Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 20 - Compound Murder

by Bill Crider

  “It’s a big deal for around here,” Hack said. “We don’t have terr’ists blowing up stuff like Sage Barton does. We have to settle for hogs in an old lady’s house.”

  “Another page from the story of my life,” Rhodes said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” Rhodes said, and he was saved from further conversation by the ringing of the phone.

  Hack answered, talked awhile, then muted the receiver and turned to Rhodes. “Your pal Seepy Benton is on the line. He says he has some information for you, but he doesn’t want to talk on the phone. Says he’d like for you to come to his office if you’re not too busy savin’ people from wild hogs.”

  “You’re making that last part up,” Rhodes said.

  “Cross my heart,” Hack said. “I guess he looks at the Internet like ever’body else.”

  “More than most, I expect. Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Hack told him. Rhodes put things on his desk into a semblance of order and went to see what Seepy had to say.

  * * *

  “I heard some students talking,” Seepy said.

  Rhodes was in his office, and the same equation, or whatever it was, that Benton had written on the dry-erase board at noon was still there. It didn’t make any more sense to Rhodes now than it had then.

  “You’re not investigating, are you?” Rhodes asked.

  “No, nothing like that. You’ve stripped me of my badge. I just happened to overhear them. I was meditating in the restroom. They didn’t even know I was there.”

  “There’s not a faculty restroom?” Rhodes asked.

  “This is a democratic community college,” Benton said. “Nobody gets special treatment. Anyway, I was in the restroom—”

  “I don’t need too much personal information,” Rhodes said. “Just tell me what you found out, if anything.”

  “I found out that Dr. Harris is an interesting guy.”

  Anything about Harris might prove to be of use to Rhodes, though the fact that he was interesting to students seemed like minor news. Seepy, however, like everyone else that Rhodes dealt with, never gave the important facts first.

  “I assume you mean interesting in a way that might affect what I’m working on,” Rhodes said. “So tell me.”

  “They don’t like the way he teaches. They say he drones on and on about poetry. He tells them what to think about poems, and if they disagree with him, he gets upset.”

  That didn’t sound interesting to Rhodes. “Kids always gripe about their teachers, don’t they?”

  “That’s not the point,” Seepy told him. “The point is that they looked him up on ProfessoRater before they signed up for his class. According to that source, he’s almost as awesome as I am.”

  “And we all know that couldn’t possibly be true.”

  Seepy didn’t respond to Rhodes’s crack. He turned to his computer and called up a Web page with a few strokes of his keyboard.

  “Look at this,” Seepy said. “They were expecting something a lot better than they got.”

  Rhodes moved over to the computer to see what Seepy had for him. It was Harris’s page on ProfessoRater. According to the site, Harris was good. He was very good.

  “You’re right,” Rhodes said. “He’s as awesome as you are.”

  “Almost. I said he was almost as awesome, and that’s what it says here, but the students didn’t believe it. They said they’d both rated him low, and so had a lot of other students they knew. If that’s true, it’s not showing up here.”

  “Maybe there’s a time lag.”

  “Not that much of one. The students who rated him had his class last year.”

  “So what does this mean?” Rhodes asked.

  For once Seepy had to admit that he didn’t have the answer. “I don’t know. I can think of a couple of possibilities, but that’s all.”

  “One possibility is that the students were just talking,” Rhodes said, “and that they didn’t really go to the trouble of doing the ratings.”

  “There’s that,” Benton said. “I don’t think that’s true, though.”

  “So what’s another possibility?”

  “That Harris has found a way to beat the system, that he hacked into it and changed his ratings.”

  Rhodes let that sink in.

  “Suppose Earl Wellington found out about it,” Seepy said.

  “He was a stickler for the rules,” Rhodes said. “He didn’t like cheaters, and it wouldn’t matter if they were students or faculty members.”

  “That’s right,” Benton said. “Am I a regular Sherlock Holmes, or what?”

  Rhodes didn’t bother to answer that. He was thinking of something Dean King had said: It’s always the English teachers.

  “Do I get my badge back?” Seepy asked.

  “I’ll put in a good word for you with Ruth,” Rhodes said.

  “She already knows I’m awesome. I’d rather have a badge.”

  “Not now,” Rhodes said. “Right now I need to have a word with the dean.”

  * * *

  As the campus’s main administrator, Dean King was in her office all day, and sometimes even during part of the evening hours, so Rhodes had no trouble finding her. She didn’t look at all busy, and he figured that the long days must sometimes be fairly empty. Even with committee meetings and student problems and her regular administrative duties, there couldn’t be enough going on to occupy all her time. Nevertheless, she didn’t appear happy to see him come in.

  “Do you have good news for me?” Dean King asked when Rhodes was seated in her office.

  Rhodes was impressed again by how imposing she was. Certainly she was large enough to have banged Wellington’s head into the trash bin if they’d argued. He wondered if she got to the campus early each day. As the chief administrator, it was likely, and she’d been outside when Rhodes had arrived on the scene.

  “No news at all yet,” Rhodes told her. “Just some more questions.”

  Dean King hardly seemed to hear his answer. Rhodes thought she looked a bit distracted, and a few stray hairs had somehow escaped from their usual lacquered positions. He started off with an easy one.

  “How’s the replacement for Wellington working out?”

  “He seems to be fine, though it’s hard to say after such a short time. The students haven’t complained, and they don’t seem to miss Dr. Wellington at all.”

  “That must be good news.”

  “I suppose so,” Dean King said, “but it doesn’t put things to rest. I want to see this all come to an end, but I don’t know what else I can do to help you.”

  “I’d like to ask about something you said, something about it always being the English teachers who caused trouble.”

  That question wasn’t nearly as easy for the dean as the first one had been. She seemed baffled by it.

  “I … don’t remember saying that.”

  “Yesterday morning,” Rhodes told her. “You said it had to do with academic problems.”

  “Assuming I did say it and that there were any problems, they’d be confidential,” the dean said, putting a hand to her head to smooth down the rogue hairs. It helped for only a second, as they sprang out of place almost as soon as her hand moved away.

  “I’m trying to find out about a Web site that you might be familiar with,” Rhodes said. “ProfessoRater.”

  It could have been his imagination, but Rhodes thought the dean looked a bit apprehensive. She said, “I’m familiar with it. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I was wondering what might happen if someone, let’s say an English teacher, just for the fun of it, managed to alter his ratings to make them better than they actually were.”

  “I don’t think that could happen.”

  “Let’s suppose that it could, and did. Then let’s say another English teacher, one who liked for everything to go by the book, found out about it.”

  “That’s a lot of supposing,” Dean King said.r />
  “I agree,” Rhodes said, “but I’m just getting started. Let’s suppose that this other teacher was already upset because of something, maybe a plagiarism case that he felt the dean and the teacher who’d altered the ratings hadn’t handled right. Now this picky teacher would be even more upset. He might not be somebody with good social skills, so he wouldn’t know that things had to be kept quiet, kept from the board of regents and the public. He might even threaten to expose everything. It would be a real scandal for the college if all that got out.” Rhodes paused. “Assuming that it happened like that, I mean.”

  The dean just looked at him. Rhodes noticed that one of her hands was trembling a little.

  “The guilty instructor might do just about anything to keep the news quiet,” Rhodes said. “Don’t you think so?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” the dean said.

  “The administration would be very worried about something like that,” Rhodes said. “An argument about it could get out of hand. Somebody might get hurt.”

  “I have no idea what you’re getting at,” the dean said, but Rhodes could tell that she knew, all right.

  “I’m going to find out about all that,” Rhodes said, “and then it won’t be supposition. If you know anything at all, now’s the time to tell me.”

  “If I knew anything that would help,” Dean King said, “I’d tell you.”

  She didn’t meet Rhodes’s eyes, and he knew he was onto something. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he’d find out soon enough. The pressure was getting to both the dean and to Harris, and one or the other of them would crack. Judging from their behavior, Rhodes didn’t think it would take too long.

  Rhodes stood up. “I’ll talk to you again about this. If you want to talk to me, you can call me at home or the jail. I’m easy to find.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Dean King said. “I’ll call if anything comes to me.”

  Rhodes didn’t believe a word of it.

  Chapter 18

  Rhodes went straight home from the college. He’d missed lunch so many times in his career that he hadn’t even thought about it today, and he wanted a quick, nourishing snack before Ivy got home and presented him with something that was good for him.

  It wasn’t that he was trying to circumvent her good intentions or ruin his health. It was just that his food preferences didn’t run to the healthy alternatives. So in order to be sure that he occasionally got what he needed, he’d bought a huge bag of M&M’s, the kind with the peanuts inside. He kept them in the bottom drawer of an old desk, a drawer that Ivy never opened as far as he knew. He figured he had about fifteen minutes before she got home, plenty of time to get to the drawer and have a few pieces of the candy.

  He parked in the driveway and was about to get out of the car when the radio came on. It was Hack with a message from Buddy, who had talked to some of the people who hung around the courthouse.

  “You know King Timmons?” Hack asked.

  Timmons was in his eighties and loved courthouse intrigue. If there was any gossip to be had, Timmons would have it.

  “I know him,” Rhodes said.

  “Buddy says he saw Ike Terrell get in the car with somebody.”

  “Did he know who the somebody was?”

  “Nope, never saw her before.”

  “Was the car an old gray Pontiac?”

  “King didn’t know what kind of car it was, but it wasn’t gray. He said it was maroon.”

  Rhodes hadn’t seen a maroon car at the compound, which figured. Nobody left the compound, nobody except Ike, that is, so they wouldn’t need any cars.

  “Did he get a look at the driver?”

  “You said you know King. Sure he got a look.”

  “Well?” Rhodes asked.

  “It was a girl,” Hack said. “Or a young woman. Real cute, King said. Said she had red hair and freckles. Whatever happened to freckles? You don’t see a lot of freckles these days.”

  “A little speckled friend,” Rhodes said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” Rhodes said, and he racked the mic.

  * * *

  He was greeted by a dejected Yancey when he opened the front door of the house. The little Pom didn’t even yip. He stood looking down at the floor.

  “So you and Jerry aren’t friends yet,” Rhodes said. He bent down to give Yancey’s head a gentle pat. “I’m sorry about that.”

  Yancey didn’t respond, so Rhodes went into the unused bedroom where the desk was. He opened the bottom drawer and reached in for the bag of candy. It gave a satisfactory rattle. Rhodes opened it and stuck in his hand. Instead of encountering the smooth, round surface of the M&M’s, he felt a piece of paper. He pulled the paper out of the bag and discovered that it was a note from Ivy.

  “Caught you,” it said.

  Rhodes grinned. Ivy hadn’t taken out any of the candy, so he popped a few pieces in his mouth and went out to feed Speedo. Yancey looked so pitiful that Rhodes picked him up. They went through the kitchen, where the cats lay near the refrigerator, both sleeping in approximately the same positions they’d been in when Rhodes had last seen them. Yancey, secure high above the floor in Rhodes’s hand, squirmed and yipped.

  “That’s telling them,” Rhodes said, though neither cat had so much as opened an eye.

  In the backyard, Rhodes put Yancey down on the grass, and Yancey, forgetting about the cats, sped off after the chew toy. Speedo made a beeline for it as well, and Rhodes left them to it while he changed Speedo’s water and put some food in his bowl. After that was done, Rhodes sat on the step and watched the dogs.

  The day hadn’t gotten any cooler, but the step was in the shade, so Rhodes was fairly comfortable. He thought about the girl with the freckles, and he thought it was time he found out her name. He knew someone who might know.

  He took out his cell phone and looked at it. It wasn’t one of the new smart phones. Rhodes didn’t think he needed one of those, so what he had was an old flip phone, an anachronism in the age of phones that did everything but take your blood pressure. For all Rhodes knew there might even be one that would perform that little task.

  As ancient as his phone was, however, it did have a place where contact numbers were stored. Seepy Benton’s number was in there.

  Seepy, of course, had the latest model of some smart phone or other. He’d once showed Rhodes how he could use it to read books, watch movies, make videos, search the Internet, and send e-mail. Maybe he’d showed Rhodes a blood-pressure app, too. Rhodes couldn’t remember.

  Rhodes was doing good just to be able to get to Benton’s contact number. When he found it, he pushed the TALK button and heard the ringing begin.

  Benton answered right away.

  “You never mentioned that Ike had a girlfriend,” Rhodes said.

  “You never asked me,” Benton said. “Anyway, I didn’t know.”

  “A redhead,” Rhodes said. “With lots of freckles. Probably not too many of those on campus.”

  “I can think of one. She’s in the same class of mine that Ike is. Her name is Sandi Campbell.”

  “Thanks,” Rhodes said.

  “Do I get my badge back?”

  “Not yet,” Rhodes said. “Do you know who her parents are?”

  “No. I have her phone number on my roster, though.”

  “That’ll do,” Rhodes said.

  He got the number and used the phone to call Hack at the jail.

  “I need a lookup on this number,” he said and gave it to Hack.

  It didn’t take Hack long to get back to him with a name and address.

  “Wade Campbell,” Rhodes said. “Has the Dairy Queen franchise, right?”

  “That’s him,” Hack said. “You gonna buy him out, spend your old age eatin’ free Blizzards?”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Rhodes said.

  “I want in on the deal,” Hack said.

  “You got it,” Rhodes told him and hung up.

  Rhode
s gathered up Yancey and prised the chew toy from between his tightly clamped jaws. He pitched the toy on the grass, where Speedo grabbed it and ran to the back of the yard. He dropped it and looked up at Yancey, who yipped furiously. If Rhodes hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Speedo was laughing.

  Yancey continued to yip as Rhodes carried him through the kitchen. The cats weren’t bothered, though Sam did open one yellow eye and look at them. Rhodes set Yancey down in the safety of the bedroom and went back outside.

  Ivy was just driving up. She stopped beside the county car and rolled down her window.

  “Leaving already?” she asked.

  “I have to go interview somebody,” Rhodes told her. “Want to come along?”

  “Why not?” Ivy said. She pulled the car into the garage and joined Rhodes. “Who’re we interviewing?”

  “Sandi Campbell. I’m doing the interview. You can watch and learn. After I’m finished, we’ll go out to dinner.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if you like my cooking.”

  “You know I do,” Rhodes said. “It’s just that we’re going to be out anyway, and you won’t have time to cook.”

  “Maybe you should do some of the cooking.”

  “You know my specialty,” Rhodes said. “Nobody makes beanie-weenie better than I do.”

  “Spare me the beanie-weenie,” Ivy said.

  * * *

  The address that Hack had given Rhodes was a county road leading off the highway that went to the small town of Obert. A small and exclusive housing addition had sprung up on the county road a few years ago, and the Campbell house was a two-story brick number with tall storm windows. It sported a neatly manicured lawn in front. Rhodes parked behind a maroon Toyota Camry in the driveway. He felt a certain amount of pride in the house, since his devotion to the Blizzard had helped to pay for it, after all.

  Someone had told Rhodes some years ago that the cost of a Dairy Queen franchise in a town the size of Clearview would run as much as half a million dollars. By now that figure would’ve increased a good bit. Wade Campbell had taken over the Clearview franchise when it would have been somewhat less, and he’d obviously done very well for himself in the years since, if his house was any indication.