PI On A Hot Tin Roof

pity. “Okay. You can stay home.”
    “I need some nails to chew,” Suzanne said, opening cabinets as if she expected to find them there.
    “Fix you some eggs?” Talba asked, and to her surprise, everyone wanted them. And grits and biscuits, too. She took an odd, penitential pleasure in feeding them.
    For a while, as they ate, an eerie silence descended, which was finally broken by Adele. “Any of it true, Buddy?”
    Buddy didn’t even stop chewing. “Adele, you know better than that. Can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to even ask.”
    “But the bail bond guys…,” Lucy said, and her father stopped her with a slap.
    “Whose side you on, huh?” he shouted. “Ain’ nothin’ wrong with that. Everybody does that.”
    Lucy retreated, chased by Adele, and Talba wished she could follow.
    “What I don’t get,” Royce said, “is why they’re doin’ this to us. Somebody’s been talkin’ out of school, Daddy, and you know it.” Talba’s heart pounded.
    Buddy stuffed a biscuit in his mouth and talked with his mouth full. “Got me a feelin’. Just got me a feelin’—somethin’ to do with that lawyer bitch.”
    Talba’s face heated, and she looked fruitlessly for an escape route. If they connected her with Angie, with the mood Buddy was in, who knew what he’d do to her?
    “You watch,” Buddy continued. “Gon’ turn out she’s behind this. And it ain’ gon’ do her a bit of good. We got that bitch cold. She’s goin’ down behind this.”
    “Ben Izaguirre,” Suzanne put in.
Angie’s client.
“Daddy Buddy, I knew you shoulda let me put up whirligigs in his direction. This would have never happened if we had some decent feng shui going.”
    “Royce, can ya shut this chatterin’ monkey the hell up?” Buddy said, and stood, crumpling his napkin in lieu of Suzanne. “I’m goin’ back to bed.” He looked around for a bottle of bourbon to take with him. He might have gotten drunk, Talba thought later, but he certainly didn’t sleep. The phone rang all day.
    Talba spent most of the day in Lucy’s room, sorting through stuff that needed tossing, but she heard enough to be able to report to Jane Storey that the reporter had given Buddy the worst day of his life.
    On her way out, Royce intercepted her. “You about caught up here? I need you at the marina tomorrow. First thing after breakfast.”

Chapter 10
    If ever the term “TGIF” had resonance, it did for Talba the last day she worked for the Champagnes. “If I get through today,” she told Miz Clara at breakfast, “I may go to church Sunday, and get down on my knees and give thanks.”
    “Hallelujah,” her mother said in her saltiest tone. “Hard work’s gone and done what a good Christian upbringin’ couldn’t.”
    But of course it wasn’t only the work. It was the sensation of being in Pompeii while the lava was flowing. She was almost looking forward to a day of mucking around with piles of shrimp hulls.
    Jane’s subject that morning was Buddy’s relationship with Harry Nicasio. Her story talked about gifts and services in return for what it called “favorable bonds” for Nicasio’s clients. The teaser said tomorrow’s piece would be about Buddy’s habit of phoning in court.
    The scene Talba walked in on was like an instant replay of the day before except for two things: Royce had had the crudeness to come to breakfast in his undershorts, and Buddy was missing.
    Once more, Kristin wasn’t there.
    Once more, everyone was sitting around reading the paper and muttering about mendacity.
    Lucy, still in her pajamas, was still playing the role of the kid who ratted out the emperor. “But is it allowed for them to come and give us hams and stuff? I mean, they do. Is there really something wrong with that?”
    And she was still getting slapped down, this time only figuratively. Adele snapped, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, young lady.”
    “But, Mommo, I’m
asking!”
    Talba felt for the kid.
    Suzanne finished her section of the paper and looked up sleepily. “Where’s Daddy Buddy this morning? Should one of us go wake him up?”
    Royce said, “I’ll go. Sandra, can you make me some eggs over easy?”
    “I need pancakes,” Lucy said miserably. Obviously, school wasn’t in the cards today, either.
    Talba hustled for the next half hour, turning out a different breakfast for everyone except Adele, who consumed only coffee and stared distractedly out the window. She was starting to clean up