Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (21 page)

Then there was Marie Venable. She had gone upstairs,
and she could have been frightened enough over the prospect of A.D. taking over part of the farm that she might
have killed him. And even poisoned Ozzy. But not the cottonmouth.

Those fat, coppery-black serpents with the ridged back
were creatures straight from hell. I couldn’t believe any of
the suspects would have attempted to murder someone with
a cottonmouth.

The only one in our entire family who could handle a
cottonmouth was Giselle.

Which surprised no one. When we were kids, she knew
more about animals and the woods than any of us. And, I
reminded myself, she could have taken the secret stairs to
the third floor.

That would have provided her the opportunity. But motive?

I paused, wondering. Patric said she didn’t know A.D.
was her father. Was he certain she didn’t know? Would it
be motive enough if she learned the truth, and as a result,
killed A.D.? Was a thirty-eight-year-old secret motive
enough to kill someone? I didn’t think so.

And why lolande? Unless it was something about the
trips. Or Ozzy. Poor idiot Ozzy was no harm to anyone
except himself. What possible reason would she have for
poisoning him?

I heard someone talking, but I paid no attention. I was
too absorbed in my own thoughts. Suddenly, someone
shook my arm. “Tony?”

I looked up. “Huh? What?”

It was Uncle Henry. He pointed to my laptop. “Can you
find out on that thing what the storm is doing?”

My first impulse was to refuse. I wanted to save the
battery, but on second thought, I agreed. “Sure. Let’s take
a look.”

After a few minutes of searching, we found a weather
station in Florida that was maintaining the status of the
hurricane. As we had expected, the eye had moved past
and was quickly disintegrating. The storm cut west of
Baton Rouge, leaving behind fifteen to twenty inches of
rain and thousands of snapped trees, downed power lines,
smashed homes, and flooded cities.

From the graphics, it appeared the last of the rain bands
should move north of us by midnight.

Several of the younger children had gathered around the
laptop, the only display of graphics in the house. Accustomed to a daily dose of video, going cold turkey was hard
for them. “Can’t you leave it on?” one asked as I started
shutting down.

“He can’t, dummy,” another said. “He’s on battery. It’ll
run down and then we’ll really be stuck.”

I slipped the cell phone in my pocket. I didn’t want to
take a chance on one of those video-starved youngsters going online and running the batteries down. For a moment, I considered removing the laptop battery, but decided
against it. I shut the machine down and placed it on the
end table.

“Back in a minute,” Leroi said, rising. “I see Pa over
there.”

I grunted and leaned back on the couch, glad for the
opportunity to run back over the information I had compiled, hoping that perhaps I might stumble onto a piece I
had overlooked.

Sally and Janice continued their conversation.

I glanced up the stairs. On impulse I rose and borrowed
the flashlight from Uncle Henry. I wanted to take another
look at Ozzy and A.D.‘s rooms.

I had no idea what I was looking for. I had thoroughly
photographed the rooms earlier, covering every angle, but
on the theory that something is always overlooked, I
wanted to make another effort. Perhaps I had seen something that was innocuous at the time, but pertinent now.

Perhaps.

I’d been in A.D.‘s room maybe five minutes when I
heard the creak beyond the wall. Before I discovered the
secret stairwell, I would have discounted the noise as old
house settling or the wind shoving it around, but now, a
third possibility had arisen.

Someone could be watching though the hole in the wall.

I resisted the impulse to make a mad dash for the hidden
door in the closet. I knew by the time I reached the closet,
whoever was in the passageway would be back down in
the kitchen and into the parlor. Plus I would be giving away
the one advantage I held by knowing of the secret passage.

Another blast of wind rocked the old house. The walls
creaked. I grinned sheepishly and shook my head. My
imagination was running away with me.

I took my time, going over the room, taking care to avoid
the smeared spatters on the poker table and the dried blood
on the floor. I focused the beam of light on A.D.‘s expensive luggage. Memories flooded back.

Uncle A.D. had always made an effort to be larger than
life, louder than life, and more daring than life. When we
were just kids, Leroi and I looked on in envy as he constantly displayed his wealth with expensive boots, fancy
stitched western suits, flamboyant automobiles, and an ostentatious mansion too big for anyone except for his ego
or a herd of Louisiana Brahmas.

Strangely enough, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
I swept the beam of light back toward the door, then hesitated. I eased the beam back, settling on a slip of paper on
the floor.

Had it been there earlier? I didn’t remember seeing it. I
started to reach for it, but I remembered the eyes watching
me. I’d come back later.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled when I heard
the creak again. I spoke loudly enough to be heard through
the wall. “Nothing here. I’ll try Ozzy’s room.”

An idea struck me as I left A.D.‘s room-a crazy, idiotic
idea, the kind you see in the movies. The creaking might
have been just my imagination, but I decided if I were
going to make a fool of myself, I might as well do it up
right. After all, I’d be the only one who would know.

I studied Ozzy’s room carefully, making a show of leaning close to the empty whiskey glass and bottle of bourbon
and shining the beam of light on them closely.

Taking my time, I pored over the room. Nothing, but I
didn’t let whoever was watching know. Keeping my back
to the peephole, I focused the beam on the floor at my feet.
“Umm,” I muttered. Then I uttered what I hoped would be
the coup de grace. “What do you know.”

I squatted. “Sure didn’t see that before,” I said, staring
at the round beam on the floor. “Could be important.” I
pulled my handkerchief from my pocket and made a show
of picking up an object. I leaned forward as if to study the
item.

Carefully folding the handkerchief, I half turned so whoever was behind the wall could see me slip the handkerchief behind the disk in my shirt pocket. “Need to keep this for
the police,” I muttered.

I resisted the urge to throw myself into the melodrama I
had created. But, as I left the room, I couldn’t resist patting
the pocket in which I had stuffed the handkerchief.

Actually, I didn’t know if anyone were really watching,
or if it were the storm wreaking havoc with my imagination. After all, three days in the middle of a hurricane with
a killer running loose in a house covered with snakes will
turn anyone’s imagination into an LSD nightmare.

Before heading downstairs, I slipped back up into A.D.‘s
room and retrieved the slip of paper. I held it under the
beam of light. It was a sales slip from Carpenter’s Thrift
Store, Eunice, Louisiana. One word and a set of figures
were scribbled on it. “Blouse, $2.75.”

For several seconds, I stared at the sales slip. I didn’t
remember seeing it when we took the pictures, but I’d have
to take another look at the shots. I laid my fingers on the
disk in my shirt pocket. Regardless of what the pictures
revealed, the presence of the sales slip blew away Ezeline’s
assertion that she had not been in A.D.‘s room.

Now I began to wonder if perhaps behind that sweet,
domestic housewife persona crouched a calculating, coldblooded killer. After all, she could have planted the money
clip and the wad of bills herself while poor old Bailey
flopped on the couch downstairs and drank himself into a
stupor. But then why would she pitch such a fit when she
learned I was going to search his room? Simply an act to
remove her further from suspicion?

I jammed the slip of paper in my pocket and headed
downstairs.

Outside, the howling of the wind and the battering of the
rain appeared to be slackening. As I reached the top of the
stairs overlooking the parlor, a few beams of gray light had
penetrated the dark room.

Sally and Janice were nowhere around. I glanced at my
watch. A few minutes until three. Almost time for Eddie to call. I plopped down on the couch and slid the laptop in
my lap. Something felt odd about the computer. I couldn’t
put my finger on it, but the little portable seemed different.
Puzzled, I turned it over.

The battery was missing.

On impulse, I glanced around, halfway expecting to spot
it on the end table or on the couch, but it was nowhere to
be seen. I studied the computer. The safety clip securing
the battery had been removed. Someone had deliberately
taken the battery. And that someone had not wanted me to
contact Eddie Dyson.

Frowning, I scanned the room. Everyone appeared occupied with his own concerns. Whoever had taken the battery could not have known I instructed Eddie to contact me
on my cell phone. I grimaced. Whoever? There was no
whoever. Leroi was the only one who knew I had made a
contact online. I shook my head. I still refused to believe
Leroi was behind the three deaths.

With the battery missing, I was positive now that the
killer had been watching from the secret passage. How
could I force him to reveal himself?

Janice still had not returned. I looked at my watch. Five
after three. Eddie was late. I checked to make sure the cell
phone was on. “Come on, Eddie,” I muttered. “Come on.”

Across the parlor, Uncle Bailey, arms slung wide, lay
sprawled on a couch. I looked for my father, but he was
nowhere to be seen.

Beyond the couch, several youngsters stood on tiptoe,
peering through the glass insert in one of the storm doors.

A ray of sunlight shot through the insert, painting a small
square on the wooden floor. Cheers erupted from the
youngsters.

The sudden ringing of the cell phone startled me. I fumbled for it. “Yeah. Eddie?” He was breaking up so I moved
closer to an outside wall. The reception improved from garbled blurping to irregular static. “You find the stuff?”

“Naturally. What do you want first, the will or the New
Orleans trips?”

“The will. Was it hard to get it?”

He chuckled. “Piece of cake. That Bailey Thibodeaux
you mentioned. He’s in it. The old man’s two kids get most
of it. This Bailey guy gets a hundred G’s. Some broad
named lolande Thibodeaux gets a quarter of a million.
There’s a survivor clause saying whoever is left ends up
with it all.” He paused. “Got it?”

My head reeled from the implications of the information.
“Yeah. What about the other?”

“I don’t know if it’s what you want, but here it is. I
found records of trips for only the last five years. Hope
that’s enough.” He proceeded to provide dates and destinations for the trips. For the most part, the details were
what I expected to hear, until he threw me for the proverbial loop. “Next week, that dude named in the will, Bailey?”

“What about him?”

“Well, him and a woman named … ah, Ezeline? Anyway, they have a trip booked to New Orleans, and then
from there, to Orlando, Florida.”

I hesitated, surprised. The information blew my little
Ezeline theory out the window. Unless-I had a thought.
Could she have been devious enough to set up the trip with
Bailey while at the same time planning to blame A.D.‘s
murder on him?

“Tony! You still there?”

Eddie’s voice jerked me back to the present. “Yeah.
Sorry.”

“You heard what I said?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Eddie. I heard. That’s him. Ezeline is his
wife. That all?”

If I thought he had tossed me a neat little puzzle before,
he now tied me up with a dandy Gordian knot.

“One more. Same place as the others. New Orleans. Next
month. The Paramount Hotel. One of them is named in the will. Bonni Thibodeaux. The other is someone named Giselle Melancon.”

Bonni? Giselle?

I was stunned. Before I had a chance to question him
further, my phone shut off. The battery was dead.

All I could do was gape at my cell phone. Bonni and
Giselle?

The bark of the cornel tree grew tighter in the knot.

To solve his problem, Alexander the Great had slashed
the cornel bark knot with his sword. My brain didn’t work
that fast, but the truth slowly appeared. Like a swamp fog
parting to reveal a safe path through the water oaks and
bald cypress, the turmoil and confusion of so many bits
and pieces tumbling through my head vanished, leaving in
their place an unlikely theory that staggered my mind. Yet,
dozens of loose ends suddenly had meaning. The ham. The
library. The tank tops. The receipt from Carpenter’s. Even
the money clip and the roll of bills. Now I understood
where they fit and what they meant.

Still, a part of me refused to believe what lay before my
eyes. A part of me insisted Eddie must have been mistaken.

I stared absently through the insert in the storm door,
paying scant attention to the tangles of snakes on the veranda. Even as I stood there, those that had taken refuge
between the French door and storm door slithered out.

My hands were shaking. I needed a drink, AA or not.