Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

33

  THE WIND WAS KICKING UP BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO the cemetery, and the clouds were getting thick. The night was very dark.

  “Perfect night for ghosts,” Ivy said. “You couldn’t have planned it better.”

  “You should have been out here with me the other night,” Rhodes said. “When it was thundering and lightning. And raining. That was better.”

  “I think we can do without the rain.”

  “Me, too. But I’d like to find those ghosts.”

  “You know something?” Ivy said. “You’re just as bad as Hack in your own little way.”

  “What little way?”

  “You still haven’t told me what the ghost is or how you know about it.”

  “That’s because I don’t know. I just suspect.”

  “Whatever. You could still tell me.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Rhodes said. The truth is, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “See what I mean? You’re just like him. You’ve been around that jail too long.”

  “You might have a point,” Rhodes admitted.

  “So tell me.”

  Rhodes stopped the car. They were parked not far from where Ty Berry had been buried that afternoon. The canopy and chairs were gone, and the raw earth mounded over his grave was no longer covered by a carpet of fake green grass.

  “Emus,” Rhodes said.

  “Emus?” Ivy didn’t sound convinced. “How on earth did you get from ghosts to emus?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try,” Ivy said.

  The trouble was that Rhodes couldn’t really explain it, not even to himself. He worked mostly by intuition and hunches. He talked to people, he watched their reactions, he tried to observe what was going on around him. And sometimes things just fell into place.

  It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle. You could look for hours, trying to locate a certain piece to fit a certain spot, and never find it. Then you could leave the table for a while, come back, and see the missing piece immediately. There was no way to explain why the piece had been so hard to find when you were looking for it and so easy to see when you weren’t. And then when you fit it into place, the whole puzzle would take shape.

  “It started with a couple of feathers,” Rhodes said.

  He told Ivy about the two feathers he’d picked up at Ty Berry’s funeral.

  “I thought they were just part of some flower arrangement, but then this afternoon when I drove by Nard King’s place, I remembered hearing about the emu business and how it hadn’t worked out for a lot of people. Some of them have had so much trouble paying for feed and upkeep that they’ve just turned the emus loose. Nard’s place is rundown, and his emu pens looked empty. So I figured—”

  “Hold on,” Ivy said. “You mean to tell me that from just a couple of feathers and an empty pen, you came to the conclusion that the ghost was an emu?”

  “That’s not all,” Rhodes said. “When I saw Nard at Rapper’s place, I knew he was trying a new way to make money, and I was sure he’d turned his emus loose. He’d rather learn to make drugs than pay for their feed. He was on the shady side from the start, and it’s the sort of thing he’d do. I’ll have to check, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the emus insured. If he did, he’ll have filed a claim. He might even say they were stolen.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No,” Rhodes said. “What else can move as fast as the ghost does? Remember, I’ve had a glimpse of it myself. No human being can run that fast, but an emu can. And they’re about the right size and shape. Put some teenage kids in a cemetery at night, get an emu on the move, and you’ve got something that looks a lot like a ghost.”

  Ivy thought about it for a while and then said, “You could be right, I suppose. How are we going to find out?”

  “I figured we’d just wait around and see what happens. I don’t know much about emus, but I don’t think they’re nocturnal. Something must be disturbing them and causing them to move around.”

  Ivy thought about that, too.

  “Trains,” she said. “What time does the Amtrak come through?”

  Rhodes looked at his watch and said, “In about fifteen or twenty minutes if it’s on time. You think it’s the train, then?”

  “Why not? Trains make a lot of noise, and there’s that flashing light on the engine besides. What else could be stirring them up?”

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “A ghost?”

  “You said there wasn’t any such thing as ghosts.”

  “I might have been lying.”

  “In that case, I’d better move over a little closer to you. We have a few minutes to kill, and maybe you can think of something to do.”

  “Maybe,” Rhodes said.

  The train was on time. It rattled over the tracks, whistling at every crossing, and its big headlight roved from side to side in front.

  “What if it wasn’t the train?” Ivy said. “What if it was the wind and the rain and the lightning?”

  “We’ll find out,” Rhodes said.

  They sat very still and waited, until the last note of the train’s lonesome whistle had faded away into the night and distance. And then they waited some more.

  For a long time nothing happened. Then Ivy said, “What’s that over there?”

  She pointed, and Rhodes looked through the windshield. Something was moving along the fencerow, but it was too dark to tell what it was.

  There was a flicker of lightning back in the north, and in a few seconds Rhodes heard a faint crack of thunder.

  “That must be our ghost,” Rhodes said. “Right on cue. The train woke it up, or scared it.”

  “Don’t you have a spotlight on this car?” Ivy asked.

  Rhodes did, and he turned it on, swiveling it by the handle. The light swept across grass and gravestones and obelisks, and then it hit the fence.

  The ghost was startled into a run, but Rhodes was able to get a good look at it. It was definitely an emu, a big one, and it was running along the fence faster than Rhodes could follow it with the light. Rhodes knew that if he and Ivy had been outside the car, they’d have heard the grunting sound that emus sometimes made in stressful situations.

  Rhodes switched off the light.

  “Another mystery solved,” he said.

  There was more lightning and more thunder. The rain was coming closer.

  “You’ve solved the mystery, all right,” Ivy said. “But what about the emus? What are you going to do about them?”

  “I’m going to delegate that job.”

  “Who gets it?”

  “Ruth Grady. She’s the champion roper of the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “She won’t hurt them?”

  “Nope. They’ll be fine.”

  “What’ll you do with them after she catches them?”

  “Maybe somebody will buy them. If not, we’ll see if there’s a zoo that wants them. You don’t have to worry about them. I already have something in mind for them.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me what it is, are you?”

  “Not until I see what I can work out.”

  The first light drops of rain started to pop against the car top and hood.

  “What about tonight?” Ivy asked. “Do you have anything worked out for them tonight?”

  “A little rain won’t hurt them,” Rhodes said. “They’ve been in the rain before. They’ll probably get in the trees down by the railroad tracks.”

  “Good,” Ivy said. “Now let’s talk about those cats.”

  34

  THE RAIN HUNG AROUND OVERNIGHT IN THE FORM OF A dark gray sky and a heavy mist that made the morning air thick and wet and covered everything with tiny droplets of water.

  Rhodes went by Faye Knape’s house and fed the cats. He still thought of them as Faye’s cats, though he was afraid they were well on the way to becoming his. He hadn’t quite figured out how he was going to explain things to Speedo and Yancey. Maybe, he thought,
he wouldn’t have to. Maybe the Knape heirs wouldn’t want the cats to go to anyone in law enforcement. Maybe they had some adoptive parents in mind already.

  Fat chance, he thought.

  The cats were glad to see him, but only because he was feeding them. They hadn’t suddenly developed an undying affection for him overnight.

  He gave them food and fresh water and left. For some reason, his eyes weren’t itching nearly as much as they should have been, and he sneezed only once on the way to his car.

  Melva Keeler was standing out on her porch in her robe and fuzzy slippers. She was holding her morning newspaper and looking across the street through the mist.

  Rhodes wiped water off his face and thought about going over and talking to her, just to see if she’d break down and confess to Faye’s murder, but that would have to wait. He had other things on his mind.

  When he got to the jail, he told Hack that the cemetery ghosts were as good as broken. Or busted, or caught. Whichever Hack preferred. He told him to send Ruth Grady out with her lasso to round them up.

  “There are probably two of them,” Rhodes said. “Maybe more. She’ll have to hunt them down.”

  “Hunt what down?” Hack said. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  Lawton was there, too, getting ready to do his morning count of the prisoners.

  “Yeah,” he said. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  Rhodes could have given them an even bigger dose of their own medicine, but he didn’t have time for it. So he told them about the emus.

  “Dang,” Hack said. “I gotta hand it to you, Sheriff. I never would’ve thought of that. Are you sure that’s what the ghosts are?”

  “I’m sure,” Rhodes said. “I saw one of them last night. Ivy saw it, too.”

  “I guess if Ivy saw it, that cinches it,” Lawton said. “There’s just one little problem, though.”

  “Problem?” Rhodes said.

  “Yeah. If that was an emu out there in the cemetery, what was in here? It wasn’t any emu, I can tell you that. Our security might not be as tight as in a big city jail, but it’s tight enough to keep a six-foot-tall bird out.”

  “Has anybody seen a ghost in here since there was one reported out in the cemetery?” Rhodes asked.

  “No,” Lawton said.

  “And who’s going to tell the prisoners that we know what the one out there is?”

  “Oh,” Lawton said. “Not me. What about you, Hack?”

  “Not me. I don’t like ghosts hangin’ around where I’m tryin’ to do my work.”

  “So as long as they think the ghost is in the cemetery, we don’t have to worry,” Rhodes said. “Right?”

  “Right,” Hack said, and Lawton echoed him.

  “So that just leaves one thing to worry about,” Hack said.

  “What now?” Rhodes asked.

  “Those emus. How’s Ruth gonna haul ‘em anywhere? She can’t use the county car. They’ll make a mess of it.”

  “Couldn’t be worse than some of the drunks she brings in,” Lawton said. “You ever smell the car after one of them’s heaved in the back seat? Lordy mercy.”

  “She won’t have to bring them in a car,” Rhodes said. “Hack, you call one of the commissioners, Purcell will do, and tell him we need a truck and trailer. And someone to help Ruth load the emus. That’ll take care of it.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Hack said. “We could use an animal control officer around here.”

  “No money,” Rhodes said. “After you call Purcell, get in touch with Buddy. He and I are going to visit the Packers.”

  “You gonna pick them up for stealin’ and drug makin’?” Hack asked.

  “We can’t prove a thing on the drug charge. But the stealing, well, that’s another story.”

  “What about Nard King?”

  “We’re not going to arrest him. I have something else in mind.”

  “You want to let me know what it is?”

  “He’s going back into the emu business,” Rhodes said.

  Rhodes went by the office of Jack Parry, the county judge, and got a search warrant. This time he was going to be fully prepared. Then he went back by the jail for Buddy, and they drove to Obert.

  Their first stop was at Nard’s house. Rhodes drove into the yard, and Buddy pulled in behind him. Nard’s pickup wasn’t there. Rhodes went to the house and knocked. No one answered. It was clear that there was no one at home.

  “You think he’s skipped?” Buddy asked.

  Rhodes considered that idea.

  “No,” he said. “But I think we’d better be even more prepared for the Packers than we thought.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “It just occurred to me that maybe there’s a tuition refund after all.”

  Buddy didn’t get it. “Tuition refund?”

  “Call it a makeup class. Rapper didn’t give the Packers their money back, but he might agree to teach them what they wanted to know, as long as they provided the classroom.”

  “You think they’d be crazy enough to do it at their place?”

  “They might. They have plenty of houses to do it in if you count the mobile homes.”

  “They’ve got guns, right?”

  “Plenty of them,” Rhodes said.

  “Doesn’t bother me,” Buddy said. “You think Rapper’ll blow things up again?”

  “I don’t think the Packers would let him.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Buddy said.

  Rhodes didn’t see any motorcycles when he drove into the Packers’ yard, but there were a couple of pickups that hadn’t been there the day before.

  Buddy came along behind Rhodes and blocked off the entrance, though Rhodes didn’t think that would help. The Packers would know about other ways to get out, and so would Rapper. He was no Eckstine, but he’d fooled Rhodes more than once. He was the kind of guy who’d just as soon leave by the back door as the front. Maybe he’d rather.

  Rhodes got out of his car and waited for Buddy to join him. There were pools of muddy water standing in the yard, and the chickens looked more bedraggled than ever in the dense mist, though it didn’t stop them from pecking around in the mud for whatever it was they found there.

  Buddy walked up and stood beside Rhodes.

  “Where do you think Rapper and his students are?” the deputy asked.

  “Not in any of these places,” Rhodes said, looking at the mobile home. Drops of water slid down its rusty sides. “There’s another mobile home shell just over the hill in that field behind the house. I’d guess that’s where they are. If they’re anywhere.”

  “Think we should check the house, just in case?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt. You go ahead.”

  While Buddy was knocking on the door, Rhodes walked on toward the back. The ruts that he and Ruth had seen on their previous visit were still there, but they were cut deeper into the mud. Rhodes didn’t want to try driving the county car along them for fear of getting stuck in the mud. He went back to the car and got the shotgun.

  After a minute or so, Buddy came out to the car, shaking his head.

  “Find anyone?” Rhodes asked.

  “Just a kid,” Buddy said. “He told me there was no one else there, but I think he was lying. I could hear the TV going. Sounded like The Jerry Springer Show, judging from all the yelling that was going on.”

  Rhodes wouldn’t have expected the Packers to be watching PBS.

  “They probably told the boy what to tell you,” Rhodes said. “Anyway, I think the people we want will be back in the field.”

  “Think I need my shotgun?”

  “It might be a good idea.”

  Buddy got his shotgun, and the two of them walked around the house and followed the ruts up the hill. The ground was squishy under Rhodes’s shoes, and the wet weeds brushed his pants legs, which kept getting heavier as he walked along and more water soaked into them. Rhodes brushed his hand across his hair. It was as if he’d been st
anding under a shower.

  “You oughta get you a hat,” Buddy said.

  Buddy wore a hat day and night, and today he’d put a clear plastic cover on it to keep off the dampness. Drops of water stood up on it as if it were a freshly waxed car. Buddy wasn’t going to have water spots on his Stetson.

  “Hats bother me,” Rhodes said.

  “Keep your hair dry, though,” Buddy said.

  They went through the gap in the fence and stood looking down the hill to where the mobile home sat. There were two motorcycles and a blue pickup parked behind it.

  “That Nard King’s truck?” Buddy asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  Buddy hefted his shotgun.

  “How many of them do you think there are?”

  “I’d guess six or seven,” Rhodes said. “No more than eight at the most.”

  “Gonna be pretty hard for you and me to surround that place. We should’ve brought Ruth with us.”

  “You’re probably right,” Rhodes said. “But she’s busy rounding up emus.”

  “We gonna try to sneak up on them?”

  “I don’t think they’ll be expecting us. But it might be a good idea to be quiet and careful.”

  “Quiet and careful are my middle names,” Buddy said.

  Then he took two steps forward, stepped into a hole that had been dug by a nesting rabbit or a passing armadillo, and loosed off a shotgun blast that reverberated across the wet field and shook the mist out of the air like rain.

  35

  THERE WAS A MOMENT OF TOTAL SILENCE AFTER THE shotgun’s roar. It was as if the world had come to a complete stop and was waiting for some signal to put it back into motion.

  “Dadgum it,” Buddy said, and things started to move again.

  Rhodes rushed toward the mobile home, mounted the concrete step in front of the door, and raised his foot.

  “Sheriff’s Department!” he yelled, and kicked the flimsy door in.

  The door flew back and hit the wall inside, but by that time Rhodes was sitting on the ground beside the step, which was just as well. Otherwise he would have been hit by one or more of the bullets that zipped through the open doorway.