PI On A Hot Tin Roof

not just go to the police?”
    For the first time he actually looked sad. As if having such a daughter weighed on him. “She’s my daughter, Talba. I’m trying to protect her, too.”
    There were lots of things Talba could have said to that, but she decided not to go there.
    He was dead serious now, no longer Mr. Charm. In fact, he was doing a fair impersonation of a distraught father. “Look, Your Grace. Nothing good can come of this. Only harm.”
    Talba was torn between insult and pity—there was at least an outside chance he was sincere. She was trying to think of something semi-polite to say, when LaGarde started in again. “You and I both know Buddy was a small-time crook. Accepting hams to set bail, for Christ’s sake! How the hell are you going to sink any lower than that? He was a lecherous old skirt-chaser who couldn’t leave the young stuff alone. You read the paper. Hell, you were there in the house—you’re the one who fed that reporter the information, weren’t you? You know what, I’ve always wondered what your motivation for that was, but I’ll forget about that for now. Champagne deserved to die and if anyone knows it, you know it. Can’t you just goddam well leave it alone?” He hadn’t raised his voice. It was his own restaurant, after all. But he’d spoken in a low growl that was even more frightening.
    Talba struggled to keep her cool, but in the end she was just too damn mad. She fished for her purse and pulled out a credit card. “Let me take you to lunch. I’ll put it on Kristin’s bill.”
    “Hell, you’re as goddam crooked as Buddy was.”
    She was signaling frantically for the waiter when suddenly someone did raise his voice. “Where the hell is that goddam bastard?”
    She swiveled her head to see the maître d’—a little dapper guy—struggling with a man twice his size, a man who didn’t look at all as if he belonged. He was deeply tanned and dressed in scruffy jeans and a baseball cap. “I want to talk to goddam Warren LaGarde,” he yelled.
    LaGarde got up and strode over to him, walking tall, every inch the intimidating aristocrat. “Let him go, Russell,” he told the maître d’, who didn’t actually have him at all. He spoke to the intruder. “What can I do for you, sir?”
    The restaurant had gone silent. Talba could hear every word without even straining. “Mr. Royce said to come talk to you. You know who I’m talkin’ about?”
    “Let’s go to my office, shall we? I’d be delighted to talk with you.” The guy was smooth, Talba had to give him that. The big guy was now more or less shuffling.
    She would have paid the bill and left, but the waiter declined to bring her one. She settled simply for leaving.
    By the time she got out to the lobby, LaGarde and the man were getting into the elevator.
    She stepped into the sun, shaking. It had been one of the most unnerving lunches of her life. The thing was, the man with the cap seemed familiar. She stood there a few moments, free-associating, trying to put his face in context—and finally, she had it.
    He was Bob, the shrimper who’d appeared at the marina in a flatboat the day she found the kitten, demanding money from Royce Champagne.

Chapter 17
    She was dying to go back to the office to get Eddie’s take on the seeming madness of Warren LaGarde—not to mention the meaning of Bob’s visit—but duty called in the form of her guilty conscience. School was nearly out, and she didn’t have time before her scheduled visit to Lucy.
    She was a bit early, but fortunately her favorite bookstore, Garden District Books, was right across the street, so she took a few minutes to browse, thinking to pick up a book for the kid. She settled on one she figured no teenager could resist—especially a kid who’d just been orphaned.
    Lucy herself answered the door, still in her school uniform, an unprecedented occurrence in her experience. “Hi. Adele’s not home?”
    “We got a new housekeeper. I think Mommo’s upstairs showing her how to clean mirrors.”
    Talba hadn’t shared her mother’s mirror-cleaning theories with the Champagnes, but apparently they’d been noticed. She handed over her package. “Brought you a book.”
    Lucy took her to the sunroom, offering iced tea without looking at the book. Talba accepted the drink and noticed that the house looked a lot better. She was glad of that—the chaos had gotten her down the last time, and if it depressed her, she could imagine what it was