Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 12 - Murder Among Friends (4 page)

Longhorn Mall, across the street from our office, housed
several eateries. We opted for Luby’s Cafeteria, carrying
our trays out onto the colonnade where we found a table
away from the crowd.

I love good food, but I learned years ago that too much
red beans and rice, too much jambalaya, or too much berry
cobbler were bad for the waistline. I had a salad.

Debbie and her mother must have believed as I did, for
they each had a small Jell-O and tea.

“So,” I said before taking a bite of my salad. “Tell me all
that happened at the credit union.”

They looked at each other. Mrs. Edwards nodded. “Go
ahead, Debbie”

In a soft voice, she began. “On February 3, the armored
car that was making its regular delivery to the Tri-District
Credit Union was robbed. It carried half a million dollars.
There were three men. They all wore masks. Frank Cooper,
the second vice president, was shot. He said father was the
one who shot him”

I frowned. Around a mouthful of salad, I asked, “If they
wore masks, how did he identify your father?”

“By his voice” She paused.

“And his coat. It was herringbone. The suit was herringbone,” added Mrs. Edwards.

Debbie continued. Most of her story I had read online.
Her father had vanished, along with his 2009 Impala. What
made it so peculiar was that he had no apparent financial
problems. His investments were sound, although, as with
all investments, subject to the capriciousness of the stock
market. He and his wife were planning a vacation to London, England, the next Christmas, a dream the two had
shared for decades.

Oh, yes, he had also mentioned to me that he was planning a spring fishing trip to Falcon Reservoir.

According to Debbie, The police had hit a wall in tracking him down. The only hint of his destination was a plane
ticket to San Francisco.

I frowned. “Why San Francisco?”

Debbie shrugged. “I-We don’t know”

“You mean he didn’t tell you where he was going and
why?”

With a hint of color in her cheeks, she smiled shyly.
“Father never told us about business. He didn’t want us to
worry.”

When she told me that, I whistled softly.

Debbie and her mother frowned. I explained, “San Francisco is where everyone goes to disappear.”

Mrs. Edwards’ brows knit. “You don’t think you can find
him?”

I studied the two of them, seeing the pain in their eyes. I
hated hurting people, but at the same time, I didn’t want to
give them too much hope. “To be honest, Mrs. Edwards, it
won’t be easy. But we’ll give it a shot. What I can promise
is that we’ll run down every lead until there’s nothing left
to run down” I paused, remembering his spring fishing
trip. “Did your husband ever mention anything about Falcon Reservoir on the U.S.-Mexico border?”

She frowned and pondered the question. Slowly, she
shook her head. “Not a word. Why?”

“I don’t know. The week before the robbery, we had lunch
at a deli, and he told me was going to see if you wanted to go
there with him. He seemed to think that would be a nice
place to retire.”

Mrs. Edwards winced, and then shook her head. “He
never mentioned it to me”

“No problem,” I replied. “It was just a guess” I smiled at
her. “Don’t worry. I’ll check it out”

She nodded, and then glanced nervously at Debbie. She
cleared her throat. “We’ve thought about calling in a psychic. Have you ever had any dealings with one, Tony?”

A psychic? I wanted to tell her to save her money. I’ve
never bought into the idea. If someone can see into the future, why are they advertising in the Yellow Pages or living
in the shabby part of town? Psychics reminded me of the tarot card readers and mediums on the esplanades around
Jackson Square in New Orleans’ French Quarter, all hustlers. The only way they can bend a spoon is with both
hands.

All I could do was shake my head. “Sorry. I’ve never had
any experience with them”

it was two o’clock by the time we finished lunch. I still
found it difficult to believe Carl Edwards masterminded the
job. That’s why when I pushed back from the table, I asked
one last question, a shot in the dark, but one that might
point me in a direction besides Edwards. “Did Mr. Edwards
ever mention anyone at the credit union who was in financial straits?”

The two women frowned at each other, and then Mrs.
Edwards shook her head. “Never. Carl was not the kind to
bring the job home”

After seeing them to their vehicle, I climbed in my pickup
and pulled out the ubiquitous three-by-five cards on which
I took notes. I quickly jotted down what I had learned from
Debbie and her mother. While doing so, I realized I didn’t
believe Edwards was guilty. Despite what had been written
and said, he was not the kind of man to do what he was accused of.

I’m no PI whiz, not like my co-worker, Al Grogan. Al is
one of those with an instinctive knack for deduction. I personally think he would be a fair match even for Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s fictional Sherlock Holmes. Over the years,
I’ve picked up some of Al’s habits, although mine are not
honed to the same keen edge as his. One caveat he preached that I observed religiously was to explore in detail everyone
concerned with the crime. Suspect everyone. Give everyone the most sinister of motives. Then as you investigate,
you can modify, but start off as if all were guilty, a difficult
task for a little Catholic boy brought up to trust everyone.

I paused in jotting down my notes and stared, unseeing,
through the windshield. I would start with the credit union,
but I could not interview them as if they were suspect. If I
did that, Chief Ramon Pachuca of the Austin P.D. would
have my head.

I planned on questioning each employee as to whether
he had any idea where Edwards might have gone. Maybe
something would turn up there. Of course, I knew that
people being people, some of them would be offended or
insulted, and perhaps become belligerent.

That meant I had to have the backing of Chief Pachuca.
You know, use his name like a shotgun if I had to.

Starting the pickup, I headed downtown, planning on taking out two birds with one shot: find out where the investigation against my old man stood and pay the chief a visit.

I’d been in the business several years, long enough to establish a few contacts. One of the investigators for the district attorney was Mark Swain, who had attended U.T. with
me and Bob Ray Burrus. After school, he’d joined the police
force and worked on his law degree at U.T. On several
occasions, our paths had crossed and, on a couple of them,
I turned out to be of help to him.

I caught Mark in the hall outside the office, hurrying to
an elevator. He motioned me to follow. “I’ve got court in
five minutes. What’s up?”

As the elevator doors slid shut, I told him about my old
man. He frowned. “Haven’t heard a thing. Of course, that’s
not unusual. It takes a few days for us to get the paper work” The elevator jerked to a halt. The doors hissed open.
“I say don’t sweat it for a week or so. Just make sure your
old man hangs around. A murder, you say?”

“He was found next to a dead transient. Near his hand
was a broken beer bottle they say was the murder weapon”

Mark paused at the courtroom door and straightened his
jacket. “If I hear something, I’ll give you a call”

Chief Pachuca was just as accommodating. He and I had
been on a couple of cases together, but I had always made it
a point never to interfere with police business. More than
once, I went to him with evidence I had turned up. Sometimes it served him well. And he never forgot it.

“Yeah. Go ahead. Tell what’s-his-name over there at the
credit union, the president, Lindsey, to give me a call if he
wants. We got all we need on Edwards to convict him. All
that’s missing is the man”

“No idea where he might have gone?”

“Nope. A week earlier, he bought a ticket on a seven
o’clock American flight on February 3 to San Francisco,
but he didn’t make it” He chuckled. “You want to know
how dumb the guy is? He used his own name”

“Oh?” I wanted to ask more, but I knew better.

Pachuca continued, “My people studied the film from the
boarding camera a dozen times. He never checked in. He
might have figured we’d be watching the flights and backed
out” He paused and glared up at me. “Satisfied?”

I cleared my throat. With a crooked grin, I asked, “I
don’t suppose I could see what you have, could I?”

He looked at me in disbelief, but when he saw the grin
on my face, he shook his head and waved me away. “Get
out of here before I change my mind”

“No! No, no, no” Raiford Lindsey, president of TriDistrict Credit Union, was livid. His pan-shaped face grew
red, and if I could have seen the veins in his fleshy neck,
there’s no doubt they would have been distended like a balloon ready to pop. He sputtered, “We’ve had enough trouble over the robbery. I don’t want to drag it up all over
again. Besides, we know who did it. I don’t want it to look
like any of the other employees are suspected of being
involved.”

In a soft, calm voice, I explained. “I’ll make it a point to
reassure them, Mr. Lindsey. All I’m saying is that sometime in the past, Carl Edwards might have inadvertently
suggested a destination to one of them. You know, an ideal
vacation spot, a hidden retreat” That wasn’t the whole
truth, but I figured it would be enough to keep the guy from
dropping dead in his office from a heart attack.

His eyes blazing, he studied me a moment.

I lied some more. “I don’t believe any of your employees
were involved. Okay? I’m just looking for leads as to Edwards’ whereabouts. As I said, Chief Pachuca okayed this.
Call him if you want”

He studied me several more moments, and then drew in
a deep breath and released it. He cleared his throat. “I don’t
like it, but all right. I just don’t want my people upset” He
paused, and then added, “I still can’t believe it. Carl-well,
I was stunned” He paused and shook his head. “Just goes
to show you. You never can tell”

If I’ve heard that old platitude once, I’d heard it a thousand times. Nodding sympathetically, I replied, “I understand. Now, if I can have a roster of your employees”

He grimaced. “Sure. Sure” He punched the speaker on
the telephone. “Ms. Romero, bring me a roster of all em ployees” He hesitated, glanced at me, and added, “Addresses, phone numbers, all we have”

There were forty-two names on the list. I whistled softly.

When I pulled out of the credit union parking lot, I
glanced at my watch. Almost five. Time to get back to my
old man. But first I wanted to drop off a copy of the list to
Danny O’Banion, my link, however tenuous, with the mob.
Interviewing forty-two individuals would take a couple of
weeks. I needed to narrow down the list if I could. Besides,
I reminded myself, in just a few hours, I had to pick up
Janice.

My mind raced. I was concerned about my father, but for
the time being, he was not my primary worry. Mark Swain
had said to sweat nothing for a week. What really puzzled
me was Janice. She wanted to talk, and in my experience
with the fairer gender, whenever they wanted to talk, the
outcome was usually unpleasant.

I drew a deep breath. I could sure use a drink about now.
I glanced at the back of my seat. In the past, I’d kept a bottle
behind the pickup seat, accessible only if I stopped. But a
few weeks earlier in a burst of righteous passion after an AA
meeting, I’d dumped it. I’d dumped them all except Janice’s
bottle of wine. Now I was calling myself every name in the
book for being such an idiot.

I headed downtown to Danny O’Banion’s office on the
top floor of the Green Light Parking Garage. Rumor was
that Danny was Austin’s caporegime.

I knew the truth, but I never said a word about it. Danny
and I go back to high school, where in the eleventh grade,
we managed to get into a few scrapes together.