Jazz Funeral

would know those legs soon. They said she was going to be bigger than large, larger than huge.
    Thiebaud was approaching at a dead trot, fast giving way to a gallop. She was wearing huge hoop earrings. She had giant black eyes and shining olive skin, flyaway blond hair that looked utterly smashing with her dark complexion. Her skin clung to her bones, hanging gently, as naturally as hide on a horse. She probably didn’t even know what a Nautilus machine was—no doubt started the day with coush-coush and syrup and didn’t set her fork down till she went to bed. Obviously she’d never worked out a day in her life and never needed to. Skip had seen her perform, but never up close. She thought she might have just laid eyes on the most gorgeous woman in Louisiana, if you didn’t count her pal Cindy Lou Wootten.
    “How’d Ham get her ?” she blurted.
    A black man waved at the singer, tried to slow her progress, pretend it was a party: “Hey, Ti-Belle.”
    Thiebaud paid him no mind, but cast a look at the crowd in general. Skip saw twin wrinkles at the sides of her nose—one day they’d be there permanently, if she worried a lot in the meantime.
    “Hi, y’all.” She was trying to smile, but it wasn’t working. “Excuse me a minute.” She let herself in and closed the door behind her.
    Almost immediately, a scream that could have come from anyone—the hottest Cajun R&B singer in America or any terrified woman—ripped through the nervous buzz.
    Skip’s eyes locked with Steve’s. “Stay here.”
    For a second everyone froze; and then the heroes in the crowd started for the door. It was locked. Thwarted, they looked around, confused.
    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