Big Easy Bonanza

maybe he just called his old buddy, Sheriff Ransdell. Way things work in Louisiana, that’d be good enough.”
    “So if Old Man Troxell was going to blow the whistle on the whole thing, Calhoun was going to get dirty, and it was sure as hell going to come out where the information came from.
That’s
why Clayton was killed now, after all these years. Because for the first time, she talked, and for the first time, it mattered. Donny Troxell, the same. Clayton met with him before she saw Ralph Troxell—she may have told Donny who did it, too. Or maybe Calhoun just assumed she did.”
    Eddie felt like going outside for some air. “Easy, Ms. Wallis. You just take it easy now.”
    But she was off in her own world. “So many things have just fallen into place—that’s why Calhoun was at her funeral. And that sign in the Pattersons’ yard! Some detective—I never even thought about it.”
    “You mind tellin’ me what ya talking about?”
    “The maid, Betty Majors, told me King Patterson was a racist. I never put that together at all—why the hell would a racist be supporting Calhoun?”
    Eddie couldn’t even be bothered reprimanding her for swearing. He was getting too excited himself. “Probably his biggest contributor, under the circumstances.”
    “Well, I checked that out too.”
    He sighed. “I’m damn sure you did, Ms. Wallis. Damn sure.”
    “He has contributed the maximum allowable by law, but I’ll bet anything if I kept at it I could discover some ways he gave Calhoun more under different names. I just thought we’d better talk first.”
    “Yeah. Real good decision, Ms. Wallis. I don’t mind tellin’ ya certain things are startin’ to make sense for me too. Like this: I see Sheriff Ransdell, I get chased, I get shot at. There’s too much stuff happenin’ here.” He shook his head. “Just too much damn stuff. Tell you what. Why don’t we just try something?” If what she thought was happening, they were as vulnerable as anyone else.
    He got out a couple of ordinary-looking briefcases containing his most prized equipment—something so specialized he didn’t even include it in the six items every PI needed. Most of them didn’t need this—they could just hire Eddie. It was his sweep kit.
    The first thing was to hook it up to the phone line system. That required leaving the office and took a few minutes, but the peace of mind was worth it. Talba followed, no doubt trying to figure out what he was doing—she could probably do it too, just from looking over his shoulder. But he didn’t have the heart to tell her to stay in the office. He found the large metal box where the phone bank was. “Uh-huh. Yep.” Forget peace of mind. “We’re tapped—every line in our office, including Eileen’s. Let’s just leave that on for now.”
    “Holy shit!” Talba’s eyes were like a kid’s. It would have been a pure delight to see her so unnerved if he hadn’t been feeling real queasy right about then. All he said was, “Did ya forget you’re a lady, Ms. Wallis?”
    He led her back inside. He was about to do what he’d had to do only once before in his own office. On the way back, he explained it to her. For Eileen Fisher, who’d seen it before, he wrote two words on a piece of paper and watched
her
eyes pop. The words were
Level Three.
    In his business, as Eileen well knew, Eddie recognized three levels of sweeps. Level One was for domestic cases—people who used Radio Shack stuff. Level Two was for small businesses. Level Three was performed when you were dealing with somebody with deep pockets, like the government or a large corporation. He had no idea who was on their tail, but he damn sure wasn’t taking chances.
    He wrote another note: “Everybody do their own office.”
    By now, Ms. Wallis knew what to do, and Eileen was already a pro at it. What was called for was a thorough physical search. You had to yank out all the drawers and turn all the furniture upside down. You had to pull the wall sockets out, unscrew the switchplates, look anywhere and everywhere your imagination led you. He had no doubt Ms. Wallis was going to be good at it. He figured she was no stranger to highly illegal electronic equipment. He knew perfectly well where she’d gotten the damn GPS—surfing the net for spy shops.
    After a first round, they changed places and each searched someone else’s office. Then they did it again. After two hours, nobody had found anything. Eddie resumed respiration.