Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

“You probably don’t know the Library of Congress classification system, do you?” she said.

  “You’re right,” Rhodes said. “I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ll show you, then.”

  She took him to the shelves where the world history books were lined up.

  “If I were you, I’d begin with Rome,” she said, and left him on his own.

  He pulled several books off the shelves and took them over to a table to look through them. He spent thirty minutes or so flipping the pages, but he didn’t find anything helpful. It appeared that nothing of importance to the world had happened in A.D. 11, or if it had, Rhodes couldn’t locate it.

  He learned that Ovid had been banished by the Roman emperor Augustus at around that time, though not during that year, and that the Hsin Dynasty had been in power in China. Rhodes didn’t see how any of that was going to help him.

  There was a sign that asked browsers not to reshelve books, so Rhodes left them on the table and went to the desk to thank Miss Conway for her help.

  “You didn’t find anything, did you?” she said.

  “No. It must have been a pretty dull year.”

  “That’s what I thought. Why were you looking?”

  “I thought it might be a clue,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, I hope you figure it out.”

  “Me, too,” Rhodes said.

  After leaving the library, Rhodes drove to the City Park and sat on a bench under a shade tree to have lunch. He stuck a finger in the ring-tab and pulled back the top of the can of sausages, which appeared to be packed in pure fat. He got one out of the can and ate it and a couple of crackers with genuine satisfaction. It didn’t take him long to finish the whole can, which he disposed of in a nearby trash container. He dusted off his hands and leaned back on the bench.

  There was no one in the park to disturb him, though there was a squirrel running around looking for something or other in the grass. It was a warm day, and Rhodes let his mind wander, trying to think of all the things he knew about Ty Berry and who might have a motive to kill him.

  For some reason, Rhodes kept circling back to Rapper and Nellie. Whenever they turned up in the county, there was trouble, and they were always connected to it. It might be that they had something to do with things, but for the life of him, Rhodes couldn’t figure out what they were up to. He was going to have to do a little nosing around, see if he could find out what they were doing.

  On both of their previous visits, there’d been a drug connection, first marijuana and then steroids. He wondered if they’d discovered a new kind of illegal substance to peddle. It sounded just like them. They seemed to think that they could get away with just about anything in Blacklin County, and so far they’d been proved right, not counting a few broken ribs, a few missing fingers, and a slight limp. Sooner or later, though, Rhodes knew he’d get them and send them where they belonged, which was to one of the stricter units of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. One of the maximum-security prisons down around Houston would be a good place, he thought. Rapper and Nellie would do fine there.

  And then there was Faye Knape.

  He realized that he’d made a big mistake, thanks to his easygoing nature. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  Instead of taking charge of the conversation, he’d let Mrs. Knape lead it where she wanted it to go. When she’d asked if he’d come to talk to her about Ty Berry, he should have taken the initiative and begun questioning her about her whereabouts the previous evening. But he’d let her take things in an entirely different direction. She’d neatly deflected any suspicion from herself and onto Richard Rascoe and even onto Berry. Besides that, she had Rhodes following up on her leads and ignoring her completely.

  Well, he couldn’t let her get away with that. He got up, stretched, and walked over to the county car. It was time to go to the jail.

  Ruth Grady said there hadn’t been any difficulty with the goats.

  “Shirley hadn’t gone far,” she said. “And she wasn’t hard to catch. I roped her.”

  Hack was impressed. He’d been opposed to Ruth’s hiring when Rhodes brought her into the department, but she’d quickly won him over.

  “You carry a rope with you?” he said. “How long you been doin’ that?”

  “Ever since Ms. Lindsey’s goats started jumping that low fence of hers,” Ruth said.

  “Who taught you how to rope?”

  “I learned it from my daddy when I was a little girl. He used to watch me practice out in the back yard.”

  “Can you do any tricks?”

  “I can twirl a loop, but that’s about it. I’m no Will Rogers.”

  “About the goat,” Rhodes said.

  Ruth smiled. She was as prone to being distracted by Hack and Lawton as Rhodes was.

  “I talked to Ms. Lindsey about putting up a higher fence,” she said. “Again. I don’t think I made much of an impression this time, either. She wasn’t really listening. All she could talk about was her book.”

  “Did she show you a copy?” Hack asked.

  “Better than that. She gave me one.”

  “What’d you think of the cover?”

  “Not bad. Hard to believe that somebody as good-looking as Terry Don actually went to school right here in Clearview.”

  Hack was offended. “What do you mean by that? / went to school here.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Ruth said. “It’s even harder to believe that you and he both could have gone to school here. Wow. Two hunks from the same small town.”

  Hack grinned and nodded just as if he believed her.

  “The goats,” Rhodes said.

  “Oh. Right. Goodness and Mercy were still inside the fence, and Shirley’s there now, too. Doesn’t mean they’ll stay there, though. She really ought to get a higher fence.”

  “Or get rid of them goats,” Hack said. “You’d think we’d have some kind of ordinance around here against havin’ animals in the yard.”

  “They’re not in the yard, exactly,” Ruth said. “It’s more like a field.”

  “She lives inside the city limits,” Hack said, “so it’s a yard.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “There’s no ordinance, though,” Rhodes said, “So we don’t have to worry about it. We’re not going to be able to arrest her, no matter what Hack thinks. What about Ty Berry’s pickup? Did you find anything?”

  “No,” Ruth said. “His fingerprints, of course.” She looked at Rhodes. “And yours.”

  “Sorry,” Rhodes said.

  “There were those two notes, too,” Ruth said. “But you saw those.”

  “What did you make of them?”

  “Not much. You?”

  Rhodes told her about Ovid and the Hsin Dynasty.

  “That’s a big help,” Hack said. “I bet he was killed by somebody named Augustus, and that’s some kind of dying message. You know anybody named that?”

  Rhodes said that he didn’t.

  “What about Hsin? Any Hsins in Clearview?”

  Rhodes said he didn’t think so.

  “Me neither,” Hack said. “You want to try the phone book?”

  “Only as a last resort.”

  “What’re you gonna do, then?”

  “Ask Faye Knape a few more questions,” Rhodes said.

  “She won’t like it. You got anything else in mind?”

  “Searching Ty’s house,” Rhodes said. “You call over there and see if his cousin’s come in from Austin. If she has, tell her I’m coming over.”

  “What if she’s not there?”

  “Then I’m going over anyway,” Rhodes said.

  17

  NOT ONLY DID FAYE KNAPE NOT LIKE BEING QUESTIONED, she was highly offended. Not to mention indignant, insulted, red-faced, and irate.

  “Well, I never!” she said when Rhodes asked her about her whereabouts the night Berry had died. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to a
sk me such a question!”

  They were sitting in the same room where they’d been on the previous evening, but so far Rhodes hadn’t sneezed. His nose was itching, however, and he knew it wouldn’t be long.

  “I’m sorry that I have to,” he said. “But I have to follow every lead in something like this.”

  “Lead?” Faye was even more indignant. “What lead?”

  “Ty Berry didn’t have many enemies. In fact, you’re about the only one I can think of. So naturally I’d like to establish that you have an alibi. That way I can eliminate you as a suspect.”

  Faye practically leapt off the couch. Rhodes took the opportunity to sneeze. He grabbed a tissue and used it.

  “Alibi!” Faye Knape said. “Suspect! You must be crazy!”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Rhodes said.

  “Don’t joke with me! How dare you accuse me of killing anyone!”

  “I wasn’t accusing you. I was just saying that you’re a logical suspect.”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I argued with Ty Berry about a lot of things; and I have to admit that I think he was stealing from the cemeteries, but I never killed him. He did that himself.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rhodes said.

  “You could be wrong.”

  “Maybe.” Rhodes sneezed again. “But it doesn’t look that way. He hadn’t fired a pistol.”

  “He was in cahoots with that Rascoe.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, either,” Rhodes said. “I talked to Richard Rascoe about that angel you saw. He says it’s new. He ordered it from this catalog.”

  Rhodes pulled the catalog from his back pocket and showed her the angel. Faye took the catalog from him and studied the picture of the angel carefully.

  “It looks like the one I saw,” she admitted. “But I’m sure it’s not. Ty Berry stole the one I saw and sold it to Rascoe. I caught them in the act.”

  “I think you’re mistaken,” Rhodes said.

  Faye took a deep breath. She sat back down and put the catalog on the end table with the Bible, the cut-glass vase with its dried flowers, and the tissues.

  “All right,” she said. “If you think I’m mistaken, maybe I am. And if you say Ty didn’t kill himself, then I’ll believe you.”

  Rhodes thought that was gracious of her, though she didn’t sound gracious. She also didn’t sound convinced.

  “So it was probably Vernell Lindsey who killed Ty,” she went on. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “What?”

  “Vernell Lindsey. You’re the sheriff. You should know about these things.”

  “What things?”

  “Motives for murder. Don’t you ever watch the reruns of Murder, She Wrote?”

  Rhodes admitted that he didn’t, and sneezed.

  “Well, you should. You could learn a lot about crime-solving from Jessica Fletcher.”

  Rhodes thought he could also learn a lot from just about anyone. Right now he didn’t feel very skilled. He said, “You could be right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Anyway, one of the main reasons people kill is for love. So there you are.”

  “Where?” Rhodes asked.

  “Vernell and Ty Berry had been keeping company for the last month or two, but they had some kind of big argument and broke up. That’s why she killed him.”

  “Oh,” Rhodes said.

  And then he realized that he’d let Mrs. Knape do it again. She had never answered his question about where she’d been the night Berry was killed. Instead, she’d led him off on a completely different trail.

  So he asked again. “What about your alibi? Where were you when Berry died?”

  “Well, I never. You can’t mean you want to know that, not after what I just told you.”

  “I’m afraid I have to know.”

  “That’s fine, then. I have a perfectly good alibi. I was right here at home, which is where I always am, most evenings. Sometimes I go play Chickenfoot with some friends, but I haven’t done that lately.”

  “Chickenfoot?”

  “It’s a game. Like dominoes, but different.”

  “I see,” Rhodes said, though he didn’t. “Was there anyone here with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who?”

  “The boys.”

  “The boys?”

  “The cats,” she said patiently, as if Rhodes were having trouble understanding. Which he was. “The boys are always here with me.”

  “I don’t think I can question them, though,” Rhodes said. “And I don’t think a judge would accept their statements as an alibi.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said without irony. “I was here. I didn’t kill anyone. I give you my word.”

  “I appreciate that,” Rhodes said, and sneezed. “Do you own a gun?”

  “No. I used to own several. They all belonged to my late husband, but I sold them.”

  “Was one of them a .22 pistol?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about guns.”

  Rhodes wasn’t sure whether he believed her or not, but for the moment he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. He had to leave. Either that or start sneezing every other breath.

  He thanked her for her time and got out of there.

  Rhodes drove away from Faye Knape’s house with one hand on the steering wheel. He was rubbing his eyes with the other hand, which wasn’t good for his eyes and which made driving more dangerous than it should be. But he couldn’t help it. His eyes were giving him fits.

  His interview with Mrs. Knape hadn’t been very satisfactory, and it hadn’t done much to eliminate her as a suspect. He also knew that the guns her husband had bought wouldn’t be registered. Mr. Knape had died years ago, before the new laws had taken effect.

  The information about Vernell Lindsey had been interesting, however, and Rhodes radioed Hack that he was going to pay her a visit.

  “About them goats?” Hack asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What about Ty Berry’s house? You still plannin’ to go by there?”

  “Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

  “Nope. I called the cousin. She’s there, and she knows you’re comin’ by. It’s all quiet around here. No ghosts or anything like that. You take your time.”

  Rhodes said that he would.

  Vernell Lindsey, or Ashley Leigh, lived near the edge of town in a rambling ranch-style house that had been built sometime during the 1950s. It was on a half acre of land, and it had a three-foot chain-link fence around most of the property in back of the house. It was a good fence. It just wasn’t high enough to contain Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy.

  The fence was in better repair than the house itself, which could have used some paint. In some places the fascia boards had rotted and needed replacing. The gutters were rusty and full of leaves from the pecan and cottonless cottonwood trees that grew in the front yard. There were more weeds in the yard than grass, though that wasn’t true of the back, where the goats had pretty much cleared the land. Where the doorbell should have been, there was a hole with a couple of wires jutting out.

  Rhodes wasn’t tempted to join the wires and see what happened. He knocked on the door facing instead.

  Vernell Lindsey came to the door looking nothing like Rhodes would have pictured Ashley Leigh. She had on faded jeans and a black sweatshirt that had a picture of Bart Simpson on the front. Her hair, which was as black as Faye Knape’s, was caught back by a huge plastic clip. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but then she didn’t really need it. She had startlingly blue eyes that went well with the black hair. She wasn’t wearing shoes, and her toenails were painted pink.

  “It’s not the goats again, is it?” she said. “I don’t have time to deal with the goats right now. I’m in the middle of a chapter.”

  “It’s not the goats,” Rhodes said. “It’s Ty Berry.”

  Vernell’s face fell. “What about him?”

  “About who killed him.”<
br />
  “It wasn’t me.”

  “That’s what we have to talk about.”

  “Oh, all right. Come on in. I’ve already lost my train of thought.”

  She turned around and padded down a dim hallway. Rhodes followed her inside and closed the door.

  18

  VERNELL WASN’T MUCH OF A HOUSEKEEPER. RHODES SUPposed she spent most of her time writing. The den was littered with newspapers, books, and pieces of computer paper. Some pages of the computer paper had printing on them. Others had handwritten paragraphs. Some were crumpled; others weren’t.

  “Excuse the mess,” Vernell said.

  She sat down on the couch, which looked as if it had been there since the house was built, and picked up a package of Winston Lights from the low coffee table in front of it. She didn’t ask if Rhodes minded her smoking. She lit her cigarette with a butane lighter, leaned back, and exhaled a stream of white smoke.

  “Have a seat, Sheriff. How’s Ivy?”

  Rhodes shoved aside a newspaper and sat in a platform rocker. He knew the smoke wasn’t going to do his eyes any good.

  “Ivy’s fine. She was reading your book last night. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. It’s been a long time coming. But I’m on my way now. My agent thinks she can sell some of the ones I’ve already written, and I’m halfway through a sequel to Wild Texas Wind. I don’t need somebody like Ty Berry messing things up for me.”

  “Ty’s not able to mess things up for anybody.”

  Vernell puffed at her cigarette. “You know what I mean. He’s dead, and we were friends. So that could be trouble.”

  For a romance writer, she wasn’t very romantic in Rhodes’s opinion. A little coldhearted, in fact. She didn’t seem to care at all about Ty. She was just worried about herself.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, exhaling smoke in his direction. “You’re thinking I should be crying my eyes out over Ty. Well, I’m not. He treated me like dirt, but that doesn’t matter now. I’ve got something better than him. I have a writing career.”

  “And he’s dead,” Rhodes reminded her.

  “Sure. But that’s not my problem. Unless that’s why you’re here.”