Louisiana Lament

cry. When he paused to compose himself, she dived in.
    “I really wouldn’t be interested.” She hung up with a momentary flash of satisfaction.
Let him suffer,
she thought.
I’m not going to put up with him coming over here and telling me there really was a perfectly plausible explanation. Uh-uh. Not in this life.
    She went back to the day’s supply of background checks—Eddie loved giving her these, because he hated anything you did with a computer, and she quite enjoyed doing them. She’d hardly gotten her teeth into the first one when she heard the outer door open and close, then a man’s voice talking to the receptionist, Eileen Fisher. In a moment, Eileen came in, her plain, round face strained and worried.
    “Talba. Jason Wheelock to see you. He says it’s urgent.”
    “Damn!”
    “I could say you’re in a meeting with a client.”
    But it was too late for that. Talba heard a man’s footsteps coming down the short hall, and then Jason was looming behind Eileen. Talba had never seen him up close, but her impression was of a happy-go-lucky guy, someone who didn’t really want the responsibilities of adulthood. The man she was looking at looked like he’d just lost his grandmother.
    Did I do that?
she thought.
    She really enjoyed domestic cases. She liked catching the lying bastards and rubbing their noses in their own muck. If it broke up their romances, fine—they should damn well have thought of it before they cheated. She wasn’t about to get sympathetic at this late date.
    She said, “Jason, I really don’t have time to see you today,” and was in the act of rising to show him out when he said, “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. Babalu passed away Tuesday night.”
    Passed away.
It was such a mild phrase and told you so little, designed to buy time till you could handle the details. To Talba, it sounded like some kind of peaceful escape, as if the person had simply gone to bed and never awakened. But it was almost never that. There was always a story. And the story usually involved words that weren’t nearly so soft.
    The news was so shocking Talba paused, bent with her butt in the air, for way too long. Eileen looked like she was about to push the panic button. Her head kept swiveling toward Eddie’s office. Talba really couldn’t deal with her right now. She straightened up. “What happened?”
    “I’d like to come in and tell you.” He spoke calmly, sounding like the adult she hadn’t pegged him for.
    “Of course. Eileen, it’s all right.” The receptionist fled. “Sit down.” They both sat, and Talba waited, searching her memory for any hint of poor health from Babalu.
    Suicide!
she thought, and the thought was like a blow.
What if she couldn’t handle Jason’s betrayal?
    “She died of an overdose,” he said.
    “Overdose? Of prescription drugs?” But Babalu never took drugs.
    “Of heroin.”
    “Heroin! She’s the last person…”
    He nodded. “That’s right. She was murdered.”
    Talba shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m ready for all this. Why are you so sure?”
    “Because she didn’t use heroin.”
    “She did once, if that’s what killed her.”
    Now he shook his head, “She didn’t. She was a healer. I
knew
her. She. Didn’t. Do. Heroin.” Each word separate, jaw clenched, as if he’d been having an argument about it.
    “What do the police think?”
    “They think she committed suicide.” His delivery was sullen, that of a child harangued by authorities. “They found your report.”
    “Suicide occurred to me, too.”
    His head was virtually flapping in the breeze again. “No way. She. Didn’t. Do. Heroin. Therefore she couldn’t have committed suicide.”
    “I know you want to believe that…”
    “Look, don’t you think I’ve been through hell in the last two days? I loved her. We were going to get married. I cheated on her and she’s dead. I’d like to kill
myself
for what I did.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes now, looking at his lap, speaking in that low, depressed, chastened voice.
    Talba was at a loss. She wanted him out of her office, so she could think about all this, let the shock wear off.
    “Well, I appreciate your letting me know.”
    “I didn’t come here to let you know. I came here to hire you. I want you to find the murderer.”
    “Me? Of all people! Why me?”
    “Because you knew her. You cared about her. She talked about you. She even read me some of your poetry. She admired you a lot.”
    “But