Free Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya by Kent Conwell Page B

the broom. “All
right. He’s dead.” She turned back to us and nodded to the
blood on the floor. “Watch the mess. Probably some venom
in there. Don’t get it on your skin, especially an open sore
or something.” One side of her green blouse was speckled
with body fluids from the cottonmouth.
    I hurried to lolande. The base of her neck and about half
of her left shoulder were swollen and black from hemorrhage. In the middle of the swollen area around the carotid
were two dark holes from which a bloody serum still oozed,
running down her back. I laid my hand on her neck. She
was dead, but her flesh still retained some heat. I guessed
she had died within the last few hours.

    We just stood there and stared down at her. Janice
clutched my arm. Her voice trembled. “Tony, for heaven’s
sake, what’s going here? Is someone trying to kill everybody?”
    The question might as well have been rhetorical, for I
had no answer. I laid my hand on hers. “I don’t know
what’s going on. First A.D., then Ozzy, now lolande.”
Without taking my eyes off the stiffening body of Aunt
lolande, I spoke to Giselle. “What do you think? Accident?”
    She whistled softly. “I’m just a church secretary. I don’t
know anything about this sort of thing.”
    I looked at Janice.
    The only sound was the wind and rain blasting against
the house.
    With Iolande’s death, some of the family threw up a wall
of denial. Too much had happened too fast to be true.
    Giselle sighed deeply. “Poor lolande.” She shook her
head. “So, now what?”
    I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
    She nodded upstairs. “lolande? What are we going to do
about her?”
    Before I could reply, I felt eyes on the back of my neck.
I looked across the room.
    Nanna stared at me, her pale fingers slowly massaging a
velvet wanga.
    On the other side of the parlor, Uncle Bailey had sobered
enough to accuse Henry and George of not securing the
house. He bellowed, “That snake had to come in some
crack you missed.” His words were slurred. Pa nodded, a
blank look on his face.
    “That ain’t so,” Henry said. “We checked everythingPatric, me, Walter, and George after the shutters was up.
We poked sheets and towels under the doors, especially the
two going downstairs to the storage rooms.” He gestured
toward Nanna. “That snake had to have already been in the house, unless you want to think some of that old woman’s
voodoo done it all.”

    Uncle George nodded somberly. “Them snakes, they do
the work of the devil.” He glanced at Nanna.
    Patric snorted in disgust, his face almost black with anger. “It ain’t no voodoo. Henry’s right. We clogged up
every hole. I’ll take an oath on that.” He glared at Bailey.
Lifelong animosity bubbled to the surface. “Anyone says
different will have to deal with me.” He paused, then
added, “At least nobody found A.D.‘s money clip in my
suitcase.”
    Bailey smashed his beer on the floor. “You got manure
for brains. ‘Course that don’t surprise me none about some
idiot that goes out and marries a nig-”
    With a roar of rage, Patric leaped on Bailey, slamming
the big man back on the couch and knocking it over, spilling Pa and them on the floor. Before we could pull Patric
off, he got half a dozen punches in on Bailey who was
squealing like a cut pig.
    Patric struggled against us, but we managed to pull him
off. “Nobody talks about my family like that,” he sputtered
at Bailey. “Nobody, cousin or not. You hear?”
    We managed to get Bailey into the living room and Patric into the library.
    After Patric calmed down, we went into the kitchen for
some coffee. Sally and Giselle followed us. Giselle whistled. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’d rather
get out and face the storm than stay in here with all these
nutcases.”
    I glanced uncomfortably at Leroi.
    Giselle winced when she realized what she had said. A
light blush touched her cheeks.