Blood and Thunder

“Who?”

“Tom Ed. That’s Carl’s brother…you’ll want to talk to him, too, by the way…. Anyway, Tom Ed went off with some of his college chums to hire a band for their rush-week dance. We went into a bedroom where Carl Jr. had woken from his nap, and I nursed him, and Carl just lay on the bed and we talked. Just talked, like husbands and wives do…quiet things. Unimportant things. So unimportant, I don’t even remember….”

And she began to weep.

I found a handkerchief for her and she took it, apologizing.

“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m the one who should apologize for asking you to talk about all this.”

“I’ll be fine. Really.”

Before long, she was.

“After a while, we all went to the cabin together…it’s just a rustic, three-room affair, you can’t cook there, but it was by the river and nice for picnics and swims and just, you know, relaxing. We went swimming, Carl and I, and we, well the only word for it is, we frolicked. Like children. Isn’t that silly?”

“No,” I said.

“Later, we all sat on the porch, staring at the river moving by. It was almost…hypnotic. Carl and his father talked about medicine, and Mama and I played with the baby, and the clouds threw pretty shadows on the river and on the riverbank.”

“When did you get back to town?”

“About 7:30. I fixed Carl a couple of sandwiches and he ate ’em up, and had two glasses of milk, too. I kidded him about finally putting some meat on his bones. Carl Jr. was sleeping in his baby buggy, next to the table. Our dog-Peter, he’s a big ol’ police dog-came over and licked the baby’s face, licked him awake.”

She smiled at the memory.

“Carl told me I better wash the baby, and I did, and he put Peter outside, and fed him. Then he helped me wash and dry the dishes.”

This domestic little scene had occurred, what? An hour and a half before the shooting?

“A little after eight,” she continued, “Carl called Dr. McGehee, an anesthetist, in regard to a tonsillectomy Monday morning. Then I stretched out on our bed and read the Sunday comics while Carl showered and the baby slept. It was a perfect Sunday, really.”

Almost.

“When Carl stepped into the bedroom, he wasn’t in his casual clothes from camping, but a white linen suit and Panama hat…like yours, Mr. Heller. Only his shoes were black, not brown. His hair was messy and I made him comb it. I was still reading the comics when he kissed me goodbye. He said something about making arrangements for an operation tomorrow. I thought he was going to Our Lady of the Lake. I didn’t ask him, or make an issue of it. He made hospital night calls all the time.”

“And then he left?”

“No…See, we’d been rocking the baby to sleep every night, after his ten o’clock bottle, and I said, just as Carl was going, ‘I believe I’ll let Carl Jr. cry himself to sleep tonight, and not rock him.’ And Carl said, ‘Well, I’ll hurry back as quick as I can, and we’ll try that out together.’ Then he left. That was the last time I saw him. Alive.”

She began to weep again. Who could blame her? She still had my handkerchief.

When the time seemed right, I said, “Mrs. Weiss, your husband’s behavior is definitely not that of an assassin on his way to perform a suicide mission.”

“I know that. The whole family knows that.”

“My problem is-I have to prove it. I can’t promise you that that’s possible.”

Her half-smile was lovelier than most whole ones. “You don’t owe me anything, Mr. Heller.”

“I think I do. For your kindness. And patience.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’d like to talk to your father, and to Carl’s father, as well. And you said I should speak to Tom Ed?”

“Definitely. He knows things.”

I liked the sound of that.

“Can you help me make some calls? Pave the way for me a little bit?”

In the other room, the wail of the waking child cut through like a police siren.

“I’ll be glad to, if you’ll give me a minute.” She rose, and was going quickly to her boy, when she stopped cold and said, “You know, I can sympathize with Mrs. Long.”

“Really?”

“Carl’s policy had a double-indemnity accidental death clause, too. But it didn’t pay on death by homicide, either.”

And she went out.

18

The frosted glass read dr. c. a. weiss, m.d.-eye, ear, nose and throat specialist; another doctor’s name was beneath. But the bottom third of the window space was left awkwardly open-no doubt the other, younger Doctor Weiss’s name had been lettered here, before thunderous gunfire in the capitol’s marble halls, last year, had gotten it scraped off.

The suite of offices was on the seventh floor of the Reymond Building-I’d once visited the sixth floor-and the chairs in the spacious waiting room were filled with patients thumbing through the out-of-date magazines. Maybe they weren’t here for their eyes.

Despite the crowd, the lanky brunette nurse came out from around her reception desk and showed me right in. The doctor had an impressive spread: I was led down a hallway off of which were two treatment cubicles with eye charts, and doors marked RECOVERY LAB AND X-RAY ROOM. The office at the end of the hallway was small and spartan, however, just the usual diplomas, a few file cabinets and a big, open rolltop desk. I sat in an uncushioned wooden chair near the cushioned swivel one at the rolltop, and waited. Not long.

Meticulous in a dark vested suit, a silver stickpin in his blue tie, Dr. Weiss was of medium height and probably around sixty, though he looked older; he had a stern face, but the gray eyes behind the rimless glasses were gentle and, not surprisingly, sad. He was bald as an egg.

I stood and offered my hand and he shook it.

“My daughter-in-law tells me you’re trying to help clear Carl’s name,” he said.

“I don’t want to misrepresent myself, doctor. I’m working as an impartial investigator, merely trying to ferret out the truth of this unhappy situation.”

He gestured for me to sit, and he settled into the swivel chair, resting an elbow on the neatly ordered desk. “That’s more than can be said for any prior investigation.”

“My understanding was that the D.A. who held the inquest into your son’s death was no fan of Huey Long’s.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s true. In fact, the district attorney attended the notorious DeSoto Hotel conference…and once that fact was thrust in his face, and in that of the press, our illustrious D.A. backed off. And the Long machine’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation…which is investigation by criminals, as I see it…put their rubber stamp on the whole sorry affair.”

“You were no fan of Huey Long’s, either.”

His smile was thin and bitter. “No. There were those in my family who, upon hearing the news that Long had been shot, prayed I hadn’t done it. But thousands upon thousands of families in Baton Rouge had the same reaction about someone in their own families.”

“And no one would have suspected your son of this?”

He shook his head, no, gravely. “If anything, Carl tried to calm me down, when I’d rant and rave about that tin-pot Napoleon. Oh, he was no admirer of Long’s, and from time to time expressed a general dismay over Long’s puppet government. But, like so many people who stand apart from politics, Carl accepted it as if it were inevitable.”

“And you didn’t?”