by Julie Smith
“I was kidding, okay? No flies on your grandma.”
“Naah. She’s just kind of a bitch.”
Even in her current kid-friendly mode, Talba knew she couldn’t let that one go by. “She’s a pretty nice lady, actually. And you know it.”
“She’s a racist!”
It was on Talba’s lips to say, “And your dad wasn’t?” but she let it go. Instead, she said, “She’s just kind of old-fashioned. And aside from the goddess, she’s the closest thing you’ve got to a mama.”
“Lucky me.”
Talba shrugged. “Hey, you could be on the open sea with a tiger.”
“Sign me up.”
It was moments like this that made Talba think Darryl was a hero. She’d be in a straitjacket if she had to teach high school. “So,” she said. “The poem.”
“Oh, forget about it. You’ll probably just think it’s stupid.”
The kid was still in a lousy mood, but at least now they were on Talba’s territory. She straightened her spine and began to lecture. “Let me tell you something you may not know. Writing is all about people thinking you’re stupid—or being afraid they will. Nobody ever wrote a word and showed it to anyone else without breaking into a sweat. So don’t think you’ve cornered the market on that one, kiddo.”
“Don’t call me kiddo.” But she reached for the folder.
“Is ‘kid’ okay?”
“Kid’s fine. Tougher.”
“Read, kid.”
“Huh? You want me to read it to you?”
“You’ve heard the term ‘poetry reading’?”
“But that’s, like, a performance. This is just you and me.”
Talba was stern. “Read.”
But to her surprise, her little ploy to boost the kid’s ego backfired. Lucy’s shoulders started to shake. She closed her eyes, presumably to hide tears. She shook her head violently.
Not knowing what else to do—the girl definitely wasn’t a hugger—Talba put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder, giving some contact, but not infantilizing (she hoped). “Steady, kid. Steady. Okay, you’ve got stage fright.” It wasn’t that, but she was trying to distract the girl from her grief. “Happens to the best of us. You go in the bathroom and throw up while I read your poem.” And cry your little eyes out, baby. In private, so it won’t hurt your dignity.
The poem was called “The Crow”:
The Crow
A crow flew into my house
And spread its terrible wings
And shook its hideous tail
And spoke in its terrible voice
And insulted me.
That other bird said “Nevermore,”
But this one said “Neveragain.”
Neveragain will you know a mother’s gentle hand
Or a father’s soothing words
Neveragain will the sun be gold and warm
Or the weather be inviting
Neveragain will you be a child.
Or be whole.
Or be the person you were.
Your wing is broken
And you cannot fly.
Neveragain will you spread your wings like mine
But henceforth you will be me.
And the crow grew as large as the room itself
And folded me in its wing
And I lay there in the dark
And I leaned into its harsh feathers
And all was dark
And all was black—
And the crow was wrong.
When I lie in its fearsome embrace,
Against its pulsing ribs,
A captive in a feathered womb,
Encased in darkness,
In impenetrable stillness,
I am me.
Talba was frankly appalled. Better, she thought, that Lucy had written it than dreamed it, but she had rarely read so terrifying a document of hopelessness. Her only positive thought was that thank God the girl was in therapy. She hardly knew what to say when Lucy came back, her eyes slightly pink, her ice cubes melting in her glass.
But Lucy wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “Well?” she said. “Did you read it?”
“Sure I read it. Nice homage to Poe. Good use of imagery. Only thing is, I had to call up a shrink to keep from slitting my wrists.”
Lucy smiled. Happily, almost. “Really? It got you?”
“Yeah. It picked me up in its beak and chewed me up.”
“Hey, that’s good. Can I put it in?”
“It’s yours, kid. What does your therapist say about this, baby?”
“Think I’d show it to that asshole? He’s not exactly literate, you know. Just some hack they hired to hold my hand.”
“Well. Good thing you’ve got somebody to do that. Hey, Raisa misses you. Could you stand to babysit some time?”
“Babysit?” She seemed to be thinking it over. “Yeah, sure, I could babysit. But I’m writing a film and I thought maybe she could star in it.”
“Really? I’ll bet she’d be thrilled.” This could only be good. As long as Lucy was writing, she couldn’t be contemplating self-immolation.
“So, the poem, you know, it’s about depression.”
“I gathered,” Talba said, trying to keep the irony out of her voice.
“You know, I just have to live with it for awhile. I have to give in to it and let it, like, embrace me, and then I might come out the other side.”
“‘Hello darkness, my old friend,’” Talba said.
“Ooh, that’s good. Can I have that too?”
“It’s not mine. It’s a line from an old song.”
“Too bad. It would have really made me sound smart.”
She was okay. Or at least she was going to be. “Keep writing, kid,” Talba said. “It’s doing you a world of good.”
She looked up as footsteps approached. Adele entered, in black pants and T-shirt. At least she didn’t look like she was going to church. “Well, if it isn’t our favorite P.I.”
“Hello, Adele. How are you?”
“Getting along.” Adele stood, pointedly declining to sit, and Talba wondered if this was some kind of hint.
“Hey, listen,” Lucy said. “I’ve got this really cute tape of Raisa at the Bacchus party. 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 wa
s 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 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 cheap—but that’s another story.” Maybe that was the mob part of the deal. “Leave it at this—they needed the money, and they got certain other concessions from LaGarde. Look, I don’t do business with my family—you may have heard things about them. Kristin and I were both pawns.” He looked away. “God, I wish I had it to do all over again!”
Suddenly he seemed to come out of a trance. “I’m sorry.” She noticed that he was blushing slightly. “My friends tell me I should be in
therapy—I can’t seem to stop telling the story. What was it you said you were here about?”
“Your ex-wife hired me to investigate her fiancé’s death.”
“Buddy Champagne. I thought it was a suicide.”
“The police think not. I came to you because Warren LaGarde sent me.”
“But—what would I know about Buddy Champagne?” His puzzlement seemed real.
She decided on a smallish lie. “Mr. LaGarde sent me because he said I was in over my head—that his daughter was psychotic and you could verify it. Now you’re telling me in so many words that he’s the one who’s dangerous. Frankly, I’m wondering what else you can tell me about him. Like why you think that.”
He steepled his hands. “Warren LaGarde is a major piece of work. All I can tell you is that he was willing to throw his daughter at me because he wanted something—so maybe he wanted something from a prominent judge as well. But that doesn’t help you, does it? That wouldn’t be a reason to kill said judge.”
She backtracked—there was more than one way to get at this. “Well, tell me. Am I in over my head? LaGarde said Kristin put you through the wringer—that she’s a chronic liar and therefore must be manipulating me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Does that strike you as a little self-serving?”
“A little.”
“Look, maybe she did put me through a wringer, but I was probably just as toxic for her as she was for me. She was just a kid when we met—didn’t know what she wanted, or who she was, or who I was. I put her through school, and then she dumped me. End of story.”
“I don’t mean to pry—”
He smiled. “Oh, yes, you do. That’s your job.”
Taking that as a license to pry, she said, “LaGarde said she had an affair along the way.”
“An affair! She was a slut. But then so was I. We were just—fucked up, that’s all.”
Talba was so used to Eddie she half-expected Truelove to excuse his French. It was restful to meet a white man who could swear guiltlessly.
“But make no mistake about it, that is one hardheaded woman. And bright—whoo! She might have been young and dumb when we met—meaning no street smarts—but she’s smart as hell. I couldn’t believe it when she dumped me—I mean, no matter what, you can’t just dump family…I thought.”
Talba interrupted him, having sudden second thoughts. “Meaning you still consider her family? Still see her and talk to her?”
