“And there’s the proof we needed, Mr. Boudreaux,” Bax said. “We’ll let you do the honors and slit open one a’ these souvenirs for us. And you don’t need to do it with a knife or whatever it was that Aurelia Spangler saw. A letter opener or anything handy will do nicely, I’m sure.”

  Rex looked around and took a pair of scissors from a nearby table, where repairs to costumes were routinely made. He made short work of cutting open one of the dolls right down the middle of its tuxedoed chest—Aurelia’s vision now fully realized, though in truncated form. Begrudgingly, Rex reached in and pulled out the packet of cocaine and handed it over to Bax in resigned silence.

  “You are now officially under arrest for possession. I will read you your rights, and then you can come down to the station and tell us everything you want to—with or without a lawyer.” Bax turned to one of the other officers standing behind him. “Cuff him, please.”

  “What about his wife?” the officer asked.

  “Bring her down, too,” Bax added. “We’ll have to sort it all out once Mr. Boudreaux has his say.” Bax caught Rex’s contemptuous gaze. “I assure you that you’ll have your chance, sir. It all depends upon how far-reaching this all is. If you’re a pawn, it might be wise for you to give up the king at this point.”

  Rex said nothing and sneered, but with cuffs around his wrists and a police escort guiding him none too gently toward the door, that was all he could do.

  * * *

  Over on the Bridge of Sighs, where an intermittent breeze was blowing in off the river below to mitigate the July heat only slightly, Wendy scanned the text from Ross that said she had been on point about everything, and that both Rex and Merrie were on their way to the station for further questioning. Then she continued to unspool things for Milton, whose eyes seemed about to pop out of his head over what she had already revealed to him.

  “Whatever else it was in this town of ours, Party Palooza was also a cover for drug trafficking. The cocaine was dispensed in small packets to certain customers via your singing telegrams inside the rag dolls. The trouble with Aurelia’s vision was that she and everyone else assumed that the knife to the tuxedoed shirt was to an actual man, a real person. But then I stood here on this bridge yesterday practically on this very spot and noticed what a difference that perspective and distance and size made regarding all the objects far below me—from the cruise ship to the people pouring out of it for their day ashore. That’s when I realized that the knife to the shirt could well have been an image pertaining to the tuxedoed rag dolls. They were the mules, not a human being. That’s why I asked you if you could remember if any of the souvenirs seemed heavier from time to time, and you said yes.”

  Milton grabbed the railing to steady himself and said, “It was so odd that the moment I read your text, it seemed to rush back into my head that I remembered a doll seeming heavier now and then. I even recall thinking to myself and laughing out loud once, ‘This one hasn’t been pushing away from the table much.’ ”

  They both allowed themselves an awkward, fleeting chuckle, and Wendy said, “If you had said you didn’t remember, we still would have proceeded with our plan to question Rex and Merrie. After all, you might have been all wrapped up in rehearsing on the way or listening to the radio to notice that something about that part of your deliveries was different.”

  “It’s like you were riding along in the passenger seat beside me all those times, saying that just now,” Milton added in amazed fashion. “That’s pretty much what I did—rehearse or sing along with the radio. I admit it—I’m a show tune addict and a Broadway wannabe.”

  “Yes, I can easily picture you doing that and being one.”

  “But what I can’t picture is Rex and Merrie being criminals,” Milton said, sounding genuinely distressed. “They were always so nice to me—especially Merrie. Sometimes she was a little too touchy-feely for my tastes, but they bent over backward to get me to come work for them again after I skipped town in a panic like a fool over Aurelia’s vision. Neither of us thought it might pertain to the dolls when it came out of Aurelia’s mouth, but I can vouch for the fact that it did terrify us both when we were together in the reading room. Aurelia just couldn’t quite see through the veil to what her vision really meant, but now I see why Rex and Merrie wanted me back so bad.”

  “That was by design, of course,” Wendy told him. “With you as the face and voice of Party Palooza, no one could possibly suspect anything of a criminal nature was going on behind the scenes. It was important that you continue playing that role for them. I mean, face the facts, Milton. You are eye candy in every possible way. You were their goodwill ambassador.”

  Milton turned a bright pink and looked down at his sneakers. “You’re embarrassing me now.”

  “That wasn’t what I was trying to do, but it’s the truth. You made everyone in Rosalie think you were the All-American boy.”

  “I really don’t think I fit that description, if you want to know the truth,” he said, looking up again as the color in his cheeks faded somewhat. “But I guess I shouldn’t go into all that with you. Maybe I should leave things just as they are. Let me just be a voice in a tuxedo.” There was a pause that implied further anxiety. “Do you think . . . I mean, is it possible that I could be in trouble because I delivered cocaine to customers?”

  “Not in my opinion. I believe that you did so unknowingly. Isn’t that the truth of the matter?”

  “Yes, I never had an inkling.”

  “Then you were being used shamefully. All you need to do is to repeat everything you’ve told me down at the station and that there was no kickback to you. If necessary, you can make your bank records available to my father and my husband. I’m confident that you’ll be in the clear, however.”

  Milton nevertheless looked horrified. “I swear to you there was never any kickback. I did get some good tips from certain people, but nothing from Rex and Merrie other than our agreed-upon commission for each delivery. So, what you’re saying is that some of the deliveries were just ordinary singing telegrams with ordinary dolls—but there were others where I actually delivered cocaine to customers. No wonder there were a few instances where I delivered to the same customer more than once. Here all this time I thought they just couldn’t get enough of me and my singing, but what they really couldn’t get enough of was the cocaine. Do I have the complete picture now?”

  “That’s the way it lays out at the moment.” She pointed in the direction of his car. “The next thing you need to do is head on down to the station. I’ll text Ross that you’re on the way. And please don’t disappear like you did before. If nothing else, that’ll prove guilt of some sort, and you’ll be tracked down, I assure you.”

  “No,” Milton said, trying to resist a smile that came upon him anyway. “I won’t ever run away again like I did then. I want to do my part to clear all this mess up. It’s been a nightmare to deal with since we found out about Aurelia.”

  Then, something seemed to jolt Milton, jerking his head back as if a land mine had exploded beneath his feet. “Wait . . . does that mean that Rex and Merrie were the ones who killed Aurelia Spangler? I really can’t imagine them doing something like that. It gives me goose bumps all over.”

  “Well, you couldn’t imagine them being engaged in drug trafficking, either, could you?”

  “That’s true enough,” he said, the color again rising in his face. “But I’m feeling like I’m a damned fool, if you wanna know the truth.”

  “No, you shouldn’t feel that way at all. You did the job you were paid to do very well. You were paid to use that beautiful voice of yours and be charming to strangers, and the rest you had no control over. Anyway, we expect to find out who really killed Aurelia Spangler very soon now,” she told him as they both headed toward their cars. “We may not be through with surprises yet, either.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Ross and Bax were sitting next to each other in the interrogation room, taking turns questioning Rex Boudreaux. At the moment, however, Rex had upset the ebb and flow of the exchanges with an unexpected but emphatic monologue of his own and would simply not relent.

  “I mean it. I want it clearly understood that my wife, Merrie, is innocent in all of this. She’s never known the truth. To her, Party Palooza was just that—a business meant to entertain adults and children alike. It was the same for her when we lived down in New Orleans and we worked for my aunt Mathilde. Merrie did have her periods of boredom and restlessness with it all, wanting something different now and then or thinking that we needed to move away, but she never knew what I was up to behind the scenes. She can tell you nothing because she knows nothing. I know she has to be practically jumping out of her skin waiting out there in the hallway for something to happen. Please don’t punish her for what I did.”

  “Your concern is duly noted,” Bax said. “As for your wife’s involvement, we’ve already halfway reached that conclusion on our own, judging by her reactions to what took place earlier at Party Palooza. So, stop worrying about that for now. We want to know what you can tell us. Why don’t you go back to the beginning? I assume there was one.”

  Rex did not look either of them in the face as he spoke to an imaginary person slightly to one side. “Yes, there was a start to it all. Mr. Winchester, I believe it was you who said back at Party Palooza that if I happened to be a pawn in all of this, it was time for me to turn in the king.”

  “You remember correctly. So, are you ready to do that for us? Are you ready to turn in the king?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I believe you mentioned to me some sort of deal if I came clean with you?”

  “You’re not in a position to bargain with us very much,” Bax said. “But, yes, you need to tell us everything you know about the deaths of Aurelia Spangler and Earl Jay Doxey if you expect anything at all to go your way. You’re already in way over your head. So level with us—are the two murders related?”

  “Yes, and I’m turning in the queen, not the king, as it happens.”

  “And she would be?”

  “My so-called aunt Mathilde Boudreaux down in New Orleans. She’s nothing of the kind. She’s my stepmother from my late father’s second marriage—an ill-advised one at that. She took what she inherited as seed money and became a drug dealer with it. Yeah, it surprised me when I first found out, but she’s been doing it for a long time now, and then she made it too lucrative for me to refuse her offer to join her. She and I told Merrie that she was my aunt to muddy the waters and camouflage things a bit; but the two of us ran the whole racket down there behind the scenes, while Merrie seemed to be delighted with dressing up and planning the actual parties and doing most of the idea work—”

  “I think you’ve already convinced us that your wife is innocent in all this,” Ross interrupted. “You can move ahead, please.”

  Sounding chastised, Rex continued. “Well, it was Mathilde who came up with the idea of hiding the cocaine deliveries in plain sight with the singing telegrams and the rag dolls. No one ever caught on down there in a city as big as New Orleans. They still haven’t. It’s amazing what you can hide behind a smile, even if it’s just the smile of a rag doll. I’d make a run every now and then to get more of the mules when I’d sell out up here. We certainly didn’t want to trust things to the U.S. Postal Service and their prying eyes. No, we took a hands-on approach. So, I’d take Merrie with me on these trips, telling her it was a fun outing to eat at Commander’s Palace or Galatoire’s, or see a Broadway show at the Saenger or something like that. I never worried about being caught because who would suspect rag dolls of being anything other than rag dolls. The truth is, Mathilde is the very picture of a sweet, old matron with all the gray hair pinned atop her head and the quiet voice, but inside, she has the heart of a demon from Hell itself, believe me. In fact, I still have my doubts about the way my father passed away. He did have heart problems, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mathilde found a way to make them fatally worse.”

  “Was she officially suspected?”

  “No, I’m just speculating.”

  “And you decided to go into business with such a woman. Well, I have to say you paint a charming picture,” Bax said, wincing. “I believe I can live the rest of my life without meeting her.”

  “You have no idea how wickedly clever she is,” Rex continued. “Anyway, when she found out that you guys up here in Rosalie had sent the only games in town to Parchman and left a void in the market, she decided that I should move up here and take the town by storm with her special telegram service. She said publicly that she was ‘franchising’ and branching out, but behind the scenes she knew there was a lot of money to be made up here in an old, moneyed town like Rosalie. For many long decades, Rosalie paid a black-market tax to the state to keep its twenty-four-hour bars open. That was before counties could vote for being wet legally. There were even slot machines if you knew where to find them. Rosalie’s always been wide open and will use any excuse to party.”

  “Okay, forget the history lesson. I’m aware of all that,” Bax said, clearly annoyed. “Get back to your aunt or whoever she was.”

  Rex contorted his features for a moment and then continued. “Yeah, well, Mathilde had already gotten hold of a list of existing customers who would pay and pay big. It’s a tight-knit, territorial, nasty little universe of trade, believe me. She also told me it wouldn’t hurt in the least that the only party planner doing business in Rosalie had conveniently moved away for health reasons. I can’t remember her name—”

  “Fayette Marie LaFonda,” Bax interrupted.

  “Whatever. The point is, Mathilde did her research thoroughly and had every angle covered before she made a move and sent us up here.”

  “So you’re fingering this Mathilde Boudreaux for the drug trafficking. Are you also fingering her for the murders of Aurelia Spangler and Earl Jay Doxey?” Bax said, the anger in his voice and glint in his eyes clearly evident.

  “She ordered up the hits, yes. When Milton Bagdad told us about Aurelia’s vision of the knife to the tuxedo shirt, it hit too close to the bone. Milton was raving about the accuracy of the cold readings with all of the other bridge players, especially the reading that pulled Vance Quimby’s novel plot out of thin air. That seemed to do the trick for everyone, including me.”

  “Which was a scam since Aurelia and Vance were brother and sister,” Ross said, getting a word in quickly. “They had it all planned out. But the sad part is the scam worked too well. There was an element of truth in it that they hadn’t counted on—just enough to get two people killed.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. I reported to Mathilde what Milton had said, and she was convinced that Aurelia might be a real psychic and that she had stumbled onto a vision of one of our cocaine customers opening up one of the tuxedoed dolls with a knife or whatever to get to the packet. Mathilde was also concerned that the entire truth behind Party Palooza might be revealed sooner or later if this psychic was allowed to hang around too long. Mathilde didn’t want to take any chances, and I have no idea who she paid to do it, where they came from, or where they are now, but I was told that whoever it was would show up and force Aurelia to overdose on cocaine at gunpoint, and as you now know, that’s what happened. It was supposed to look like a suicide with the note she was forced to write and all. Of course, these hit men are experts in covering their tracks. You may never track them down, but Mathilde will be easy enough to find down there in New Orleans.”

  “The suicide angle fooled us for a little while,” Ross said. “But not that long. It didn’t seem to add up when people like my wife and Aurelia’s brother kept insisting that it just wasn’t like the woman to take herself out like that. And they were both right. Human behavior doesn’t change overnight.”

  Rex managed an indifferent shrug and then continued. “I didn’t know Aurelia Spangler, so I have no further comment about that. She was just a name to me. As for Mr. Doxey, I can only guess that he had the misfortune to dig too deep until he’d made contact with someone here in Rosalie who got back to Mathilde, and she had him taken out, too. I have no further info for you on that, either, but maybe the FBI can get to the bottom of it here and down in New Orleans. This racket has as any many tentacles as a giant squid, and it’s really good at sucking the life outta people.”

  Instead of taking all the revelations in stride, Bax’s composure became increasingly hostile. “Yet you continued to stick with it for the money. And now you’re ratting out your stepmother to save yourself. Aren’t you the man of the hour?”

  “But you said if I leveled with you—”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I might say anything to get a confession from the likes a’ you. I suppose you realize that you are still an accessory to murder both before and after the fact. I have no control over what a jury might decide, in any case. And I won’t make light of the fact that your stepmother had a good friend of mine killed, not to mention Miz Aurelia. This is very personal to me because it hurts me where I live.” He made a fist and thumped his chest twice, knowing full well how threatening the gesture appeared. “So take my advice and get yourself a good lawyer, because I can assure you this is going to trial.”

  There was a prolonged, awkward silence among the three men, but Bax finally broke it while flexing his fingers after the tight fists he had made. “Humor me, Mr. Boudreaux. I have a tough question for you, but something tells me you’re up to answering it honestly.”

  “Why not? Do I have anything to lose at this point?”

  “No comment. But I would like to know what you—or this Mathilde relative of yours—would have done if Milton Bagdad had somehow discovered what was going on with some of his deliveries. Hypothetically, let’s say something happened to one of the dolls, and it got busted open somehow and the packet got exposed. Suppose Milton figured things out. What would you have done about it?”