesmerized, staring as if it were the Mona Lisa instead of a scrap of a bewigged head. Before her eyes, it melted. She wheeled.
    Duby looked at her apologetically. “Ash fell off my cigarette. I shouldn’t have been standing so close. Goddamn, is there anything else we can use? Can’t see a thing.” He struck a match and held it to the film. “Shit!” He sounded as shocked as if it had really been an accident. “Sorry, guys.” He left the room instantly, giving no one a chance to utter a syllable.
    For a minute the three sat in the dark, in shock. Finally, O’Rourke said, “Goddamn,” and Tarantino turned on the light. Skip could not trust herself to say anything, for fear that she would make a complete ass of herself, would be sent babbling to a hospital. She could not really have seen what she thought she had. It was just not possible.
    O’Rourke said, “You Uptown bitches run the whole fucking world, don’t you?”, shoved the projector onto the floor, and walked heavily out of the room.
    Tarantino bent to pick up the machine. He spoke with his back to her, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her face. “Mayhew was here this morning. Spent about an hour with Chief McDermott. He dropped by to see the D. A. as well. I heard he was over by the mayor too.”
    “Haygood?”
    “Her old man. Whatever his name is.”
    She fled, hoping she could keep back the tears till she was out of the building. As she tore through the detective bureau, Steve shouted her name.
    “Ask them for your film,” she shouted back.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’ll be right back.” That was so he wouldn’t follow her. Ignoring the elevator, she ran down the two flights to the first floor, as if pursued by all the demons of hell instead of only her personal ones.
    She would have run all the way home if it hadn’t been for traffic lights and for the fact that she was wearing her uniform. She settled for walking fast.
    I ought to be glad Bitty’s going scot-free. Glad she killed the sonofabitch and glad she got away with it.
    Part of her was glad. But her premonition had come true. She was covered in slime. Bitty was not innocent, not of Chauncey’s death and not of LaBelle’s exile.
    She handed that baby to Tolliver. She admitted it. She sent that child to a life of poverty as surely as Chauncey did. Where does she get off blaming him for everything that happened for the next twenty-one years?
    She was furious at the system and furious that Haygood Mayhew could manipulate it and furious that it hadn’t worked. And that she was part of it and was covered in slime; part of the system and part of a conspiracy to let someone get away with murder. She didn’t think she could have felt more guilty or remorseful if she had pulled the trigger herself.
    The phone was ringing as she entered. Knowing it was Steve, she waited for his message before she unplugged it. Even as she listened, she was ripping off her uniform, sending buttons flying and rolling on the threadbare carpet. She tore off her underwear as well, tied her hair in a scarf, and threw on a flannel nightshirt. Barefoot, she carried the pile into the courtyard and set fire to it, grateful Jimmy Dee wasn’t home to shout witticisms from his windows. Later she would worry about cleaning up the mess in the yard, and about whether to get a new uniform or a new career. Later she would see Steve, and she would cry.
    Now she threw the rest of the incense he had brought onto the fire. As she watched it burn, she sat with legs crossed, perfectly still, almost meditating. It occurred to her that there was nothing like a severe shock to still the brain. If you had good reason not to think, you didn’t. Or, put another way, there were things that happened that made thinking seem trivial.
    When sandalwood no longer scented the almost-spring air, and when no trace