Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg (16 page)

“Do you really think someone killed the old man?” She
took a bite of a strawberry.

“Hard to say. There are several who could benefit from
his death. The truth is,” I added, hoping to change the subject, “I haven’t had time to really dig into it.” Before she
could respond, I said, “Tell me about the Vicksburg
Battlefield. Is it really worth seeing?”

For the remainder of our dinner, she regaled me with the
history of the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War.
“Come out during my shift, and I’ll take you around. What
about tomorrow?”

I was tempted but I had planned to check Annebelle’s alibi
at the Jackson Inn and speak with the coordinator of the
softball tournament. “Depends. I’ve got to make a trip to
Jackson in the morning. I’ll call when I get back”

Back in my second-floor bedroom, I lay in the antique
four-poster in the dark. With just a little imagination, the
musty smell of the room, the patter of rain against the wood
shake roof, and the feather mattress in which I sunk took me back to 1836 when this section of the house was built.
Whoever had slept here must have heard the same sounds,
smelled the same smells, and sunk as deeply into the feather mattress as I.

I awakened early, compiled my notes, grabbed breakfast on
the go from McDonald’s, and hit the interstate for Jackson.
An hour later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Jackson Inn.

Many PIs use pretext when attempting to locate individuals. From time to time, I played various roles to accomplish
the same trick, depending on the situation. I also learned that
usually the most effective lever to gain information was by
the generous exchange of money.

I grinned to myself when I spotted the young clerk behind
the counter. Looked like a college kid. I played it straight,
showing him my identification. “I’m checking to see if a
certain individual spent the night of the twenty-fifth and
sixth.”

He frowned and glanced toward the office behind him. “I
don’t know if I can do that. Is that legal? I wouldn’t want
anything on my conscience,” he added with a priggish arch
of his eyebrows.

“I could get an court order, but that takes time.” I pulled a
twenty from my wallet and laid it on the counter. “This
might help ease your conscience some. You don’t have to say
a word. Just look in that computer and see if Annebelle
Edney and Nancy Carleton were here on the twenty-fifth and
sixth. Room one-seventy-five”

He hesitated.

I pulled out another twenty.

The computer hummed. He studied the screen, then nodded. “They were here, at least Annebelle Edney was. Room
one-seventy-five. Checked in at three-thirty-two in the afternoon on the twenty-fifth and checked out on the morning of
the twenty-seventh at eleven-sixteen”

I thanked him, grinning to myself at just how simple it
was to salve a guilty conscience. “One other question. The
softball tournament that was in town. Who put it on? Any
idea?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

I headed to the Chamber of Commerce where I learned the
city itself had sponsored the tournament. I represented myself
as a civic-minded citizen from Austin, Texas, who had heard
about the tremendous success of the tournament and was
curious as to how the city had managed it. “Thirty teams,” the
city manager said with a broad grin. “Biggest turnout we’ve
had in the five years we’ve been hosting it. We figure the tournament brought over two million dollars to the city.”

“Whoever organized it must be pretty sharp”

“That he is. Matt Barnes. He’s the athletic director for
Jackson Public School District.”

Matt Barnes was a tall, affable man with a mop of tangled
gray hair sticking out from under his ball cap, and he was
more than willing to discuss the details of the tournament.
“We even videoed it using a digital sixteen millimeter camera and software,” he said. “We edit it by team and then sell
the videos or DVDs to team members and local citizens.”
“

I couldn’t believe my luck. Have you edited any yet?”

“You bet. We have a special unit from one of the local
high schools for that. They start editing as soon as the first
game ends”

.,What about the team from Vicksburg? I have a friend
over there who would love to have a copy.”

“Sure. Video or DVD? Twenty bucks either one”

“DVD”

He went into another room and returned moments later
with the disk.

“Is there anywhere I can preview it?”

He nodded to an open door behind him. “In my office.”

I didn’t need to look more than five seconds.

There, on the bench in the gray uniform of the Vicksburg
Rebels sat, as she claimed, Annebelle Edney.

Annebelle was on my mind as I headed back to
Vicksburg, driving at a modest sixty miles an hour. Her alibi
held up. Still, I wasn’t firmly convinced about her, although
her reaction upon learning the true value of JW Edney’s
estate seemed to suggest she was as much in the dark of its
true worth as Jack, or perhaps she was a better actor.

Of course, I reminded myself, I wasn’t convinced about
WR or Stewart either. Their only alibi was for each other,
which was laughable.

I wasn’t positive I had found the right motive or not. Sure,
twenty-three million or so was motive enough, even shared
among four children. I flexed my fingers about the steering
wheel. Maybe I wasn’t looking at it from the right perspective, but then, what other perspective was there with that
much money at stake?

Could it be that one of them was so greedy, he or she
wanted it all? That was hard to believe. On the other hand,
given the hostility within the family, such a scenario
wouldn’t have surprised me.

“Just keep digging, Tony,” I muttered. “Something will
turn up”

And something did turn up, but not what I expected.

Where the pickup came from, I have no idea. I’m a cautious driver for the most part, always checking the rearview
every thirty seconds or so. I glanced into the mirror. Behind
me, the traffic on the interstate was sparse.

Ten seconds later, a blue pickup roared past. From the
corner of my eye, I glimpsed a flash of fire. I looked around
to see a Molotov cocktail, a bottle of gasoline with a burning torch in the neck, heading directly at my window.

All that saved me was that whoever hurled the Molotov
cocktail must never have reached high school physics
because he misjudged the speed of his pickup. But then most
beef-witted dullards reduced to throwing Molotov cocktails
don’t even realize there is a relationship between speed and
motion. They probably can’t even spell either word.

Instinctively, I hit the brakes. The bottle struck the hood
of my Silverado. My tires screamed in protest, but when I
saw the explosive ricochet off the hood, I, in the vernacular
of the eighteen-wheeler gearjammers, slammed the pedal to
the metal.

By then the blue pickup was a quarter of a mile ahead.
The powerful Vortec 5.3 V8 engine in my truck howled, and
slowly I gained on him. I was almost close enough to catch
the license number when another flaming cocktail came
arching end over end from the truck. The bottle slammed on
the interstate in front of me and exploded in a balloon of
flame.

I slowed and swerved, and then there came another cocktail, followed moments later by a fourth. I cut my speed and
swerved onto the shoulder to avoid the broken glass and
flames strewn across the highway. By the time I slipped past
the last fire, the blue pickup was but a dot on the horizon.

I studied the vanishing dot, wondering just how they knew
I was in Jackson. I had told no one except Diane. I couldn’t
imagine her being mixed up in a plot to either run me out of
town or kill me, but who else could have known?

Unless … maybe I’d been followed from the time I left
Vicksburg, but if that was the case, why didn’t they make the
attempt on the way over?

I had no answers, so I did what any all-American boy
would do-I decided to set up a sting for Diane.

By the time I reached the Vicksburg city limits, I had a
two-part plan. Of course, the truth was, it wasn’t much of a
plan, but then I’ve never been too imaginative. Still, it was
all I could come up with.

First, I called Diane and put off the tour of the battlefield.
“I’ve got work to do at the house. If everything goes the way
it should, I should know before morning if Edney’s death
was murder or an accident.”

She sounded disappointed, and I wondered if I was right.
If I was wrong, I would apologize, but if someone showed
up that night, I’d know that it was Diane who passed on the
word.

In addition, I planned to follow her when she left work.
Perhaps she would lead me to whomever she had divulged
my intentions. If that didn’t work, maybe the second part
would.

That was my plan. Simple. But then, I’ve always subscribed to the timeworn KISS principle: Keep it simple,
stupid.

Jack was out when I reached the old mansion.

My first job was to run down the license of the car carrier. The number was owned by Byrne Leasing Company in
San Antonio.

Naturally, the company refused to divulge any information as to whom that carrier had been leased, so once again,
I contracted the job to Eddie Dyson.

While waiting for Eddie’s reply, I watched the DVD in my
bedroom. Just as Annebelle had claimed, she was hitting
practice balls, right-handed, to the infielders during warmup
and sitting on the bench during the game.

I shook my head in disappointment, idly noting, but dismissing the fact there was an unusual number of southpaws
on the team.

Naturally, for the remainder of the game, the few clips of
her were mostly as teams switched places. I shook my head.
A hundred-mile round trip in the span of three outs was too
ludicrous a theory to entertain.

The team played two games Friday and two Saturday.
Annebelle was on the bench in all of them.

Later that afternoon, I waited in a convenience store parking lot until Diane got off work. When she passed the park ing lot, I slipped in behind her SUV, taking care to stay far
enough to the rear so she wouldn’t spot me. I hoped that
sooner or later, she’d make contact with someone.

She didn’t.

After stopping off at a Kroger’s Supermarket on
Pemberton Square Boulevard, she went straight to her
apartment and remained inside. By ten o’clock, I’d had
enough.

Upon returning to the house, I parked in front and stared
through the windshield at the old mansion absently. My plan
to tail Diane had failed. Now it was time to see if the second
part worked.

Jack looked up when I entered. He was sprawled on the
Victorian couch, his feet shamelessly resting on the ornate
rosewood trim. He was working his artistry with the arm
scratcher and watching some island reality program on TV.
Leaving the plastic arm up his cast, he held up a tumbler of
bourbon. His eyes were glazed, his fleshy cheeks flushed.
“Hey, buddy. Good to see you. Help yourself.”

I waved the offer away and poured a glass of water. “What
have you been up to today?” I took a long drink.

He went back to working the scratcher, an expression of
supreme ecstasy on his face. “Getting the estate ready for
probate.” He stroked faster. “I can’t stop this blasted itch.
What about you? Learn anything over in Jackson?”

I choked on the water. When I stopped coughing, I
frowned at him. “Who told you about Jackson?”

“Stewart. Why? Was it some kind of secret?”

Trying to cover my surprise, I shrugged. “No. I just didn’t
expect you to know about it. No big secret. When did he
come over?”

“He didn’t. We met at the lawyer’s with WR and
Annebelle. I got there late. He mentioned it as we left.”

“You mean just you and Stewart”

“Yeah.”

I nodded, considering the information. Stewart and
Diane? That didn’t make sense. Not Stewart the gay blade.