Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 14 - Murder in a Casbah of Cats (5 page)

Henry cocked an eyebrow. “You have to admit, he does have a stomach.”

Edna shot him a dirty look. “Hush, Henry. That’s not nice.”

Henry laughed.

The meal was delicious. Edna tried to give me seconds, but I begged off. “I’m one of those that gain weight just looking at it,” I said with a deprecating smile.

“Me too.” She patted her waist. “I just keep watching mine grow bigger.”

“I doubt that,” I replied, pushing back from the table and announcing that I wanted to take a stroll around the grounds to work off the meal.

Gadrate shot me a look that seemed to be a mixture of surprise and concern. Henry just shrugged.

Frank’s Spartan little cottage was neat and orderly. He gestured to a couch in front of a TV, an older model, but with all the peripherals to ensure digital signals.

“Want something to drink?” He indicated a liter of peach vodka on the table next to a recliner.

“Might as well,” I said, never having tasted peach vodka.

He poured me half a tumbler over ice, then plopped down in his recliner. “Heard Edna whipped up chicken and dumplings for supper, huh?”

I patted my stomach. “Delicious. Edna is one fine cook.”

“You bet she is. I had to stop eating up there because I was getting so fat, I couldn’t fit behind the wheel of the tractor.”

I sipped the vodka. It wasn’t bad. Wasn’t good either. A hint of peach. “Now, you were going to tell me about the murder of Mr. Watkins.”

The wrinkles in his weather-browned face deepened. “There was no way for the killer to get out of that house, but he did.”

“What?” I leaned forward, thinking I had misunderstood him.

“That’s right. The old man, he was throwing a Christmas party. Collins showed up. Him and Mr. Watkins argued in the library, and Collins left. I even took him to the main gate, like the old man said. Later, when me and Edna sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, folks in the den heard shouts, then gunshots in the library. They tried to get in, but the doors were locked. When they finally broke the doors down, Mr. Watkins was laying dead on the floor, two bullets in his heart. All the doors and windows were locked.”

He paused. “The cops never could figure it out. They found Bill Collins in bed at his place later that night. Besides, I saw him leave. Even if he slipped back in some way, how could he get out of the library? See what I mean?”

“Weird,” I muttered. “And they never found who killed him?”

“Never.”

“They ever find out about the doors and windows in the library?”

“Police brought in their specialists. They couldn’t find nothing. Even took up the carpet to see if there was any trapdoors. Nothing.”

I pondered his story. “The killer couldn’t just disappear. There has to be a way out.”

The old gardener agreed. “Sure there does. But where?” He paused a moment. “The cops was real frustrated. They even come up with the possibility of the killer hiding behind the door, and when the crowd broke through and rushed in, he mingled with them.”

I frowned at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Not one iota. I told you they was frustrated.”

“What do you think?”

He took another sip of peach vodka. “The killer wasn’t hiding behind no door.”

Right then, I knew I was going to pay the library a visit.

“This Collins. What did he and Watkins argue about?”

“Nobody knows. In fact, nobody could ever figure out what Mr. Watkins’s business was with him.”

“I don’t understand.” I scooted to the edge of the couch.

“You didn’t have to be no genius to see Collins was a thug. He sure wasn’t the kind the old man would rub shoulders with. He just didn’t fit. He was the kind you’d see in a police lineup, you know?”

I knew the kind. “Did Watkins have many enemies?”

He glanced at me from refilling his glass. “He was a fine man, what the papers called a ‘pillar of our society.’ He might have had some enemies, but I never heard of none.” He paused. “Still, it stands to reason, there had to be some who didn’t care for him.”

Frank was right, of course. “Some who might have wanted to see him dead?”

“None I can think of. Even if they was at the party that night, they couldn’t have done it.”

By now, darkness had settled over the estate, which was dimly lit by the city lights reflecting off the thin clouds above.

I headed back to the house, turning over the old gardener’s story in my mind. Those Poe-like mysteries always fascinated me. I couldn’t help wondering where Bill Collins was today or if he was even still alive.

As I passed under the low-hanging limbs of a live oak, a screeching yowl startled me. A dark shadow shot under my feet, racing for the mansion. Cursing softly, I watched as the dark blur cut toward the front gate, then vanished into the darkness of another live oak.

I went through the back door into the kitchen, where I ran into Edna. She was putting together a tray for Karla. Disgust edged her voice. “That lazy thing sleeps all day, then expects us to do whatever she wants, when she wants. Well, between you and me, I got news for her. If she wants anything else tonight, she can get it.” She shook her head. “It’s shameful the way she acts.”

“What about her boyfriend? Ms. Watkins—I mean, Skylar—mentioned him.”

Her voice was tight with anger. “He’s another one I’d like to strangle. Loafs around all day and stays here all night. He’s been out of town for the last couple of days, and that little hussy up there can’t wait for him to get back.” She turned on her heel and, tray in hand, stormed from the kitchen.

I said nothing, but to paraphrase Alice in her visit to Wonderland, “things were growing curiouser and curiouser.” I made my way to the stairs. As I passed the library doors, I heard a scratching. I opened a door, and the mackerel monster that had clawed me shot out and zoomed up the stairs. “If I’d known it was you, buddy, I’d have left you in there all night,” I growled.

As I hit the third floor, I saw Henry and Gadrate coming out of the cats’ rooms. When Henry saw me, he shook his head. “We almost had a problem. Hercules was missing.”

“Hercules? Which one is he?”

“He’s a gray mackerel. Always hissing and scratching.”

“So that’s his name, huh? He was down in the library. When I came in from my walk, I heard a scratching.”

Henry looked around at Gadrate. “I thought you checked the library.”

She glared at me. “I did. He wasn’t in there.”

Holding my hands out to my side, I said, “He must’ve been curled up inside one of the couches or something, but when I opened the door, he shot out.” I held out the back of my hand. “I can’t forget that one. He left me his calling card this afternoon.”

I was growing more and more intrigued with the death of Herbert Adam Watkins III, so when I got back to my room, I pulled out my three-by-five note cards and jotted down what I could remember of the morning’s conversations.

Even though I always transfer my notes to the computer, the cards allow me to juggle events, often providing a different perspective. After I finished my notes, I booted up my laptop and went online, searching the
Austin American-Statesman
newspaper archives for Bill Collins, which proved to be too massive a search for me to handle. Instead, I went to the murder of Herbert Adam Watkins III.

The articles told the story I’d already heard from Frank Creek but with a few more details. According to the family attorney, L. D. Buckalew, the door was locked. The butler was nowhere around, so he ran into the kitchen, but it was empty. Finally, he led a small group of partygoers in breaking down the door.

The remainder of the articles offered nothing new.

So, I did what I do often, I e-mailed Eddie Dyson for information on Bill Collins. If the information were out there, Eddie could get it.

At one time Austin’s resident stool pigeon, Eddie Dyson had become a computer whiz and wildly successful entrepreneur. Instead of sleazy bars and greasy money, he found a legitimate niche for snitching in the bright glow of computers and credit cards.

There were only two things to remember when you dealt with Eddie; never ask how he did it, and only use Visa credit cards for payment.

I never asked Eddie why he only accepted Visa. Seems like any credit card would be sufficient, but considering the value of his service, I never posed the question. As far as I was concerned, if he wanted to be paid in Croatian kuna, I’d pack up a half a dozen bushels and send them to him.

Failure was not a word in his vocabulary. His services did not come cheap, but he produced. Working with him was one of those cases where the end is indeed worth the means.

I’m not much of a TV person, but I flipped it to the news and opened a bottle of chilled merlot from the refrigerator. The news was the same, shootings, robberies, and such. Only the names and places changed.

My mind drifted from the program. For some reason, I thought about Hercules, the monster cat. I smiled to myself when I imagined Gadrate scouring the library for him. Cats, even big ones like him, can hide anywhere.

After fifteen minutes or so, I wandered out on the balcony. The heat struck me. It had to be at least eighty degrees, typical for Austin’s late summers. During the day, the temperature had
danced around the hundred-degree mark. If we were lucky, it would drop to the seventies by morning, and then start all over.

I glanced along the balcony. A dim light came from two sets of French doors, the cats’ rooms. The other doors were dark. I strolled along the balcony, watching the traffic pass on Woodlawn Boulevard. A bus pulled up at the stop outside the fence, and two riders climbed off. The night air was filled with the seductive fragrance of honeysuckle and roses growing on the trellises climbing the house. I couldn’t help wondering again if this was what it was like back in the old antebellum days.

A movement on the grounds near the fence caught my eye. I squinted into the dim light. A shadow emerged from the darkness of one live oak, ghosted across a patch of dimly lit St. Augustine, and disappeared into the gloom of another live oak.

After a few moments, whoever it was advanced to another tree, this one closer to the mansion.

Moving quickly, I slipped back into my room and downstairs. On the second floor, I noted a string of light at the bottom of two doors at the end of the hall. Henry’s and Gadrate’s, I guessed, hurrying on down to the kitchen and out the rear door.

Moving quickly to the front, I dropped to one knee beside a neatly trimmed jasmine from where I could take in the front grounds. I waited, fixing my eyes on the last place I had spotted the shadow.

Nothing moved.

Then a silhouette moved a few feet and stopped. Moments later, a second shadow, this one smaller, appeared from the far end of the mansion and the two embraced.

I grinned. Karla and her boyfriend. I turned to leave, but rising voices stopped me. The two were arguing, and while they
appeared as only fuzzy shadows, I could see there was some pushing and shoving going on.

A woman’s voice shouted, “No.”

Now, I’m not one to interfere with others. I swear by the philosophy “if it isn’t bothering me, it is none of my affair.” On the other hand, I never liked to see men shoving women around.

I started toward them. “Hey! What’s going on out there?”

The shadows froze. I heard a burst of excited words, garbled by distance. Then the two broke and ran in opposite directions.

I sprinted after the larger shadow, taking an angle that would intercept him before he could reach the main gate.

And then my head exploded.

Slowly I became aware of a pounding in my head, like a crazed drummer beating maniacally on a bass drum. I managed to open my eyes. It was still dark. I laid a hand on my head, feeling a large knot in the middle of my forehead. I struggled to sit, and for long minutes, I remained sitting, slumped over, praying for the pain to go away.

Traffic on Woodlawn was light, suggesting early morning. I must have been unconscious for two or three hours. From where I sat, light from the street shone under the overhanging limbs of the live oak. I knew live oak limbs always grew toward the ground, but in the excitement last night, I forgot that ubiquitous little fact.