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blue-and-white Chinese porcelains flanking an ormolu clock on the mantel. An American primitive hung over the collection. The rug was one of the quieter Chinese ones, the fabric on sofa and chairs, on the other hand, an assertive print from Brunschwig & Fils.
    Skip thought she would have killed for a mahogany desk she was sure must be Sheraton. But a very dark, simple coffee table was obviously meant to be the center of attraction—the stage for Tolliver’s most spectacular orchid performances. Smaller (though equally priceless-looking) tables were crowned with blooming orchids as well, but this one held a massive display of the plants Bitty watered, grown in a room in back that Tolliver had converted into a tiny greenhouse. The gun that must have killed Chauncey, an odd-looking old revolver, was lying beside a plain clay flowerpot.
    In the middle of the elegant carpet was a tumble of clothes—a blonde curly wig, red satin shirt, blue satin skirt, gloves, mask, and D-cup bra with wadded-up rags that had given the balloon effect. A two-gun holster with one gun still in it had been flung onto a needlepoint footstool that jutted out at a funny angle in front of its chair. Dolly must have kicked it askew in her rush to undress.
    The three of them had checked the place out, then called Marcelle inside to see if anything was missing. Looking at the pile, she made a little sound, as if she’d been jabbed in the solar plexus. “The clothes,” she said. “You can trace the clothes, can’t you? Surely whoever sold that outfit would remember.”
    They all moved closer and looked at the items, not touching. The wig could have come from Woolworth’s. The other things looked cheap and sleazy. Probably the murderer had bought each item separately, and from someplace that sold a lot of similar merchandise.
    O’Rourke sighed. “We might have better luck with the guns.”
    They might indeed, Skip thought. She didn’t know much about firearms, but these looked odd.
    Skip moved out to the balcony. There were plants there—a Norfolk pine, jasmine, some smaller things. There was even a Christmas cactus in a clay wall sconce between the windows. Two old-fashioned wrought-iron chairs were grouped on either side of a damp, dirty circle on the floor. On one of the chairs sat a gardenia plant in a pot the size of the circle. Skip’s stomach flip-flopped as she realized Dolly must have removed the pot so she could stand where she needed to to get the best shot.
    The men left Skip with Marcelle while they looked around, came back to report that nothing had been disturbed. “Mrs. Gaudet, where can we drop you?”
    “I’d like to go home to change, please. Before I go to my mother’s.”
    They took Skip back to police headquarters, questioned her for an hour, and left her exhausted. Exhausted and feeling cheated. She would have given anything to be O’Rourke or Tarantino today.
    Lieutenant Duby called her in. “I’ve had a request from Chief McDermott. He wants to use you as a sort of special investigator on this. You’ve been detailed to homicide for the rest of the week.”
    Skip clasped her hands in her lap, as her mother had taught her to do more than twenty years ago. She
couldn’
t have heard what she thought she had. She said nothing.
    “The chief wants you to go and do what Uptown girls do—do you understand?”
    Skip did. They wanted her to spy.
    “Cooperate with O’Rourke and Tarantino, okay? And report to me. Any questions?”
    “Starting now?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    She was still on parade routes. “I’d better get back to work.”
    “Langdon, what time did you report this morning?”
    “Five o’clock.”
    “You’re a casualty, officer. Go home.”
    Feeling only slightly guilty, she left his office, pondering the mysterious ways of Comus, Momus, and Proteus, the gods of Carnival. She’d become a cop to escape the Uptown crowd and now the very thing she’d hated most all her life—her tenuous place in it—was