Lousiana Hotshot

wanted to be a detective, why didn’t you go out and do it on your own? Why wait to answer an ad?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.
    “There’s something about this guy Eddie. I can’t explain it— I feel like he might have something to teach me.”
    “Oh, please. Don’t go mystical on me.”
    “I don’t know. It’s sweet the way he is with his family. And he came to my reading— how many potential bosses would do that?”
    “You poets really live on crumbs.”
    “Yeah, well. I’ve got a day job now. Can we come interview Shaneel?”
    “At school? You’ve got to be kidding— we got a bureaucracy going here.”
    “Oh.” For a moment, Talba felt deflated. “Wait a minute— I’ve got an idea. Maybe I could get someone from child protective services to come with me.”
    He laughed, and it sounded like a bark. “Lots of luck with that one. But sure—
if
you could get somebody from there, it would probably work. It’s a mighty big ‘if,’ that’s all.”
    Later, she reported what he had said to Eddie, who made no effort to control his contempt. “Bull-bleep. We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”
    “How do we get around it?”
    “You might work out real well, Ms. Wallis. Maybe I should of hired you a long time ago. Ya got the right demographics, all right. Gene Allred was right about that one.”
    “I’m not sure I see what you’re getting at.”
    “Well, let me spell it out for ya. Call the counselor, say ya from Child Protection, and ya’ll be right over to interview Shaneel.”
    Talba had a brief moment of hope, but in the end it came as no surprise to her that the lady from Child Protection had to be accompanied by her older, male colleague. Eddie trailed her like a duenna. The counselor, a Mrs. Terrell, looked a little perplexed but not enough to ask for stinkin’ badges. She was a middle-aged woman, African-American, and a church lady if Talba ever saw one, but not the overbearing kind, the nice kind.
    “I’m so sorry about the Scott girl. Her mother seems so…” She stopped, evidently remembering her manners, and left to get Shaneel.
    The girl was pudgy and cute as a kitten, much darker than Cassandra, her cheeks little black apples, the light glinting off them so they sparkled like a second pair of eyes. She wasn’t nearly as pretty as Cassandra, but she had a sensuality about her, and a sense of fun that probably made her a more popular kid. She was a hell of a lot friendlier. “How ya’ll?” she said by way of greeting, as if she’d been properly raised, this public-school girl, as opposed to Cassandra, the zombie from Pontchartrain Park. Once again, Talba pondered Aziza Scott’s mothering style.
    When Eddie smiled back, Talba saw the look in his eyes a dad gets watching his kid at Little League, or maybe a recital.
I wonder how I know that?
she thought. She’d never known her own father. “Baby, we need to ax ya about a man named Toes.”
    “I’d tell Miz Scott if I knew. I don’t know the rest of his name.”
    “Ya know what happened to Cassandra?”
    She looked at her lap. “I know.”
    “Ya think that’s right?”
    When she raised her head, she had a great big smile pasted on the bottom part of it, plenty of teeth and no joy, little tense lines around her mouth. “I’d tell ya if I knew. You know I would.”
    Eddie said. “I know ya would, honey. Ya don’t have to worry about that. Just tell us who else was with ya that day.”
    The girl wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Nobody.”
    Talba thought,
I can’t make it any worse,
and took her shot. “Look, this man hurt your friend Cassandra. Maybe it comes down to who’s the better friend, Toes or Cassandra. You really think he’s worth protecting?”
    Shaneel’s eyes had started to glint. “He ain’ my friend. I don’t want nothin’ to do with him.”
    “Then who called him, honey? Cassandra didn’t know him— if it wasn’t you, who was it?”
    Shaneel only stared at her lap.
    “You sing in a choir, don’t you?” Talba wasn’t much on church, but her mama was, and she knew the drill. “I know you believe in God. And in having the courage to do the right thing. Only good can come out of it if you tell us. You know that, don’t you?”
    The girl shook her head, not lifting her eyes, clearly torn between her conscience and something else. Whatever that was was the key.
    “What could happen if you told us?”
    “Cassandra my best friend. She’d never speak to me again. Pammie either,