Louisiana Lament

woman.” Robineau lit another cigarette, shook the match out and gazed at the blue smoke as if it were inducing a trance, taking him back to a life he’d all but forgotten. His own face was sad as he spoke.
    “She always said I didn’t love her. Now why did she do that? Nobody could have loved her more than I did. I’d tell her that, ask her why she said it, and she’d say nobody could love her, that she wasn’t loveable. You imagine anybody saying that? What the hell’s a thing like that about?”
    Talba was silent, wondering the same thing. Every family had an outcast, whether or not he lived at home—Talba’s father was the one in her family. Babalu seemed to have been literally cast out.
    Talba began to gather up her belongings in as officious a manner as she could muster. “Mr. Robineau, you’ve been very kind. I’m sorry to bring up such an unpleasant subject, but we were wondering if you know if Clayton made a will?”
    He pulled back in an almost literal double-take. “Me? How would I know?”
    She stood, afraid he was going to do the mad-bull turn again. “Well, it was a long shot. We haven’t been able to find one, and we have to turn over every rock. I’m sure you understand.”
    Instead of getting violent, Robineau went childish on her. His mouth turned down, and his shoulders drooped. He removed the cigarette from his lips, as if the pleasure had gone out of smoking it. “I thought you came to tell me she’d left me something.”
    Talba gave him a professional shrug. “Well, I wouldn’t rule it out at this point. We’ll let you know as soon as we locate a will.”
    Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Eddie’d taught her well.
    There were times when Eddie thought maybe it was worth it to go back to computer-wrangling. Never, in all the years since he’d hung out his shingle, had he had a client die on him—certainly not the day after he turned in his report.
    Though he could not, hard as he tried, make this Ms. Wallis’s fault, it still griped him. He wondered, not for the first time, if she was more trouble than she was worth. But he had had the temerity to mention this at dinner the night before, when his daughter Angie happened to be over, only to be met with a double female chorus of ridicule, from Angie and Audrey both. He could see why Angie felt this way—she and Ms. Wallis were two peas in a pod, except they were different colors—but why Audrey took up for Ms. Wallis was beyond him. What she said was that having competent help lowered his blood pressure, and what he said was, it damn sure might if he could just find any.
    Usually, that was just banter, though, because he really did appreciate Ms. Wallis’s computer skills. Not only that, he liked her voice. She might have the most beautiful voice of any woman he’d ever heard. It was so smooth and sugary and thick (yet tangy), it reminded him of butterscotch. If she’d ever write something pretty instead of that angry-black-girl stuff, she’d probably become an international star and leave on her own accord.
    But for now, he was stuck with her—her and her dead client and the damn GPS she’d installed in his car. At least she had the good sense to consult him about what to do now. She was in his office, running it down for him—what the boyfriend (AKA “the new client”) said, what the ex-husband said, what the cops thought. And now she was talking about going to some fancy-schmancy funeral in a town with the same name as the stiff. Who’d have guessed Tammy Tattoo was a runaway debutante?
    He needed time to think. “Ms. Wallis, ya really think it’s wise?”
    “That’s what I’m asking you, Eddie. I think it’s a pretty bizarre request.”
    He shrugged. “Well, it’s billable.”
    “This is about ethics, I thought. Is there some reason I shouldn’t go? I mean, the family hates him—he’s already said his reason for taking me is to keep them from throwing him out.”
    Suddenly it came clear to him. “Look at it this way, Ms. Wallis. Ya first loyalty is to ya client. It really don’t make no never-mind what the family thinks. They’re not ya client.”
    “On the other hand, if I’ve got to investigate this thing, I don’t want to alienate them.”
    “ ‘Alienate’ ’em. Can I ask ya something—you always gotta use a five-dollar word when a two-bit one’ll do?”
    “Always.” She smiled at him, and he had the odd sensation she thought he was cute. Not cute like a hunk—cute like an amusing old