Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (23 page)

Taking a deep breath, I leaned back on the couch.

Janice whispered, “You all right, Tony? The foot?”

I grinned and squeezed her hand. “You’ve sure hung in
there tough the last few days. Sure you’re going to want to
go back to your daylily shows after all this excitement?”

She smiled brightly. “As fast as I can.”

We both laughed.

Her face grew serious. “Now what?”

I glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

She looked deep into my eyes. “You know who did it,
don’t you?”

Her unexpected question took me by surprise. I hesitated.
“I don’t know. I think I do, but I just don’t know.”

She squeezed my hand. “That’s because they’re family,
Tony. That’s why you don’t know. You don’t want to
know. I don’t blame you.”

I studied her a moment, her serious, green eyes, the short
brown hair surrounding her oval face. “You think you’re
pretty smart, don’t you?”

She arched an eyebrow provocatively. “Yes.”

With a chuckle, I pulled her down and kissed her. “I do
too,” I whispered.

Leaning back on the couch, I stared at the ceiling thirty
feet above us. Taking a deep breath, I decided it was time
to test the truth of the often-stated proposition that evidence does not lie; that it cannot be intimidated; that it does not
forget; that it doesn’t get excited; but that it simply sits and
waits to be detected, evaluated, and explained.

At that moment, I could name seven, eight, maybe even
nine for whom I had enough evidence to warrant an investigation by the state police. But, as far as I was concerned,
of the group, there was only one to whom the preponderance of the evidence, though circumstantial, pointed.

I had to be sure, and I had come up with a plan to nab
the killer.

And I hoped I was wrong.

My plan was simple, probably too simple.

First, I’d place one man in A.D.‘s room and one in the
pantry, behind the freezer.

Then I’d put out word I wanted to look at Ozzy’s room
again, using as a reason that in the pictures I had taken
with the digital camera, there appeared some evidence that
might point to the identity of his killer.

If I made that announcement when all the suspects were
gathered, then by the time I hobbled up the stairs to the
second floor, the killer would be in his place on the secret
stairway. He had to know what new evidence I had seen.

Simple.

And probably stupid, I told myself.

Still, I didn’t see any other way. Once we were rescued
from the island, everyone would get back to his own life.
The intensity of the investigation would be blunted because
so much of the evidence was circumstantial, able to be
contradicted by a variety of explanations once the killer had
time to rehearse his alibis.

I had to have hard evidence, and this was the only way
I knew to get it. I had no choice but to make the attempt.

This moment seemed to epitomize Brutus’s remark in
Julius Caesar that “there is a tide in the affairs of man,
which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune.”

In the Cajun vernacular, “take a shot, cher.”

I was going to take a shot.

One at a time, Janice sent Uncle Patric, Uncle George,
and Uncle Henry to me. I quickly outlined my plan to them,
concluding with the caveat, “Maybe this will work, maybe
it won’t.”

None of the three offered me any encouragement that
my idea might be successful. In fact, Uncle George rolled
his eyes, but still agreed to help.

George, I stationed in A.D.‘s room. Patric and I would
be in Ozzy’s room. I placed Uncle Henry behind the
freezer, reminding him to duck out of sight if anyone came
into the pantry.

“Then what?”

I cautioned him, “You’re the one who starts the ball rolling, Uncle Henry. You see, there is a secret stairway in the
back of the broom closet. If the killer comes in, he’ll go
into the closet.”

“What about you? Where you be?”

“In Ozzy’s room. You’ll hear me. I’ll slam the door.”

He nodded. “What do I do?”

“Give the killer a little time to get upstairs. Then leave
the pantry and slam the door after you. When we hear the
door slam, that’s when we’ll move into action. There are
three ways to exit the stairway. We’ll catch the killer at
one of them.”

By now, dusk had filtered into the house, casting shadows across the ceilings and draping them down the walls.
By now, the coal oil lamps were lit, putting out faint yellow
balls of light in the encroaching darkness.

I whispered to Janice, “Wait here.”

She forced a smile. “I hope it works. You do have your
.38, don’t you?”

I grimaced. I’d forgotten all about it. Last I’d seen it was
when I put it on the kitchen cabinet two days earlier. “No.”
But I quickly reassured her. “Don’t worry. There won’t be
a need for it.”

Giving my uncles a nod, I rose and hobbled over to Mom
and Grandma Ola. While most eyes were on me, Uncle George slipped upstairs at the same time Uncle Henry
opened the kitchen door a crack and slipped inside. No one
seemed to notice.

I hoped.

“You and Grandma Ola doing all right, Mom?”

“Tony. You shouldn’t be on that foot.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I’ve got some more looking around to
do. I wanted to borrow your flashlight.”

“Where are you going?” She handed me the light.

“Ozzy’s room,” I said, speaking loudly enough for the
Venables and Thibodeauxs to hear. “I was looking back
over the pictures I took, and I spotted something that might
be important. I want to take another look at it. From what
I can tell from the picture,” I added, touching my finger to
the disk in my shirt pocket and laying the blarney on thick,
“It might tell me who killed Ozzy.”

I felt eyes on me. I looked around. Nanna was staring at
me. Slowly, she shook her head and rested her fingers on
a grin-grin. I remembered her warning, you find what you
do not want. I shivered as a chill seized me. I shrugged it
off. I nodded and continued to the stairs.

Leroi stopped me as I hobbled past. “What’s up? Need
some help?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Your pa offered to help.”

Puzzled, Leroi frowned. “Okay.” He nodded upstairs.
“Where you going?” Behind him, Sally and Giselle looked
on.

“Ozzy’s room. Remember those pictures we took? Well,
I was looking at them again, and I saw something I’d overlooked.” I shrugged. “Can’t tell, but it might be important.”
I nodded to his pa. “Give me a hand, Uncle Patric, if you
please.”

We took our time ascending the stairs. The shadows
grew thicker. The hair on the back of my neck tingled when
I heard a door creak open down below. I kept my eyes
forward.

We paused outside Ozzy’s door. The glow of the flash light beam cast eerie shadows on our faces. “Remember,
Uncle Patric. If we hear the door slam downstairs, we head
for the closet. Whoever’s in the stairway won’t have time
to be quiet. Uncle Henry will trap them in the pantry. I
hope,” I added in a whisper.

He nodded. The dim glow of the flashlight accentuated
the drawn features on his weathered face. “Do you know
who it is?”

“I’m not sure. But if I was the killer, I’d want to know
what new evidence has turned up in Ozzy’s room, wouldn’t
you?”

He shrugged and scratched his head. “Hope you be
right.”

My foot was throbbing. I shifted my weight to my good
one. I started to tell him that I also hoped I was right, but
the truth was, I didn’t want to be right. All I said was,
“Okay. Let’s go.”

We entered the dark room. I flashed the beam over the
walls and ceiling, then headed for the nightstand on which
the empty whiskey glass and bottle of Jim Beam sat. Uncle
Patric slammed the door and came to stand at my side. We
stood with our backs to the peephole, playing the beam of
light about the top of the nightstand and carrying on a whispered but animated conversation about nothing.

I kept waiting for the slam of a door.

“How long we gots to keep this up?” Patric whispered.

“As long as it takes. Be patient.”

We squatted and ran our fingers over the floor at the base
of the nightstand.

Suddenly, a door slammed below.

“That’s it,” I shouted, making a dash for the closet. I hit
the back of the closet and the panel popped open.

The clatter of feet echoed up the dark stairway.

I raced down the stairs. Patric was right behind me. Uncle George was behind us. Below, I spotted a shadow.
Without warning, I banged my foot into a stud in the wall. A flash of pain ripped up my leg like a bolt of lightning,
and I felt myself tumbling head over heels down the stairs.

I hit the bottom and tried to jump to my feet, but my
foot wouldn’t hold me. I collapsed. Patric stumbled over
me. Then Uncle George fell over me. In the midst of the
confusion, I heard a banging on the pantry door.

“There, by the door,” I shouted. “The killer.” I started to
say more, but Patric accidentally stomped on my foot when
he leaped to his feet.

I yelped in pain.

With a growl, he lunged at the shadow. Someone
shouted, “Hey! What the-”

Canned goods clattered to the floor as the two shadows
banged into the pantry shelves.

“I got you now,” shouted Patric.

“Leave me alone, you idiot. What do you think-”

“You shut up, you.”

Grabbing at each other and shouting, the shadows tumbled to the floor. I managed to climb on top of them. I
shouted, “Henry! Hurry. Open the door.”

The door burst open. Uncle Henry rushed inside, shining
his light on the tangle of arms and legs squirming about on
the floor. “You got ‘em? You got ‘em?”

“Yeah,” I muttered between clenched teeth. “Get a light.”

Patric grunted. “You betcha I got him. I got him good.
He ain’t going kill nobody else.”

“Well, let him up,” shouted Henry, tugging at Patric.

Patric stumbled to his feet, his chest heaving. “Yeah, we
got him.”

Henry shined the light beam on the prone figure.

Leroi !

“L
eroi!” Patric’s jaw dropped open. He stammered and
stuttered before he managed to get out, “Leroi! What you
do here?”

A wave of nausea cramped my stomach. I didn’t know
if it was from the pain in my foot on which Patric had
stomped or the sight of Leroi sprawled on the pantry floor.

“Leroi,” was all I could mutter, standing on my good
leg. “What-” Some detective I was. I couldn’t believe I
had been so wrong. In a hundred years, I wouldn’t have
believed Leroi was the killer. But now-

He rolled to his feet and glared at us.. “What do you
idiots think you’re doing? This ain’t no game. Somebody
could have been hurt. Why-”

The family had gathered in the kitchen behind Henry. A
handful had pushed into the pantry. Patric and Henry exchanged puzzled looks. The beams from several flashlights
illuminated the room.

I collected my thoughts. “Hold on, Leroi. That’s what
we want to know. What were you doing up there? And
how did you know about the secret stairway?”

The light beams flashed on his face. He held up his hand
to shade his eyes. His voice was sharp with anger. “Hey,
Cuz, I could ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah, but we’re asking you.” I limped forward.

Patric cleared his throat. “That’s right, Son. What you
doing up there? Why you run?”

“You’d run too if people started chasing you down a dark
stairway.”

His father shook his head. “Why was you up there anyways?”

He looked at his pa, then shifted his gaze to me, then to
Henry. “Truth is, you and Pa were acting so secret-like, I
got curious. I decided to see what all that new evidence
was. That’s why.”

At that moment, I saw my case falling apart. Maybe I
should have stayed at Madison High School teaching English. “How’d you know about the stairs? When we were
talking day before yesterday, you said you didn’t know
about any secret passages.”

He shrugged. “That’s right. No big deal. Giselle told me
about them. We were wondering why you had Pa help you
upstairs and not one of us. So I figured I’d see what the
new evidence was whether you liked it or not.”

“Giselle?”

“Yeah. She said she’d known about the stairway for
years.”

Hoping I had misunderstood him, I said, “Giselle told
you about the stairway?”

She spoke up. “Everybody’s known about it for years. I
was surprised Leroi hadn’t heard of it.”

Before I could question her assertion, Leroi broke in.
“What did you find up there? I couldn’t tell what you were
looking at. What was it?”

“Yeah, Tony,” Uncle Bailey said from the rear of the
crowd. “What is this new evidence?”

Well, Tony, you did it again, I told myself, realizing I
had no choice but to admit that the whole thing was a ruse
to draw out the killer, who was turning out to be smarter
than —I thought.

What little new respect I had gained over the last few days from my family was about to be washed away with
laughter at such a hapless attempt on my part.