“Actually,” she said, “guns were an interest of Carl’s. There’s nothing wrong with that, nothing unusual.”
“Of course not. Was he a hunter?”
“Not really. It wasn’t in his character to kill anything; he was a doctor, after all. But he and another physician friend liked target shooting. They had rifles, shotguns, pistols. They’d bring clay pigeons with them. Sometimes they’d just shoot at the water. Just…boys will be boys, you know.”
I wasn’t quite sure she bought that, herself.
“Where did they do this target shooting?” I asked.
She frowned. “What does this have to do with proving Carl’s innocence?”
“Mrs. Weiss…my job is to ascertain what really happened that awful night at the capitol. I will tell you, frankly, that I am inclined toward your husband’s innocence.”
The lovely eyes widened. “You are?”
“I told you that on the phone. And it wasn’t a lie, or a ruse, just to get some time with you.”
“What makes you believe in Carl’s innocence?”
I told her about Huey’s bleeding mouth and his question about who hit him.
She shook a righteous fist. “I heard that! I knew they’d suppressed that evidence! That rumor was flying around Our Lady of the Lake.”
Now I was frowning. “Did your husband have friends on the staff?”
“At the hospital? Of course. He did many operations there. There are only two hospitals in Baton Rouge, Mr. Heller.”
I sipped my sweet, sweet tea. Smiled. “Now,” I said, “where did Carl go target shooting?”
“At Carl’s father’s cabin. On the Amite River, over in Livingston Parish. It’s a popular recreation spot.”
A harmless enough response, considering how hard she’d ducked the question.
I asked, “You didn’t happen to go there, that Sunday afternoon, did you?”
She tugged at the collar of the navy-print frock. “Yes, we did. We frequently spent quiet Sunday afternoons at the cabin.”
Quiet afternoons, shooting.
“Did your husband do any target shooting that particular Sunday afternoon?”
“No! Certainly not!”
Bingo.
Well, this seemed to be the first time she’d lied to me, and it was an understandable falsehood at that: even if he’d spent every Sunday for the previous three years target shooting, doing so on that Sunday would seem to attain a terrible significance.
So I moved on, and said, “There were no signs, on that Sunday, that anything was disturbing him? The morning papers surely must’ve covered the bills Huey was pushing through. Didn’t your father being gerrymandered out of his judgeship kind of spoil your Sunday?”
She sighed. “First of all, you have to understand that Carl wasn’t very political at all. He wasn’t involved in local politics, and it wasn’t a subject he discussed much, even though his father did, all the time.”
“His father had an interest in politics?”
“Particularly Huey Long. He despised him.”
“What about Carl?”
Her shrug only seemed casual. “He was certainly no admirer of the man. Like a lot of people around here, he felt things were being…badly managed. There was some bitterness in our family, toward that administration…my sister Marie lost her third-grade teaching job, and my uncle Paul lost his job as principal of Opelousas High.”
“Why did they lose their jobs?”
“Because they were Pavys. My papa was one of the few anti-Long judges still on the bench, you know.”
I sat forward. “Which brings us back to the gerrymander…. Your family had just heard about it, that Sunday morning, isn’t that right?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “But it was no surprise to us. In fact, my mother was delighted by the prospect.”
“Delighted?”
“Papa didn’t make as much money as a judge as he could in private practice. Mama was elated he’d be stepping down. Papa himself didn’t feel there was any great injustice being done to him, personally. It was just politics. Dirty politics, but politics.”
“So the gerrymander, as a motive for Carl…?”
“Ridiculous. We all knew Papa was ready to step down off the bench, anyway.”
I hadn’t taken many notes, yet. But I needed Carl Weiss’s timetable. “Tell me about that day. That Sunday.”
“All right.” She shrugged. “It was a typical Sunday. We went to Mass, and we came home and changed our clothes, and went to Carl’s parents’ house-we always had Sunday dinner at one o’clock with them-fried chicken, rice, gravy, salad, all the trimmings. Carl’s parents have a wonderful colored cook.”
“And this is when you discussed the gerrymander bill?”
“I…I suppose. I remember someone said it was a kind of backhanded compliment to the judge, from Huey.”
“How so?”
Her smile was small and smug. “Papa must’ve been a pretty good judge, if they couldn’t vote him out of office.”
“Did Carl seem at all…preoccupied?”
“No. He was skinny, you know, and we teased him about it, and I remember he ate really well, and went out of his way to compliment Martha…that’s the cook…about the meal. Tom Ed excused himself…”
“Who?”
“Tom Ed. That’s Carl’s brother…you’ll want to talk to him, too, by the way…. Anyway, Tom Ed went off with some of his college chums to hire a band for their rush-week dance. We went into a bedroom where Carl Jr. had woken from his nap, and I nursed him, and Carl just lay on the bed and we talked. Just talked, like husbands and wives do…quiet things. Unimportant things. So unimportant, I don’t even remember….”
And she began to weep.
I found a handkerchief for her and she took it, apologizing.
“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m the one who should apologize for asking you to talk about all this.”
“I’ll be fine. Really.”
Before long, she was.
“After a while, we all went to the cabin together…it’s just a rustic, three-room affair, you can’t cook there, but it was by the river and nice for picnics and swims and just, you know, relaxing. We went swimming, Carl and I, and we, well the only word for it is, we frolicked. Like children. Isn’t that silly?”
“No,” I said.
“Later, we all sat on the porch, staring at the river moving by. It was almost…hypnotic. Carl and his father talked about medicine, and Mama and I played with the baby, and the clouds threw pretty shadows on the river and on the riverbank.”
“When did you get back to town?”
“About 7:30. I fixed Carl a couple of sandwiches and he ate ’em up, and had two glasses of milk, too. I kidded him about finally putting some meat on his bones. Carl Jr. was sleeping in his baby buggy, next to the table. Our dog-Peter, he’s a big ol’ police dog-came over and licked the baby’s face, licked him awake.”
She smiled at the memory.
“Carl told me I better wash the baby, and I did, and he put Peter outside, and fed him. Then he helped me wash and dry the dishes.”
This domestic little scene had occurred, what? An hour and a half before the shooting?
“A little after eight,” she continued, “Carl called Dr. McGehee, an anesthetist, in regard to a tonsillectomy Monday morning. Then I stretched out on our bed and read the Sunday comics while Carl showered and the baby slept. It was a perfect Sunday, really.”
Almost.
“When Carl stepped into the bedroom, he wasn’t in his casual clothes from camping, but a white linen suit and Panama hat…like yours, Mr. Heller. Only his shoes were black, not brown. His hair was messy and I made him comb it. I was still reading the comics when he kissed me goodbye. He said something about making arrangements for an operation tomorrow. I thought he was going to Our Lady of the Lake. I didn’t ask him, or make an issue of it. He made hospital night calls all the time.”
“And then he left?”
“No…See, we’d been rocking the baby to sleep every night, after his ten o’clock bottle, and I said, just as Carl was going, ‘I believe I’ll let Carl Jr. cry himself to sleep tonight, and not rock him.’ And Carl said, ‘Well, I’ll hurry back as quick as I can, and we’ll try that out together.’ Then he left. That was the last time I saw him. Alive.”