PI On A Hot Tin Roof

Grandma, why don’t you keep Talba company while I get it?”
    “You’ve got homework, young lady. Be quick about it.” Definitely a hint.
    Lucy left, and still Adele didn’t sit. “She’s still having nightmares.”
    Talba squirmed. “I’m so sorry.”
    There being nothing else to say on that subject, Adele gave in to politeness and attempted to bridge the awkwardness that had settled upon them. “Well. How’s the investigation going?”
    “It’s going great,” Talba lied. “But I’ve got a question for you. Did you know Brad Leitner’s gay?”
    “You could hardly miss it. He and his partner were here the night of the Bacchus party. They’re around all the time.”
    Her memory clicked back to Leitner at the party, talking to Adele and someone she didn’t know. “The guy in cutoffs?”
    Adele shrugged.
    “What’s the partner like?”
    “Nice enough, I guess.” She definitely wasn’t in a talkative mood.
    “May I ask his name?”
    “Whatever for? Brad had nothing to do with this.”
    How do you know?
Talba wondered, but she kept her peace, which was easy enough—Lucy had just returned with a copy of the tape.
    Talba stood, and Adele relaxed almost visibly. But Talba wasn’t finished. “Hey, kid—”
    “Could we drop the kid routine? It’s working my nerves.”
    “Hey, precious—”
    Lucy made retching sounds.
    “I was wondering—would you like to go to a poetry reading sometime?”
    “Whatever.”
    That was too much for Adele. “Lucy, for heaven’s sake!”
    “Why, sure, Your Grace, I’d just love that.” Talba couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or just pimping her grandmother.
    “I thought maybe you’d like to read.”
    “Me? Uh-uh. No, I couldn’t.”
    “Sure you could. Your poem’s as good as anybody’s and a lot better than most. Thanks for showing it to me.”
    “Really? You really think so?”
    “I really do,” Talba said. “Maybe I could find a reading just for kids.”
    “They have those?” Lucy’s interest perked up. “Do boys go?”
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “’Cause I’d be too self-conscious.”
    “You could handle it.”
    As she left, she heard Adele saying, “What’s this about a poem, young lady?”
    ***
    “So,” Ms. Wallis concluded, “should I tell the client about her father?”
    Eddie considered. “Don’t see what good it could do.”
    “You don’t think I’m ethically obligated?”
    “Hell, no, ’scuse my French. You were obligated to do just what ya did—refuse the money and blow him off. Ya not obligated to start a family feud—maybe get him murdered.”
    “If
she’s
the dangerous one.”
    Eddie nodded. “Ya gotta wonder. Ya just gotta wonder.”
    “What I wonder is what that shrimper was doing there.”
    “Somethin’s up, Ms. Wallis. There’s a wrinkle here.”
    “Yeah. Here’s another. Jane Storey says the LaGardes are connected.”
    “Not that I ever heard.” And Eddie prided himself on hearing most things. Ms. Wallis trotted out Storey’s story, which seemed worth checking out, and Eddie had another idea. “You could talk to Truelove. See if he confirms what LaGarde said. Maybe she did off ol’ Buddy. But it don’t seem likely to me. Ya don’t commit murder and then hire a P.I. to prove ya did it.”
    “Good point, Eddie.”
    “But, just to be sure, why don’t ya check out the mother as well—the former Mrs. Warren LaGarde? If anybody’s likely to know which one of ’em’s got a screw loose, it’d be her.”
    “Eddie, you’re a genius.”
    “Naaah. I’m just smarter than you.”
    “Yep. You are. Swear to God you are.”
    Even when she gave him a compliment, she sounded arrogant. “I’m sure ya mean well,” he said, to take her down a peg or two.
    Talba got online and on the phone. She needed to find a kids’ poetry reading for Lucy. But there didn’t seem to be one. Lucy was just going to have to make her debut with the big guns, but that should be all right. The more she thought about it, the more she liked that crow thing. It wasn’t all that subtle, but neither were most of the poems you heard in coffeehouses. Hers weren’t, for that matter. She prided herself on telling a story in each one—verbal athletics made her tired.
    Next, she tried to figure a way to background Bob the shrimper without a last name. She could ask Royce, but that might be tipping her hand. She decided to let it go and concentrate on Daniel Truelove and Kristin’s mother, Greta. Her