PI On A Hot Tin Roof

you.”
    So once again, he had to haul himself to the little coffee room and watch an amateur video. She pointed out the words to him, the same ones Wesley Burrell had heard on the marina tape. And then she told him about her visit to Melissa LaGarde, aka “Tootsie-pop.” And finally, she got to the good part—the part where she asked the master for his pearls of wisdom.
    “I see whatcha sayin’,” he said. “That bastard LaGarde set his own daughter up. But I got a problem with it, Ms. Wallis. How the hell did he get the tape?”
    She was swinging her leg with impatience. “He took the key to Buddy’s house off Kristin’s key chain. She must have had one.”
    Eddie measured off a chunk of air with his hands. “Well, if he got it off her key chain, anybody coulda. I thought the whole point was, he already had a key to the car.”
    That stopped her. “Oh. Yeah.”
    “Or maybe,” he said, “he didn’t need a key. Maybe someone in the house got the tape for him.”
    “Suzanne!” she said, as if it meant something. “Eddie, you’re a genius.”
    He was irritated. “What’s Suzanne go to do with the price of tea?”
    “Kristin thinks her father was involved with her—and by the way, Suzanne was pregnant. Did you see the way she dogged him on the tape?”
    He hadn’t. So he had to watch the whole damn thing again. It was possible, about the affair. And the words from the tape were way too similar to the message at the marina.
    “Ya want my advice?” he said. “Get out now. Take that tape to the cops, finish ya client report, and collect ya money.”
    As it happened, that was the way she saw it, too. The thing had a lot of holes in it, but the fact was, she
had
turned the case on its ear—or would have once she delivered the tape. That ought to be worth paying her for. And so what if it wasn’t? There was nowhere to go from here. Let Skip Langdon figure it out.
    She went back, finished the client report, copied the tape, and took the copy to Langdon, enduring along the way a lecture about fingerprints, which indeed she hadn’t been careful about. On the other hand, she pointed out, any number of people might have handled the thing, but that didn’t calm Langdon down any.
    Finally she called the client and asked to see her that night, the time being well after five already.
    “I want to see you too,” Kristin said ominously. “Come now if you can.”
    Talba could.
    Kristin had changed to a pair of capris, and she looked a little haggard. She’d slicked her hair into a ponytail, exposing ears that stuck out, an unexpected flaw. She was flushed with anger. “Come in and talk to me. What the hell did you mean, telling the cops what I told you about Daddy?”
    For a woman in her thirties, Kristin had amassed quite a lot of nice stuff, including the house itself, which was a beautifully restored camelback, and some paintings as good as her father’s. She had a Juan Laredo and a Chris Clark, two more artists Talba couldn’t afford. She figured these, too, were borrowed from the hotel collections.
    “Nice house,” Talba said, “I see art collecting runs in the family.”
    Kristin shrugged. “It’s a dump.” A dump a lot of people would have killed for.
    Aside from the art, the house was way too decorated, too formal for Talba’s taste, and a bit on the impersonal side, but the pieces were good—or looked good to Talba—except for an antique, high-armed, wood-framed sofa that would never permit snuggling down with a good book. Kristin had a lot of silver that might be real. Talba tossed out a little bait. “Those are beautiful candelabra.”
    Kristin gave an impatient toss of her head. “I collect antique silver.” Right. Real. And then, without a pause, “What the hell did you mean implicating my daddy?”
    “I thought you two didn’t get along?”
    “He’s my father, goddammit!”
    “And this is a murder case. Can’t you get it through your head that whoever put that gun in your car set you up? And it was your father’s gun. Does that mean anything to you? Anyhow, how could I know you hadn’t told them about the key?”
    “I suppose you told them about Suzanne too.”
    “Kristin, for God’s sake, drop it. Do you realize how serious this thing is? Hear this: Your dad’s gun was probably used in two murders. If he’s innocent, he’ll probably have an alibi.”
    She brightened. “He does.” She slapped her forehead. “How could I be so stupid? He was with