Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg (17 page)

“So,” Jack said, breaking into my thoughts, “what was
over in Jackson?”

“Waste of time,” I replied, shaking my head. I headed for
the stairs. “See you later. I’ve got some work upstairs”

He grunted and continued playing the fiddle with the
scratcher. “I’ve got to see a doctor about this itching. There’s
bound to be something that’ll help.”

Upstairs, I sat at the ancient desk and made a pretense of
fumbling through my note cards, all the while listening
expectantly for the slightest sound outside on the gallery.

Nothing.

I strained to pick up sounds from the back stairs.

Still nothing.

Nagged by the feeling that I had missed something, that I
had overlooked a small detail that could be important, I went
back to my note cards.

At midnight, I rose and stretched my cramped limbs. So
much for my plan to expose the killer. I growled, “Another
bust” I headed for the gallery and some fresh air. Just as I
stepped through the doorway to the gallery, a loud splat
sounded in the door jamb at the side of my head. A thousand
stinging pinpricks peppered my cheek.

Instinctively, I jerked aside and stumbled backward over
the wicker chair. I hit the floor hard, banging my head
against the cypress and heart pine boards. Stars exploded in
my head. For a moment, I lay stunned, and then the pain hit
the side of my face.

I grabbed at my cheek, but quickly jerked my hand away
when a sharp object jabbed into my palm. “What the-”

Groggily, I rolled to my feet and staggered into my room.
I still didn’t know what had happened. I looked in the mirror in the adjoining bathroom. Blood ran down my cheek,
which was pierced by several tiny slivers of wood.

Wincing, I gingerly picked them out, then soaped the cheek thoroughly and washed it off. I rummaged through the
medicine cabinet and found a bottle of alcohol, which I liberally doused on my still-bleeding cheek. The sting of the
alcohol cleared the fog of pain in my head and shocked me
into realizing just what had happened.

The noise, the flying slivers of wood meant only one
thing. Someone had taken a shot at me.

Quickly, I turned off the lights. I pressed my handkerchief
to my cheek, and, taking my time, I pulled the curtain back
from the window jamb and peered into the night. I could see
nothing in the thick vegetation below.

Using the darkness as cover, I headed for the rear stairs,
feeling my way through inky blackness down the stairs,
through the storage room, and into the dining room.

I peered around the edge of the dining room window.
Even from this vantage point, I saw nothing in the Stygian
darkness.

Minutes passed slowly, dragging into an hour. The only
movement outside was the occasional cat slinking across the
porch.

“Whoever it was is gone now,” I muttered.

On impulse, I headed for my Silverado.

I drove past Stewart’s apartment. His Cadillac was parked
out front. Then I headed for WR’s place. I was waiting at a
red light at Pearl and Clay when Diane’s red SUV sped past
heading east. She was alone. “I wonder where she’s going at
this time of night?” I muttered. Without hesitation, I turned
and followed.

At the end of Clay, she pulled into the parking lot of the
Riverboat Casino. I braked to a halt at the curb across the
street. I scooted down in the seat and peered over the bottom
of the window. She parked and quickly scurried across the
lot to a waiting Cadillac and jumped in.

Just as the Cadillac pulled out of the parking lot, another
car turned in. Its headlights revealed the driver of the
Cadillac. His plastered down black hair was easily recogniz able. “Well, well, well, hello, WR, hello. Why am I not surprised to see you?” Pieces began to fit together, and they all
involved Diane, WR and Stewart. Diane fed WR information, and he passed it along to Stewart.

I watched as the large car disappeared into the sparse,
early-morning traffic. I remained staring after the vehicle,
sorting my thoughts. I remembered that night in the bar with
Diane. When I mentioned Jack Edney’s name, she reacted.
At the time, I thought it was simply the reflection of the
jukebox in her eyes, but now, I realized it was recognition of
Jack’s surname, the same surname of the man whom it
appeared she was dating.

Diane must have told WR or Stewart I was at the mansion
tonight, and they sent someone to either frighten or kill me.
She also must have told them I was going to Jackson, and he
and Stewart sent the bombers after me.

Slowly, I drove back to the house, putting the plot together with two brothers and Goggins. The only way I could see
it was that the three had conspired to write a new will.

Goggins had to be involved for he had received no followup letter after JW allegedly requested the new will on the
sixteenth or seventeenth. And according to Wilson Jenkins
and Doc Raines, JW Edney always wrote follow-up letters.
I grinned wryly, silently thanking the Man Above for making JW Edney so eccentric.

It was a minor point, but one on which I thought I might
be able to hang my theory. “So,” I muttered more to myself
than aloud, “who do you believe, Tony? JW Edney’s fiftyodd-year habit or Goggins’ version of the new will?

“Then, after JW died, they simply switched wills.
Goggins was JW’s lawyer. He had access, he had opportunity, and probably the brothers provided plenty of motive.

“Hold on,” I added. “That doesn’t work. If WR and
Stewart wrote a new will, why did they put Annebelle in it?”
The virulent animosity between brothers and sister was too
intense, too palpable to simply be a mere charade.

I parked in front of the house and stared unseeing at the shadows covering the old mansion, trying to find a logical
answer to my last question.

No answer came. Disgusted, I opened the door and
climbed out.

Next thing I knew, my head exploded, and I found myself
falling into a bottomless pit.

I don’t know how long I fell, but heels digging into my
stomach jarred me awake. I opened my eyes and discovered
I was blindfolded and gagged. I tried to move a hand, but
they were bound as were my feet.

A cruel laugh broke the silence. “Hey, Sal. The monkey’s
awake.”

“Shut up, you big mouth.” Sal then spoke to the driver.
“How much farther we got to go?”

“Not far. Turnoff is just ahead.”

My blood ran cold. I tried to move, but I was on the floorboard of the vehicle and my captors had their feet on me. I
twisted my wrists.

“Stop squirming,” one of them said. “You mess up the
shine on my shoes, I’ll really give you something to be sorry
for.”

If I hadn’t been so scared, I might have laughed. Something to be sorry for? I had news for him. Right then I had
all the sorry I could handle.

We turned off the highway onto a rough dirt road.

I’d often wondered how I would die. I hoped it would be
in my own bed with my family around, not shot in the head
and dumped out in the middle of nowhere.

The car jerked to a halt, backed up, and turned around.

“Okay, Manny. Get the bozo out”

Humid air filled with the swampy stench of decomposing
animal and plant life rolled over me when they opened the
door. Rough hands jerked me out and stood me up. I was
blind and helpless, but I wasn’t about to stay still for them.
They were going to kill me, but at least I would be rolling on
the ground in an effort to get away from them. A futile
effort, but better than just standing and waiting for a slug.

Abruptly, the blindfold was yanked off my eyes.

The peripheral glow of the headlights showed a nattily
dressed man about my age. The shadows cast by the snapbrim of his hat hid his eyes, but not the cruel smile on his
thin lips. He shook his head. “You got no idea how lucky you
are, you little monkey. Stop snooping. You’ve had enough
warnings. Next time, you’ll be feeding the ‘gators.”

“Can it, Manny. We’re wasting time.”

I glanced in the direction of the voice. My heart almost
stopped when I recognized Sal Tonanno, supposedly a lieutenant in Joe Basco’s mob in New Orleans. I looked away
quickly, but myriad questions raced through my head. How
was Basco involved, and who tipped him I was working the
case?

Manny stared at me at moment longer, then following
Tonanno, stepped into the limo and slammed the door.

The powerful car sped away, leaving me standing in the
middle of a dirt road with a swamp on either side, my
mouth, hands, and feet all duct-taped.

After the lights of the car disappeared, I looked around.
Bullfrogs harrumped in a bassoon chorus from the darkness.
Suddenly, off to my left, an alligator roared.

It is no understatement to say that bellowing roar got my
attention instantly. I almost jumped out of my skin. Hastily,
I ripped the gag from my mouth and stared at my bound
hands. Sal and Manny had done a good job. My hands were
taped together so that I couldn’t move my fingers. Although
I had a pocketknife, it wouldn’t do me any good. But I had
my teeth.

The alligator bellowed again, closer this time.

Frantically, I grabbed the tape with my teeth and began
unwinding it, at the same taking short hops down the road
away from the ‘gator while casting anxious glances from the
corner of my eyes at the dark swamp. Within ten or fifteen
hops, I peeled the last of the tape away from my wrists, then
hastily unwound the duct tape from around my ankles.

I glanced around. The stars provided a bluish-white light,
enough to see the narrow road before me. In a trot, I headed
in the direction the limo had disappeared, leaving behind my
chorus of bullfrogs and alligators.

A mile or so down the winding road, I reached the highway and turned north. To the east, the sky was growing
lighter as a false dawn crept toward me.

Ten minutes later, I caught a ride into Vicksburg.

Though I’ve rubbed shoulders with members of the mob
while doing my job, I much prefer staying as far away from
them as I can. And this last experience with them reinforced
the wisdom of that predilection. On the other hand, I was
curious as to what the mob had to do with whatever was
going on with the Edneys.

Whatever it was, I figured I was close, otherwise, why the
strong-arm stuff? What was on someone’s agenda that
would be profitable enough for Joe Basco’s organization to
take a hand? And what did Manny mean when he used the
word `warnings?’ Was Basco behind the attempts on my
life?

The sun was rising when I got back in my room. I paused
before entering to examine the bullet hole in the door jamb.
The slug hit the jamb near the inside edge, splintering it.
Glancing over my shoulder into the thick undergrowth below,
I wondered if the shooter was a bad shot or a very good one.
Was this another attempt on my life or just a warning? And
who was responsible? Basco? Or one of the Edney boys?

I probed the hole. The slug was deep, too deep to worry
about now. I glanced around, studying the thick vegetation
below.

I booted up my computer and accessed my mail. Out of
the dozen or so e-mails, I spotted Eddie Dyson’s. I opened
the message. A few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place
when I read that the car carrier had been leased to Rebel
Trucking, the same company that owned the pickup driven
by the construction worker who barely missed me with a bag
of cement.

I planned to solicit Eddie to find out who owned Rebel
Trucking, but, like the thorough little snitch he was, Eddie
had already dug up the information. Rebel Trucking was a
corporation, and one name of the three directors leaped out
at me.

Joe Basco!

I had been right. He was behind the first two attempts on
my life, maybe even the brick through my window and the
Cadillac. I hesitated. Attempts? Maybe like Manny said,
they were warnings. If Joe wanted me dead, I’d be feeding
the alligators right now. So what was going on?

Staring out the window over the gallery, I wondered just
how Basco got involved. The answer was obvious. He had to
pick up the information from one of JW Edney’s boys, either
WR or Stewart. Other than Jack or Annebelle, no one else
knew I was in Vicksburg that first day.

After I left for Doc Raines that first day, one of them
could have called Basco, who then sent his boys to scare me
off. But what did he have at stake?

Thoroughly puzzled, I shut down the laptop and placed a
call to my high school pal, Danny O’Banion, Austin’s resident mobster. There was a lot of talk, a lot of speculation
about his connection with the Mafia, the Costa Nostra, the
Mexican Mafia. That was the talk although nothing had ever
been pinned on Danny. He had connections, and the truth is, I knew some of them, but trust me, their names would never
roll off my lips. That’s how he wanted it, and as far as I was
concerned, that’s how I also wanted it.