Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg (18 page)

Danny and I had a history going back to the eleventh
grade when we scrambled through a few scrapes together.
Then Danny left school before his senior year. Naturally,
we drifted apart, but those months during our junior year
bonded us. One year I ran into him at one of the annual
football games between my alma mater, UT, and Oklahoma
up in Dallas. We hit each other on the shoulder, lied a little,
sipped from his silver flask a lot, and then went our separate
ways.

Danny was inaccessible to most, but he always made an
exception in my case because of our history.

“Hey, Tony. How you been doing? Long-time no see”

We shot the breeze a few minutes, laughing over old times,
reflecting on one of the times we worked together in solving
a murder at the Chalk Hills Distillery out west of Austin.

“You must have a reason for the call, Tony.” Danny laughed.
“Or was it just that you missed my bubbling personality?”

I laughed with him. “No. I need to pick your brain, Danny.
Joe Basco. You ever heard of him?”

The laughter fled his voice, replaced with a stiff wariness.
“Why? Something going on?”

“No. Not with me. I don’t want to have anything to do
with Joe Basco”

He grunted. “Well, at least you’re not as dumb as I
thought. So what’s up?”

“All I really want to know is if he has any plans up around
Vicksburg, Mississippi?”

“Joe’s got plans everywhere within five hundred miles of
New Orleans.”

I sensed Danny was trying to skirt my question. “So, he
could have something going on around Vicksburg?”

Danny hesitated. “Yeah. I suppose he could.”

The circle Danny was taking me in was growing larger and larger. I decided to take him into my confidence. “Look,
Danny. I know he is involved with a family named Edney in
Vicksburg. The old man is dead. They say it was an accident, but I have evidence that makes me think it was not an
accident.”

“Careful, Tony. Basco don’t take to being accused of
murder.”

“I’m not accusing him or his boys. I think one of the
Edneys did it. If Joe’s dealing with any of them, it could rub
off on him if I’m right”

Danny remained silent for several moments. Suspicion
edged his voice when he replied. “Why are you looking out
for Basco?”

I didn’t want to string out the story about the cement and
Eddie Dyson’s information, so I simply replied, “Long story,
but to make it short, I just got back from a ride with a couple of his boys, Sal Tonanno and one called Manny. They
left no doubt in my mind what would happen if I continued
my investigation.” I forced a weak attempt at a laugh. “And
to be perfectly candid, I’m not particularly fond of the idea
they suggested, so I want Joe to know that I’m working for
him, not against him. Whatever he has going on around
Vicksburg is not part of what I’m looking for. I’m just trying to find out who killed JW Edney.”

“How’d you come to know Sal Tonanno?”

“I don’t. I recognized him from his picture on TV.”

Danny remained silent once again. “Okay. I won’t guarantee nothing, but I’ll get word to Joe”

“Right away, Danny?”

“Yeah, pal. Soon as we hang up”

“Thanks. I owe you”

“Take me to dinner when you get back. I’m hungry for a
good barbecue.”

Danny worked fast, and Joe Basco worked fast.

After I showered and shaved, I took a short nap. When I left the house at noon, I found my friends from the night
before parked beside my Silverado. The rear window hissed
down and Sal Tonanno looked up at me. In a cold, matterof-fact voice, he said, “Mr. Basco says if you queer his deal,
you’re a dead man”

“What deal?”

He didn’t reply. The window started up.

“Listen, I’ve got to know just how far I can go, or what I
can’t touch. What deal?”

The window closed, but the car didn’t move. Moments
later, the window hissed back down. Tonanno stared up at
me. “Mr. Basco plans to build a casino south of Vicksburg
on the new highway.”

I gulped, but managed a jerky nod, and watched as the
limo pulled away.

Two or three pieces of the puzzle popped together, but not
the way I would have chosen. If Basco was planning to build
a casino, he had to have land. Was it possible he was interested in the Edney land south of Vicksburg, land through
which the government was planning on constructing a new
interstate?

That made sense to me. A thousand acres were more than
enough for a sprawling complex of casinos, hotels, restaurants, fueling stations, and various other attendant businesses.

A chill ran up my spine. What would Basco do to me if
my theory was right? If my theory was true, the will would
be invalid. Abigail Collins and the Madison Parish
Ornithological Society would have their bird sanctuary, and
Joe Basco would not have his coveted casino.

I whistled softly, doubting very seriously if Joe Basco
would appreciate the ecological benefit that a bird sanctuary
would provide to that part of the state as much as he would
a new gambling casino.

For a few worried moments, I questioned the wisdom of
continuing the investigation now that Basco was involved.
Still, there was Jack. Besides, I told myself in an effort to put a little stiffener in my backbone, you can’t tell how the cards
will fall until the hand is dealt.

Then another thought hit me. Why would Stewart and WR
put the land on the market if they had a deal set up with
Basco?

Were they trying to mislead someone? And if so, who? Or
were they, as Stewart had admitted, simply trying to get JW
to see the value of the property?

I took a deep breath and released it. I hated leaving unanswered questions behind because they could come back to
haunt me. Of course there was always the chance I would
find the answer down the road.

Now, I figured my next step was to find out which of the
Edneys conspired with Goggins to change the will. At first,
I had figured Stewart since he was the one who commissioned Bayou Realty to sell the property.

But now with WR in the picture, either brother could have
sent the bombers and the shooter after me, and put Basco on
my tail. No way I could see one of them implicated without
the other.

Goggins, I had nailed. There was no wisdom in questioning him any further. The wrong word could make him
suspicious.

Absently, I wandered toward the burned-out hull of the
workshop while I reprised my theory in my head. Stewart
and WR had somehow contacted Basco about the land; then
altered the will; murdered the old man; and finally after probate, planned to pocket his share of $23 million, maybe
more.

A neat little plot.

Now all I had to do was prove it.

I decided to start with Dorene Edney, three-time ex-wife
of WR Edney.

Dorene Edney lived on Mission Street. A petite woman in
her early fifties, she stood around five-two and maybe a hundred pounds. Model-thin, she was stylishly dressed in black
pedal pushers and a puffy white blouse with the collar
turned up. Her brown hair made her look as if she had just
stepped out of a beauty salon. But beneath the carefully
applied makeup, she was hard.

Her black eyes studied me suspiciously as I explained the
purpose of my visit. When I concluded, she scrutinized me
another moment or so, then invited me in. She led the way
into the living room, indicating an upholstered chair across
the coffee table from the couch. “There isn’t much I don’t
know about that man,” she said, folding a leg under her as
she lowered herself onto the couch. “We’re divorced.” She
smiled wryly. “For the third time.”

“I know. WR told me”

“So, you think he killed John?”

I had to admire her bluntness. A straight-to-the-point
woman. “I don’t know, Mrs. Edney. All-”

“Ms.,” she said, interrupting.

“Sorry. Ms. Edney. Like I was saying, I know he owes the
bank almost a quarter of a million, and he tried to talk his father into selling the land. Do you think he’s capable of
killing his father?”

She reached for a cigarette and held it up to me, her gesture asking me if I minded. I shook my head. She lit it, and
in a chilling tone replied, “In a heartbeat. All WR cares
about is money. He’d go to any lengths for a buck”

“Did he ever hint at anything like that while you were
married?”

Her reply disappointed me. “No. In all fairness to the
jerk,” she replied, shaking her head. “Nothing like that” She
inhaled deeply and blew out a stream of smoke toward the
ceiling. “How much did John leave WR?”

“The four will split around twenty, maybe twenty-three
million.”

She raised her eyebrows. I could see the calculator humming. “That’s around six million each.”

“Yeah” I chuckled. “Before taxes. Afterward, maybe
four.”

Dorene Edney shook her head. “It won’t last WR long.
That man has a knack for bad investments. That’s why he’s
in the hole he’s in now.”

“What kind of investments?”

With a weary shrug, she said, “Oh, the typical. Stock
market, fly-by-night schemes, you name it. He’s tried them
all, looking for the pot of gold. He never did find it.”

“What about Stewart and Annebelle?”

She looked me directly in the eye. “The whole family is
messed up, Mr. Boudreaux. Nothing any of those people
would do could surprise me. There was never a holiday,
never a family get-together that wasn’t ruined by a fight.
And I’ll tell you something else. John Wesley Edney might
have given the appearance of a holy Christian, but he stirred
up as much trouble as the kids. The one I felt sorry for was
Annebelle. You knew she had gone to live with an aunt”

“Yeah. They told me.”

With a sigh of frustration, she continued. “Then the aunt died. That was a bad break for Annebelle because she had to
move back in with John and the boys”

“What was so bad about that?” I remembered WR and
Stewart’s explanation. I was curious about Dorene’s.

“She had to stand against the three of them. Those men
acted like she didn’t exist. It was a man’s house, man’s interest. Hunting, fishing, cars-I doubt if John ever hugged his
daughter, much less told her he loved her. As soon as she
graduated from high school, she moved out” She gave a
terse grunt. “I imagine Stewart and WR were surprised the
old man included her in the will.”

If you only knew how much. “I guess you could say that,”
I replied simply.

Using the cigarette she held between two extended fingers
as a pointer, she gestured to the neat little bungalow around
her. A single tear formed in the corner of one eye. “This
isn’t much, but even the cheapest piece of furniture in this
room is worth more to me than that family. You want to
know how bad it really was? It was so bad that even the six
million is not enough to persuade me to attempt a reconciliation with WR”

I remained silent.

Tears gathered in her eyes. “The truth is I really loved him
at first. I wanted to be a part of him, but he kept pushing me
away. As an innocent young girl, I’d always been taught that
marriage was a blending of two souls into a single spirit
stronger than either. Not WR. He believed a woman was put
on this earth for man’s comfort, pleasure, a clean house, and
dinner on time.” She took a deep drag of her cigarette and
laughed bitterly. “By the time the third divorce rolled
around, I was just as distant and callous as WR” She arched
an eyebrow. “Constant rejection will make you a hard,
unfeeling person, Mr. Boudreaux. Did you know that?”

I had the strangest feeling that she had managed to peer
deep into my soul. “Yes, ma,am. That’s what I’ve heard.”

Later, I sat in my truck studying the small bungalow,
going over our conversation in my head. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. And I couldn’t help thinking about Janice
and me. Was that what I was doing now, rejecting her? Was
what I considered a desire for control simply her effort to
build a single spirit stronger than either of us? Had I created the problem in my own mind?