Big Easy Bonanza

It could have been a lot worse.
    “Okay, ladies, let’s check the cell phones.” These were more difficult to tap, but they could be checked. They registered negative, but he still wasn’t satisfied. “We use these till we can get new ones. Eileen, go to a secure phone—pay phone if ya have to—and order some now. Let’s have them by tomorrow.”
    He just hoped no damage had yet been done. They were in the reception room, Eileen Fisher’s office, Eddie leaning against her desk. “Now think back real carefully, Ms. Wallis. What have you said on the phone? Who have you talked to and what have you said that might be dangerous to you or me or somebody else?”
    “Shit! Just shit!” She was shouting. He thought she might kick something.
    “Goddamn! I hate that kind of talk.” And he hated the panic in her voice.
    “Calvin Richard. I called him twice.”
    “And ya think he’s in danger? Why?”
    “He knows something—and you know what happens to—” He didn’t even let her finish. “Call him.” He looked at his watch. “Try him at home—use ya cell phone.”
    She dialed, fingers fumbling, and he heard her say, “Calvin, it’s Talba Wallis,” then watched her lower the phone, staring at it, bemused.
    “Eddie, he hung up.”
    “Do you know where he lives?”
    She nodded, as he had known she would. Ms. Wallis always researched those things. “Let’s go see him.”
    She didn’t say a word, just followed, docile as a deer. That worried him a lot.

Chapter Twenty-Three
    For the first time in her life, Talba wished she smoked cigarettes. She didn’t know Richard. In point of fact, he’d been horribly rude to her, but the fear that something could happen to him because of her was making her feel ill. “Eddie, his little boy’s got something wrong with him.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He’s got what they call a development disorder.”
    “Okay, Ms. Wallis. Okay. I’m driving as fast as I can.” He’d understood her—that this was a kid that needed his parents even more than most.
    She kept talking, to relieve the tension. “He had to have all kinds of evaluations that must have cost a fortune, but now he’s going to a special school that’s helping a lot, apparently.”
    “Private school?”
    “Yes—and you know how much those things can cost.”
    “You suggesting the Richards are getting a little help?”
    “Well, suppose Calvin’s not the slasher, but he knows who is—or at least he knows about the cover-up. And he’s being paid off. They’d have damn good reason to trust him. Why would he drop a dime if it dried up the money?”
    “They probably won’t hurt him. But all the same we gotta warn him. By the way, who’s ‘they’?”
    “The real slasher, maybe. Or could be Calhoun. Calvin told me I was messing with something I didn’t understand.”
    Eddie said, “Understatement, hmm?” and they were silent for the rest of the drive.
    A typical cop, Richard lived in the suburbs, not in the city in which he worked. Like Mozelle and Matthew Simmons, he lived in Kenner, but not in their gated community. It was strange heading there again, and made Talba think of the sister she still hadn’t met—whom she was putting off meeting.
    The other houses on the block were new and relatively expensive. The Richards’ probably was too, but that wasn’t what you saw right away. What you noticed was that the place was surrounded by Jefferson Parish Sheriffs’ cars.
    “Oh, God, Eddie—what if we’re too late?”
    “He answered the phone, didn’t he?”
    “Yes.” But somehow that didn’t make her feel any better. Eddie had once been a deputy sheriff in Jefferson Parish. She said, “This is your territory. Do you want to try to talk to them?”
    He gestured at one of the several knots of civilians clustered on the street. “Let’s try the neighbors.” He smiled at her wryly. “I’ll do it. Ya got the wrong demographics.”
    Actually, some of them were black, as were the Richards, but Eddie was a schmoozer, infinitely more suited to coaxing information than she was. She trailed him at a distance as they approached one of the groups.
    “How y’all this evenin’?”
    The group buzzed a little.
    “Looks like there’s trouble at the Richards’.” He paused, and a few people nodded. “We teach over at their son’s school—just on our way home when we saw the commotion. Anything we can do?”
    A woman with short hair looked like she was about to pop, a very thin