Louisiana Bigshot

for you to be talking to me.”
    “Well, I don’t happen to have his phone number, Mr. Valentino.”
    Damn! And things had been going so splendidly. He’d have Ms. Wallis out of jail by now if he hadn’t lost his temper.
    He ended up having to call Junior Brashear’s daddy and going at it backasswards.
    The elder Dunbar Brashear didn’t even live in Clayton; he was a retired gentleman up in Baton Rouge and damned unhappy to be waked up, but he knew enough to get his son to release a citizen he hadn’t even arrested before he got his ass in a sling.
    The whole thing ended with Junior Brashear coming down to the jail and doing the honors himself, looking a little like the Pillsbury doughboy with a three-day beard. Junior seemed like a man who liked his beer and drank barrels of it, waiting for his disposition to improve. The whole time he was there, he never spoke to Talba. His parting shot to Eddie was this: “I think you’ll find you’d do well to keep your employees out of the partic’lar neighborhood we found Urethra in.”
    That made Eddie as mad as anything else that had happened that night, and he had a list as long as your arm.

Chapter Fifteen
    It wasn’t at all clear to Talba whether she’d been dragged off for being black in a white neighborhood or because somehow the Pattersons knew she was watching their house.
    “Ms. Wallis,” Eddie had said when she broached the question, “it just don’t make no never-mind. If there’s one thing to be learned from this, it’s that you stick out too much in Clayton to work this case.”
    “Not where I’m going, I don’t,” she said huffily, and the next day, on about three hours sleep, she was back in her car, driving up I-10 to Clayton. She got Jason on her cell phone. “Look, everyone in Clayton’s clammed up like they’ve got lockjaw. I need the transcript of Troxell’s trial, but I’m afraid it might cost a few hundred bucks. Can you handle it?”
    “Hell, yes,” he said, his voice grim. “Get that if you don’t do anything else. I need to know what happened there.” Okay, that was one good thing. Talba was humiliated at having had to call Eddie the night before. And all the more determined to make sense out of the case; well, frankly, to prove herself. She knew that was what it was, knew she didn’t have to, and couldn’t stop herself. She’d gotten up early, gotten online, and checked out Ebony Frenette, Marshannon Porter, and Calvin Richard. To no avail.
    Okay, Eddie, okay, call information first,
she said silently as she, looked up their addresses.. She should have written them down yesterday.
    She looked at her watch. It was still early enough to catch someone before work. Yes! Good planning might pay off, for once. She stopped at a gas station to ask directions, found Calvin Richard lived only a few blocks away, and decided to try him first.
    She liked Richard’s neighborhood. It was much more modest than any she’d yet been to in Clayton, neat as an English village, and, so far as she could see, black. Everyone on the street was black; even the dogs were black.
    Let Deputy Dog find me here,
she thought.
    The Richard house was a wooden bungalow painted yellow with white trim; pansies bloomed in a neat bed out front. A gleaming new Cadillac sat in the driveway. Calvin must be doing well for himself.
    She rang the doorbell and had to conceal her disappointment when the door was opened by a woman in her fifties. Nonetheless, she mustered a smile. “Good morning,” she said. “I’m looking for Calvin Richard.” Taking a chance, she pronounced it the Cajun French way—ReeSHARD—and apparently, she guessed right.
    The woman nodded, brow furrowed. She was a full-figured woman without being oversized, dark with neat hair. She wore white pants, sandals, and a close-fitting T-shirt. She was probably somewhere around Miz Clara’s age, but a whole lot sexier. It occurred to Talba that that was what a little money could do.
    “Just a minute.” The woman closed the door, which struck Talba as odd, but maybe her mama hadn’t taught her any manners.
    She had to wait quite a while, so long she wondered if the woman had simply brushed her off. But why say “just a minute” in that case? She tried to be patient, but it didn’t come naturally. Finally, a man came to the door, a businessman about the same age as the woman, in tan slacks and a blue shirt. He had a tie hung around his neck, but not yet tied.
Yes,
she thought,
this