Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 12 - Murder Among Friends (7 page)

I glanced down at my tweed jacket, Polo shirt, and washed
out jeans. I took his hand and nodded. “Mr. Cooper.”

His amiable smile beamed. “Call me Frank”

“All right, Frank”

“I wanted to visit with you before you left, but looks like
you’re getting ready to cut out”

“Yeah. Got another appointment.”

He slapped me on the shoulder. “Why, hey. I’ll walk you
out to your car”

“Fine with me” As we started down the hall, I said,
“You’re the one Edwards shot, right?”

He grimaced. “Yeah. Sure surprised me” He chuckled.
“In more ways than one. Never would have expected that
from Carl”

“What happened?”

“It was February 3, a Wednesday. The armored car arrived
just after two, a few minutes late. The head teller usually
handles the delivery, but Carl decided to do it that day.” He
shrugged. “I didn’t think anything about it. From time to
time, one of us will do it. In fact, things were kind of slow
that day, so I thought I’d look on. Kill some time, you
know?” He grinned. “No pun intended.”

As he continued, I glanced at the teller windows, spotting
Judith Perry, a willowy brunet around five-two or so with
laughing eyes and an animated smile on her lips.

Cooper pushed the front door open. “When I entered the
anteroom by the vault, I spotted three men wearing gorilla
masks. Two guards lay on the floor in their underwear. One
of the men shouted at me to lay on the floor or he’d shoot.
It was Carl”

I glanced at him as we stepped outside. “How could you
tell behind that mask?”

“His size, his voice. I’d recognize it anywhere. And his
suit. It was herringbone. I’d commented on it that morning.
He shouted at me again to lie down, but I was so flustered,
I just stood there” He laid his hand on his left side. “He
came right up in front of me and jabbed the gun in my side.
He was wearing gloves. I tried to reason with him, and
that’s when he shot me. I fell to the floor and played dead”

I paused at my pickup. “You were lucky it didn’t hit anything vital.”

He chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

“Any idea where he might have run? I mean, in all the
years you two knew each other, he must have mentioned
someplace he wanted to visit”

Cooper paused, thoughtfully twisting the wedding band
on his finger as he pondered his answer. He shook his head.
“Not really.”

I remembered the fishing trip Carl had told me about.
“He ever say anything to you about Lake Falcon, about
retiring down there?”

He shrugged. “Not that I remember.”

Prompting him, I said. “Nothing about fishing or anything like that?”

“Nope” He eyed me warily, which nagged at me for a
few moments, but I shrugged it off. He continued, “You
and Carl were good friends, huh?”

I opened the pickup door. “I wouldn’t say that. We were
just acquaintances. We had lunch from time to time.” I
paused and chuckled. “Gave both of us the chance to get our
jobs off our chests” I shook my head. “It’s still hard for me
to believe. I never saw the man when he wasn’t upbeatexcept once, around the end of January,” I added, remembering that day at the deli when he was concerned over
some problems, at work I’d guessed.

Cooper lifted an eyebrow. “You’re kidding. I never saw
him upset about anything.”

I rolled down the window and climbed in, slamming the
door behind me. “He was that day. He was worried about
something. I just figured the credit union. Maybe not”

For a moment, I thought I saw a dark cloud flicker over
Cooper’s eyes, but he grinned and laughed. “I bet he told you
some wild stories about his job, huh?” Before I could reply,
he added, “It gets crazy down here at times”

I laughed. “I bet it does”

“You know,” he continued, eyeing me curiously. “Now
that I think about it, he talked a lot about England. Maybe
that’s where he is.”

I shrugged. “Maybe” It wasn’t but I didn’t tell him so.
Why would a man commit a half-million-dollar heist just to
go to a country where he had already made arrangements
to vacation during the Christmas holidays? I changed the
subject. “I heard that the equipment videoing the transfer
had been turned off.”

A wry grin tugged at his lips. “Carl didn’t miss a beat.
That’s something I wouldn’t have thought of.”

I frowned. “Was the video in a locked room or what?”

He shook his head. “No. We have it in the employee
lounge”

I wanted to say “So anyone could have turned it off,” but
instead, I just nodded.

As I drove away, I told myself that something didn’t fit,
but I had no idea what. None of what I had learned suggested Carl Edwards was a thief, yet all of the evidence
pointed to that very assumption.

Evidence, I reminded myself, never lies. It just sits
there, waiting to be discovered, analyzed, and interpreted. I
couldn’t help thinking that in regard to Carl Edwards, either not all of the evidence had been gathered, or if it had,
it had been interpreted inaccurately.

I glanced at my watch. Just after 12:00. I had a couple of
hours to spare before showing up at the Edwards’, so I decided to drop by downtown and see what I could find out
about my old man’s situation.

During the drive to Sixth Street, I went over my conversation with Frank Cooper. His description of Carl Edwards
piqued my curiosity. Edwards was a slight man, about four
or five inches shorter than me, which would make him
around five feet six. He was wearing a herringbone suit and
gloves. Of course, any experienced hood wears gloves as a
precaution against leaving prints. In addition to guarding
against leaving prints, however, gloves could also prevent
identification of gender.

I grimaced and flexed my fingers on the steering wheel
of my Silverado pickup. Wouldn’t it be something if a
woman pulled it off and Carl Edwards was nailed for it?

Stranger things have happened in the world of American
jurisprudence.

Of course, Cooper’s description put Raiford Lindsey out
of the picture. Lindsey was well over six feet in both directions.

Sixth Street is Austin’s answer to New Orleans’ French
Quarter, although even the most passionate Austinite would
have to admit the street lacks the charm of the quarter. Still,
it can match the rowdiness and bizarre behavior of The
City That Care Forgot.

Over the years, I’d developed a cadre of winos who often furnished me with information I’d not have been able to
secure elsewhere. I first met them years back through my
old man, whom I’d found in one of the alleyways behind
Sixth Street. While the transient population was in a constant state of flux as new ones came in and old ones left, a
few remained, Goofyfoot and Downtown, to name a couple.

I spotted a wizened old man in baggy clothes near the
convention center. I pulled to the curb and honked.

The old man jerked to a halt when he saw me waving
to him and immediately turned back in the direction from
which he had come.

I shouted, “Hey, Goofyfoot. It’s me, Tony, Tony
Boudreaux”

He paused and looked around, peering at me skeptically
with his watery blue eyes. “Boudreaux?” He took a hesitant
step toward me, his baggy coat dragging the ground beside
his ragged running shoes.

“Yeah. It’s me”

He shuffled up to the pickup, his pigeon-toed foot
twisted in at almost a thirty-degree angle. The rubber sole
outside his little toe was worn away.

Leaning out the window, I gestured down the alley.
“Where’s all the boys?”

He grew serious. “They be around” His eyes narrowed.
“Looking for somebody?”

“Yep. You remember my old man?” Goofyfoot frowned.
I continued, “He’s in town”

He shook his head. “I ain’t seen him”

“I know. He’s at my place. Seems like he had a few
problems down at the rail yard a couple nights back. Some
guy by the name of Salinas Sal got himself killed. Is there
anything on the street about it?”

His eyes took on a shifty look. “Might be”

I chuckled and handed him a sawbuck. He hastily stuffed
it into the wrinkles of the baggy clothes hanging from his
bony frame. “I don’t know for sure, but a new boy come in.
Calls hisself Butcherman. I ain’t seen him, but Downtown
said this one, he was looking to hide out. Said he’d seen a
dude wasted and the killers came after him.”

My hopes surged. “Did he say where?” Goofyfoot shook
his head, and I continued, “This Butcherman-think you
can find him for me? No cops involved. Just him and me
anywhere he wants. It’s worth a hundred bucks”

Goofyfoot’s eyes grew wide, and then quickly narrowed.
I knew exactly what the shrewd little grifter had in mind,
but I didn’t care as long as I could talk to Butcherman. “Let
me see what I can do”

I winked at him. “I’ll be around tonight. Down at Neon
Larry’s.”

The Edwards lived in a steeply gabled Victorian twostory overlooking a five-acre lake in the middle of the
fashionable gated community of Brentwood Estates west
of Austin. I had a few questions I wanted to ask, but only of
Debbie and her mother.

Debbie met me at the door, a wan smile on her drawn
face. “Hi, Tony. Glad you could make it. Come on in”

The large house was tastefully decorated. In the den,
bookcases lined one wall. An entertainment center took up
most of a second wall, a fireplace the third, and an expanse
of French doors on the fourth overlooked the lake below.

Mrs. Edwards came to meet me, her hand extended.
“Thank you for coming” She turned to a woman on the
couch. “This is Dorothy Winkler, the noted psychic”

I sensed a tension in the air.

Winkler rose and offered me her hand. A slight woman,
she wore flowing white robes, and her jet-black hair hung
to her waist. “Mr. Boudreaux”

Mrs. Edwards gestured to several personal items on the
coffee table in front of the couch, among which was some
fly-fishing tackle. She continued, “These are Carl’s. That’s
how Dorothy establishes communication with him”

Mentally, I rolled my eyes.

Dorothy Winkler smiled at me, a dimple in each of her cheeks and a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “I have the
feeling you don’t believe in psychics, Mr. Boudreaux”

I shrugged. “Call me Tony. Truth is, I don’t know if I do
or not. I guess I am skeptical, but I do know there is much
in our world of which we are not aware” I grinned at
Debbie and her mother. “I can tell you one thing though.
There were times I thought my mother was psychic”

They all laughed, and the tension was broken, at least on
their part. I was still skeptical.

She cleared her throat. “As I explained to Mrs. Edwards
and Debbie, the word psychic refers to the ability to perceive things through means of extrasensory perception that
is hidden from traditional senses” She paused with a shrug.
“So, how does it work?” She chuckled and added, “I have
no idea. As a child I didn’t know I had a gift. I thought
everyone could do as I could. Over the years, I’ve been able
to assist many deserving families.”

Debbie spoke up. “Dorothy has written several books.
Some of them are best sellers”

I nodded. “I’ve seen them”

The slight psychic studied me another moment, and then
drew a deep breath. “Shall we begin?” she asked Margaret
Edwards.

We sat on the couch as Dorothy Winkler picked up a pair
of cuff links and, closing her eyes, ran her fingers lightly
over them for several moments.

Over the next few minutes, she did the same with articles
of clothing, books, and even the fishing tackle. The soft
features of her face grew hard and taut with stress. I didn’t
know if she were faking or truly enduring the agonies of
psychokinesis.

Perspiration popped out on her forehead.

Debbie and I exchanged puzzled looks at the transition that seemed to be taking place within the woman. Skeptical
or not, I was growing alarmed.

After several minutes, she stiffened, drew a deep breath,
and then allowed her shoulders to slump. Her eyes opened
and, with an expression of relief, she sagged into the overstuffed chair at the end of the couch, laid her head back,
and closed her eyes once again.

We all leaned forward expectantly, and yes, while I
wasn’t convinced, I was curious as to the results.

Mrs. Edwards whispered, “Did you see him?”

Winkler’s eyes fluttered. “I saw rocks and trees and
something red”

Debbie exclaimed, “Dad’s car. His Impala. It’s red” She
looked at her mother hopefully.

Her mother ignored her. “Is-Is he alive?” Her voice was
merely a croak.

The slight woman rolled her head to the side so she
could see Mrs. Edwards. “I don’t know.”

I spoke up. “Any hint of where the red object is?”

She furrowed her brow in concentration. “The rocks
were white, and the red object was a great distance away,
below me. Perhaps at the bottom of a canyon or hill. And,”
she added, “I saw water and floating on the water was a gold
and silver wristwatch. There are no numbers on the face, no
slashes, only dots” She paused, and then added, “Green
dots”