New Orleans Requiem

by D. J. Donaldson

  “When you brought my slides to me, there was a folded piece of paper with my name on it in here,” Broussard said, putting his fingers in the round opening. “Did you see who put it there?”

  “Sure didn’t. I put the tray on that shelf and racked up the next talk. Then my boss came by and we talked some about my work schedule. So I wasn’t paying any attention. The other speakers picked up their slides and I noticed yours were still there. I didn’t know if you were coming back, so I thought I’d better see if I could find you. To be honest, I didn’t even notice the note.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Broussard herded Kit and Fleming back into the lobby, where they saw Phil Gatlin emerging from the elevators. Broussard called his name and he came their way.

  “You all sure ate fast,” he said.

  Broussard explained what had happened and showed Gatlin the eyelids and the slip of paper with his name on it.

  “Put ’em away,” Gatlin said. “You didn’t have to show me. I’d have taken your word for it. This guy’s really enjoying himself, isn’t he? Who’s the projectionist? He in forensics?”

  “Hotel employee,” Broussard said. He went on to relate what the projectionist had said.

  Gatlin gestured to the ballroom. “How many were in there during your talk?”

  “Seven or eight hundred.”

  “That figures.” Gatlin ran his big mitt down his face in exasperation, fuzzing his heavy eyebrows. “Was one of ’em Hugh Greenwood?”

  “He was there,” Broussard said. “But it could have been anybody.”

  Gatlin held out his hand. “Gimme the packet and what came with it. I’ll have somebody drop it by the lab and see if they can come up with anything, or I could just throw it all in the river. Probably be the same either way. Basically, he’s gonna win this one, but we did learn one thing. He’s definitely here at the meeting.”

  “I already told you that,” Broussard said.

  “God forbid I should need proof,” Gatlin said, crossing himself to ensure that his remark wouldn’t be used against him someday by a heavenly prosecutor. Unhappily, he put the objects from Broussard into the outside pocket of his jacket, excused himself, and walked toward the phones at the far end of the lobby.

  “He’s usually not that contrary,” Broussard explained to Fleming. “This case is just gettin’ under his skin. Mine, too, for that matter.”

  “How is that guy Gatlin as a detective?” Hugh Greenwood said, joining the group.

  “First-rate,” Broussard replied.

  “I’m not so sure. He seemed too satisfied with my plane ticket.”

  “What do you mean?” Fleming asked.

  “He was trying to find out if I was in town when the first murder took place. But how does he know I don’t have another ticket bought under a phony name? I could have come in earlier on that ticket and simply not been on the Indie-New Orleans leg of the one I showed him.”

  At the phones, Gatlin pulled out a directory and looked up the number of Northwest Airlines.

  16

  “Why’d everybody leave the restaurant?” Greenwood asked.

  Kit waited for Broussard to take this one, since she didn’t want to blab something he wanted kept quiet. Of course, if Greenwood was the killer, they couldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know, except maybe that his little prank had been found. As it turned out, Kit didn’t get to see how Broussard would have answered, because Charlie Franks interrupted.

  Charlie had missed the morning session because he had work to do at the morgue. From the look on his face, something was wrong. “We got trouble,” he said, ignoring everyone but Broussard.

  Taking the hint, Fleming and Greenwood said they’d see Broussard later. Still hoping to get a few minutes alone with him, Kit remained.

  When it was safe to talk, Franks said, “McCasland has really screwed up this time—the incision for removal of the skullcap. Instead of going through the hairline, he made it just above the eyebrows.”

  Broussard groaned.

  “What are we gonna do?” Franks said. “The family’s gonna be mad as hell.”

  “How could he make such a mistake?” Broussard asked.

  “Said he just wasn’t thinking.”

  “No kiddin’. You chew him out?”

  “Left him with pieces missing. But I saved a little for you.”

  “Good. I’d like a turn. . . .” Broussard rubbed his beard hard in irritation. “I can probably fix it with some subcutaneous stitches and wax.”

  “You need me for anything? If not, I’m gonna stick around here a while.”

  “I can handle it. See you both later.”

  Disappointed, Kit watched Broussard move off toward the escalator.

  “I almost forgot,” Franks said, reaching into his shirt pocket. “Margaret said if I ran into you to give you this.”

  He handed Kit a pink message slip.

  On it were three words—“Call Phyllis Merryman”—and a number.

  AS HE WAS ABOUT to step on the escalator, Broussard was intercepted by Phil Gatlin. “What do you think about Greenwood being near the scene of the last murder?” he asked.

  “Hard to know what to think.”

  “Like he said, his airline ticket was for a flight that arrived late Sunday, which would mean he wasn’t even in town for the first murder. I checked with Northwest and they said he was on that flight.”

  “Based on what?”

  “The ticket they take as you board. The records are based on that. But who’s to say he didn’t make an earlier round-trip as well, using a different name? That way, he could have committed the first murder, gone home, then returned on the flight I checked. Here now legitimately, he could have done the other two.”

  “It’s not possible,” Broussard said.

  “You two good friends?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far with it. Why?”

  “Seems to me there’s a competitive element in this. . . . Whoever’s doing it is trying to show you up.”

  “I’ll have to make sure, then, that he doesn’t succeed.”

  “Well you better hurry, because I’m sucking wind.”

  “I WAS TOLD YOU called,” Kit said into the pay phone.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Phyllis Merryman replied. “If you want it, meet me at the cosmetics section of the Walgreen’s on Canal in twenty minutes.”

  Twenty minutes was barely enough time. Kit walked through the doors of Walgreen’s two minutes late, but convinced she hadn’t inadvertently brought Nick Lawson along. The place was bustling with lunch-hour business and it was another minute before she made it to the cosmetics section, where she found Phyllis Merryman at the lipsticks.

  She was wearing a tight suit with padded shoulders, a skirt that cut her at midthigh, and spike heels that would cause any man’s eyes to linger on her long legs. The suit was a black houndstooth check that, minus the red buttons on the sleeve, reminded Kit of the interference on her TV whenever the neighborhood ham radio operator transmitted. She was carrying a red purse and a large manila envelope.

  She turned at Kit’s approach and pointed at one of the phony lipsticks on display. “You like this color with this outfit?”

  Preferring lip gloss, Kit pointed at another color. “I think it’s a little too red. This one is better. You’re very dressy today.”

  “Someone’s taking me to lunch and then the art museum,” she replied, obviously proud of herself. Then, somewhat less confidently, she added, “You don’t think I’m overdressed for a museum?”

  “No. You’re fine.”

  Merryman wrinkled her nose. “Well, this is what I’m wearing, and if the museum crowd doesn’t like it, they can take a flying leap.”

  “You said you had something for me.”

  “Excuse me, ladies, could I get in there?”

  It was a clerk with a box of lipsticks to put up. They moved down a little and Merryman held out the manila envelope.

  “W
hat’s this?” Kit said, taking it.

  “I have no idea.” Responding to Kit’s puzzled expression, Merryman explained. “Couple weeks ago, a guy stops me on the street. . . . I never saw him before, but he knows me . . . asks if I want to make two hundred bucks. I figure he wants to get cozy, but he says no. What I have to do is keep this envelope and give it to anybody who comes around asking about the Heartbeats. I get a hundred on the front end and a hundred after it’s delivered. I ask him how he’s gonna know when I deliver it and he says he’ll know. So I agree.”

  “What did this guy look like?”

  “Short, heavyset, thin mustache.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this when we talked yesterday?”

  “I been thinking ever since I agreed to do this . . . I don’t know what’s in there; maybe it’s something illegal that’ll get me in trouble. What could be so important and be as flat as that, plans for a nuclear reactor maybe—who knows? Anyway, I wanted time to see if you were really who you said you were. Jesus, how much longer you gonna stand there without opening it? If I could have figured out how to get inside without tearing it, I’d have sneaked a look before this.”

  Kit tore the flap open and removed a single sheet of paper folded once in the middle. Printed on both sides were hundreds of cartoon figures. On one side, the figures were shirtless and hooded, a gathering of medieval executioners maybe, engaging in a variety of athletic contests, many of which involved rocks. On the back, where the figures looked more Oriental, they were waging war with pikes and spears. In the upper-left corner, there was a scroll whose surface was not smooth like the rest of the page but was raw and rough, as though it had been stripped off with adhesive tape.

  “What is it?” Merryman asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kit replied.

  “You got some weird friends,” Merryman said. “I gotta go.” She went back to the lipsticks, picked one up, and came back down the aisle. “I’m going with my first choice,” she said, holding it up. “See you around.”

  Kit stood for a moment staring at one side of the page, then turned it over. There was no doubt the Heartbeats had been a clue and that she was on the right track. But what now? There was no message, no hint as to what this meant.

  Executioners on one side and a battle on the other. The killer was certainly acting as an executioner and they were in a battle with him. But that couldn’t be all there was to it. She needed help. Broussard? Maybe eventually. Not yet. Give it some more thought first.

  One edge of the page was uneven as though it had been cut from a book, a comic book maybe—not a regular one; it was too big for that. Possibly an underground comic.

  THE DAILY PLANET WAS on one end of a row of small one-story buildings constructed in the forties. It was painted gray except for the wall facing the parking lot. Here, there was a huge mural depicting Superman in midflight, carrying an adoring Lois Lane, her arms looped around his neck. This Superman’s vulnerability was not limited to Kryptonite, for since the wall had been painted, some of the brick had flaked away, leaving the caped one with an ugly chest wound.

  Kit parked next to an old Chevy with a broken taillight and a lopsided bumper, leaving plenty of room for its owner to open his door without hitting her car. Picking the manila envelope off the seat next to her, she locked up and went inside.

  It hadn’t taken much renovation for the Daily Planet to open. There was a cash register on a glass display case to the left, but the rest of the place was nothing but long folding tables loaded with cardboard boxes, each just wide enough to hold a column of comics individually packaged in plastic. Thumbing through the stock were two kids who should have been in school, the owners no doubt of the two bicycles locked to the rack out front.

  She expected the clerk to be an overage skateboarder with a bad complexion. Instead, she found a middle-aged man quite normal in appearance, neatly dressed in a pale green madras shirt and pleated slacks the color of a well-ripened avocado. He was studying a piece of paper through the bifocal part of Clark Kent glasses. Across the counter, a fellow in his late thirties, wearing scuffed loafers and a wilted brown suit, was working on his nails with a folding tool attached to his key chain. On the counter beside him was a cardboard box sealed with duct tape.

  This tableau lasted another few seconds, then the clerk looked up. “Hundred and fifty for the lot.”

  The other guy’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “A hundred and fifty? C’mon, they’re all early seventies and in mint condition. They never even been read. There’s fifteen copies of Shazam number one in there. Those alone gotta be worth what you’re offerin’ for all of it. Christ, they got the original Captain Marvel artist to come out of retirement to do that issue.”

  “Sorry, hundred and fifty’s the best I can do. Take it or leave it.”

  “Stuff that,” the guy said, grabbing his box and making for the door.

  The clerk watched him until he was out on the sidewalk, then turned to Kit. “See it all the time. People hear that old comics are worth a fortune, so they figure they’ll make a little investment. They go out, buy up a bunch of new comics, put ’em in the attic, and twenty years later are ready to harvest the profits. What they don’t think of is that if they had the idea, so did a thousand others. I could lay my hands on a hundred copies of Shazam number one practically by snapping my fingers. Only comics worth much are the ones that came out before anybody thought they’d be valuable. If mom had only known, she’d never have thrown junior’s collection away. But that’s why they’re valuable. Love those moms. You looking to buy or sell?”

  “I might be a buyer,” Kit said, opening the manila folder and taking out the page of cartoons. She unfolded it and put it on the counter. “Do you know what this came from?”

  He leaned over and studied the page briefly, then examined the other side, finally saying, “Don’t think it’s from a comic book, least not one I ever saw. Maybe a child’s book.”

  BEATON BOOKS HAD OPENED barely a year earlier but had quickly become one of the area’s best bookstores. Not only was it the biggest but it offered cappuccino at a reasonable price and had a reading area with big soft chairs.

  Business was never slow at Beaton’s, but today, at least, it wasn’t packed like it usually was on weekends. Kit walked past the cashier, who had a small line vying for her attention, and went to the special-order section, which was manned by a thin young man whose neck cleared the collar of his white shirt by a half inch all around. She did not remember seeing him there before.

  “Did you need something?” he said.

  Kit produced the page of cartoons and explained why she’d come.

  The clerk looked at the page briefly and his face shifted to an expression that suggested he’d rather be in the back opening boxes. Instead of simply admitting he couldn’t help, he made a big production out of it. “Lady, we got fifty thousand books here,” he said, waving one arm theatrically. “Gimme a title and I can tell you if we have it, how many we have, how many we’ve sold in the last two weeks, the last two months, and since it first arrived. Gimme an author and I can do the same thing. . . . But I don’t think anybody could look at one page of a book and tell you—”

  “Maybe I can help,” an older woman said, coming from the curtained doorway behind the clerk.

  Kit was encouraged to see she wore her hair in a bun, like Terry Yardley at the Picayune. It had been Kit’s experience that women who wore their hair this way were usually very knowledgeable about their jobs. It was a peculiar association that called for further study. “I was hoping I might be able to find the book this page was taken from.”

  The woman picked up the page, looked at it, and smiled. “It’s over here,” she said, coming from behind the counter.

  Kit glanced at the skinny clerk to see if he was properly humbled, but he was mesmerized by a girl in a short skirt browsing at a nearby table of paperbacks.

  Kit followed the woman into the children’s section, where she went to a displ
ay of oversized books and pulled one from the shelf. She thumbed through it, then held it open so Kit could see. “That’s the page right there. And—” her finger hovered over the page, drawing irregular patterns in the air “—somewhere in there is Waldo.”

  “Waldo?” Kit echoed.

  The woman fixed Kit with an expression of patronizing kindness. “You don’t know Waldo? My goodness.” She turned to the inside front cover, where there was a line of cartoon figures across both pages. “This is Waldo.” She pointed at a figure carrying a cane and wearing a Santa Claus hat and a red-and-white-striped shirt. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. It’s one of the best-selling children’s series ever. The idea is to find Waldo among all the other figures on the page. This one is The Great Waldo Search. It’s actually the third in the series.” She pointed at a book on the shelf. “First, there was Find Waldo.” Her finger moved to the right. “Then there was Find Waldo Now. In the first book, the scenes aren’t all that crowded and it’s easy to find him. Then with each succeeding book, it gets harder . . . more figures in each scene, figures that resemble Waldo more. In this one—” she turned to the back page and showed her five hundred Waldos “—you have to find the Waldo with only one shoe. If you have kids, it’ll keep them busy for hours. It’s become a real craze.”

  She closed the book and put it back on the shelf. “There’s even this now. . . .”

  She picked up a transparent cylinder filled with liquid that contained a mass of glittering objects. She turned it end for end and the glittery stuff sank slowly in the thick liquid. “Somewhere in there is Waldo,” she said. “It’s astounding to me that you haven’t heard of him.”

  Despite the help she was getting, Kit was growing weary of the woman’s amazement at her lack of kiddie lore.

  “Why, at the supermarket the other day, I even saw a ‘Find Waldo’ spaghetti.”

  17

  Kit was hugely disappointed. To have merely uncovered a bit of confirming information after all she’d gone through left her limp and disgusted. She sat dumbly behind the wheel, her limbs unwilling to move.