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judge’s first thing in the morning.
    The first thing she noticed about Champagne’s lovely house was that it was all wrong. It was a genuine Garden District mansion, way too fancy for someone on a judge’s salary, whatever that was. It wasn’t merely large, it was grand. In fact, it was famous, mostly for the iron cornstalk fence around the extensive grounds. But if the judge had supplemental income, she hadn’t found it. However, one thing she did know—his wife had died a few years back. Maybe she was the one with the money. But it was an enormous house for one person, and he hadn’t married again, so far as she knew. It needed not a maid, but a staff. Talba cordially hoped she wasn’t going to have to clean the whole thing by herself.
    She arrived at 6 a.m. and hunkered down in her unobtrusive Isuzu to wait. For an hour, nothing happened. Then a man—presumably Buddy—came out to get the paper. And at seven, a black woman in her fifties walked through the famous gate, strolled up the walk, and let herself in.
Pay dirt,
Talba thought.
The maid.
The only problem was, she hadn’t arrived in a car. No way to identify her without approaching her.
    Talba figured she either worked half or whole days, so she’d have to come back at eleven, and if the maid didn’t leave then, again at three. Given the size of the house, she was betting on three, but she couldn’t afford to take a chance.
    So she came back at ten, waited an hour—to no avail—and came back again at two-thirty. At 3 p.m. sharp, a youngish black man arrived in a car to pick up the maid. That was better. Talba noted the license plate, then followed the car home—to a shabby house in Central City.
    She now had two beautiful leads—one plate number, and one address. She sat down at the keyboard and began to play. The car was registered to a Roman Williams, a mechanic, married to Tawanha Williams, a licensed vocational nurse, and they had three children, one of whom was an outstanding student who’d once won a science fair prize. (Indeed, most of the information about the Williamses had come from the article about the kid.) But they were in their late thirties. Tawahna couldn’t be the woman she saw. She was Roman’s mother, maybe, or Tawahna’s.
    Talba brought out the project she’d worked on the day before, a pretext survey. Taking a deep breath, she dialed the Williamses’ phone number. A woman answered.
    “Mrs. Williams?” she asked.
    “We got two of us here. Who you want—Tawanha or Alberta?”
    “Let me see—the name I have is…uh, Alberta.”
    “Just a minute,” the woman said, and another woman came on the line, one with an older-sounding voice. So far so good.
    “Mrs. Williams?” Talba said. “I work for a company that’s opening a restaurant in your neighborhood, and we’re doing a little demographic survey. We’ll pay you ten dollars to answer a few questions. The check is already made out and addressed to you—it’ll take no more than ten minutes of your time. That’s one dollar a minute. Can you answer a few questions for me?”
    “Mmph. More’n I usually make. Go on ahead.”
    “Okay, thanks very much. First of all, you have been selected at random. May I check your name and address?” That done, she said, “We’re trying to get a sense of the kind of neighborhood customer our client might have.”
    “Don’t see why.”
    “You know that new Wal-Mart? We did the same thing for them, and they found it very helpful. The idea is, how best to serve the customers.”
    “Better make it cheap,” Williams said.
    Talba laughed. “I hear you. Tell me—do you go to church?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    “First Evangelical Baptist.” She gave an address.
    “When you go to restaurants, what do you generally order?”
    “Never go to restaurants.”
    “Oh, come on—everyone does sometimes.”
    “Well…I like shrimp if it’s fried real good. Chicken. Barbecue.” She brightened. “Ain’t a barbecue restaurant,