Jazz Funeral by Julie Smith Page B

obscurity after hooking up with one of the city’s most influential music mavens, for instance; the continuing fights with Ham; and most of all, the way she’d been late to her own party.
    Skip called Chicago first—Ti-Belle hadn’t been to see Jarvis Grablow. Then she called a friend who worked at an airline. The friend wasn’t supposed to, but he could pull up a list of passenger names for every flight out of New Orleans on a given day. Ti-Belle had said “a three-day trip,” so the friend checked both Monday and Tuesday. Ti-Belle hadn’t gone anywhere. Now, that was worth pursuing.
    But first, an all-purpose investigative call that could save hours and hours of snail’s pace bumbling—to Allison Gaillard, long-lost Kappa sister with whom Skip had recently reconnected. Allison was a true belle who knew everything there was to know about how to get people to look at you and then how to keep them looking—a mistress of the Southern arts. She was someone with whom Skip hadn’t had the first thing in common when they’d been at Newcomb together (ever so briefly, before Skip flunked out). But for some reason, after Skip had gone off to Ole Miss, and then to San Francisco, and then had come back reinvented as a police officer, Allison had taken her on as a project. Skip didn’t get it, she was just grateful, because Allison knew everything about everyone; and what she didn’t know, she could find out in five minutes.
    “Skip Langdon calling Gossip Central.”
    “I’ve already pulled your file, officer. You’d be wanting Brocato lore, I suppose.”
    “Allison, you’re amazing. If the city’d let me, I’d pay you handsomely.”
    “Oh, you will, Skippy, you’ll definitely pay, quid pro quo. And we might as well start now. Who did it?”
    Allison knew perfectly well Skip wasn’t going to spew out details of this or any case, but as the world’s greatest gossip, she had to try. “You haven’t given me anything yet. Besides, you’re more likely to know than I do.”
    “I only know where the bodies are buried. I don’t know who buried them. Well, not always, anyhow. But I’ve known the Brocatos forever—or anyway, I know their next door neighbor, which is just as good. Do you know the whole story of George and Poor Boys?”
    “No, but I’d love to.” Skip took off her right earring and settled in.
    “Well, George is a true self-made man. The story goes that he was cooking in a restaurant when he got the idea for Poor Boys—and I mean short-order type cooking, by the way, not exactly cordon bleu stuff. He got his two brothers to go in with him—hence the name—and they somehow managed to drum up enough investors to make it work. It took them five years to get the first one started, with George going to night school while the thing gestated; getting a business degree. Charming story of family solidarity, except for one thing.”
    “Let me guess. They’ve done nothing but fight ever since.”
    “Ain’t it the way, as my mama’s cook used to say. He was married to a woman named Dorothy—Ham’s mom. Nice woman, stuck by him through thick and thin. But the sad part is, she never got to enjoy the thick. Died about the time he got the thing going. Well, that was about the time people started knowing him, and so after this, the story’s a little more reliable. Apparently, he was crazy about Dorothy, although this pretty much came as a shock to everybody because he just seemed like your basic stone-cold workaholic. When she died, he went into what I guess could only be called despair—unless you want to say it was a drunken stupor. Good thing his brothers were around to take care of the business—he didn’t draw a sober breath until the day he woke up married to Patty.”
    “Wait a minute. He got drunk and married her?”
    “Well, I don’t think it was quite like that. He got drunk after Dorothy died and stayed that way about six months; somewhere in that period, he married Patty. She was a