PI On A Hot Tin Roof

fine-honed investigative instincts detected a Swedish strain somewhere on the maternal side of the family. But she found nothing more about either than she already knew—yes, Truelove’s mom was a Mancuso, and yes, Greta LaGarde still owned an antiques store in Covington.
    She gave Truelove’s firm a call to ascertain that he was in, with the thought of popping over immediately—why not? He was in the neighborhood.
    But first Darryl called. “We can’t keep the cat. I had a full-blown asthma attack after you left this morning.”
    “I didn’t know you had asthma.”
    “Neither did I—I haven’t had an attack since I was twelve.”
    “Oh, Darryl, I’m so sorry. Have you told Raisa?”
    “I didn’t have to—it was her idea. She doesn’t want anything to happen to me, like Lucy’s dad.”
    “Oh, God!”
    “You’re not kidding.”
    “I’ll come get the kitten after work—and vacuum your house for you.”
    “Just get the damn critter. I’ll vacuum myself.”
    “‘Critter’?” Talba said, but he’d already hung up.
    She still had time for Plan A—dropping by Truelove’s law firm, to which she gained access by the simple expedient of dropping the LaGarde name, and where she was invited to cool her heels for twenty minutes before the lawyer came out of his lair.
    Truelove was tall and thin. He had black hair, as a Mancuso might be expected to, but his features were much finer than she’d imagined, and his eyes were green. Even Talba could see the man was gorgeous, and she didn’t go in much for white guys. His accent was Deep South, his manners elegant, and yet he had a natural, down-home quality that must render the lady jurists and jurors helpless.
    He seemed to be trying to puzzle out what she was doing there, which was fine with her—it was a pretty awkward subject. “You’re a P.I. and you work for the LaGardes,” he said, giving her an opening.
    “Well, not exactly. I’ve been hired by your ex-wife on a matter that doesn’t involve you at all—”
    “I should certainly hope not.”
    “—and her father suggested I talk to you.”
    “Oh. Warren. Up to his old tricks.” He sighed, maybe with relief.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Truelove sighed again. “He doesn’t seem to have accepted the fact that Kristin’s a grown woman. Tries to control every aspect of her life.”
    “Hard on a marriage,” Talba said.
    “Hard on a bachelor,” he said. “I don’t think Kristin and I ever had any idea how we happened to end up married. At least I didn’t. Warren engineered it—at any rate, it seems that way in retrospect.” His mouth twisted in a bitter little smile. “And we’ve both been paying for it ever since. Make no mistake, Miss Wallis—he’s a very dangerous man. Frankly, I wouldn’t believe a word he says. Kristin was very young when we got married—did you know that?”
    “She’s still young.”
    “That man more or less turned her out—and I was too stupid to see what was happening.”
    Talba was fascinated, but more or less in the dark. “What—um—exactly
was
happening?”
    “It was simple. Or it seems simple now. Our family owned some land that he wanted. He made a big point of throwing Kristin and me together. You’ve seen her—she’s beautiful. She’s incredibly beautiful.”
    Talba could have done without the adverb, but she nodded anyhow.
    “Well…men are stupid. Meaning me. He sicced her on me and I was helpless. She was young and sweet and innocent and incredibly beautiful and smart and she was all over me.”
    Talba remembered what she’d said so scornfully to Jane—
You’re getting medieval on me.
Truelove was, too. If she understood correctly, he was telling almost the same story Jane had made up about Buddy and LaGarde, with a twist—a feudal king trading his daughter not to his most faithful vassal, but to a prince, in exchange for part of his family’s kingdom.
    “LaGarde got the land, I gather,” she said.
    “Of course he got the land—we were more or less partners at that point. Our two families were, I mean. Swear to God, he’d have done anything to get it. If my father weren’t alive, he’d probably have seduced my mother. Maybe he did—I wouldn’t put it past him. Mom pushed the thing as hard as Warren did—but maybe for her own reasons.”
    What the man’s supposed mob connection had to do with this, Talba couldn’t see—Truelove sounded like a very disillusioned man. “And my family didn’t give it up