Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen

by Bill Crider

  He was about as far from the overpass as Benton was, but maybe he could get there first. It depended on how fast the pickup was going, and that might depend on whether the driver knew that Seepy Benton was in hot pursuit.

  Nowhere in Clearview was very far from anywhere else, and Rhodes arrived at the eastern foot of the overpass in about a minute, which was just in time to see the green pickup make a sharp, tire-squealing turn onto the street that led downtown and right on past the Beauty Shack. Benton’s Saturn was right behind it, and it rocked on its shocks as it made the turn. Rhodes fell in line, light bar flashing, siren wailing.

  They whipped past the deserted downtown, past Jeff Tyler’s building, past the Beauty Shack.

  Duke Pearson must have been nearby on his patrol, checking on the old hotel. Rhodes heard another siren and looked down the side street to his left to see Pearson’s county car barreling toward him.

  The pickup turned right and headed toward the reclamation center with a noisy parade following it, all the vehicles bouncing from side to side, from pothole to pothole.

  The pickup sped up the incline to the railroad track and sailed for several yards before landing with a bounce. The bounce was so hard that a couple of tires blew out with sounds like gunshots. Or perhaps the tires had hit some metal detritus from the reclamation center. The result was the same. Pieces of rubber flew in all directions, and the truck spun around a couple of times before slamming into a Dumpster.

  One of the pieces of rubber thwanged off the hood of Benton’s car and wafted on over the top like some black night bird coasting on an air current.

  The doors on the pickup sprang open, and three men jumped out and ran away. One of them looked a little like the one who’d hit Rhodes with the bucket, but Rhodes was too far away to be sure. They ran to the warehouse, but the doors were closed and chained. That didn’t stop them. One of the men reached out, grabbed the edge of a piece of sheet metal, and pulled. The other two men helped, and they pulled the metal aside far enough for them to slip into the warehouse.

  Seepy Benton had slowed down at the incline, as had Rhodes and Pearson, so they avoided a pileup. Benton went past the accident and stopped. Rhodes and Pearson stopped as well.

  Benton got out of his Saturn. He stood in a pool of light from a mercury-vapor lamp high above the street. Red and blue flashes from the light bars strobed over him. He looked like some kind of lumpy distortion of John Travolta from the disco era as he pointed toward the cotton warehouse.

  “They went thataway,” he said as Rhodes and Pearson reached him.

  Pearson looked at Rhodes. “Did he really say what I think he did?”

  “Yes, he really did,” Rhodes said. “Duke Pearson, meet Seepy Benton, master of the cliché.”

  The two men didn’t shake hands because Pearson was already elsewhere, looking at the back of the pickup.

  “No plates,” he said. He walked around to look at the windshield. “No inspection sticker, either.”

  Rhodes thought the truck was a model from sometime in the seventies, and it was barely roadworthy. It was probably used around a farm and not taken off the property often. Maybe only at night and seldom even then.

  Benton hadn’t finished confessing. “I said ‘Stop where you are’ earlier,” he said. “They were trying to steal the battery out of my car.”

  Well, that explained the hot pursuit and maybe why the pickup was on the streets. Rhodes still had several questions he wanted to ask, but they could wait.

  Pearson ignored Benton’s comment. “Are the doors on the warehouse all chained shut?”

  “I’m sure they are,” Rhodes said. “It’s full of valuable junk.”

  “So there’s no other way out of there?”

  “They can probably find a way,” Rhodes said. “You can go on around to the side by the railroad tracks. Watch to see if they try to get out that way. I’ll go inside. You don’t try to get in. Just stay outside and watch. If you’re not in there, we won’t do anything stupid, like shoot each other.”

  “Got it,” Pearson said.

  “I’ll go around to the south side,” Benton said as Pearson walked away.

  “You’ll sit in your car until we get back,” Rhodes said. “While you’re there, give Hack a call at the jail and give him an update on what’s going on.”

  “They might get away,” Benton said. “I should guard the south side.”

  He had a point.

  “All right,” Rhodes said. “You can drive around there and watch the door. If those fellas come out of the warehouse, you don’t do a thing. Just drive back here and wait for me to come out. Then you can tell me.”

  “I could go after them.”

  “I’m the sheriff,” Rhodes said. “I’ve told you what to do. Don’t get cocky.”

  Benton looked a little hurt by that last comment, but he got in his car and drove away.

  Rhodes got his flashlight and took his pistol from the ankle holster. He didn’t think the men were armed, but he was going into the warehouse to face something worse than battery thieves.

  He was going in to face giant rats.

  Chapter 12

  Rhodes stood to one side of the opening the men had made, shielded by the outside wall, and shone the flashlight into the building. He saw stacks of junk pretty much like those he’d seen in the building across the street. He was beginning to wonder if any of the materials brought to the reclamation center ever got recycled or reclaimed.

  He turned off his light since he didn’t want to give the men anything to shoot at if they had guns. Then he squeezed himself inside. There were gaps in the sheet-metal roof, enough of them so that a little light from the full moon came through. Rhodes stood with his back to the wall and waited for his eyes to get adjusted to the darkness.

  While he waited, he listened. He didn’t hear anything at first, but after a while he thought he could hear stealthy noises from far back in the warehouse. Rats? Fugitives? Rhodes didn’t know, and for that matter he might have imagined the sounds.

  He waited some more.

  After a couple of minutes had gone by, he still couldn’t see much, but he thought he could at least walk through the aisles formed by the junk without stumbling over anything.

  It wasn’t a walk he wanted to take. What if the men were waiting to jump on him?

  Even worse, at least from Buddy’s point of view, what if the rats were waiting to jump on him?

  The floor of the warehouse was built to hold stacked bales of cotton, each bale weighing hundreds of pounds. It was made of thick wooden beams, even thicker than the ones that floored the old hardware building where Jeff Tyler had been killed. They were shored up underneath by even thicker upright beams. With all the weight of the unreclaimed metal piled on them, they were held firm. They didn’t make a creak or a crack when Rhodes planted his feet on them.

  He started down the nearest aisle through the accumulated junk. Dark objects loomed above him on both sides. He tried to listen for anything that might give him a clue as to the men’s whereabouts, assuming they hadn’t run out the door on the opposite side already. He hoped that if they had, Benton had done what he was supposed to do, which was nothing. Benton was good at doing nothing. Otherwise, he might get into real trouble.

  It seemed like an odd coincidence that Benton’s car would have been the target of battery thieves, and Rhodes had a feeling there was a lot more to the story.

  It wasn’t so odd, however, that the thieves, if they were indeed thieves, had headed for the reclamation center. Rhodes was pretty sure that two of them were the same ones he’d chased earlier in the day, and they’d run to the same place. There was obviously a connection. Maybe that was why Al had seemed so wary.

  The third man was a new part of the story. He had a pickup, and even though it was an old one, it ran. So the owner was the one who provided the wheels. He must have had better accommodations than the other two, as well, or at least different ones.

  Rhodes stopped t
o listen. Not a sound. If the men were in the warehouse with him, they were quieter than they’d been that morning. Rhodes started to move forward, but he hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps before he stopped. He’d heard something, but it wasn’t coming from the warehouse.

  The sound was the low, lonesome whistle of a train just coming to the first crossing after the overpass. That meant it was five blocks from the warehouse. In seconds it would be rumbling by, blowing its whistle for the next crossing and giving the men a perfect opportunity to make a break for it. Or to jump on Rhodes.

  Rhodes didn’t move. As the train drew closer, the whistle got louder. Rhodes imagined that he could feel the vibrations coming from the rails through the ground, through the underpinnings of the warehouse, right into the soles of his shoes and up through his legs.

  The whole warehouse seemed to shake as the train thundered past, and as it moved on down the track, the vibrations stopped.

  The noise, however, did not, but it wasn’t coming from outside. Rhodes looked left, right, then up, and saw a gutted room air conditioner about to fall.

  He moved quickly out of the way. The air conditioner toppled forward, fell, bounced off the pile of junk across the aisle, and dropped to the floor. Rhodes was already well away from it by the time it hit, but he wasn’t ready for what happened next.

  Disturbed by the fall or the jostling, rats scurried out of the stacks, chittering and squeaking. They ran across Rhodes’s feet and brushed against the bottoms of his pants.

  There weren’t as many as Buddy had said, not in this group, and they weren’t as large as Buddy had indicated, but even seven or eight regular-sized rats were more than Rhodes wanted to feel on the tops of his feet. Not that he was afraid of rats, but if one of them ran up his pants leg, he wasn’t going to be happy about it.

  The rats didn’t seem interested in him at all, however. They just wanted to get away. They dashed across the aisle and vanished into the opposite stacks.

  It was probably their sudden appearance elsewhere that made the men hiding there get excited enough to do some talking. Very loud talking it was, too.

  Rhodes looked for openings in the wall of junk but didn’t see any. Then a man dropped down from the top of the stack only a few feet away. He saw Rhodes and lunged at him.

  Rhodes didn’t have time to threaten him with his pistol because the man piled into him, shoved him against something hard and rough, and grabbed him in a bear hug.

  Rhodes stomped down, hoping to get the man’s feet, but he missed. Another man dropped down and then another. While the first man hugged him, the other two hit him with their fists. They couldn’t get in any solid blows because Rhodes kept the metal to his back. He twisted his head and writhed as much as he could in the first man’s grip, trying to keep moving all the time.

  The hitting went on, and so did the squeezing. A man can take a good many punches in his arms and sides if he keeps moving and lets them glance off and avoids getting hit solidly in the face. Rhodes hoped they’d soon get tired of hitting him, or make a mistake.

  They had considerable endurance and didn’t make any mistakes, however, so Rhodes went to plan B. He’d managed to hold on to his pistol, which he now fired into the floor.

  The man who had Rhodes in the hug had kept his head buried against Rhodes’s shoulder, but at the sound of the shot he drew back in surprise.

  Rhodes was ready for that. He pulled back his own head and then smashed his forehead into the man’s nose. Rhodes heard and felt the crunch, and when the man’s arms loosened, Rhodes shook him off and raised his pistol.

  The other two men ran in opposite directions down the aisle. One of them jumped the air conditioner, stumbled, and kept on going. The other had a clear path and never slowed down.

  The man in front of Rhodes was still stunned, but Rhodes raised his foot and kicked him in the stomach just to be sure he didn’t go anywhere. The man reeled back against the stack of metal and slid down to the floor.

  By then it was too late for Rhodes to catch the other two. Both had already disappeared, and Rhodes had a feeling they wouldn’t be sticking around this time.

  Rhodes rubbed his forehead. He didn’t think he’d have a bump, but he might. If he did, it wouldn’t be a big one. He checked the man on the floor. He was the one who’d hit Rhodes with the bucket that morning, so Rhodes didn’t feel too sorry for him.

  The man was breathing through his mouth, so he’d be all right. Rhodes put plastic cuffs on him and went to look for Pearson and Benton.

  When he was almost to the opening, he heard the sound of an engine that wouldn’t quite turn over.

  Rhodes broke into a run, pushed his way out of the warehouse, and went across the street. One of the men was in the cab of the old pickup, trying to start it.

  He wasn’t having any luck, and when he looked up and saw Rhodes, he got out of the pickup and started to run.

  Well, at least he didn’t steal one of the county cars. That would have put Rhodes in a really bad mood. He wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of having to chase anybody, but it looked as if that was what he’d have to do.

  The man ran to the railroad track and turned left and dodged among the tumbled metal tanks that lay in the moonlight like some kind of alien space pods.

  Rhodes hoped there weren’t any snakes lurking in there. Or if there were that they’d bite the man he was chasing instead of him.

  The man threaded through the confusion of tanks, clanging into one occasionally and making it easy for Rhodes to keep up with his location. Then the noise stopped. So did Rhodes. He knew there could be only one reason for the quiet. The man was lurking somewhere ahead, waiting for him.

  All Rhodes saw was the metal tanks, but one of them got his attention. It was turned so that the man could be hidden on one side, hoping Rhodes would pass him by.

  Near the railroad track Rhodes found a rock about the size of a baseball. He walked close to the tank and heaved the rock at the side as hard as he could.

  The rock struck with a resounding clang, and the man ran out from behind it. He caught sight of Rhodes and went straight for the railroad track. His feet slipped in the ballast, and Rhodes thought he might fall, but he regained his balance, hopped the rail, and began to run along the ties.

  Rhodes went after him. It wasn’t easy, what with the distance between the ties not being ideal for his stride, and the ballast rocks being there to slide under his feet if he missed the ties.

  The man must have felt the same way. He left the tracks and ran down the little hill into an open area that had once been the parking lot for an oil-well equipment company. The company had been out of business for a long time, like a lot of businesses in that part of town. The building was still there, though in sad condition.

  Rhodes decided he wasn’t going to follow anybody into another old building. He’d had enough of that for one day. He was still holding his pistol, so he came to a halt and said, “Stop or I’ll shoot.” He was glad Seepy Benton wasn’t there to hear him.

  The man didn’t stop. Rhodes fired a shot well over his head. The bullet spanged into the metal side of the building near the roof.

  The man froze in his tracks. Rhodes went up to him and told him to put his hands behind him. The man complied, and Rhodes slipped his pistol in his pocket before putting on another set of plastic cuffs.

  When that was done, Rhodes put his hand on the man’s shoulder, turned him around, and said, “Let’s go back now.”

  The man didn’t say anything, but he started walking. Rhodes stayed behind him until they got back to the reclamation center, where Duke Pearson was standing by the county cars.

  “Where’ve you been?” Pearson asked when Rhodes and his prisoner came along.

  “Chasing this fella,” Rhodes said, putting him into the backseat of Pearson’s county car.

  “I heard a shot,” Pearson said.

  “Warning shot,” Rhodes said.

  “I meant the one in the warehouse.�
��

  “Yeah, that was sort of a warning, too. I have another prisoner in there. You watch this one, and I’ll go get him. Call for an ambulance, too.”

  “Is he wounded?”

  “No,” Rhodes said, “not unless you count a broken nose.”

  “I’d count that if it was my nose,” Pearson said.

  * * *

  When he went back into the warehouse, Rhodes took a look around before he went to check on his prisoner. Down at the end of one aisle, he found a solidly built room. It looked almost new, and it was large enough to hold quite a lot of junk, or a lot of something else. It had a metal door, and the door was secured with a dead-bolt lock. Rhodes didn’t bother to try to open it. Maybe he’d have a look later on.

  The prisoner was right where Rhodes had left him, sitting with his back against some junked air conditioners that had been stripped of their copper. Rhodes shone the flashlight in his face. The man blinked, and Rhodes saw the misshapen nose and a little blood. Rhodes helped the man to his feet and told him to go on outside. The man started on his way, with Rhodes following.

  Once outside, they went over to the county cars. Pearson had the other man stowed safely in the backseat with his friend.

  “You wait here with these two until the ambulance comes,” Rhodes said. “Read them their rights. I’ll go find Benton.”

  Pearson nodded, and Rhodes got in his car. He drove down the block, turned left, and looked around. He saw Benton’s car parked by the side of the street so that Benton could watch the south door of the warehouse.

  Rhodes pulled up beside the Saturn.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  “You got them?”

  “All but one.”

  “I saw that one,” Benton said. “He came out the door and ran off down the street. He turned right down there somewhere. I would’ve followed him, but he was cutting across lawns. I couldn’t go after him in my car.”

  “You did the right thing by waiting here,” Rhodes said, “like I told you to. Now come on back with me. You have some questions to answer.”