The Bird Boys - Lisa Sandlin A Delpha Wade and Tom Phelan Mystery

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      Heat crept the back of Phelan’s neck.

      He knew what had gone down in his office because he’d arrived not too many minutes after the fight was over. Cops would ask her who started that fight, the man who walked in—or Delpha? And being as how hospitals do have access to various types of clean clothes—yeah, they do—her wardrobe today must mean she wanted the police to get the picture.

      The hole in the crumpled white blouse drew the eye, rusty rosette formed around it, broad rust-stripe trailing down. The brown patches and gout and spray around the collar would not be hers, Phelan guessed, but they sure enhanced the grisly effect. The navy blue skirt was blackened at the waist. There was a spoiled, iron smell in the air. She seemed to be walking with an effort.

      Delpha’s head turned, stopped at Phelan. The light-brown hair an inch above her shoulders had felt some wind, and she had not combed it into place. No powder or rouge on the high cheekbones. Just lipstick the color of lips. She looked at him for a long second before her gaze retracted.

      E.E. introduced himself to Delpha and told her they’d like to ask her some questions, get everything squared away, standard stuff in this situation. Miles was next. Told her he was here to act as her attorney, if that was agreeable to her. Delpha’s head nodded slightly. She took a small side-step, almost a dip, and the lawyer cupped her elbow. Had the detectives read her her Miranda rights?

      “She’s not under arrest, counselor,” E.E. said. “We just fixin’ to take a statement. Determine what’s what.” He hooked his head at Abels. “Y’all go on.”

      Miles, ex-drum major, valedictorian, high-dollar divorce lawyer, was not on his own ground. Still, he emitted serene, tailored, carnivorous readiness: man was capital-B Billable. Phelan took scrupulous note. He knew something about masculine presentation, but he hadn’t honed it like this.

      Delpha looked at Phelan again. “You call him for me?” Faint light in the blue-gray flatness of her eyes, and she said it private, like only he could hear her.

      Phelan lifted his chin.

      The detectives shepherded her past him. Miles shot Phelan a glance and went with them. All squad room activity—breeze-shooting, questioning, report-writing, filing, phone-talking, candy bar-eating, and cigarette-smoking—everything buzzing back there would pretty much freeze, Phelan bet, while they watched the woman wearing the bloodbath pass by.

      E.E. tapped Phelan’s chest. “We got your statement the boys took at the scene. Don’t need you, Tommy.” He wheeled and followed them.

      Phelan went to the restroom and scrubbed his paint-crusted knuckles and nails, stump of his left middle finger, wrists. Came back. Sat in the chairs lined up beneath a long window that despite central air and Venetian blinds still beat with sun. The wall clock’s hands puttered around, stuck a while, went backward and scooped up some minutes forgot, trudged onward. He sat and smoked and sweated.

      From time to time, Fontenot disappeared from the desk and then returned and busied himself answering the phone and doodling on a clipboard. Addressed himself extra-conscientiously to visitors. Trimmed his gaze so it did not reach the border of Phelan’s outlands.

      II

      THE HITCH FROM the wound’s incision made her feel like she had a hook in her, from belly button to backbone. Her stomach was tight, sore.

      But at the sight of Miles Blankenship’s magazine suit and easy carriage, Delpha Wade’s knees unlocked. Her head went feverishly light. Had not had a lawyer who’d walked like that—like wherever he went, the street beneath his feet welcomed him. Wearing a suit that looked like somebody’d sewed it only for him. Spoke naturally, courteous, to the police chief, and she could tell he never once wondered would he get spoken back to or how. Miles Blankenship was equipped for How, he belonged here, in the station, belonged behind the nice oak desk he was sure to have, in a restaurant with velvet curtains, in a forward pew. And here he was, on her side. Speaking for her, god-almighty, throwing the protection of the law over her like a coat and not a net. Here was the difference between fourteen years and walking around free. She widened her stance to keep steady, in case gold sequins broke out before her eyes.

      Detectives Abels and Tucker took hold of the chairs across from where she and the lawyer were standing. The wall to her right was being held up by Joe Ford, Delpha’s parole officer, six foot five and glum as a buzzard. One of Joe Ford’s many instructions during their first meeting: The parolee must not own any knife with a blade longer than two inches, except for a kitchen knife, and only if their parole agent says so.

      Joe caught her eye, his gaze flickering. He probably didn’t favor being called to this room over a parolee of his, with police chief and lawyer, maybe any minute the D.A., men far above his pay grade. Mr. Ford, I didn’t have a two-inch knife. Or a ten-inch one. Just a whiskey bottle resting in a bottom drawer. Doesn’t signify, not a plug nickel, because it come down to me or him.

      Pug-nosed Tucker took the first chair, head drifting back, eyes squeezing shut, and produced a misty sneeze. He patted his pockets, fished out a handkerchief. Mr. Blankenship pulled out the chair across from Tucker for Delpha, inclined his head at it. She sat. Unexpectedly, he ushered the chair—with her suddenly unbalanced in it—to the table. He took his place next to her. Abels, the detective with the mustache and sideburns, slid off his hounds-tooth jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. He plopped down a white tablet and sat heavily. Scraped the chair forward, uncapped a pen.

      “OK, Delpha. On the afternoon of August 15, 1973, where were you?” A bulldog wearing a drill sergeant’s hat glowered from his forearm.

      “Office of Phelan Investigations, downtown on Orleans Street.”

      “Was anyone with you?”

      “No.”

      “Where was your employer?”

      “Out on a case.”

      “When the…deceased came to the door, you invited him in?”

      “He walked in.”

      “Door wasn’t locked?”

      “No.”

      “What did you say to him?”

      “Asked how I could help him.”

      “OK. What did he say?”

      “Said a girl said she left a book for him outside the door, but it wasn’t there.”

      Abels waited for her to continue and when she didn’t, said, “What did you say?”

      “Told him I brought it in and I’d get it for him and he could go.”

      “You were in a hurry to get rid of him?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Why was that?”

      “He wanted to know if my boss was gone. Looking around to make sure I was by myself.”

      “Maybe he was just looking at his surroundings,” Abels said, maintaining the neutral-cop tone.

      Delpha’s eyes flicked to Tucker’s then settled back on Abels’. She answered nothing.

      “You believed he intended to harm you?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Without him making any kind of threat?”

      She nodded.

      “How’d you come to think that?”

      “Front of his pants was standin’ up.”

      And so on, slow and methodical, through the moment her attacker had pulled a knife, and the events that followed. Then, a detailed recapitulation of those events. It was eighty-nine minutes before Abels switched gears and the lawyer sitting next to her meaningfully shifted his posture forward.

      “OK, Delpha. In April of this year,

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