The Bird Boys. Lisa Sandlin
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office he’d been killed in—and Phelan’s secretary who’d taken him out. Pure self-defense. The man attacked her, stabbed her. But there was some crucial history Miles had to know. She was on parole after fourteen years in Gatesville. The charge back then had been voluntary manslaughter: she’d killed a man who had been raping her.
“So this is the second guy—”
“Only been out five months. Don’t want her going back in a cell.”
“You’re clear on that point, Tom. Tell me, was she also armed?”
“No. Unarmed. Broke a liquor bottle. Used that.”
Phelan overrode all objections. Didn’t give a flying fuck if Miles Blankenship’s field was divorce. Miles had passed the Texas bar, he was the single lawyer Phelan knew, and Miles had to hit it, please, for the police station now—in Watergate terms, at this point in time. Phelan would see him there.
Down at the curb, he unlocked his trunk, grabbed out the spare shirt and pants he kept in his P.I. kit. Stripped and dressed on Orleans Street, ignoring a wolf whistle from two guys in a Chevy C-10.
He double-timed the concrete steps.
His route: shoot past the Formica front desk and its likely guard, venerable Sergeant Fontenot with the wire-brush eyebrows. Swerve left into the squad room past bulletin boards tacked with mimeographs, past the cops shooting the breeze in school desks, others jabbing typewriters, a thief or two in the folding chairs. Jog straight to the back past a holding cell and bust into E.E.’s office, where he would persuade his uncle, the chief of police, to take Delpha Wade’s statement without first arresting her, printing her, locking her in a cell.
This fantasy was forbidden by station policy. Also by the Policemen’s Etiquette Guide and the Nephew’s Codebook. Moves like the one Phelan was entertaining were why the Suck-It-Up manual existed. Nevertheless, he nodded to the desk sergeant and kept on walking.
“Whoa dere! Where you passin’ yourself by to, Tom Phelan?”
Couple of uniforms off to the side gabbing. He stared them down and leaned over the scarred Formica to the sergeant. Instead of saying he was here because he’d been the first on the scene—his own office—or that he was Delpha Wade’s employer, which around the station was generally known, Phelan muttered, “You told me they wouldn’t charge her.”
Two riotous gray thatches thrust down over Sergeant Fontenot’s small, blue, troubled eyes. He had said that very thing, and now, appearing irritated by his own turmoil, he stalled. “Who you talking ‘bout?”
Phelan’s lips pulled to one side. “Delpha Wade. Doctor just called me, said police are down at the hospital hustling her in.”
“Hustlin’? Naw, naw, Abels and Tucker, they left here like a herd of turtles. We just bringing her in aks her some questions.”
“Lemme ask you one, Sergeant Fontenot. How many boys you dug up down at Deeterman’s house? What’s the tally?”
Now the uniforms angled toward Phelan.
“Six. So far. They off lookin’ in some other places now.”
“After he did what he did to those kids, you tell me offing that guy wasn’t a bona fide public service.”
“Fucking A,” put in one of the uniforms, a white kid with scrappy hair and a large red ear angled toward the front desk.
“Shut up, Wilson,” Fontenot said wearily. He lowered his chin and challenged Phelan. “Ain’t nobody don’ know that.”
“Then why y’all bringing her in?”
“Cause your uncle, he say so. He’s the chief of police, you don’ notice. You don’ tole him what to do. Pardon your ass, cher, you a private bird dog hadn’t did six months’ worth a business yet.”
“Got me there, Sergeant. But…allow me to remind you what you said to me after my secretary had to fight for her life. You said, ‘Nobody’s touching that girl.’”
“Not makin’ an argue wit you. But ’low me to mind you that anybody get dead, we got forms to fill out. Set your behind in a chair, you.”
Fontenot waited until Phelan’s back was turned then grumbled into the intercom. To E.E., Phelan knew, because the old snitch was grumbling in French.
Edouard Etienne Guidry, hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana; appearance: short, dark, and handsome; sartorial taste: radiant, was married to Phelan’s aunt Maryann, his mother’s younger sister. He was a man Phelan took stock in, and there weren’t so many of those.
Chief Guidry rounded the corner and strode past the desk area, raking thick fingers through his silvered hair. Shirtsleeves, the knot in a kaleidoscope tie wrenched half-way down his broad chest. He rolled his eyes when Phelan started to rise and made a mashing motion at his nephew. Phelan sat back down.
E.E. stood there, hands on his hips, two pinkie sparklers and a wide gold band. “Tete dure, you. Who warn you about hirin’ a ex-con?”
Phelan’s hard head lowered. “She served it. As you know—went in in ’59 and got out in this year of our Lord 1973. She started over. Going back to jail, that’s the worst thing that could happen to her.”
E.E. continued to glare.
“All right, OK, I’m an asshole messing in police business. You got my sincere apology. But I gotta be here.”
“Mais, there it is. This about you.”
“Some is, OK? She was just sitting in my office, putting letters in envelopes, and I shoulda been there, shoulda taken that knife. But most of it’s about her. About what’s right. And that is—it was the clearest self-defense there is.”
“That girl’s been around law enforcement almost as many years as your right hand’s been around your dick. She knows the drill.”
“Doesn’t mean she can’t use a body on her side.”
His uncle’s eyes slitted. “This here the body you talkin’ ‘bout?”
Phelan turned to see attorney Miles Blankenship entering the double doors, slipping off his aviators to display a neutral expression. At least, Phelan was pretty sure that was who that was. He’d spoken to him on the phone, but hadn’t actually laid eyes on Miles in ten years, and the last time he had, Miles was wearing a long black robe and a mortarboard hat. The elegant man walking through the door wore wide-lapelled navy pinstripe, nipped at the waist, modest bell to the creased trousers. His black calfskin briefcase might have been rubbed with twenties to give it the mellow sheen.
“You know, Tom,” E.E. was squinting toward Miles, “I seen you be lost, be steady, be stupid in the head and a brave little son of a bitch. This the first time you ak like Judas Iscariot.”
“C’mon, E.E. No disrespect. That’s a friend from high school, and he was what I thought of to help Delpha out.”
“You payin’ his fee?”
Phelan nodded.
“Cause you overflowin’ with cash. The private eye business that hot. You a man of means.”
He let E.E.’s words curl, topple, and break against his forehead. He held his peace as his old friend from high school joined the conversation.
“Miles Blankenship, Chief. Firm of Griffin and Kretchmer. Honor to meet you. I’ll be representing—”
“I got it.” E.E. shook Miles’ hand, dropping it when the door opened again.
Detective Fred Abels, ‘burns and ‘stache and houndstooth jacket, had hold of her elbow. Must be Detective Tucker bringing up the rear, a husky pug-nose in a park-bench green leisure suit with his collar fashionably wide-spread. Phelan felt a flash of gratitude toward E.E. for the lack of cuffs on her, flash of Blessed Jesus when he examined a pale Delpha