Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 06 - Extracurricular Murder (9 page)

But how did she come up with the ball bat? The teachers
could have hidden one in their room, but she had no room,
which meant she had to carry it with her.

Unlike a switchblade that could be hidden anywhere, the
only place she could have concealed it was under her skirt, a
next-to-impossible feat if the skin tightskirt she wore at our initial meeting was her choice of dress. On the other hand, perhaps she had secreted it in the shrubbery by the door.

I turned off the freeway, hoping Stewart was home.

Its wary yellow eyes watching my every move, the kitten was
the only one waiting for me.

Stopping in the kitchen doorway, I glared at the tiny thing.
“You think you got me beat, don’t you? Well, you don’t,” I
added, striding into the kitchen.

I nuked some more milk, then opened the bottle of red wine,
stuck the doggie bag in the microwave, and plopped down in
front of my computer. I tried to concentrate on formulating a list
of questions for Frances Holderman and Fred Seebell, whose
wife had been George Holderman’s mistress before Kim Nally
took her place, but Stewart remained on the fringes of my
thoughts.

I glanced at my cell phone, wondering if I should call
Stewart. I shrugged off the notion. “Come on, Tony. The boy’s
twenty-two. He can take care of himself.” Despite my worry, I
forced myself to concentrate on the job at hand.

Just like Frances Holderman, Seebell could have slipped out
of the lobby and whacked Holderman. Either could have
stashed the bat in the shrubs by the door, and either could have
plunged the switchblade into Holderman’s heart.

Of course, I faced the same dead end confronted by the Safford police. Neither Frances Holderman nor Fred Seebell
were left-handed. At least, according to the police report.

“Wait a minute,” I muttered, holding the wine glass at my
lips, as an idea popped into my head. “Could any of the suspects be ambidextrous?” I hesitated, wondering if the department had considered such a possibility.

Excited, I booted up the disk Chief Pachuca had given me
containing all three hundred and eighty pages of evidence.
Utilizing the FIND command, I searched for ambidextrous.
Nowhere did I find it.

I considered the matter. Crime scene analysis is only as good
as the technician interpreting the evidence. To one tech, a piece
of physical evidence might take on one meaning, to another, an
entirely different significance. Often, after the analysis and
synthesis of the evidence, the theory can take a skew completely contrary to initial concepts.

Going back to the FIND command, I searched for the word, evidence, pausing at each recognition to read the pertinent sentences.
Suddenly, I found myself staring at a list of personal evidence
taken from the desk of George Holderman, which was contained
in a box in the evidence room at Safford police station. Skimming
down the list, I saw nothing unusual until I reached his desk pad,
that ubiquitous business tool found on ninety percent of the desks
in this country. The typical desk pad is a calendar, appointment
pad, doodle pad, holiday reminder, and calculating pad.

Continuing through the disk, I found no other reference to
the desk pad. I paused, staring at the monitor, remembering
how I used my own desk pad at the office. Could Holderman
have made a reference to Perry Jacobs on the pad? A note, a
reminder to write a letter of reprimand? If such a note existed,
Perry Jacobs could be eliminated as a suspect, which, while it
would not solve the case, would cut the list of suspects by one.

Maybe Perry Jacobs’ display of anger during the interview
was actually a legitimate exhibition of righteous indignation.
Regardless, he had raised some questions about Frances Holderman, questions whose answers could prove quite interesting.

I don’t care who does the slicing or how thin they slice the
bread, you’ll always end up with two sides. Perhaps Perry
Jacobs’ theory about the other side of the bread had some merit.
Of all the suspects other than Jacobs, Frances Holderman had
the most compelling of motives.

I spent a few minutes trying to decide how to approach
Frances Holderman. I wanted to know if she had indeed been
aware of Nally’s abortion, and if, as Rita Viator had said, she
swore scandal unless Nally aborted. I hesitated, my fingers resting on the keyboard. I decided to do some background on her.

Going online, I found nothing.

On impulse, I decided to see what I could find out about
Janice’s newfound companion, Nelson Vanderweg. Of the
Montreal Vanderwegs, I reminded myself.

To my surprise, a Vanderweg wasn’t listed in Montreal. I
tried the remaining six of my white page databases. Again no
matches. In fact, I couldn’t find a Vanderweg in all of Quebec.

I chuckled. “Maybe they were run out of town,” I muttered,
taking a perverse delight in the thought, at the same time experiencing a tinge of guilt for the guy had done nothing to me. For
several more seconds, I stared at the monitor, puzzled. I continued staring at the screen, speculating. Did Janice say
Montreal? No question at all about that. She spit it out at me
like it was an Academy Award or Grammy.

So, why wasn’t there a Vanderweg in Montreal? One of two
explanations. Either she had misunderstood or he lied to her. I
discounted the misunderstanding, for he was at her side when
she introduced us. He heard her, and he could have corrected
her at the time.

But he didn’t.

Something smelled. And it wasn’t bad fish.

I glanced at my watch. Twelve-twenty. Stewart was late. I
couldn’t help wondering if he’d had an accident. Or-

The jangling of the phone interrupted my misgivings. It was
Stewart. He was spending the night with a friend. A soft voice
in the background told me all I needed to know. I glanced at the
caller ID for a phone number. “Okay, Stewart. Take care. See
you tomorrow. By the way, give your dad a call, you hear?”

“Right away, Tony. Count on it”

After he hung up, I did a reverse check on the number and
secured an address, 314 Festival Beach Street. And I’m not
ashamed to admit, I planned to see if he was indeed there. And
I was also jealous enough that I might just check on Janice.

I grabbed a leftover beer from the refrigerator, then on second thought put it back. I’d trampled too many of my AA vows
the last few hours. Time to make amends, so I grabbed a soft
drink instead.

To my relief, Stewart’s Pontiac was where it was supposed to
be, parked in front of 314 Festival Beach Street, so I drove over to
Janice’s condo on the Colorado River despite the hour. A black
E-Class, E55 AMG Mercedes coupe was parked behind her Miata.
I eased past, but it was too dark to make out the license number.

Turning around at the end of the block, I headed back. When
I reached her drive, I turned in, then quickly backed out, heading
in the direction from which I had come. If they spotted the headlights, they would figure it was simply someone turning around.

But in those couple of seconds, I memorized his license
number. It was a Texas number, which meant either he had
played the conscientious citizen and registered immediately
upon moving to the state, or else he’d been in the state since the
last license renewal.

I parked around the corner and waited, planning on finding
out just where Nelson Vanderweg called home. I leaned back
and waited.

The long day caught up with me. When I jerked awake at
four o’clock, the Mercedes had vanished. All that was left for
me to do was mutter a few curses and go back to my place.

I’d slept enough in my pickup that I was wide awake when I
passed I HOP on Lamar Boulevard. I pulled into the takeout
window and waited as they packaged me hot cakes, fried eggs,
peppered sausage, blackberry syrup, and a pint of coffee, a
Cajun’s concept of a heart healthy breakfast.

Nelson Vanderweg had me wired. I had to know more about
him. Call it ego, which it was, but even though he was better
looking than me, and richer, and probably more sensitive to a
woman’s needs, and undoubtedly a better dancer, and displayed
better manners, I didn’t feel as if he deserved Janice as much as
I did.

And to be truthful, that admission surprised me, for after my
wife, Diane, and I divorced, I never seriously considered marriage, not even with Janice. Yet, now, here I was, jealous, the
scorned lover.

Opening my breakfast tray, I placed it beside my computer
and booted the machine. Eat and compute. I glanced at the
clock. Almost five. That gave me about three hours.

I felt something rubbing my ankle and then a faint meow. I
glared at the kitten, which seemed to be putting on a little
weight. It stopped rubbing and looked up at me, purring softly.

“All right,” I groused, at the same time tearing off half the
sausage and dropping it on the carpet at the kitten’s feet.
“Here.”

Then I went to work. First I looked up the E-Class, E55
AMG Mercedes. A 2005 model, it invoiced at over $75,000. I
stared at the picture on the screen, trying to imagine the feeling
of climbing behind the wheel of such a vehicle.

With a shake of my head, I searched all my databases for
Nelson Vanderweg. The minutes turned into an hour, then two.
Nothing. Before I knew it, my breakfast tray was empty, my
coffee cold, and my eyes burning. I dumped the empty containers, showered and shaved, and headed for the office.

My next step was the Texas Motor Vehicle Registry disks
Marty updated yearly. I crossed my fingers that Vanderweg’s
license was listed. If he’d registered the vehicle with a new
license since the publication of the current registry, I’d be out
of luck.

Marty puffed in just as I pulled up the program. Red-faced,
he glanced at the screen, then looked away. “How’s the
Holderman business going?” He was breathing hard.

“Moving on. Finish with Seebell and Holderman today, but
I’ve got some background I want to look at.” I didn’t tell him I
was doing some personal research on his time.

He removed his topcoat and hat, poured some coffee, and
plopped across the desk from me. The chair groaned.
“Anything substantial?” He blew on his coffee and sipped at it
gingerly. He sighed in pleasure. “Coffee’s good.” A gust of
wind rattled the window. He shivered. “Especially on a lousy
day like today.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, scanning the registry for the license
number.

At that moment, Al Grogan came in, a large, beefy man with
the intuitive perception of Sherlock Holmes. Hey, as far as I
knew, he might be a descendent of the fictional gumshoe. Al poured some coffee and headed for his nook. To my relief,
Marty followed.

Then I found the license number. That was the good news.
The bad news was that it was registered to Clarence Jolly in
Amarillo, Texas, several hundred miles north. I jotted down his
address, then looking over my shoulder to make sure Marty
was not standing behind me, I punched in *67 and then placed
a call to Amarillo.

The phone picked up on the second ring. A stiff, cool voice
answered. “Jolly residence.”

“Clarence Jolly?” I heard a muffled voice in the background.

“Yes, but he isn’t in,” she replied curtly. “Would you care to
leave a message?”

I could visualize a pinch-lipped shrew in a maid’s uniform
taking orders from the voice in the background. I wasn’t going
to get anywhere with her by normal channels. So, I decided to
stir up some excitement in Amarillo. “Yes. Tell him this is Ed
George of George’s Wrecking Yard in Austin. I got Jolly’s
Mercedes down here and I want to know where to send the bill.
He owes two thousand bucks for storage.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end, and then I
heard muffled voices. I grinned, imagining the scene. Clarence
Jolly was probably gaping at her in disbelief.

Abruptly, a belligerent voice came over the line. “What do
you think you’re talking about, buddy? I sold that Mercedes.”