PI On A Hot Tin Roof

farce? All
lies!”
She lowered her voice. “Everything falls apart, that’s what happens. The world turns upside down.”
    Talba started to apologize again, but thought better of it. What had happened to Lucy—the loss of innocence—had to happen to everybody. It was the first sad thing in the average kid’s life, but every kid had to work through it. Talba hated being the instrument of it, but she couldn’t take the rap for Buddy. “Can I ask you something, Luce?” she asked. “Just to clear the air between us? Would you agree that when all this started, I wasn’t even around? That your dad’s own actions set it in motion?”
    “Somebody killed him! Am I supposed to like that?”
    “Neither of us likes it. But I like you. And I wouldn’t have had this happen for anything. You know that, don’t you, baby?”
    That started another flood. But before the tears spilled over, the girl said softly, “Yes.” Adele tried to hold her as she cried, but Lucy resisted, and when the tears stopped, Talba spoke to both of them, very softly, “Can we talk about who might have wanted to kill him?”
    “It was that lawyer bitch,” Adele said.
    “You know it wasn’t, Adele. She didn’t hate Buddy. She was doing her job, too. Listen, I’ve been to that marina. The neighbors have a point. The place stinks like a sewer.”
    Lucy nodded. “I’ve been trying to look at things from her side. Daddy hated her, but that doesn’t mean she hated him.”
Not until he planted the drugs,
Talba thought.
That kind of changed things.
But they didn’t need to know about that.
    “But there were people who did,” she said.
    Lucy nodded. “You know a boy died out at the marina, don’t you?”
    “It was an accident, I heard.”
    “Yeah, but his family hates us. Just
hates
us. Like Daddy hated the lawyer.”
    Talba took out a notebook and wrote in it. She wasn’t likely to forget, but this whole interview was a performance in a sense—on both sides, she suspected.
    “What’s their name?” She already knew, of course.
    “Dorand. Faye and Billy Dorand. The boy was called Jimmy.” Lucy turned her face toward the just-budding garden. “I knew him.”
    “You knew him well?”
    “No. But I liked him. I was sorry for what happened.” And that explained a lot, Talba thought, about why she was there. Lucy, at any rate, understood her position. “I wanted Daddy to do something for them. But he wouldn’t.”
    “Did they file suit against him?”
    Lucy looked confused. Adele nodded. “They did.”
    “You think they might have killed Buddy?”
    “Yes!” Lucy said. Adele remained silent.
    “Anyone else?”
    “I guess,” Lucy said, “it could have been someone involved in a case. Someone that he…” She couldn’t bring herself to go any further.
    There might be hundreds, Talba thought.
    “All right. Can both of you stand to talk about that night?”
    “You mean the night he was killed?” Adele said, ever the bluff Texan. “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
    Talba nodded, keeping her eyes on her notebook. “Did he have dinner at home that night?”
    “Yes,” Adele said.
    “And then what happened?”
    Lucy said, “I went upstairs to do homework. And then I went to bed.”
    Adele said, “I went into the den to watch TV—by myself. Royce and Suzanne were out or something. Buddy went up to his office—he’s got his own TV up there. Maybe he had calls to make; I don’t know.”
    “Did either of you see him again that night?”
    Grandmother and granddaughter looked at each other. Finally, Lucy shrugged. “I didn’t,” she said.
    Adele shook her head.
    “Hear anything?”
    Again, they exchanged glances; then both shook their heads. They might be checking each other out, Talba thought, or they might be lying. Either idea was interesting.
    “Okay, that’s all for now. Mostly I came by to see you, Lucy. Listen, whatever happens, I want you to know I’m not your enemy. Or yours, Miss Adele. I was Buddy’s, yes, but I’m not yours. We’re in it together now.” She looked at Lucy when she spoke; that was the person she wanted to get through to. “Okay?”
    Adele nodded. “Fair enough. I might not like it, but I’ve agreed to it.”
    Lucy looked relieved. “Sandra,” she began.
    “Call me Talba.”
    “Oh. I forgot. You’re a poet. Wasn’t there a real Baroness de Pontalba? Why do you call yourself that?”
    The original was a New Orleans historical figure, an intrepid