Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg (15 page)

Stewart’s pan-shaped face paled. Sweat ran down his
jowls and dripped on his powder-blue blouse. “Yeah, but I
wouldn’t have hit the old man” He shook his head. “That
old geezer could make me so mad I wanted to break his
neck, but I would never have struck him.”

That response gave me the opportunity to slip into my
good guy routine. “I don’t figure you would, just like I
believe that you were surprised to learn your father left the
land along the river to the four of you”

He grinned and nodded emphatically. “You can say that
again. Sure, WR and me wanted the land. We, ah, we all
have responsibilities. You know, debts, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, I know, Stewart. I know your father gave you considerable sums of money. I know you owe the bank over a
hundred thousand, and that you’re behind in your payments.
I know also that you have considerable gambling debts at the
Riverboat Casino. Your father’s death sure helped you out
there, didn’t it?”

His mouth dropped open. And then I hit him with fact
number one that I knew he attended gay conventions in New
Orleans, where he also had a lengthy arrest record, and his
jaw hit the floor.

“How-how-how-”

I leaned forward in the wicker chair. “I have ways,
Stewart.”

He licked his lips and puffed nervously on his cigarette.
“Well, I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me.”

“So some of what your sister said is true. With the inheritance, you are moving to New Orleans?”

“She’s one to be talking. She hated John” He nodded to
the parlor. “When she was in there saying how much his
death devastated her, I could have puked. She hated his guts.”

“Enough to kill him?”

Stewart hesitated, considering the question. Finally, he
nodded sharply. “Yeah. Enough to kill him.”

“Why? What happened between the two?”

“John wasn’t much of a father. Mom died when Jack was
five or six. John raised us. If he didn’t like what one of us
was doing, he’d grab the nearest belt or club and whale the
daylights out of us. He was always worse on Annebelle. Not
at first, but later.”

“Why was that?”

He dropped his gaze to the floor. “When she was around
thirteen or so, she stood up to him. He hated that, that one
of his children should defy him. He slapped her, and that’s
why she ran away.”

So far, his story followed the same lines as WR’s account
of the falling out between the two. “Where’d she go?”

“We had an aunt over in Jackson. She’s dead now.
Annebelle stayed there until Aunt Martha died, but then she
had to come back here. Soon as she graduated from high
school, she moved out. Been out ever since.” He shook his
head. “She sure has a temper.”

I shook my head. “Well, from what I saw down there, you
have one too”

His cheeks colored. “I lost it down there.”

“A sharp prosecutor could make a point that you lost it
with your father.”

He looked at me, his brows knit. He held his temper.
“Like I said, I didn’t kill him-if it wasn’t an accident.”

“If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times.”

“What’s that?”

“A good district attorney nailing the lid shut on some poor
slob on a lot less evidence than you face”

He shook his head. “I don’t care. I didn’t do it.”

“Normally, I’d probably believe you, Stewart. But this
time..” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? Why can’t you believe me?”

“Oh, I can believe it about you and WR going to
Shreveport. And everyone goes into debt. But you know
what really bothers me?”

“What?”

I played my last card, the evidence I’d been holding back.
“The fact that you’re the one who ordered the naphtha that
exploded and killed your father.”

Stewart stared at me in disbelief. “I what?”

“From information I uncovered, you ordered naphtha
instead of the ACL cleaner John normally used” I arched
an eyebrow. “You think some ambitious young prosecutor
won’t jump on the fact you ordered highly volatile
naphtha instead of the much safer seven-seventy-Z
Detergent?”

He pushed away from the rail and glared down at me,
his rotund face growing livid. He sputtered, “That’s a lie.
I never ordered cleaning fluids for John. Who told you
that?”

I remained seated and shook my head. “Never mind.
When the time comes, you’ll know.”

“Look. I got a right to know.” His tone took on a hard
edge.

“Why, so you can confront the individual and give the district attorney another reason for suspecting you? For pete’s
sake, Stewart, use your head. Obviously, you haven’t used it
much in the last few years, but for your own sake, use it now.
You, and your brother and sister-all three of you are
already boiling in the cannibals’ soup pot. Don’t make the
fire any hotter.”

“It was Doc Raines, wasn’t it? John always bought cleaning fluids from Doc. He’s the one who told you, isn’t he?”
He glared at me.

I leaned back and grinned briefly. Then in an icy voice
that belied the smile on my face, I said, “I promise you,
Stewart. Harass the man, and I’ll see you behind bars until
this investigation is over. Hemings promised me that power.”
It was a lie, but Stewart had no way of knowing.

He glared at me for several seconds. Finally, his shoulders
sagged, and he nodded. “Okay. But, what about Jack? Are
you investigating him too?”

Leaning back, I steepled my fingers on my chest and rested my chin on them. I studied the floor as I spoke. “It’s very
possible, I suppose, that Jack could have rented an airplane,
flown five hundred miles on the twenty-sixth, rented a car,
drove out here, committed the deed, and returned.” I nodded. “It’s possible. But-” I looked up directly into his eyes.
“But, not as possible or likely as one of you three.” I pushed
to my feet. “And trust me, Stewart, that’s exactly how a
prosecuting attorney will view it. “The three of you had
motive, opportunity, and means. Jack’s shy on opportunity
and means.”

Stewart sneered. “How do you know he didn’t have the
opportunity?”

“Because I was with him on the twenty-sixth.”

He glowered at me. “Maybe you’re in it with him”

All I could do was shake my head. “Grow up, Stewart.
That’s bull, and you know it.”

Stewart grimaced and lowered his head. “Yeah”

I changed the subject. “You cooled off now?”

He grinned sheepishly. “I suppose”

“Good.” I rose from the wicker. “I have some e-mail to
get off. I’ll see you downstairs,” I said, opening the door to
my bedroom. I wanted to run down the owner of the license
plate I had memorized from the car carrier that helped run
me off the road.

To my disgust, the site was down, scheduled to be open
next morning at 8 A.M.

When I returned to the parlor, WR and Annebelle had left.
“Got tired of arguing,” Jack explained as he poured me a cup
of coffee while he and Stewart sipped on glasses of bourbon.
“How do you put up with all this, Stewart? I’ve only been
here two days, and I’m ready to scream”

I couldn’t help noticing that as the two brothers stood
together, Jack was just a smaller image of Stewart, who was
a head taller and fifty or sixty pounds heavier.

Stewart sipped his bourbon, and with a wry grin, replied,
“I scream every night, little brother. Every night.”

I chuckled to myself. I could believe that.

And I think I would have probably taken up screaming
myself if I hadn’t gotten out of that old house to pay a visit
to Nancy Carleton, after which I planned to meet Diane
down at the Golden Fleece Casino at the bottom of Clay
Street.

Carleton lived in an apartment complex on Baldwin Ferry
Road. Deeply tanned, she wore a green tank top, matching
spandex shorts, and running shoes that looked like two
clubs. A petite woman, she was an exact opposite of
Annebelle Edney, even down to her short-cut black hair.

I explained the purpose of my visit. The smile on her face
froze momentarily when she realized I was checking the
veracity of Annebelle Edney’s alibi, then beamed once again.
She invited me in, but a look of wariness filled her eyes.
“Something to drink? I have some-sport. drinks or water.”

I declined. “I know it’s late, Miss Carleton, but I won’t
keep you long. I just wanted to verify a couple things.”

She nodded. “By all means”

“Annebelle Edney said you and she were in Jackson
together this last weekend”

She nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes, Mr. Boudreaux. She was there with our team. She was a tremendous help. She
always is.”

“Were there any times that she was out of your sight for a
couple hours or so?”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t really think so.
Oh, there were times when we weren’t playing that we
scouted different games. But, I’d swear that I saw her every
hour or so. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so”

“What about Saturday afternoon, around four. Were you
playing a game then?”

“Let’s see. No, we had a five-thirty game. We finished a
game at one-thirty, and our next was at five-thirty.”

“What did you do then? Scout other games?”

“Yes. Annebelle volunteered to scout the Monroe
Marauders and the Beaumont Raiders. We figured we might
be playing them in the next round” She laughed. “Waste of
time. Both were eliminated before they got to us”

“I see, so you didn’t see her from around one-thirty until
five-thirty?”

Her brows knit in concentration. “I’d say about five-fifteen”

“Good enough, Miss Carleton. I appreciate your time.”

She looked up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “That’s
all?”

I smiled. “I’m a man of my word. I told you I wouldn’t
keep you long.”

The steep hills of Vicksburg fascinated me. I was a flatland boy until Mom and I moved to Austin, Texas, twenty or
so years earlier, but I never could take the hilly country
around Austin for granted. I had lived on the flat coastal
Louisiana prairie too long.

As I headed down the steep slope of Clay Street, I realized I’d thought about Diane off and on throughout the day.
I’d be lying if I denied seeing her had stirred some old familiar feelings as well as igniting a few flames of guilt over
Janice.

As in most marriages that break up, Diane and I had just drifted apart without realizing it until we were too set in our
new roles to even make an effort to put the pieces back
together.

I parked in the casino garage at the bottom of the precipitous hill and started across the street to the casino. Before
stepping from the curb at the bottom of the hill, I looked up
and down the darkened street. All clear. Halfway across the
brick street, I heard the bump of tires and looked around to
see the grill of a driverless Cadillac not twenty feet from me.

There was no time to think. I threw myself backward,
hoping to escape the path of the runaway car. When I hit the
ground, I kicked out with my feet against the bricks to shove
me even farther from the path of the vehicle. Something
struck the heel of my shoe.

In the next instant, I heard the shriek of ripping metal. I
rolled over in time to see the Cadillac plow through a chainlink fence and carry a hundred feet of the galvanized net
with it as it arched through the air and plummeted into the
swirling waters of the Mississippi.

Ahand touched my shoulder. “Hey, buddy. You all right?”

I looked up into the worried eyes of a young man in his
early twenties. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so” I climbed to my feet.

He stepped back. “That was sure close. I didn’t even see
the Caddie coming until you jumped back. Are you sure
you’re all right?”

I brushed myself off. “Just a little shaken. But yeah, I’m
fine”

By now, a crowd had gathered on the riverbank, peering
into the river below. I walked past them to the casino.

We served ourselves on the casino buffet. I didn’t mention
my close call to Diane, but the fact that this was the fourth
time someone had tried to run me off the case kept my mind
preoccupied. At least it was until Diane said, “So, I hear
you’re in town to investigate JW Edney’s death”

My fork froze at my lips. The runaway Cadillac instantly
vanished from my thoughts. I stammered for a moment.

She smiled when she saw the confusion on my face.
Flippantly, she explained, “Oh, everyone in town knows
about it. I heard it from Jaybird-he’s the one who owns
the restaurant where we met last night. He heard it from
some detective down at the police station.” She wrinkled
her forehead in concentration. “I don’t remember his
name.”

Cursing under my breath, I lowered the fork. “Wouldn’t
be Tom Garrett, would it?”

“I’m not sure. The name sounds familiar.”

My initial impulse was to rip out Tom Garrett’s tongue,
but then if I did that, Chief Herrings would probably throw
me in jail and toss the key into the middle of the
Mississippi.

Besides, I told myself, maybe it all works out for the best.
Maybe I won’t have to do as much legwork. I speared a
chunk of broiled chicken and popped it in my mouth.