by Bill Crider
“I’m glad to hear it,” Rhodes said.
“Besides, I wouldn’t have called you about the dead man if I’d put him there. I’d have let the buzzards and the hogs take care of him.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Rhodes said, “but I have to ask the questions. If I didn’t ask them, I wouldn’t be able to find anything out.”
“I guess I can understand,” Terry said. “I just don’t like being accused.”
“I wasn’t accusing, remember. Just asking.”
Terry grinned. “Okay, I get it. It’s your job. You have to ask questions, no matter who it is you’re asking.”
“You’re right, and I appreciate your help. If you get any ideas about that marijuana patch or if you hear about anybody coming onto your property, you give me a call.”
“I’ll do that,” Terry said.
“I might have to ask you some more questions later.”
“Okay,” Terry said. “As long as you’re just asking.”
* * *
Rhodes drove home and put the muddy clothes in the hamper. He took a shower and changed, then got out his gun-cleaning kit. He spread a plastic garbage bag on the kitchen table, put newspapers down on top of it, and got some paper towels.
Yancey danced around, watching the preparations as excited as if he’d never seen anything like them before, although Rhodes had cleaned his pistol many times in Yancey’s presence. The cats took no interest in the proceedings at all. They weren’t interested in much of anything other than eating, grooming themselves, and having a good nap. Not necessarily in that order.
Rhodes sat at the table to clean the gun. As soon as he opened the solvent, Yancey left the room. The smell must have bothered him. If it bothered the cats, they didn’t show it. They continued to sleep in their usual spots.
The pistol didn’t seem too much the worse for its dip in the creek. It had been protected in the holster, which was fabric and easily cleaned, and it wasn’t muddy. Rhodes knew that rust was always a possibility, however, so a good cleaning and oiling seemed called for.
While he worked on the pistol, Rhodes thought things through. If the body at Terry Allison’s place was indeed Riley Farmer, and the odds were certainly in favor of that, then there was undoubtedly some connection between his death and the death of his friend Melvin Hunt. Just what the connection was, Rhodes didn’t know. Yet. He’d have to figure it out. The only way to do that was to keep on asking questions, even if it irritated people like Terry Allison.
So far nobody was admitting to anything, as was almost always the case, but somebody was guilty. It might be somebody that Rhodes hadn’t even talked to yet. He didn’t think so, but it could be that way. He’d have to find out more about Farmer’s friends and acquaintances if he could, although Farmer might not have had many friends other than Hunt. He seemed like a man who kept to himself. He did have a nice new TV set, which was something that Rhodes was still puzzling over. It wouldn’t have seemed so odd, he supposed, if Hunt hadn’t also had one. Both men had come into money some way or another.
At the moment, Rhodes had more questions than answers, but that was often the way things went. He’d at least heard and seen a few things that had given him some ideas. That was usually how his cases worked. They weren’t so much mysteries as they were puzzles. He had a lot of the pieces. He just had to find out where they fit. At first they were scattered all around. He’d try one piece here and another one there, and for a while the whole picture would be more or less a jumble. If he kept at it long enough, however, the pieces would start to fit together.
That wasn’t the whole story. Sometimes pieces of the puzzle were missing. The picture would start to look like something, but it would be incomplete. Rhodes would have to go looking for the missing pieces, which might turn up anywhere. He’d find one here and one there, and sooner or later there would be a complete picture, clear as could be. Or clear enough for Rhodes to make an arrest, at any rate.
The marijuana patches were obviously connected to each other, even if the murders weren’t, yet. They both had the same kind of fencing, and both were guarded by formidable reptiles that would scare just about anybody who happened on them. That wasn’t a coincidence.
Rhodes still wondered about Allison and Bacon. Both of them said they never went to the back of their holdings, but was that really likely? He could see that it might be in Terry’s case, since Terry didn’t have any cattle and didn’t look like a man who’d do much walking. Billy didn’t do much walking, either, because of his bad knee, but he could drive to the creek if he wanted to.
The sign Billy had nailed on his post was another thing that made him look like a good suspect, which was why Rhodes kept coming back to it. SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN. If Melvin had been shot only once, the sign wouldn’t have seemed too incriminating. Billy hadn’t helped himself by pulling the sign down and hoping Rhodes wouldn’t see it. Had he removed the sign because he knew it was practically an admission of guilt? Or was the sign just a coincidence? Rhodes didn’t care for coincidences, though from time to time he was forced to admit their existence.
The failure to report the body at first was another strike against Billy, and Rhodes was sure Billy was guilty in that instance. The extra day would have given Billy time to get to Farmer’s house, get him into his pickup on some pretense or other, and kill him. Getting him into the woods on Terry Allison’s place wouldn’t have been easy, but Billy could have done it. Rhodes wasn’t sure how he could have done it, but there was no doubt that it was possible.
Ivy had said that Joyce Hunt had to be Melvin’s killer simply because she was Melvin’s wife, but maybe Ivy would change her mind now that there had been a second murder. Rhodes would have to ask her.
And what about Will Smalls? He was the main person Rhodes wanted to talk to again. He was next on the list.
When Rhodes finished cleaning the pistol and thinking things over, he realized that once again he’d missed lunch. He pulled one end of the garbage bag over the newspapers and paper towels left on the table and bagged everything up. He took the bag out to the trash bin and tossed it in.
Speedo, the border collie who lived in the Styrofoam igloo in the backyard, was lying in the shade of a pecan tree. He came over to Rhodes for a head rub and looked around as if he thought something was missing.
“Yancey’s in the house,” Rhodes said. “I don’t have time to play.”
Speedo gave him a reproachful look and went back to lie down in his shady spot. Rhodes went back inside and washed up before taking a look into the refrigerator.
What he saw there didn’t encourage him. Ivy had been on a healthy-eating kick for a long time now, and while Rhodes couldn’t really tell much difference between turkey bologna and what he considered the real thing, the thought of it put him off. There wasn’t much else to be had, however, so he made a sandwich with the turkey bologna on 100 percent whole wheat bread, adding light mayo and reduced-fat cheese. It was better than nothing, but not by much. If he’d had a Dr Pepper, that would have improved things, but he hadn’t given in on that principle yet.
He cleaned up the kitchen and decided that there was plenty of time left in the day to drive back to the southeast side of the county and talk to Will Smalls again. If someone had come back to the house to snoop around, maybe Smalls had seen him. Or shot him, for that matter. It would be a good idea to find out if either of those things had happened. It might be a good idea to talk to Gene Gunnison again, too, while he was in the neighborhood.
It was time to start fitting some of those puzzle pieces into their correct places.
Chapter 17
Gus-Gus and Jackie were glad to see Rhodes again. Will Smalls was not. The dogs ran out from under the porch and came to greet Rhodes with wagging tails and toothy dog grins. Rhodes rubbed their heads while Will sat on the porch in a metal folding chair and glowered.
“I don’t see why you came back here, Sheriff,” Will said by way of gr
eeting. “Not unless you brought a warrant with you.”
“Don’t bother to get up,” Rhodes said, even though Will had made no move to do so. “I won’t take up much of your time, and I don’t have a warrant.”
Gus-Gus and Jackie saw that Rhodes wasn’t going to play with them, so they went back under the porch where it was shady. Rhodes stood in the yard while he talked to Will.
“If you don’t have a warrant, you’re just wasting your time,” Will said.
“Maybe not. You know Riley Farmer?”
“Yeah, I know him. He’s Melvin’s buddy. Why?”
“Somebody killed him,” Rhodes said.
Will leaned forward in the chair. “The hell you say.”
Genuine surprise or just good acting? Rhodes liked to think he could tell the difference, but this time he wasn’t sure.
“Just like Melvin,” Rhodes said. “You know anything about growing marijuana?”
“Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about or what you’re getting at. Marijuana? Somebody’s killed Riley? Sounds like you have yourself a real crime wave to handle, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”
It was hot in the late afternoon, but Will seemed to be sweating from something besides the heat.
“I wish I was sure of that,” Rhodes said. “You’ve already lied to me once.”
“Dammit, Sheriff, you can accuse me of a lot of things, but you better not call me a liar.”
“I just did,” Rhodes said. “You might call it ‘misspeaking.’You told me that Joyce wanted you to stay here and keep an eye on things, but that wasn’t the truth.”
“The hell you say.”
“You sure do like that expression.”
Will stood up. “I’m getting real tired of you, Sheriff. You aren’t near as funny as you think you are.”
“People tell me that all the time,” Rhodes said.
“Well, they’re damn sure right. You better leave now. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
“You don’t want to tell me why you were lying to me?”
“I wasn’t lying. Joyce told me to come out here. You can ask her.”
“I will,” Rhodes said, but he knew that as soon as he got out of sight, Will would call her so they could get their stories straight.
“Joyce said you had a key to the house,” Will said. “You might’s well give it to me.”
Rhodes knew he wasn’t going to have a use for the key, not the way Will was talking, so he fished it out of his pocket and handed it over.
“Riley Farmer went off with somebody in a pickup a couple of days ago,” Rhodes said, after he’d given Will the key. “It looked like yours.”
It turned out that Will did have something else to say after all. “Give it up, Sheriff. I haven’t seen Riley Farmer in a long time, and there’s a lot of pickups in this county that look a lot like mine.”
Rhodes hadn’t thought he’d be able to get Will to break down and confess with such a transparent gambit, but it didn’t hurt to try. It was time to change the subject.
“Anybody come snooping around the place while you’ve been on guard?” Rhodes asked.
Will sat back down. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. It’s been real quiet, and I’d like it to stay that way. You go on now. I’m tired of talking to you.”
Rhodes was tired of talking to Will, too, and he didn’t have any more questions at the moment, so he just said, “Thanks for your hospitality,” and left.
Gus-Gus and Jackie came running out from under the porch to see him off. It was nice to know that he still had at least two friends.
* * *
Gene Gunnison wasn’t sitting on the porch when Rhodes drove up to his house. He was nowhere in sight. He was around somewhere, Rhodes knew, since his pickup was still sitting where it had been earlier. The boat had been removed from the bed and wasn’t in sight. Maybe Gunnison had dragged the boat down to the creek and gone fishing. Rhodes walked to the pickup and looked around. There was a worn track down to the woods, and there was a little boat trailer beside the barn. It would be easy for someone Gunnison’s size to get the boat on the trailer and pull it down to the creek, but it didn’t seem likely that he’d take the trouble to pull the trailer back up to the barn. It didn’t seem likely that he’d go fishing, for that matter.
“Sheriff?” Gunnison called from the front porch. Rhodes hadn’t heard a door open or close. Gunnison was the quiet type. “What’re you doing back here? I thought I told you I wasn’t too sociable.”
It seemed like hardly anybody was ever glad to see the sheriff.
“I thought of a few more questions,” Rhodes said, and he walked back to the front of the house. By the time he got there, Gunnison was sitting in his chair with his booted foot on the upturned bucket.
“Must be nice to have a job like yours,” Gunnison said. “Driving around all day, pestering people and asking them questions.”
“It’s not bad,” Rhodes said, “but it might be too sociable for you.”
“Ha ha.”
Rhodes had found yet another person who didn’t think he was funny. Come to think of it, those people far outnumbered the ones who appreciated his little jokes by a few hundred to one. He wasn’t even sure there was one. Sometimes Ivy laughed, but she might have been doing it just to make him feel better.
“I was wondering if you knew Riley Farmer,” Rhodes said.
“Don’t know that I do. Why?”
“He’s had a little bad luck,” Rhodes said.
Gunnison raised his foot about an inch off the bucket. “Haven’t we all.”
“Riley’s a little bit worse off than you,” Rhodes said. “He’s dead.”
Gunnison lowered his foot. “That’s too bad. You want to tell me why I should care?”
“Seems to me that whoever killed Riley might’ve killed Melvin. Melvin was your neighbor, so I thought you might’ve noticed some things going on around here. There’s been a good bit of stealing, so that ties in with it, too, maybe. It’s getting downright dangerous down here in this part of the county.”
“I’m not worried,” Gunnison said. “Nobody’s gonna bother me.”
“Somebody bothered Riley Farmer. Met him outside his house and took him off and killed him.”
“Thing is,” Gunnison said after a few seconds passed in silence, “I didn’t know Farmer very well. Just knew him to say hey to if I saw him, which was mighty damn seldom. It’s too bad he’s dead, but it’s not like we were buddies or anything. Me and Melvin weren’t, either. I don’t know who killed ’em or why, but I won’t miss ’em. I just want to be left alone.”
Some jays were cutting up down in the woods, but that was the only sound Rhodes heard. They were too far from the highway to hear the cars that passed, and if there were any cattle nearby, they were keeping quiet.
“Seems like you’re pretty much alone, all right,” Rhodes said.
“Yep, and that’s the way I like it. Hint, hint.”
“I take it you’re bored with this conversation,” Rhodes said.
“You got that right.”
“In that case, I guess I’ll be going.”
“Don’t hurry back,” Gunnison said.
* * *
Rhodes had a lot to think about as he drove back to Clearview. He called Hack to let him know he was going off duty, and Hack didn’t even question him about the body at Terry Allison’s place. Rhodes figured that Buddy had come in and kept Hack in the loop.
It was just about time for supper, so Rhodes stopped at his house to see if Ivy had started to cook anything. She hadn’t, because she was out in the front yard sweeping off the sidewalk.
“Working hard?” Rhodes asked.
“No. Just doing a little tidying up,” Ivy said.
“That can be hard work,” Rhodes said. “Why don’t we go out to dinner again.”
To his surprise Ivy said that sounded like a good idea, so he decided to push his luck.
“H
ow about going to the Round-Up?” he asked.
Ivy thought it over. “Well, all right. I suppose we can find something healthy on the menu there.”
Rhodes thought she was wrong about that, but he didn’t say a discouraging word.
“You go out and play with Speedo,” Ivy said. “I’ll get ready. It won’t take a minute.”
She took the broom into the garage, and Rhodes went inside, figuring it would be more than a minute but not much. Ivy wasn’t one to dawdle. Yancey was in the kitchen, and he hopped around and yipped to show how thrilled he was to see Rhodes. It was as if Rhodes had been away for years instead of a few hours. Rhodes knew that what really had Yancey excited wasn’t that Rhodes had come home. It was that Yancey knew he’d get to go out into the backyard and torment Speedo for a while.
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “I came in to get you. Are you ready to go out?”
Yancey’s yipping increased in volume.
“I thought so. Come on.”
As soon as Rhodes opened the screen door, Yancey shot past him, down the steps, and out into the yard, looking for the squeaky toy that the dogs played with. Speedo didn’t have a chance. He was lying under the pecan tree, and he got up as quickly as he could, but Yancey had the advantage of knowing where the toy was. He ran to it and scooped it up before Speedo could get started.
Rhodes sat down on the top step and watched the dogs. Yancey was so small that he had trouble running in the grass, which Rhodes had to admit should have been cut a few days earlier. Speedo was much bigger and faster than Yancey, but he didn’t catch up to the smaller dog too soon. It was as if he were considering his strategy or letting Yancey have his fun while he could.
Yancey tired out quickly and dropped the squeaky toy, which was a well-chewed yellow duck. Rhodes had two or three spares in the house, and it would soon be time to break out another one.
Yancey stood guard over the duck, panting a little as Speedo came up to snatch the toy away. When they played this game, sometimes he got it, and sometimes he didn’t. This time he did, and he took off at a lope, running around the yard so fast that Yancey couldn’t keep up, not that Yancey really tried. He was mainly interested in waiting until Speedo dropped the duck so he could swoop in and grab it.