PI On A Hot Tin Roof

room crying. Can you do it?”
    “Hell!” And then, “All right. It’s the least I can do for Royce.”
    “I’ll come when I can.” At least she didn’t have to tell the kid herself.
    But she was shaking nonetheless. Eddie would kill her for getting this involved in a case; she had to pull it together.
    Finally, she went back in his office. “Eddie, there’s been a development. We’ve lost another member of the Champagne family.”
    “Ya kiddin’me!”
    “Suzanne got shot during a mugging.”
    “Who the devil’s Suzanne?”
    “The daughter-in-law—Royce’s wife. I don’t know what the hell to think.”
    Eddie’s bags jiggled. “Pretty damn coincidental.”
    “Yeah.” Talba chewed a cuticle, thinking. “Listen, I’ve got to go see Lucy. Nobody’s with her. At least nobody who’s
compes mentes.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I don’t know what the hell that is, but take the rest of the day off. Do what ya have to do.” Not a word about getting too involved.
    But what to do once she got there? Talba called her mama and asked her for advice. “You get on over to that house right now and read the Bible with that girl.”
    “I can’t. Lucy’s a pagan.”
    “Sandra Wallis, you wash your mouth out with soap! She’s just a kid. All kids are little heathens. Don’t mean nothin’. You get on over there and read her the Twenty-third Psalm.”
    “Okay, Mama. You’re right.” She assumed the word “pagan” had a different resonance with Miz Clara than it did with Lucy. But her mama, as usual, had set her on the right path, however unwittingly. She got on over there.
    Brad was there, and he’d broken the news. He’d also done something very smart—he’d called Kristin. And also Alberta, who was rocking Lucy in a grandmother’s arms when Talba arrived. But the girl broke loose and turned to Talba, who took over babysitting duties. Kristin, for once, seemed withdrawn, though not hysterical—unlike Adele, she hadn’t fallen apart. She’d assumed a grim, silent, can-do manner, efficient, though a little robotic. “I thought I could make some calls,” she said, “since Adele can’t function yet.”
    “She’s still in her room?” Talba, holding Lucy, was talking over the girl’s shoulder.
    “Yes.”
    “Think we should call a doctor for her?”
    “No. I’m fine.” It was Adele herself, having come down the stairs in slippers, which seemed incongruous with her black dress. “I’ll make the calls myself. Kristin, you order food and make tea.” Kristin was out of there, Alberta on her heels. Adele held out a hand to Lucy. “Baby. Come here.”
    And the girl finally got to cry on her own grandmother’s breast.
    After a while, Talba said, “Luce? You okay for now?”
    Lucy nodded, then burrowed deeper into Adele’s skinny bosom.
    “I’ll be back,” she promised, glad to be out of there. She went to police headquarters, where she found Skip Langdon on the phone at her desk. She held up a finger for Talba to wait, and when she’d finished her call, she said, “Your Grace. What can I do for you?” She sounded uncharacteristically tired, and she was even more untidy than usual.
    The detective was six feet tall, blessed—or cursed—with hair so curly Talba could have been related to her, and she was maybe the world’s worst dresser, partly because she could never seem to find pants long enough for her. She had on a white long-sleeved top—something between a sweater and a T-shirt—with brown pants that probably weren’t meant to hit her at the ankle, but did. Her white top had a spot of coffee on it. Her hair looked as if she’d been caught in a windstorm.
    “I just heard Judge Champagne’s daughter-in-law got killed. You know anything about it?” Without being asked, she sat in Langdon’s interview chair.
    “Yeah. Terrible—two in one family.”
    “Is it your case?”
    “No. Why do you care?”
    The last thing Talba wanted to mention was the fact that she’d been hired to mop up after the police. “You won’t believe this—”
    “Try me.”
    “I’ve gotten close to the family.”
    “You? Brutus and Judas all wrapped up in one? What the hell are you talking about?”
    “I resent that. Brutus was a murderer—Judas is hard enough to live with. What I really meant is that I got close to the kid.” Langdon had no children, but she was a virtual aunt to a girl about Lucy’s age. Her expression softened a little.
    “Poor kid. Two in one