The Do-Right by Lisa Sandlin Page B

she’d told him as she set the handwritten sheet down on the desk beside the Selectric. “Pictures, but you’ll have to go see those.” She typed up her findings, Phelan noting that the sound of the typewriter going made him feel like his business was going.
    He swallowed some Salty Dog and read it all again. Mrs. Lloyd Elliott had been Neva McCracken, daughter of R.J. andTillie of Dallas, Texas, president of McCracken Investment Management and homemaker, respectively. Neva had married young attorney Lloyd Elliott in 1952 after graduation from Texas State Women’s College in Denton. Attended by eight bridesmaids in her chosen colors, rose and pink. Phelan didn’t get that part. Rose, pink, what’s the difference. Miss Wade had sketched a picture of the full-skirted bridal gown—a yellow, stripey one, since she was using pencil on a legal pad.
    The next paragraph detailed a society dinner and a gala attended by Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Elliott. Phelan skimmed it and went on to the last paragraph, which summarized mentions of his client during the late ‘50s and early 1960. Mrs. Lloyd Elliott had given generously to the Neches River Festival and opened her lovely home for a fund-raiser for Senator Richard M. Nixon.
    Putting the paper away, he wondered how she felt about her boy Nixon now that he’d acquired his own special prosecutor. Phelan had had one of those in third grade, until he cracked the fifth-grader’s head with a Davy Crockett lunch box. Maybe Nixon’d try that.
    Last ten years, no more pictures of Neva McCracken Elliott. No dinners. No galas. Galas—everything Tom Phelan knew about that subject, he could record on a grain of Uncle Ben’s rice. Boards, she sat on boards for this bank and that foundation and Lamar College’s Building Fund.
    The heads at the bar turned as a dark woman in three-inch black heels entered Leon’s. Two turned back to the game. Patty balanced a tray of highballs while she bent her head to listen to the tourist. Then she brought up her right hand and shot Phelan with her index finger.
    Mrs. Lloyd Elliott wore a suit no gala had ever seen. Charcoal gray and boxy, covered buttons, skirt past herknees. Didn’t go with the high heels and the fashionable tips of glossy brunette hair lofted and feathered around her face. Hair and shoes were here in 1973, but the suit was strictly Mamie Eisenhower. Given the paint-black sunglasses and Leon’s romantic lighting, Phelan wasn’t surprised when her toe snagged the leg of a barstool. He was on his feet at once, caught her before she stumbled.
    The black lenses fixed on him. “Thank you.”
    Patty, bearing a clean ashtray complete with matchbook, came to take her order. Mrs. Elliott stationed her index and thumb four inches apart and said, “The least disgusting scotch.”
    Patty’s gaze floated past Phelan’s without landing on him.
    Once the waitress was out of range, Phelan’s client cut short his attempt at a friendly introduction by removing the sunglasses. Her eyes were reddened and glassy with tears, and the pupils were unusual, an unattractive, boggy brown, focused on him like an X-ray machine.
    â€œHow old are you, Mr. Phelan?”
    Phelan offered his hand. “Glad to meet you, Mrs. Elliott. I’m twenty-nine. I hope you’re well this evening.”
    â€œThat ad announcing your business and now, seeing you—you’re new to the profession.” She switched her car keys to her left hand, wrung his hand and dropped it.
    â€œWhy don’t we sit down? Yes, I am establishing my business. Is that a problem?”
    The stare had not left him. “Not necessarily. But you have no experience at all?”
    â€œNothing in this world can take the place of persistence, Mrs. Elliott.”
    It was curious to watch. The X-ray machine shut off slowly, from the inside. The ugly brown eyes did not become friendly, but they lost their