by Bill Crider
He followed Edith into the den, which was paneled in dark wood in the fashion of years earlier. There were bookshelves on one wall, but they held only a few books. Most of the rest of the space was taken up by knickknacks. Glass skunks in one area, glass boots and shoes in another.
On another wall there was a fifty-two-inch plasma TV screen. Rhodes stood and admired it for a second.
Gerald Bolton got up from a La-Z-Boy chair and came over to shake Rhodes’s hand. He was big, as big as Bud Turley, and if his wife had lost weight, he’d put it on. And if some of it was fat, it was hard fat. He looked like a man who worked out at a gym, but since there wasn’t a gym in Clearview, he must have had some home equipment. He could afford it.
He didn’t try to crush Rhodes’s hand, which Rhodes considered kind of him. He could have done it easily. He said, “Glad to see you, Sheriff. I was sorry to hear about Larry Colley. Have a seat and tell me what I can do to help you.”
Rhodes sat in a platform rocker, and Bolton sat back down in the La-Z-Boy. Edith floated away like a ghost. After a second or two, Rhodes heard the sound of music from another room. Songs from a generation or two earlier. Rhodes didn’t really recognize any of them.
“She hasn’t been the same since we lost Ronnie,” Bolton said, looking toward the wall that separated them from his wife. “I haven’t, either, I guess, but she’s taken it harder. There’s not a minute that goes by that she doesn’t think about Ronnie. They say time heals, but it hasn’t helped Edith.”
Rhodes didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.
“But you didn’t come here to talk about Ronnie,” Bolton said. “When you called, you mentioned that Larry Colley had the misfortune to get killed on my property.”
“That’s right. On that land you own near Big Woods,” Rhodes said.
“I own quite a few acres in that area. Where exactly did it happen?”
Rhodes told him.
“That’s my place, all right. Colley was doing some work for me not far from there. I was having our old camp house fixed up. You might remember it.”
Rhodes said that he did, but he didn’t mention Ronnie again. Neither did Bolton.
“I thought I might use the house again,” Bolton went on. “As sort of a weekend place. I never go down there now except to feed the cattle and check on them now and then. But having the house fixed up was probably a bad idea. Edith would never go there. I realize that now.”
“Do you know if Colley was working there yesterday?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, he might have been. He and I had one of those deals where there was no real schedule. He’d go down there and do what he could whenever he got a chance or felt like it. I didn’t supervise him or anything like that.”
That was the kind of job Colley would have liked, Rhodes thought. He didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time, so he could shoot pool or have a DQ Blizzard with Butterfinger crumbles mixed in whenever he pleased and then go off to work. Or not go, if that was his preference.
“How far from that clearing is the house?” Rhodes asked.
“You can’t see it from the road you took to the woods. It’s around a little bend from there. You remember.”
Thinking back to the Bolton boy’s disappearance, Rhodes did remember. He thought it might be a good idea for him to have a look at the house, so he asked Bolton’s permission.
“Sure, go ahead. I haven’t been down there in two or three weeks, so I don’t know how much Larry managed to get done. I really hated to hear he was dead. He seemed like a good worker, never complained about anything, never pressed me for money.”
“Did he have any helpers?”
“Not that I know about. If he did, he was paying them out of his own pocket.”
“What about friends? Did you ever see anybody with him?”
“I hardly ever saw him at all. I’d talk to him on the phone now and then, and he’d send me a bill for supplies through the mail. Then I’d send him a check.”
“So you wouldn’t have any idea why someone would want to kill him.”
“No idea at all. I didn’t know anything about him except that he was doing a job for me. That’s it.”
Rhodes asked a few more questions, but he didn’t learn anything that he didn’t already know. He had some news for Bolton, though.
“There’s something else on your property,” he said. “A mammoth.”
“A what?”
“A mammoth. Well, not really. Just its remains. Bud Turley found it on the bank of Pittman Creek, where your land joins it. There’s no fence on the other side, so I guess that’s your land, too.”
“It is. I never knew there was a mammoth on it, though.”
“The rain washed it up this summer. There’s a professor at the community college, Tom Vance, who wants to dig for the bones. He asked me to see if you’d give permission.”
Bolton leaned back in his chair and thought it over for a while. Rhodes looked at the skunks while he did. Rhodes had never understood the urge that some people had to gather odd things like glass skunks into a collection.
“Where did you say that mammoth find was located?” Bolton said.
“About fifty yards from that wooden bridge that crosses the county road,” Rhodes said. “On the unfenced side.”
Bolton thought some more. Rhodes looked at the skunks. He still didn’t see any point to owning them.
“I don’t really need a fence there,” Bolton said after a while. “My cattle never cross the creek.”
“Might be a good idea to put one in,” Rhodes said. “There could be some ownership issues if you don’t.”
“You’re right. I’ll get it done. Is there any money in this mammoth deal?”
Rhodes knew that Bolton didn’t need money. He already had as much as anyone in town, and a lot more than most. His great-grandfather had owned land in Clearview during the oil-boom days nearly a century ago, and the family had enjoyed their wealth ever since. Bolton had a little office on the second floor of one of the banks in town, but he didn’t work there. He might have been there for four or five hours a week, going over paperwork connected with his holdings, but that was all.
“No money,” Rhodes said. “Mammoths are a dime a dozen in Texas.” He didn’t explain that he’d just learned that fact. “It’s all for science and maybe some good publicity for the county.”
“All right,” Bolton said. “I guess it would be okay. But if there are any damages, somebody will have to pay for fixing things up.”
Rhodes supposed that wealthy people were always more concerned with who would pay for things than ordinary mortals.
“There won’t be any damages,” he said. “The professor told me that he’d have his students help and that maybe some of the high school students would be interested. They’ll just be digging in the creek bank, very carefully. It’s not like they’re going to bring a backhoe in there.”
“You can tell that professor that I said it’s okay, then. But he should come by and talk to me about it before he gets started. Have him call me.”
“I’ll do that,” Rhodes said. He stood up to leave and then, feeling a little like Columbo, he said, “There’s one thing I forgot to mention.”
Bolton was standing, too. “What’s that?”
“Somebody killed Louetta Kennedy today.”
Bolton sat back down. “Jesus Christ. That’s terrible. She was just a harmless little old woman. Who’d do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “Yet.”
“Did they rob the store?”
“No. It wasn’t about money.”
“What was it about?”
“I don’t know that yet, either.”
Bolton leaned back in his chair. “But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”
He didn’t say It won’t be like it was with Ronnie, will it? but Rhodes could hear it in his tone.
“I’m going to find out,” Rhodes said, and he
meant it. Meaning it and doing it were, however, two different things. Rhodes hoped he wasn’t lying.
Bolton stood up again. “There are too many people getting killed and disappearing down by those woods. I’m not so sure Bud Turley’s not right about Bigfoot being there.”
“It’s not Bigfoot that’s killing people,” Rhodes said.
“Maybe not. But somebody is, so that mammoth dig might not be such a good idea. I can’t be liable if anything happens to those people.”
“I’m sure Dr. Vance would be glad to sign a waiver and get everybody else to sign one, too.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bolton said. “I guess it would be all right for them to dig if they signed something like that. I’ll have to get one drawn up. But even at that, I still don’t want anything to happen to those people.”
Rhodes wished he could assure Bolton that everything would be all right, but he knew better than to try.
Bolton walked him to the door. On the way there, Rhodes could hear the music from the other room.
“She listens to music all the time,” Bolton said with a nod toward the room the sound was coming from. “It’s about all she does.”
Some people listened to music, some people worked out, Rhodes thought. He didn’t say it. He just thanked Bolton for his time and got out of there.
11
MARY JO COLLEY HADN’T REMARRIED OR TAKEN BACK HER surname, but that didn’t mean she was any more fond of her ex-husband than Karen Sandstrom was. At least to hear her tell it.
“Larry Colley is a horse’s ass,” she said. She lit a Marlboro with a paper match from a little book. “Or he was. Now he’s just a dead horse’s ass.” She took a drag off the Marlboro and stuck the matchbook back in her hatband.
Mary Jo was a server at the Round-Up Restaurant. Once upon a time, Rhodes would have referred to her as a waitress, but he knew that wasn’t the proper term any more.
The Round-Up was owned by a man named Sam Blevins, who believed in the virtues of Texas beef. The restaurant’s credo was simple and was printed on the outside of every menu as well as being displayed on a sign out front: ABSOLUTELY NO CHICKEN, FISH, OR VEGETARIAN DISHES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR MENU!
In keeping with the cowboy-ish name of the place, Mary Jo was dressed in blue jeans so tight that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for her to put the matchbook in one of the pockets, which Rhodes supposed was why she kept it in her hatband. She also wore a pair of cowboy boots and a white western shirt with gray pearlized buttons. Her hat was a gray felt Stetson. Or maybe it was only a knock-off of a Stetson. Rhodes never wore a hat and had never owned a genuine Stetson, so he couldn’t tell.
It was still too early for people in Clearview to come out for the evening meal, and things were slow in the Round-Up. Rhodes had talked to Sam Blevins and asked him if it would be all right to have a little chat with Mary Jo, and Blevins had said it was fine with him.
“Why don’t you bring Ivy out here tonight and have yourselves a couple of my steaks?” Blevins said. “I’ll see to it that they’re cooked the way you like them.”
Blevins was tall, wiry, and thin as a broom handle. Rhodes asked him if he ate steak all the time.
“Steak and potatoes. Healthiest diet there is. Well, you can have barbecue, too, and beans. Cobbler and ice cream for dessert. That’s how I stay in shape.”
“If I ate like that, you’d have to wheel me into this place on a cart,” Rhodes said, conscious that he wasn’t exactly the picture of physical fitness. “You’re sure you don’t mind if I borrow Mary Jo for a while?”
“Hell, no,” Blevins said. “She’ll be glad of the break, especially if you’ll go outside where she can smoke.”
So Rhodes and Mary Jo were standing in back of the Round-Up, where Mary Jo was puffing away at a Marlboro and talking about her ex-husband in terms that couldn’t be construed in any way as flattering.
“I take it he wasn’t the light of your life,” Rhodes said.
Mary Jo snorted smoke out her nostrils and nearly choked. When she recovered, she said, “You missed your calling, Sheriff. You should’ve been a comedian.”
“I couldn’t stand the heckling,” Rhodes said.
Mary Jo snorted again. “I’ll bet. Well, I already told you what I thought of Larry. I’m lucky to be rid of him, but I didn’t kill him.” She took a puff on her Marlboro and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Can’t say I’m sorry that someone else did, though. He was a lowlife if there ever was one. Spent all his time off with that Bud Turley looking for arrowheads and Bigfoot and whatnot, and if he wasn’t doing that, he was shooting pool or chasing some woman at a honky-tonk. I guess I shouldn’t complain. At least that kept him out of the house.” Another puff, another cloud of smoke. “He met me in a honky-tonk, come to think of it, and I took him away from Karen. He was cute, and he could be funny. I have to say that for him. We had a lot of fun together at first. But cute and funny don’t go very far, and when I got to know him better, it turned out that he was just a horse’s ass.”
Rhodes asked her about Colley’s friends, but she couldn’t come up with any names other than Turley’s.
“Larry liked to have a good time in the evenings, but he didn’t run with anybody special. Just any woman he could pick up. And Bud.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“Bud?”
“No. Larry.”
“Why would I see him? I work at this place six days a week, and he doesn’t ever come in. His idea of eating out is to get a Belt-buster and fries at the Dairy Queen.”
“I was hoping you might be able to tell me what he’d been doing lately. Any jobs he might have had, anything like that.”
Mary Jo tossed what was left of her Marlboro on the ground and squashed it under the toe of her boot. Rhodes thought about writing her up for littering, but he didn’t think about it very long or very seriously.
“As far as I know,” she said, “Larry hadn’t worked a day in years. Odd jobs now and then, and he’d help Bud out with his mechanic work, such as it was. It’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” Rhodes asked.
“He always seemed to have money. We never had to stall the electric company on the bill or anything.”
“You were working and bringing in a salary,” Rhodes pointed out.
“Yeah, there’s that. And he made a little from those jobs.” Mary Jo tucked a loose strand of hair back up under her hat. “You know something?”
“What?” Rhodes asked.
“I’ve always been glad we didn’t have any kids. We weren’t married that long, just over a year, but we could’ve had a kid. I’ll bet if we had, it would have turned out just like Larry.”
“Maybe it would have turned out like you.”
Mary Jo lit up another Marlboro and breathed out smoke.
“I’ll tell you a little secret, Sheriff,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m no bargain, either.”
Larry Colley might have had money to pay his bills, but he didn’t spend much on his living quarters.
His trailer was located less than a quarter of a mile outside the Clearview city limits, but it might as well have been on Mars. It was on a little-used county road on an overgrown lot that was thick with trees and bushes that had never been trimmed. The area surrounding it wasn’t kept up any better.
Near the trailer was a magnolia tree at least thirty feet high, with limbs that grew right down to the ground, which was covered with a thick carpet of dead brown leaves beneath the limbs. Some tall pecan trees and even a walnut tree grew a little farther from the trailer and, with the help of some thick hedge bushes, concealed it from the road. If Rhodes hadn’t known the trailer was there, he would have driven right on by without seeing it.
He parked the county car and got out. He walked up the rutted drive that led through the bushes and trees to the clearing where the trailer sat.
Rhodes stopped and had a look around. On down the path,
there was an old Chevrolet sedan up on blocks. The car was covered with rust, and the windshield and headlights had been broken. The windows on the side facing Rhodes were shattered but still clinging to the frame of the old car.
There was no other car, and Rhodes wondered what Colley drove when he went to work on Bolton’s camp house. He had to have some way to get around.
Like the Chevy, Colley’s trailer was up on blocks. It didn’t have a skirt around it, which would make the dark area underneath a haven for all kinds of critters, including skunks. Some concrete steps sat in front of the door, but there was a gap of several inches between them and the trailer.
A rusty oil drum stood by the steps. It was filled to the top with trash. Rhodes could see a couple of tin cans and several empty frozen-dinner boxes sticking out the top.
The windows of the trailer were all covered with aluminum foil. The air-conditioning must have been unable to keep the metal trailer cool, so Colley had tried to reduce the heat by blocking the sunlight that came into the clearing. It would have been intense during the middle of the afternoon, and Rhodes doubted that the trailer had any insulation to speak of.
Rhodes mounted the steps and knocked on the door. “Anybody home?” he said, not that he expected an answer.
He didn’t get one, so he tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Colley probably didn’t have anything worth locking up.
Rhodes opened the door, and a wave of hot, musty air washed over him. He went into the trailer and felt along the wall for the light switch. When he found it, he flipped it up.
A lamp came on, but the light lasted only for a second. There was a pop, and the bulb burned out.
Rhodes stood and waited. A little light from the outside came through the open door, and after a few seconds Rhodes could see a little bit of the trailer. It was a mess.
Magazines were scattered everywhere, and so was some of Larry’s clothing. The tattered couch looked as if mice might be nesting in it. For all Rhodes knew, they were. Foam rubber stuffing poked out of the cushions. There was an odor of cooking grease and garbage.