Louisiana Bigshot

on ya to be resourceful.”
    “Why thank you, Eddie. I appreciate that.”
    She was childishly grateful for any crumb of praise. He wondered why that was—Miz Clara had to have been a good mother. Anybody who could fry chicken like that woman could was born to be a mama. He said, “What else ya got?”
    “I don’t know about this one.” She spoke uneasily.
    “Come on. Give it up.”
    “A man who was in her class said Clayton used to go after black guys. In high school.”
    Eddie whistled. “Ah. Now maybe we’re getting somewhere. So Miss Clayton Debutante Patterson liked a little…” Suddenly he realized almost anything he could say would be offensive on some level.
    “What the guy said was, she liked licorice sticks.”
    Eddie’s cheeks went hot. “Language, Ms. Wallis!”
    “What’d I say?” She wasn’t doing a halfway decent job of looking innocent.
    “You ambushed me!”
    “Me? I ambushed
you?”
    “I’m gon’ let it go this time, young lady, but in future ya keep a civil tongue in ya head, ya hear me?” He was uncomfortably aware that this was the way he used to speak to his daughter, Angie. “I will not tolerate foul language of any kind in this office.”
    “Sorry. Excuse my French.” She was still giving him great big innocent eyes, but her lips were twitching.
    “Goddammit, Ms. Wallis!”
    “Oops. ’Scuse
your
French.”
    He sat there and fumed for a minute, trying to think of a way to recapture his dignity. Finally, he decided to trick her. “That gives Donny Troxell a hell of a motive.” He left the bait dangling.
    She took it without hesitation. “Yeah, but if she got into a relationship with another boy, that guy would have one too.” Eddie had hoped she’d waffle about the possibility of a black kid as a suspect; he’d have enjoyed seeing her squirm.
    He stuck the needle in a little deeper: “I kind of like that theory.”
    She pushed her hair behind her ears, a gesture that, in his experience, meant women were thinking. Maybe fiddling with their scalps stimulated their brains. “There’s one other thing,” she said. “There were five black students in that class, only three of whom were listed in the Clayton phonebook. One was Marshannon Porter, the man I spoke to. Another was Ebony Frenette, to whom I also spoke.”
    To whom I also spoke,
he thought. He didn’t even trust white people who talked like that, let alone black ones.
    “The third is Calvin Richard. I went to see his parents, who reported him dead.”
    “Oh, shit! ’Scuse my French, Ms. Wallis. But it looks like half of Clayton Patterson’s high school class has already kicked the bucket, and they’ve hardly been out long enough to have a reunion. Something fishy about that.”
    “Only he’s not dead,” she said, making Eddie feel like an idiot. “At least, Marshannon says he’s not. And he says Calvin and Ebony were an item in high school.”
    “Well, if Clayton had something going with Calvin, maybe Ebony scalped her. Now that I do like. It’s kind of a woman’s crime, when you think about it. Women like to cut.”
    Talba nodded. “Yeah, ninety-nine percent of the machete attacks in America are perpetrated by women. I think I read it somewhere.” It could have made him mad, but she smiled when she said it. “That’s right, isn’t it, Eddie?”
    “Ms. Wallis, ya need to go shoppin’.”
    “Why?”
    “Get yaself some bigger britches.”
    “Naaah. I’d just outgrow those too.” Damn, she reminded him of Angie. “Listen, I got authorization from Jason to order the transcript in the scalping case.”
    Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Did ya now?”
Very good move,
he thought, but he wasn’t ready to concede it aloud.
    “Yeah, but it’ll take a few days to get here.”
    “Always does.”
    “In the meantime, I need to go see the judge—”
    Eddie stopped her cold. “No, ma’am, ya don’t. You need to stay out of Clayton for awhile. Bad enough ya had to go get yaself arrested and make me blow my cover. I’ll go talk to that judge myself. Matter of fact I might even have a better idea. You just concentrate on this Calvin Richard.”
    “Did I mention Richard’s a cop?” she asked. Dropping another bombshell. She must be having the time of her sassy young life.
    “You think you’re funny, don’t ya? I haven’t got time for this, Ms. Wallis. Ya got any more to report?”
    “Uh… no.”
    She hesitated a bit too long. “Yes, ya do, Ms. Wallis. Come on now. Out with