by Bill Crider
The man paused and looked at Rhodes. It finally seemed to dawn on him who he was talking to.
“You’re the sheriff, right?”
Rhodes agreed that he was.
“You here to arrest me? Because I don’t think there’s any law against what I’m doing. God knows, I wish there was. Anyway, Mr. Ballinger knows I’m in here. He’s had to deal with my crazy family before.”
“I’m not here to arrest you,” Rhodes said. “It’s just that somebody reported some strange lights here, and we’ve had some other problems lately. So I had to check it out.”
“I didn’t mean to bother anybody,” the man said. “I’d have been gone before now if the lights hadn’t gone out. It’s not easy to be sure you have a good shot when you’re working half in the dark. But I’m about done. Just four or five more shots, and I’ll have both rolls finished.”
“Two rolls?” Rhodes said.
“Hard to believe, right? But Mama always wants two rolls. Twenty-four shots on a roll. No more, no less. One thing about working in the dark, though, the pictures are gonna be pretty darn spooky. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I guess Mama’ll have to decide.”
“Just for the record,” Rhodes said, “I’ll need your name and address.”
“Gil Blanton,” the man said, and gave Rhodes his address. “But, like I said, Mr. Ballinger knows I’m here. You can ask him.”
“Don’t worry,” Rhodes said. “I will.”
27
BALLINGER WAS SITTING AT HIS DESK, HOVERING OVER A NOTEBOOK computer, concentrating on the screen. There was a fluorescent lantern on a table, but the light from the screen was what illuminated the funeral director’s face.
“Thank God for battery-powered computers,” Ballinger said, looking up. “There are five more minutes left in this auction, and I’d have missed out completely if I’d been hooked up to electricity.”
“What if the battery plays out?” Rhodes asked.
“Don’t even mention that. Besides, I have an hour left on this one at least. And I have a spare.”
“How about the telephone line?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you have to be hooked into it?”
“I am.”
“So that’s why Hack couldn’t get you,” Rhodes said. “You should have a separate line for that computer. How are people supposed to get in touch with you?”
“They can call the other building,” Ballinger said. “There’s an answering machine there.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“Like what?”
“Like a ghost.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts. If there were, I’m pretty sure I’d have seen one by now, considering the kind of business I’m in. And I haven’t seen a single one.”
“Not everybody’s in your kind of business. Funny lights scare some people.”
“Gil Blanton,” Ballinger said, figuring out what Rhodes was talking about. “I never thought about him scaring anybody, being so used to him. I guess somebody put in a call.”
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “And—”
Ballinger held up a hand for silence. He was staring at the screen again.
“Not now,” he said. “I have to make this final bid.”
He tapped the keys of the notebook as the light from the screen flickered on his face.
“Got it!” he said. “I figured the other bidder had put in a top bid of five bucks.”Hang on a minute, and I’ll finish up here.”
Rhodes waited patiently. Ballinger had for years haunted garage sales around Blacklin County looking for old paperback books, the kind Ballinger claimed they didn’t write anymore. Their virtues, according to Ballinger, were many: they were short, they were tough, they were well written.
“Not like those padded-out doorstops you see these days,” he’d once told Rhodes. “Guys like Harry Whittington and Day Keene. Real pros. Those guys could tell more story in a hundred and twenty-eight pages than most people writing now can tell in a thousand.”
But old paperback books were getting harder and harder to find. Go to a garage sale now, Ballinger said, and all you could see were historical romances, books by Koontz, King, and Grisham, and big fat techno-thrillers by Clancy and his clones, which were the kind of thing people wanted to read these days. But those weren’t what Ballinger was looking for.
He turned away from the computer and looked up at Rhodes.
“Pretty good deal if you ask me,” he said. “A copy of Tokyo Doll for only five-fifty.”
Rhodes said he hadn’t heard of that one.
“It’s by John McPartland. Nobody’s ever heard of him. Except me and whoever else was bidding on Tokyo Doll. But he was good. Trust me.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” Rhodes said.
“The only thing is, I used to be able to get books like that for a dime at garage sales. Those days are gone forever.”
“Like a lot of things,” Rhodes said. “Listen, while I’m here, what about the autopsy report on Terry Don Coslin?”
“Dr. White sent it over to your office,” Ballinger said. “How long are you going to try to keep this quiet?”
“I’m not trying to keep it quiet,” Rhodes said. “I was just hoping the paper wouldn’t find out about it in time to get it in today’s edition.”
“Well, they didn’t,” Ballinger said. “But they know now, and there’s going to be a story tomorrow. It’ll probably be in the Dallas papers before then, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the TV people didn’t start showing up tonight.”
“Maybe the weather will keep them away,” Rhodes said.
“Ha.”
“Right. Nothing will keep them away. I guess I’ll have to wrap things up before they get here.”
“Any chance of you doing that?”
“Two,” Rhodes said.
“Slim and none?”
“Those are the two.”
“I don’t think Dr. White found anything that’s going to be much help to you, either.”
“Just what I wanted to hear.”
“But you never know,” Ballinger said in an attempt to be encouraging. “He did mention that there was some little something that you were going to be interested in, but he didn’t say what it was.”
Rhodes wondered what it could have been. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t stayed in Obert. He was suddenly eager to read the report.
Ballinger turned back to the computer.
“I’m not trying to snub you,” he said, “but there’s a bid on a book by Charles Williams I want to check on.”
“You go ahead,” Rhodes told him. “I have to get on over to the jail anyway.”
The rain had just about stopped, and there were no more eerie flashes of light inside the funeral home. Rhodes supposed that Blanton had finished up and left.
Rhodes got in the county car. Just as he started out of the driveway, the lights in the neighborhood all came back on.
Rhodes wondered if that was a good sign.
Probably not, he thought as he drove away.
28
LAWTON WAS NOWHERE AROUND WHEN RHODES GOT BACK TO the jail, but Hack was there, watching Oprah on his little TV set.
“Do you ever buy things from auctions on that computer?” Rhodes asked.
Hack turned off the TV set and said, “That wouldn’t be right. I don’t do stuff like that on county time. Besides, there’s not anything on there that I want. Why?”
“Just wondering. Where’s the autopsy report on Terry Don Coslin?”
“Right there on your desk,” Hack said. “What about the ghost?”
“It didn’t get Ballinger. He’s fine.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Rhodes knew very well what Hack had meant, and he knew it was wrong to tease him, but he could never resist giving the dispatcher a dose of his own medicine.
“There wasn’t any ghost,” he said.
“I didn’t thi
nk there was. But there must’ve been somethin’. What was it?”
“Just somebody taking pictures,” Rhodes said, and went on to explain what the caller had seen.
“I don’t blame that man’s mama,” Hack said when Rhodes was finished. “I think it’s nice to have a picture of the deceased like that.”
Rhodes didn’t comment. He went over to his desk and located the report. Then he sat down, put on his glasses, and started to read.
There was nothing startling in the report at all. Terry Don had died from the effects of the fall, which had been obvious from the beginning. The interesting thing that Ballinger had mentioned was even smaller than Rhodes thought it would be. There had been some kind of mark across the top of Terry Don’s right index finger, something almost like a rope burn but much smaller than any mark made by a rope would have been. For some reason, Rhodes thought he should know what the mark was, but the longer he thought about it, the less sure he became. All kinds of ideas were milling around in his head, but they weren’t lining up in any logical order. He’d just have to wait until they did.
And the best thing to do while he was waiting was to go back to Obert and talk to a few more people.
The rain had stopped, but the clouds had hung on, heavy and dark. Rhodes had to use his headlights even though it was still a couple of hours until nightfall.
His first stop was Billy Quentin’s house. As soon as Rhodes got out of the car, he could hear Grover barking out in back.
There was no sidewalk in Quentin’s front yard, and in fact there wasn’t much of a yard. It was mostly hard-packed dirt, which had turned slick and muddy in the rain. Rhodes could feel it sucking at his shoes as he walked to the porch.
Quentin, who must have been alerted by Grover’s barking, came to the door before Rhodes could even knock. Quentin was again wearing a pair of overalls, but this time he had a T-shirt on with them, probably a concession to the fact that the rain had lowered the temperature considerably.
Rhodes was glad for the T-shirt because he now noticed that Quentin had enough back hair to stuff a pillow. Tufts of it stuck out above the collar of the T-shirt. Some of it was even sticking through the T-shirt.
Quentin also had thin lips and big ears. His ears were hairy, too. And he hadn’t shaved that day. On him the scruffy look wasn’t a fashion statement. Or if it was, it was saying all the wrong things.
“Oh,” Quentin said when he saw Rhodes standing at his door. “It’s you. The high sheriff.”
“That’s right. Can I come in?”
Quentin looked down at Rhodes’s shoes, which had tracked mud up onto the porch.
“You really have to?” he said.
Rhodes scuffed his shoes against the porch, knocking most of the mud off.
“Yes,” he said. “I really have to.
Quentin pushed the door open, and Rhodes entered. After he got a look inside, he wasn’t really worried about his muddy shoes. Quentin wasn’t going to win any awards for good housekeeping. There were newspapers lying on the floor and in the chairs, there were beer cans on the coffee table and on the TV set, there were pizza boxes on the floor, and there was an overflowing ashtray by the couch. A football game was playing on the TV set, but there was no sound. Rhodes didn’t know whether Quentin had the sound muted or whether he just preferred to watch without it.
The ashtray reminded Rhodes of the one in Terry Don’s room, except that one had been empty. Rhodes wondered who had emptied it.
“Have a seat,” Quentin said, moving to the couch, where there was one cleared cushion. He sat down, took a beer can off the coffee table, and had a drink. “Want a beer?”
“No, thanks,” Rhodes said.
He pushed some newspapers out of a chair. They fluttered to the floor, and Rhodes sat down.
“Been watchin’ the game,” Quentin said, pointing to the television set with the hand that held the beer. “You like football?”
“I don’t follow the pros much, except for the Cowboys,” Rhodes said. “And I keep up with the Clearview Catamounts.”
“Yeah? Well, you must not like ‘em much, considerin’ what you did to ’em last year.”
People still blamed Rhodes for the Catamounts’ unfortunate season, although it certainly hadn’t been his fault one of the coaches got himself murdered. But Rhodes hadn’t come to talk about that.
“I wanted to ask you a few things about Terry Don Coslin,” he said.
“Don’t know the gentleman,” Quentin said, taking another sip of beer.
“You met him the other night, in your back yard.”
“Oh, yeah, him. The one in the tight jeans. Tell you the truth, I’m surprised they didn’t cut off his circulation. What about him?”
“Somebody killed him last night.”
Quentin had been slouching on the couch, but now he straightened up and set the beer can back on the coffee table.
“I heard all the commotion up there at the college,” he said. “I thought the whole place had blown up, and I watched the fire from out in the yard for a little while. But I was here at the house the whole time. I didn’t have anything to do with that fire. And I sure as hell didn’t kill anybody.”
Rhodes wasn’t entirely convinced of that. He said, “You didn’t much like Coslin. You called him a window-peeper, and you wanted to shoot him.”
Quentin rummaged around in the beer cans on the coffee table until he located a crumpled cigarette package and a matchbook. He straightened the pack and shook out a cigarette. He had to straighten that, too. When he was done, he stuck it in his mouth and lit it.
“I called him a window-peeper because he was one.”
“You called me one, too,” Rhodes reminded him.
“Yeah.” Quentin exhaled smoke. “I was wrong about that, maybe. But that tight-pants guy, he was one for sure. Somebody woulda killed him sooner or later, but I wasn’t the one who did it. And if I’d done it, you’d know it. I wouldn’t just shoot him and run off. I’d stand my ground.”
“He wasn’t shot,” Rhodes said.
“Well, there you are.” Quentin ignored his overflowing ashtray and flipped ashes on his rug. “Must not’ve been me, then.”
Rhodes didn’t much like Quentin, and he didn’t like his attitude. But he was beginning to believe that Quentin was telling the truth.
“You said he’d been on your property the other night,” Rhodes said. “Before you took after him with the shotgun, I mean.”
“Yeah, I said that. You didn’t believe me, though. You asked me if I’d seen a naked woman, like I wouldn’t know the difference in a woman and a man, even a long-haired sissy like that one. But I know the difference, all right. I wasn’t always a dried-up little fart like I am now. I had me plenty of women, one time or another, by God.”
“I don’t think Coslin was a sissy,” Rhodes said, deciding to let Quentin’s last remark pass without comment.
“You got a right to your opinion,” Quentin said. “I got a right to mine.”
Rhodes stood up. Quentin didn’t know it, but his criticisms of Coslin had given Rhodes something to think about, something that tied in with what Rhodes had already suspected.
“No need to rush off,” Quentin said, clearly not meaning a word of it.
“Don’t bother to get up,” Rhodes said, as if Quentin would actually have made the gesture. “I can find my way out. And thanks for your help.”
“Don’t mention it,” Quentin said, turning away, his eyes already focused on the soundless game.
29
AFTER LEAVING QUENTIN’S PLACE, RHODES DROVE ON DOWN TO the Appleby house. The black clouds in the north were breaking up, and there were patches of red and orange showing through as the sun dropped down. By nightfall the sky would be clear and the weather turning colder.
Claude and his twin weren’t home. They were still working at Wal-Mart. Mrs. Appleby was in the kitchen, cooking supper. Rhodes could smell the steak frying in the pan when he knocked on the door.
&
nbsp; Mrs. Appleby invited him in and led him back to the kitchen. The steak was popping in grease in a skillet, and a little of the flour it had been rolled in was still lying on a piece of waxed paper on the counter.
“You’re welcome to stay and have a bite to eat if you want to,” Mrs. Appleby told Rhodes. “There’s more than enough for you to have a plate. The boys should be here any minute.”
Although his stomach was telling him to accept, Rhodes thought about all the barbecue he’d eaten for lunch. Not to mention the cobbler and ice cream.
“I’d love to stay,” he said, “but I have too much to do. It does smell good, though.”
The grease popped as Mrs. Appleby turned the steak with a two-tined fork. Rhodes thought about cream gravy and mashed potatoes.
“I just wanted to let you know that Claude did a really brave thing last night,” Rhodes said. “If it hadn’t been for him, I might have died in that building.”
“I’m glad he was able to help you out,” Mrs. Appleby said. “But I wish he hadn’t been up there. He knows I don’t like him or his brother rovin’ over the countryside. They’ve been in trouble before, and if they don’t look out, they’ll be in trouble again. And after you helped ’em get those good jobs, too.”
“I don’t think Claude is going to get in any trouble,” Rhodes said. “He wasn’t doing any mischief.”
Mrs. Appleby sniffed. “Well, you know best, bein’ the sheriff. I just hope you’re right.”
Rhodes hoped so, too, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. He still thought Claude was holding something back. He just didn’t know what it was. But he was going to find out.
“I wanted to ask you about that person you saw,” Rhodes said. “The one without any clothes on. You told me there were ways to know it was a woman, but you didn’t say what those ways were.”
“I guess you know what they are.”
Rhodes realized he was treading on dangerous ground, but he forged ahead.
“I think I do, but, well, as I remember it, you said the woman was heading away from you, into the trees.”
“That’s right. That’s what I said.”