Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 04 - Vicksburg by Kent Conwell Page A

to inherit several million after the will is probated. That’s motive enough in anyone’s book.” I waited
for his reaction to my remark, several million. He didn’t
react, which told me he knew the value of the riverside
land.
    WR sputtered and tapped his middle finger against his
chest. “You mean-you mean, you think I did it? That I
killed my own father? That’s a crock.”
    I watched for the family sign of nervousness, the tongue
under the bottom lip, but it never appeared. “I didn’t say you
did. All I said was I wanted to talk to you about it. After all,
you claimed you had no idea your father was going to leave
you the riverside property.”
    He nodded emphatically. “That’s right. That was a surprise to me, and to Stewart” He was growing belligerent, the way guilty people do. “He had planned to give it to some
bird-watching group.”

    “What about the afternoon he died? The twenty-sixth?
Where were you?”
    He glared at me. “What business is it of yours?”
    I shrugged. With a note of indifference in my voice, I
replied, “Hey, tell me or tell Chief Hemings. I don’t care.”
    His belligerence dried up, replaced by a worried look in
his eyes. “All right, all right. I was over at Shreveport the day
JW died. Me and Stewart”
    “I suppose you have witnesses.”
    Now his tongue started moving along the inside of his
bottom lip. “I told you, I was with Stewart”
    “Come on, WR. Get real. How credible is your own brother when each of you stand to inherit five or six million? You
think a jury will fall for that?”
    The worry on his face deepened. His tongue didn’t miss a
beat.
    “Who did you visit over there?”
    He licked his lips. “That’s the problem. Nobody. We went
to a bar called the Tiger’s Den.”
    I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t I prompted
him. “Okay. The Tiger’s Den. Why did you go to the Tiger’s
Den? Is it a special kind of bar or something?”
    A flash of anger turned his cheeks red. He glared at me.
“What are you driving at? I don’t go to them kind of bars”
    “I don’t know about Chief Hemings, but if I was the chief
of police, I’d figure that’s a long drive just to go to a bar.”
    WR hesitated. Sweat glistened on his flabby cheeks.
    I was growing exasperated. “Look, you tell me, or you tell
Hemings. I’m tired of fooling with you” I turned to walk
away.
    “Wait.”
    I halted.
    He paused, then continued. “All right. Here’s the truth”
    I turned back to him.
    “The honest truth,” he said, staring at the floor as he shift ed his feet nervously. “We went to meet a lawyer who had
called Stewart. The guy said he had pictures of JW with
some bimbo in a hotel. For a cut of the inheritance, he said
he would-” He hesitated. To give him some credit, his
cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “If we agreed to give
him twenty percent of our inheritance, he said he would go
to JW and threaten to send the pictures to the newspapers
and TV stations if JW did not deed the land over to us now.”

    “So you went to meet him?” I couldn’t keep the disgust
from my voice.
    He continued staring at the floor. “Yeah”
    I knew the answer to my next question, but I asked it anyway. “Why would your father care one way or another?”
    Eyes blazing, WR looked up and snorted. “He was a religious nut. Town father. That sort of thing. He would have
probably had a stroke if those pictures were published.”
    “Convenient for you and your brother, huh?”
    The color in WR’s cheeks deepened.
    Things, to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, were growing
curiouser and curiouser. “Who is this guy?”
    WR dropped his gaze back to the floor. “That’s the problem,” he said lamely, “he didn’t show up”
    “But, he gave you a name.”
    He shook his head. “No,” he replied lamely.
    “That’s mighty convenient. Mighty convenient.”
    His eyes pleaded with me. “That’s the gospel truth.
Honest.”
    “All