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  Clearly, Talba needed to find out where Donny Troxell was. The source of so much of her friend’s misery just had to be checked out. She thought about what it might be like to visit a machete-scalper; backup probably really was a great idea. Even if it was only Eddie.

  Eileen Fisher was at her receptionist’s post as usual, perusing the Times-Picayune for lack of anything better to do. “Morning, Talba.”

  “Hi, Eileen—Eddie in yet?”

  “Uh-uh. He’s in court this morning.” She went back to her paper.

  So much for backup. Oh, well, she probably wasn’t going to find Troxell anyway. At least not before lunch.

  Before she’d even put away her purse, she booted up her computer and performed the online version of calling information. There weren’t that many Troxells in Louisiana, and only two were Donalds. One of them lived in New Orleans. Just for fun, she did call information, and sure enough, Donald Troxell was listed. Good old Eddie—by using his antiquated methods, she could have had Donny in one minute instead of the ten it had taken.

  But goddammit! Why hadn’t she thought of this the night before? (Well, actually, there was a pretty good reason. She could give herself a break on that one.) Still, it was infuriating. Here it was, after nine o’clock—just about no chance of catching one Donald Troxell before he left for work. The frustration was well nigh unbearable.

  Maybe he doesn’t work, she thought. Maybe he’s a hopeless alcoholic, like Robert Robineau.

  He lived in the Bywater, which didn’t tell her much—he could be a young professional fixing up a great old shotgun or someone in need of a cheap rental. Best to drive there, she decided—it wasn’t that far from her own neighborhood. She was certainly going—and going right now, the hell with backup. He might be at work, but maybe he was married and had small children. If she was lucky, that would mean a wife with a big mouth at home.

  The gorgeous old neighborhood was far from becoming gentrified. It had turned into a favorite of young white artists and others in the tattoo-and-piercings club. Good place for a poet, Talba thought, but surely Troxell didn’t fall into that category.

  His dwelling was about what she’d guessed—half a rundown shotgun double. If he was the right Troxell, he probably wasn’t any poster boy for ex-cons-who-make-good. The place looked unoccupied, all closed up. But at least there were no newspapers piling up outside. Talba mounted the porch steps and rang the bell somewhat dispiritedly. To her surprise, she heard footsteps, even a dog barking.

  The woman who answered the door was so far from what Talba expected she figured Troxell had long since moved on. She wore jeans, sloppy T-shirt, and a bandana around her head. Her hands were dirty and her neck sweaty, but a tiny diamond pendant glistened in its folds, probably something she always wore. A gift from her husband, maybe. A raggedy old white Lab clung at her heels.

  Something about her reminded Talba of the ladies of the Baptist church in Clayton. She had that blond softness they had, that small-town neatness, even in her work clothes. But she wasn’t a country club type—more likely working class, Talba thought. She was about Deborah Patterson’s age.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m looking for Donald Troxell.”

  “Oh.” Distress crowded her face. “Are you a friend of his?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not. I just need to talk to him about something.”

  The woman cocked her head. “About what?”

  “That’s confidential, I’m afraid. Are you a relative of his?”

  “Yes. I’m his mother. Come in, won’t you?”

  She ushered Talba into a house that was being dismantled. Sealed cardboard boxes were everywhere, and a stack of flat ones leaned against a wall, waiting to be made up. Other moving tools—magic markers and tape—were scattered around a dark, gloomy living room with an old sofa, chair, and television set still in it.

  “Let’s go to the back,” the woman said. “I’m keeping the front closed up.” She gave an involuntary shiver and glanced at the dog. Talba realized she was afraid of the neighborhood. “There’s a cute little backyard where we can sit.”

  She led Talba through a deserted-looking bedroom, into a kitchen in the process of being torn apart, and finally outside, into a pleasant space furnished with a metal table, chairs, and a nice stand of banana trees.

  “Can I offer you anything?”

  Talba declined, wondering what was going on here.

  “Sit down, will you?” She waited for Talba to obey, but didn’t sit herself. “I’m sorry to tell you my son passed away earlier this week.”

  “Umph.” Talba faked surprise, but in fact, she’d had a bad feeling ever since she entered the house. It had a forlorn look to it, like Babalu’s. And a feeling; a very oppressive feeling.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Who am I? she was thinking. Definitely not a PI working for the girl he scalped.

  The woman sniffed into a Kleenex. “Just as he was getting his life together.”

  It occurred to Talba that death was like pregnancy; in one, everyone patted your stomach; in the other, you also got your privacy invaded. “But what happened?” she blurted. “Donny was so… I mean, he was getting his life together….”

  Finally, the woman sat. “He was mugged coming home from work. They beat him, took his wallet, and shot him.”

  Talba gasped, and this time the shock was real. “Coming home from work? But what time…?” She thought she was doing a poor job of fishing, but nothing solid had occurred to her yet; she sure wished she could get the lying thing down better.

  “He still worked at the Wild Side—ironic under the circumstances, but it was so hard for him to find anything else. It happened about four a.m. just after his shift.” She stopped in midsentence, looking quizzical.

  “I know about the prison sentence, Mrs. Troxell.”

  She nodded knowingly. “Oh, yes, I suppose he shared about that.”

  And suddenly Talba had it; he “shared,” he was getting his life together, and it was ironic that he worked at a bar. She took a chance that he was in AA. “I see you’ve figured out how I knew Donny.”

  For the first time his mother smiled. “These days, most of his friends are in the program. What was it you needed, by the way?”

  “Oh, uh—Donny lent me a little money. I wanted to pay it back.” Talba bit her lip hard enough to get tears to come to her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry at all.”

  “Oh, no. Please.” She produced a ten-dollar bill. “I just feel so bad.”

  “My son had the hardest life of anyone I know—and now this! It’s just so unfair.”

  “It sure is. It sure is, Miz Troxell.”

  “It was like a second chance. The first time was like this too—just plain unfair.”

  “You mean—uh, that thing in his hometown?”

  The woman nodded, the sadness in her face giving way to anger. “He was such a smart boy—and it was obvious from a very early age. His dad was just a plumber and I’m a waitress. We had four children and none of them had any more brains than we did—except one. We gave him everything, uh, Miss…?”

  “I’m Sandra,” Talba said, “and I’m an alcoholic.”

  The other woman smiled. “Sandra,” she said. “We didn’t have much, but there was a really good guidance counselor at the high school, and she helped him get a scholarship to Vanderbilt. He was dating the daughter of the richest man in town. He had the world by the tail. And then one day she broke up with him… and they accused him of scalping her…and…” She started to cry again.

  Talba touched her hand. “I know the story. But one thing I never understood—why did the girl break up with him?”

  Troxell’s face was stony. “He never knew. Poor thing never even knew. He was so hurt… and then when he got arrested…”

  Clearly Donny’s mother thought he hadn’t attacked Clayton. Best not to go down that road, Talba thought. She kept her mouth shut.
r />   “He came out of prison a broken man. He never could hold a decent job or even hold his head up after that. His father was so disgusted with him he never spoke to Donny again.” She sniffled and cried some more.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Troxell.”

  “And now I’m going to lose two of ’em in one week.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My husband’s got diabetes. He’s not expected to live out the week.”

  Again, Talba gasped, and again she didn’t have to fake it. “Already lost both his legs.”

  “Oh!”

  “But I got the satisfaction of one thing. At least he and Donny made up. That’s another thing that was going right for Donny. She cleared his name. Finally.”

  “Wait a minute; I’m not following.”

  “She came to see my husband and told him Donny didn’t do it. And then Ralph asked to see Donny—for the first time in sixteen years.”

  “You mean the girl? The girl who got scalped?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Ms. Clayton Patterson herself came to see my husband.” Talba’s mind was falling all over itself, putting pieces together. Donny Troxell had appeared once and only once in Clayton’s datebook. What if he’d called her to beg? Clayton, my dad’s dying. Tell him I didn’t do it. What can it hurt? Please. I’ve served my time. Just tell my daddy I didn’t do it!

  All the newspaper articles about the trial had been clear on one thing: Clayton never accused Donny. She said she never saw her intruder. How likely was that? Talba wondered.

  What if she did know who attacked her, and she told Ralph Troxell? The statute of limitations was probably up, anyway—or maybe her real attacker, if it wasn’t Donny, had died in the intervening years. What if she’d broken a sixteen-year silence and started a chain of events that led to her death? And Donny’s.

  Mrs. Troxell said, “I went home for a bite to eat and some rest. When I came back, he told me she’d been there, and he’d called Donny.”

  Talba could barely contain herself. “You’re sure she told him Donny didn’t do it?”

  “I sure am. That’s exactly what she did tell him. And then the next afternoon he slipped into a coma.”

  “What a horrible story! I mean… wonderful, too. At least he and his son made up.”

  Troxell squeezed her wadded-up tissue and began to tear at it. She didn’t say anything.

  Finally, Talba said, “Was it all on the phone—or did Donny come over to see his dad?”

  She raised her face, and it was almost radiant. “Oh, he came over. I thank God for that. They were actually able to see each other after all those years. Lord, I wish I could have been there! But I know Ralph. I knew I had to give him some privacy. So I stepped out of the room. And when he told me about it, he cried. Said he should have trusted in his son—said somebody was going to pay, and he was going to make ’em. That’s why I thought he was going to live. He had some thing to live for.”

  “You think the girl—what’s her name?”

  “Clayton Patterson.”

  “Odd name. You think she told him what really happened?”

  “I know she did.”

  “And your husband told you?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me. Later that night, he was in terrible pain. He couldn’t really talk much. And then the next day he was as good as gone. Like that. Just like that.” She fluttered her hand.

  “Like a leaf that flutters in the wind,” Talba said before she caught herself.

  The woman looked at her oddly. “Beg pardon?”

  “Uh… bad poetry. It’s what someone said about life.”

  Troxell nodded vigorously. “Well, they could say it again. I’ve buried my boy, and before long I’ll bury my husband too.” Her jaw set hard.

  “But he didn’t go into the coma till the afternoon?”

  Troxell shook her head, concerned with her own tragedy.

  Talba wasn’t about to say what she thought.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eddie was glad he didn’t have to hear the damn story on an empty stomach. By the time he got out of court it was time for lunch, and he’d snagged a couple of old cronies and headed for Venezia. He’d had a glass of wine with lunch, but, still, the thing was making him cranky.

  “So what ya think,” he said, “is that the old man was gonna blow the whistle on the scalper and the scalper killed two people to stop him, but neither one of the victims was the whistle blower. Doesn’t make sense, Ms. Wallis. Make it make sense for me.”

  “He didn’t have to kill the old man. Ralph was already in a coma.” She spread her hands. “Look, for all I know, the guy induced the coma.”

  “Right. Right. Get it out ya system. Go on ahead.”

  “Ralph had one morning left. He could have called the guy and threatened him.”

  “But why would he? Why wouldn’t he have just called the cops?”

  “I don’t know. He was dying. He must have known it—maybe he just wanted the guy to know he knew.”

  At least she admitted there was something she didn’t know. “Okay, so maybe ya theory’s right. Suppose he used his last morning to call the guy. And then that guy goes out and gets a friend and they give Clayton an overdose; then they go mug poor ol’ Donny, who was just gettin’ his life together. By the way, that AA thing was good. Your lyin’s gettin’ a little better.”

  She squirmed a little. “That’s pretty high praise from The Man.”

  Eddie thought, She’s just a girl. She was so damned uppity sometimes he forgot that.

  “But, no, it wasn’t quite like that,” she continued. “When I got back, I checked the Times-Picayune. There was a tiny little story about Donny’s death—and it was the day before Clayton’s.”

  “Who cares about that? The whole thing’s just goddamn farfetched, excuse my French.”

  “Well, maybe there were two people in on the scalping.”

  Eddie raised an eyebrow, something he was pretty good at. She backed down. “Okay, okay, it’s farfetched. But still. It’s damned coincidental, right?”

  That one he couldn’t get around. Like most people who’d seen a few things in his life, he didn’t really believe in coincidences. “Awright, let’s look at it in practical terms. Ya client doesn’t think his precious girlfriend who he loved so much he was humpin’ somebody else, excuse my French, could of possibly O.D.’d, because she was too damn healthy and never touched the stuff. That about right?”

  “About.”

  “Well, then you’re doin’ him some good. You’re workin’ on a facsimile of a murder motive here, and I’d be the first to say I wouldn’t have thought you had a Chinaman’s chance.”

  She shifted in her chair. Something had made her mad. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And sure, I’ll excuse your French. The racist comment’s real nice too.”

  What the hell was she talking about?

  He must have let his guard down for a minute. She gave him a superior smirk. “You don’t even know what you said, do you? You think ‘Chinaman’s chance’ is perfectly okay.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. It’s just an expression.” She didn’t challenge him on that, just gave him another smug little look. (But later, when he told the story to his daughter Angie, he just about never heard the end of it.)

  “Look, I just gave you a compliment. Why don’t ya go ahead and ax the client if he wants to go on with it?” He spread his own hands in a great big, expansive, anything’s-possible.

  “Eddie, come on. You know I’ve already done that.” She was so impatient she was practically snapping at him.

  That was about it for Eddie. “Why is it people your age know so damn much, huh? Lived half as long and know twice as much—how ya manage that, huh?”

  Was that hurt on her face? It was. Kind of like the look Trudy, his wife’s dachshund, got when he let the cat in the den.

  “Eddie, I didn’t mean anything. I just—”

  “Look. Go for the defense lawyer, why don’t ya’? If a
nybody knows what went on, it’s got to be him.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” she said.

  “In a pig’s eye,” he answered, but he was joking now, over his fit of pique.

  The truth was, this thing was giving him the shivers. He’d probably been far too negative with Ms. Wallis—he’d have to eat his words later. For even as she talked, his discomfort was growing. How did you explain not one but two fatal coincidences? The damn case was probably a lot more dangerous than it was lucrative, but he didn’t dare say that to her. She’d only go after it all the harder.

  Ms. Wallis, Ms. Wallis, he thought to himself, and shook his head the way he used to when his daughter Angie got too big for her britches.

  * * *

  Talba spent the rest of the day backgrounding the attorney who’d defended Donny Troxell in the scalping case. He was a native Claytonian (if they called themselves that) who’d gone to law school at Tulane, and who, if she read between the lines correctly, was probably a member of the same country club the Pattersons belonged to. His name was Lawrence Blue, for openers. Talba didn’t know much about WASP names, but she figured that was one.

  He had a wife named Kathleen and three children. He belonged to the Presbyterian church. And, as a small-town lawyer in Clayton, about the biggest thing that had ever happened to him was the Troxell case. That was at the beginning of his career.

  He later moved to New Orleans, where he joined a well-known criminal defense firm and handled some pretty high-profile cases. Later still, he gave the whole thing up, moved back to Clayton, joined a distinguished firm that did insurance defense, ran for state senator, and won.

  Back in Clayton, Talba had seen a picture of him as Donny Troxell’s lawyer. He was an ordinary-looking man, with a tendency to plumpness. She wished she had a sheaf of pictures of him as his career advanced. As she imagined it, he’d put on more and more weight until, as a state senator, he was practically a caricature.

  All in all, she figured she’d gleaned two useful facts—one being that Blue lived in Baton Rouge, where the legislature was now in session, the other that he was extremely active in the campaign of gubernatorial candidate Buddy Calhoun, whom she’d seen at Clayton’s funeral.