Louisiana Bigshot

by Julie Smith

  It wasn’t a Bible. It was what alcoholics call the Big Book, and it was well read and well thumbed. If she had to guess, Talba would have said the reader and thumber was Babalu herself. That might to some extent explain her Spartan lifestyle, which gave new meaning to the term “clean and sober.” A last-minute look for frozen assets alongside the ice cream, and Talba was out of there. Not till she’d padded down the stairs and locked the door did she admit to herself how creepy the whole thing had been. She didn’t blame Jason for deserting her.

  She found him at one of the tables outside Whole Foods with a sandwich in front of him, only he seemed to find it as appetizing as a nice rodent stew. He was staring at the crowd in front of Lola’s across the street. Talba said, “I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.” It was a vegetarian version of a muffaletta. She thought that he was probably a meat-eater who’d ordered the veggie muff for a reason—because Babalu would have—and now he was sorry. Watching him, she tried to memorize his face, and the way the sandwich looked, and the hopeless set of his body. The moment was a poem, and she tucked it away for safekeeping.

  He pushed the sandwich over to her. “I guess I’m not hungry.”

  Talba nibbled at it, not sure she was either. “Tell me something, Jason. Why are the police so sure this was a suicide? They left her datebook and Rolodex—surely they wouldn’t have if they’d had any other ideas.”

  “The police say there was a note on her desk. I didn’t even see it. They found it.”

  “Did they show it to you?”

  “Yes.” His eyes looked far past her.

  “What did it say?”

  “It wasn’t a note. It was a poem.” He still didn’t meet her eyes.

  She was silent, and eventually it paid off.

  “It was about betrayal. The title was ‘To Jason.’”

  She couldn’t stop herself from gasping. Catching her breath, she said, “Jason, I don’t know what to say.”

  He shrugged.

  “I mean…” Should she say it? “…that sounds pretty convincing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” For him and for her role in it.

  His eyes came back into focus and turned on her angrily, passionately. “Listen, there’s a lot more to it. First of all, she must have written twenty poems called ‘To Jason,’ about everything you could name. Some were funny, some complained about me, some were love poems. It was one of the ways she communicated—one of the things I loved best about her. I know that poem. She read it to me the night before she died.”

  “She what?”

  “Talba, I knew all about you and your report. She confronted me about it. And we didn’t break up. She was angry, she felt betrayed, but we didn’t break up. I told her what I told you and she agreed she hadn’t been herself. She said she’d give me another chance. And she read me the poem and we both cried.”

  Talba realized she hadn’t even asked when he saw her last. Whoo, that’s what I get for assuming. Eddie would kill me if he knew. I know what I’d have done with that information—dumped him on his butt. I guess I just thought anyone would.

  “You mean you were at her house the night before she died?”

  “Not exactly. This happened on the phone.”

  “You must have told the police.”

  He nodded emphatically. “Told them and told them. They just keep saying there’s nothing to point to murder. No forced entry, I guess they mean. And in their minds, there’s a suicide note; ergo, it’s suicide. They found the poem on the desk, right by the report.”

  “Well, where do they think she got the heroin?” Talba spoke more loudly than she meant to, causing passersby to stare.

  In contrast, Jason’s voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t know.”

  She exhaled, ready to go on to another subject. “Well, look—did you know she’d made a will?”

  “A will?” He looked utterly amazed.

  “Several years ago.” She handed it over. “Mary Pat’s the executor. You know what that means? It means the family doesn’t control her property quite yet—Mary Pat does. Do you realize there’s a whole drawer of poems in there?” She hoped he’d take the hint. Legally, the poems probably belonged to the sister, Hunter Patterson, but Talba was afraid Hunter might not appreciate them.

  When Jason said nothing, Talba continued, “Mary Pat could perform a rescue mission—I mean, keep them safe for Hunter. For a little while maybe.”

  She knew that what she was doing was unprofessional, but she couldn’t help it. What if the estranged Patterson family simply tossed their hated daughter’s life’s work in the garbage? Talba had always thought certain things were more important than the law; it was one of her continuing arguments with Eddie.

  “What’s Mary Pat like?” she asked.

  “Mary Pat? She’s kind of wonderful. Curly red hair, dresses like a gypsy. Laughs a lot. She might be into Wicca or something—she sure wears a lot of jewelry.”

  “Does she like poetry?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to her about it. But she loves Babalu—they were college roommates. Loved,” he said quickly.

  Talba nodded. Good enough, she thought.

  “Listen, Talba, I’ve been thinking—I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

  “Like get those poems out of there? Sure, I would.”

  He actually cracked a smile. “No, I’ll get Mary Pat to take care of it. I was wondering if you’d go to the funeral with me.”

  She was taken aback. “Me? What for? I’d stick out like the proverbial thumb.”

  He looked sheepish. “Uh, yeah. That’s why I’m asking you. See, they won’t throw a black person out—they couldn’t.”

  “And you think they’d throw you out? Come on—nobody throws anybody out of a funeral.”

  “Her dad told me if I come he’ll personally whip my ass. The cops told the family about the poem and the client report.”

  “Hold it here. Just wait a minute. You think my being there would stop him from whipping your ass? That’s question one. Question two is, why would you want to go to this thing?” She didn’t say it, but if she were the family, she wouldn’t want him there either.

  “She was afraid of them, Talba. I can’t leave her alone with them.”

  She wondered if he knew how crazy he sounded. “Why was she afraid of them?”

  “Because they were horrible to her.”

  “Abusive, you mean?”

  “If extreme nastiness constitutes abuse, then yes, they were abusive, even in the last few months. As for childhood stuff, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know. All I know is, she used to shudder when she mentioned them.”

  “Mentioned which one? Her mom or her dad?”

  “All of them, though not by name, especially. Just ‘my family.’ The funeral’s Saturday. It’s really, really important to me to go. Say you’ll come with me.”

  It would probably complicate matters, but she assented. For one thing, she wanted to say good-bye herself. For another, she wanted to meet these people her friend had been afraid of.

  “One more thing.” Talba indicated the datebook. “Did you look at her schedule for the day she died?” She turned to it. “Only two clients all day—and both were in the morning. Did she die in the morning or afternoon?”

  “They said she’d been dead no more than two hours. But Tuesday was her yoga day. She went at noon and usually came”—he looked around, as if surprised—“well, here, actually, for lunch afterward. Got home by two-thirty or three. She didn’t have regulars Tuesday afternoons, but she’d take emergencies. She always liked to leave room in her schedule in case someone needed her.”

  “Don’t I know it. Well, what I’m getting at here—” She focused on the week she’d had her own emergency. “What I’m getting at is whether she had clients whose names she didn’t write down. I see she did, because I came in the week before. My name’s not here.”

  Jason only nodded sadly. She could tell he’d already been over thi
s territory in his own mind.

  In the end, neither one of them ate the veggie muff. Talba didn’t even have the heart to take it home for later.

  Once in her own space, when she could take the time, she went through Babalu’s Rolodex and datebook minutely, checking each name in the datebook against the Rolodex; identifying regular clients; trying to figure out if Babalu had anyone new in her life; seeing who she needed to talk to.

  Only one name seemed out of context. There was no Rolodex entry for a Donny Troxell—someone Babalu had met for coffee recently—and no follow-up to the coffee date. Another name was conspicuously absent—that of her ex-husband, Rob Robineau.

  Chapter Seven

  Talba could kiss the kind of parents who gave their children middle names like “Xavier.” Who could be easier to find than a Robert Xavier Robineau? She had him before she went to bed that night, and the next morning at seven-thirty she was standing at his door.

  This was another trick Eddie’d taught her. If ever there was a time when people were home, it was before their day got started. The hell of it was, it meant starting her own day about two hours before she was ready to get up. But it worked. She had to hand it to the old man—it nearly always worked.

  Robineau lived in a scuzzy part of Metairie, out near Causeway. There were a lot of dirt-cheap apartments here—perfectly clean and decent, just no-frills—and Robineau had found himself one. Fortunately, it was the kind of apartment complex where you couldn’t do any serious yelling without letting all the neighbors in on your business.

  Talba knocked but got no answer. But she knew perfectly well he was home, because she’d first checked to see if his car was in its assigned garage slot. She knocked again, this time following up with a little speech, delivered with dignity, “Mr. Robineau, I have some bad news for you.”

  Still no answer. Very well then. Another knock, another speech, louder: “Mr. Robineau, I’m sorry to tell you your ex-wife has passed away. I’m Talba Wallis of E. V. Anthony Associates, and I need to talk to you about the will.”

  This time he answered. He was unshaven, wore only a pair of jeans pulled on over a pair of jockey shorts, the frayed waistband of which showed underneath. He was tall, thin, superficially a lot like Jason. But cruder. A whole lot cruder.

  His hair was coarse and a little dirty. His features, despite his name, seemed more Irish than French. He did have the blue eyes Babalu was fond of, but this pair was small and mean. The most arresting thing about him was his tattoos—nasty black and green ones all over his chest, right shoulder, and arms. Talba had disliked Babalu’s tattoo because of what it seemed to mean, but these she hated on aesthetic grounds. They were the carnival-art type—grotesque heads and skulls; swords and spiderwebs. She had no idea what would cause a person to want such things on his body, unless it made him feel tough. Likelier, it was just an outer reflection of the inner man. She wondered if the pictures were metaphors for what went on in this man’s head, his own dark form of poetry. It was a chilling notion.

  The man was looking at her sleepily, obviously having answered the door for no other reason than to keep her from entertaining his neighbors at further length. She didn’t give him a chance to speak: “Robert Robineau?”

  He said, “You say something about somebody dying?” She nodded solemnly. “Clayton Robineau. I’m sorry.”

  “Clayton?” he asked.

  “May I come in?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was really rattled or just pretending to be. He stepped aside for her.

  The whole apartment smelled of smoke so stale it nearly made her gag. Ashtrays everywhere were filled to capacity. Empty beer cans were all over the floor and coffee table, along with plates of half-eaten food and a greasy pizza carton. The furniture looked like salvage.

  “Maid’s day off,” he said. “Sit down.”

  “No thanks. This won’t take long.” It might, but she wasn’t about to sit in this place.

  “Clayton’s my ex-wife,” he said, reaching for a pack of cigarettes and shaking one out. “She get in an accident or something? Clayton’s young. She wouldn’t just die.”

  “Have you been in touch with her lately?”

  He finished lighting the cigarette. “No, I—” Then he turned to her, shaking the match. “You tryin’ to tell me somethin’? She was using again, right?”

  Talba’s eyes flicked to the man’s arms. Sure. Track marks. He looked like a druggie, he smelled like a druggie, and he was one. She said, “Are you telling me Clayton was an addict?”

  But she knew the answer before he spoke—it fit with the Big Book, it fit with this man, and it fit perfectly with the suicide theory. Her family would have told the police she was a former druggie—thus, the cops probably would conclude that heroin had been her death of choice; at the very least, that she knew how to score some. The thing made beautiful sense if you looked at it that way. But you could turn it around just as easily—it perfectly explained why Babalu’s killer would choose such a cumbersome method.

  Because if that was her history, it was just about the only kind of death you could name that would really look like suicide. Far from the ignorant protestations of Jason—and of Talba herself—it actually would be in character. Bablau owned neither prescription pills nor a gun and had no history with either. But Talba was willing to bet her license she did with heroin.

  Robineau made a guttural noise that may have been what he used for a laugh. “Yeah, she was an addict. Big time. ’Zat how she died?”

  “What kind of addict?”

  “Heroin. What else?”

  Talba said, “You, too, Mr. Robineau?” She looked pointedly at his track marks.

  He didn’t even take the bait. “We had a grand old time, the rich bitch and me. Hey, sit down, why don’t you? I’m gonna get a beer. Want one?”

  By now it was nearly eight a.m., about eleven hours too early for a beer, in Talba’s estimation. Still, she might as well sit. Her legs felt a little weak. She found a plain wooden chair.

  Returning with a Bud, Robineau plopped on the sofa. “You say something about the will?”

  Talba dodged that one. “You don’t seem very upset by your wife’s death.”

  He made the unfunny guttural noise again. “Ex-wife, darlin’. Ex. Nah, I’m not upset. Why should I be? The bitch has been out of my life a long time.”

  “Why do you keep calling her a bitch?”

  He thought about it a minute, finally shrugged from the waist up. “Figure of speech, I guess. Clayton and I had some good times. Parted on bad terms, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.” He took a big slug of beer and passed a hand across his mouth. “We were into some pretty heavy shit. She—I don’t know—found God or something. We used to fight all the time.”

  “You mean she got in a treatment program?”

  “Yeah, I guess she did eventually. She cleaned up—came around and gave that speech they have to give, you know?”

  “The ninth step.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what they call it in the twelve-step programs. Making amends. She apologized to you for any trouble between you—is that what you mean?”

  “Yeah, that must have been what it was.” He was quiet a moment and Talba could have almost sworn she saw a momentary fleck of sadness in his eyes. “Man, that’s some stupid shit!”

  “What? Getting clean?”

  “Nah. Nah, I respect her for that. Just that God-stuff amends crap.”

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Robineau?”

  “Construction, mostly. Painting; whatever.”

  “You’re a carpenter?”

  The guttural sound again. “Yeah, when I feel like it.”

  “How’d you meet Baba—I mean, Clayton?” Talba wasn’t sure how long she was going to get away with this—asking seemingly idle questions—but she figured she might as well keep at it till he clammed up.

  “What’d you call her?”

  “Sh
e changed her name. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No. No, I didn’t know it.” He was suddenly subdued. “Why’d she do a thing like that?”

  “I think it may have had to do with pursuing a spiritual path. Starting a new life, maybe. Why does that surprise you?”

  He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “No reason.”

  “Did you see her after you separated?”

  “Naah! I tried to.” He gave Talba a kind of guilty half smile. “She got a restraining order.”

  Oho, Talba thought. She was beginning to get the hang of things. “Did you have a violent relationship?”

  Robineau shrugged again, this time a small, almost involuntary gesture—it was funny, Talba thought, how vivid people’s body language became when you could actually see their muscles work. “Towards the end, maybe. A little.”

  “How’d you two meet, anyway?”

  “She used to hang out at the same bar I did. I liked her tattoo.”

  “So she drank then, too.”

  “Whoooeee, baby! There wasn’t nothin’ that broad didn’t do. Bet your booty she drank. Drank, smoked, snorted, shot up…” He paused for effect. “Fucked.” He looked at Talba sidewise to see if he was shocking her. “Oh, man, did she fuck.”

  “They have twelve-step programs for that too.”

  All of a sudden, he reared up, furious for some reason.

  “Hey, who are you, anyway? Comin’ in here first thing in the morning, askin’ questions… you ain’t a cop, are you?”

  Completely nuts, she thought. A raver. I need to get a purse big enough for my Tee-ball bat. But she wasn’t scared yet. She stood her ground. “I told you. I came about the will.” She’d dressed in a business suit, hoping to pass for a lawyer.

  “What about the will?”

  “Tell me something, Mr. Robineau—do you think Clayton could have committed suicide? Did she have it in her?”

  “Oh, man! Oh, man, if I had to guess, I’d say that’s how it happened. Used to threaten it all the time. I used to believe her too. Once I even called her country club parents who wouldn’t speak to either of us—man! I wouldn’t ever do that again.”