Louisiana Bigshot

used to shame me for it.”
    Mama sounded like even more of a piece of work than Talba’d imagined. “I’m curious. Did you dream about what really happened or just some generic nightmare?”
    Hunter just shook her head, her face a study in sadness.
    “I’m asking because something real bad happened to me when I was a kid, and I dreamed about it. Even as an adult. Sort of waking dreams.”
    “What were the dreams like?”
    “Blood,” said Talba. “There was so much blood…”
    “Oh, shit.” Hunter collapsed in loud, rolling sobs. So loud Lily heard, burst into tears herself, and came running. Hunter picked her up and held her, and each, the child and the child-woman, tried to comfort the other.
    Talba murmured that she was sorry and slunk away, disturbed that she’d upset an entire family unit, but thinking it a poor time to continue the interview.
    She drove to the nearest gas station, found a phone book, and turned to “Ferris,” amazed at her good fortune in unearthing a high school friend—apparently one who was still loyal to Clayton.
    There were four Ferrises, and she started at the top.
    “I’m calling Lou Ann Ferris… .”
    “Sorry, you got the wrong number.”
    “Hello, I’m calling Lou Ann Ferris.”
    “Lou Ann Ferris, or Roxanne Ferris? My grandmama was Lou Ann Ferris, but she’s been dead for eight and a half years. No, seven and a half. Harry, what year did Grandma die?”
    Why did people love details like that? Talba wondered. She got lucky on the third phone call.
    “Lou Ann Ferris? You must be an old friend.”
    “Yes, ma’am, Lou Ann and I…”
    “ ’Cause Lou Ann, she got married seven years ago. Married Dr. Fletcher Dumontier.” Talba suddenly realized that the woman she was talking to must be the Ferris family’s maid. “Yes, Lord. And two little girls, too.”
    “No! Well, I can’t wait to catch up with her. I’m visiting from Baton Rouge, and I thought I’d call. You wouldn’t have her phone number, would you?”
    The woman did, and an address. Talba thanked her stars she hadn’t gotten some more suspicious soul.
    Dr. Fletcher Dumontier lived in a development on a hill outside of town, with plenty of land around it and a Lexus in the driveway. Lou Ann’s, with any luck.
    Talba mounted the steps of the mini-mansion, figuring there was probably a view of a golf course at the top; that was the kind of neighborhood it was. The woman who came to the door had short hair that fit her like a helmet. She was dressed in tennis clothes—plain sleeveless T-shirt and some sort of garment that appeared to be a skirt in front and shorts in the back. Her face was twisted up like she’d eaten some thing bitter. Talba wondered if it was a piece of her life.
    Or maybe she was late for her tennis game.
    “Hello, I’m Talba Wallis… ”
    “I know who you are.” Ferris’s face twisted tighter. “I remember you from the funeral.”
    Talba smiled, as if she didn’t even realize she was being frozen out. “I just talked to Hunter Patterson. She sure is a nice girl, isn’t she?”
    This was a trick Eddie had taught her—never cut to the chase. Make them like you first. Say whatever you have to to get them on your side.
    “All alone with that little bitty baby. I feel so sorry for her… .”
    Ferris didn’t change expression, didn’t join in the conversation, and didn’t ask what she could do for her visitor. Talba looked around, appreciating her surroundings. “This sure is a beautiful place you have here.”
    “If you don’t leave by the time I count to five, I’m calling the sheriff.”
    Talba stepped back, acting out being shoved, and it wasn’t that much of an act. In every way but physically, she had been.
    “But… I thought you of all people. Being Clayton’s best friend…”
    Ferris reached over to a table, picked up a cell phone, and began punching in numbers. “One,” she said. “Two….”
    Goddammit,
Talba thought.
I
need some black people.

Chapter Fourteen
    Now where would you find black people in a town like Clayton?
    They’d be working, she figured. Anywhere there was work getting done, they’d be doing it.
    She tried the high school first and sure enough, the principal was black; so was his secretary.
    This was more like it.
    Here, they politely directed her to the school library, where the librarian—who was white, but apparently not a Patterson crony—quite helpfully pulled out the yearbooks for the years in question. The late