Thanks to a uncharacteristic scheduling snafu, Jessica has come to New Orleans two whole days before any of her calendared promotional events. Luckily, she finds herself in the care of industrious cabbie Lafayette (guest star Garrett Morris), who knows literally everyone and everything in town.
Case in point: he brings her to a lengthy French Quarter performance of on-the-cusp-of-stardom jazz musician Ben Coleman, whose subsequent death in the middle of a set is the ultimate improvisational performance. In fact, everybody in the room lets him lie there on the floor for a few seconds, just in case he was simply doing something jazzy.
Jess immediately identifies the subtle, telltale signs of an obscure South American poison, and suspects that Ben’s clarinet was the delivery mechanism. The police disagree, but Jessica keeps pushing the issue—the smoking gun, she claims, is that the clarinet’s reed didn’t have any stains on it even though Ben had just taken a swig of coffee before playing, as many musicians do—until a bandmate breaks down with a tearful cemetery monologue.
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