Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 14 - Murder in a Casbah of Cats (17 page)

I glanced around the library but saw no sign of Hercules.

Fenster and two detectives arrived together. Minutes later, the criminalists pulled up. Just as Henry opened the door, Hercules
darted inside. Edna, standing beside Gadrate, frowned up at me and said, “I thought you said he went into the library.”

Hercules had disappeared into the library. I wasn’t mistaken. Right then I knew there was a way out and in, but I didn’t want to call the wrong person’s attention to it. I shrugged. “I just thought he did.”

All Lieutenant Fenster could do was shake his head. “I told you to give me a break. I wanted to rest up this weekend.”

He was half-joking, half-serious. “I didn’t ask for it, Lieutenant.”

With an exasperated sigh, he said, “All right. What happened this time?” He glanced at the criminalists around the body. “Let’s go in the library. Give these old boys room to work.”

Once we were seated in the library, Fenster looked at me. “All right. What’s the story? Hold on.” He looked us over. “Where’s the old man, the gardener?”

“Still sleeping,” I said. “He lives on the other end of the estate.”

He turned to one of the detectives. “Go get him, Kirkman.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fenster looked back at me. “All right. I’m waiting.”

With the four of them looking on, I succinctly related the events of the botched assault.

When I finished a few minutes later, he grunted. “Any idea why he wanted to waste you?”

“Not one bit.”

Fenster grunted. “Any idea how he gained entrance to the house? Doors, windows?”

Shaking his head, Henry replied, “I check every window and door every night, Lieutenant. I can swear they were all locked.”

Fenster concluded, “Then he must’ve had help, huh?”

Henry parted his lips to protest, but Kirkman pushed through the door with Frank Creek in tow. “Here he is, Lieutenant. He was sleeping—he says.”

Frank growled. “What’s going on here? Who’s that dead guy out in the foyer?”

The lieutenant gestured to the couch. “That’s what I’m going to find out. Now sit down, and listen. OK, Mr. Perry. Go on. How did this guy get in?”

With a look of frustration, Henry shook his head. “I have no idea, Lieutenant. Like I said, all the windows and doors are locked. I always make sure of that.”

Fenster rolled his eyes. “Apparently not.” He looked around at his two detectives. “Barnes, you start on the top floor and work down. Kirkman, you start on the bottom floor. Check every window and door. If this bird jimmied one, he would have left it unlocked so he could get out in a hurry.”

After the two left the library, one of the criminalists brought the lieutenant a small bag of white nuggets, which I knew was crack, and a snapshot of the corpse. Fenster glanced at the two items before sticking them in his pocket.

He looked around at the others. “What about you folks? Any of you see anyone around?”

As one, they shook their heads.

Edna said, “I went up on the third floor just before we turned the lights out. Henry said the ceiling had leaked and soiled the bed linens.”

Fenster looked at the butler. Henry said, “That’s right, Lieutenant. During every storm, I check all the rooms to make sure they’re not leaking.” He surveyed the room about him. “This is an old house, you know.”

Fenster looked at Frank Creek. “What about you? See anyone out on the grounds?”

“I told you,” the old man snapped. “I was sleeping.”

“OK, OK.” He turned to Gadrate. “So, what about you, miss?”

She indicated the second floor. “Me, I was in my room.”

“All evening?”

“
Oui
. We have dessert in library, and then I go to bed.”

Edna corrected her. “You forgot you were in the laundry later. I brought the wet sheets and blankets and put them in the basket by the door. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Her brows knit momentarily, then her eyes brightened. “Ah, yes, yes. Me, I forget. I did go to the laundry room. I went back down for a few minutes to put clothes in dryer, then I go to bed.” She held up two fingers. “No more than two, three minutes.”

Two, three minutes? It was longer than that. Either she was lying or had no sense of time whatsoever.

“And you, Miss Simpson,” Fenster said. “What was your evening like?”

Karla shrugged. “I was in my room.”

“From what time?”

“Around eight or nine, I guess.”

“And you didn’t leave it for any reason?”

“No.”

He turned back to me. “All right, Boudreaux. Tell me again what happened.”

I went back over the story once again. As I finished, the two detectives returned.

“Nothing, Lieutenant,” Kirkman said.

Barnes eyed us suspiciously. “French doors open onto a small balcony from a bedroom on the second floor, Lieutenant.
A woman’s bedroom. And, you might be interested to know, I found a leather jacket with Triad gang symbols on it.”

We all stared at Karla.

Karla’s eyes grew wide. “That’s my room, but I can explain.”

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Fenster replied. “I hope so, Miss Simpson. There’s been an attempted murder and a death here tonight. This isn’t some kind of game.”

“The jacket is my boyfriend’s.”

“Your boyfriend? In your bedroom?”

To give her credit, she blushed furiously. “We—ah, well, we had an argument earlier. He wanted to make up. Then when we heard the commotion, he left. He didn’t want to get involved.”

His tone edged with suspicion, Fenster said, “And just how did he leave? The doors are all locked except your French doors.”

Karla stared at him a moment, clearing her throat.

“Well, Miss Simpson. I’m waiting.”

She glanced around at us, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. In a low voice, she muttered. “There’s a trellis leading up to my window.”

Henry broke in. “A rose trellis, Lieutenant.”

Fenster chuckled. “Convenient. So, he just comes and goes like that?”

She refused to look at us. “Sometimes,” she replied, her voice barely perceptible.

“What’s his name?”

Karla hesitated once again.

Wearily, Fenster said, “The penalty for obstructing justice, Miss Simpson, is twenty years in prison and loss of driver’s license. Not that you’d have any use for a license in prison.” I don’t know if he intended that for a joke or not, but none of us laughed.

With a resigned sigh, she replied, “Kevin Stotts.”

Detective Barnes grunted. “Our pal Kevin, Lieutenant.”

Fenster glanced at him. “He’s the one, huh?”

“Couldn’t be two Kevin Stottses in the Triad,” Barnes said, holding up the leather jacket.

“You know where he is?”

“Probably. Want us to pick him up?”

“As soon as you can. Bring him down to the station.”

Karla listened to the exchange with growing disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

Fenster shook his head. “All I can tell you, miss, is you’ve got a friend there who’ll cause you more grief than you can imagine. If he hasn’t already.” He fished the snapshot of the would-be assassin from his pocket and handed it to me. “You recognize this guy, Boudreaux?”

Looking at a corpse has never been one of my favorite pastimes. Looking at snapshots of them is just as bad. This one was worse with blood smears across his face. I shook my head. “Never seen him before.”

He passed the snapshot around. “What about you others?”

No one had ever seen the man.

Two hours later, the last of the criminalists departed. I followed Lieutenant Fenster onto the porch. He looked around at me. Brows knit in frustration, he said, “That’s three in a row, Boudreaux. Don’t try for four, OK?”

“Come on, Lieutenant. You know better than that.”

A faint smile played over his lips. “Yeah. I know.” He glanced past me at Karla and the staff standing in the door watching us. “I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll be here.”

Back inside, I ran into a barrage of questions, for most of which I had no answer. “Look,” I said, “I’m as much in the dark as you. Like I’ve said a dozen times, I was just curious as to the secret of the library. Private investigators like me never butt into police business, and murder, even if it is fifteen years old, is still police business.”

Karla pushed forward, her face tight with fear. “What about Kevin? What did the cops mean about him?”

I wanted to tell her the guy was a scumbag from the word go, and if she stayed with him, he’d drag her down the tube with him. But I didn’t. What little experience I’ve had with the lovelorn is
they will hear only what they want to hear. “They’ll just question him like they did us. That’s all. You’re his alibi. He was with you when it all went down, right?”

She hesitated. “Yeah…yeah. He was with me…” Her words faded away. Chewing on her bottom lip, she added in a whisper. “Most of the time.”

Frank was turning to leave, but he jerked to a halt and looked around at her last remark.

I blinked once or twice. “What? What do you mean, most of the time?”

“Well…” She glanced at Edna before continuing. “Well, he left the room. Said he was going to get a snack from the kitchen. Then he came running back in. When I asked him what had happened, he just shook his head. That’s when I heard the commotion downstairs. I went out to look. When I came back, he was gone.”

“Down the trellis,” I said.

Subdued, she replied, “Yes.”

Henry looked at me. I could see the question in his eyes. All I could do was shrug. “You should have told the lieutenant,” I said.

“I know, but I was scared.”

With a wry grin, I replied. “You better stay scared. If Stotts is behind it, you’ll be considered an accessory.”

Her face blanched. “What?”

“You heard me. You’ll be considered as guilty as him.” I stretched the truth a tad. Maybe I should have felt guilty about it, but I didn’t. Sometimes a healthy dose of fear is the only way to soften up a hard head. “The lieutenant will be back out in the morning. Don’t run off anywhere. Tell him what you told us, you hear?”

Tears welled in her eyes. She understood.

Sleep refused to come. I stared at the ceiling, swearing the next day I’d find the secret of the library or tear the place apart.

The ringing of my cell phone awakened me. Sleepily, I glanced at my watch. Almost seven. It was Dutch.

“Wake you?”

“No.”

“You sound sleepy.”

“Rough night.”

“Trouble?”

Sarcasm laced my voice. “If you can call some joker trying to skewer me with a knife trouble.”

He whistled. “Yeah. I’d say so. Who was it? Any idea?”

“Nope. He fell over the third-floor banister and split his head on the terrazzo below. Fenster came out.”

“Punctual, huh?”

“He had a good teacher.”

Dutch wisecracked. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Tell you what. When you find out who he was, give me a ring. I’ll do some footwork and see if I can turn up anything.”

“Sounds like a winner. So, what’s up?”

“Well, you’re already awake now, but if you’re not, this should wake you up. About the old man. One of my sources, an ex-con out of Angola, shared a cell with Corky Radison. You remember him?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“This old boy is staying clean, but you know how it is. Even when you climb out of the sewer, you never get rid of the stink. He tries to avoid the old joints, but from time to time, he rubs elbows with them and picks up stuff I pay him for. Then I pass it along to the boys downtown. He says Radison admitted Collins
whacked Watkins. He wanted a bigger cut, and when the old man refused, Collins decided he’d cut Watkins out of the whole operation.”

My pulse picked up. “How does Collins deliver the goods?”

“The guy has no idea. When I suggested he ask around, he refused, big-time. Can’t say I blame him. One wrong word with those bozos, and he’s staring up at daisies.”

Punching off, I glanced out the window. The sun was shining. Finally, no rain.

Breakfast was subdued. We were all still tired from the night before. Our conversation was a repeat of the one earlier that morning. Not even Henry’s orange shirt emblazoned with “Left to Themselves, Things Tend to Go from Bad to Worse” cheered us up.

Edna pushed back from the table with an empty coffee cup in her hand. “What time will the lieutenant show up?”

I glanced at my watch. “Lieutenant Fenster is always prompt. I’d say in about ten minutes. Eight o’clock.”

Henry crossed the room to the telephone. “I’d better call Frank. Get him up here.”

Edna shook her head. “While you’re at it, ring Karla too.”

Ten minutes later, the doorbell announced Fenster with two detectives and a search warrant. Henry showed them into the library, where the lieutenant announced his team’s intention to search Karla Simpson’s bedroom.

The young woman’s eyes grew wide, and for the first time since I had known her, she was speechless. She started toward the two detectives heading up the stairs, but I stopped her. “Don’t interfere.”

She looked around in alarm. “But…”

I eyed her closely. “You don’t have anything to hide up there, do you?”

“No, of course not.” She shook her head emphatically. “But, my room. I—”