Heather Graham - The Dead Play On

Quinn smiled. “You’re wrong. Now that we’re face-to-face, I do remember you. Your whole family showed up at football games. Arnie was a year or two younger than me, but he was in the band, and you all came out to see him every game.”

“That’s right, son, that’s right. You sure could throw a football,” Woodrow said.

“Well, that was then,” Quinn said.

“Come in, come in,” their host encouraged. He looked at Tyler. “Thank you for bringing us all together.”

“Yes, sir,” Tyler said.

They entered directly into a parlor with a comfortable sofa covered in a beautiful knitted throw and a number of armchairs set with covers to match the throw. As they came in, a woman, wiping her hands on a dish towel, came out to greet them, as well.

“I’m Amy Watson, and thank you all for what you’re doing. Tyler says we’re going to have some help with things at last.”

“We’re going to do our best, Mrs. Watson,” Danni promised her.

“Please. I’m just Amy, and my husband is Woodrow. Sit, sit,” Amy said. “It’s a little small and tight in here, but please, make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you anything? We don’t keep any spirits in the house here—figure you can find enough just about anywhere else in the Big Easy. But I have coffee, tea, juice...”

“We’re just fine, Mrs. Watson, thank you,” Danni assured her.

“We just finished dinner and already had some coffee,” Quinn added. “Too much, you know, and we’ll never sleep.”

“Well, then, if you decide you’d like something, you just holler,” Amy said.

“I promise, we will,” Danni said.

“Let’s sit, shall we?” Woodrow asked.

Danni, Quinn and Tyler took the sofa; the Watsons chose the chairs facing them over the carved wooden coffee table.

“I know this is a difficult time for the two of you,” Quinn told the Watsons, “so I apologize in advance for any pain my questions may cause, but the more information I have, the better I can do my job. So...where was Arnie’s special sax—the one you gave Tyler—on the night he was killed?”

The Watsons looked at one another without speaking. Amy had a look of gratitude in her eyes, and it mirrored her husband’s. Woodrow was the one to speak. He looked at Quinn and Danni and said incredulously, “You said killed . You used that word. Killed. So that means you believe us—you believe our son didn’t just suddenly stick a needle in his arm. Right?”

“We do believe you, Mr. and—I’m sorry, Woodrow and Amy,” Danni said. “We do believe you. Some musicians were held up at gunpoint leaving work not long ago. And more recently two musicians have been killed in their homes. We believe that someone is out there looking for something, and it might be Arnie’s sax.”

Woodrow stood up and walked to the fireplace. He leaned an arm on the mantel and looked at his wife then back at Danni. “You think someone is looking for Arnie’s sax ? And that they’re killing over it?”

“The sax you gave me,” Tyler said. “And don’t worry—it’s safe. Danni has it at her shop, over on Royal Street.”

Amy and Woodrow looked at each other again.

Finally Amy sighed. “We don’t have his special sax—the one my mother gave him. We assumed he had it with him the night he was killed. We figured it was stolen.”

“Then what did you give me?” Tyler asked her. “You made me feel...”

“That sax is just a replica. We wanted you to feel you had something special of Arnie’s,” Woodrow said. “And you always said he was so good and you were second-rate. We figured if you thought that was Arnie’s ‘special’ sax, you’d feel like you could play just as well as he did. And I’ll bet you have. Playing is believing. Living the music, son, you know that. So we gave you one of his other saxes, the one that looked like the special one his grandmother gave him.”

Tyler looked as if he’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four. “But you don’t understand. It has to be that sax. I could see what Arnie saw. I could feel him when I played it.”

“Magic in the mind, son, magic in the mind,” Amy said. “And it was the best gift we figured we could give you, though there’s no gift out there that says a big enough thank-you to a real friend. And, Tyler, you were his friend. I think you believed in him so much in your mind that you saw his death so you could go out and fight for him.”

“I believed it,” Tyler said. “I believed that sax was magic, that I could play because of that magic—that I could almost talk to Arnie again,” he finished softly.

“That’s magic, son. Love and belief,” Amy said. She looked back at Danni and Quinn. “I don’t rightly know what else could have happened to Arnie’s special sax besides whoever killed him taking it. Arnie was found with nothing except the clothes he was wearing. And,” she added, her lips tight, “that needle in his arm. They even told me they couldn’t find another single track line on him, but I think they wind up with a dead black boy on Rampart Street, and they just don’t want to think anything else.”

“I can assure you, Amy, the detective who’s now on the case—Detective Larue—doesn’t see the world that way at all. We’ll find the truth,” Quinn promised her.

“You know, I heard something about those musicians being held up,” Amy said. “But they were only knocked around and hurt. They weren’t killed.”

“Two people have been killed now, and as I said, right in their own homes. So don’t answer the door to anyone—even old friends of Arnie’s. The killer might come around here if he doesn’t have the sax and I’m right that that’s what he’s looking for,” Quinn said.

“We’re not alone here,” Woodrow said. “We got good friends. We got family around the area. Hey, we got Tyler.”

“Always like a second son,” Amy said fondly.

“Amen,” Woodrow agreed.

“You may be in danger, though,” Danni told them.

“Got a shotgun in the back. I always did protect my home,” Woodrow said.

“Don’t you worry none about us,” Amy said. “Even I know how to use that gun. You just go out there and find out who murdered our boy.”

“We plan to do just that, Amy,” Danni told her, reaching out to touch the woman’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m not sure how we’ll go about it, but I promise you, we’ll do everything it takes.”

“As will Detective Larue. He’s a good guy,” Quinn said.

“You know the man well?” Woodrow asked.

“I worked with him for years,” Quinn said. “Since...”

“No worries, son,” Woodrow said. “We know about your troubles. You been clean all this time now?”

“Yes, sir,” Quinn said.

“You got an angel with you, boy,” Amy said. “Don’t you forget that.”

Danni watched Quinn. New Orleans was a good-sized city, but that didn’t mean that old-time citizens forgot anything. She knew Quinn’s dark past, and she wasn’t surprised the Watsons did, too. Both his downfall and his resurrection had been covered in the local media.

“I never forget, Amy, trust me,” Quinn told her.

“Bless you, boy,” Woodrow said.

“Thank you,” Quinn said. “And you can’t come up with any explanation of what might have happened to that sax?”

“None. None at all,” Woodrow said. “We reckoned the killer took it that night, like Amy said.”

They were back to square one, Danni thought. But if neither Tyler nor the Watsons had Arnie’s special sax and they were right and the killer was still searching for it, just where the hell was it?

“You at a dead end already?” Woodrow asked. He was clearly trying to sound matter-of-fact, but there was a hopelessness in his voice that squeezed at Danni’s heart.