Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 06 - Extracurricular Murder (15 page)

He jerked the file open and began reading in a frustrated
monotone. “Patient severed his spinal cord at L Four and Five
in a motorcycle accident fourteen years ago. Post-operatively,
he underwent two years of intensive therapy, was released, confined to a wheelchair, and eventually the patient resumed his
fulltime teaching position.”

I saw a manila envelope in the folder. “Those the x-rays?”

With a disgusted grunt, Dr. Jeffcoat looked around at me. “I
suppose you want to see them.”

His curt response got under my skin. “Doc, I want to see
everything you have. If not here, then down at the station.” I
was bluffing, and I hoped he didn’t call my hand.

He snapped a dozen x-rays on the viewing screen. “Here”he said, pointing to the first-“is the initial injury.” He went on
to point out the same spot on five more x-rays. “And these last
two,” he added, “were shot just three months ago” He looked
at me. “You have any kind of medical background?”

“Not a bit, Doc. All I need is for you to show me on these
x-rays what keeps him from walking.”

He indicated the spinal column, which looked like a series
of tiny white spools stacked on top of each other. He pointed to
a gray cord. “This is the spinal cord. It runs down the lumbar
vertebrae”

“Lumbar vertebrae?”

He glanced at me, then turned back to the x-ray, shaking his
head wearily. “The backbone you call it” He indicated the
backbone several inches above the tailbone. “Right here,
between the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae, the spinal cord
is severed” He indicated the gray cord. “If you look closely,
you’ll see the separation.”

I squinted at the x-ray. I pointed to a collection of vague light
and dark images. “Right here?”

“Yes”

With a nod, I stepped back.

“I know you aren’t sure just what you’re looking at here, Mr.
Boudreaux, but take my word. Once the spinal cord is severed,
an individual loses all hope of bipedal ambulation.”

“Bipedal ambulation?” I frowned at him.

“Walking. This is Harper Weems’ condition, and Harper
Weems will never walk again.”

“Thanks, Doc. One more question, and I’m out of here. Was
this the accident where he suffered from amnesia?”

“No.” He glanced down at Weems’ records. “That was in
2000 or 2001. I didn’t treat him. He was up in Colorado visiting his twin brother. His brother nursed him through that period.” He glanced at the folder, then indicated the last two x-rays
on the viewing glass. “But, like I said, those two were made
three months ago.”

“Thanks, Doc.” I turned to leave, then hesitated. “You said
that last accident was in Colorado?”

“Yes. Denver.” He gave me a curious look. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. Just idle curiosity, Doc. That’s all.” I
was curious to know why Weems had left out the fact that his
brother was his twin. Were they identical or fraternal? That
might place an interesting skew on the investigation.

The winter sun had dropped behind the hills to the west, and
the temperature began to fall. I climbed in my Silverado, making a note to check on Harper Weems’ brother and inquire into
the relationship between Harp and Holderman.

Next stop, Perry Jacobs. I pulled out my notepad and looked
up his address. Shifting my pickup into gear, I headed for 476
Canyon Road.

I have never ceased to be amazed at the creativity land developers use in naming streets. There was no creek near Brown
Creek Trail, nor a terrace within miles of Jason Terrace Drive,
and Canyon Road was a straight street down the middle of the
flattest land around.

Jacobs’ house was a single garage dwelling with vinyl siding
in a neighborhood of single garage, vinyl-sided homes. About
what you would expect a schoolteacher could afford. Some
were L-shaped, some T-shaped, some I-shaped. Every other
house was flip-flopped in a futile effort to suggest diversity
among the floor plans.

The neighborhood was well-kept, probably older people
whose hobbies were gardening and mowing the yard. I pulled
into the driveway of number 476. 1 wasn’t sure what to expect. Jacobs had been belligerent, almost pugnacious at our last
meeting.

Jacobs answered the door, his sallow face and the dark rings
around his eyes reminding me of a Halloween mask. “Stinking
flu,” he muttered, staring listlessly at me through the screen
door.

The warmth of the house hit me, a heavy mixture of Vicks,
Nyquil, and whiskey. “I can come back.”

He shrugged. “Wife works the evening shift. Might as well
come on in. Unless you’re afraid you’ll get the flu.” He pushed
the screen open. The dark bags under his eyes hung like sagging hammocks. A thin gray beard covered his flopping jowls.
“I figured we’d covered everything the other day.” His remark
was anything but belligerent.

I followed him into a living room lit by three lamps and a TV.
“Almost. I only have a couple of points to clear up.”

He plopped in a worn leather recliner and turned down the
volume on the TV. The end table next to the recliner was covered with various medications, crumpled paper tissues, and a
bottle of cheap whiskey. The room smelled of the flu. I sat
across the room from him, perching on the edge of a floral
couch with threadbare cushions, operating on the premise that
the less I came in physical contact with anything in the house,
the less chance I had of contracting the flu.

Jacobs blew his nose and popped a couple of pills, washing
them down with a gulp of whiskey. He leaned back. “Shoot.”

I shot.

“How much money did you lose on the investment scheme
Holderman recommended?”

He simply stared at me, his dull eyes unseeing. After several moments, he released a long sigh. “So you found out about
that, huh?”

“Yeah. How did you figure on keeping something like this
quiet? You sell off the family home and put every cent you have
into a land deal that Holderman recommended. He bails out. The deal falls though. You lose everything.” I shook my head.
“Truth is, Jacobs. If I were the District Attorney, you’d be
booked so fast, your head would spin.”

I hesitated, waiting for his reaction. He remained motionless.

His silence puzzled me. “What about your contract? You
make all that up?”

After a moment, he shook himself from his lethargy and
focused on me. He had the eyes of a beaten man. “No. I did
threaten George. He came back with the threat to deny me a
contract. His appraisals were the means he planned to use to get
rid of me.”

“And?”

He dropped his head and stared at his battered hands folded
in his lap. “After a few months when I saw he was serious, I
begged him not to.” Tears filled his eyes. “I actually begged that
no good … well, I begged him for my job. Begged, and that’s
when he told me we’d talk more about it after the PTA meeting.” He paused. His tone pleaded for me to understand. “Why
would I kill him when there was a chance he was going to let
me keep my job? Huh? You understand what I’m saying?”

I stared into the pleading eyes of a frightened man. “From
what I learned, Holderman got out of the scheme about a year
before it folded. He tried to talk you into getting out. Is that
right?”

Slowly, Perry Jacobs nodded. “Yeah.” He drew a deep
breath. “The truth is, I just got greedy. I saw him step out with
a little over a half-million profit. I figured I could do the same,
so I hung in there.”

“Half million?” I thumbed through my notes. “According to
Waldron, Holderman didn’t make any kind of profit. He
claimed that Holderman lost over half his initial investment.”

Jacobs stared at me in disbelief. “How do you know that?”

“I told you. Waldron. The real estate agent.” I jabbed at the
notebook with my finger.

“Waldron.” He said the word as if he was massaging it in wonder. A quizzical frown knit his forehead. “Waldron said
that, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What? What don’t you understand?”

“You don’t suppose,” he said, speaking more to himself than
me. “No.” His eyes took on a faraway look.

“Suppose what? Come on, Jacobs. Suppose what?”

Suddenly, he came back to the present. “Huh? Oh, oh ” He
chuckled. “Sorry. I was just thinking. George had an ego. A big
ego. You know, the braggard could have done just that.”

“Just what?” I was growing impatient.

He leaned forward. “I didn’t think about him losing money.
The way he talked, I figured he’d come out ahead, but now it
makes sense. Understand, I’m not saying this is what happened,
but he was the kind of man who hated to admit he lost out on
anything. When he first approached me about the deal with Lee,
I told him he was a sucker for taking that kind of risk. Now, I
know he made a profit at first. So maybe, when his investment
began slipping away, he bailed out, and deliberately kept the
truth from me so I wouldn’t rub it in.”

I understood his point, convoluted though it was. “Maybe so.”

Jacobs gave a short laugh. “Oh, no question. That’s the kind
of thing George Holderman would do.”

“Still, you’re the only one besides Kim Nally who had the
opportunity and motive to kill Holderman.”

His eyes narrowed. His face grew hard, then relaxed. He
leaned back and reached for the nose spray. After dosing both
nostrils, he said, “I see where you’re coming from. I’d probably see it the same way. All I can tell you is that I didn’t kill
him.”

Regardless of how bad it looked for Perry Jacobs, I didn’t
believe he was the killer. Still, I couldn’t prove he wasn’t. There
was opportunity and motive, one heck of a motive.

My breath caught in my throat, and I jerked to a halt when I
reached my pickup. I don’t know what infuriated me most, the
bullet hole in the windshield on the passenger’s side, or the
note under the windshield that read: NEXT TIME YOU’LL BE
BEHIND THE WINDSHIELD.

Crumpling the note in my fist, I looked up and down the
street. There was no trace of activity. Muttering a curse, I
jammed the note in my pocket and yanked the door open. The
slug had passed through the rear window also.

For several minutes, I sat motionless behind the wheel, staring out the window. I tried to shift my focus from the anger
boiling in my blood back to the case at hand. I went back over
my list of suspects.

For all practical purposes, I hadn’t proven anyone guilty, nor
had I eliminated anyone completely from suspicion. Harper
Weems was a long shot, and I was halfway kicking my own tail
for bothering with him, but what if his brother was an identical
twin? What if he and his brother had switched places that
night? But, why? What motive could Weems have had?

I figured I was pushing the envelope on Weems, but sometimes you pushed, and it paid off. Other times … well, you
pushed and nothing happened.

Seebell and Holderman had motive, but to reach George
Holderman, they would have had to sprout wings. And then
there was Perry Jacobs and Kim Nally, both of whom had
motive and opportunity. On the other hand, if Frances
Holderman supported the PE teacher’s allegations concerning
the abortion, that would take Nally’s motive off the table.

I shook my head. “You’re batting a zero, Boudreaux. You got
one dead man, six suspects, and you still don’t have a glimmer
as to who whacked Holderman. Or why.”