Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 14 - Murder in a Casbah of Cats (13 page)

A bright smile played over her face. “He can’t today, but he’ll be here tomorrow.” She paused. “What did you and the old cop find? Anything?”

I ignored the wrinkle of irritation her “old cop” caused. “No. He was just telling me about that night. Nothing everyone doesn’t already know.”

“Have you known him long?”

“Oh, maybe fifteen years or so.”

We made idle conversation for another few minutes. The sun on the back of my neck was getting hot. I glanced at my watch. Almost five thirty. Frank Creek would soon be through for the day. “I’ll see you later.”

“Where you going?”

“Inside. Sun’s too much for an old man.”

“You’re not old.”

“Thanks for compliment.” I glanced at the full glass of tea and half-empty pitcher on the table next to her. I chided her. “Be sure to clean up your mess when you leave.”

She pursed her lips into a pout. “I always clean up after myself. Ask Edna. She’ll tell you. By the way,” she added, “I’m spending the night at Lana’s. A friend of mine. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon before Kevin comes in. Edna knows Lana.”

I waved and headed around behind the mansion, planning on popping into the kitchen for a glass of Edna’s sweet tea. Karla’s assertion that she had cleaned up after herself flew directly in the face of Edna’s explanation of how she had drenched her clothes.

As much as I hated the idea, Edna could very well have soaked them when she ran from murdering Al Guzman. I shook my head. Impossible.

But one of the three was small in stature, like her.

When I rounded the corner, I spotted Frank’s tractor and trailer parked in front of an open bay in the garage. His back to me, the old gardener was loading the jerricans in the trailer. One slipped from his hand and banged on the concrete.

Hastily, he picked it up and set in next to the others in the trailer.

I hurried over to him. “Hey. Need some help?”

He jerked around, startled. “Huh?” Quickly, he grabbed the remaining can. “Oh no, no. I got it. No problem.” He strained to load the last can.

Gesturing to the kitchen, I said, “I was going to grab a glass of tea. Want some?”

His eyes darted to the jerricans, then back to me. He shook his head. “Maybe later. I need to get these down to the shed. I’ve got some work I have to do. See you in the morning.”

Puzzled at his abrupt aloofness, I replied. “Yeah. See you in the morning.”

At midnight, I eased down the stairs and slipped out of the old mansion. Staying close to the brick walls, I made my way to the hedge surrounding the pool and wormed out a spot inside the thick growth where I could take in almost three-quarters of the grounds around me. I settled down to wait.

To the south, lightning danced through looming thunderheads rolling our way. I uttered a soft curse.

Traffic was light, which in such an exclusive neighborhood was to be expected. Two or three times in the next hour, a police cruiser drove past.

The sidewalks were empty.

A light drizzle began as a dark van drove slowly by and disappeared around the corner. Moments later the van returned, slowing to a crawl as it passed the gate.

A figure jumped out and dashed inside the gate, hiding in the shadows of the hedge along the fence.

I crouched lower, waiting and watching. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes until one. The drizzle continued its steady patter against the hedge.

The shadow burst from the hedge and darted under a live oak, pausing in the murkiness cast by the thick trunk. He waited only a few seconds before dashing to the next oak.

Zigzagging across the yard, he dropped to a crouch when he reached the northeast corner of the hedge around the pool.

I whispered, “Morena!”

He looked around. “Huh! Where are you?”

Stepping out quickly, I gestured to him. “Follow me.” I headed for the back hedge, where we would be out of the dim glow of the streetlights.

I led him around the rear of the hedge into the shadows and out of most of the rain. He stood a head taller than me and outweighed me by fifty pounds. The brim of his hat was turned down and his collar up against the drizzle that was beginning to intensify. I hoped he didn’t turn violent on me, and I was beginning to wonder if my little scheme might backfire. “My name’s Boudreaux.”

We both jumped at a sudden boom of thunder, followed seconds later by a crash of lightning. We huddled closer to the hedge.

“Yeah. I’ve heard of you. You and O’Banion are pals. That’s the only reason I come out here, because I knew you and him was pals. So, OK, what’s all this about O’Banion coming after me? That’s what the old cop said.” I relaxed slightly as his trembling voice overshadowed his effort at bravado. “I mean, I never done nothing to cross him. I sure don’t want no trouble with him.”

“Maybe not, but you got it.”

The wind began to gust. We pushed closer against the hedge.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Your choice. You can walk away from here, and in two days, you’ll be dead or crippled for the rest of your life. Talk to me, and I can keep you alive. I’m not saying they won’t work you over, you know. Maybe chop off a little finger. But you’ll be alive.” For emphasis, I added, “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be a nine-fingered live man than a ten-fingered dead one.”

His throat rattled. “Sure, I’ll talk to you, but I ain’t done nothing. Tell me how I can fix it.”

“Why fix it if you haven’t done anything?”

“I ain’t,” he stammered. “At least, I don’t know that I have, but I’ll do whatever I got to do to make things right with O’Banion. I’ll make it worth your while. I got the cash. O’Banion’s a bad one.”

“I don’t know what you did. All I know is when I talked to O’Banion, he told me if I found you, to let him know.”

“For what?”

“Like I said, I got no idea, all I know is he said you weren’t going to like what he was planning for you.”

I could barely make out his face in the shadows. He gasped and muttered. “Oh, Jeez, oh no, no.” He began to gag, then turned his head and threw up. Finally, he straightened and dragging the back of his hand over his lips, said, “You know him. You two are pals. How can I straighten it out if I don’t know what it is?”

“He probably figures you’re trying to cut out a piece of his drug action for yourself.”

“But we ain’t. It’s the truth.”

“O’Banion knows you and Corky Radison, Al Guzman, and Chippy Alberto run with Bill Collins. Radison’s in Angola. Collins is here in Austin with you and Chippy. Guzman’s dead.”

“Huh? Guzman’s dead? How? Who?”

I lied. “I don’t know how, but he is.”

He was gasping for breath. He shook his head. “Look, me and Chippy and Al, we ain’t working with Collins. Sure, we talked with him a few months after he got out, but he dumped us. He had something going. He—”

I never saw the shadow appear at the corner of the hedge. Two rapid spitting sounds cut through the sound of the rain.

Morena’s eyes grew wide in surprise, and he fell forward, grabbing for me. Instinctively, I reached for him. I heard two more spits as his weight toppled me. As I fell, I glimpsed a dark shadow sprinting across the grounds.

My brain screamed, “Setup, setup, setup!”

The big goon was a dead weight, dead being the definitive adjective here. I managed to roll him off me and jump to my feet just in time to see a figure vanish into the hedge lining the fence around the estate.

I raced across the grounds, but I knew in my gut I would find no one. And with the rain, there would be no tracks in the pine bark mulch beneath the hedges.

I called the police, returned to cover Morena’s body, and then retreated to the porch out of the rain, trying to figure who knew the big gorilla was paying me a visit. The list was short: Dutch, Morena, and me. Then I remembered the noise I’d heard on the balcony earlier that day. Seconds later, I spotted Henry heading down the stairs. I reminded myself he could have slipped along the balcony into the cats’ rooms, and then onto the stairs, where I’d spotted him.

Not long after, Lieutenant Pat Fenster pulled up in front of the porch. He climbed out of the cruiser and stared at me, shaking his
head. “What the blazes is going on out here, Boudreaux? You better not be sticking your nose in our business.”

“Believe me, Lieutenant. This has nothing to do with last night except Al Guzman and this guy were running mates.”

After calling the police, I had dug up two umbrellas. I handed Fenster one. “Here. You’ll stay drier.”

Before we stepped off the porch, the meat wagon rolled up.

By now, everyone in the mansion was awake. I waved them inside. “Later. Let the police do their job first.”

After the meat wagon hauled Morena away, I started up the porch, thinking that Lieutenant Fenster would want to talk in the kitchen or library. Instead, he motioned me to his unmarked cruiser. “More privacy,” he said, nodding to the faces peering out the sidelights around the huge double doors.

“All right,” he growled, slamming the door and shifting around in the seat to face me. “Let’s hear it all again.”

I went back over all that had happened the last three days, beginning with the rock through my window, then the mysterious figure that first night, then the fallen poker, the wet cat, the spiders, the mud in front of the hearth, the still-unsolved murder of Old Man Watkins, and finished with Morena. “You know yourself, there’s an answer. There’s got to be.”

He just stared at me.

I explained. “I was bored out of my skull and started nosing around just for the heck of it. After all, Lieutenant,” I hastily said when I saw the glowering expression crawl across his face, “the case is fifteen years old. I’d heard Collins was the prime suspect and that he was working in a local laundry. I figured Morena might be able to tell me more of that night. I was just taking a wild shot.” I paused and chewed on my bottom lip. “You tell me,
Lieutenant. Why would someone kill Willy Morena for talking to me?”

“You said O’Banion wanted him. There you go.”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s my guess O’Banion wanted him to hurt, to suffer a little, not go out like a porch light.” I pondered the events of the last few days. “Two buddies, Guzman and Morena, getting whacked out here. What do you think the odds are of Alberto coming out here and living?” It was a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. “Zilch. But why? They’re not working with Collins. From what Morena said, they had their own little business going. The one time they tried to get in with Collins, he refused. Why? He can’t be satisfied making fifteen bucks an hour.”

Lifting his eyebrows, Fenster replied. “He must be. As far as his parole officer is concerned, he’s been a model citizen ever since he got out of the joint. Made shift foreman a few years back.”

My brows knit. “I heard Collins passed a polygraph about the old man’s murder.”

“Yep, but around here, getting a judge to admit one as evidence is as chancy as winning the lottery. They won’t allow polygraphs, and for good reason.”

“You think he beat it?”

The cynical twist on his lips answered my question.

He scooted back around and buckled his seat belt. “OK, Boudreaux. A team’ll be out in the morning to check the scene. Waste of time with all the rain, but we got to do it. Can’t tell. Something might turn up. As for you, stop nosing around. What happened in the library is no business of yours. I’ll toss your keister in the can if I hear of you asking any more questions, you hear?”

I agreed—reluctantly, but I agreed.

He glanced over his shoulder at the faces peering through the sidelights. He started the cruiser. With a wry edge to his voice, he said, “Tell your friends I’ll see them in the morning at eight. Like last time.”

I waited on the porch until he turned onto Woodlawn and then went inside. As I expected, all four were waiting, even Frank, whom Edna had called.

Quickly, I related the details of the night. After fielding their questions for the next fifteen minutes, we turned off the lights and headed for bed, but not before I informed them of the lieutenant’s visit in the morning.

After a hot shower, I climbed into my freshly ironed pajamas, courtesy of Gadrate, and grabbed a Dr Pepper from the refrigerator. Last thing I checked before turning off the lights and settling down between the cool sheets was my can of wasp spray. I nuzzled back in my pillow, but sleep wouldn’t come.

I kept thinking about Henry. Could he have been the one on the balcony? But, what reason could he have? He explained how he had shown up only seconds after I left the house looking for Guzman. Of course, he could have fabricated the story.

After all, he was the one to point out the body of Al Guzman. He could have stabbed Guzman, hid in the trees when he saw me coming, then stepped out as if he’d followed me.

But then, there were Gadrate and Edna. Both had soaked clothing. Gadrate’s were muddy also. Could she have been the smaller figure knocked to the ground in the struggle? And then I reminded myself, what about Edna’s excuse for her drenched clothes? Karla had insisted she left nothing at the pool for Edna to pick up, which was the reason Edna had given for her soaked clothing.