Big Easy Bonanza

had a mimosa for breakfast, and then another, and another still. She would have liked a Ramos fizz, but she wasn’t up to fixing it, and she wasn’t about to ask Yvonne, who worked for her now and who was the only reason Tolliver and Henry could be induced to go home. They hadn’t wanted to leave her, and she loved them for that, but she needed to be alone for a while. To drink herself to sleep and then to sleep. And to get up and cry and drink and sleep again.
    After her morning mimosas, she’d slept. It was getting on toward mid-afternoon now and she knew she ought to have lunch, but that was the last thing on her mind. She wanted wine. Lovely chilled white wine. And she wanted it fast. The pain engulfed her, imprisoned her, made her a thrashing fish in a net. She stumbled, caught herself, and saw a tear fall on her hand, white as it pressed against the banister.
    “Miz St. Amant?”
    “Yes, Yvonne.”
    “That you? You up?” Yvonne came into the foyer, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
    Bitty stopped, unwilling to let her see how unsteady she was. “I was just coming down for some lunch.”
    “Lemme h’ep you.” Yvonne must have weighed two-fifty. Having her help you was like walking with a pillow for support. “Those l’il shoes you got on slippery on these stairs.”
    “Yes,” said Bitty, perfectly aware of the farce they were playing out.
    Yvonne leaned into Bitty’s ear as Bitty transferred her weight. “Young lady from the po-lice here to see you. I tol’ her you were sleepin’, but she say she wait. I could take you back upstairs real quick, say you felt faint or somethin’.”
    But it was too late. Skip Langdon stood in the foyer, apparently having followed Yvonne to the stairs.
    “Hey, Mrs. St. Amant. I won’t stay but a minute.”
    A black plume of despair spiraled through Bitty’s body, entering at the top of the head, settling in the stomach as numbness. It wasn’t so bad; she could handle it. It was even rather like the oblivion she had been about to get in another way. It freed her from the feelings and made it possible to cope. Only briefly did she regret the sweatsuit in which she’d been sleeping. At least she had combed her hair.
    “Hello, Skip. I was just coming down for lunch.”
    “Really, a minute’s all I need.”
    “Thank you, Yvonne,” said Bitty as they reached the ground floor. She led Skip into the living room.
    Skip said, “I won’t even sit down. I just had a little question for you. I’m working on a timetable for the day of the murder.” She laughed nervously. “You know how it is—low man on the totem pole.”
    Bitty nodded, wishing she’d get on with it.
    “When I found you in the bathroom, how long had you been in there?”
    “Two or three minutes, I guess.”
    “Someone saw you go in there about half an hour before that…”
    Bitty nodded.
    “You went twice?”
    She nodded again.
    “I was wondering … do you recall what you did in between?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Skip was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “I mean, who you talked to … what room you were in—that sort of thing.”
    Bitty paused and thought. Nothing came to her. At last she said, “To tell you the truth, I don’t have the faintest recollection.”
    Skip smiled. She really was a very pretty girl when she wasn’t wearing that awful uniform. “Stupid question, I guess. Only one other thing—do you know if Chauncey has a pair of 44.40s in his collection?”
    “Collection?”
    “His gun collection.”
    “Oh. Those are guns. I don’t know what he had, or even if he kept a record of it. Why do you ask?”
    “That’s what the murder weapon was. The 44.40’s an old gun—kind of a cowboy weapon—the sort a collector might have.”
    “But … how could it have come from here?” Fear clutched at her.
    “We just need to check everything out, that’s all. Listen, I’m really sorry I had to bother you.”
    Bitty saw her out, nibbled at a tuna sandwich and actually got down some tomato soup before the burst of coping strength left her. She was on her second glass of wine by then, but it wasn’t enough. The feelings started again. So that Yvonne couldn’t see her crying, she went back upstairs, carrying the half-empty wine bottle. She was thinking of her second daughter.
    After the years of infertility, she’d never dreamed of using birth control, never in a million years expected the bountiful blessing of a third child. And certainly never expected the