by Bill Crider
Rhodes looked at Turley. Turley looked at the ground.
“Bud,” Rhodes said.
Turley’s head came up.
“Tell them,” Rhodes said.
“Hell, that was me you shot at,” he said. He swallowed hard. “If I hadn’t run like a jackrabbit, and if you two were any better shots, I’d be dead back in those woods.”
Jeff and Charlie shook their heads.
“Sure as hell didn’t look like you,” Charlie said. “I’d a-swore what we was shootin’ at was ten feet tall.”
“Me, too,” Jeff said. “At least ten feet. You really sure it was you, Bud?”
“Damn right, I’m sure. I know when someone’s shooting at me. You think I’m an idiot?”
Jeff and Charlie looked at each other, then shook their heads. Charlie surprised Rhodes by blowing a big pink bubble. First Chester Johnson with his Juicy Fruit and now Charlie with his Dubble Bubble. Or Bazooka. Whatever it was, it wasn’t tobacco. Could it be that everyone in the world was on a health kick?
“All right, then,” Rhodes said after he got over his surprise.
“Now that we’ve got it settled about who you were shooting at, you two can pull up stakes and get out of here. The owner of this property doesn’t want anybody trespassing, and if you come back, I’ll have to arrest you.”
Charlie’s bubble popped.
“What about the rest of the society?” Jeff said.
“What society?” Rhodes asked.
“The Bigfoot Hunters of Texas Society, that’s what society. We’re all meetin’ tonight at some restaurant in town to plan our strategy.”
“The Round-Up,” Charlie said, having cleaned the gum off his chin. “That’s the name of the restaurant.”
“You don’t need a meeting,” Rhodes said. “I’ll tell you what your strategy is. It’s to stay away from these woods. I meant what I said about arresting you. Ask Bud if you don’t believe me.”
Charlie and Jeff turned to Turley, who nodded. “He means it.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said. “But we’re the ones with the guns.”
“I’m not worried about your guns,” Rhodes said.
“You must be crazy, then.”
“I’m not crazy,” Rhodes told him. “I’m just doing my job. And you need to get started. Bud will help you with the tents. Right, Bud?”
“I guess I will,” Bud said.
Jeff and Charlie stood there for a while. Charlie blew another bubble. Rhodes wondered if someone hiding in the woods would play the song from Deliverance on a banjo, but it didn’t happen. Finally Jeff and Charlie looked at each other and nodded.
“We’ll just put these rifles in the truck,” Jeff said.
“You do that,” Rhodes said.
They put the rifles in the big Dodge and slammed the door.
“I’ll trust you to be gone when I check back here,” Rhodes said. “You be sure of it, Bud.”
He could feel their eyes on him as he walked to the county car. When he got there, he called in the license number of the truck to have Hack run it through the computer and check for any outstanding warrants or traffic violations. There weren’t any, which surprised Rhodes a little.
He looked over to see what Jeff and Charlie were doing. They were standing near their truck with Bud, watching him. Rhodes started the car, and by the time he pulled away, they’d begun taking down the tents.
Claudia and Jan were excited.
“This is even bigger than the murder,” Jan said when Rhodes walked up to the spot where she, Claudia, and Vance were standing under a tarp that now stretched from a tree on the creek bank to some poles that Vance had set up near the trickle of water in the creek itself. Rhodes didn’t know what anchored the poles, but he figured Vance knew what he was doing.
“What she means,” Claudia said, “is that we have an assignment to write a separate story about the mammoth.”
“Congratulations,” Rhodes said. “How did you get it so soon?”
Claudia pulled a cell phone out of her backpack and held it up. “I can send pictures on this thing,” she said. “Isn’t technology great?”
Rhodes wasn’t so sure he agreed, so he made a noncommittal noise.
Claudia didn’t seem to notice. She said, “When the editor saw the dig and heard what Dr. Vance had to say, we got the assignment with no trouble at all.”
“Won’t the publicity cause a problem?” Rhodes asked Vance.
“Not by the time the article’s published,” he said. “I’ll be back in school, and we’ll have this site covered up for the winter. I don’t think anyone will bother it then.”
“Did you find anything today?”
“That’s the best part,” Jan said. “We did find something.” She paused. “Well, Tom did.”
“Just another tooth,” Vance said, “but I think we can get to the jaw pretty easily, and I’m almost as sure that the tusks will be here somewhere. There could be a pretty complete skeleton. That would make this an excellent find.”
“And if there are any arrow points associated with the mammoth, it would make the story even better,” Claudia said. “There are lots of mammoths, but only a few have been linked with the human population.”
Rhodes thought that Claudia had become an expert on mammoths pretty quickly, but maybe writers were quick studies. Or maybe Vance was just a good teacher. Anyway, Rhodes liked it that Claudia and Jan were excited about the idea of writing a story on the mammoth. That might keep them out of the murder investigation.
“Better a real mammoth than an imaginary Bigfoot,” he said to encourage them. “You have some real physical evidence you can talk about and photograph here.”
“That’s right,” Jan said. “Dr. Vance is going to let us help with the dig, so we’ll have plenty of authentic details for the story. You can go on back to town without us.”
“Can you find the way?”
“If they can’t, they can follow me,” Vance said.
He seemed glad of the company and the help, and he was welcome to it, Rhodes thought.
“Do you have plenty of water?” Rhodes asked.
“I brought a whole case,” Vance told him.
“And we have some in the Aviator if we need it,” Jan said.
“All right, then,” Rhodes said. “If you need me, just give me a call.”
He turned to leave, but Vance stopped him. “Speaking of needing you, we thought we heard gunshots a little while ago. It sounded as if they came from back in the woods somewhere.”
“You did hear them,” Rhodes said. “It was nothing much, and it’s all been taken care of.”
“I get a little worried about being out here,” Claudia said, looking around. “There’s not really anybody around, and I don’t think more than one car has passed on the road the whole time we’ve been here. When I think of two people being killed, it makes me a little nervous.”
“They were alone,” Rhodes said. “And someone had a reason to kill them. I just haven’t figured out what it was yet. There are three of you, and you all have cell phones. Nothing will happen to you.”
“I know. But just the same …”
“Just the same, my foot,” Jan said. “There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll be fine. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”
“That’s right,” Rhodes said, thinking of all the Bigfoot hunters back at the motel. If they showed up, armed to the teeth and looking for Bigfoot, all bets were off. They weren’t going to show up, though. Bud Turley was taking care of that.
Or he was supposed to. Rhodes thought it might be a good idea to make sure.
15
WHEN HE GOT TO LOUETTA KENNEDY’S STORE, RHODES DROVE into the shade of a tree and stopped the car. He wanted to have another look around, and he wanted a Dr Pepper. He didn’t think that taking one from the cooler would contaminate the crime scene. In fact, he was sure that he and Ruth had learned as much from the scene as they were going to.
Before he went into the store, he had
a look in the building that held the cattle feed. It was dark inside, and Rhodes could smell cottonseed meal. There were only a few sacks of feed. Louetta’s business had dropped off to almost nothing.
Not finding any new clues, Rhodes went to the store itself. He took down the crime-scene tape from across the door, went inside, and got a Dr Pepper. He put a dollar on the cash register and went outside to sit in Louetta’s chair and think things over while he drank his DP.
The way he put things together, someone had killed Larry Colley in Big Woods, then returned later and killed Louetta, maybe because she would somehow have been able to implicate him in Colley’s death.
Colley’s trailer had been searched by someone looking for something small enough to have been stuck in a cereal box, and that something, whatever it was, might or might not have a connection to Colley’s death. Rhodes thought it was likely that it did.
So far, Rhodes had come up with no motive for Colley’s death. It seemed that nobody liked Colley very much, and no one Rhodes had spoken to, except for Bud Turley, had expressed any grief at his passing. Even Gerald Bolton didn’t seem unduly upset, and Colley had been working for him.
Turley wanted to blame the killing on Bigfoot, which was plainly ridiculous, unless you believed in Bigfoot. Turley did, or claimed he did. Rhodes didn’t, but it appeared that a surprising number of people were on Turley’s side, and most of them were currently registered at the Western Inn, ready to have a big meeting and plan their strategy.
Rhodes knew that no matter what Turley told them, they’d have their meeting. He thought he might as well pay them a visit. Maybe he’d take Ivy for that steak Sam Blevins had mentioned. Ivy would be opposed to that because steak was not one of the items on the low-fat diet she advocated. For that matter, Rhodes couldn’t think of a single thing on Sam Blevins’s menu that was on the diet. Maybe that explained why Rhodes wanted to eat at the Round-Up.
As he thought things over, Rhodes was struck again by the idea that he was somehow missing a bet. There was something that wasn’t registering with him. Something he should have noticed but hadn’t, or something that he’d noticed but whose significance hadn’t registered. No matter how many times he went back over things in his mind, however, nothing would come to him.
He finished the Dr Pepper and took the bottle back inside the store, putting it in a case beside the cooler. He gave the place a last once-over, but he couldn’t figure out what he was missing. He told himself, not for the first time, that it would come to him sooner or later.
He went outside and replaced the crime-scene tape at the door and wondered if anyone would ever buy anything at Louetta’s store again. He didn’t really think so.
When Rhodes got back to the jail, Hack informed him that they were soon going to have a visit from the FBI.
Such a comment clearly required Rhodes to ask why, but the sheriff didn’t fall into the trap. He knew better than to do that. If he did, Hack and Lawton would go into a long and complicated explanation that Rhodes didn’t feel like hearing.
So Rhodes said, “I always welcome federal assistance,” and sat down at his desk to do some of his paperwork.
Hack didn’t let it go. He said, “It’s about Al Lancaster.”
Rhodes looked up from the arrest report he was reading. Lancaster was well known in the county for filing lawsuits. It seemed to be his only hobby, even though all of them were thrown out by the first judge to see them, because they were totally lacking in merit.
“All right,” Rhodes said, “what is it?”
“You didn’t seem like you wanted to know,” Hack said. “Lawton and I, we don’t like to bother you if you don’t really want to know about something. Ain’t that right, Lawton?”
Lawton nodded. “The high sheriff has a lot on his mind. Wouldn’t want to add to his burdens.”
It was all Rhodes could do not to bang his head on his desk. He said, “You won’t be adding to my burdens. I want to know. Who’s Al having trouble with now? Is it his neighbor again?”
“Greer’s his neighbor’s name,” Lawton said. “Bob Greer. Al’s sued him a time or two already.”
“Once for that time his cat got in Al’s yard and peed in his flower bed,” Hack said with a warning look at Lawton. Rhodes knew Hack didn’t like interruptions. “The second time was when he said Greer was getting grass clippings on his lawn.”
Rhodes remembered both incidents. Lancaster had complained to the sheriff’s office each time, and each time Rhodes had told him that there was no basis for an arrest. Quarrels between neighbors were civil matters. So Lancaster had gone to court.
“Old Bob has one of those ridin’ mowers,” Lawton said. “He gets that thing going about as fast as it’ll run, and it really does sling the grass. If he’d just mow more often than once ever’ two or three weeks, it wouldn’t be so bad, but he lets it go too long, and after he mows, his yard looks like a hay field.”
Hack was getting a little red-faced and frustrated because Lawton had taken over the story. When Lawton had to pause for breath after his last long sentence, Hack jumped in to take over again.
“His clippings were an inch or two deep on Lancaster’s yard. Al said it caused his grass to die and damaged his property. The judge didn’t let it go to court, though.”
As well he shouldn’t have, Rhodes thought.
“This ain’t about the grass,” Lawton said. “It ain’t even about Greer.”
Hack glared at him.
“What’s it about?” Rhodes asked.
“A car,” Hack said. “One he bought from Jim Lucas’s lot.”
Jim Lucas had a place out on the highway. Sometimes Rhodes thought it looked more like a junkyard than a used-car dealership, but Lucas seemed to do all right with it. The car he drove looked a lot better than the ones he sold.
“How could a deal on a used car be a federal case?” Rhodes asked.
“Preowned,” Hack said. “Not used. Nobody’s said ‘used’ for years. You need to keep up.”
“It ain’t really the car that makes it a federal case, anyway,” Lawton said.
“But the car started it,” Hack said. “Al claims it was a lemon. Stopped runnin‘two days after he bought it, right in his driveway. It’s been sittin’ there ever since, leakin’ out oil. Al claims there’s a big black stain under the engine.”
“So naturally Al wants you to arrest Lucas,” Lawton said.
“Lock him up and throw away the key,” Hack added. “Or better yet, send him to Huntsville and have em give him the needle.”
“A lemon is another civil matter,” Rhodes said. “Like everything else Al complains about. I can’t arrest anybody for that. Al can check out the state’s lemon law and see what his rights are.”
Hack nodded. “That’s what I told him. Not that I was advisin’ him in a legal matter or anything. I’m an employee of the county, and I know better’n to do that. I just said that it was a civil case and that you wouldn’t be able to help him.”
Rhodes still didn’t see how the FBI could be involved. So, against his better judgment, he asked.
“Well,” Lawton started, but Hack glowered him into silence.
“See,” Hack said, turning back to Rhodes, “the thing of it is that Al’s got himself a disability. Americans with Disabilities Act applies, Al says.”
Rhodes thought over what he knew about Al Lancaster, but no disability occurred to him.
“He’s just got one eye,” Lawton said.
For just the fraction of a second, Rhodes thought that Hack might jump over his desk and go for Lawton’s throat. The thought of the two old men flailing away at each other made Rhodes smile. He didn’t think they’d do much damage. Hack controlled himself, so Rhodes didn’t get to find out.
“Bet you didn’t know about that glass eye,” he said to Rhodes.
He was right. Rhodes hadn’t known.
“Best glass eye I ever saw,” Hack went on. “Not that I’ve seen that many of ’em. But I do remembe
r the one old Blimp Connor wore. You should, too.”
Rhodes nodded. Blimp Connor got his nickname because of his general size and shape, and he’d lost an eye in World War II, or, as he’d always called it, “the Big One.” Exactly how he lost the eye depended on which story Blimp was telling at the time. It had been gouged out by a German bayonet in one version, punched out by another GI’s thumb in a barroom brawl in another, pecked out by a giant raven while Blimp lay wounded and unable to move in a third.
The eye itself, which Blimp referred to as “a VA special,” didn’t look real at all. The white wasn’t white. It was a curious shade of yellow, and Blimp liked to say that the color was a result of the jaundice, which was about as likely to be true as most of his other stories. If you asked him to, he’d take it out and pass it around so everybody could have a good look at it, or so Rhodes had heard. He’d never been curious enough to ask.
Al Lancaster’s eye wasn’t like Blimp Connor’s. It looked absolutely real. Rhodes would never have known it was glass if Hack hadn’t told him.
“You know something?” Lawton said. “Callin’ an eye a glass eye don’t make it one.”
Hack opened his mouth, closed it, and just stared at Lawton, who, Rhodes realized, had a point.
“Knowing Al, his eye’s as good as yours or mine,” Rhodes said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to try to fool the feds, though.”
“Couldn’t he get in trouble for that?” Lawton said.
“You’re danged right,” Hack said, recovering from his surprise at Lawton’s comment. “We should warn him about that.”
“Why?” Lawton said.
“We’d be accessories if he got caught, knowin’ what we know. Aidin’ and abettin.”
“That right, Sheriff?” Lawton said.
“Could be. You two better be sure nothing happens. I’d hate to see you locked up in one of those federal pens along with Al Lancaster.”
“Country clubs is what those places are,” Hack said. “They play tennis. Get three squares a day. Probably watch HDTV.”
“Don’t count on it,” Rhodes told him, and turned back to the paperwork.