Killer On A Hot Tin Roof

by Livia J. Washburn

  Dr. Paige said, “You should be more worried that the crazy old coot wandered off somewhere.”

  That same thought had occurred to me, of course, although without the “crazy old coot” part. I said, “I really think we should alert the authorities that he’s missing. If he’s wandering around New Orleans alone, he could get hurt.”

  Will had made his way over from the table with the food. He came up holding a saucer with some squares of cheese and a dozen or so crackers on it. Obviously, he had heard enough of the conversation while he was making his way through the crowd that he knew what was going on, because he said, “I agree. Someone should call the police.”

  Frasier lifted his hands and said, “Hold on, hold on. Let’s not overreact.”

  That brought a hoot of derisive laughter from Tamara Paige. “Says the man who charged in here accusing me of kidnapping! I ought to sue you for slander.”

  “It’s not slander if it’s true,” Frasier shot back, his upper lip curling. “And you still haven’t proven that it’s not.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “You do to win a lawsuit for slander.”

  I said, “You’re gettin’ off the track again, folks. We need to find Mr. Burleson.” I didn’t want something else to go wrong with one of my tours. I don’t mean an occasional glitch; there are always plenty of those. I was worried about a major snafu, like having a client vanish. And, of course, I was concernedabout Mr. Burleson’s welfare, too. I’m not completely mercenary.

  “He’s an old man,” I went on. “How long ago did you notice he was missing, Doctor?”

  Frasier frowned. “About half an hour ago, I guess.”

  That would have been about the same time Will and I had left the St. Emilion to walk over here to the theater. I didn’t recall seeing Burleson in the hotel lobby as we left.

  “How long before that was it you saw him last?”

  Frasier thought about it for a second, then said, “Maybe another half-hour. I got him settled in his room after we got here, and then he took a nap. Old people have to have naps.”

  I wasn’t sure I appreciated that comment, since I’d taken a nap myself before getting ready for the reception, but I let it go and asked, “What about after that?”

  “I went to his room about six to see that he got something to eat. I called room service and placed the order for him.”

  “But you didn’t stay there until the food came?”

  He shook his head. “No. I thought he could handle opening a door and letting the waiter bring the food in, for God’s sake!” Frasier ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “Did you check with room service?” Will asked. “Did they deliver the food?”

  “That’s the first thing I thought of. They said nobody answered when the waiter knocked at six fifteen.”

  So whatever had happened to Howard Burleson, it had happened during that fifteen minutes or so after Frasier called room service. Which meant that by now Burleson had been gone for about an hour, maybe a little longer.

  That was long enough for plenty of things to have happened, and most of them weren’t good.

  One of the men wearing tuxedos had come over to see what all the commotion was about. He said, “Do I understand that one of the festival’s guests is missing?”

  “He’s not a guest,” Frasier said. “He’s part of my presentation.”

  “But he’s still a human being,” the man said. “I hate to generate any bad publicity for the festival, but I’m calling the police–”

  “Wait!” Frasier said. “I don’t think that’s necessary yet.”

  He had reacted like that when Will suggested calling the cops a few minutes earlier. I didn’t know why Frasier was so opposed to the idea, but clearly he was. Just as clearly, we couldn’t afford to stand around talking much longer when an old man’s life might be in danger. We might have waited too long already.

  “I’m going back to the hotel to have another look around,” Frasier went on. “Then if I can’t find him, I … I’ll call the police, I swear.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said. I hated to miss the rest of the reception and the readings afterward, not to mention this mess was threatening the late, intimate supper I had planned with Will. But Howard Burleson was one of my clients, even if I hadn’t met him or even heard of him until today, and if he was in trouble, I had a responsibility to help him.

  “I’m coming, too,” Tamara Paige stated. “I know you’re still suspicious of me, Michael, and I want to prove I didn’t have anything to do with the old man going missing.”

  “Fine,” Frasier snapped. “Let’s just go find him.”

  I turned to Will. “I’ll be back later if I can–”

  “I’m coming with you,” he broke in as he handed the cheese and crackers to one of the men standing there. “I’m not going to let you wander around the French Quarter alone at night.”

  “I won’t be alone. Dr. Frasier and Dr. Paige are going, too.”

  “Well, there’ll be four of us, then,” Will insisted.

  I didn’t want to waste any more time arguing about that, so I said, “All right, come on. Let’s go.”

  The tuxedo-clad man protested. “I still think we should call the police now.”

  “Let ‘em take a look,” Dr. Keller urged. “It won’t take long to check and see if the old guy showed up at the hotel since Dr. Frasier left.”

  That’s what I thought. There wouldn’t be any leisurely stroll along the sidewalks of the French Quarter this time. I wanted to get back to the St. Emilion as fast as we could.

  We left the theater and headed for the hotel, walking fast. I asked Frasier, “Did you actually tell anybody at the hotel that Mr. Burleson is missing?”

  He shook his head. “No. The room service operator probably wondered why I was asking if his food had been delivered, but I didn’t specifically say that I couldn’t find him.”

  That meant the hotel management wouldn’t have notified the authorities, either.

  “Does he have Alzheimer’s?”

  “What?” Frasier snapped in reply to my question. “Howard, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Has he been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? Is he on medication for it or for anything else?”

  “Not that I know of. His memory’s a little fuzzy sometimes, but mostly he’s as sharp as he can be.”

  Dr. Paige said, “Except when he starts trying to convince people that he and Tennessee Williams were lovers.”

  “They–” Frasier began angrily, then stopped short in his argument. He turned back to me and said, “Why do you want to know if he has Alzheimer’s?”

  “Because if he doesn’t, the police might not even start to look for him for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, depending on what their policy is here. They’ll make an exception, though, if the missing person is delusional or on medication.”

  “I don’t know what medication he’s taking,” Frasier said. “He never mentioned anything about being delusional, though.”

  That was just the thing, I thought: if you’re delusional, you probably don’t know it. You think you’re all right and it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy.

  I was also shocked that Frasier would bring a man in his eighties on a trip like this without even knowing what medications he was taking. What if Mr. Burleson had had a medical emergency of some sort? Maybe he carried all that information on him, but maybe he didn’t.

  That confirmed my hunch that Frasier didn’t really care about the old man as a person. Burleson was just a prop for his presentation. A vital prop, maybe, but still a prop.

  I saw the hotel ahead of us. I’d been looking at everybody we passed and trying to peer into the windows of every building, too, hoping to spot Howard Burleson. So far, though, there had been no sign of him.

  As we reached the hotel, I suggested, “We should talk to that fella Gillette, the assistant manager, if we can find him. I bet he’d b
e glad to help–and keep quiet about it. He won’t want any bad publicity for the hotel.”

  Will said, “That’s a good idea, but he’ll probably be even more worried about the hotel’s liability in a potential lawsuit.”

  “I don’t care what gets him movin’, as long as he helps us find the old man.”

  When we asked at the concierge’s desk for the assistant manager’s office, the pretty blond woman on duty there pointed us down a narrow hallway.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked with a look of professional concern. “I’d be glad to help if I can.”

  I shook my head. “We just need to talk to Mr. Gillette for a minute. Is he still there?”

  The woman smiled slightly. “Dale’s always in his office. I swear, I don’t know when he sleeps.”

  We went down the hallway, and Will knocked on the door. From inside, Gillette called, “Come in.”

  Will opened the door. Gillette glanced up from his desk, then looked again as he saw all four of us marching in. He came to his feet quickly.

  He asked the same question that the concierge had. “Is there a problem?”

  “One of your guests has disappeared,” Frasier said.

  Gillette came out from behind the desk. He looked as dapper and cool as ever, but I saw alarm lurking in his eyes. “Let’s all stay calm now,” he said. “Who’s missing?”

  “Howard Burleson.”

  “The elderly gentleman who was with you when I checked you in this afternoon?”

  “That’s right.”

  I saw the relief that appeared on Gillette’s face. “Mr. Burleson’s not missing,” he said. “He’s just gone around the corner to Petit Claude’s.”

  All of us stiffened with surprise. “Where?” Frasier demanded.

  “It’s a jazz club, just around the corner.”

  “How do you know this?” Will asked.

  “Because I ran into Mr. Burleson in the lobby a little while ago, and he asked me if the club was still there. I told him it was and asked him if he was familiar with it. He said that he had been there many times, years ago, with a friend of his.”

  I had a hunch that the friend Burleson meant was Tennessee Williams, but that didn’t matter now.

  “He said he was going to take a look at the place again,” Gillette continued. “I assume he’s still there.”

  I said, “But you don’t know that.”

  Gillette frowned. “Well, no, I suppose I can’t be sure he’s there. You could check his room–”

  “He’s not there,” Frasier said as he started to turn toward the door. “Where exactly is this club? I have to find him!”

  “I’ll show you,” Gillette offered. His manner was brisk as he led us out of his office. I suppose he had realized that Burleson could have wandered off anywhere after visiting Petit Claude’s, and now he was worried again. He said, “You know, if Mr. Burleson is, well, mentally disadvantaged, someone should be with him at all times. I must say, though, he struck me as being fine. He seemed to know exactly where he was and what he was doing.”

  “Of course he did,” Frasier said, with a glance at Tamara Paige. “There’s nothing wrong with his memory.”

  Even under these strained circumstances, he couldn’t let go of the hostility between him and Dr. Paige, and, judging by her glare, neither could she.

  The five of us left the hotel, turning in the other direction from the way Will and I had gone to the theater. It was noisier on the street now, as the evening’s hilarity began to increase. Along with the humidity and the smells of Cajun cooking, the air was full of loud talk, laughter, and music from various outdoor restaurants and clubs. Most of it was Dixieland jazz or blues, but I heard a little zydeco mixed in, too. It made for a discordant but somehow pleasing blend.

  When we turned the corner, I saw the neon sign for Petit Claude’s. It was a little place, not much more than a hole-in-the-wall that was crowded between a sports bar and a bakerythat was closed for the night. The place had an air of age about it. Maybe it was the way the sign buzzed and flickered from time to time, or maybe it was the patina of softness that the years had worn onto the bricks of the building’s façade. A green awning extended over the sidewalk at the entrance, and it looked like it had been there since the Truman administration. Maybe even since FDR.

  “There it is,” Gillette said. “I’m sure he’s in there.”

  “He had better be,” Frasier said, not bothering to keep the anger and menace out of his voice. “From now on, he’s not to leave the hotel without me.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t be held responsible for enforcing something like that, Dr. Frasier. That’s up to you.”

  “You can spread the word among your people that he shouldn’t be wandering around by himself, can’t you?”

  Gillette shrugged. “I suppose I can do that.”

  We had reached the club. A black doorman who also looked like he’d been there since the Truman administration gave us a toothless grin and said, “How you folks doin’ this fine night? Come to listen to some good hot jazz, have you?”

  “Have you seen an old man?” Frasier asked sharply.

  “Besides in the mirror, you mean? I’ve seen lots o’ elderly gentlemen come an’ go through this here door, sir. Just ‘cause a man gettin’ on up in years don’t mean he stops lovin’ that hot music.”

  “Oh, just step aside,” Frasier snapped. He caught hold of the door’s handle and pulled it open, jerking it out of the old man’s hand.

  “Hey!” Gillette said, beating me to it. “There’s no need to act like that.”

  Frasier wasn’t listening, though. He stalked into the club with the rest of us trailing behind him. As I passed the doorman, I said, “Sorry.”

  “Don’t you worry your head ‘bout it, miss,” he said. “One thing ain’t never been in short supply in the Quarter is jackasses.” He grinned. “They used to pull wagons ‘long these very streets. Now they go inside.”

  I couldn’t help but grin back at him. Then I followed the others into the club.

  Packed into its narrow, dimly lit confines were a bar along the left-hand wall, shadowy booths on the right-hand wall, and a few tables in between. At the back of the room was a postage-stamp-size bandstand where a man was playing a trumpet, backed up by a piano and bass in a classic trio. The music was hot, all right, fast and sweaty, the sort where the notes reached right inside your guts and jangled them all around. Just listening to it made your feet want to move.

  Or in the case of Howard Burleson, instead of tapping his feet, he patted the table as he sat in one of the booths. There was a glass of clear liquid in front of him, but I would have bet it wasn’t water. His hat sat on the table beside the glass. His bald head gleamed, even in this place, where there wasn’t much light.

  “Thank God!” Frasier exclaimed, loud enough so that some of the club’s patrons turned to glance at him disapprovingly. The place was almost but not quite full.

  “He’s still here,” Gillette said, sounding very relieved. “If you don’t need me anymore, I’ll get back to the hotel.”

  Frasier ignored him and headed for the booth where Burleson sat. Gillette nodded to the rest of us and went back out the door.

  A waitress started to ask Frasier if he wanted a drink, but he waved her away. The rest of us followed him over to the booth where Burleson sat. Along the way, Will caught the waitress’s eye, made a little motion with his hand, and shook his head.

  As Frasier came to a stop beside the booth, he said, “Howard, what are you doing here?”

  Burleson evidently hadn’t noticed us until now. He looked up with a dreamy smile on his weathered face and said, “There you are, Michael. I came to listen to some music. You and your friends should sit down. Those boys are really good.”

  “We don’t have time for music,” Frasier said. “We need to get back to the hotel. Come on, Howard.”

  Burleson kept patting the table softly in time with the music. “Not just yet, not just
yet. I’m havin’ a good time. So many memories in this place. So many wonderful memories. Tom and I used to come here, you know.”

  I glanced at Tamara Paige, thinking that she might make some disparaging comment, but for once she kept her mouth shut about the subject of Howard Burleson and Tennessee Williams. Maybe she felt a little sorry for the old man. Her face seemed a little softer than it had been earlier.

  Frasier insisted, “You can tell everybody all about that tomorrow, Howard. Right now, we need to go back to the hotel.” He reached out and closed his hand around Burleson’s skinny arm. “Come on.” It was an order now, issued in a hard, angry voice.

  “Take it easy, Michael,” Tamara said. “Mr. Burleson wants to listen to some music. I don’t see any harm in it, especially when it’s as good as that song they’re playing now.”

  Burleson beamed up at her. “You like Dixieland, my dear?”

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I like all sorts of music.”

  “So do I, so do I.” With his free hand, Burleson waved toward the seat on the other side of the booth. “Why don’t you sit down and join me? Why don’t all of you?” He lowered his voice a little and added, “Michael, you’re hurtin’ me.”

  With what sounded like a muttered curse, Frasier let go ofthe old man’s arm. In a strangled voice, he said, “All right, we’ll all sit down for a little while. But then we have to go back to the hotel, all right, Howard?”

  Burleson had started nodding along with the music. “That’ll be fine.” His skinny body swayed a little from side to side. He smiled at Tamara and said, “You sit down here next to me, honey.”

  I could tell that Frasier didn’t like that idea at all. He would have preferred to keep Dr. Paige as far away from Burleson as he possibly could. But for now, he was trying to play along with the old man in hopes of cajoling him out of there that much sooner. I could see that cold calculation on his face.

  Burleson slid over enough for Tamara to sit down beside him. Meanwhile, Will, Frasier, and I crowded into the other side of the booth. I was between the two men and didn’t like it. Sitting next to Michael Frasier was sort of like cuddling up with a badger.