Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 5. Whole No. 783, November 2006

The Death of Big Daddy by Dick Lochte

New Orleans-born Dick Lochte’s first novel, Sleeping Dog, won the Nero Wolfe Award and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Booksellers Association. Two of his crime novels feature his hometown: Blue Bayou and The Neon Smile. His ninth novel, Croaked!, is set in California, where he now lives with his wife and son. In this story we see New Orleans circa 1970.

On that afternoon in May, so many years ago, every seat on the Delta flight from New York must have been filled, judging by the mass of departing passengers staggering into the bright terminal at Moisant International. Still, I had no trouble at all spotting my quarry. He was the only passenger wearing a slightly rumpled white linen suit, a flowery Hawaiian shirt open at the neck, large dark sunglasses, a jaunty beret, and an expression of utter bewilderment on his moderately famous, bearded face.

“Tom?” I said.

“Eh?” He backed away in near terror.

“It’s Harold LeBlanc.”

When that had no apparent effect, I added, “From the Royal Street Bookshop in the Quarter.”

His spine seemed to unlock, which I took as a good sign. “Harol’, o’ course. You mus’ fo’give me, baby. I am not myself at the moment. I mistook you for a reporter. They’ve been doggin’ me since that Cavett Show. What a pleasure seein’ you again.”

He swayed and I reached out a hand to steady him. “You okay?”

That prompted one of his oddly humorless, cackling laughs. “Not eg-zack-ly. I may need your assistance to make it to the baggage section.”

I offered him my arm, and off we went.

“It’s the airline’s fault,” he said. “There was some mix-up about my First Class arrangement. I explained that I could not fly Coach because of my condition, my fear of suffocation. I’m afraid I had to rant a bit, but I sincerely doubt they would have treated Mr. Neil Simon so offhandedly.” He smiled and emitted another cackle.

“Eventually they saw the error of their ways and, to compensate, overdid the kindness, supplying me with several more vodka martinis than I actually needed. Do you think you could retrieve my luggage for me, baby? The theater was supposed to send somebody, but they either forgot or changed their mind.”

“They sent me,” I said.

“Ah, a splendid choice,” he said. “I shall take it as a sign my ghastly notices have not used up all of my cachet.” Another cackle.

In spite of the still-boiling three-o’clock sun and the humidity that has always blanketed New Orleans, Tom insisted I lower the top on my Mustang for the drive to his house in the French Quarter. “I am devoted to tropical climates,” he said. “It’s why I keep residences here and in Key West.”

Not being devoted to tropical climates, I turned on the car’s air conditioner once we were on our way. This amused him immensely. “Icy air in an open car,” he said, shouting through the wind. “Ah, technology.

“How are they treating my Cat, by the way?”

He asked the question with a forced casual air, as if the answer weren’t as important as the cigarette he was trying to light in the wind.

I told him in truth that I had no idea what they were doing with his play. “We nonparticipants have been locked out of rehearsals. Harmon Kane’s orders.”

“That sounds like Harmon.” He gave up on the cigarette and put it and a black holder back into his coat pocket. “I was not exactly overjoyed to hear he was directing the production as well as starring in it. He’s a bit too much of a ‘genius,’ if you know what I mean. It’s made him persona non grata in Hollywood. Tends to be hard on his players, which must make it especially rough for local actors. But I expect his Big Daddy will be something to see.”

“A columnist for the Picayune said it was the first time an actor might have to go on a diet to play the role.”

This time the cackle had some mirth to it. “He has been mistaken for the Goodyear blimp,” he said. “But there was a time when he was as svelte as you, Harol’. Before his appetites got the better of him. Speaking of which, how’s he been behavin’ himself?”

“I’ve caught his act a few times,” I said. “Most recently in Antoine’s, cursing his waiter for having the temerity to bring him an after-dinner coffee he hadn’t requested.”

“Was he in the bag?”

“I hope so.”

“Prob’ly didn’t understand that in this tradition-lovin’ section of the world an after-dinner demitasse is considered part of the meal,” Tom said with an air of dismay. “He took the brew to be the waiter’s commentary on his inebriated state.”

“I suppose,” I said.

“And, of course, he was playing to the room and to the wide-eyed admirers at his table.”

“Just one wide-eyed tablemate,” I said. “Eugenia Broussard, an artist at Webber Advertising and our local Kim Stanley. She’s playing Maggie the Cat.”

“They... involved romantically?”

“I gather they are.”

Tom sighed. “Never a good idea to mix business with romance,” he said. “I learned that lesson a long time ago.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes, offering his face to the sun. “Were the ‘sixties good for you, Harol’?” he asked.

Though we were only a few years past that decade, the answer to the question required some thought. I’d survived my wife’s death, quit my job at the same ad agency where Eugenia now worked, bought the bookstore, seen my country enter a war it couldn’t possibly win, and lost a son to the priesthood... well, better lost to that than to a sniper’s bullet.

“It was the worst period of my life,” Tom continued, making me realize his question had been rhetorical. “After Night of the Iguana, everything went to pieces. Plays folding almost before they opened. The critics like vultures feedin’ on my stringy old remains.

“Frank dying.” That would be Frank Merlo, his long-time companion, a cancer victim. “And Diana Barrymore. And my dear Carson.” Carson McCullers. “So many of my friends. All gone. All the doomed people.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say to that.

After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Don’t pay any attention to me, Harol’. It’s those martinis talkin’. I have survived the ‘sixties. I’m alive and reasonably healthy. My past plays are being performed and I have new ones on the horizon. I am sitting in an air-cooled automobile with the sun on my face, heading into a city that is my spiritual home. As the great Robert Louis Stevenson once noted, ‘The world is filled with such a number of things, it’s a wonder we all aren’t happy as kings.’”

At the entrance to his two-story house on Dumaine Street, I offered to help him with his single piece of luggage but he assured me that he could handle it. “That delightfully windblown drive has delivered me into sobriety,” he said, “a state that I shall attempt to alter at the first opportunity.”

“I have several first editions of Roman Spring and some of the plays at the store I’d like you to sign,” I said. “How long will you be in town?”

“Maybe a week, this trip,” he said. “I told Megan I’d look in on the final rehearsal tomorrow. And then the opening night, of course. You’ll be there, right?”

Megan Carey, the play’s producer, and I had been keeping company for a while. I told him I’d be on hand opening night.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll try to stop by the bookstore before then. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the theater.”

It rained the next afternoon, just enough to clean the French Quarter’s streets and cool and freshen the night air for the usual flock of tourists.

In those days, I often kept the shop open late on the weekends, ever the optimist as I watched the crowds pass by with their go-cups and Pat O’Brien glasses in hand. That Friday night, just as I was about to turn the sign around on the door, Tom appeared. With him was Jason Dupuis, a blond, blue-eyed young man (in his twenties, I guessed) who’d been tending bar at the Barataria Lounge when Harmon Kane noticed his resemblance to Paul Newman and cast him as Brick, the alcoholic husband of Maggie the Cat in Tom’s play.

Tom was dressed in suit and tie. Jason, who had the habit of staring at you with an insolent sneer that I presumed was his “method” pose, wore patched Levis, battered tennis shoes, a flounced white silk pirate shirt, and, in spite of the season, a blue velvet blazer. The three colorful plastic bead necklaces he wore were either his homage to Mardi Gras or a sign that the hippie influence had not quite vanished from the earth.

He strolled by the shelves studying titles while Tom sat at my desk, signing the small stack of books.

“How went the rehearsal?” I asked.

“The Broussard girl is surprisingly effective,” Tom said. “As is Mr. Dupuis.” He grinned, glanced at the young bartender-actor, who was pretending not to hear, and continued. “Harmon is a splendid Big Daddy, almost on a par with Mr. Ives.”

He signed the final book with a flourish, placed the pen on the desk, and rose to his feet, swaying slightly. “Durin’ our drive in from the airport, you neglected to mention that you and Megan Carey were an item, as they say.”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Ah’m always interested in matters of the heart,” he said, his eyes drifting unconsciously to Jason, who was perusing a book. “Anyway, the rest of the cast is adequate, at the very least.”

“And eager to take on New York,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Megan tells me that Harmon is bringing the production to New York,” I said. “Isn’t he?”

“He’d better be,” Jason said, suddenly aware of our discussion.

“You both are askin’ the wrong man,” Tom said. “Ah’m just the playwright, the last to know.”

“I gave up my job at the lounge,” Jason said. “Harmon better be playing straight.”

“Did you like slingin’ drinks?” Tom asked.

“It was okay.”

“Was it as satisfyin’ as acting?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then whatever happens, Harmon did you a favor.”

Jason begrudgingly admitted this was true.

He held out a well-thumbed trade paperback of An Actor Prepares. “I’d like this,” he said.

Tom took out his wallet, but I told him to put it away. “It’s just a reader copy.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Harol’,” he said. “We’re off to The Absinthe House for cocktails. Love to have you join us.”

I thanked him, but declined. Three was a crowd and booze was something else I’d left behind in the ‘sixties.

“Till the big night, then,” Tom said.

The Saenger Theatre has stood on the corner of Canal and Rampart since the ‘twenties, when, after a three-year period of careful construction (at a cost of $2.5 million), it emerged as the city’s leading home for silent films and stage plays. In the ‘thirties, talking movies became its sole attractions.

They remained so until the mid ‘sixties, when a renovation, partially financed by the sale of eleven of the building’s original twelve stunning chandeliers, transported from a vacation spot for French royalty near Versailles, resulted in a “piggy-back” theater. A wall transformed the balcony into a cinema, while the ground floor served as a 2,700-seat venue for touring theatricals.

That Saturday evening, it was standing-room only. The idea of being present on opening night of a Tennessee Williams play, directed by and starring the near-legendary Harmon Kane, with the playwright himself in attendance, was almost too much for New Orleans’ social- and literary-minded citizens to handle. They arrived in force, dressed to the nines.

And, judging by their cheers as the curtain descended on Eugenia Broussard’s Maggie and Jason Dupuis’ Brick facing an uncertain future, they enjoyed the play as much as I did.

“You’ve got a hit,” I said to Megan.

She was never less than lovely, but her smile that night turned her transcendent. “I think you’re right. Harold, I’m going to have a play on Broadway.”

The members of the large cast assembled for their curtain calls. After considerable clapping and bravos, the actors portraying the house servants and the “little no-neck monster” children curtsied and left the stage, followed by the show’s unctuous Reverend Tooker (a life-insurance salesman named Carl Godet) and the brusque Doctor Baugh (New Orleans Recreational Department’s Sam Gottfried).

Next to exit were Jacques Boudreaux (a druggist who appeared frequently in local stage productions) and Felicia Martinez (the hostess of a children’s show on WWL-TV) who had appeared as Big Daddy’s mendacious son Gooper and his tart-tongued wife Mae.

Before their departure, the production’s credible Big Mama, Mildred St. Paul, another frequently used local thespian and the housewife of a vice president at Henderson Petroleum, and Jason Dupuis (Brick), were given standing ovations that they almost deserved. That left the stage to the elephantine Harmon Kane, who, with surprising grace, gathered Eugenia Broussard in one massive arm and pulled her close, both of them regarding the standing, cheering crowd with an air of noblesse oblige.

When the applause began to wane, Harmon turned to the wings and summoned the other two primary players — “Millie and Jack” — to rejoin them.

More applause.

A young man in an ill-fitting tuxedo raced down the aisle bearing two rose bouquets that Harmon presented to Eugenia Broussard and Mildred St. Paul. Then Harmon stepped toward the footlights and gestured the crowd to quiet down.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his magnificent voice rumbling effortlessly without benefit of amplification, “we would like to thank you for your warm and enthusiastic response to our little production.”

The audience was silent now and a bit mesmerized.

“I, myself, am particularly in your debt,” he continued. “Since I have been absent from the theater for nearly twenty years, laboring in the Hollywood vineyards, there were some who needed assurance that I had not lost my... flair for stagecraft.

“Tonight your applause has given them all the proof anyone would need. As a result, on Broadway this fall, I will be directing a new play by a promising young writer named David Mamet, starring myself and Mr. Kenneth McMillan.

“Until then, I remain your humble servant in the arts.”

More applause.

But Harmon’s cast members didn’t seem to be sharing his good spirits as they took their final bows and the curtain descended.

“He had no intention of bringing this production to Broadway,” Megan said, her eyes wet with tears. “We were just a test case. How could he be so cruel?”

Tom, standing in the aisle a few rows from the stage, saw her and began to thread his way toward us. With the crowd of theatergoers jabbering and calling his name, he took Megan’s hand and said, “I’m so sorry, my deah.”

She drew a deep breath and when she exhaled her unhappiness seemed to disappear, replaced by a determination that hardened her beauty in a way I’d never seen before. “Did you know what he was planning, Tom?”

“Not until I saw Mr. Edgar Weisman in the seventh-row aisle seat.”

“Who’s he?” I asked.

“A representative of Greystone Theaters,” Tom said. “They operate the Waterford on 47th and Broadway, which I assume is where Harmon will appear in his ‘promising’ young playwright’s bit of twaddle.”

“I’d better get backstage,” Megan said. “Those poor actors must be terribly depressed. I want to make sure they’re still coming to the party. After all their hard work, the least I can do is provide them with food and drink and the opportunity to tell the loathsome Mr. Kane precisely what they think of him.”

We both watched her maneuver through the crowd.

“After dropping that bombshell, you don’t suppose Kane really will show at the party?” I asked.

“’Course he will, Harol’. He’s got to get another five performances out of those poor disillusioned actors and he’s a big enough ham to think he can talk them into it.”

“You theater folk,” I said, prompting one of his cackles. “I suppose you’ll be at the party?”

“As things stand, I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, turning to the crowd of men and women offering him pens and playbills to sign.

Megan’s cast party was being held in a penthouse suite at the Royal Orleans Hotel that probably cost about the same per night as a month’s rent of my bookshop three blocks down the street. A bar had been set up, and a groaning board filled with iced shrimp and crawfish, raw oysters, roast beef, a ham, dirty-rice, two kinds of salads, crudités, and tiny hamburgers and little links that were mainly for the children.

She had been successful in corralling most of the cast, though the party proceeded in a subdued and semi-gloomy manner for over an hour without a sign of either Harmon or Eugenia. The children and their stage parents seemed to be enjoying themselves, along with the African-American contingent that had portrayed Big Daddy’s household staff. They’d had no illusions about Broadway, having been informed at the start that their relatively minor roles would be recast by New York actors.

The others were finding it difficult to set aside their sense of betrayal, even with their stomachs full and their wine and cocktail glasses being constantly refilled. Jason Dupuis, suspicious that Tom had been in on the deception, was giving the playwright a hard time of it.

“Don’t touch me, old man,” he said, jerking his arm from Tom’s hand. “I prefer not to associate with people I don’t trust.”

“I learned of Harmon’s plans when you did,” Tom protested.

“You’re lucky I don’t know for sure, or I’d give you what I’m gonna give the fat man.”

“You physically attack him and he’ll sue you. The publicity will make him stronger and destroy you.”

“Oh yeah? Like I got anything to destroy. In any case, hanging around with you’s lost all its appeal. What can a has-been like you do for me now? Dig?”

We both watched the method former bartender swagger off toward Eugenia Broussard, who’d just arrived, alone. “He’d seemed like such a nice boy,” Tom said, not at all sarcastically.

“Sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful actor,” I said.

“The sad thing is, I’ve been treated worse,” Tom said and cackled mirthlessly. “Time for me to refill the cup. Can I get you something from the bar, Harol’?”

I told him I was fine.

I watched him collect a large clear drink and take it to join Megan, who was saying goodbye to the departing children and their parents. Jason, meanwhile, had turned his full glowering method stare on Eugenia and she seemed to be flowering under its intensity.

Actors.

Harmon Kane arrived nearly two hours late for the party.

By then, we were down to a skeleton crew. Jason and Eugenia were “discovering” themselves on a couch in the corner. Jacques Boudreaux, the once and, it now appeared, future druggist, was ranting to an obviously inebriated and disinterested Tom about being relegated to a life of “rolling pills,” while his wife Lula, a country girl from Jeanerette, was confessing to me that, “as good as mah hubby is pretendin’ to be Gooper, I just wouldn’t’a felt right about livin’ in New Yawk, with Jacques associatin’ with drug addicks an’ all.”

Mildred “Big Mama” St. Paul and Megan were standing at the food table, deep in a discussion — of calories, I guessed. Her husband, the vice president of Henderson Petroleum, had been backed into a corner by insurance salesman Carl Godet and was trying to edge away gracefully.

All conversation ceased when Harmon entered.

He looked uncharacteristically harried, his hair mussed and his round face an unhealthy shade of gray. “Forgive me for arriving so late,” he said to the room, “and for... everything. If you’ll allow me, I’ll try and explain... but first, could someone be so kind as to point out the facilities?”

“There,” Megan said flatly, indicating the doors leading to the darkened bedrooms and baths.

As soon as he stormed away, energy began to flow through the room again. Lula drifted in the direction of her husband and I strolled to the window where Tom stood staring at the lights along the Mississippi.

“Lovely view,” he said.

“Not exactly like the lights on Broadway,” I said.

“No, but you know, Harol’, these folks do have some talent. And if they really want Broadway, they’ll find a way to get there.”

We watched the lights for a few minutes in silence.

“Okay. I’ve had enough of this bull.” Jason’s angry voice drew us both from the river view.

He strode angrily into the bedroom and continued to the closed bathroom door. “People out here want to talk to you, fat man,” he shouted. “Enough with the Frankie Machine bit.”

The door remained closed.

“C’mon out, you lyin’, sorry son of—”

Jason’s flow of invective was interrupted by the opening of the bathroom door.

Harmon stood wild-eyed and mountainous in the doorway, nearly blotting out the light from the bathroom. He had removed his tux jacket, pulled his bow tie apart, and unhooked his cuffs and the top of his shirt. He stumbled forward, then stopped and took a stiff-legged backward step, as if attempting a Frankenstein-monster parody.

But there was nothing comedic about his condition.

Jason, his handsome face registering surprise and, I think, fear, distanced himself as the big man started forward again, gasping for air and reaching out his arms. As he entered the lighted room where we stood his body began to spasm.

I rushed to offer whatever help I could, but I was too late. He went down hard on his side, hitting the carpet with an ugly thud. He rolled onto his back and lay there, his mouth opening and closing, reminding me, I hate to say, of a bloated, beached frog.

He stared up at me, his face wet with perspiration and tears. “Meg... Meg... did it...” he said. Then, apparently annoyed with himself, he shook his massive head. He mumbled something.

I knelt beside him, sensing rather than seeing the others in the room move closer. There was an oddly familiar chemical smell coming from his body, pungent, but not unpleasant. I placed my ear near his mouth and heard him whisper his final words.

I stood and looked down at his still body, only then realizing that a hypodermic needle was dangling from one huge fleshy arm, caught in place by the open French cuff of his shirt.

There was little doubt that he was dead, but I felt for a pulse anyway.

Jacques Boudreaux, the druggist, stood right behind me. “Oh, man, ain’t that somethin’?” he said.

“What was it he whispered to you?” Tom asked. “His last words?”

I pointed to the needle. “He said, ‘the heroin.’”

“Good Lord,” Mildred St. Paul said. “Was he on heroin?”

“On something,” I said.

“Actually, according to the insurance policy we needed for the play, he was a diabetic,” Megan said coldly. “Not that that rules out heroin, of course.”

“Diabetic?” Jason said. “Then that’s what killed him.”

“Either that or a drug overdose,” I said. “In any case, we should all move back from the body and find a comfortable place to sit and wait for the police. They won’t want anybody using that bathroom.”

“Shouldn’t we cover him with somethin’?” Tom asked.

“I think we’d better leave him like he is,” I said, and, ignoring the buzz of their questions and comments, I took it upon myself to notify the night manager of the hotel.

He in turn summoned the police.

A pair of uniformed policemen, one fresh and brash, the other seasoned and bored, answered the call and quickly ushered us to one of the hotel’s vacant suites, leaving the death scene to technicians from the coroner’s office and various other minions of the law.

Eventually we were joined by two homicide detectives, Burke (pronounced “Burkie”) and Mamahat, who, for the next two hours, interviewed each of us singly in the suite’s bedrooms.

Finally, Mamahat, a small, sad-eyed, olive-skinned man who seemed to be the ranking member of the NOPD, emerged from a room with Lula Boudreaux, the last of us to be interrogated. “I’m sorry we had to keep all you folks heah,” he said, looking as if that really were the truth. “But, in point o’ fact, Mr. Harmon Kane, a man of international fame, is now officially a victim of homicide, making this, unofficially, what we call a ‘don’t make a mistake or your butt winds up walking a beat on Bourbon Street’ murder investigation.”

He crossed the room to where Megan and I were together on a loveseat. “Miz Carey,” he said, his eyes looking sadder with each word, “you have any idea why Mistah Kane said you were the one who killed him?”

Megan’s hand squeezed mine suddenly. I tried to gather my thoughts.

“That’s not what I heard him say.” Tom’s voice was a weary drawl, but it worked to distract Mamahat.

“Then you seem to be in the minority, suh,” the detective said.

“Words are my business, Detective,” Tom said. “I don’t much care for im-prov-i-zation. The word ‘kill’ was not used, nor any of its many synonyms. What Harmon said was, ‘Meg did it.’ That could mean, ‘Meg brought me to New Orleans,’ or ‘Meg got me to come to this dreadful party.’ The word ‘it’ can be so dawgone vague, n’est pas?”

“With all due respect, Mistah Williams, when a man has just injected himself with a toxic substance he thought was insulin and realizes he is about to ex-pire, I truly do not believe he’s gonna be concerned with who invited him to a party.”

“A toxic substance?” Tom said. “You mean heroin?”

“Wasn’t no evidence of heroin. Not in the hypodermic needle or in its leather case that we found in the bathroom,” Mamahat said. “Way it looks, somebody slipped something into the dead man’s insulin supply and he shot it into his arm. We’ll identify the toxin soon enough. The assistant coroner said it smelled like a petroleum substance of some kind.”

Hearing those words, I recognized the odor I’d smelled when I was close to the dying man. And I knew exactly who had killed him, though I was less clear on what I should do about it.

Mamahat returned to Megan. “Miz Carey, you were aware that the deceased suffered from diabetes, right?”

She nodded.

“Then that knowledge, together with the victim identifying you...”

I saw where the detective was headed. “A lot of people knew he was a diabetic,” I said. “Or, to be more correct, they knew he used a needle.”

“Yeah? I got the idea they found out about his condition from Miz Carey after the man expired.”

“Lula,” I said to Jacques Boudreaux’s wife, “you told me you were worried about your husband associating with drug addicts. Were you talking about Harmon Kane?”

She looked at her husband for help. “Jacques?”

“I may have heard something about him bein’ on the needle,” Boudreaux said, frowning.

“Did you hear it from Jason?” I asked.

“Whoa,” the ex-bartender shouted. “Leave me out of this.”

“When you were calling for Harmon Kane to exit the bathroom, Jason, you said he should stop ‘the Frankie Machine bit.’ What’d you mean by that?”

Jason slumped. “Okay. Frankie Machine. Man With the Golden Arm. Sinatra’s greatest role.”

“Heroin addict,” I said.

“Yeah. One of the cleaning guys at the theater interrupted Harmon shooting up in the head. He thought it was dope.”

“So who else knew the deceased used a needle?” Mamahat asked.

“It’s a fact of backstage theater life, Detective,” Tom said, “that if one person in the company possesses that kind of information, everybody does.”

“Okay, so everybody knew,” Mamahat said, with some heat. “Big deal. I still have the dead man singling out one person by name.”

“Detective,” Tom said, “has anyone mentioned to you that no one refers to Miz Carey as ‘Meg,’ not even her... gentleman friend? It is always ‘Megan.’”

“So what? Kane was dying. He wasn’t able to get the full name out.”

“Finally, we agree,” Tom said. “Are you familiar with my play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?”

“I saw the movie,” Detective Mamahat said, “back awhile.”

“Good man,” Tom said. “You remember Miss Elizabeth Taylor in the film?”

“She went around in a slip, flirtin’ with Paul Newman?”

Tom smiled. “More or less correct. The character’s name is Margaret, but she is also called Maggie the Cat. Maggie... Mag. Sounds a lot like Meg, no?”

“You’re suggestin’ what?” Mamahat asked. “That he was talking about some character in a story?”

“More like the actress playing that role,” Tom said.

“That’s crazy!” Jason yelled. He was sitting next to Eugenia Broussard, his arm cradling her in a protective manner. “Why wouldn’t he have used her real name?”

“I think you’ll agree Harmon wasn’t quite himself at the time,” Tom said. “He was dying and mentally confused, not unlike the character he’d been playing only hours before. Isn’t it possible he was still thinking of Miz Broussard as Maggie?”

“You’re not buying any of this, are you, Detective?” Eugenia asked. “The ravings of an old drunk?”

Mamahat looked a bit uneasy. “It is a little... far-fetched, Mistah Williams.”

“Then let’s draw it closer to reality,” Tom said. “In spite of her lies and manipulations, some consider Maggie to be the heroine of the play. I do. And I believe Harmon did, too. That’s why his dyin’ words to Harol’ LeBlanc were ‘the heroine,’ indicating the lady, not the drug.”

“This is absurd,” Eugenia said.

“Most of the people here, Miz Carey included, had one reason to wish Harmon ill,” Tom said. “But only you, Miz Broussard, had a second reason. The man had pretended to be your lover. A broken contract might result in anger and frustration. But a broken heart, now that’s a motive for murder.”

We all were looking at Eugenia now. Even the suddenly quiet Jason, who, perhaps unconsciously, had slipped his arm from around her.

“Harmon didn’t break my heart,” Eugenia said. “But even if he had, do you suppose I carry poison around in my purse just in case I get dumped by a fat old fraud?”

“Not in your purse,” I said. “But, in this case, the poison was benzoyl. I recognized the odor from my days at Webber Advertising. It’s used by the artists to clean the glue from their boards. You’ve been working in Webber’s art department. They still use the stuff?”

She remained silent, staring at me.

“You didn’t have much time after Harmon’s curtain speech,” I said. “The agency is only a few blocks away. I imagine you raced right over there in a fury, filled a plastic bottle with the most toxic product you could lay your hands on, and then ran directly to Harmon’s hotel. What happened there? A full-out fight, maybe. You locking yourself in the bathroom, pretending to cry while you doctored his medicine?”

“That’s your story,” she said.

“An’ what’s yours, ma’am?” Mamahat asked.

“I don’t need one,” she said. “These are all fantasies.”

“If that’s the case, the night watchman at Webber won’t have checked you in tonight,” I said. “And the desk clerk and elevator operators at Harmon’s hotel won’t have seen hide nor hair of you.”

“And I suppose your fingerprints won’t be on any of the vials in Harmon’s medicine case,” Tom said.

Eugenia stood, head held high, arms at her side. Her glittering green eyes scanned the faces in the room. “Oh, you weak, beautiful people,” she said, repeating Maggie the Cat’s final words from the play. “What you need is someone to take hold of you — gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of — and I can.”

She took a step toward Tom, focusing on him. Detective Mamahat made a move to stop her, but Tom waved him off.

“I’m determined to do it,” Eugenia continued. “And nothing’s more determined than a cat on a tin roof — is there? Is there, baby?”

She reached out and touched his cheek, gently.

Then she backed away. “I’m ready now, Detective,” she said.

Mamahat took her arm and escorted her from the room.

Suddenly, everyone began to talk. “Wasn’t that the damnedest...?” “She murdered him?” “I wanna go home, Jacques.” “Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

As they filed out into the hall, Tom remained where he was. “I’ve never heard my words performed more eloquently,” he said and his eyes filled with tears.

We led him from the room and out of the hotel.

Royal Street was still throbbing with music and expectations. He stared at the passing parade. “Things are fallin’ apart in this old world,” he said. “The pressure builds up in people and they crack. People you’d never expect. Like Eugenia. So seemingly strong and capable.”

“We’ll walk you home, Tom,” Megan said.

“Thank you, my deah, but I’m still a bit too sober to be going home.”

“Then we’ll keep you company,” I said.

“That’s kind of you, Harol’, but tonight I shall seek the kindness of strangers.”

We watched him wander off down Royal in his tuxedo, drawing the attention of passing tourists who either recognized him as one of the world’s great playwrights or pegged him for being just another wealthy eccentric in a city full of them.

Copyright © 2006 Dick Lochte