Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (22 page)

I stared blankly at the liquor credenza, at the nearly empty
bottles, the dirty glasses stacked on the stained linen doilies.

“Tony?”

I had just picked up a bottle of Jim Beam when I heard
the thin, tentative voice. I looked around to see my pa
standing in the shadows, John Roney Boudreaux. His wrinkled and smelly clothes hung from his bare bones like a
scarecrow. I nodded. “Pa.”

He stepped forward into a shaft of sunlight. Though he
seemed to emanate a frailty of body and spirit, there was
an animal wariness in his eyes, I suppose from the years
of bumming around the country, living on handouts or what
he could steal.

“Sorry about last year.”

“Forget it. I have.” But I hadn’t. I’d tried to help him,
but he had repaid me by stealing some of my personal
possessions and hocking them at one of the local pawnshops in Austin. How do you forget something like that?

His eyes focused on the bottle in my hand. He cleared
his throat. “I could use a drink.”

Suddenly, my desire for a drink, or maybe half a dozen,
vanished. “Sure.” I squatted and opened the cabinet door for a glass. When I did, a tiny white blossom fluttered out.
I ignored it, intent on pouring him a glass of bourbon so
he would go back to his couch.

He downed the first one in a single gulp and held out
the glass for another, which he promptly sent racing after
the first. He drew his bony hand across his mouth. “Your
Ma talk to you about me?”

“She said you wanted to come home.”

Nodding jerkily, he replied, “I been mighty wrong. But
now I think the good Lord is telling me to mend my ways.
I’d-like to try.”

Glancing around, I saw no one was paying any attention
to us, especially Mom. Now was my chance to tell him to
hit the road, to leave us just as he had thirty-two years ago.

But I couldn’t. For some strange, inexplicable reason, the
harsh words stuck in my throat. Maybe he was telling the
truth this time. Last year, I gave him two chances, and he
stole from me both times. I tried to tell myself that maybe,
like they say, the third time was a charm, but I knew better.
Still, I swallowed my better judgment. “If that’s all right
with Mom, I don’t have a problem.” I couldn’t believe the
words coming from my lips, yet at the same time, I realized
that all along I knew that’s what I would say.

“You sure, Son? What you think means an awful lot to
me.11

He was lying. I could see it in his eyes, but then I recognized the truth in Giselle’s words, “You only have one
father.” “I’m sure. It’s all right with me.” I hated myself
for caving in.

He smiled up at me gratefully and extended his glass. I
filled it again. He gulped it down and went back to his
couch.

I watched after him, my feelings mixed. Slowly, I replaced the bottle. When I did, I spotted the tiny blossom
on the floor. I knelt and picked it up. It looked familiar. I
rubbed one edge of the blossom between my forefinger and
thumb. A thin, yellow film covered my thumb.

I sniffed it. Whatever it was had the smell of carrots.
The odor triggered vivid memories. I grimaced and closed
my eyes, sagging back against the liquor credenza. Carrots.
I remembered the liquor tumbler. I shook my head. Impossible.

But in the back of my head, I wondered if maybe Eddie’s
information was right all along.

Leroi and Giselle stepped out of the kitchen. I jumped
when I saw them appear so suddenly. Leroi mimed surprise. “Hey, Cuz. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Giselle glanced at the bottle in my hand. “Is that yours,
or can anyone have a drink?”

I joined the laughter, at the same time jamming what
remained of the bloom in my pocket with my free hand.
“Grab a glass, and I’ll pour.”

Leroi glanced at the credenza. “Where are the glasses?”

Giselle opened the cabinet door. “In here.”

She retrieved three glasses. I poured us stiff drinks, then
set mine aside. “Seen Janice?”

Leroi pointed to our couch. “Her and Sally are over
there.”

Four or five family members, led by Uncle Bailey, gathered around the credenza. Uncle Walter winked at me and
nodded to his wife. “Figure with the storm passing over,
we deserve to celebrate some.”

“Why not? We made it through.” I started across the
parlor to the couch, my head flooded with concern about
my old man and disbelief at who might be behind the murders.

Through the fog in my head, I heard Janice’s voice
shriek, “Tony! Jump!”

I heard a whirring noise and threw myself backwards an
instant before the huge chandelier slammed into the
wooden floor, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

I lay motionless. I couldn’t feel my left foot. And then
a sharp pain raced up my leg.

Moments later, I was surrounded by family. Astonished murmurs filled the room. Janice was on the verge of tears,
and Leroi was urging me not to move in case something
was broken. Giselle and Sally were busy feeling my bones
to see just what was broken.

“I’m okay,” I protested, grimacing against the pain. “It
just glanced off my foot.”

Then Sally touched my foot, and the pain exploded. She
slipped my boot off and gently ran her fingers over my
throbbing foot. “Glanced? L’oh mon non. Oh, my no. It
didn’t glance. It broke.”

I shook my head. “No. Just bruised. That’s all. Help me
up. I’ll show you.”

Despite their protests, I got to my feet. Like Julius Caesar’s proclamation, I came, I saw, I conquered. Well, I
stood, I stepped, I fell.

The pain was intense. I cursed A.D. for the shoddy workmanship in the house.

Sally nodded to Leroi. “Help him over to the couch. I
need to wrap his foot.”

“I’ll get some bandages.” Giselle hurried upstairs.

I clenched my teeth against the pain as Sally worked on
me while Janice and the others looked on. Mom leaned
over the back of the couch. “Can I help?”

Without looking up, Sally replied, “No, Mrs. Boudreaux.
This boy of yours, he’ll be just fine.”

“Where’s Grandma?” I looked up at Mom.

She nodded across the parlor. “She be sleeping. No need
to wake her. Sally say you be fine.” She patted my arm.

For some reason, I felt a little sorry for myself. Here I
was, injured, maybe crippled for life, and my Mom decided
Grandma Ola needed her sleep more than I needed sympathy.

On the other hand, maybe it is true that most men are
babies when it comes to illnesses or injuries.

I forgot all about feeling sorry for myself when Leroi
offered me three fingers of Jim Beam. “Here. This’ll help.”

I gulped it down. At the next AA meeting, I’d ask for giveness. Grand-pere Moise always chuckled and said that
was easier than asking for permission.

At that moment, the entire mansion shuddered. Everyone
fell silent in the semi-darkness of the parlor, staring at the
walls and ceiling with fear in their eyes. Wood snapped
like gunshots. Windows rattled.

The whole place was falling down, just like the chandelier.

Then a rumbling groan, mixed with the snapping of
breaking timbers, reverberated through the walls and floors.
A violent gust of wind whipped through the house just as
a falling wall splashed into the water below.

Uncle George shouted from the kitchen, “The kitchen
wall’s gone!”

Wind and rain swept into the parlor, and the noises of
the storm bounced off every wall in the house. Screams
echoed through the shadowy rooms. Someone shouted,
“Close the kitchen door!”

The door slammed shut, and an eerie silence followed.

In the excitement, I’d forgotten about my foot, but when
I moved it, it reminded me it was broken. I grimaced and
fell back on the couch, muttering every curse I could remember.

Sally laid her hand on my arm. “I don’t have anything
for the pain. Sorry.”

“What about some Valium?” Marie Venable smiled
down at me.

Ezeline came up to stand beside her. “I have some Darvocet.”

At that moment, Leroi brought me another glass of bourbon.

Still addled by the pain, I gave them a silly grin.

My sappy grin broadened when I recognized the irony
of the situation. Here I was, looking for a murderer who
used poison on one of his victims, and three of my suspects
were offering me pills and alcohol. What if one of them
were offering me the same poison he gave Ozzy? Whatever the killer gave that idiot cousin of mine sure stopped the
pain-forever.

I took the bourbon. I’d already had two glasses, and I
wasn’t dead. “Thanks. This’ll do fine, ladies.”

Both smiled down at me sweetly. Marie patted my shoulder. “You’re a good boy, Tony. If you need the pills, just
let us know.”

As they turned away, I spotted Uncle George poking
towels around the kitchen door. I squeezed Janice’s hand.
“Do me a favor. Ask Uncle George if the freezer is all
right.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“Me too.”

She spoke quickly with Uncle George, then hurried back.
He looked across the parlor at me and waved.

“He said it was fine,” she said, looking down at me. “The
kitchen wall from the door to the corner of the pantry caved
in, sink and all, but the freezer is still in the pantry. The
rain is soaking the floor, though.”

I glanced around just as Uncle Patric whispered in
Leroi’s ear. Leroi gave me a shocked look. By now, the
bourbon had started its magical, mystical work, much
sooner than in the past. I wasn’t surprised. After eight
months on the wagon, the body’s system is wide open to
the devious guiles of wily alcohol.

I nodded for Leroi to come over. “What was that all
about?” I asked when he knelt by the couch.

He glanced back at Patric, who nodded briefly. Leroi
cleared his throat. “Pa said the ropes holding the chandelier
had been cut.”

Janice gasped. Sally pressed her fingers to her lips.

I just stared at him, thinking I had misunderstood. “What
did you say?”

Slowly, deliberately, he told me again. “Pa said the ropes
holding the chandelier had been cut.”

That time, I understood. For a moment, a surge of ex citement coursed through my veins. That meant the killer
had been in the crowd around the liquor credenza.

But, the surge of excitement slowed when I realized that
the killer had been after me, and it vanished completely
when I realized that all the suspects had been at the credenza along with other family members. There was Bailey,
Ezeline, Marie, Leroi, Pa-I shook my head. Pa had already returned to his couch. He couldn’t have cut the ropes.

Then there was Walter, Giselle, Sally, Patric, and
George. About the only ones not at the credenza were Mom
and Grandma Ola. And of course, Nanna, who seemed perfectly content to remain in her wicker chair playing with
her voodoo nonsense. For a moment, I thought about the
old woman’s last remark. “You not find what you want.
You find what you do not want.”

Her eyes suddenly met mine. I slid my hand in my
pocket and closed my fingers around the velvet bag of grisgris she had given me. I looked at the shattered chandelier
and wondered. When I looked back at Nanna, she wore a
faint smile on her thin lips.

By evening, the storm had broken apart, but it continued
northeast dumping fifteen to twenty inches of rain as it
passed.

The sky above us was clear, and a beautiful sunset of
orange and purple spread across the heavens. The coal oil
lamps filled the house with a sharp, tangy odor that stung
the nostrils and burned the eyes.

Most of the water had drained back into the swamp along
with the creatures it had displaced. Still, Uncle Walter and
Uncle George refused to open the doors. “They still got
snakes on the veranda. Come morning, more will go.”

So, we were still stuck inside the mansion.

“You think we can get out tomorrow, Tony?”

I looked up at Janice. “Well, we’ll be out of the house,
that’s for sure. I’ve got an extra cell phone battery in my
truck. We’ll be able to get something going.”

The pain had eased in my foot thanks to the bourbon
and the fact I had kept it motionless. I scanned the parlor
for Uncle Patric. When I spotted him, I waved him to me.
I had to be sure the falling chandelier was no accident.

“Hey, Tony. How you feel?” He looked down at me.

“Good as could be expected, Uncle Patric. Listen, I need
a favor. Take a look at the rope again. Was it cut or just
untied?”

“It was cut.”

“You’re sure.”

He studied me a moment. “I sure, Tony. But to make
you feel better, I look again.”

Moments later, he returned. “It be clean cut. Why you
ask?”

I wanted to let him in on my plan, but not right then.
“Later, I’m going to need your help, Uncle Patric. I’ll tell
you then.”

I watched as he crossed the parlor back to his family. I
knew that would be the answer. And it was the last answer
I wanted to hear.