by Bill Crider
“I don’t know about Sage Barton being so much like the sheriff,” Ruth said. “The way I remember it, old Sage has all kinds of personal troubles. His sister is dying of some strange lingering disease, his father’s some kind of spy for a foreign government, and Sage is always thinking about how his only sweetheart took a bullet that was meant for him.”
“Well, sure, he has a lot of anxiety and stuff,” Hack said. “That’s why people like to read about him. A hero with no troubles ain’t much of a hero at all.”
“I don’t have any troubles,” Rhodes said.
“That’s what you think. You might act like you don’t, but you got plenty.”
“Name one.”
“You got an unsolved murder on your hands, for one thing,” Hack said.
“You got that right, and I’d better get busy solving it,” Rhodes told him.
Hack looked as if he had a response ready, but the phone rang and distracted him. He answered it, and Rhodes turned to Ruth.
“I’m going to talk to some of the people involved with Lynn,” he said. “I need for you and Buddy to talk to a few of them, too. I’ve made some lists. I’ll need you to get the phone records, and then we’ll probably have a lot more names.”
He gave Ruth the list with the more frequent customers. He’d withheld one name, but Ruth didn’t need to know that.
“Phone records won’t be easy,” he said. “I don’t know which carrier she used.”
“I’ll keep calling until I find out,” Ruth said.
“You know what to ask when you talk to people.”
“I know,” Ruth said.
“People will lie to you.”
“I’m used to that, and I’m getting better at knowing when they do.”
“All right. You can get started anytime.”
“Now is good,” Ruth said. She picked up her book to take it with her.
“No reading on the job,” Rhodes said.
She laughed and left. As she went through the door, Hack hung up the phone.
“Call Duke Pearson and tell him to drive by the old hotel building across from the Beauty Shack a few times tonight,” Rhodes said. “Tell him we’re looking for two men who were staying there. They might have seen something that’ll help us with the Ashton case.”
“How’s Duke’s mama?” Hack asked.
Pearson had worked in law enforcement in West Texas for more than ten years. He’d moved to Blacklin County to help his wife take care of her mother, who was in the early stages of dementia. He’d been hired as a deputy only days after he’d applied for the job.
“She’s no better,” Rhodes said. “No worse, either.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” Hack said. “What happened to the men who were staying in that old building?”
“You’ll have to ask Buddy about that,” Rhodes said.
He waited to see if Hack would ask for details. If he did, Rhodes planned to make him suffer. Hack and Lawton spent far too much time talking around anything Rhodes needed to know. It was another way they had of getting his goat. They’d finally tell him, but in their own time. Rhodes liked to deal them a similar hand when he could.
Hack, however, didn’t cooperate. He said, “Don’t you want to know about that phone call?”
Rhodes knew then who the dealer was going to be, but he might as well get it over with. “Do I need to?”
“Sure,” Hack said.
“All right. Tell me.”
“Now you got another case to work on.”
Rhodes waited.
Hack didn’t say anything. Rhodes knew there was no use trying to outwait him.
“Well?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, you’re gonna love this one.”
“Why?”
Hack didn’t answer that. He said, “It’s just a good thing Milton Munday’s left town, that’s for sure.”
Milton Munday was a muckraking talk-show host who’d made a brief stop in Clearview on his way up the radio ladder to a better-paying job in a much bigger city. He was on the air in Waco now, and he was likely to go higher. He’d given Rhodes a hard time for a while, but Rhodes had won him over after a personal appearance on a remote broadcast of his show.
“Jennifer Loam’s still around, though,” Hack said. “This is right up her alley.”
Loam was a reporter for the Clearview Herald. She was a good one, too, and Rhodes had thought she was destined for bigger things. Given the current state of the newspaper industry, however, she was probably lucky to have a job on even a small-town paper. The Herald had recently undergone a number of cutbacks. It was also no longer a daily as it had been for something like a hundred years. It was now a weekly, and Jennifer was one of the few employees left.
“She’ll be interested in the murder, I’m sure,” Rhodes said.
“This is different,” Hack said, “but it’ll get a lot of play in the paper. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Rhodes asked. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Wild hogs,” Hack said.
Chapter 6
Now that the cat, or the hogs in this case, was out of the bag, Hack broke down and gave Rhodes the story.
“Jackie Bradley was riding his four-wheeler out in his pasture, right along the edge of the woods, when a bunch of hogs charged out of the trees at him,” Hack said. “Somethin’ must’ve spooked ’em. They ran right into his four-wheeler and knocked him off on the ground. He was lucky he didn’t get trampled.”
Feral hogs were a serious problem all over Texas. Their numbers had tripled in the past few years, and they were multiplying faster than rabbits. They destroyed crops, tore down fences, and rooted up fields. Recently they’d even started coming into town on occasion. The county commissioners had talked about various ways of getting rid of them, but nobody had come up with a solution.
Not so long ago, Rhodes had been involved with some hog hunters. Shooting the hogs wouldn’t control the population. There were too many hogs for that. Trapping didn’t work, either. Rhodes wished he had an answer, but he didn’t.
“What does Jackie want me to do?” Rhodes asked.
“Natcherly he wants you to come out there and kill all them hogs.”
“He should know better than that. We can send Alton Boyd and have him set some traps, but that’s it.”
Boyd was the county’s animal control officer. The traps wouldn’t do much good, but they might catch a few of the hogs. That is, they might if the hogs didn’t tear up the traps first.
“I’ll get him on the radio right now,” Hack said.
While he was doing that, Jennifer Loam came in. She was young, blond, and entirely too smart to suit Rhodes. She seemed to know more about what was going on in Clearview than he did.
“Hello, Sheriff,” she said. She glanced at Hack’s desk. “I see you have the new book. I got mine this morning, too. I can’t wait to see what Sage Barton’s up to now.”
“Terrorists at hydroelectric dams,” Rhodes said. “There are twenty-three of those dams in Texas, in case you were wondering, but I don’t think there are any quite as big as the one on the cover of that book.”
“I wonder if dealing with terrorists is harder than dealing with murderers,” Jennifer said.
“I’m sure it is,” Rhodes said. “You know about Lynn Ashton?”
“I do.” Jennifer sat in the chair by Rhodes’s desk. “I don’t know enough, though. Why don’t you fill me in.”
“You probably know more than I do. Do you have your hair done at the Beauty Shack?”
“Yes, but Lonnie does mine. I don’t … didn’t know Lynn very well.”
“You know her reputation?”
Jennifer nodded. “Let’s just say there are things I won’t be putting in my article.”
“I’ll have more for you after the autopsy,” Rhodes said. “We don’t have a time of death, a motive, or any suspects, but you can always say that we’re expecting to make an arrest any day now.”
He tho
ught he was pretty safe in saying that, at least as far as the newspaper was concerned. It was published on Sunday and delivered on Monday so the sports section could have up-to-date information on the Clearview Catamounts during football season. Since today was Thursday, people wouldn’t read the article for a few days. Then they wouldn’t see anything again for another week. If Rhodes hadn’t caught the killer by then, he probably never would.
“What about Lynn’s family?” Jennifer asked.
“She didn’t have any that I know of,” Rhodes said.
“So you don’t know about services?”
“Maybe she’d made arrangements. If she hadn’t, Sandra might do something. I don’t know any more than that.”
“All right, then,” Jennifer said. “You’ll let me know if you find anything out?”
“Sure,” Rhodes said, but they both knew he was lying.
* * *
Buddy came in not long after Jennifer left. Hack didn’t even let him sit down before he gave him his copy of the new Sage Barton thriller.
“The sheriff’s jealous ’cause he didn’t get a copy,” Hack said, “but he’s tryin’ not to let on.”
“I’ll bet it’s a humdinger,” Buddy said, sitting in the chair Jennifer had vacated.
“You bet it is,” Hack said.
“Never mind that,” Rhodes said to Buddy. “What did you find out?”
“From those people you sent me to interview? Just about what you’d expect. Nobody saw a thing or heard anything. They all thought that old hotel was deserted as Death Valley. They had a few words to say about that junkyard, though.”
That was about what Rhodes had expected.
“They complained about trucks tearing up the street,” Buddy went on. “I guess some of the ones hauling scrap metal are pretty heavy, and that street’s sure a mess.”
“No laws against trucks, though,” Rhodes said. He’d heard the complaints before. “Nobody remembered seeing anybody come and go at all?”
“That’s right. Couple of ’em said they saw people walking along the street now and then, but they didn’t know where they came from or who they were or where they went.”
“And they didn’t see anybody parked at the Beauty Shack late yesterday afternoon?”
“If they did, they don’t remember it. It wasn’t anything unusual for a car or two to be in that lot.”
“That reminds me,” Rhodes said. “Excuse me for a second.”
He picked up his phone and called the towing service the county used and told the man who answered where to pick up Lynn’s car.
“Just take it to the impound lot,” he said. “You know where it is.”
He hung up and turned back to Buddy. “Here’s something for you.”
He handed him the list of customers and told Buddy what to do.
“If you run into any trouble, just call Hack,” Rhodes said.
“I can handle trouble,” Buddy said. He looked sheepish. “Long as it’s not rats.”
“You won’t have to worry about that,” Rhodes said.
Buddy shook his head. “I sure hope not. Once a year or so is about all I can take.”
* * *
Rhodes had saved Lonnie and Abby for himself. He was sure Sandra had had time to call them or visit them by now, so he left the jail and drove to Lonnie Wallace’s house, which was in one of Clearview’s newer residential neighborhoods, if “newer” meant twenty or so years old. There hadn’t been a lot of building in Clearview lately.
Lonnie’s house was the neatest on the block. The walks were edged; the grass was green, watered, and clipped. Rhodes thought about his own lawn, brown and shaggy, and felt a twinge of envy.
Lonnie’s driveway looked as if it had been pressure-washed only days ago, the house trim had been painted within the last year, and the flower beds in front looked like something out of a gardening magazine. In fact, the whole place looked a little like a photograph.
Rhodes parked the county car at the curb and walked to the door, which was just as clean as everything else. He almost hated to touch the doorbell button and soil it, but he did.
Chimes rang in the house, and Lonnie came to the door. He was about thirty-five and had lived all his life in Clearview. In fact, he’d grown up only a couple of blocks from Rhodes’s house. Rhodes knew his parents and had occasionally seen Lonnie around when he was a kid. He’d read articles about Lonnie in the newspaper when Lonnie was in high school, where he’d been a good student and had won some prizes at the local science fair.
Lonnie was tall and heavy, and he wore jeans cinched with a wide leather belt that sported a big silver buckle. With Lonnie, boots were still in style for manly footwear. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. The crying hadn’t disturbed his hair, which was dark brown, thick, and werewolf perfect, combed with a clean white part on the left.
“Hello, Sheriff,” Lonnie said. “I guess I should have been expecting you. Come in.”
He opened the door, and Rhodes went inside. Lonnie led him down a short hall to the den. If the house itself was only about twenty years old, the den looked like something from a much earlier era. The 1950s, Rhodes guessed, though he didn’t know a lot about furniture. A heavy sofa and matching chair were covered in green fabric with a geometric pattern woven in. Vases on a couple of end tables held cut flowers, and copies of Newsweek lay on the coffee table.
“Nice place,” Rhodes said.
“Thank you,” Lonnie said. “I decorated it myself. I bought everything secondhand, well, except for the flowers. Have a seat, Sheriff.”
Rhodes sat on the sofa, and Lonnie sat in the chair.
“You don’t think I did it, do you?” Lonnie asked.
“I haven’t formed an opinion yet,” Rhodes said. “You have a reason for asking it?”
“I just wondered,” Lonnie said. “I didn’t, you know. Kill her, I mean. Lynn and I were the best of friends.” He took a tissue from the pocket of his Western-cut shirt and dabbed at his eyes. “We shared everything. I knew all her secrets, and she knew mine.”
“Then you’re just the man I want to talk to,” Rhodes said. “Tell me her secrets.”
Lonnie looked at Rhodes with exaggerated surprise. “You can’t mean that.”
“Sure I can.”
“Sheriff, Lynn trusted me, and I trusted her. We promised we’d never tell. Why, if some of the things she knew about me got out…” Lonnie looked at Rhodes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Rhodes had a pretty good idea what Lonnie was thinking, but he wasn’t sure how delicate he had to be in discussing it. He decided that the direct approach might be best.
“Lonnie, I’m pretty sure I know what you mean. It’s no big deal.”
Lonnie clutched his tissue. “What’s no big deal?”
“Everybody in town knows you’re gay.”
Lonnie nearly jumped off his chair. “Who told you that? It’s not true. It’s malicious gossip. It’s slanderous. It’s vicious and mean. It’s unconscionable.”
Rhodes had to admire the man’s vocabulary.
“Lonnie,” he said. “It’s okay. Nobody cares.”
Lonnie dabbed at his eyes. “It’s because I’m a hairdresser, isn’t it. People think a man who’s a hairdresser must be gay, like I’m some big cliché out of a bad fifties movie. I should’ve been a damn truck driver!”
“It’s not because you’re a hairdresser,” Rhodes told him. “It’s not because of anything.”
“Yes, it is. It’s because I’m not married. That’s it, isn’t it. Just because I’m thirty-five and not married, then I must be gay. People can be so mean.”
“Nobody’s being mean,” Rhodes said. “Nobody cares. You’re just you.”
“Lynn told you, didn’t she.” She promised she wouldn’t, but she did. That bitch. I ought to—”
The sudden flash of rage surprised Rhodes, and for the first time he wondered if Lonnie might indeed be a suspect.
Lonnie stopped short.
“I shouldn’t be talking like that. Lynn would never tell anybody. I’m really sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it. I’d never do anything to Lynn. You got me all worked up by saying I was gay. I take it all back.”
It was too late for that, but Rhodes nodded in what he hoped was sympathetic agreement. “So you told Lynn?”
“We shared things,” Lonnie said without specifying. “She had problems, too, you know.”
“She did?”
Lonnie got up and went out of the room. When he came back he had a box of tissues. He put it on the coffee table, pulled one out, and dabbed his eyes.
“You know Lynn had problems, Sheriff. Men. She thought I could understand, and I could. So we talked.”
“Now we’re back to the secrets,” Rhodes said.
“Are you going to keep mine?”
“Lonnie, it’s not a secret. Believe me.”
“I thought it was. I tried to be like everybody else. I thought I had to.”
“Well, you don’t.”
“My parents,” Lonnie said.
“They probably know, too,” Rhodes said. “You might want to talk to them about it.”
Lonnie didn’t look eager to do that. He said, “Maybe you could talk to them and find out. They’re your neighbors.”
“And they’re your parents. You’re the one to talk to them. They’ll be glad you’ve confided in them.”
“I doubt it.”
“Only one way to find out,” Rhodes said.
“Do you think they know about…”
Lonnie stopped and looked at Rhodes. Rhodes waited.
“… about Jeff?” Lonnie finished after a long pause.
Jeff Tyler owned the building near downtown that had once been the biggest and best hardware store in Blacklin County and probably in the entire area surrounding it. Walmart had come into town, and before too long the hardware store had closed. Rhodes remembered the time some years previously when Elijah Ward, the original owner of the hardware store, had chained himself to the exit doors at Walmart, telling the customers that they could get in but they couldn’t get out. Things hadn’t ended well for Ward, but that hadn’t been Walmart’s fault. Not entirely, anyway.
Tyler had bought the old building, done a lot of work on it, and opened an antique store there, selling his own items and things he held on consignment. He wasn’t getting rich, by any means, and Rhodes wondered how he managed to stay in business.