82 Desire

think.”
    Think. Skip tried to think. If they’d encrypted the system, it probably meant the information she needed was still inside it. She said, “How does encryption work?”
    Talba said, “First of all, you’d only encrypt certain files.”
    Skip nodded. “The ones you were trying to hide.”
    “Yes. The encrypted files look like gobbledygook until you run them through a decryption program—talk about a rude awakening.”
    “Are you telling me you found ‘Skinacat’—you just couldn’t read it?”
    “No. Either someone’s removed it or changed its name. I remembered one of the names in it, and it turned out the guy had his own file. That one I couldn’t read.”
    “Wait a minute. Just hold it a minute while I try to figure you out. When we talked Saturday, you couldn’t remember any of the names. You knew damn well they were important in a murder case, and yet you just couldn’t remember. And then, all of a sudden, you miraculously recovered your memory. And you didn’t tell me! What the hell’s wrong with you, Ms. Baroness Sandra Urethra?” Skip was so mad she wanted to pound her. It really bothered her how irresponsible people could be.
    Talba looked as if she had been pounded. Tears slid into her eyes and spilled. “Oh, God. Oh, God, I don’t know. Oh, shit, how could I be so stupid? I was just all caught up with all my little petty things. I never thought…”
    “Okay, okay, okay.” Skip was cooling down. “What was the name?”
    “Marion Newman. I remembered it because of the school.”
    “Is it a man or a woman?”
    “A man, because, on the original list, it was actually, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Marion Newman.’ Somehow I suspect he’s the main guy in this, though.”
    “The main guy in what, Talba?”
    “In whatever he was screwed out of. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
    Skip would have liked to ignore the remark, but it might mean something. She said, “What makes you think that?”
    “Isn’t it always?”
    She was back to her arrogant self. Skip said, “Look, I’m delighted you’ve decided to cooperate, belated though it may be. Think carefully—is there anything else you can remember that might be helpful—anything at all?”
    “No.”
    “Thanks for thinking so carefully.”
    “I have been thinking about this. Think I’m sitting here with my mind in neutral?”
    “Where’s Mr. Newman from? Can you remember that?”
    “Mr. Newman. Let me see.” She closed her eyes. “Belle Chasse. You know what? It might be Belle Chasse.”
    “Well, that was so good maybe you should try for his street address.”
    She waved a hand. “That was random. Can I go back to work now?”
    “I wouldn’t if I were you. Somebody in there might be dangerous.”
    The poet stood up, smiling. “Oh, girlfriend. They’re all dangerous.”
    Having a vested interest in Talba’s not being missed, Skip dropped her off before heading back to the office, taking care to conceal her excitement. Marion Newman was a name she knew.

Nineteen
    THE PLACE SHE’D seen it was in some record involving this case. She got out the cardboard box where she’d stored certain of Russell’s things she’d borrowed, and there on top was an address book. She pounced on it, perfectly remembering the name “Marion Newman” written in neat script on a blue line.
    But it wasn’t there.
    Okay, then, one of the Rolodexes. She plucked out the larger one first, the one from work. And there it was—black ink on a pristine white card. Go figure.
    She cross-checked it against the home Rolodex, but it wasn’t there. So Marion Newman was strictly a business acquaintance. That made sense.
    Probably no one was home now, or at best only his wife was, but Skip phoned anyway. A woman with a black accent answered.
    Skip could hear her holler, “Mr. Newman? Mr. Newman. Ya girlfriend’s on the phone?”
    Good time to hang up , Skip thought, a nd drive out to Belle Chasse. This was a bedroom community in Plaquemines Parish, reached by taking the Mississippi River Bridge (aka the Crescent City Connection) and driving through quite a few miles of McDonald’s and Dairy Queens, and finally coming to, of all things, the same river you have just crossed.
    Because of an exceptionally kinky meander, you actually run into the Mississippi again. Having gone due east on the bridge, you’ve fetched up on its west bank; if you were to cross it again (which you could, by ferry), you could drive back to New Orleans without