Lousiana Hotshot

missing after his daughter called him, terrified. There was a picture of Cassandra on an inside page.
    Eddie had dropped the ball.
    He had let the case go when she fired him. Hadn’t followed up with Shaneel. Goddammit, what was wrong with him?
    “Audrey, we’re going.” She was still asleep, still in the afterglow of the night before.
    Eddie was in another world by then. Because he took confidentiality seriously, he couldn’t even tell her what was wrong with him, why his mood had suddenly turned demonic.
    He had a very bad feeling about this. So bad he felt a tight metal band close on his midsection. He’d had this before; he knew all about it. It could be an ulcer symptom, but in his case it probably wasn’t— it was stress. And he lived his life under stress. It took an awful lot to cause something like this.
    He dropped Audrey off without so much as going in to change his socks and underwear. It was nearly nine o’clock. He drove straight to the Scott house. A man answered the door, colored fellow, seemed nice, but a little sad. The kid’s father, in from Baton Rouge. Eddie explained who he was and said he had to see Cassandra.
    She hadn’t gone to school that day. She was still in bed, probably crying. She got up and dressed to talk to Eddie.
    He said, “How ya holding up?” and all the obligatory stuff, and then he got down on one knee to talk to her, just the way he had with his own kids when he had something really important to tell them. “I’m ‘on tell ya something. I’m gonna find your mama for ya— you believe that?”
    She shook her head. Her father said they couldn’t afford Eddie’s services.
    He ignored the dad and spoke directly to Cassandra. “Listen, honey, ya mama fired me. I’m not working for her or anybody else now. Just you. And I work for you for free, ya got that?”
    The dad said, “We really don’t need your services,” but Cassandra said,
“Daddy!”
in that teenage way, and he shut up. The kid was scared spitless.
    “Now I need ya to promise me some stuff.”
    She was nervous, kept glancing at her dad. Finally she said, “Daddy, can I talk to Mr. Valentino alone?”
    He said, “Certainly not. I’m your father. Anything you say to him can be said in front of me.”
    He didn’t know about Toes. Eddie realized suddenly that Aziza hadn’t even told him— was probably afraid the whole incident would reflect badly on her. He said quickly, “It’s okay. Just stay with ya dad— will ya promise me that?”
    “I have to go to school.”
    “Just today, okay? Promise.”
    She nodded, utterly miserable. The phone rang, giving Eddie, after all, a minute alone with her. He said, “You know Toes has her, don’t you?”
    She screamed, “No!” so loud he saw he wasn’t going to get anywhere.
    He left her and drove to the office, where he kept a few clean clothes he could change into. He’d just done that, and was coming back from the men’s room, when Talba came in fit to be tied.
    “He’s got Aziza.”
    “Yes, Ms. Wallis. I b’lieve you’re right.”
    “Well, what if he goes after Cassandra next? Or Shaneel?”
    “Now calm down, Ms. Wallis. Just try to be calm. Cassandra’s father is with her. And Toes can’t get Shaneel during school hours.”
    “How about after school?”
    “We’ll just have to get there first, won’t we?” He hoped he sounded calm; if he did, it was a front.
    Her eyes were wild things, operating with a mind of their own; her voice vibrated with panic. “Shouldn’t we call the police? I mean, this is two murders that we know of…”
    He sat down, moving slowly to calm her. He patted air, slowly. “Ms. Wallis, Ms. Wallis. For all we know, Ms. Scott took off with her boyfriend. We don’t even know she’s dead, much less that this is a murder. We had information about Rhonda Bergeron, and they weren’t even interested. Now, we could call the police again. We could. But what would we say?”
    “How about if we just call the tip line and say check out Baron Tujague’s brother in the Scott case?”
    “Now what’s that gon’ do?”
    “I don’t know, but it’s something.”
    “Go do it then. Ya got my blessing. Whatever works. And whatever doesn’t work, I don’t care.” He waved her away and called the church to see if he could get Shaneel’s home phone number.
    They said they didn’t have one. Hell.
    And Talba, with all her machines and magic, couldn’t find out where the parents worked. Their only chance to