PI On A Hot Tin Roof

“Which is the object of this little exercise.”
    She got her canary-feathers look again. He hated that look. “Well, I’ve got a lot of names from his checkbook. We can check them out, see if any are involved with Angie’s case—like maybe we’ll find Buddy made payments to the cops who busted her. Want me to do it, or do you want to?”
    It was the last thing Eddie wanted to do, but he took pity on her. In their few phone conversations that week, she’d sounded so tired he didn’t see how he could pile any more work on her. And anyhow, this was Angie—if anyone was going to screw up, it ought to be Eddie. “Hand it over,” he said. “I’ll get Eileen to help me with the damn machine.” His kindest name for the computer.
    But it wouldn’t take a lot—he could just phone the police personnel department and determine whether any of the names belonged to cops.
    Ms. Wallis pulled a list out of her bag. “Thanks.” She smiled, but he saw that she looked exhausted.
    “You got eye bags as big as mine. They been workin’ ya hard?”
    She shrugged. “Miz Clara does it every day and she’s more than twice my age. I’m just not used to it.”
    “Ya think we got enough or ya want to keep goin’?”
    She looked horrified. “Are you kidding? All we’ve really got’s possibilities—I mean, so far as Angie’s concerned. Sure, we’ve got enough to keep Jane eating out of our hands for the next decade, but I can’t stop now, Eddie. Uh-uh. Negative.”
    “Talba,” Angie said softly, “you really don’t have to…”
    “Shut up,” Eddie said. “Yes, she does.”

Chapter 8
    For the third time since she’d known Darryl Boucree, Talba didn’t feel like driving across the bridge to spend the night with him. She was so tired she was afraid of falling asleep at the wheel, but she hadn’t seen him in a week, and he’d been wonderfully generous about agreeing to help out at the Bacchus party. Not that he didn’t want to—it was his kind of thing: an adventure in unknown territory. And he really did think Raisa would enjoy the parade. So, even though Raisa was there, she made the trip.
    Raisa was a love child who lived with her mother, and Kimmie was what Darryl called “difficult” when he was in a good mood. He said “crazy” a lot, too, and he wasn’t speaking lightly. He really thought she was. He hardly knew Kimmie, except as his child’s mother. They’d barely dated at all before Kim became pregnant, a sobering development that made them realize they didn’t even like each other. So they’d gone their separate ways—his family had sent him to Yale, mostly, he claimed, because they were so freaked—and she’d married someone else. But she’d gotten divorced, and reappeared one day with the kid, needing money. For a long time, Darryl had worked three jobs to help support Raisa—as teacher, musician, and bartender. But when Kim finished beauty school and got back on her feet, he’d been able to quit bartending. By then, though, he was hooked on Raisa, and the feeling was mutual. Kimmie, on the other hand, no longer had any use for him, so he more or less kowtowed to her, to keep the kid in his life.
    In Talba’s humble opinion, Raisa was every bit as difficult as her mother, just in a different kind of way. She was prone to tantrums, for one thing, single-mindedly dedicated to getting whatever she wanted. Some might have said she was spoiled, but Talba thought the opposite. Whatever it was she needed, she wasn’t getting—enough of her father, for one thing. But Kim was a rigid, withholding, judgmental woman, and selfish. She alternately clung possessively to her daughter and dumped her on Darryl when it was convenient. Talba suspected a lot of promises were broken in that household, which now included a stepfather to whom Raisa apparently hadn’t taken any better than she’d taken to Talba.
    She didn’t take at all well to sharing her daddy.
    Thankfully, the kid was in bed by the time Talba arrived. Darryl kissed her and offered wine, which she gratefully accepted. “Hate to say it, handsome,” she said, “but I’m going to be a pretty dull date tonight. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. I’ve got a new respect for what my mama does.”
    “Maybe a foot massage.”
    “Umm. Maybe.” And so she sat on one of his rust-colored sofas and let him rub away the tension and weariness of the last few days while she filled him in. Technically, every case was