Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

  But they didn’t look all that good for Melva Keeler, either. Why hadn’t she mentioned that she was a member of the Historical Society when she’d talked to Rhodes earlier? And why hadn’t she said anything about being a member of Berry’s group?

  Rhodes, of course, hadn’t asked her, but it seemed pretty strange to him that she hadn’t mentioned the coincidence of both presidents being murdered. Rhodes had to admit that it hadn’t occurred to him, but it had to Clyde Ballinger, who wasn’t affiliated with either group. Surely it must have occurred to Melva.

  And maybe it had. Maybe she’d decided to unify the two groups by eliminating the leaders and taking over as president of both clubs. Or if Faye had killed Ty, maybe Melva had seen her opportunity and gotten Faye out of the way, planning to blame the murder on Vernell after she’d seen the two of them having their argument.

  The more Rhodes thought about that possibility, the better he liked it. It was too bad that cut-glass vases didn’t take fingerprints. That would have made proving his theory a whole lot easier.

  Melva Keeler had changed out of her black dress into a pair of baggy black pants and a blue blouse with teddy bears on it. She was wearing the fuzzy slippers, and she didn’t seem surprised to see Rhodes.

  After Rhodes apologized for his appearance, she invited him in, and they sat in the living room to talk.

  “I thought you’d be back,” she told Rhodes.

  “What made you think that?” Rhodes asked, looking around the room, interested to see that Melva had a bookcase full of paperbacks, all of which appeared to be romance novels.

  “I knew you’d have some more questions for me,” she said. “I’ve thought of several more things about Faye that you probably need to know.”

  Rhodes’s hearing had improved. “For example?” he asked.

  Melva shifted in her chair. “Yesterday wasn’t the first time that she and Vernell Lindsey had a falling out.”

  Rhodes wondered whether this was just another attempt to shift suspicion or if it might mean something. He could always check it out with Vernell.

  He said, “I take it that Mrs. Knape confided in you.”

  “Not often, but we were members of the Historical Society, you know.”

  “Yes, I do know. And I know that you’re also a member of the Sons and Daughters of Texas. In fact, you’re the only person in the county who’s a member of both those groups.”

  Melva nodded. “That’s right. I’ve always believed that the best way to bring about peace and harmony between two opposing forces was to work from the inside.”

  “So you were working to get the two groups to combine into one?”

  “Oh, no. I knew there was no hope of that. Too many personality conflicts. I just wanted to see if there wasn’t some way to get them to work together for the same goals. You remember what happened about that cabin?”

  Rhodes remembered, all right. The cabin that Melva meant was a part of the county’s history, and it had caused quite a bit of trouble between the Sons and Daughters and the members of the Historical Society. There had been a couple of murders connected with it, too, which is how Rhodes had met Berry in the first place.

  “That’s what I wanted to avoid,” Melva said. “Things like that. It was all so unpleasant. I thought I could convince everyone that it would be better to work together on common projects. We could do so much more good for the county that way, you see.”

  Rhodes saw.

  “One way to do that,” he said, “might be to kill the presidents and take over yourself. You could run the whole show.”

  Melva sat up straight and opened her mouth to take a deep breath. She let it out slowly, and then she laughed.

  “My word, Sheriff, you must be joking.”

  “I wish I were. Even if you didn’t kill Ty Berry, you could have killed Faye. You could have walked across the street and done it after Vernell Lindsey left.”

  Melva sobered. “You can’t really think I’d kill anybody, Sheriff. I’m the one who wants to work for peace and harmony. You can’t have those things if you’re running around and killing people.”

  She sounded so sincere that Rhodes almost believed her.

  “Do you have any guns in the house?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. I don’t like guns. They’re the cause of so much trouble, you see. I think we can all work out our problems without resorting to shooting each other, don’t you?”

  “It would be nice if we could,” Rhodes said, thinking about something he’d heard or read somewhere about a woman who protested too much.

  “What about Faye?” he asked. “Did she keep a gun in the house?”

  “My word. I wouldn’t know about that, even if she did. I visited her now and then, not what you could call often, and I certainly never saw one. I know that her husband had guns, but she would never have said anything to me about having one for herself. She knew how I felt about them.”

  Rhodes could see he wasn’t going to get any help on that subject.

  He said, “You say you didn’t see anyone else at Mrs. Knape’s house yesterday after Vernell left?”

  “No, I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean no one was there. She has, or had, I guess, a lot of trees in her yard. After dark, it’s hard to tell if someone’s parked in her driveway.”

  “But you didn’t go over there.”

  “Certainly not. Believe me, Sheriff, I’d never kill anyone. Why, I hardly ever even get angry.”

  “That must be nice,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, it is. I like to say that nobody can get my goat, because I don’t let them know where it’s tied up.” She laughed. “And speaking of goats, that’s what Faye and Mrs. Lindsey had an argument about once before. You could ask the members of the society about it. We all heard the story.”

  “What story?” Rhodes asked.

  “I suppose you know that Vernell has goats in her yard,” Melva said.

  Rhodes said that he knew.

  “And that they get out all the time.”

  Rhodes admitted that he knew that, too.

  “We get calls about that now and then,” he said.

  “And some of the callers don’t tell you who they are, I’ll bet. One of them was probably Faye. She thought it was wrong to keep goats in town. She said it spoiled the look of the whole community when the first thing you saw when you drove into town was a yard full of goats. She went to see Vernell and told her she ought to get rid of them. Vernell told her the goats were none of her damned business. I don’t mean to cuss, Sheriff, but that’s what Faye told us she said.”

  Vernell hadn’t mentioned that little bit of information. Neither had Faye, for that matter. Rhodes could see why.

  But that didn’t let Melva off the hook.

  “Did anyone come by to see Faye earlier, before Vernell?” he asked.

  “Not that I know of. Faye was gone most of the day. You know how she is, Sheriff. Or was. She liked to be busy all the time.”

  Rhodes could see that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Melva Keeler. She wasn’t going to break down and confess, and she was going to keep shifting suspicion to other people. But if she was guilty, sooner or later she would slip up. Or so Rhodes told himself. It happened that way sometimes.

  Of course it could be that she wasn’t shifting suspicion at all and that Vernell Lindsey really did have something more to hide.

  Which meant that he’d have to pay her another visit, though not until he’d gone home and cleaned up. He was afraid it was already too late to get himself in decent shape before Ivy got home, but he’d have to do the best he could.

  He thanked Melva for her help, such as it had been, and left. There was a high bank of dark clouds in the north, which could mean that more rain was on the way.

  Just what we need, Rhodes thought, and then he wondered about Faye Knape’s cats. He didn’t know how often cats had to be fed, but those three hadn’t had any food set out since that morning. He thought he’d better go across the
street and see about them.

  The house was dark, and Rhodes turned on the light in the hall. There were no cats to be seen.

  He walked down the hall, past the living room. He turned on the light in there and looked around. Things were exactly as he’d left them that morning. No cats.

  He went on to the back porch and checked the food bowls. They weren’t empty, but most of the food was gone. Rhodes decided it wouldn’t hurt to put a little food out for the night, so he got the dry food out of the cabinet. This time when the food rattled into the bowls, all three cats came running. The big gray tabby was in the lead. The other two were solid black, with yellow eyes. They looked like a couple of extras in a movie about witches.

  None of the three rushed up to Rhodes to brush against his legs. They didn’t purr. But they didn’t run away, either. They watched him cautiously, ready to run for cover at the slightest threatening move.

  Rhodes didn’t plan to threaten them, but he did think their water needed changing. He picked up two of the bowls to take them into the kitchen. The cats turned and fled.

  Rhodes emptied the two bowls into the sink and refilled them, then did the same with the third bowl. When he set that one on the floor, all three cats were back, watching him. The big gray tabby was swishing its tail. The two black ones appeared to be considering whether to make a sneak attack on the food bowls or simply disappear.

  “I’m not going to hurt anybody,” Rhodes said, but when he started out of the room, the cats ran away again.

  Outside the house, Rhodes took a deep breath. For some reason, his eyes didn’t seem to be itching as much as he thought they would, and he didn’t feel the urge to sneeze. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he knew one thing: it didn’t mean that he was going to be adopting any cats.

  He kept telling himself that all the way home.

  32

  “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAD FUN TODAY,” IVY SAID WHEN Rhodes walked in. “I don’t think Yancey recognizes you.”

  Yancey was bouncing around like a fur-coated rubber ball, yipping madly, and trying to sink his sharp little teeth into Rhodes’s ankles.

  “He does that all the time,” Rhodes said. “That’s his normal behavior. My looks don’t have anything to do with it.”

  He went to the bathroom and cleaned himself up, then went into the bedroom and changed clothes. When he came out of the bedroom, Yancey attacked again.

  “See what I mean?” Rhodes said.

  “You could be right,” Ivy said.

  She shooed Yancey away. He stalked over to a chair and lay down under it, laying his chin on his front paws and watching them with a hurt look.

  “Why don’t you tell me how you made such a mess of yourself?” Ivy said.

  Rhodes did. When he was finished, Ivy wasn’t smiling, though he’d done his best to minimize any danger to himself.

  “One night you’re getting shot at in a cemetery,” she said, “and the next day you’re getting blown up in the country. You’re going to have to promise me that you’ll be more careful.”

  Rhodes promised. Both of them knew that he meant it. They both also knew that it wouldn’t change a thing.

  “Where would you like to eat tonight?” Rhodes asked.

  Ivy said that she’d picked up some barbecue on the way home.

  “I’ll warm it up,” she said. “After we eat, we can watch TV.”

  “That sounds good,” Rhodes said. “Except that I have something else I need to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Bust some ghosts. Want to come along?”

  “Am I allowed to ride with you when you’re on official county business?”

  “This isn’t all that official,” Rhodes said. “I’m pretty sure I know what’s been happening in the Clearview Cemetery, though, and I’m going to check it out.”

  “Couldn’t you do it in the daytime?”

  “I have a couple of other things to do tomorrow.”

  “Like solving a murder,” Ivy said. “I know. Will there be any shooting?”

  “I hope not,” Rhodes said.

  “Good. Then I’ll go with you. I’ve always wanted to see a ghost. We are going to see a ghost, aren’t we?”

  “Could be,” Rhodes said.

  The barbecue was excellent, thinly sliced brisket with no detectable fat, just the way Rhodes liked it. And the sauce was sweet and spicy at the same time, so spicy that Rhodes didn’t even need any jalapeños on the side.

  Yancey sat by during the meal, watching them, still hurt that Ivy had fussed at him. But he was quiet, which Rhodes appreciated.

  When they had finished eating, Rhodes helped Ivy clean the table and then took Yancey out in the back yard so that he and Speedo could race around and chase each other for a while. After they were tired of that, Rhodes tossed an old rubber hamburger for them to run after, argue over, and protect from Rhodes, who always managed to pry it from their jaws and give it another toss.

  When Ivy came out, Yancey was pooped, and so was Rhodes, but Speedo seemed to have gotten his second wind. He was mouthing the hamburger and growling, trying to get Yancey interested, but Yancey just sat and watched him.

  “Want to take Speedo with us?” Ivy asked.

  “I don’t think we’d want him running around loose in the cemetery,” Rhodes said. “He might cause more damage than the ghosts. Besides, we’re going in the county car, not the Edsel. This is more or less official.”

  “All right,” Ivy said. “Come on, Yancey.”

  Yancey flounced across the yard, and Ivy let him inside the house.

  “Looks like rain,” she said when she came back.

  “Maybe it’ll hold off until we get through,” Rhodes said.

  They drove by the jail first, and Hack had good news and bad news.

  “Which one do you want first?” he asked.

  Rhodes looked at Ivy, who smiled. Rhodes had told her about the game Hack and Lawton loved to play.

  “Give me the bad news,” Rhodes said.

  “Right. Here it is. Clyde Ballinger called Faye’s kids, who were naturally all shook up about what happened to her. They’re talkin’ about comin’ down tomorrow and bringing half the reporters in Texas with ’em. They told Clyde that if a little old lady could be murdered in cold blood in a small Texas town, there must be something wrong with the law enforcement, and they’d go to the commissioners and ask for a full investigation.”

  “Great,” Rhodes said. “The commissioners are upset enough as it is.”

  “Yeah,” Hack said. “And that’s not all.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “There’s the good news.”

  Hack shook his head. “Not yet. We got more bad news to go with the first.”

  “Tell me,” Rhodes said.

  “They don’t want the cats,” Hack said.

  “Cats?” Ivy said. “What cats?”

  Hack feigned surprise. “He didn’t tell you about the cats?”

  “No,” Ivy said. She looked at Rhodes. “He didn’t tell me about the cats.”

  Rhodes thought that the time to strangle Hack had finally arrived. But he couldn’t do it, not with Ivy there as a witness. He put up his hands.

  “I forgot,” he said.

  “Sure,” Hack said. “It’s easy to forget three poor kitties starved for affection, who’ll prob’ly have to be put to sleep because nobody’ll take ‘em in.”

  “You’d think Faye’s children would want them,” Rhodes said defensively. “Something to remember their mother by.”

  “We could take them,” Ivy said.

  “No, we couldn’t,” Rhodes said. “I’m allergic. And the dogs would hate them.”

  “We’ll talk about it,” Ivy said, and Rhodes knew he was doomed.

  “What’s the good news?” he asked. “You did say there was some good news, didn’t you?”

  Hack grinned. “Sure thing. Buddy brought in that Trask fella, and he’s singin’ like Bing Crosby.”

  “What’s
the tune?” Rhodes asked.

  “About what you thought,” Hack said. “He started talkin’ by the time Buddy got him in the car. He wants a deal. So Buddy gave him the Miranda and listened to what he had to say. Course Buddy didn’t promise him anything, but the guy talked anyway.”

  “And he said?”

  “He said he got the dope from Rapper. It was supposed to be a sample of the kind of thing Rapper was gonna teach him to cook up. He didn’t try it himself, naturally. Never touches the stuff.”

  “Naturally,” Rhodes said, glad to know he’d been right about Rapper. “What kind of deal did he want?”

  “Says he’ll testify against Rapper if we’ll let him off on the possession charges.”

  “What about leaving the scene of an accident?”

  “He didn’t mention that.”

  Rhodes smiled. “Good. We can promise him a deal on the possession charge and then nail him on the other one.”

  “Are you sure he won’t think of that?” Ivy asked.

  “He may be singing like Crosby,” Rhodes said. “But he’s no Eckstine.”

  Ivy looked at him blankly.

  “It’s complicated,” Rhodes said. “Someday I’ll explain it.”

  “I’d probably be better off if you didn’t.”

  “True. Well, now that we have that taken care of, let’s go to the cemetery.”

  “What’re you gonna do out there?” Hack wanted to know.

  “Just call us the Ghost Breakers,” Rhodes said.

  “Busters,” Hack said.

  Rhodes shook his head. “Wrong movie. The Ghost Breakers is more my speed. Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard.”

  Hack thought it over, then said, “Catchers, then. Ghost Catchers had Olsen and Johnson. I’d say that’s even more your speed.”

  “You could be right,” Rhodes told him.

  “Amen,” Ivy said.