Big Easy Bonanza

know a woman named Estelle Villere? Worked for Chauncey St. Amant?”
    “I’ve heard of her, but I never actually saw the lady.”
    “When you want to see LaBelle, how do you get in touch with her?”
    “First of all, you have to book weeks in advance—she goes out of town a lot. And it has to be at your place or a hotel—she only does out-calls. If I give you her number, can I go back and catch the end of Charmaine?”
    Steve was all for going back with him, but Skip pleaded exhaustion. When they were in the car he said, “I really appreciate your letting me hear that. I feel like maybe you trust me.”
    She liked his California style of saying so if you were pleased with your lover. But at the moment she wasn’t particularly pleased with herself. She said, “I didn’t have any choice, remember? Hinky had an important question for you.”
    He ignored her. “What do you think? Is Chauncey ‘the important New Orleanian’?”
    The truth was that Skip was as eager to talk about the case as he was, and after what he had heard, discretion seemed absurd. She told him about the scrapbook. “But that doesn’t mean she really is his daughter. Maybe she has a relative who is or met someone who is, and that’s where she got the idea.”
    “Could you be a little clearer on that one?”
    “Sorry. I was just thinking aloud. Chauncey had a long affair with a black woman named Estelle Villere. She was his secretary, and she quit very suddenly. If she had a baby, I think it would have been younger than LaBelle. But LaBelle could have met the child somehow and picked up the idea for that story she told. Baby-sitting, maybe.”
    Steve laughed. “Before she figured out an easier way to make a living. Anyway, suppose she is Chauncey’s kid. Does that give her a murder motive?”
    “Yeah, I’d say she had a motive. You should see where she grew up. If that place turned her as mean as it would have turned me, she could have killed him just for leaving her and her mom there. But somehow I can’t see it—she was probably making a pretty good living as a call girl…”
    “Good living my ass. Haven’t you noticed that hellhole she lives in now?”
    Skip didn’t answer.
    Steve said, “Okay, how about this scenario. Whoever Mom is—”
    “She’s a woman named Jaree Campeau. I’ve spoken to her.”
    “Okay,” said Steve. “Jaree gets drunk or angry or something and tells LaBelle who her dad is—I presume there would have been hush money…”
    “Yes. LaBelle’s great-grandmother said something good happened to Jaree—that she got to go to college. Maybe Chauncey paid for it and Jaree sacrificed the kid by letting her grow up in the project.
    “But say LaBelle came back. Come to think of it, Jaree and Mrs. Doucette said she did. And suppose she asked for money. And Jaree didn’t have any or got tired of buying drugs or maybe still had a lot of hidden anger toward Chauncey—anyway, in a moment of pique or something, she says, ‘Get it from your father if you can,’ and spills the beans.”
    “Exactly what I was thinking,” said Steve. “So LaBelle gets up this whole fantasy about herself and how she ought to be taken care of by her dad and she invites him to support her. But he won’t, so she kills him.”
    “Of course that doesn’t explain where she is, or who tore her place up.” Skip yawned.
    “Tired?” He started the car.
    “Really beat.” And tomorrow she had to try to track down Horton Charbonnet, Toyota owner, if Cappello hadn’t found him; and she still hadn’t found Estelle Villere. Suddenly she felt panicked. Overwhelmed. She had vowed to give Steve the evening and she had. That was as far as she could go. “Would you mind if we didn’t spend the night together? I’ve got a full day tomorrow.”
    “Of course not.” A muscle in his cheek twitched, and she knew he did mind. She minded herself. They had met at the wrong time.
    Her apartment felt strange to her and there was a draft—Jimmy Dee hadn’t yet had her window fixed, and she had had to tape paper over the hole. She hadn’t slept here alone since the burglary. She felt oddly forlorn.
    Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that she was afraid. Not really afraid—
I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake
. But spooked. Definitely spooked. She had some cognac left from the other night. A couple of quick belts and she was out.
    She wasn’t sure what woke her—some sort of bump, she thought later, but when her eyes flew open she