by Julie Smith
“meeting”
“for a”
and “heading”
Then there was Buddy’s horrible social faux pas: “Does this mean we can go on ahead and do it now? How ’bout if ya quit your grinnin’ and drop your linen—right about now?”
Talba wrote go on ahead and right now.
“Lucy, where are ya?” Buddy said. “Let’s get everybody up here. Hey, Adele, Royce, Suzanne, let’s pose for our first official family video.”
“Hey,” was good, as in “Hey, buddy.” The tape artist could have picked up “This is Buddy” from Buddy’s own voicemail, and reused the word “Buddy” in “Hey, buddy.”
She had almost the whole thing: “Hey, buddy, this is Buddy. I’m heading out there right now for a meeting and there’s no need to stick around. You can go on ahead and go home.”
She didn’t see and: there had to be an and in there somewhere. She replayed it again and found it: “and I have to make sure.”
There it was: Maybe not verbatim, but easily close. She had to hand it to Wesley.
Next came Lucy’s impromptu interview, but she didn’t need it. The killer had taken almost everything from the previous section. She turned the tape off.
“What was up with that?” Lucy asked.
“Tell ya later, agitator.”
“You are such a cornball.”
“You hungry?”
“I could use a burger.”
“I know a place that makes burgers and milk shakes.”
“Getouttahere.”
“Would I kid about something about that? Real, old-fashioned milk shakes.” Talba had a slightly ulterior motive in spending a little more time with the kid—a vague idea that she ought to talk to Lucy about her fears. “Mind if I keep the tape for a while?” she asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“I’ll just be a sec.” And she went to copy it.
She took the kid to Huey’s Diner, which occupied the site of the old Metro Bistro, once one of Talba’s favorite eateries, a good restaurant that had come and gone. When she’d been served a soggy salad and Lucy had her burger, she began her meddling. “Lucy,” she said, “would it help to talk about your nightmares?”
“Uh-uh. Shrink’s got that covered. He says I’m just scared and it’s only natural.”
“Is it always the same dream?”
Lucy stopped eating. “How’d you know that?”
“Because so often it is. What do you dream?”
The girl put the burger down. “I dream there’s someone in my room—and I’m scared to death, because he’s about to get me.”
Talba didn’t like that—and yet she was halfway expecting it. “He?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I think so. It feels like a ‘he.’”
“I wonder if it could be about something real.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Well, maybe someone was in your room sometime.”
“Like maybe I got molested or something? You sound like Dr. Watson.”
“That’s his name? Dr. Watson?”
The girl giggled. “Don’t think I ever miss a chance to say ‘elementary’ to him.”
“So, were you molested?”
“Are you kidding? I’d remember, believe me. Besides…who’d want me?”
“Oh, Luce, you idiot! Look, was someone in your room or not?”
The girl’s face grew dark. Slowly, she nodded. Knowing she was busted. “I think so. But they didn’t hurt me. I’d know.”
“When?”
“Now why’d you ask that?”
“‘Why this, why that’—what’s up with all the whys?”
“Okay, okay, take it easy. I just asked because it was kind of strange timing—it was the night my father died.”
“Was that your first nightmare or did it really happen?”
“It’s just a coincidence,” she said crossly, draining her milk shake with a sucking sound.
Right, Talba thought. And I know what they wanted.
She steered the conversation on to other things, and when she dropped the kid off, reminded her not to tell anyone the real reason for the outing.
Chapter 23
She called Langdon first thing in the morning, but got no answer, not even when she paged her. Next she tried Warren LaGarde, but his voicemail said he wasn’t in. There was only one person she hadn’t talked to in the whole dysfunctional greater family unit, and now seemed like the perfect time.
She had LaGarde’s address from her files and the name of his current wife, Melissa, whom she spent half an hour backgrounding. Melissa had been a store clerk before Warren met her, in a shop that sold women’s underwear. He’d probably gone to buy a gift for another tootsie-pop and switched loyalties. But she wasn’t just a saleswoman. Oh, no. Every trophy wife must have a career of sorts and Melissa had one—she was a set designer, not something that was likely to keep her in designer clothing. So she did decorative painting as well—faux finishes and stencils, mostly for restaurants. Talba called the house with a pretext to find out where she was working, but, happily, the maid said she was home. Talba hung up while the woman went to find her, and drove to the LaGarde home.
It was out in old Metairie, a suburb that was home to new money—and some old as well—but this house was new construction, evidently built on the site of a much smaller teardown, judging by the small size of the yard. Melissa flung open the door before she could ring, wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, “Oh! I thought you might be Warren.”
Talba gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m Talba Wallis and—”
“I know who you are. You’re that P.I. who’s working for Kristin.”
So much for the lie she’d so carefully constructed. She tried another one. “Kristin’s terribly worried about her dad. He’s not at work and she didn’t—I mean—”
“She didn’t want to call here because we hate each other.” Tootsie-pop was sharper than Talba’d thought.
“Nonetheless, she is worried.”
“Go ask your cop friend about him. Warren says you’re in bed with the mighty Skip Langdon.”
Talba tried an ingenuous smile. “She’s not answering my calls. May I come in? Maybe she’ll answer her page.”
Melissa hesitated.
Talba said, “Langdon’s been here about a gun, right? And Warren’s with her. Maybe I can shed some light.”
Reluctantly, Melissa stepped aside to let her in, revealing a buff marble foyer hung with a verdigris chandelier. The living room had been painted a silvery blue color, and finished with something shiny that cracked artfully in places, so that it looked as if it had been varnished so long ago that the varnish was breaking down. It was probably Melissa’s own work, and Talba liked it. The furnishings were contemporary, in a way that made Talba realize her own prejudice against new furniture stemmed from an unfamiliarity with the really good stuff, clean and simple in a way that made her want to rethink her own love of the flamboyant and cluttered. A sofa was covered in warm gray-blue linen piped with midnight blue, and two chairs were covered in tan linen piped with the same midnight color. Salmon throw pillows accented the neutrals. Talba would have gone with an oriental rug, but sisal carpeting covered the floor, probably so as not to detract from the fine collection of contemporary art that hung on the walls. Talba recognized a couple of the artists—Katharine White and Allison Stewart—whose work she could only dream of affording. The LaGardes had good taste—or maybe their decorator did. Or maybe Warren bought the art for his hotels and let some of it spill into his house. It was that, she decided. She didn't want to think too well of these people.
“Beautiful art collection,” she said, but Melissa didn’t take the bait. She sat down and motioned Talba to do so as well.
“What’s happening, Miss Wallis?”
“The police think they have some evidence against your husband—something that ties him to Buddy Champagne’s murder.”
“That’s ridiculous. And they were just awful. They ca
me here first thing this morning and asked about a gun—after he’d gone to work. Well, sure we’ve got a gun—everybody does. It’s not safe not to anymore. So I went to Buddy’s desk to show them, and it wasn’t there. Then they showed it to me—bastards had it all the time. Is that even ethical?”
“Mmm. Mmm,” Talba said, thinking that at least Melissa was innocent, or she wouldn’t have been so stupid.
“I didn’t want to lie—I mean, they were going to find out anyway, right?—so I said, sure, that was it, and the next thing you know, they hauled Warren down to Headquarters. His assistant called and told me. Now tell me something—how’d they get that gun?”
“It must have been some place it wasn’t supposed to be.” And it must have matched the ballistics report on one or both of the victims, Talba figured, or they might not have bothered. That would also be why they’d waited till morning—to get the report.
“Listen, you said maybe you could shed some light. What do you know that I should know?”
She fell back on one of Eddie’s maxims—when you don’t want to answer a question, ask one yourself. “What does your husband say about it?”
“I haven’t talked to him. I’m waiting for him to call me.”
“Don’t wait,” she said. “Get him a lawyer.” Though he’d probably taken care of that himself. She stood up.
“That’s what you came to tell me?”
“I told you—his daughter’s worried. And after what you’ve told me, I think there’s reason to be.” She was dying to ask if LaGarde was having an affair with Suzanne, but she just couldn’t bring herself to go there. This woman had enough trouble as it was.
***
“What now, Ms. Wallis?” Eddie pretended impatience, but he was actually enjoying his new role—in this case, he thought of himself as a sort of all-seeing Nero Wolfe character, with Ms. Wallis as Archie Goodwin.
“Got another tape for you.”
So once again, he had to haul himself to the little coffee room and watch an amateur video. She pointed out the words to him, the same ones Wesley Burrell had heard on the marina tape. And then she told him about her visit to Melissa LaGarde, aka “Tootsie-pop.” And finally, she got to the good part—the part where she asked the master for his pearls of wisdom.
“I see whatcha sayin’,” he said. “That bastard LaGarde set his own daughter up. But I got a problem with it, Ms. Wallis. How the hell did he get the tape?”
She was swinging her leg with impatience. “He took the key to Buddy’s house off Kristin’s key chain. She must have had one.”
Eddie measured off a chunk of air with his hands. “Well, if he got it off her key chain, anybody coulda. I thought the whole point was, he already had a key to the car.”
That stopped her. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Or maybe,” he said, “he didn’t need a key. Maybe someone in the house got the tape for him.”
“Suzanne!” she said, as if it meant something. “Eddie, you’re a genius.”
He was irritated. “What’s Suzanne go to do with the price of tea?”
“Kristin thinks her father was involved with her—and by the way, Suzanne was pregnant. Did you see the way she dogged him on the tape?”
He hadn’t. So he had to watch the whole damn thing again. It was possible, about the affair. And the words from the tape were way too similar to the message at the marina.
“Ya want my advice?” he said. “Get out now. Take that tape to the cops, finish ya client report, and collect ya money.”
As it happened, that was the way she saw it, too. The thing had a lot of holes in it, but the fact was, she had turned the case on its ear—or would have once she delivered the tape. That ought to be worth paying her for. And so what if it wasn’t? There was nowhere to go from here. Let Skip Langdon figure it out.
She went back, finished the client report, copied the tape, and took the copy to Langdon, enduring along the way a lecture about fingerprints, which indeed she hadn’t been careful about. On the other hand, she pointed out, any number of people might have handled the thing, but that didn’t calm Langdon down any.
Finally she called the client and asked to see her that night, the time being well after five already.
“I want to see you too,” Kristin said ominously. “Come now if you can.”
Talba could.
Kristin had changed to a pair of capris, and she looked a little haggard. She’d slicked her hair into a ponytail, exposing ears that stuck out, an unexpected flaw. She was flushed with anger. “Come in and talk to me. What the hell did you mean, telling the cops what I told you about Daddy?”
For a woman in her thirties, Kristin had amassed quite a lot of nice stuff, including the house itself, which was a beautifully restored camelback, and some paintings as good as her father’s. She had a Juan Laredo and a Chris Clark, two more artists Talba couldn’t afford. She figured these, too, were borrowed from the hotel collections.
“Nice house,” Talba said, “I see art collecting runs in the family.”
Kristin shrugged. “It’s a dump.” A dump a lot of people would have killed for.
Aside from the art, the house was way too decorated, too formal for Talba’s taste, and a bit on the impersonal side, but the pieces were good—or looked good to Talba—except for an antique, high-armed, wood-framed sofa that would never permit snuggling down with a good book. Kristin had a lot of silver that might be real. Talba tossed out a little bait. “Those are beautiful candelabra.”
Kristin gave an impatient toss of her head. “I collect antique silver.” Right. Real. And then, without a pause, “What the hell did you mean implicating my daddy?”
“I thought you two didn’t get along?”
“He’s my father, goddammit!”
“And this is a murder case. Can’t you get it through your head that whoever put that gun in your car set you up? And it was your father’s gun. Does that mean anything to you? Anyhow, how could I know you hadn’t told them about the key?”
“I suppose you told them about Suzanne too.”
“Kristin, for God’s sake, drop it. Do you realize how serious this thing is? Hear this: Your dad’s gun was probably used in two murders. If he’s innocent, he’ll probably have an alibi.”
She brightened. “He does.” She slapped her forehead. “How could I be so stupid? He was with me.”
“The night of Buddy’s murder he was with you?”
“The day Suzanne was killed. He and I had lunch together.”
“Oh. Well, tell the cops then. Meanwhile, I came to let you know I’ve gone about as far as I can go on this. I didn’t solve it, but I did make a breakthrough.”
“What? Getting my father arrested? Thank you very much, that’s not what I had in mind.”
“He’s arrested? They’ve arrested him?”
“Well, if they don’t, it won’t be any thanks to you. What’s this great breakthrough?” She was sitting on the unappealing sofa with her legs folded, bare feet peeking daintily out from under her backside.
“I’m pretty sure Buddy never called the marina that night, which means he wasn’t killed there.”
“What?” She uncoiled her body. “I never knew about that call.”
“It’s all in the client report. The night watchman says he called to say go home, but the words on the tape came from somewhere else.”
“Where else? What are you talking about?” She grabbed Talba’s wrist.
Talba hadn’t expected this reaction—Kristin seemed near hysteria—but it occurred to her that she should have. This was a woman whose fiancé had died, and whose father apparently had tried to frame her for it. She couldn’t tell her the evidence was a tape from her own engagement party. Let Langdon do it.
“I’ve said too much already. I can’t really go into it now.”
“Give me the client report.”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t bring it.” It was safe in her bag. “I’ll have to mail it to you.”
“
Uh-uh. No, you don’t. You’ve got it in that tote, don’t you? Give it to me.” She looked ready to grab the bag, and Talba was in no mood to fight.
“Look,” she said. “I took this case because I felt bad about deceiving the family. Now I’ve done more damage, and I feel horrible about it. I wouldn’t have upset you like this for the world. Can’t I do something for you? Let me get you a drink, or a cup of tea or something.”
“How dare you! What right have you to the moral high ground, you little bitch? Who the hell do you think you are, with that black baroness routine? I’ve got something to tell you, our fucking grace—you’re just a two-bit little lowlife and you know damn well you took the case for the money. I’m not giving you a dime until I get that report.”
If Talba had one hard and fast rule, it was this: Never work for people who insult you, no matter how upset they are at the time. Walk away the minute it happens.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, and rose. “This one’s on the house.”
“Give me that report!”
“I’m sorry.” Talba turned to go, but she felt a hand grab her shoulder and start to wrench at the bag.
She felt her heart speed up, her hands begin to shake. She was having an adrenaline rush. This wasn’t good. Talba knew herself too well not to be frightened. When the fight-or-flight response set in, it took flight mode with her. She withdrew mentally, like a turtle tucking its head in its shell. She even had a word for it: She called it “turtling out”—had called it that all her life. Knew exactly what it was. Knew she couldn’t think on her feet and she might as well not try. This was way, way out of hand.
Her breath was so uneven she could barely speak. “Look, I’ll get it for you if you’ll let me go,” she rasped. “It’s in the car.”
Kristin dropped her hand. Thank God, Talba thought, and turned to face the other woman. At least this way she couldn’t be stabbed in the back. “Okay?” she asked, breath still coming hard.
But it wasn’t okay. Kristin’s fury contorted her tiny triangular face so badly she resembled a gargoyle with protruding ears. “Give me the bag.”
It was a weird thing. Kristin couldn’t have stood more than five-three nor weighed more than a hundred pounds, but at the moment, she looked six feet tall. It was like she’d stuck a bicycle pump in her mouth and blown herself up.