by Bill Crider
“I can find it,” Rhodes said. “It’s just outside the town, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. County Road 118. Buddy’s on the way out there, and he says he’ll meet you where 117 dead-ends into 118. It’ll take him about fifteen minutes.”
“All right. You get in touch with Ruth and have her run a check on Milton Munday. Also known as Ralph King. See if she can find out anything.”
“You got it in for him?”
“No, but I want to know more about him. He seems a little anxious to me. Maybe he’s mixed up in this Baty mess somehow.”
“You never know, I guess,” Hack said. “You headin’ out to Obert now?”
“You know how Buddy is. Sometimes he gets overeager. You tell him not to do a single thing until I get out there to Obert. I’m going to stop off at Seepy Benton’s house on the way if he’s home. I want to have a word with him.”
“Don’t hurt him,” Hack said. “He didn’t know any better than to bail out those Eccles cousins.”
“I’ll be gentle,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Benton’s Saturn was parked in the driveway by his house. One of the Eccles pickups, the red one, was parked beside it. Rhodes pulled in behind them and stopped. When he got out of his car, he heard Benton talking to someone in the backyard, so he went on around without being invited.
Benton, Lance, and Hugh were sitting in lawn chairs, drinking Dr Pepper from cans. Rhodes supposed Lance and Hugh were admiring the Golden Rectangle while Benton explained the mathematics of it to them.
Bruce lay at the foot of Lance’s chair. Rhodes had the feeling that Bruce would understand as much about the Golden Rectangle’s mathematical intricacies as anybody there other than Benton.
Or maybe not. Maybe Lance and Hugh were better at math than Rhodes thought. Whatever they were discussing, Rhodes hoped they’d offer him a Dr Pepper. He’d missed lunch again, and he thought a Dr Pepper would perk him up a little.
Bruce raised his head and saw Rhodes. He gave a friendly bark, lowered his head, and closed his eyes. His behavior had certainly changed for the better since Benton had adopted him.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” Benton said. “We were just talking about you.”
“I’ll bet,” Rhodes said.
Lance and Hugh eyed him and didn’t say anything. He got the impression that they’d rather have had a couple of beers than the Dr Peppers.
Benton stood up. “Want a Dr Pepper, Sheriff?”
“I can’t stay long,” Rhodes said. Benton started to sit back down. “I can take it with me, though.”
“I’ll get you one,” Benton said.
He went into the house, leaving Rhodes alone with Lance, Hugh, and the dog. Only the dog seemed friendly.
“How’s it feel to be back in the free world?” Rhodes asked.
“Better’n that jail,” Hugh said. “That Milton Munday let us down.”
“Naw, he didn’t,” Lance said. “He mentioned us. That’s why Dr. Benton came and set us free.”
“Didn’t say anything about us getting the tar beat out of us,” Hugh said. “We might have to file suit against you and the county, Sheriff. No hard feelin’s. Just want to see justice done.”
“I understand,” Rhodes said. “It might be hard to find a lawyer, though.”
“Never can tell,” Hugh said.
Benton came back out with a can of Dr Pepper with a paper towel wrapped around the lower half. He handed the can to Rhodes. The can felt cold even through the paper towel, which was slightly wet. Rhodes popped the top and took a sip. The Dr Pepper was colder than the can, and it felt good going down.
“I guess you wonder why I bailed those two out,” Benton said. “I asked for you to call so I could explain.”
“I was passing by,” Rhodes said, “so I thought I’d stop in instead of calling.”
“I’m glad you did.” Benton glanced over his shoulder at the Eccles cousins. “They aren’t as bad as they seem.”
“They’re bad enough,” Rhodes said.
“We can hear you,” Hugh said. “We’re not all that bad. Bruce likes us.”
Hearing his name, the dog looked up again, and Hugh rubbed his head.
“See?” Benton said. “They’ve promised they’ll stay out of trouble from now on.”
“Except for suing me and the county?”
“I was just joking,” Hugh said, more for Benton’s benefit than Rhodes’s.
“Sure you were,” Rhodes said. “The question is, are you going to tell me what happened the other night while you were hunting?”
“Nothing happened,” Lance said.
“I know better than that,” Rhodes said. He drank a little Dr Pepper. “I know somebody showed up and there was some shooting. I hear you hunters didn’t start it but that somebody shot back. I wonder who did that.”
“I ain’t sayin’ it happened like that,” Hugh told him, “but even if it did, we didn’t do any shootin’. Ain’t that right, Lance?”
“That’s sure enough right, Hugh.”
“Then who did?” Rhodes asked.
“We couldn’t tell,” Lance said. “We were too scared of all them hogs that got stirred up, not to mention bullets flyin’ all around. Hugh and me, we jumped into a little patch of yaupon bushes and stayed there till things calmed down. Then we got out of there. So did everybody else.”
That was pretty much the same story that Dalton had told, and Rhodes was beginning to think it might have been close to the truth. It still didn’t help him with the murder of Baty. Any one of them could have done it, though he couldn’t think why they would have.
“You didn’t see who was shooting?” he asked. “You didn’t see anybody else there?”
“Nobody was there,” Hugh said. “Not that we saw. We figure that whoever started shootin’ must’ve been as scared as we were. They got out of there, too.”
“You think it might have been the Chandlers?”
“They don’t like us much,” Hugh said. “They don’t like any hunters much, from what I’ve heard, and I’d like to say it was them that did the shootin’. Get ’em in trouble, maybe get ’em arrested. I can’t say that, though. Me and Lance, we’ve turned over a new leaf. We’re law-abidin’ citizens, and we cannot tell a lie.” He raised a hand as if pledging. “We didn’t see nobody, so we can’t say who might’ve been there.”
“You must’ve heard about the Chandlers’ pig,” Rhodes said.
“The one somebody cut up?” Lance asked. “Yeah, we heard about that. Doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“What about the other hunters? They ever mention it?”
“Sure, they mentioned it. People talk about weird stuff like that. We all wondered about it. You don’t think we had anything to do with it, I hope.”
“We cannot tell a lie,” Hugh reminded Rhodes. “We didn’t do it, and we don’t know who did.”
Rhodes knew he wasn’t going to get any more from them, so he thanked Benton for the Dr Pepper and started to leave.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Benton said.
When they got around the house out of sight of the cousins, Rhodes said, “Are you sure you want to be responsible for those two?”
“They’re all right,” Benton said. “They like Bruce, and he likes them. They check on him all the time. They just got mad at you and got carried away.”
“You’re probably right, but if they get in any trouble, I’m coming to look for you.”
“I’m easy to find,” Benton said.
“I know,” Rhodes said. He took a last swallow of the Dr Pepper and handed Benton the empty can. “Thanks for the drink.”
“My pleasure, Sheriff.”
“You be sure to recycle that can.”
“I always recycle,” Benton said.
* * *
It took Rhodes about five minutes to drive to the place where he was to meet Buddy. He was glad to see that Buddy’s cruiser was pulled off onto the side of the road
, about halfway in the drainage ditch, and that Buddy was standing beside the car, waiting. Buddy was a good lawman, but he was impulsive, and sometimes he got a little ahead of himself.
Rhodes parked his car nose to nose with Buddy’s and got out.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Buddy said, “you ready to go after that Rapper fella?”
“He has his sidekick with him,” Rhodes said.
“Nellie.” Buddy fondled the handle of his service revolver. “I remember him.”
“We don’t want to kill them,” Rhodes said. “Just talk to them.”
“Seems to me they don’t like talking much. They shoot first and ask questions later.”
Buddy talked like that now and then. Rhodes overlooked it.
“Rapper’s probably hurt,” Rhodes said. “Might even need a doctor.”
“Won’t matter. Those two are mean as snakes.”
“We’ll see. Where are they?”
“You know where the Boynton place is?”
“It’s not far,” Rhodes said, looking over Buddy’s shoulder. “Right over that hill and around the curve.”
“You got it. You turn in at the gate there, and there’s an old house back off the road about a hundred yards. Nobody’s lived there for fifteen or twenty years. That’s where Rapper is, I heard.”
“How’d you hear it?”
“I asked around a little in Obert. You know that barbershop they got there?”
Rhodes knew the barbershop, all right.
“There’s a new barber there now,” he said.
“Yeah. Name’s Swanson. He’s my wife’s third cousin. You know that?”
“No,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t know that.”
Buddy looked pleased to have come up with something Rhodes didn’t know.
“Well, he is. Anyway, I asked him if there was any funny goings-on around town. Barbers hear about everything that happens, pretty much, and he told me that one of his customers had seen some lights out at the Boynton place. Said they’d heard some noises, too. Motorcycles, maybe.”
“Sounds like Rapper, all right,” Rhodes said. “Let’s have a look.”
“How’ll we do it?”
“You go ahead and open the gate. Leave your car by the road and ride up to the house with me.”
“Gotcha,” Buddy said.
He got in his car, backed up the hill a short distance until he came to a wide place, and turned around. Rhodes followed him over the hill and down the other side to the barbed-wire gate to the Boynton place. Buddy opened the door and got in the car with Rhodes.
“You think they’ve heard us yet?” Buddy asked.
“I don’t know.” Rhodes saw no movement or lights. “They might not even be there.”
“Maybe not. You see any motorcycles?”
“No sign of them,” Rhodes said. It was getting late, and the light was tricky as the sun started down behind a bank of clouds. “They’d be hidden if they’re there. Behind the house, most likely.”
“Maybe Rapper’s already gone,” Buddy said. “He knows you always get the best of him.”
“His brother’s dead,” Rhodes said, “and he’s not happy about it. I don’t think he’ll leave for a while.”
“You know where his brother’s to be buried?”
Rhodes hadn’t called Ballinger to ask. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“I haven’t heard anything,” Rhodes said. “You ready to see what we can see?”
“I was born ready,” Buddy said.
Rhodes overlooked that, too. He started the car and drove up the narrow dirt road toward the abandoned house, which could have used a coat of paint and a new roof. A few new windows wouldn’t have hurt, either. If Rapper and Nellie were there, they didn’t have deluxe accommodations. That wouldn’t have bothered them, however. They’d stayed in worse places when visiting the county in the past.
When he was about halfway to the house, Rhodes stopped the car.
“Sure is quiet,” Buddy said.
Rhodes resisted the urge to say, “Too quiet.”
“How are we gonna play it?” Buddy asked.
Rhodes had to think it over. They couldn’t sneak up on the place because it was out in the open except for a few high weeds here and there, and Rapper had probably heard the car anyway.
“I’ll give them a shout,” Rhodes said. “You stay in the car.”
“You sure?” Buddy asked.
“I’m sure.”
Rhodes got out and opened the trunk of the car and got out a blue and white bullhorn. He held it by the pistol-grip handle and pulled the trigger.
“Hello, the house,” he said. “This is Sheriff Rhodes. Come out on the porch and let’s talk.”
Nobody came out on the porch. Rhodes didn’t blame them. The porch looked pretty rickety from where he stood.
“I know your brother’s dead, Rapper, but it’s not doing you any good to go around assaulting people who didn’t have anything to do with killing him. You’re going to wind up in jail and not even get to go to his funeral.”
Rhodes thought he saw movement behind one of the broken windows, but he couldn’t be certain.
“Nellie, is Rapper all right? If he needs a doctor, we can see that he gets one.”
Rhodes heard the squeal of hinges that hadn’t been oiled in a generation as the front door swung inward. Rapper hobbled out onto the precarious porch.
“I won’t be going to the funeral,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about that. I got a sister who’ll claim the body and see that it’s taken care of.”
Rhodes had never thought of Rapper as having a brother, much less a sister. Rapper had always seemed to be the kind of person who springs up out of nowhere, and it was hard for Rhodes to imagine him as a child, playing with his brother and sister just like any other kid.
“You know who killed my brother, Sheriff?” Rapper yelled.
“Not yet,” Rhodes said into the bullhorn. “I’m going to find out, though.”
“What happens when you do?”
“I’ll arrest him and put him in jail.”
“Yeah,” Rapper said. “That’s about what I thought. I like my idea better.”
“I saw your idea in action last night,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t think much of it.”
“What you think doesn’t matter. It gave me some satisfaction.”
“You weren’t even after the right man.”
“How the hell would you know? My sources’re as good as yours. Better, probably.”
Rhodes didn’t feel like arguing the point. Rapper might even be right about his sources. He’d found out about the hunters and even located the hunt. He didn’t seem to know about the other people involved, though.
“My deputy and I are going to have to arrest you and Nellie for the assault last night,” Rhodes said. “We’ll come on up to the house now. Tell Nellie to come outside, and both of you keep your hands where we can see them.”
Rapper laughed. “I always did say you had a good sense of humor, Sheriff.”
He turned and went back inside the house.
“What now, Sheriff?” Buddy asked.
“Now we wait for a minute or two,” Rhodes told him. “See what happens.”
It didn’t take even that long.
Rapper must have walked straight through the house and out the back door. The motorcycles rumbled and rattled what was left of the glass in the windows.
“They’re gonna get away, Sheriff,” Buddy said. “We can’t let ’em do that.”
Rhodes didn’t know how to stop them. If they went the back way across country, the county car couldn’t follow.
“Come on, Sheriff,” Buddy said. He jumped out of the car, drew his sidearm, and ran toward the house. We can get ’em before the bikes are warmed up.”
“Stop, Buddy!” Rhodes said, but the deputy didn’t hear him over the roar of the bikes echoing off the back of the house and into the trees.
Or maybe Buddy did hear and chose to ignore
the order. He’d acted too hastily more than once in the past, and he always seemed to be trying to prove how tough he was. Rhodes thought he’d watched too many Dirty Harry movies.
Rhodes got in the car and went after him. When he caught up, Buddy was almost to the house, going full speed down the right rut of the track. Rhodes couldn’t pass him, so he honked the horn. That just made Buddy speed up, as if he thought Rhodes would run over him if he didn’t.
Rhodes stopped the car and got out. “Buddy! Come on back here.”
Buddy reached the house and flattened himself against the front wall. As he eased himself along, Rhodes caught up with him. Both of them heard the motorcycles leaving.
Buddy started to throw himself around the corner, and Rhodes knew he’d start firing his pistol when he did. Rhodes grabbed the deputy’s arm.
“Stand still,” he said.
This time Buddy couldn’t pretend not to hear him, so he stopped.
“They’ll get away,” he said.
“I wouldn’t let that bother me,” Rhodes said.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Rhodes said, “they always come back.”
Chapter 21
“Ralph King is Milton Munday’s real name,” Ruth said. “Believe it or not.”
Rhodes decided he might as well believe it, though he’d thought it might be a fake. He didn’t know why.
“King Ralph,” Ruth said when she saw Rhodes’s skeptical look. “It was a movie a long time ago. I saw it on TV once.”
“John Goodman,” Rhodes said. “Now I remember.”
“That’s right,” Ruth said.
“Never heard of it,” Hack said. “What about you, Lawton?”
“If it didn’t have the Three Stooges in it, I didn’t watch it.”
Rhodes had come back to the jail. He’d sent Buddy back on patrol with strict orders to call for backup if he so much as thought he saw or heard a motorcycle.
“You know me, Sheriff,” Buddy had said.
“I do,” Rhodes answered. “That’s why I worry.”
Rhodes wasn’t really worried about Buddy now, however. He was too interested in hearing what Ruth had found out about Munday.
“He was at a station in Louisiana,” she said. “Up in Shreveport.”