Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

  “That’s why I’m here,” he said.

  “Well, you might as well come inside. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  Rhodes wondered just how much that would be as she ushered him into a hallway, where his rubber-soled shoes made squeaking noises on the hardwood floor. After only a few steps, they turned right, into the living room. It was an old-fashioned room that fit perfectly with the house’s exterior. It held a black upright piano, a Duncan Phyfe coffee table, an overstuffed sofa, and an armchair to match. The armchair had an antimacassar on the back. On the end table by the chair there was a thick black Bible, beside which sat a box of tissues and a heavy cut-glass vase filled with dried wildflowers. The room’s wallpaper had a busy floral pattern.

  Rhodes could smell the sharp ammoniac odor of cat boxes. He couldn’t smell the cats themselves, and he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see the boxes, either, and he assumed they were in another part of the house.

  “Where are the cats?” he asked, and then he sneezed.

  “Bless you,” Mrs. Knape said. “Help yourself to a tissue.”

  “Thanks,” Rhodes said, plucking one from the box.

  “The boys don’t like strangers,” Mrs. Knape told him. “They’ve all gone into hiding. They’re probably all under my bed or in one of the closets.”

  “They’re shy?” Rhodes said.

  “Oh, yes. They’re very shy until they get to know you. Have a seat.”

  Rhodes sat in the armchair. It wasn’t that he disliked cats, but he was just as glad that the “boys” wouldn’t be sitting in on the conversation. He thought he could detect an itchiness beginning in the corner of his left eye, which was probably already turning red.

  Mrs. Knape sat on the sofa. “Now,” she said. “About Ty Berry.”

  “What about him?” Rhodes asked, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Rubbing would only make things worse, as he knew from experience.

  Mrs. Knape leaned forward confidentially. “I’m sure he was behind the whole thing.”

  Rhodes wasn’t sure exactly what whole thing she was talking about. So he took a wild guess.

  “Do you mean you think he killed himself?”

  “Of course. That would be just like him. After he’d taken everything he could from the cemeteries, what else could he do? He knew you’d catch up to him sooner or later, so he took the only way out that was left to him. The poor man.”

  She said the last words without the least trace of sympathy as far as Rhodes could tell. Or irony, for that matter. She seemed so satisfied with her version of events that Rhodes almost hated to spoil her evening for her. But he figured he had to. It was his job.

  First he had to sneeze, however. When he was finished with that, he said, “Ty Berry didn’t kill himself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “There was no weapon near his body. Or anywhere else around.”

  “Well, of course there wouldn’t be a weapon. He probably disposed of it.”

  “Before or after he killed himself?”

  Mrs. Knape sat up straight, her spine stiff as an ironing board.

  “There’s no need for sarcasm, Sheriff.”

  Rhodes apologized. He didn’t generally resort to sarcasm. He told himself that it was the itching in his eyes that made him do it.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Knape said, “he was a clever man. I’m sure he could have found a way to get rid of the weapon.”

  Rhodes decided he wouldn’t argue. He knew it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Let’s say he did commit suicide,” Rhodes said. “How can we prove that he was stealing the things from the cemeteries?”

  “Oh, that,” Mrs. Knape said with a small, satisfied smile. “Why, that’s the easy part.”

  9

  WHAT FAYE KNAPE PURPORTED TO KNOW WAS THAT TY Berry had been, as she put it, “in cahoots with” an antique dealer named Richard Rascoe. The two of them were using Rascoe’s store to “fence the goods.”

  Rhodes thought she might have been watching a few too many old cop movies on television, though he didn’t say so. Instead he told her that though the name sounded vaguely familiar, he didn’t think he’d ever met Richard Rascoe.

  “That’s because you’re not an antique collector,” Mrs. Knape said.

  Rhodes said that she was right about that. He didn’t have much time for hobbies, though he did like to watch old movies when he had the time. Which wasn’t often.

  “If you collected antiques,” she told him, “you’d know all about Richard Rascoe. He has a store in Thurston, and he’s been written up in the newspaper.”

  Rhodes sneezed, wiped his nose with a tissue, and remembered then where he’d heard Rascoe’s name. It had been several months earlier. Ivy had told him about the new store that was opening down in Thurston, a little town in the southern part of the county.

  There was even less left of Thurston than there was of Clearview, and some of the local citizens had gotten the idea that one way to bring some business back to town might be to fix up some of the old buildings and rent them out, dirt cheap, as antique stores. A lot of small Texas towns on or near highways had made similar efforts, and some of those efforts had actually paid off. Rhodes wondered why Clearview didn’t try something like that before the rest of the downtown buildings collapsed.

  While Rhodes hadn’t noticed any special growth boom in Thurston the last time he’d been through there, the refurbished buildings did look good, and there were at least two or three cars parked along the street, maybe in front of Rascoe’s store, though Rhodes hadn’t paid it any special attention.

  “So you think this Rascoe and Ty Berry were engaged in the illegal sale of cemetery artifacts,” Rhodes said.

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Knape said. “There’s not any doubt about it. I saw some of the goods right there in Mr. Rascoe’s store.”

  “Why didn’t you call?” Rhodes asked, just before he sneezed again.

  “Bless you. I was going to call. But I wanted to go back one more time and have another look just to make sure.”

  “And you haven’t gone yet?”

  “No. I was planning to go tomorrow. But I’m sure I’m right. There’s really no question about it.”

  It didn’t seem likely to Rhodes that anyone would be stupid enough to display items from local cemeteries in a store that was practically sitting by the highway.

  “How did you identify the items?” he asked.

  “Oh, it was easy. There’s an angel there from the Kennedy Cemetery. I knew it immediately.”

  “How?”

  “Why, Kennedy’s my maiden name. My father and mother are both buried in the Kennedy Cemetery. I visit their graves at least once a week, and I’ve seen everything in the cemetery many times.”

  She sounded convincing. Rhodes thought it would be a good idea to have a talk with Rascoe, though he still believed it was stupid to be displaying something stolen from a cemetery not more than fifteen miles away. Rascoe must have known someone would recognize it. He said as much to Mrs. Knape.

  “I’m sure he knew,” she said. “But he didn’t really intend for anyone to see the angel. It was in a back room that had a little sign saying ‘Employees Only’ on the door.”

  Rhodes couldn’t resist asking why she’d gone through the door.

  She wasn’t the least abashed by his question. “Those little back rooms are where dealers always keep some of their best things, the kind of things they’re saving for their big-city clients who drive from Dallas or Houston. Naturally I wasn’t going to let a little thing like a sign keep me from looking in that room.”

  Rhodes said he wasn’t aware that she was a collector.

  “I collect china and glassware,” she said. “I have some wonderful R. S. Prussia pieces in the dining room. I’d be glad to show you if you’d like to see them.”

  Rhodes said that he might like to see them some other time and asked if she would be willing to identify the angel.

  “Of course
. We can’t let Ty Berry and Richard Rascoe get away with their little scam any longer.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Rhodes said. “Assuming that the angel is from the Kennedy Cemetery, you haven’t told me how I’m supposed to prove that Rascoe got it from Ty Berry.”

  Mrs. Knape looked shocked that Rhodes could make such a ridiculous statement.

  “Where else would he have gotten it?” she asked, as if that settled the matter for good and all.

  “From whoever took it. I don’t see any proof that it was Berry.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Knape said. “I never. Being called a liar is very insulting, Sheriff.”

  “I didn’t say you were a liar. I just said that there was nothing to connect Berry to the angel.”

  “Well, I’m sure there is. Since he’s the one who stole it, there’s no question that the proof is there. You’re the sheriff, so it’s up to you to find the connection.”

  “If there is one,” Rhodes said.

  Mrs. Knape’s face was getting red. “There is one. I know there is. And you’d better find it. I have a lot of friends in this county, Sheriff, and we’ll remember this at the next election.”

  There it was, Rhodes thought, everyone’s favorite threat: do what we want, or we’ll vote you out of office. Unfortunately, what people wanted didn’t always fit the facts. He was willing to believe that Rascoe had the angel in his store, but he didn’t think Berry had anything to do with its being there. Berry had been entirely too vehement about protection for the cemeteries to have participated in any looting. And he certainly hadn’t killed himself, not unless someone had taken the pistol away.

  Rhodes thought about that for a second. It was actually possible, if not likely, that something like that could have happened. Berry could have shot himself at the edge of the grave, dropped the pistol, and fallen in. Someone could have picked up the gun and removed it from the scene.

  But Rhodes had never heard of a suicide shooting himself in the middle of the forehead. Again, it was possible. But it was unlikely in the extreme, no matter what Mrs. Knape might like to think.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he told her. “But I can’t promise things will work out the way you want them to.”

  “It’s not that I want them to work out any certain way,” she said. “That’s just the way they are.”

  “We’ll see,” Rhodes said.

  He stood up, and Mrs. Knape walked him to the door. As soon as he was outside, he started rubbing his eyes.

  10

  RHODES DROVE INTO HIS DARK DRIVEWAY, CHECKED TO make sure Ivy had fed Speedo, and went inside. The clothes dryer was humming, so Ivy must have put his wash in it.

  Yancey bounded up to Rhodes, yipping excitedly, which was the way he always yipped.

  “You’re thrilled to see me, right?” Rhodes said.

  Yancey responded by trying to bite Rhodes’s ankles.

  Ivy came through the door. “I’m thrilled to see you, too, but I’m not trying to bite you.”

  Ivy had brown eyes and short, graying hair that hadn’t been touched up with Clairol Nice ’n Easy.

  “You can do that later,” Rhodes said. “Unless there’s a really good movie on.”

  Yancey stopped barking and looked alertly from one of them to the other.

  “You shouldn’t talk like that in front of the dog,” Ivy said.

  “He can move out if he’s embarrassed.”

  “Do you think Speedo would be willing to share his igloo?”

  Rhodes said he didn’t think so and asked about supper.

  “I have a really good plan for that,” Ivy said.

  “And what would that be?”

  She smiled. “You’re taking me out.”

  The Round-Up Restaurant was located about a half mile out of town, just down the highway from the Wal-Mart, which was no coincidence. Everything was migrating in that direction, Rhodes thought, including the town’s largest car dealership, which had set up a huge new lot and showroom nearby.

  The Round-Up didn’t cater to people with elevated cholesterol levels or highly refined tastes. There was a portable sign out front, lit from within to proclaim that

  ABSOLUTELY NO CHICKEN

  FISH

  OR VEGETARIAN DISHES

  CAN BE FOUND

  ON OUR MENU!

  There was, however, a section of the restaurant reserved for nonsmokers, but only because the manager had been told that such an area was required by a city ordinance.

  It wasn’t a place where Rhodes ate often. It didn’t fit in with the low-fat regime instituted by Ivy. In fact, he’d been there only once before, a day or so after the place had opened. But he’d been looking forward to a return trip.

  He pulled his red and white 1959 Edsel Citation four-door hardtop into a parking lot that was crowded with pickups and SUVs. He found a spot beside a Chevy Blazer with a bumper sticker that read

  Jesus loves you!

  (Everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.)

  “I wonder how whoever owns that car knew I was going to be here tonight?” Rhodes said.

  “You shouldn’t take it so personally,” Ivy told him. “It could be just an expression of religious freedom.”

  “Right,” Rhodes said, getting out of the Edsel.

  Like Yancey and Speedo, the car had been acquired during the course of an investigation. Rhodes had never even thought about buying an Edsel until he saw it. Then he couldn’t resist. And besides, it was cheap.

  Some people thought the Edsel was one of the ugliest cars ever built. Not Rhodes. He liked the squared-off roof, the horse-collar grille, and the sculptured sheet-metal body. He even liked the widely despised drum speedometer and the push-button transmission with the buttons in the center of the steering wheel.

  Ivy was less enthusiastic, but at least she never complained about riding in it.

  They went inside the restaurant, a sprawling building of rough wood with high ceilings and rafters lined with antlers of all sizes, hundreds of pairs of them. Rhodes wasn’t quite sure what the antlers had to do with anything, since venison wasn’t on the menu. He supposed they were part of the rustic decorations, which also consisted of old metal signs advertising things like Grapette soda, Sinclair gasoline, and Hadacol.

  The large room was noisy with the sounds of talking and the music of the jukebox, which was stocked with country music from an era when the sound was actually “country.” Rhodes recognized the voice of Jim Reeves, singing something about pride going before a fall.

  A waiter led Rhodes and Ivy to a table in the nonsmoking section. Several people greeted them as they made their way through the tables, shaking hands with Rhodes and asking how the sheriff business was. No one had the bad taste to ask about Ty Berry.

  The waiter handed them menus when they were seated. Rhodes didn’t need the menu. He already knew what he wanted: the item billed as “The World’s Biggest Chicken-Fried Steak.”

  Although the steak was indeed enormous, Rhodes wasn’t sure the claim was true. He’d been in at least four different restaurants that all professed to sell “The World’s Biggest Chicken-Fried Steak.” He’d never measured them, and he didn’t know anyone who had. All he knew for sure was that the one served in the Round-Up was awfully big.

  It was so large, in fact, that the edges dangled over the sides of the plate. The potatoes that came with it, mashed with the skins still on them, had to be served in a separate dish.

  Both steak and potatoes were smothered in thick white gravy with flecks of black pepper scattered throughout. It was almost as good as a hot roast beef sandwich. Maybe better. He even ordered a Dr Pepper to go along with his meal.

  Ivy was much more restrained than Rhodes. She ordered a small filet and a salad. Rhodes was a little surprised that the Round-Up deigned to serve salads, but he supposed that there had to be some concessions made just in case there was someone who was so unenlightened as to want to order something other than meat.

  While they wa
ited for Ivy’s salad to arrive, they talked about their day. Ivy worked at an insurance office, where it just so happened that Ty Berry had a life insurance policy. Naturally the news of his death had been big news there.

  “Any leads?” she asked.

  Rhodes didn’t mind talking about it in a public place, at least not in the Round-Up, mainly because he was sure that no one could hear him more than six inches away, thanks to all the noise, part of which was being currently made by Hank Snow, who was on the jukebox explaining to a truck driver that he’d been everywhere.

  “Not much,” Rhodes said, telling Ivy what he knew and ending with his visit to Faye Knape.

  The salad arrived. Ivy took a bite and said, “Faye and her cats. I thought your eyes looked a little red.”

  “I rubbed them,” Rhodes confessed. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I like cats,” Ivy said. “It’s too bad you’re allergic to them. We could get us a couple if you weren’t.”

  “I like cats, too. But I don’t think Speedo and Yancey would want to share the house with them.”

  “Cats don’t share,” Ivy said. “They take over. But I’ve gotten you off the subject of your investigation. What did Faye have to tell you?”

  Rhodes went on to explain Mrs. Knape’s theory of how Ty Berry had died.

  Ivy’s eyes widened. “Suicide? Really?”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “I’ll have to get Mr. Tacker to talk to her,” Ivy said. Tacker was the owner of the insurance agency. “He can save the company money if that’s the case.”

  “It’s not the case,” Rhodes said, and told her why.

  “Oh,” Ivy said.

  She finished her salad as Rhodes told her about the angel and about Mrs. Knape’s theory that Berry had arranged with Richard Rascoe for its sale.

  Ivy wiped her mouth with her napkin. “That doesn’t sound very smart.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” Rhodes said. “And there’s no proof at all of a connection between Berry and the angel.”

  Their steaks arrived then, and Rhodes got ready for some serious eating. In addition to the steak and potatoes, there was a basket of large, soft whole wheat rolls and a dish of real butter. It was almost enough to make eating low-fat veggie bologna for lunch worthwhile.