by Bill Crider
Rhodes believed that most people in Blacklin County, at least the ones over forty, were like him. They watched television, and they might use computers in their work, but that was the extent of their electronic experiences. Rhodes thought that was enough. Sometimes it was more than enough.
“Did you find anything at all?” he asked. “Anything out of the ordinary, anything that might give me some help?”
“No,” Benton said. “I looked for things that might be connected to the reclamation center, but if there’s something there, I couldn’t find it.”
The implication was that he’d have found it if it had been there.
“I’m not surprised there’s nothing about that,” Rhodes said. “There’s no connection between the murders and the center.”
“You sound pretty sure about that.”
Look who’s talking, Rhodes thought.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“You still don’t know who killed Lynn and Tyler, though.”
“I’m getting closer,” Rhodes said, but he didn’t explain what he meant. “Did you find anything else?”
“I wish I could tell you that I did,” Benton said, “but I didn’t, so I can’t.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Rhodes said. “It was something we had to try. I should have thought of it sooner. In this case it didn’t matter, but it might the next time. I need to think more like the people who are wired into things. People like you.”
“Nobody’s like me,” Benton said.
“Truer words were never spoken,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Rhodes dropped Benton off at the jail, where he’d left his car, and drove by the Beauty Shack. It was still closed, so Rhodes decided to pay a visit to Lonnie Wallace.
Lonnie’s neighborhood was noisier than it had been the last time Rhodes had been there. Saturday morning was the time for working in the yard. The noise of lawn mowers and leaf blowers filled the air, and Rhodes enjoyed the smell of freshly cut grass that he hadn’t had to mow.
Lonnie was kneeling at a flower bed, looking for weeds to pull. Rhodes didn’t think he was going to find any.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Lonnie said, looking up from his work. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing much,” Rhodes said. “I just wanted to talk to you some more.”
Lonnie stood up. It was easier for him than it would have been for Rhodes. He wore khaki shorts, a blue polo shirt, and a straw hat with a wide brim.
“I’ve been trying to keep busy,” he said. “Since … you know. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything. Working in the yard takes my mind off … you know.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. “You want to talk out here?”
“Let’s go around back,” he said, and Rhodes followed him around the house.
In back, Lonnie had a covered patio. A pitcher of lemonade sat on a small table between two flimsy-looking green plastic lawn chairs. Condensation ran down the side of the pitcher and pooled on the table. There had been ice in the pitcher, but most of it had melted. The lemonade would be watery. A glass stood by the pitcher. Rhodes thought about Jeff Tyler and how he’d sit outside and drink lemonade in front of his store. Something he and Lonnie had in common.
“You sit down,” Lonnie said to Rhodes. “I’ll run in and get you a glass.”
“No, thanks,” Rhodes said. “You go ahead and have a drink. I don’t need one.”
“You’re sure?”
Rhodes said he was sure and sat down, hoping the chair would hold him. It sagged under his weight, but it didn’t crumble. Lonnie poured himself some lemonade and sat in the other chair.
“I can’t stop thinking about Jeff,” Lonnie said after he’d taken a sip of lemonade. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like here without him. You probably think this is selfish, but there’s nobody else like me in town, nobody I can talk to now that he and Lynn are both gone.”
“You might be surprised,” Rhodes said. “There are plenty of people around here who’d talk to you.”
“Name one,” Lonnie said, setting his glass on the table.
Rhodes looked out across the perfect lawn at the board fence enclosing the yard. A sparrow lit on the fence, then flew away.
“Well,” he said, “there’s Nora Fischer.”
Lonnie smiled a sad smile. “She’s a friend, and I enjoy her company, but she’s so much older than I am. It’s not quite the same.”
“And there’s me,” Rhodes said.
“You’re only here because I’m a suspect in Jeff and Lynn’s deaths.” Rhodes started to interrupt, but Lonnie didn’t let him. “No use to deny it, Sheriff. How often did you drop by before they died?”
That was an easy one to answer. “Never,” Rhodes said.
“That’s okay,” Lonnie said. “I didn’t ever drop by your house, either.”
“You need to get out more,” Rhodes said. “You should go to Max’s place for dinner some Friday night and see what you think of Seepy Benton’s performance. He’s a guy you might like to talk to.”
“I’ve heard about him. He teaches math at the college. I was never very good at math.” Lonnie’s voice quavered. “Jeff was. He was good at lots of things, but people didn’t know because they didn’t know him like I did. They thought he was some lazy goober with an antique store.”
“Nobody thought that.”
“You’re just being nice. They did think it, but he wasn’t like that at all. He read books. He liked ghost stories. His favorite TV show was Firefly. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”
Rhodes shook his head. He’d never even heard of the show.
“Jeff liked Dean Martin better than Frank Sinatra. He liked Westerns, and he didn’t like musicals.” Lonnie looked at Rhodes. “Who’s going to remember those things besides me?”
“You’ll do,” Rhodes said. “One person who remembers is more than some people have. What about Lynn? Who’s going to remember her?”
“I will,” Lonnie said. “I’ll remember both of them.” He gave Rhodes a weak smile. “She didn’t like Dino or Sinatra, either one. She liked Madonna and Blondie. She liked quiz shows on TV. Jeopardy! was her favorite.”
“Did she and Jeff get along?”
“They didn’t really know each other. She cut his hair, and they talked then, but that was all. She knew about me and Jeff, and she didn’t care, any more than I cared about what she did in her personal life.”
Now the conversation was getting around to what Rhodes was interested in. It was time to find out what Lonnie had been keeping from him if he could.
“You never did tell me if Lynn had someone special. She must have mentioned that to you.”
Lonnie had denied earlier that Lynn had said anything about her romances, but Rhodes thought something was missing from the denial.
“I didn’t tell you because she didn’t tell me,” Lonnie said.
“I’ve talked to three or four men who said she broke up with them because she had someone special.”
“Then I don’t know who it could’ve been.” Lonnie picked up his lemonade glass and took a sip. “Maybe they were mistaken. Maybe they were lying to you.”
“Either one is possible,” Rhodes said. “They were all getting uncomfortable in their relationships with her because she’d asked them for money.”
“She asked them for money?”
“That’s what they told me. She threatened to tell their wives they were dating her. It didn’t work. Or so they told me.”
“It’s not like her,” Lonnie said. “She never asked me for money. If she wanted to blackmail somebody, I’d have been a good candidate.”
“She must have needed the money for something.”
“The little red car, maybe,” Lonnie said after a slight hesitation. “That’s another thing she loved. She liked to drive it with the top down, even when it was too cold or too hot to do that.”
“Didn’t she make enough money to buy the
car without help?”
“I think so, but none of us made that much. People don’t get their hair done as often as they should when money’s tight like it is now, and Sandra always got her share. She made more than any of us.”
“She owns the shop,” Rhodes pointed out.
“Sure. It’s only fair that she make more than the rest of us. I’m doing okay, and Abby has a husband with a job, so they’re all right.”
“Lynn, though,” Rhodes said. “Lynn needed money.”
Lonnie looked away. “She liked nice things.”
Rhodes tried to think of nice things in Lynn’s house. There weren’t many. She had a flat-screen TV, and the furniture was okay, but there was nothing fancy anywhere. Her clothes and shoes came from shops in nearby cities and not from Walmart, but they weren’t from Neiman Marcus.
“Did Jeff need money?” Rhodes asked.
“What? Why would you say that?”
“I was just wondering. You said you talked to him the day Lynn was killed. You were the one who told him about it.”
Lonnie looked as if he were trying to recall what he’d said and not succeeding. “I did?”
“That’s right. I’ve been wondering about that.”
“If I said I called him, I guess I did.”
He wouldn’t say any more, so Rhodes said, “Back to the money question.”
Lonnie shuddered as if a chill had hit him. “Jeff? He didn’t need money. That’s another thing about him nobody knew. He had money. Not a lot, but enough to live on. He just did the antiques thing for the fun of it. He liked old stuff that most people would consider junk. He liked being around it, so that’s why he had the store, not because he needed the money.”
Rhodes hadn’t known about the money, though he’d have found out eventually. At any rate, it didn’t seem likely now that Tyler would’ve been engaging in any form of blackmail. Rhodes brought up Lynn again, but Lonnie was stubborn. He continued to insist that he didn’t know why Lynn might have asked anyone for money.
Rhodes continued not to believe him, but that was all right. As soon as he got everything worked out to his satisfaction, Rhodes would come back and talk to Lonnie again. He thought Lonnie would be ready to talk by then.
“I still think those men living across the street killed her,” Lonnie said when Rhodes stood up to go.
“No,” Rhodes said, “they didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Are they still there? In the hotel, I mean?”
“I haven’t checked today, but I figure they’re long gone from Blacklin County.”
“Bail jumpers?”
“Somehow I don’t think the people who put up the money for them are going to care,” Rhodes said, “and the bondsman will be taken care of. Everyone will be glad to have them gone.”
“I hope you’re right and they’re really gone,” Lonnie said. “I didn’t feel safe with them around.”
“They wouldn’t hurt you,” Rhodes said. “They might steal your car battery or cut the catalytic converter off your car, but they wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Lonnie,” Rhodes said, “remember what you’ve said about how people wouldn’t like you if they knew you were gay?”
“Well,” Lonnie said, “it’s true.”
“No, it’s not. Everybody knows already, and everybody likes you. You’re just another guy who lives in Clearview to them, and they’d be your friends if you’d let them.”
Lonnie didn’t appear to be persuaded. “What does this have to do with those men living in the old hotel?”
“Think about it. You’re acting the same way about them that you claim everybody’s acting about you. You don’t know them or anything about them, but you’re willing to believe they’re murderers.”
“Well, they…” Lonnie stopped. He looked down at the concrete patio. “You’re right. I shouldn’t judge people I’ve never even met. Maybe I’d like them if I knew them.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Rhodes said, rubbing the place on his head where the bucket had hit him.
Chapter 26
After leaving Lonnie’s, Rhodes drove to the reclamation center. He wanted to see if it was open, and if it was, he wanted to see who was in charge. He thought Nolan might have sent Mike and Al away.
The gate was open, so Rhodes drove inside and parked in front of the office building. He got out of his car and looked around the piles of metal. The sun glinted off an old car bumper, and Rhodes could almost feel the heat coming off the twisted chrome and steel. He remembered what the place had been like when he was a boy. There had been no stacks of salvage. The now vanished cotton gin had been in full operation, and the place hummed with activity.
Rhodes had occasionally walked there on a slow Saturday morning to watch the farmers bring the cotton wagons in. The wagons would be positioned under a big tube that hung down from the gin, and the cotton would be sucked out of the wagon and up into the tube. After the cotton was in the gin, the cotton would be separated from the seeds before it was pressed into the heavy bales that had been stored in the warehouse that still stood across the street.
The cleaned seeds were sent to the seed mill, which was also on the property, and turned into cottonseed oil. Rhodes imagined that he could still smell it, though now there wasn’t a trace of it left.
He got out of his car and went into the office. Mike and Al were both there. Neither was pleased to see him.
“You again,” Mike said when Rhodes walked in.
“Yeah,” Al said.
“What d’you want?” Mike asked. “Me and Al don’t want any more trouble. You already like to got us fired. Ain’t that enough for you?”
“I don’t think I’m the one at fault here,” Rhodes said. “I’m not the one who’s been stealing car batteries, copper wire, and catalytic converters.”
“Hey, we never stole anything,” Mike said.
“Yeah,” Al said.
“You’re right,” Rhodes said. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. You never stole a thing. You had somebody else do that for you.”
“I don’t like you much, Sheriff,” Mike said.
“Yeah,” Al said.
Rhodes was starting to admire Al’s use of the language. He might not have a big vocabulary, but he had a good control of his tone of voice. He got a lot of meaning into the one word he seemed to prefer over any other.
“I like you fellas a lot,” Rhodes said. “I like your friends, too. You know. Guillermo, Jorge, and Frankie. They been by here today?”
Mike and Al looked at each other. Then they looked back at Rhodes, crossed their arms over their chests, and said nothing at all.
Rhodes thought they’d probably win a staring contest if he got into one with them, so he said, “If you see them, tell them I’m still looking for them. If you see Nolan, tell him I said hey.”
Mike and Al looked at each other again. They didn’t ask who Nolan was, and they didn’t look happy that Rhodes had mentioned the name.
“It’s been nice talking to you,” Rhodes said. “I hope I don’t have to put you in jail again.”
“You won’t,” Mike said, uncrossing his arms and dropping his hands to his sides.
“Yeah,” Al said, doing the same.
Rhodes left them there. He wondered how long it would be before they got into trouble again. Two weeks, tops, he figured.
* * *
Rhodes went back to the jail. He thought he had things worked out now, but he needed to get Lonnie to talk to make sure he was right. Give him a little more time, and it would come out, or at least Rhodes hoped it would. Rhodes didn’t think Lonnie was in any danger, but you never knew about that kind of thing.
Rhodes went in the jail and told Hack to have Buddy drive by Lonnie’s house now and then to be sure everything was all right.
“Any reason why things wouldn’t be all right?” Hack asked.
“Two p
eople are dead, and he knew both of them,” Rhodes said.
“So you think somebody might kill him just because he knew the other two?”
“Never mind,” Rhodes said. “Just let Buddy know.”
Hack muttered something about being mean, but he made the call. Rhodes sat at his desk and started writing things down, including all his speculations about the sequence of events from Lynn’s death up to Tyler’s. Everything fit.
Lawton came in just as he was finishing up.
“You ever eat raccoon?” he asked.
“Never did,” Hack said. “I’ve had ’possum, though.”
Rhodes hadn’t heard any culinary discussions between the two of them lately, and he wondered what had brought this one on.
“Reason I ask,” Lawton said, as if Rhodes had spoken aloud, “is I was talkin’ to one of the prisoners back there. Ray Slade. Buddy brought him in this mornin’. You know him, Sheriff. He’s been here before.”
Rhodes was familiar with Slade, all right. He’d arrested him once himself. Slade had several bad habits, one of which was ignoring stop signs. He claimed he didn’t see any use to stop if there was nobody coming. He didn’t have much use for speed limits, either. Neither of those things would have been so bad if Slade had a driver’s license, but that was something else he didn’t believe in. He also didn’t believe in liability insurance, which was yet another problem.
“He lives out on the old McCollum place,” Lawton said. “Lots of ’coons in those woods, and he hunts ’em now and then.”
“Wasn’t brought in for that, though,” Hack said.
Rhodes didn’t bother to ask what Slade’s offense was. He could just look it up if he wanted to know, which he didn’t.
“He says a ’coon’s real good if it’s cooked right,” Lawton said. “He says he can make a ’coon pie that’d make you think your mama cooked it. Says you have to be sure you get the meat tender. He soaks it in brine for eight hours or so and that does the trick.”
“Reminds me of Clint Worsham,” Hack said. “You remember him?”
“Sure,” Lawton said. “Lived in the country outside of Obert. I know why you thought of him. He’s the one—”