Louisiana Bigshot

it.”
    “Because she started talking. All of a sudden she was a threat.”
    Eddie shook his head. “I don’t buy it, Ms. Wallis. The perp could just deny it. He could say it was the hallucination of a dying man, or that Donny and Clayton cooked it up to make Mr. T’s passin’ easier…”
    “Hold it. Why should Clayton do a favor for Donny if he scalped her?”
    “It doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to make more sense than murder. And so far nothin’ does.”
    “Well, there’s something there. It’s still tied up in a knot is all.”
    Eddie picked up a pen and started pecking at some notes on his desk. “Go get ’em, Ms. Wallis.”
    “Eddie, listen. Jason’s cooling his heels in my office. That’s what I came in about—he wants to drop the case till we get the transcript.”
    Eddie looked up, baggy eyes boring into her. “Why the hell would he do a damfool thing like that? ’Scuse my French?”
    “He says he’s out of money.”
    “Well, shit, ’scuse my French. This one’s just gettin’ interesting.”
    “I thought maybe you could talk to him—tell him we’ve got some new information.”
    Eddie folded his arms across his chest more or less hugging himself. He stared in her direction, but he was looking through her.
    Oh, shit,
she thought,
he’s furious.
Like I could help this.
    Finally, he said, “Tell ya what we’re gonna do, Ms. Wallis. I’ve never done this in the history of E. V. Anthony Investigations. But we’re gonna cut young Jason a deal. Tell him we’re gonna go halvsies with him on this. We’re gonna bill him for half our hours and eat the rest.”
    Talba was flabbergasted. “We can’t afford to do that.”
    “I’m gonna pay you. Don’t worry about that. Just go do it.”
    “But Eddie, why? Why the hell would you do a thing like that?”
    “I feel real bad about that girl.” He paused for so long Talba thought he was finished. “And real good about the future of this agency if we get out of this alive.” She didn’t have the least idea whether he was joking or not. It took some doing, but she talked Jason into the deal. Then she went back to waiting.
    Calvin Richard called back just before noon. He sounded slightly sullen, like a kid who’s been ordered to do the last thing he wants to. “Detective Langdon said to call you about the Patterson suicide.”
    “Yes, I have some information for the police on that.”
    “Is that right?” He spoke with that cop reticence, that poker-faced, tell-nothing blandness.
    It irritated her so much she decided to mirror it. She kept silent until he spoke again. “How can I help you, Ms. Wallis?”
    “I’m developing information that indicates Clayton Patterson was murdered.”
    “With all due respect, Ms. Wallis—I know you’re a friend of Langdon’s—but this is really a police matter. I presume you haven’t seen the crime lab and autopsy reports?”
    “I have not.”
    “Well, if you had, you might not be throwing around these allegations.”
    “So far I haven’t accused anyone, Sergeant.”
    “How can I help you, Ms. Wallis?”
    “I’m calling you because you knew her.”
    “Oh?” He was doing it again.
    “I’ve seen your picture, Sergeant, so I know you’re African-American. I’m going to tell you I am too. There are things about this case I don’t get, and I thought you might be able to explain them.”
    “What makes you think I knew her?” His voice was much weaker, almost shaky. She had a sudden vision of him wiping away sweat and wondered what she had said, exactly.
    “You had to know her. You went to high school with her.”
    “Ms. Wallis, can I call you back on that?” He hung up, not so much as pausing for a good-bye.

Chapter Twenty-One
    Eddie had two names he wanted to play with. The first was one Little King had given him: Sheriff Ransdell. Dickie Ransdell, he learned, upon further investigation. A man nearly seventy, and his friends still called him Dickie.
    The other was the judge in the scalping case: Judge Gaylord Samuel. Eddie wondered what on earth his friends called him.
    He spent the morning doing his own kind of investigation—Ms. Wallis would have gone online and looked up everything she could find about them. Eddie called around and got everything he could on them. It wasn’t much, but bad acting wasn’t what he was looking for. Eddie was a great believer in connections. He was looking for cronies, names he could use to grease the introductions, little