Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 06 - Extracurricular Murder (12 page)

ES, Eunice Seebell, the ex-secretary, who preceded Kim
Nally as Holderman’s mistress. Obviously, the superintendent
collected mistresses like a Texas redneck collects gimme caps.

I considered her husband, Fred Seebell. He was an unlikely
killer. If he had wanted to kill Holderman, why didn’t he do it
years back? “Maybe because he was waiting for just the right
time,” I muttered, answering my own question after reminding
myself that he had ample time on the night of November 11. He
didn’t even have to sign in, only the teachers.

Around three, I left the office, deciding to run down BN at
the Dreamstreet Dance Emporium in Elgin. See what he or
she could tell me about the heartbroken Mrs. George
Holderman.

The light rain continued, driving the winter chill deep into
my bones. I shivered as I jumped out of my truck and headed
for the padded door of the honky-tonk.

Inside, the club was dark and warm, filled with the sweetsour smell of beer and whiskey. A couple of patrons perched on
stools at the bar. The slowly flashing strobes bathed their faces
first in red, then blue, then yellow, then green. I slid onto a stool
and ordered a draft beer. When the bartender placed the icy
mug in front of me, I handed him a business card and identified
myself. “You the owner?”

A sallow-faced man with long black hair in his mid-thirties
or so eyed me momentarily, then shook his head. “Nope.
Bernie Neighbors.” He wiped at the bar.

My eyes lit. BN. Bernie Neighbors. “You been working here
long?”

He shrugged, continuing to wipe the bar. “Maybe.”

“You know Frances Holderman? It was probably Laurent
then.”

“Maybe.”

A wry grin ticked up on side of my lips. So that was how it
was going to be. Like prying rocks out of concrete to get any
information from him. So, I decided to take another angle. I’d
lie. That was one talent in which I excelled. “Look, she’s
applied for a job with the company that retains me. I do background checks for them. That’s what this is all about.” I pulled
out my small notebook and flipped through the pages.
“According to her, she worked here up until about ninety-five.”

The slender man paused in wiping the bar and looked up at
me. “What’d you say her name was?”

“Frances Laurent. She was an exotic dancer. Headliner.”

“Franny?” He snorted. “A headliner? Not quite.”

My pulse quickened. “But, you knew her, huh?”

He glanced down at the two men at the bar, then leaned forward. “Not as Frances. Out here, she was Franny, and everyone knew Franny. Franny with the ready fanny, they called her. You
know what I mean?” He gave me an obscene leer.

I nodded, and kept my mouth shut. He continued. “Nice
looker. Great bod, but she was trouble. Bernie, he put up with
her as long as he could. She brought a lot of customers in, but
she sure caused a lot of trouble too.”

“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Bernie’s a decent sort, but after the cops came out
two or three times because of her and threatened to close us
down, Bernie canned her. She was trouble. Why, I remember
once …” The grin vanished from his face. “Hey, you’re in
luck. Here’s Bernie now.”

I looked over my shoulder as a bowling ball of a man rolled
across the floor toward us.

“You’re early, Bernie.”

Bernie paused and nodded to me before replying. “Had to
drop my little girl off at the dentist. Wife’s picking her up, so I
thought I’d come on in.”

The bartender introduced us and explained the purpose of
my visit. He concluded with, “I was just telling him how you
bounced Franny because of the trouble she was causing.”

Bernie pursed his lips and absently smoothed at the few
strands of hair combed across the top of his head. “What company did you say you were representing?”

I thought fast. “I didn’t, but it’s the Austin Christian
Publishing House.”

The bartender’s eyes popped open. “Whoops.” His cheeks
colored. He glanced at the beer I had ordered. “Shouldn’t that
be a soft drink or milk, mister?”

“Just because I work for them doesn’t mean I drink like
them.”

He laughed.

One of the patrons flagged the bartender. Bernie nodded at
the man’s retreating back. “Glenn’s been with me almost fif teen years. He never liked Franny. Of course, she was pretty
wild back then even if she was older than the other girls.
Sometimes she’d get upset and come into my office for a good
cry. I could tell then that she was basically an okay kid.” He
hesitated. “Well, maybe not a kid.”

I did some fast calculations in my head. “She must’ve been
about twenty-eight or thirty.”

“Yeah.” Bernie shook her head. “But she had the body of an
eighteen-year-old. How she kept it, I don’t know, but I was glad
when she told me she was getting married. I didn’t really know
the guy, but the truth is, pal, a lot of these gals here can make
the right guy a wonderful wife. I don’t know what she’ll be
doing for your company, but I’m not afraid to tell you she’ll be
one good employee.”

“She work here long, Bernie?”

He screwed up his face in concentration. “Yeah. Six or seven
years. She never talked much about where she came from. I
always had the feeling though she’d been through a rough marriage … or relationship like they call it nowadays. Like I said,
she was a good kid. Most of my girls are.”

“Your bartender said you fired her because she caused trouble.”

Bernie shook his head briefly. “Yes and no. She couldn’t help
being a looker. If there was one fight over her, there was twenty. I would’ve kept paying the fines. She brought in twice what
she cost me, but one day, she come in and told me she was getting married.” He shrugged. “Just that simple.”

I studied Bernie curiously. “You knew her husband?”

He nodded. “Not really. Oh, he was out here a lot for about
a year before she left. I never talked to him. Kept to hisself. She
never said much about what he did, but she did say he had a
good job.” Bernie frowned. “Things must be pretty tough on
them now if she’s got to work.”

I made a couple of notes just to keep up my pretense. “Beats
me. So, you think it was a good marriage, huh?”

“As far as she was concerned, Franny was thrilled.” He
paused. “Hey, if you see her, tell her if she needs anything, to
get in touch with me. Okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. He was a good man. “I will.”

Heading home, I considered what I had learned. Regardless
of her lifestyle, she appeared to love Holderman. Right then, I
put her lower on the list of suspects.

Until later that night.

The drizzle plastering the windshield turned into a steady
rain, the quintessential central Texas winter soaking that sent
every living creature scurrying inside. On impulse, I pulled into
a McDonald’s for a Big Mac and family fries. Might as well
clog the arteries with cholesterol and fat. On impulse, I also
ordered a small burger for the kitten.

My apartment was warm and snug, a perfect refuge against
the frigid weather outside. After cleaning the sauce off the kitten’s burger and tearing the patty into small pieces for him, I
wolfed down my own burger and fries.

Finally, I plopped down at my computer to type my notes for
the day.

Just after 9:45, the phone rang.

I cradled it between my shoulder and ear so I could continue
typing. “Hello.”

“This the guy who was out at Dreamstreet today?” It was a
woman’s voice. The words were slurred.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

She ignored my question. “Hear you was nosing around, asking about Franny.”

“Just doing my job. Who is this?”

“Look, I read about her in the paper last year, about someone
bumping off her old man. If that’s what you’re really snooping
into, then for the right amount of money, I can give you some
choice information.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I bet. Now, just what kind of information can you possibly give me?” My voice was heavy with
sarcasm.

The woman dropped a bombshell in my lap. “She tried to
hire me to find someone to kill her husband”

I froze. Everything about me froze. Time stood still. The clock
on the kitchen wall stopped ticking. Even the kitten stopped
purring.

Finally, I managed to swallow my heart, which had leaped
into my throat, and with classic Tony Boudreaux poise, I stammered and stuttered, managing to choke out a gem of a question. “Who … Who is this?”

“Never mind. You interested?”

Was the fox interested in the chicken? “Yeah. Where are
you?”

“Don’t worry about that. Can you meet me tonight? About
ten-thirty?”

I had regained my composure. “Sure. No problem.”

“At Borgia’s. On Sixth Street”

“How will I know you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll know you.”

I ran out into icy rain. Halfway to my truck, I realized I had
left my jacket in the apartment. I ran back inside, grabbed it,
and sprinted for my truck.

The rain stung my bare skin. Sleet. No one in his right mind should be out on the streets on a night like this, but I barged
ahead in wild abandon, slowing only to pull into my ATM and
withdraw a couple of hundred bucks.

Despite the weather, Sixth Street was hopping. Denizens
from every culture of the underworld prowled the streets and
slouched in bars half listening to the dissonant syncopation of
ambitious, but musically challenged groups tearing through
their gigs with strident, misplaced impetuosity.

Every parking spot was filled for two blocks around. I parked
on a hill near the Omni Hotel, facing down just in case the sleet
grew heavy. I could roll all the way down the hill to 1-35.

Pulling my collar up around my neck and jamming my
hands in the pockets of my jacket, I hurried along the cold, wet
sidewalks, hunching close to the buildings in an effort to avoid
some of the sleet. Suddenly, I rounded the corner into the glaring lights and deafening rap of Sixth Street. Borgia’s, like the
other bars and clubs, was busier than a hooker at the Democratic Convention.

Borgia’s had no awning, so the sleet rat-tat-tatted against the
front window. The water sheeting down the glass distorted the
figures inside. I pushed through the door, pausing as a paroxysm
of uncontrollable shivers racked my body. Slowly, they subsided as I eagerly soaked up the warmth of the establishment.

Like most clubs along Sixth Street, Borgia’s interior was
twenty feet wide and seventy-five deep. A bar, packed shoulderto-shoulder with patrons, lined the first forty feet on one side.
In the back corner of the room was a stage, on which four
glassy-eyed musicians-a generous use of the word-in various states of undress banged on a piano, thrummed on a guitar,
sawed on a bass fiddle, and screeched on a saxophone.

Round tables, each with four chairs, filled the remainder of
the room. At first glance, I figured about eighty or ninety bodies, probably twice as many as the fire marshal would approve.
I surveyed the room.

Next to the wall, near the front window, a pale hand waved.
I made my way through the smoky room. A lone woman with
half-shut eyes sat at the table, a cigarette dangling from her
brightly painted lips. Her dark hair was straight and looked as
if some time had passed since it had seen a good brushing. She
wore a shapeless raincoat on which the water still beaded.
There was a split in the plastic at the bend of her elbow.
Overweight, she had reached that point where age is hard to
guess. The puffy, blotched skin could belong to anyone from
thirty-five to fifty-five. But, I wasn’t about to guess, not aloud.

“You the one who called?” I stood behind a chair, staring
down at her.

She squinted up at me, a faint sneer curling her lips. “I’ll take
a beer.”

I hesitated, then shrugged. Why not? I got us each a draft
beer and sat across the table from her. She slurped the beer and
dragged the back of her hand across her lips. A dribble ran
down her pointed chin and dripped on her raincoat.