Lieutenant Miller was a middle-aged, harassed-looking man with a weather-beaten face, who seemed genuinely uncomfortable in his role. “Sorry I couldn't meet you at the airport,” he told Tracy, “but the whole town's gone nuts. We went through your mother's things, and you're the only one we could find to call.”

“Please, Lieutenant, tell me what — what happened to my mother.”

“She committed suicide.”

A cold chill went through her. “That's — that's impossible! Why would she kill herself? She had everything to live for.” Her voice was ragged.

“She left a note addressed to you.”

The morgue was cold and indifferent and terrifying. Tracy was led down a long white corridor into a large, sterile, empty room, and suddenly she realized that the room was not empty. It was filled with the dead. Her dead.

A white-coated attendant strolled over to a wall, reached for a handle, and pulled out an oversized drawer. “Wanna take a look?”

No! I don't want to see the empty, lifeless body lying in that box. She wanted to get out of this place. She wanted to go back a few hours in time when the fire belt was ringing. Let it be a real fire alarm, not the telephone, not my mother dead. Tracy moved forward slowly, each step a screaming inside her. Then she was staring down at the lifeless remains of the body that had borne her, nourished her, laughed with her, loved her. She bent over and kissed her mother on the cheek. The cheek was cold and rubbery. “Oh, Mother,” Tracy whispered. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“We gotta perform an autopsy,” the attendant was saying. “It's the state law with suicides.”

The note Doris Whitney left offered no answer.

My darling Tracy,

Please forgive me. I failed, and I couldn't stand being a burden on you. This is the best way. I love you so much.

Mother.

“Oh, my God!”

“There's more. The district attorney served your mother notice that he was going to ask for an indictment against her for fraud, that she was facing a prison sentence. That was the day she really died, I think.”

Tracy was seething with a wave of helpless anger. “But all she had to do was tell them the truth — explain what that man did to her.”

The old foreman shook his head. “Joe Romano works for a man named Anthony Orsatti. Orsatti runs New Orleans. I found out too late that Romano's done this before with other companies. Even if your mother had taken him to court, it would have been years before it was all untangled, and she didn't have the money to fight him.”

“Why didn't she tell me?” It was a cry of anguish, a cry for her mother's anguish.

“Your mother was a proud woman. And what could you do? There's nothing anyone can do.”

You're wrong, Tracy thought fiercely. “I want to see Joe Romano. Where can I find him?”

Schmidt said flatly, “Forget about him. You have no idea how powerful he is.”

“Where does he live, Otto?”

“He has an estate near Jackson Square, but it won't help to go there, Tracy, believe me.”

Tracy did not answer. She was filled with an emotion totally unfamiliar to her: hatred. Joe Romano is going to pay for killing my mother, Tracy swore to herself.

Chapter 03

She needed time. Time to think, time to plan her next move. She could not bear to go back to the despoiled house, so she hecked into a small hotel on Magazine Street, far from the French Quarter, where the mad parades were still going on. She had no luggage, and the suspicious clerk behind the desk said, “You'll have to pay in advance. That'll be forty dollars for the night.”

From her room Tracy telephoned Clarence Desmond to tell him she would be unable to come to work for a few days.

He concealed his irritation at being inconvenienced. “Don't worry about it,” he told Tracy. “I'll find someone to fill in until you return.” He hoped she would remember to tell Charles Stanhope how understanding he had been.

Tracy's next call was to Charles. “Charles, darling —”

“Where the devil are you, Tracy? Mother has been trying to reach you all morning. She wanted to have lunch with you today. You two have a lot of arrangements to go over.”

“I'm sorry, darling. I'm in New Orleans.”

“You're where? What are you doing in New Orleans?”

“My mother — died.” The word stuck in her throat.

“Oh.” The tone of his voice changed instantly. “I'm sorry, Tracy. It must have been very sudden. She was quite young, wasn't she?”

She was very young, Tracy thought miserably. Aloud she said, “Yes. Yes, she was.”

“What happened? Are you all right?”

Somehow Tracy could not bring herself to tell Charles that it was suicide. She wanted desperately to cry out the whole terrible story about what they had done to her mother, but she stopped herself. It's my problem, she thought. I can't throw my burden on Charles. She said, “Don't worry I'm all right, darling.”

“Would you like me to come down there, Tracy?”

“No. Thank you. I can handle it. I'm burying Mama tomorrow. I'll be back in Philadelphia on Monday.”

When she hung up, she lay on the hotel bed, her thoughts unfocused. She counted the stained acoustical tiles on the ceiling. One… two… three… Romano… four… five… Joe Romano… six… seven… he was going to pay. She had no plan. She knew only that she was not going to let Joe Romano get away with what he had done, that she would find some way to avenge her mother.

Tracy left her hotel in the late afternoon and walked along Canal Street until she came to a pawn shop. A cadaverous-looking man wearing an old-fashioned green eyeshade sat in a cage behind a counter.

“Help you?”

“I — I want to buy a gun.”

“What kind of gun?”

“You know… a… revolver.”

“You want a thirty-two, a forty-five, a —”

Tracy had never even held a gun. “A — a thirty-two will do.”

“I have a nice thirty-two caliber Smith and Wesson here for two hundred twenty-nine dollars, or a Charter Arms thirty-two for a hundred fifty-nine…”

She had not brought much cash with her. “Have you got something cheaper?”

He shrugged. “Cheaper is a slingshot, lady. Tell you what. I'll let you have the thirty-two for a hundred fifty, and I'll throw in a box of bullets.”

“All right.” Tracy watched as he moved over to an arsenal on a table behind him and selected a revolver. He brought it to the counter. “You know how to use it?”

“You — you pull the trigger.”

He grunted. “Do you want me to show you how to load it?”

She started to say no, that she was not going to use it, that she just wanted to frighten someone, but she realized how foolish that would sound. “Yes, please.”

Tracy watched as he inserted the bullets into the chamber. “Thank you.” She reached in tier purse and counted out the money.

“I'll need your name and address for the police records.”

That had not occurred to Tracy. Threatening Joe Romano with a gun was a criminal act. But he's the criminal, not I.

The green eyeshade made the man's eyes a pale yellow as he watched her. “Name?”

“Smith. Joan Smith.”

He made a note on a card. “Address?”

“Dowman Road. Thirty-twenty Dowman Road.”

Without looking up he said, “There is no Thirty-twenty Dowman Road. That would be in the middle of the river. We'll make it Fifty-twenty.” He pushed the receipt in front of her.

She signed JOAN SMITH. “Is that it?”

“That's it.” He carefully pushed the revolver through the cage. Tracy stared at it, then picked it up, put it in her purse, turned and hurried out of the shop.

“Hey, lady,” he yelled after her. “Don't forget that gun is loaded!”

Jackson Square is in the heart of the French Quarter, with the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral towering over it like a benediction. Lovely old homes and estates in the square are sheltered from the bustling street traffic by tall hedges and graceful magnolia trees. Joe Romano lived in one of those houses.