Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (20 page)

I suppressed a smile. `The girl’ was thirty-eight years
old. I figured I knew why A.D. took Giselle on the trips,
to salve his guilty conscience. Only Patric and I knew, and
I would never reveal the secret he had shared with me.
“Okay. So they don’t take her on trips anymore. I still don’t
understand all the secrecy.”

Grandma Ola set her empty demitasse cup on the end
table with a sharp click. “I think you say the boy is smart,
Leota. He don’t act smart to me, just like all them other
men in our family.”

Mom shushed Grandma. She turned back to me. With
only the patience a mother can muster, she said. “Tony,
when you was a boy, you hear talk about lolande and the
kind of person she was. Remember?”

“Yeah.” I extended my arm and fluttered my hand. “All us
kids joked about it, but we never paid any attention. Truth is,
we didn’t know what we were talking about back then.”

Janice tugged at my arm. I read the question in her wide
eyes and nodded. She slowly released her breath and shook
her head.

“Maybe you don’t then,” Mom added. “But you do now.
And not just lolande.”

I stared at her, not quite certain I understood her implication.

I can remember professors in my education courses at
the University of Texas explaining to all of us wannabe
teachers intent on saving the world that if a child didn’t
want to learn, nothing you could do could force him.

I didn’t believe it then. Later, I learned the hard way that
was one of the few educational hypotheses that did possess
an element of truth, unlike most of the erudite-sounding
but substantively challenged theories proposed by educational wizards trying to keep their jobs.

At that moment, I was the unruly child who refused to
learn. The meaning behind Mom’s words bounced off the
concrete wall of denial I had instantly erected. “W-what
are you saying?”

In a calm, soft voice, she replied, “I say exactly what
you think, boy.”

I stammered. “I-Iolande, and-and Bonni?”

Mom and Grandma just looked at me as if they were
simply watching the evening news. I knew from their studied silence they were waiting for me to continue.

“And Giselle?”

They continued to look at me.

“What about A.D.? He know about all that stuff?”

Neither of them spoke. Their silence answered my question more emphatically than a brass band. “So, what happened? Five years ago, I mean. You never heard?”

Grandma Ola snorted. “Leota, your boy, he not only
dumb, he deaf.” She looked at me. “Your mama, she tell
you, we don’t know. The trips together, they stop. Sometimes, lolande and A.D., they go, but Bonni don’t go. Giselle, she never go. We don’t know what happened.”

I was speechless. I don’t know if it was because of the
shocking revelation just revealed to me or the fact I
couldn’t make myself believe such a lifestyle could belong
to someone in my family. Then I remembered the game of
blindman’s bluff Uncle Patric and I had played. That was
exactly what he was trying to tell me.

Numbed, I turned and made my way across the parlor to
the couch on which Janice and I had slept the night before.
I glanced at the French doors. The snakes still lay curled
between the base of the French door and the remaining
storm door.

Strange how a person adjusts to that which once was
unthinkable. I stared at the snakes, unperturbed, as if it
were a normal phenomenon that a tangle of snakes slept
next to every French door.

“What do you think, Tony?” Janice lowered her voice
and glanced over her shoulder. “Do you really believe that
about Giselle and the others?” She shook her head. “I don’t.
Giselle doesn’t seem like that? Does she to you?”

“No.” I leaned back against the couch and closed my
eyes. “She doesn’t, but even if it is true, I don’t see any
connection between it and the murders. I don’t see what it
has to do with anything.”

“Maybe she hated A.D. and lolande.”

I opened one eye and peered skeptically at her. “For
simply not taking her on a trip to New Orleans?”

Janice ducked her head and grinned sheepishly. “Does
sound silly, doesn’t it?”

Leaning forward, I stared at the floor. “I still can’t believe what they’re suggesting. I don’t know Bonni that
well, but Giselle, I’ve known her all her life. Sure, she’s
always been a tomboy, but then most country girls are.
She’s a good, decent person, and one of these days, she’ll
find the right man.”

I started to say more, but at that moment, Leroi emerged
from the kitchen. He held his hand up for a high five as he
approached. “Hey, Cuz. You staying dry?”

“Get a chair. I want to ask you something.”

Janice glanced around. “Where’s Sally?”

Leroi nodded to the kitchen as he slid a wingback up to
the coffee table in front of us. “Getting us some coffee.
She’ll be along.” He plopped down in the chair just as
another wall of rain and blast of wind struck the old house.
He shivered. “She’s moving faster now. Another few hours,
and it’ll be over.”

“The weather, but not us here. I figure it’ll take a couple
days to get out after the storm.”

Curious, Janice asked, “What about your cars and pickups?”

With a half-grin, half-frown, Leroi replied. “I suppose
they’ll be stuck here until the bridge is repaired. I sure hope
it doesn’t take too long.”

I growled. “If the repairs follow the typical Louisiana
efficiency, it’ll probably take six months.”

“Or a year,” Leroi added, his tone thick with sarcasm.

We both laughed.

I changed the subject. “You ever hear anyone talk about
A.D. and lolande taking regular trips to New Orleans?”

He stared at me with a blank look on his face. “Huh?”

“Trips. A.D. and lolande. You hear of them taking regular trips to New Orleans?”

“Sure. Five or six times a year as I remember. They’ve
done it for the last twenty-five years or so if my memory
is right. Why?”

“You ever hear any of the older family members talking
about why they were always taking those trips?”

A puzzled frown wrinkled his forehead. “No. Not that I
recollect. Not specifically, anyway.” He glanced over his
shoulder, and a conspiratorial grin played over his lips. He
lowered his voice and leaned forward. “But, from the way
Pa and the other men laughed and raised their eyebrows
when they talked about it around the poker table, I don’t
figure A.D. and lolande were going down there just to visit
a new church or something.” He shook his head. “Hey,
Cuz, you know New Orleans. Sin City. City of Debauchery,
House of the Rising Sun and all that.”

Janice and I exchanged knowing looks.

“Why? What’s the deal with these trips?” Leroi leaned
back in his chair.

I made an effort to dismiss the question. “Oh, nothing.
Mom had mentioned they had taken some trips. I’d forgotten about them, that’s all.”

Sally came up, carrying a tray with four coffees. She
forced a laugh. “Time has just run together for me. I don’t know if it’s coffee time or not, but the coffee was there,
the cups were there, and I was there, so I poured us some.”

We welcomed the hot, rich coffee.

Leroi sipped it. “Hey,” he exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“This stuff is better than toking up.”

I looked up at him, surprised.

He chuckled. “A figure of speech, Cuz. A figure of
speech.”

Sally joined in. “Don’t worry, Tony. This man of mine
wouldn’t be alive today if he messed with that stuff. I’d
have seen to that, I guarantee.”

Leroi laughed again. “And she would have. Trust me.”

Sally turned to Janice. “Tony said your family owned a
distillery in Austin.”

Flashing a bright smile, Janice replied. “Yes. We….

My thoughts drifted from their conversation back to the
problems at hand. While there was more than ample motive
for A.D.‘s murder, a motive for Ozzy and lolande was too
nebulous to pin down.

Still, there had to be a connection between the three.

I pondered the trips to New Orleans. I wondered if there
were any means by which I could learn more details of the
trips. Maybe the connection was in them.

My laptop was still on the kitchen cabinet. Even if I could
get out to my server to search for an answer, I didn’t figure
the battery on my cell phone would last long enough to find
that for which I was searching. I had another battery in my
Silverado, but no way would I venture beyond these walls
until the storm had passed and the water receded, taking with
it the creatures camped out on the veranda and steps.

But, if the cell phone could keep power for just a few
minutes, I knew to whom I could go for help.

I wanted information on two subjects, the contents of
A.D. Thibodeaux’s will, and any records of trips to New
Orleans by A.D. Thibodeaux and guests. I then hooked my
phone to the laptop.

Whenever I found myself in a bind for inaccessible or impossible to obtain information, I went to the web page
of Eddie Dyson, computer whiz, entrepreneur, and at one
time, Austin’s resident stool pigeon.

A few years earlier, Eddie had left behind the dark corners of sleazy bars and greasy money for the green glow
of computers and credit cards. He had pulled onto the fast
lane of the information superhighway and was quickly becoming a player in the game.

Any information I couldn’t find, he could. There were
only two catches if you dealt with Eddie. First, you never
asked him how he did it, and second, he only accepted
credit cards for payment.

Sometimes his charges were expensive, sometimes reasonable, never cheap. But, failure was not in his vocabulary.

Overhead, the lights flickered, once, twice, then went
out. Cries and exclamations filled the darkened room. I
blinked against the sudden darkness as my eyes grew accustomed to the shadows cast by the faint light from each
of the small squares in the storm shutters.

Uncle Henry grumbled. “Blasted lights. And that does it
for the radio too.”

Leroi looked around. “The generator couldn’t be out of
gas already. Why, there was several hundred gallons there.”

I glanced down at my laptop and cell phone, our last
contacts with the outside world. For a moment, I considered
shutting them down to save what charges remained in their
batteries in case we should need them in an emergency.

But, I was already hooked up and ready to go. Another
minute wouldn’t rock the foundations of the world, and
even if there were an emergency, no outside aid could come
in. We were on our own, cell phone or no cell phone.

At the end of my requests to Eddie, I added a brief message, instructing him to call me precisely at three o’clock
that afternoon whether he had the information or not. I
added that my cell phone batteries were only minutes from
dropping dead.

Crossing my fingers, I sent the message into cyberspace.

As long as the reassuring glow of the overhead lights
filled the house, most of us handled the storm with a fairly
casual aplomb. With the darkness, though, a gloomy wariness, a shadowy fear, replaced that nonchalant assurance,
despite the dim glow of coal oil lamps and the single Coleman lantern struggling to dispel the shadows filling the cavernous mansion.

Janice and I sat on the couch, staring at the storm beyond
the French doors. She had slipped her arms through mine
and rested her head on my shoulder. Neither of us spoke,
each lost in his own thoughts.

The discovery of the secret stairs had punched holes in
my theory that there were only four who could have perpetrated the murders.

On the other hand, each of the four had sound motives
and the opportunity, evidence that would carry a lot of
weight with the state police. I still couldn’t figure why the
snake was moved.

I glanced at Leroi, who sat with his wife and his father
near the kitchen door. Was Leroi capable of three murders?
He had the motive. Money. While he still had to pay off
the loan to A.D.‘s estate, he wouldn’t have to worry about
a forced partnership. There was still the oil property from forty years earlier. And he had the opportunity. I could see
the screwdriver, the poison, but try as I could, there was
no way I could visualize Leroi messing around with a cottonmouth water moccasin.

Then there was Bailey. The hard proof nailed him. Both
A.D.‘s money clip and money were found in his possession.
And he also had the opportunity. He admitted being in the
room. Sure, he had been drunk. He could have killed A.D.
during a drunken blackout, but three blackouts? That was
what bothered me. He was too guilty looking.

A fairly solid circumstantial case could be built against
Ezeline Thibodeaux. She hated the life Bailey provided her.
She hated A.D. She hated being poor. She hated having to
shop in thrift stores. People have killed for less.

She had the opportunity, and she had the motive. If A.D.
were dead, maybe her husband would share in his brother’s
estate. Soon I would know whether or not Bailey was in
A.D.‘s will. If he were, and Ezeline was behind the murders, she could very well end up with the estate, since the
majority of the hard evidence pointed to Bailey.