“Do you think that’s a murder motive, Mr. Heller?”
“People have been killed over a lot less…but, frankly, I think it’s more likely the doctor approached your husband in the hall, and argued with him, maybe got physical…and the bodyguards overreacted. And your husband caught a stray bullet.”
She was nodding again. “That’s exactly how I see it. But how did you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Well…I noticed the papers didn’t talk about it much, but your husband’s mouth was bleeding. In fact, when I met him on the steps, when he came weaving down, he spit blood on my suit coat…. Is this distressing you, ma’am?”
“No,” she said. Her eyes were hard, alert, as she leaned forward, hands clasped.
“One of the first things the intern in the operating room did,” I said, “was swab out an abrasion inside your husband’s mouth. This fits in with something Huey said…he didn’t say much, he was pretty much delirious…but he asked, ‘Why did he hit me?’”
“You think Dr. Weiss hit my husband? Not in the sense of…shooting him, but…striking him a blow?”
“It makes sense. A sudden movement, and those hair-trigger moronic bodyguards just exploded. I’m sorry to put it that way, but it’s definitely a possibility.”
“So,” she said. “Where do you start?”
“I think the logical place,” I said, “is with the dead man.”
“My husband?”
“No,” I said, and stood. “The other dead man.”
17
The bungalow on Lakeland Drive was not a near-mansion; it was a white-frame duplex, what the locals called a “shotgun double,” with separate entryways beneath an overhang, sharing a common, untrimmed-shrubbery- crowded walk up a shallow yard. A dog-from the sound of it, a big one-was barking in the backyard. The spire of Huey’s statehouse loomed, a mere two blocks away.
Like most neighborhoods in Baton Rouge, this one was beautifully shaded; moss-hung oaks, losing their leaves, mingled with evergreens and poplars. But the ivy climbing the posts of the porch looked more parasitic than decorative, and the homes on this block were close together, almost claustrophobic. Perhaps it all would have struck me as cozy if I hadn’t known that tragedy had visited this overgrown cottage.
I’d spent Monday afternoon with Mrs. Long, in New Orleans; it was Tuesday morning now. My interview subject had been at home when I telephoned last evening, and when I told her what my purpose was, she had seemed willing, even eager, to see me.
At first she was just a shadow behind the screen door. “Yes?”
I told her my name. “We spoke on the phone?”
“Do you have any identification?”
What happened to her eagerness? “Only my Illinois private investigator’s license,” I said.
“You said you worked for Mutual Insurance.”
I was getting out my billfold; I found an A-1 Agency business card for her, too. “Right now I am. But I’m a private operator.”
She cracked open the screen to have a look, a slender, dark-haired woman in her late twenties; with her flawless complexion, she seemed even younger, but lines of pain were etched at the corners of the large, lovely eyes. Even in a housedress (not that this navy floral-print was in any way frumpy), Mrs. Carl Weiss-the former Yvonne Pavy-was a strikingly beautiful woman.
She stepped out on the porch. Her arms were crossed, as if she were protecting herself from a chill in the air, only there wasn’t one. “I’m sorry, Mr. Heller. After you called, I…had second thoughts. I thought you might be…”
“Another reporter?”
She nodded. “Or some other…grasping individual. I’ve tried to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.”
“I can understand.”
“I’ll invite you in, but first, I must ask you to keep your voice down…Carl Jr. is napping.”
“I see. How old is your son?”
“A year and a half. He’s an active boy, and he needs his rest.”
I risked a smile. “And you need yours.”
I got a tiny one back, as she nodded, and I followed her inside. She led me into a pastel-wallpapered living room dominated by a brownish red overstuffed, mohair-and-walnut sofa and a matching pair of easy chairs, all with rounded arms and backs and colorful floral cushions.
“Handsome suite,” I said.
“My husband and I picked it out at Kornmeyer’s, just a few days before his death. In fact, I had to postpone delivery because of the funeral. Could I get you something? Iced tea perhaps?”
That seemed to be the local drink of choice. I said yes, thank you, and sat in one of the easy chairs, because that was where she’d led me.
I could see through to the dining room, where a table and chairs and china cabinet were carefully arranged. The furniture seemed a little nicer than the house, but the place was also underfurnished. As if this were a work in progress, perhaps one that had gotten stalled.
The place was showroom tidy, with the exception of a scattering of the child’s toys on the living-room floor: a red rubber ball, some ABC blocks, a rubber Big Bad Wolf toy, and an Amos ’n’ Andy windup car, a replica of radio’s celebrated Fresh Air Taxi, with Amos and Andy riding-but the Kingfish conspicuous in his absence.
“I’m afraid I spoil him,” she said, handing me the tall narrow glass of iced tea, garnished with a mint leaf.
I hadn’t even heard her come back in; I’d been studying the toys.
“What else is a kid for?” I asked. I sipped the tea-it was sickly sweet. I’d forgotten to remind her I was a Northerner.
“You mind?” I asked, taking out my pocket notebook and pen.
“Not at all,” she said, and sat on the couch; our configuration echoed that of me and Mrs. Long, the afternoon before.
“Do I understand,” she said, almost reading my mind, “that I have an unlikely ally in Mrs. Long?”
“You could put it that way.”
“Or I
“You could put it that way, too. Does her motivation matter?”
“Motivation is
She plucked a framed picture from an end table; the picture had been facing away from me, but now it was thrust before me: Dr. Carl Weiss, in a studio portrait, his earnest eyes searching mine from beyond the grave.
And if that sounds melodramatic to you, too bad: the widow of Huey Long’s purported assassin was holding her dead husband’s picture under my nose and I was spooked.
Spooked by both his surface unassumingness, and an underlying intensity. The eyes behind the wire-framed glasses smoldered; the soft features, the long, straight nose, the full lips, the almost weak chin, were those of a bookworm. The kind of kid who got teased for being so smart. The kind of kid who, under the right conditions, could explode.
She withdrew the picture and her jaw was firmly set; but she was trembling as she said, “Is that the face of a murderer?”
“No,” I said. But I was lying: if I’ve learned one thing, in this life of crime, it’s how many faces murder wears.
