by Bill Crider
Since his head was free, Rhodes raised his torso from the mud and broke the surface. He took a deep breath, threw both arms up and back, and grabbed hold of Lance’s shirt. Then he lunged forward and pulled.
Lance came down under the water on top of Rhodes. Rhodes kept him there, hoping that he could hold his breath longer than Lance could.
He could. In only seconds, Lance was thrashing around as if he might be drowning. Rhodes thought it would serve him right if he did drown, but the county couldn’t afford all the lawsuits. So Rhodes let him go.
Lance untangled himself and shoved away from Rhodes. He tried to stand up, but Rhodes grabbed his legs and pulled him back down.
“You leave Lance alone,” Hugh said, snatching a handful of Rhodes’s thinning hair and dragging him backward.
Rhodes took hold of Hugh’s arm and jerked him forward. Hugh let go of Rhodes’s hair and landed facedown in the water beside his cousin.
Rhodes stood up. Water poured off him, and he was covered with mud and algae.
If some Hollywood director ever cast a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon, Rhodes knew he’d be a natural for the title role, and he wouldn’t even need a rubber costume.
Hugh and Lance pummeled the water and each other as they tried to get some air. Rhodes knew they’d have things sorted out after a while, so he pulled his feet out of the mud and stepped out onto the bank.
It took a minute or so, but Lance and Hugh finally managed to stop roiling the water. They caught hold of each other and stood up with some mutual assistance. They didn’t look any better than Rhodes did, but that was small comfort.
Rhodes peeled some of the algae off his shirt. He tossed it in the water and said, “Come on out now, one at a time. You first, Hugh.”
“I don’t want to,” Hugh said.
“Me, neither,” Lance said.
Rhodes flicked some more algae into the water. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said.
“Do what?” Hugh asked.
Rhodes didn’t answer. He leaned down and pulled up his right pants leg. The little .32 was still there in the holster. Rhodes unstrapped it and took it out.
“That thing’s mighty small,” Lance said.
“Mine’s bigger than yours,” Rhodes said.
“I ain’t even got one.”
“My point exactly.”
Hugh wasn’t impressed. “Prob’ly won’t even shoot after the soakin’ it got.”
Rhodes thought Hugh could be right. On the other hand, he could be wrong. Only one way to find out. Rhodes picked up one of the empty beer bottles and tossed it into the water.
“You couldn’t hit that even if that little gun would shoot,” Lance said.
Rhodes made sure the pistol barrel was free of mud. It was, so he aimed at the bottle and pulled the trigger. The pistol cracked, and the bottle shattered. The pieces sank under the water.
Lance and Hugh looked at the spot where the bottle had been. Then they looked at Rhodes.
“You’re scaring the fish,” Hugh said.
Chapter 13
“Land sakes alive,” Hack said when Lance and Hugh entered the jail, followed by Rhodes. That was pretty strong language from Hack, who liked to pretend he was never surprised by anything that happened around the place.
“Looks like Davy Jones’s boys from one of them pirate movies,” Lawton said. “I forget which one, though.”
“Never mind the movie references,” Rhodes said. “I need to book these two and get them in a cell.”
“What you need to get them is a shower,” Hack said.
“That, too, but it can wait until they’re booked.”
“What’re you gonna charge ’em with?” Lawton asked. “Criminal mud-slingin’?”
Rhodes didn’t answer. He booked the cousins and let Lawton take over while he went home for a shower of his own.
Yancey didn’t recognize him. He ran and hid under the bed as soon as Rhodes came through the door. Rhodes thought that was a good place for him.
Rhodes went into the bathroom, stripped off his wet, muddy clothes, cleaned up his shoes, and took a hot shower. When he was clean and dry, he dressed in fresh clothes and a dry pair of shoes. He clipped his badge on his belt and took the dirty clothes to the washer. He set the soaked shoes out on the porch, where he hoped Ivy wouldn’t notice them. It was just as well Ivy wasn’t home. She would have laughed too much.
While the clothes washed, Rhodes cleaned the .32. Then he had a sandwich made with the cold remains of the meatless meat loaf. He put some low-fat Miracle Whip on one slice of the bread. The sandwich wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a cheeseburger, but it was better than nothing.
When he’d eaten the sandwich, Rhodes put the clothes in the dryer and thought about the Eccles cousins. Whatever they’d seen, they didn’t want to talk about it, and they were willing to go to jail instead. Part of the problem, Rhodes was sure, was their natural antipathy to the law and its representatives, especially Rhodes. The cousins had a healthy lack of respect for authority, but that wasn’t all of it, and he was going to find out the rest.
By the time the clothes had dried, Yancey had come out from under the bed. He jumped up and down and yipped with excitement to show Rhodes how glad he was that Rhodes hadn’t turned out to be some mud-covered stranger intent on slaughtering small, helpless dogs.
Rhodes patted him and told him to go pester Sam, who had slept the whole time. Yancey either didn’t hear or didn’t choose to obey.
“I have work to do,” Rhodes said. “You behave while I’m gone.”
Yancey yipped in reply, and Rhodes took the clothes out of the dryer and put them away, with Yancey’s assistance. After that was done, he left to return to the jail. When he got there, Lawton told him that the Eccles cousins were cleaned up and sharing a cell.
Lawton sounded a bit sullen, and then Rhodes noticed that both Hack and Lawton were pouting as if they were the ones who’d been arrested. It dawned on Rhodes that he hadn’t asked them about their interview with the television reporter.
“By the way,” Rhodes said, “I just wanted to tell the two of you that I know you did the department proud this morning when you answered that TV fella’s questions. What channel was he from, anyhow?”
The two men brightened considerably.
“It was one of the Dallas channels,” Hack said. “Hoss was pretty well known up there. They wanted to hear all about how he was killed.”
“We didn’t know anything,” Lawton said, “but that never stopped us before.”
Truer words were never spoken, Rhodes thought.
“Funny thing, though,” Hack said. “They left before Lawton and I even finished tellin’ ’em all we didn’t know.”
Rhodes wondered how long it had taken the reporter to get frustrated with the way the two men answered his questions. He’d have to be an exceptionally patient man to last more than ten minutes.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you on the news tonight,” Rhodes said. “I hope the commissioners are watching. They love it when the county looks good on TV.”
“They’ll be plenty happy, then,” Lawton said.
“Now, then,” Hack said. “We’ve told you about the TV fellas. You gonna tell us what happened with Lance and Hugh?”
Rhodes knew the dispatcher’s curiosity must have been driving him crazy.
“Maybe,” Rhodes said.
“Maybe?” Hack asked.
“I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a straight answer about what’s been going on while I’ve been out serving the good people of the county. I’m talking about crime, not TV reporters.”
“Deal,” Hack said.
Lawton looked a little put out, but he didn’t say anything.
“You first,” Rhodes said.
“Loose cows out near Milsby. Boyd’s takin’ care of that. Two possums in a house on Oak Street. Boyd got that taken care of, too. Got a couple more complaints about that badge charity that’s callin’ people.”
“We oughta do something about those calls,” Lawton said.
“We will,” Rhodes said, “but not today. Murder comes first.”
“We know that,” Hack said. “So what about Hugh and Lance?”
Rhodes gave them a quick version of what had happened.
“Well, you might’ve got dirty, but you got the best of ’em,” Hack said.
“That’s one way to look at it,” Rhodes said. “Now I need to talk to them.”
“They’re a surly pair,” Lawton said. “Might not have much to say.”
“We’ll see,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Rhodes looked at the cousins through the bars of their cell. Dressed in the natty orange jumpsuits provided by the county, they lay in their bunks and seemed right at home. Rhodes wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t the first time they’d occupied the very same cell.
“I think we’ve had this conversation before,” Rhodes said.
Neither cousin looked his way. Hugh said, “Which conversation is that?”
“The one where you go ahead and tell me what I wanted to know before you caused me so much trouble.”
“I think I remember that,” Lance said.
“Yeah,” Hugh said. “I think I do, too.”
“It’s gonna be different this time, though,” Lance said.
“Yeah,” Hugh said.
“You can have a lawyer present if you want one,” Rhodes said.
“That ain’t it,” Lance said.
“How’s it going to be different, then?” Rhodes asked.
Lance sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He had to lean over to keep his head from hitting the top bunk.
“You remember what we said about the lawyer back at the tank?” he asked.
“Randy Lawless? You said he’d help whoever paid him.”
“That’s right. You’re pretty good, Sheriff. Not ever’body woulda remembered that. No wonder you’re the law in Blacklin County.”
“What does that have to do with our conversation?”
“Well, it occurred to me and Hugh that we can’t pay him.”
Hugh sat up and slid down to sit beside Lance on the lower bunk.
“It’s this damn economy,” Hugh said. “It sucks.”
“It sure does,” Lance said. “We ain’t had us a good long haul in a month.”
“More like two,” Hugh said.
Lance nodded. “More like two. And when we ain’t haulin’, we ain’t bringin’ the dough. So we can’t afford to hire Randy Lawless.”
“Even if he cut his rates, we couldn’t afford it,” Hugh said.
“Too bad,” Rhodes said. “You know how sorry I am about that. ’Course, the court will appoint you a lawyer if you can’t afford one.”
“We appreciate that, Sheriff,” Lance said. “We really do. Ain’t that right, Hugh.”
“It sure is,” Hugh said.
Sometimes Rhodes thought the whole world had joined up with Hack and Lawton in a conspiracy against him.
“There must be a point to all this talk,” he said.
“Oh, there’s a point, all right,” Lance said.
“Get to it, then,” Rhodes said.
“You sure are touchy,” Hugh said. “It’s not like we really did anything to you. Nothing more’n a good Babtist preacher would do if he was babtizin’ you in a creek.”
“I think that’s debatable,” Rhodes said. “Now like I said, get to the point.”
“The point is that we don’t want a lawyer,” Lance said.
“That’s right,” Hugh said. “We did use our phone call, though.”
Rhodes had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer to his next question. “Who did you call?”
“Milton Munday,” Lance said.
* * *
Milton Munday had several things going for him. He was big and not bad-looking, about thirty, with black hair cut so that it looked to Rhodes as if someone had messed it up. Rhodes thought it looked weird, but it seemed to work for Munday.
Looks didn’t matter on radio, however. It was Munday’s voice that sold him on the air. It was deep and rich and resonant. There was no trace of a Texas accent or an accent of any kind.
Munday was good with inflections and dramatic pauses, too. He could read the menu from a fast-food restaurant and make it sound like a pronouncement on a par with the Declaration of Independence.
At the moment, he wasn’t reading a menu or anything else. He was regaling Hack with the reasons why he needed to talk to the Eccles cousins. He was so eloquent that a lesser man than Hack would have forced Lawton to hand over the keys to the cell and release the cousins into Munday’s custody for a trip to Mexico.
Munday was so wrapped up in his rhetoric that he hadn’t seen Rhodes return from the cellblock. Rhodes listened to him talk for a while before breaking in on his monologue.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Munday looked away from Hack. “Who are you?”
“I’m the sheriff,” Rhodes told him.
Munday gave him the once-over. “You don’t look like a sheriff.”
Rhodes tapped his badge. “I’m not required to wear a uniform.”
“Nice for you,” Munday said.
“I like it,” Rhodes said. “Now, can I help you?”
“I want to visit two of my listeners who I understand you have in custody. Lance and Hugh Eccles.”
“Why would you want to see them?”
“They say they have some material for me, something I can use on my radio show.”
“Your radio show,” Rhodes said.
“That’s right. Have you heard it?”
“Not often.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Let’s just say I’m not a regular listener and leave it at that.”
Munday shrugged. “I have the right to say what I want to. Some people might not like it.”
Rhodes knew he wasn’t the only one who didn’t particularly like Munday’s approach. Munday had attacked just about everybody in the county. In his short time in Clearview, Munday had managed to get under the skin of several commissioners, the mayor, the Clearview Chamber of Commerce, the city council, the city manager, the fire chief, the superintendent of schools, two principals, and several business owners.
Rhodes figured that in some of the cases, the criticism might have been justified, but Munday’s scathing commentary went over the line too often.
Not that Munday restricted himself to local topics. He’d also attacked both houses of Congress, the president, the United Nations, and several European leaders.
“You know what?” Munday asked.
Rhodes played along. “I’m not sure. You tell me.”
“I don’t care if nobody likes me. They don’t have to listen if they don’t want to. Somebody likes me, though. I have as many advertisers as I can work into the show, and I’ve doubled the station’s audience since I’ve been in town.”
“I’m happy for you,” Rhodes said.
“That’s nice of you. Now how about letting me have a visit with the Eccles cousins.”
Rhodes hadn’t been able to get the cousins to tell him what they wanted to talk to Munday about. He had a feeling they wouldn’t tell Munday anything they wouldn’t tell him about the hog hunting, however, so they would probably launch into a tale of woe about police brutality. In a way, Rhodes hoped they would.
“Those two aren’t known for their truthfulness,” he said.
Munday smiled. “I’ll have
to be the judge of that, I’m afraid.”
“All right, then. Lawton, take Lance and Hugh to the visitor’s room. Then come back and get Mr. Munday.”
Lawton left the room, jangling his keys.
“The visit won’t be supervised,” Rhodes said, “but I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”
Munday straightened, and for a second Rhodes thought he might be going to flex his muscles. He didn’t, though.
“I’m not afraid, Sheriff,” he said.
“Just a matter of liability,” Rhodes said.
“You sure you don’t just want to listen in?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Probably got the room wired, right?”
Hack laughed. “Look around, Mr. Munday. Does this place look like it could be wired?”
“You have a point,” Munday said, as Lawton came back into the room.
“You can follow me,” Lawton said.
Munday did just that. When he was gone, Hack said to Rhodes, “You gonna monitor them?”
“Lawton can wait outside the door. Lance and Hugh won’t try anything.”
“What you think they’ll tell him?”
“That I jumped them and tried to drown them.”
“I wish he coulda seen you when you brought ’em in. You think he’ll believe ’em?”
“I don’t think it matters whether he believes them or not. It won’t matter to him. I don’t think he believes half the stuff he says on that show of his.”
“He’ll try to make you look bad,” Hack said.
Rhodes grinned. “Let him. Half the town seems to think I’m Sage Barton. If Munday tells Hugh and Lance’s version of what happened, most everybody who hears it will think I’m even more like Sage than ever.”
“You don’t think there’ll be trouble?”
“Not a bit,” Rhodes said. “Munday doesn’t know the Eccleses, but most people around here do. Those two don’t have the best reputation for truth-telling, and they’ve caused trouble more than once. People will be glad I did whatever they say I did. The ones who don’t think I’m Sage Barton will know it’s an exaggeration, and the ones who think I am will believe I’m a tough guy.”