Lousiana Hotshot

first.
    What do I need?
she thought.
What do I need to get back to normal?
    Coffee and water,
came the answer.
One to drink, the other to look at.
    She was starting to feel drowsy, maybe the crash from her adrenaline high; the coffee ought to help with that. She stopped and got some at a place on Veteran’s Highway and made her way out to the lake, where she parked and got out to drink it. She tried to clear her mind of the case, of her fear, of her shame at her fear, of the memory of being spat upon and bullied. She tried just to breathe and drink and look at the lake. She didn’t succeed, or even come close to it. But by the time she got to the bottom of the cup, she knew she’d gotten far enough away to address it again.

Chapter 13
    She had a little spying to do. She drove over to Aziza’s and knocked boldly on the door. No answer.
    She knocked again, making it as scary a police knock as her small knuckles would allow.
    Still no answer, so she did it again.
    Maybe nobody was in there, but she was working off a lot of her aggressions. Just when she was about to go sneaking around peeping in windows, she heard steps coming toward her, small uncertain ones. Only then did she realize she’d probably terrified the very kid she was trying to help.
    “Cassandra? You in there, baby? It’s Talba Wallis.”
    The girl flung open the door. She looked pale, her face drawn as if she was about to cry. “I didn’t know who you were.” Her voice was panicked. Poor kid was home alone. She should have considered that possibility.
    “Listen, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just thought you couldn’t hear me knocking.”
    A voice called out from somewhere in the house: “Cassandra? Who is it, baby?”
    Aziza. She
was
home.
    The girl turned and shouted, “That detective.” She made it sound like “that whoremongering child-beater.”
    “I’ll be there in a minute.”
    Hell with that,
Talba thought. “Can I come in?” she said.
    Cassandra shrugged as if she couldn’t waste words on so pathetic a being as Talba. But she stepped resentfully aside.
    The girl led her through the same chaos Aziza had a few days before, to the same snug back room. Talba could hear the low drone of Aziza’s voice on the telephone.
    “Cassandra, listen,” she said. “If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?”
    The girl laughed. It came out a short, nervous bray, perhaps meant to convey contempt.
    “I get it,” Talba said. “Depends on the question, right? Okay, how about this one— can I have a drink of water?”
    Cassandra was openly contemptuous now. That and puzzled. “Can you have a drink of water? That’s what you want to ask me?”
    “Well, the first thing.”
    The girl heaved her shoulders yet again, shrugging being a mode of expression she obviously preferred to speaking in the affirmative. She padded off to get the water.
    Quickly, Talba looked for a place for one of her bugs, but Aziza buzzed in before she had a chance to plant it.
    Damn! The tiny things were so useful!
    The mother was as cheerful as the daughter was sullen.
    “Hi, Talba. How’d you enjoy choir practice? They’re good, aren’t they?”
    The question took Talba aback. Choir practice seemed weeks instead of hours ago.
    “Yes… they’re quite good.” She was trying to collect her wits, having lived several lifetimes, or so it seemed, since then.
    “I just got home.” Aziza had changed clothes, though— she was wearing shorts. And she’d had an extended phone conversation. “Cassandra said you didn’t have anything.”
    “I showed the girls two pictures. They said they didn’t know the guys.”
    Aziza sat down opposite Talba, kicking off a sandal. She curled her legs under her. “I didn’t get the details. The phone rang.”
    Cassandra returned with the water and gave it to Talba. Talba passed the pictures on to Aziza. “These are the photos.”
    “Oh, my God. It couldn’t have been one of these guys. Could it?” She looked at her daughter.
    Cassandra gave the teenager’s “no,” the one that comes out like a whiny screech.
    “You’re sure?” She gave the girl a level look, not even halfway stern. The woman wasn’t scary enough to frighten a moth— Miz Clara could give her Mom lessons. Even Talba could.
    “Oh, Mom!” Another screech.
    Aziza lifted a what-can-you-do eyebrow, and said, “She says she’s sure.”
    “One of them’s a friend of someone who’s extremely powerful in this