PI On A Hot Tin Roof

when Royce returned in grubby jeans.
    “Buddy still asleep?” Adele asked.
    “His bed hasn’t been slept in. Must be at Kristin’s.”
    One less bed to make, Talba thought, and put on Royce’s eggs. She glanced anxiously at Adele, not wanting to make her life any more difficult. “Royce wants me at the marina this morning, Miss Adele. Would you rather make it afternoon?”
    Adele was holding a tissue to her face. She sniffed before answering. “Oh, go ahead now,” she managed to croak. “I think we need some time alone.”
    Royce certainly seemed to, even on the drive over. He was bleakly silent, a cloud of despair seeming to emanate from him, making Talba deeply uncomfortable and unexpectedly sad. She knew there had never been any choice. It was either the Champagnes or the Valentinos, and the Valentinos were her tribe now. But she had never been so close to the damage one of her cases had caused to the family of the wrongdoer.
    Intellectually, she knew it was Buddy’s fault, not hers; that he was the one who should have thought about his family. But it was one thing to know it and another to assimilate it. This must be like survivor’s guilt, she thought, and broke the silence only once, to ask, “Got bags?”
    “Shit!” Royce answered. He stopped at a convenience store for garbage bags, handing her a five-dollar bill without a word. Neither spoke when she returned to the truck. As soon as they arrived, Brad Leitner came out and stood on the dock, hands on hips.
    “Hey, Royce? I just did twenty thousand dollars’ worth of business.”
    “Sure, you did,” Royce said sarcastically.
    “Listen, buddy, I’m real sorry about all this mess with your daddy.”
    Royce tried to smile and failed. “Ah, it’ll turn out all right. Daddy’s not doin’ anything wrong.” But he couldn’t control the hurt in his face. Talba just had time to register the other man’s distress before she averted her eyes, feeling like an intruder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Brad was hugging Royce as if someone had died.
    Sighing, she went up on the dock and started to fill her bags, her sympathy for the Champagnes quickly forgotten.
What kind of people would let this kind of mess accumulate?
she thought.
Place should be closed down.
    Except for Brad, the marina was deserted. He’d undoubtedly been busting Royce’s balls with that windfall story. But they’d definitely been working the marina since she’d been here, so maybe they were buying from poachers. A worse-run place she’d never seen, and she wondered why. Laziness, she thought. Royce was a man who felt entitled, who got by on his charm, such as it was. And so was his daddy.
    Royce had walked out on the dock, again with this cell phone, and she tried to listen. It didn’t sound like business he was talking—at least not the usual good ol’ boy, jokey business she’d have expected. He was whispering. Probably something about Buddy; or maybe it was Buddy he was talking to. She needed an excuse to get closer.
    Looking around, she saw a net on a pole standing against the rail near Royce. All she needed was a reason to use it. Accidentally on purpose, she dropped some debris in the water, and went to get the net to retrieve it. But Royce was watching her. “Gotta go,” he said into the phone, and returned the instrument to his pocket. Lazily, he leaned against the rail, watched her get the net. “Whatcha need that thing for?”
    “Dropped something in the water.”
    “Let me get it. I’ve got longer arms.”
    He leaned over the side with the net, Talba trailing beside him, and suddenly he cried, “Daddy!” He dropped the net in the water and took off at a dead run toward the other end of the dock. “Brad!” he yelled. “Daddy’s out there—in the Grady White.”
    Talba looked over the side. There was a little powerboat tied to the dock, and in the boat was Buddy Champagne, toppled to the right on a cockpit seat, his feet on the deck, the rest of him lying on his side, as if he’d been sitting up and had fallen over. His right arm was flung out behind his head, fingers hanging over the side of the stern. He was white as a fish belly. Still as a rock.
    And as dead as the boat he sat in. She saw it instantly. No live person was that pale, that still.
    Talba was frozen. She thought of taking out her phone, calling 911, calling Eddie—but she could think only of Lucy.
    Brad and Royce raced toward the boat with Buddy in it. Helplessly,