Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 12 - Murder Among Friends Read Online Free PDF Page A

old man. “On second
thought, give me a call. I’ll pick it up” A frown knit his
freckled forehead. I explained the situation. “He’d probably flush it down the toilet”
    To my relief, my old man was still home. He’d downed
the whole six-pack of Old Milwaukee, but he was still
home. To my dismay, he wore the same clothes, and I had
to throw open the windows to air out the place.

    Luckily, I had the foresight to pick up a couple of pepperoni and cheese pizzas and a case of beer on the way in.
    John Roney ignored the piping hot pizza, preferring the
beer. I nodded to his ragged garments. “No beer until you
get out of those so I can wash them. I’ll get you some stuff
to wear, and then you can have the beer.”
    In less than two minutes, he’d done as I suggested and, in
a set of baggy sweats, was nursing a cold beer. I tossed his
clothes in the washer.
    Setting him on the couch, I grilled him on the incidents
at the railway station.
    He looked at me blankly. His ragged whiskers clung to
his sunken cheeks. He slurred his words. “I don’t remember
nothing. A bunch of us come in from San Antone. Kansas
City Mort had managed a couple bottles of wine. We done
drunk it down, and I don’t remember nothing ‘til I woke up
in the drunk tank”
    He reached for his beer, but I grabbed his bony wrist.
“Listen to me. I’m doing my best to keep you from spending
the rest of your-” I started to say worthless because that’s
all he’d ever been to me, but somehow, the word refused to
roll off my lips. “The rest of your life in prison,” I said.
    He looked up at me, and I would have sworn he had no
idea what I was talking about. I continued, “Did you know
someone on the trains by the name of Salinas Sal?”
    He cocked his head. “Sal? Yeah. I know Sal. We rode from
Oregon down to Arizona and then over to San Antone together. What about him?” His eyes drifted back to the beer
on the coffee table.
    I jerked on his wrist, forcing him to look at me. “Someone
killed him here in Austin, and the cops think you’re the one
who did it.”
    He stared at me and muttered. “Not me”

    “What do you know about it?”
    “Nothing” He shook his head. “Last I seen Sal, he was
heading for Sixth Street. That’s when Kansas City Mort
come up with the wine. We sat under the loading docks and
drunk it down”

     

Pssing through downtown on the way to Janice’s ranch, I
spotted one of the winos who lived in the alleys and deserted buildings along Sixth Street. Whenever transients
jumped off the train in the Austin rail yard, they usually
found their way downtown.
    Possibly, I told myself, as I wended through the traffic
flowing south, I might run across one or two who knew about
the killing. I’d check with them later.
    Normally, the winding drive along Bee Tree Road that
cut through the oak- and cedar-covered hills west of Austin
was pleasant and relaxing. Tonight, my mind was tiptoeing gingerly around the subject of marriage. I had rehearsed
a small speech, one I felt was firm enough to deter marriage, yet understanding enough not to hurt Janice’s feelings.
    At the top of the last hill, I looked down at Chalk Hills
Distillery, a collection of white stucco buildings with bright
red roofs of Spanish tile.
    The main house sat at one end of the compound, surrounded by a magnificent landscape that over the years had
graced the covers of half a dozen national magazines.
    Looking back, I know now I was a little too full of myself, for I muttered, “There it is, Tony. All yours for the asking.”
But I wasn’t about to ask.

    I waited in the library, visiting with her aunt, Beatrice
Morrison. I remembered the first time I met her. Her thin
frame was ramrod straight and her demeanor regal. I had
thought at the time she would have made a striking Cleopatra, a tad old perhaps, but striking anyway. And the last few
years, if anything, had enhanced the intimidating sovereignty of