Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg (13 page)

As I shifted into gear and headed to the interstate, I pondered the old man’s obsession with follow-up letters. What
kind of person would do something like that? Obviously an
individual to whom organization and details were important. “Stop and think a moment, Tony,” I said aloud. “If someone
has the patience bordering on almost a maniacal obsession
to take apart a Model T bolt-by-bolt and restore it to showroom quality, chances are they could be obsessive enough to
write follow-up letters.”

Then a revelation hit me. Those little flashes of insight
don’t happen too often for me, but when they do, I always
pursue them. So, first chance I had, I would pay a visit to
JW’s attorney.

Back in Vicksburg, I stopped by Jack long enough to learn
the location of WR’s hardware store, which turned out to be
on Washington Street also, a few doors beyond the original
building housing the Biedenharn Candy Company where
Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1894.

The building was in need of repair. Mortar crumbled from
between the dingy red bricks, and the plate-glass show windows appeared to have had no acquaintance at all with soap
and water.

In my brief encounter with WR the previous day, I realized he probably wasn’t the brightest bulb on the string. The
unimaginative name of his store, Washington Street
Hardware, reinforced that opinion.

He scowled when he saw me enter. I looked about the
store. It was empty of customers. A single clerk was leaning
idly beside the manual cash register on the front counter. I
couldn’t believe this was what he owed the bank a quarter of
a million on.

And I don’t know how WR used the few hundred thousand his father had given him over the years, but it certainly
wasn’t to modernize the hardware store. The worn wooden
flooring was split, uneven, and even springy in spots. Decades of dust darkened the ceiling.

I headed directly toward him.

“What do you want?” His tone was gruff and threatening.

“Just to visit a moment. That’s all.”

He started to walk away, but I stopped him with a white
lie. “The police chief sent me.”

WR froze, then looked around, a look of disbelief on his
round face. “Police chief? You mean Hemings?”

I nodded. “I’ll be blunt, WR. Someone murdered your
father.”

The look of disbelief grew more pronounced.
“Murdered?” He snorted. “You’re crazy.”

“That isn’t what Chief Herrings thinks. That’s why he
gave me his okay to follow through on the case.”

WR studied me suspiciously, his shoulders thrown back
and his belly straining against the light green shirt he wore.
“Why you?”

I was candid with him. “Your brother didn’t believe the
fire was an accident. He hired me to find out”

“Jack? What made him think the fire wasn’t an accident?”

“The way I understand it, he believed his father was too
cautious, too careful for that kind of accident to occur.”

He pondered my response a moment. “Okay. So why are
you here-at my place?”

“Because you owe a quarter of a million to the bank, and
you stand to inherit several million after the will is probated. That’s motive enough in anyone’s book.” I waited
for his reaction to my remark, several million. He didn’t
react, which told me he knew the value of the riverside
land.

WR sputtered and tapped his middle finger against his
chest. “You mean-you mean, you think I did it? That I
killed my own father? That’s a crock.”

I watched for the family sign of nervousness, the tongue
under the bottom lip, but it never appeared. “I didn’t say you
did. All I said was I wanted to talk to you about it. After all,
you claimed you had no idea your father was going to leave
you the riverside property.”

He nodded emphatically. “That’s right. That was a surprise to me, and to Stewart” He was growing belligerent, the way guilty people do. “He had planned to give it to some
bird-watching group.”

“What about the afternoon he died? The twenty-sixth?
Where were you?”

He glared at me. “What business is it of yours?”

I shrugged. With a note of indifference in my voice, I
replied, “Hey, tell me or tell Chief Hemings. I don’t care.”

His belligerence dried up, replaced by a worried look in
his eyes. “All right, all right. I was over at Shreveport the day
JW died. Me and Stewart”

“I suppose you have witnesses.”

Now his tongue started moving along the inside of his
bottom lip. “I told you, I was with Stewart”

“Come on, WR. Get real. How credible is your own brother when each of you stand to inherit five or six million? You
think a jury will fall for that?”

The worry on his face deepened. His tongue didn’t miss a
beat.

“Who did you visit over there?”

He licked his lips. “That’s the problem. Nobody. We went
to a bar called the Tiger’s Den.”

I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t I prompted
him. “Okay. The Tiger’s Den. Why did you go to the Tiger’s
Den? Is it a special kind of bar or something?”

A flash of anger turned his cheeks red. He glared at me.
“What are you driving at? I don’t go to them kind of bars”

“I don’t know about Chief Hemings, but if I was the chief
of police, I’d figure that’s a long drive just to go to a bar.”

WR hesitated. Sweat glistened on his flabby cheeks.

I was growing exasperated. “Look, you tell me, or you tell
Hemings. I’m tired of fooling with you” I turned to walk
away.

“Wait.”

I halted.

He paused, then continued. “All right. Here’s the truth”

I turned back to him.

“The honest truth,” he said, staring at the floor as he shift ed his feet nervously. “We went to meet a lawyer who had
called Stewart. The guy said he had pictures of JW with
some bimbo in a hotel. For a cut of the inheritance, he said
he would-” He hesitated. To give him some credit, his
cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “If we agreed to give
him twenty percent of our inheritance, he said he would go
to JW and threaten to send the pictures to the newspapers
and TV stations if JW did not deed the land over to us now.”

“So you went to meet him?” I couldn’t keep the disgust
from my voice.

He continued staring at the floor. “Yeah”

I knew the answer to my next question, but I asked it anyway. “Why would your father care one way or another?”

Eyes blazing, WR looked up and snorted. “He was a religious nut. Town father. That sort of thing. He would have
probably had a stroke if those pictures were published.”

“Convenient for you and your brother, huh?”

The color in WR’s cheeks deepened.

Things, to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, were growing
curiouser and curiouser. “Who is this guy?”

WR dropped his gaze back to the floor. “That’s the problem,” he said lamely, “he didn’t show up”

“But, he gave you a name.”

He shook his head. “No,” he replied lamely.

“That’s mighty convenient. Mighty convenient.”

His eyes pleaded with me. “That’s the gospel truth.
Honest.”

“All right. For the time being, it’s the truth.” His lip didn’t
move but I still didn’t believe him for one second, not completely. But now that I had him in a talkative mood, I didn’t
want him to clam up. “What time were you to meet this
lawyer?”

“Four o’clock. He didn’t show. We got there about three,
had a couple beers. When he wasn’t there by six, we left.”

I arched an eyebrow just so he would know I had serious
doubts about his story. “What about Annebelle? Why didn’t
your father have her in the old will?”

Absently, he smoothed at his slick hair. “When we was
kids, JW took a strap to us on a regular basis. Annebelle, as
you probably noticed, can be outspoken and stubborn. Well,
she never let the old man push her around” He chuckled.
“Anyway, she got fed up and went to live with an aunt. Her
and the old man didn’t talk for years.”

At that moment, the telephone rang. The young clerk
answered, then held the receiver over his head. “For you,
WR”

I watched as WR spoke into the receiver. He glanced in
my direction, then turned his back to me. A cold chill ran
down my spine. I was the topic of someone’s clandestine
conversation.

Upon his return, I gave no indication I knew I had been
the subject of the call. Instead, I summarized his whereabouts on the night of July 26. “So, your story is that you and
your brother drove to Shreveport to meet a lawyer who never
showed, a lawyer whose name you don’t even know?” He
chewed on his bottom lip, then nodded, and I added with a
trace of disgust in my tone. “One who would blackmail your
father for you?”

He dragged the tip of his tongue over his dry lips. “Yes,”
he croaked.

“For a cut of your inheritance?”

‘Yes.

I studied the rundown hardware store from the front seat of
my pickup, pondering WR’s account of his whereabouts the
day of his father’s death. He had motive, as did Stewart, and
as far as I was concerned, if the Tiger’s Den was his only
alibi, then he also had opportunity.

Despite WR’s remark the previous night that the land
south of Vicksburg was worthless swamp, I figured they both
knew the true value of the acreage. Otherwise, why would
Stewart have placed it on the market? On the other hand,
why put it on the market when-it-was-not theirs to sell?

I chuckled when I thought of WR. He was probably burning up the telephone lines to Stewart and Annebelle.

As I drove away from the hardware store, my cell phone
rang. It was Diane. “Just walked in from work. Got your
message. I’d love to go out for old times’ sake,” she added
with a giggle.

“Where?”

“How about the dining room at the Golden Fleece Casino
Riverboat at the bottom of Clay Street. Eight o’clock all
right?”

“Sounds good to me”

“I’ll get us a table.”

“Sounds even better. See you then.” I clicked off, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the guilt sweeping over me when I
thought of Janice. After all, I told myself in an effort to
rationalize my actions, we’re not engaged or committed or
anything. This isn’t like I’m running around on her.

Of course, I didn’t know what else I could call it, but I
wasn’t about to call it “running around on her.”

I glanced at my watch: 4:45. Over three hours to kill. If I
hurried, I could catch William Goggins, John Wesley
Edney’s attorney, to see if that flash of insight that hit me
after I left Wilson Jenkins was indeed inspired or simply
wishful thinking.

I headed south on Washington. As I passed Vicksburg
Auto Parts, I made a note to come back after I took care of
my business with Goggins.

William Goggins was the epitome of the courtroom
lawyer, impeccably well groomed from manicured nails to
freshly trimmed hair. His tanned face emanated confidence.
Stylishly dressed in an Armani suit that had to set him back
at least a couple of thousand, he was precise and articulate,
possessing the genteel manners my mother had gallantly
attempted, but miserably failed to instill in me.

His office had all the trappings of success. In a smooth,
basso profundo voice, he graciously gestured to a red leather
chair and said, “Please. Have a seat, Mr. Boudreaux. How
can I assist you?”

After explaining my reason for being there and mentioning that I did have the blessing of Police Chief Field
Herrings, I said, “Just a couple questions, Mr. Goggins.
From what I’ve heard, the new will came as a big surprise to
Stewart and WR Edney.”

I don’t know if a smile can be gentle or not, but that’s
what his was, gentle. I couldn’t help wondering just how
long it took him to perfect it. “Yes,” he replied. “It even
shocked me when JW called and asked me to write a new
one with those new provisions.”

“I see. When did he do that? Do you happen to remember?”

His tanned forehead wrinkled in concentration. “It was either on the sixteenth or seventeenth of July, about a week
before he came in to sign it on the twenty-fourth. Yes. I’d say
the seventeenth”

I measured my next question carefully. “And after that call,
did he communicate with you at all before he signed the will?”

Goggins frowned at the question. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean, did he communicate with you between the time
he requested the new will and when he signed it?”

He shook his head, a puzzled frown on his tanned face.
“Why, no. There was no need”

Aha! Sherlock Boudreaux now had a firm lead. No
follow-up letter. Not much, but something. I continued my
sly probing. “How long has Mr. Edney been your client, Mr.
Goggins?”

“Around three years. He had been a long-term client of
my deceased partner, Harvey Brittain. After Harvey’s death,
I parceled out some of our clients, but Mr. Edney was much
too valuable to turn over to another attorney.”

I chuckled. “I can understand that” I rose and extended
my hand. “I appreciate your time.” I hesitated, wondering
just how well Lawyer Goggins knew his client. “One more
question.”