A Romantic Way to Die

by Bill Crider

  “Do that, and you’ll be spending your time in the county jail while you wait for a free ride to prison,” Rhodes said. “I’m fixing to come out of the trees, so you just hold your fire.”

  “Be damned if I do. There’s not gonna be any more window-peeping around here. Just gonna be two dead window-peepers.”

  “I don’t think so,” said a voice from the darkness behind the man with the shotgun.

  Rhodes recognized the voice. Ruth Grady had arrived on the scene.

  “Just lay the shotgun on the ground, sir,” Ruth said.

  “Damn,” the voice said. “You know how to use that pistol, little lady?”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Ruth said. “Now lay the shotgun down and back away from it. Slowly.”

  “Damn. I guess that really is the sheriff out there in those trees, then, and not some window-peeper. Am I right?”

  “That you, Sheriff?” Ruth called.

  “It’s me,” Rhodes said. He rubbed his eye. “What’s left of me.”

  “Damn,” the voice said. “All right. I’m puttin’ it down. But don’t you let that window-peeper get away.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, sir,” Ruth said. “I’ll take good care of him.”

  Rhodes walked out of the trees and shined the flashlight on the scene. There was a house not too far away, and in its big back yard Ruth Grady stood, holding her pistol in a two-handed grip and pointing at a skinny man wearing overalls and no shirt. He was somewhere in his sixties, Rhodes guessed, and he was backing away from the shotgun which he’d laid at his feet as Ruth had told him to do.

  And not too far from where Rhodes emerged from the trees was Terry Don Coslin, who looked as if he wished he’d never agreed to pay a visit to his old home county.

  Terry Don didn’t sound sorry to be back in Blacklin County. He looked up at the dark sky and said, “You live in a city long enough, you forget how many stars there are up there.”

  “You should come back more often,” Rhodes said.

  Terry Don brought his gaze back to earth and turned to look at Rhodes.

  “Maybe so. Didn’t I sign a book for you at the Wal-Mart this afternoon?”

  “You did,” Rhodes said. “But we’re a long way from there now.”

  “You damn sure are,” said the man in the overalls. “You’re on my property, is where you are, and I’d be within my rights if I shot the whole damn lot of you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Rhodes told him. “A law officer in pursuit of his duty”—he looked at Ruth “—or her duty can enter your property legally. It’s not like you have any fences up, except that one over there around your dog pen. You think you could get that dog to stop barking?”

  “Keep it down, Grover!” the man yelled, and the dog stopped barking.

  “Thanks,” Rhodes said, who really did appreciate it. His head was throbbing from being hit by the tree limb.

  “You’re not welcome. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m damn well gonna build me a good strong fence around this whole place. It’s been like a damn parade through here tonight. People tramping all over the damn place, and peepin’ in my window besides. If you’re really the sheriff, and I guess you are, you might as well arrest that son of a bitch over there and take him away.”

  “And the complaint would be?”

  “Window-peepin’,” the man said. “Haven’t you been listenin’ to a damn word I’ve said?”

  “I’ve been listening. Now I’m going to pick up your shotgun, Mr.—” Rhodes stopped, then continued. “I don’t think you’ve introduced yourself.”

  “Billy Quentin is my name. And this is my property you’re on. You say it’s legal for you to be here, and maybe it is, for you. But it’s not for that damn window-peeper.”

  Rhodes picked up the shotgun, and Ruth Grady relaxed her stance.

  “I think you can put the sidearm away,” Rhodes told her. “Mr. Quentin isn’t going to hurt anybody.”

  “Not unless it’s a window-peeper,” Quentin said.

  “I think he means you,” Rhodes said to Coslin. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I wasn’t window-peeping,” Terry Don said. “I was just taking a walk. I went back to the president’s house, but Chatterton was fussing around and talking so much that I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep. Besides, I was upset about what had happened to Henrietta. So I thought I’d go outside and walk around, get a look at all those stars up there. I was going to stay pretty much on the college campus, but I must’ve gotten lost.”

  “Damn right you did,” Quentin said. “You’re on my property now. Damn window-peeper.”

  “I wasn’t peeping in any windows,” Terry Don said evenly. “I didn’t even get close to your house.”

  “Bullcorn. You’re the one that came by peepin’ on me a couple of hours ago, and you’re the one I caught out here this time. Don’t tell me you’re not a window-peeper.”

  Terry Don didn’t look like a window-peeper to Rhodes, but then he’d known killers who looked like they might just have been elected president of a Sunday school class.

  “You say someone was out here earlier?” Rhodes said to Quentin.

  “Damn right there was. And that’s him.”

  “How do you know? Did you see him up close?”

  Quentin passed a hand under an overall strap and scratched his armpit.

  “Well,” he said, “not exactly.”

  “How exactly?” Rhodes asked.

  Quentin hemmed and hawed and finally said, “There was damn sure somebody on my property. Grover was barkin’ his head off. But whoever it was, he was gone before I got out here with my shotgun.”

  “So you didn’t actually see anybody.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Because it might even have been a woman who was running around down here earlier, not a man. Are you sure you didn’t see anybody?”

  “It wasn’t any woman,” Quentin said. “It was that window-peeper. I caught up with him this time, and there he is. You oughta arrest him instead of standin’ around here wastin’ my time.”

  Rhodes wasn’t going to arrest anyone, not just yet, not until he’d figured out what was going on. He told Terry Don to get on up the hill.

  “I’ll be talking to you tomorrow,” he said. “I hope you’ll be sticking around the conference.”

  “That’s what I’m getting paid for,” Terry Don said.

  “All right, then. You can go on back up there.”

  Terry Don turned and started back up the hill.

  “You can’t just let him go like that,” Quentin protested.

  “Yes I can,” Rhodes said. “I’m the sheriff.”

  “Till the next election, you are. Then I’ll by God vote you out.”

  Rhodes wished he had a dime for every time he’d heard that one, or a variation of it. But he didn’t say so. Instead he commended Quentin for his willingness to take part in the democratic process.

  “Bullcorn,” Quentin said.

  “That’s what some people think,” Rhodes conceded. “But I’m not one of them.”

  Then he ejected the shells from the shotgun and handed it to Quentin.

  “You’re gonna be sorry about this mess, Sheriff,” Quentin said.

  “I probably will,” Rhodes said. “Are you through with that crime scene, Deputy Grady?”

  “Not yet,” Ruth said. “But when I heard shooting, I thought I’d better get down here and check it out. Looks like it was a good thing I came.”

  “Lucky for that damn window-peeper,” Quentin said.

  “Lucky for you, too,” Rhodes told him. To Ruth he said, “I’ll meet you up there at the college in a little while. Right now I have to return a flashlight.”

  They left Quentin standing there with his shotgun. Rhodes hadn’t gone far before Grover started barking again.

  Rhodes heard Quentin say, “Oh, shut up, Grover,” and smiled in spite of himself.

  8

&
nbsp; “I’D GUESS SHE FELL AND HIT HER HEAD ON THE CORNER OF the dresser,” Ruth Grady said.

  She and Rhodes were standing in the room where Henrietta had died. The body had been removed, but there was still a stain on the floor where Henrietta’s head had lain.

  The dormitory was quiet. Rhodes wondered just how many of the writers were asleep. Henrietta’s death must have disturbed a few of them, though they hadn’t really shown it.

  “You think it was an accident, then?” Rhodes said.

  “Not hardly. See that window screen over there?”

  Rhodes nodded. He’d noticed it earlier.

  “Somebody pushed it open and went out that way,” Ruth said. “There are signs on the outside, too.”

  “Footprints?”

  “We’re not that lucky. The grass is mashed down. That’s about all.” Ruth looked around the room. “Did you know she was naked under that robe?”

  “I didn’t check,” Rhodes said. “Does it mean anything?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe she was just getting ready for bed. But what if she and the somebody who went out that window were getting ready to make a little whoopie?”

  “Terry Don?” Rhodes said.

  “Or Chatterton.”

  “He says he was working out in the parlor, getting things in order.”

  “He says.”

  “Right. I’ll make sure.”

  “And there’s another possibility, too,” Ruth said.

  “There is?”

  “You don’t have to play innocent with me, Sheriff. You know as well as I do that there might have been another woman in here.”

  “I don’t know about that. There would’ve been gossip about Henrietta if that were the case.”

  “You don’t hear everything,” Ruth said.

  “True. What about you?”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about that. But it’s still a possibility.”

  “I didn’t know about Henrietta’s feud with Vernell, either,” Rhodes said. “What about you?”

  “I heard that story,” Ruth said. “And that brings up a question. Where was Vernell when this happened?”

  “In her room.”

  “She says.”

  “So does Carrie Logan,” Rhodes said. “Her roomie.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe Vernell didn’t do it, then. But I wouldn’t rule her out.”

  “I won’t. What do you think happened here?”

  Ruth took some Polaroid pictures from her shirt pocket.

  “Look,” she said, handing one of them to Rhodes. “See the way she was lying?”

  Rhodes took the photo and looked at it. It showed him what he’d already seen previously when he’d looked into the room with Chatterton.

  “There’s a little blood under her head there,” he said. “The stain’s still on the floor.”

  “I think she fell and hit her head on the corner of the dresser,” Ruth said. “And that’s what killed her. I guess Dr. White will let us know for sure.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t an accident.”

  “That’s right. Someone was with her, and I think there was a struggle. See how the bed’s messed up?”

  “Well, you said she was making whoopie,” Rhodes pointed out.

  “That would mess up the covers, all right, but not exactly like they are now.”

  Rhodes was tempted to ask Ruth how she knew, but he didn’t want her to think he was prying into her sex life. Besides, he thought she was right.

  “You think someone came in and surprised her on the bed with someone else?”

  “No. Someone might have come in, but it wasn’t a surprise. I’m sure Henrietta would have locked the door. And if she didn’t, whoever was in here with her would have.”

  Rhodes thought that was right, too. He certainly would have locked the door if he’d been in that room with Henrietta.

  “What about fingerprints?” Rhodes asked.

  “I’ll check for them before I leave,” Ruth said. “But do you think they’ll really do us any good?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Rhodes thought the “not” was more likely. Even if there were prints, they probably wouldn’t be on file anywhere. And he didn’t think it was going to be easy getting everyone at the conference to volunteer to be printed. If it came down to it, however, he’d just have to coerce them.

  “Anything else you can tell by looking around?”

  “You can see the way the throw rug’s messed up,” Ruth said. “Another sign of a struggle. But that’s about it. If we’re lucky, Dr. White can tell us more.”

  Rhodes knew it was going to take more than luck. It always did. He was convinced that someone attending the conference had been lying to him from the beginning because he didn’t think Henrietta had been killed by some outsider just passing by. The trick would be to find out who the liar was.

  Rhodes was sure it wouldn’t be easy. After all, he was dealing with a group of women who were liars by profession, or who wanted to be. That was undoubtedly going to complicate things.

  And then there was that naked woman the Applebys had seen running around. Rhodes figured that the woman had been the one who had disturbed Quentin the first time. Too bad he hadn’t gotten a look at her.

  “I’m going home,” Rhodes told Ruth. “Tomorrow I’ll be back early to search those woods down there. I got interrupted tonight.”

  “You never told me what you were doing there in the first place,” Ruth said.

  Rhodes told her about the naked woman.

  “And you think she had something to do with Henrietta?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Maybe it was just some city woman who wanted to get close to nature.”

  “Nobody wants to get that close to nature, not at this time of the year,” Rhodes said.

  “What if she’s the one who was in the room with Henrietta?”

  “I guess that’s something we’ll have to consider.”

  “You think she dropped her glass slipper in Billy Quentin’s back yard?”

  Rhodes smiled. “It would be a big help if she did.”

  “Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”

  “I try never to count on anything when it comes to a crime like this one,” Rhodes said. “That way I’m never disappointed.”

  “You’d be disappointed if Clyde and Claude were involved in this, wouldn’t you?”

  Rhodes had to admit that he would. He’d tried to help the twins, and it seemed that they had their lives on the right track. He didn’t like to think that they could have had anything to do with Henrietta’s death.

  “You don’t think that’s possible, do you?” he said.

  “I wouldn’t rule them out. When it comes to sneaking around and peeping in windows, those two have a head start on everybody else around here.”

  “They’ve changed,” Rhodes said. “At least I think they’ve changed.”

  Ruth looked skeptical. She said, “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

  But she didn’t sound as if she meant a word of it.

  Rhodes wasn’t what he could call perky the next morning. He’d had only a couple of hours’ sleep, and his eyes felt as if they were glued shut with rubber cement. It was one of those times that Rhodes wished he liked coffee. He had a Dr Pepper instead, but the caffeine didn’t kick in enough to make any difference.

  Hack woke him up, however. When Rhodes walked through the door of the jail, Hack said, “You better go talk to Mildred Cramer. She got one of those calls about the contest.”

  “What contest?” Rhodes asked.

  “That one about the date with Terry Don.”

  “Oh,” Rhodes said, rubbing his eyes, one of which was still sore from where the tree limb had whacked him.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “She says she knows who did the calling,” Hack told him.

  Rhodes stopped rubbing.

  “Who was it?”

  “Henrietta Bayam,” Hack sai
d.

  9

  MILDRED CRAMER AND HER HUSBAND, JOE, LIVED IN A LITTLE white frame house just outside the city limits on the road to Milsby. They had chickens in a pen and a collie dog named Hank that Rhodes wished wasn’t quite so friendly.

  “Get down, Hank,” Mildred called from her front porch. “Don’t you jump up on the sheriff like that. He doesn’t want your paw prints all over his shirt.”

  Hank paid her no attention at all. He kept trying to jump up on Rhodes until he saw a cat zip past the corner of the house. He left Rhodes in the lurch and went charging off after the cat, who was headed for a little sheet-metal barn out back.

  “Don’t worry about Princess,” Mildred said, meaning the cat, Rhodes supposed. “She can take care of herself. Sometimes I think Hank must not be too smart. He’s never caught her yet, but he keeps on trying.”

  Mildred was around sixty. She was short and stout, and she was sitting on her small front porch in a lawn chair with her left leg stuck straight out in front of her. Her left foot was in a cast that rested on an overturned bucket.

  “It’s not as uncomfortable as it looks,” she said. “Sometimes it itches under the cast, though. That’s not much fun.”

  “What happened?” Rhodes asked.

  “I stepped in a hole on the way to the barn, broke my ankle. Teach me to look where I’m going, I guess.”

  There was a TV tray beside Mildred. On the tray were a portable telephone, a battery-powered radio, and a glass of something that Rhodes guessed was water. Mildred turned down the radio, which had been tuned in to a talk show from Dallas, and reached for the glass.

  “Lemonade,” she said, taking a drink and setting the glass back on the table. “Joe made it for me before he went to work. I’d offer you some, but the one glass is all I have. It’s instant, though, and you can make one for yourself if you want to. The stuff’s in the kitchen.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to. He liked lemonade just fine, in the summertime, but it wasn’t summer, and he wasn’t thirsty.

  “No, thanks,” he said. “You called about Henrietta Bayam.”

  “Poor thing. I heard about her this morning from Annie Floyd. I couldn’t believe it, and I’d just talked to her yesterday.”