Jazz Funeral

white, rigid. Without warning her eyes rolled back and she started to fall. Her companion struggled to catch her.
    Attention shifted to Ti-Belle, and then, almost simultaneously, a marked car squealed around the corner. Skip breathed a sigh of relief. She got Thiebaud seated on the ground, head forward on the flagstones. The singer came around. “What is it?”
    “You fainted.”
    The man knelt.
    “George!” Thiebaud reached for him, he still squatting and trying to keep his balance, she trying to lean close enough to get some comfort, finally having to hop over on her butt. Giving up the balancing act, he sat down and held her.
    Ham’s father, Skip thought.
    Feeling awkward, finally standing herself, Skip found herself looking into the terrified blue eyes of a woman whom she took to be Mrs. Brocato. She was much younger than her husband, if that was who the man was; barely older than Ham. A very beautiful woman, the classic creamy blonde, dressed expensively, and like her husband, a little overdressed—if there was such a thing in New Orleans.
    “Mrs. Brocato? I’m Skip Langdon with the police department.”
    “Oh.”
    Thiebaud wailed, “George, he’s dead! I can’t believe it.”
    People always said they couldn’t believe it. But it was out, and at least Thiebaud had held her tongue until now. Patty Brocato’s face cracked, but the fear in her eyes didn’t resolve itself, give way to shock or grief. Instead she looked more frightened still. A maverick sound fell out of her throat, and she drew in her breath. Finally she said, “Melody?” the word almost a whisper, as if she didn’t dare speak it.
    It was a question, but Skip wasn’t sure what the answer was. She said, “Your daughter? Ham’s sister?”
    Patty Brocato nodded, eyes alert, fixed on Skip.
    “She isn’t here. Is she with you?”
    Patty shook her head, hand at her mouth. “She’s gone.” It was a whisper. Her head kept shaking, shaking. Her son was dead, her daughter was “gone,” and none of it was happening, said the head. Skip understood the impulse.
    George Brocato struggled to his feet, pulled Thiebaud after him, kept an arm around her. “What happened?” he asked.
    “We’ll talk. Can you wait a minute?” As if they had something better to do. Skip told the uniforms to get the names of everyone at the party and send them home. As fast as they’d go.
    Then she told the Brocatos their son had been murdered. Thiebaud filled in the details. More officers arrived, and two coroners’ assistants. “I have to leave you for a moment.” She got another officer to sit with them while she went back inside to preserve the one piece of evidence she knew must exist yet was so fragile it could be destroyed with the flick of a finger.
    She went into the ordinary bedroom with the ordinary bedspread. She’d noticed an answering machine near the phone, and she wanted to know what was on it. The messages were all for Ti-Belle—and there were lots of them, apparently a backlog of several days.
    That wasn’t good enough. She returned to a room that looked like a study, one to which she’d paid little attention when she toured the house a few minutes before. The walls were wood-paneled, the furniture utilitarian, masculine. There was a computer, fax machine, copier, CD player, and other machines, some she didn’t recognize. She had no doubt every one of them was state of the art. The answering machine looked as if it would hold an entire library of messages. Carefully, keeping to the edge so as not to destroy any prints, she punched the button marked “messages.” The tape rewound for so long she nearly decided not to listen, just to tell the crime lab to get the two machines.
    But then she thought, maybe just one or two, and ended up playing them all. She’d been right. There was important evidence here. The tape might even help the investigation fix the time of death. Most of the callers had left the day and time.
    Most of the messages were of two types. There were frantic ones from various people—mostly from Ariel, Ham’s assistant, asking where the hell he was. These had all been made today, indicating Ham simply hadn’t been anywhere he was supposed to be all day.
    The other type of message, interspersed with the “where-are-you” ones, began the tape—on Tuesday night, apparently—and continued throughout Wednesday. These were from “Dad” and “Patty,” desperately trying to find their daughter Melody.
    Skip