Free Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders by Kent Conwell Page A

on it if the old wino don’t come back,
but maybe I’ll be cheating myself at that price seeing
there’s so much interest in it.”
    I thought fast, which along with a knack for lying, is
essential for a PI, but Doreen beat me to it. “I wonder if
it was Edgar who came in, Tony.” She turned to Mrs.
Bernie. “Edgar works with our company” She held her
hand a few inches over her head. “He’s about six-two,
slender, bald head.”
    “No” She pointed her cigarette at me. “This one was
about same height as your man here, maybe a little
taller. Dressed nice. He had black hair in a ponytail and
a broken nose.”
    A broken nose! I suppressed my excitement. With a shrug, I replied, “That wasn’t Edgar. But, can we see
the skull?”

    She studied us suspiciously, then shrugged. “I don’t
know what it would hurt. Just a minute.”
    When she disappeared back into the shelves behind
her, Doreen shook her head. “She’s a rough one.”
    I grunted. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d have to say
she’s at least an eleven”
    Doreen smiled. “The guy she mentioned. Do you
think he’s the same guy who ran out of the storeroom?”
    “Ponytail, broken nose. Has to be, which means
that-”
    At that moment, Mrs. Bernie reappeared with a glass
skull in her hands.
    “Later,” I muttered to Doreen under my breath.
    She set the skull on the counter, but kept her hand on
it while she hefted her bulk up on the stool. With a suspicious frown on her sagging face, she paused and
squinted at me through the cigarette smoke in her eyes.
Reaching under the counter, she retrieved a .357 magnum and laid it beside the skull, which she then slid out
to me with one hand while the fingers on the other
wrapped around the .357.
    The skull looked about eight inches from jaw to the
crown of the head. Gingerly, I picked it up, immediately surprised not only by its weight, but also the
craftsmanship of the skull.
    Doreen whistled softly. “It’s beautiful.”
    I wouldn’t have called it beautiful, but then I could see how it could be called that. While I’m no whiz on
human anatomy, the skull looked anatomically correct
from the forehead down to the lower jaw, which was
hinged and functioned just like a human jaw.

    The glass was smoky and heavy, heavier than I
would have guessed.
    Doreen ran a slender finger over the crown of the
skull. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she whispered. Then she looked up at Mrs. Bernie. “Do you
know anything about the skull?”
    She shook her head. “Naw. I gave the old bum fifty
bucks for it ‘cause I had never seen nothing like it. You
stay in this business long enough, you get to know when
something comes along that’ll bring in a nice piece of
change. I figured on doubling my money, but now I
might ask a little more”
    I read the tag tied around the lower jaw. “October fifteenth. That’s when his time’s up?”
    “Yeah” She nodded and lit another cigarette.
    As I studied the skull, somewhere in the back of my
head, I remembered reading about skulls, but crystal
skulls not glass skulls. Crystal. I hefted the skull in my
hand two or three times, trying to guess how much it
weighed. Fifteen to twenty pounds, I figured. Was that
why this skull was so heavy? It was made of crystal.
    I handed it to Doreen. “Feel how heavy it is. Both
hands”
    Her eyes grew wide as the weight of the skull caught
her by surprise. “It is heavy.”

    “Well,” Mrs. Bernie’s cackle broke into my thoughts.
“What do you think of it?” She held out her hand for it.
    “It’s unusual,” I replied, sliding the skull back to her.
“Really unusual.”
    By the time we left, I had grown used to Mrs.
Bernie’s colorful language, at least to the extent that
my cheeks didn’t blush at every expletive.
    We sat in the pickup for several moments studying
the pawnshop. “Have you ever heard of crystal skulls?”
    Doreen thought a moment. “No. Was that one?