by Bill Crider
“My clients will be happy to tell you,” Randy said. “They just want to help. Isn’t that right, boys?”
Lance and Hugh nodded.
“Just go ahead and ask, Sheriff,” Randy said. “They’ll be happy to cooperate.”
Randy was as full of it as Lance and Hugh, but Rhodes didn’t mind. That was Randy’s usual approach.
“What about Bruce?” Rhodes said.
“Who’s Bruce?” Randy said. He leaned forward, obviously not pleased at not having gotten that bit of information from his clients in advance.
“Bruce is a dog,” Rhodes said, and Randy relaxed.
“He’s our dog,” Lance said. “Mine and Hugh’s. The sheriff placed him in a foster home when he threw us in the clink.”
“We don’t call it ‘the clink,’ ” Rhodes said. “We prefer ‘the hoosegow.’ ”
All three men looked at Rhodes as if he’d lost his mind.
“Let’s get back to Bruce,” he said.
“Okay,” Lance said. “You told us you’d found him a good home, and maybe that’s the best thing for him, and us, too. We go on these long trips, and it’s always hard to find somebody to come by and feed him. We got a cousin down in Thurston who’s been doing it, when he comes to feed the chickens, but he doesn’t like Bruce, and Bruce doesn’t like him. I think he’s scared of Bruce, to tell you the truth. So if you have somebody who wants Bruce and will take good care of him, it’s all right with us for Bruce to stay with him.”
“Who is it, anyway?” Hugh said.
“It’s Dr. Benton,” Rhodes said. “He lives right down the road from you.”
Hugh was not impressed. “That nutty guy with the math sign?”
“That’s the one. He might be nutty, but he likes Bruce.”
“I guess it’s all right, then,” Hugh said. “But you tell him we’ll be stopping by to check on how he’s treating Bruce.”
“Yeah,” Lance said. “We want visitation rights.”
“I think I can agree to that for Dr. Benton. Do you two have anything else to tell me?”
“That’s all,” Randy said. “Now about dropping those charges . . .”
Rhodes stood up. “I’ll talk to the DA. I’m sure he’ll go along with me on it.”
Hugh and Lance looked relieved.
“Fine,” Randy said. “So Hugh and Lance can take the job and leave the county if they have to?”
“They can,” Rhodes said.
Lawless came around the desk and shook Rhodes’s hand to seal the deal, and Rhodes left so he could talk to his clients in private. Rhodes wondered if they’d discuss the bill. If they did, Hugh and Lance might not look as relieved when they left as they had when they’d found out they were off the hook.
Rhodes hoped they wouldn’t resort to parading in front of the Lawj Mahal in their underwear.
25
JENNIFER LOAM WAS WAITING FOR RHODES WHEN HE CAME OUT of the Lawj Mahal. She was the only other person in the entire downtown area, as far as Rhodes could see.
“Hi, Sheriff,” she said. “Been visiting the opposition?”
Rhodes shook his head. “I never think of attorneys as the opposition. We’re all in the business of making life better for the citizens of Blacklin County.”
“Wow. Can I quote you on that?”
“Better not. I don’t want Randy Lawless to get a big head.”
“Okay. That’s not really what I wanted to hear from you anyway.”
“What did you want to hear?”
“I wanted to hear how the investigation into the murder of Lloyd Berry was going.”
“The sheriff’s department is on the case, and an arrest is expected at any moment.”
Jennifer grinned. “I know better.”
“No wonder you’re an ace reporter.”
“An ace reporter would have a better story about the murder than I do. Don’t you have any leads or suspects you can tell me about?”
“I’m still working it out,” Rhodes said. “Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have something for you.”
“Is that a promise?”
“I try not to make promises that I’m not sure I can keep.”
“What about in an election year?”
Rhodes wished people would quit bringing that up. He liked his job, but he didn’t like having to run in elections.
“Election year promises don’t really count, do they? I avoid those, too, though.”
“A wise policy,” Jennifer said. “Too bad the people running for national office don’t follow it.”
“They don’t ever listen to what I tell them.”
“Their loss. What about my story?”
“Right now, there’s not one. If there’s a story later on, you’ll hear about it before anybody else.”
“I know I will, but it would be better for my career if I could hear about it now.”
“You’ll just have to wait, I guess.”
Jennifer wasn’t satisfied, but she told Rhodes to be sure to call her when he made an arrest.
“Now I have to interview Randy Lawless about his stalker,” she said.
“Neal Carr wasn’t stalking anybody.”
“Oh, so you do have a story for me.”
“Nope,” Rhodes said. “You’ll have to get it from Randy.”
Jennifer said she would and went into the Lawj Mahal. Rhodes got into his car and left.
Rhodes drove to the Dairy Queen. He’d decided that what he needed was a FlameThrower GrillBurger to help him think. He ordered the quarter-pound version instead of the half-pound one, feeling virtuous. Then he sat in a booth, trying to get his thoughts lined up. When his number was called, he still hadn’t made up his mind about what to do. He got his burger and Dr Pepper and dug in.
The FlameThrower lived up to its name. It had Tabasco sauce, jalapeño bacon, and pepper jack cheese. Rhodes needed two refills of Dr Pepper before he was finished.
The heat from the peppers didn’t help his brain much, but he did come up with a theory. It was one he’d already come up with, so it wasn’t much of a stretch, but it was the best he could do. He bused his tray and left.
Rhodes drove to the Marshes’ house and found out from Faye Lynn where Cecil was working that day. He didn’t tell Faye Lynn why he wanted to know, and he didn’t ask if she and Cecil had settled their differences. He did, however, ask about Lloyd Berry.
“Who told you that?” she said.
“I’m the sheriff. I hear things from all over.”
“It’s not my fault that Lloyd got interested in me. He’s been lonesome since his wife died. I’ve been a little lonesome, too, so we talked some. He got too friendly, and I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“How much of this does Cecil know?”
“More than I thought. I guess he hears things, too. Is that why you want to talk to him?”
Rhodes couldn’t think of a way around it, so he said it was.
“Cecil never hurt anybody in his life,” Faye Lynn said. “I want you to know that.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Rhodes told her.
Cecil was working that day for Olive Harris, a retired high school teacher who had taught Rhodes English and Spanish. Or had tried to. Rhodes didn’t remember much of the Spanish, and he could recall only a few lines of the poetry that he’d been forced to memorize in Olive’s classes.
Olive lived not too far from Marsh in a little two-bedroom house that she kept in immaculate condition. The place was so neat that Rhodes hated to park in the street in front, for fear that his car might leak a drop of oil onto the street.
Rhodes parked anyway, right behind Cecil’s old Ford pickup, which had ladders and paint cans in the bed. Its sides were dented, and the tailpipe hung down so low that it nearly touched the street. If anybody’s vehicle fouled the street, it would be Cecil’s.
Rhodes got out of the car. He could hear Olive haranguing Cecil somewhere in the backyard. As he walked around the house, Rhodes admired the neatly trimmed sh
rubs and the closely cropped grass. He thought about mowing his own lawn, but he pushed that thought out of his head.
Turning the corner at the back of the house, Rhodes saw Cecil using a roller at the end of a long handle to put a coat of red paint on a little storage shed shaded by a big cottonwood tree that was starting to put on a few new leaves. Rhodes saw a bird’s nest in one of the low branches of the tree, but he didn’t see any birds.
Olive was standing a short distance away from Cecil, offering comments about the way the job was going.
“You’re getting paint on the grass,” she said. “You need to be more careful.”
Cecil kept painting without looking around.
Olive started toward him, but she must have heard Rhodes, because she turned around to see who was there.
“If it isn’t Sheriff Danny Rhodes,” she said. Rhodes hadn’t been called Danny in more than twenty years. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Olive was a short, round woman who wore her gray hair in a bun at the back of her head. She had on overalls, a work shirt, and a pair of brogan shoes with scuffed toes.
“Did you drop by to discuss the new translation of Beowulf, or is this business?”
Rhodes hadn’t thought about Beowulf in years, and he certainly hadn’t heard about any new translation of it, but he didn’t want to admit that to Olive.
“As much as I enjoy your company,” he said, “it’s Cecil I came by to see.”
Cecil had already turned around. He stood with the paint roller near his head, the end of the handle resting on the ground.
“I hope you’re not going to arrest him,” Olive said. “He’s not finished with the job yet.”
In the theory Rhodes had worked out at the Dairy Queen, which was just a reworking of something he’d thought of earlier, Cecil had found out about Lloyd and Faye Lynn, and things had happened as Rhodes had thought earlier. Cecil had stopped by the flower shop on his way to Obert and said something to Lloyd about Faye Lynn, and an argument had started. Things had gotten out of hand, and Cecil had hit Lloyd with the wrench. When he saw that Lloyd was dead, he’d panicked and run away. Everything fit.
The problem was that Rhodes didn’t have any evidence, so the neat fit didn’t matter. He’d have to get Cecil to confess, and that might not be easy. Cecil didn’t look to be in a cooperative mood. The front of his white painter’s overalls was spattered with red, and for a second Rhodes thought Cecil looked like a butcher who’d been cutting up fresh beef.
“I don’t have anything to talk to you about, Sheriff,” Cecil said. “I’m working here. You better just go on back to the jail and leave me alone.”
“He’s right, Danny,” Olive said. “He’s working for me, and I’m paying him good money.”
If Rhodes knew Olive, she was paying Cecil by the job, not by the hour, and she wasn’t paying him much.
“I won’t take up a lot of Cecil’s time,” Rhodes said, “if you don’t mind letting me talk to him.”
“I suppose it will be all right,” Olive said. “Just don’t talk too long. It’s almost time for lunch anyway, so I’ll go inside and make myself a sandwich.”
Rhodes watched her go. Cecil watched Rhodes. When the screen door shut behind Olive, Cecil said, “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
“You knew about Lloyd and Faye Lynn, didn’t you,” Rhodes said.
Cecil’s face darkened. “I didn’t know a thing till you started coming around with all your questions. This is all your fault.”
Rhodes had long ago gotten used to being blamed for the troubles of others. It was part of the job. He didn’t let it bother him.
“You’re the one who accused her of fooling around with Royce,” he said, “but you knew better. You knew all along it was Lloyd who was interested in her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cecil said.
“People tell me that all the time.”
“I can see why.” Cecil kicked at the ground. “You’re so ignorant that I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
“We’ve established a time of death for Lloyd,” Rhodes said. It wasn’t true, but Cecil wouldn’t know that. If he was like most people, he watched CSI or some other forensic fantasy and thought that it was easy to tell the exact moment someone died. “I can ask Chap Morris what time you got to Obert to work on his driveway, and I can ask Faye Lynn what time you left your house. Then I’ll know if you stopped off at Lloyd’s shop.”
“I stopped off, all right, but it was just to get a coke and a sausage biscuit at McDonald’s. I wasn’t anywhere close to Lloyd’s shop.”
Cecil would know Rhodes couldn’t check on that. Too many people crowded McDonald’s in the morning, and Cecil would say he hadn’t saved his receipt. Nobody ever saved a receipt at McDonald’s. Rhodes decided to turn things around on Cecil.
“Can you prove you were there?” he said.
“No, and you know it. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Rhodes wasn’t in the mood to take Cecil’s word for it.
“That’s not going to work, Cecil,” he said. “You’re going to have to tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth, dammit.”
Cecil sounded sincere, but his actions weren’t in line with his words. He flipped the paint roller and aimed it at Rhodes like a spear.
Rhodes raised a hand, but he didn’t have time to say anything conciliatory before Cecil heaved the paint roller at him.
Rhodes ducked, but he was a little too slow. The roller hit him on the point of the shoulder and sprinkled him with droplets of red paint before falling to the grass. Rhodes thought that Olive wasn’t going to like that, and then Cecil barreled into him.
The two of them rolled over a couple of times with Cecil coming out on top. He drew back a fist to hit Rhodes in the face, but Rhodes threw his right leg up and hooked it around Cecil’s body. Rhodes heaved up with his torso and back with his leg. Cecil flipped over on the ground.
Cecil landed right by the paint roller, which he grabbed with both hands. He didn’t try to get up. Instead he swung the roller and hit Rhodes in the side. The roller end flew off the handle and hit Olive’s screen door, rattling it.
Rhodes snatched at the handle and got hold of it with his right hand. He jerked hard and tore it from Cecil’s fingers. Rhodes tossed it aside. Cecil kicked him in the ankle and rolled across the yard.
Rhodes limped after him. Cecil came to a stop at the storehouse and jumped to his feet. He looked around for a weapon and saw the gallon can of red paint.
The exercise hadn’t done Rhodes any favors, not after the FlameThrower. He didn’t feel like any more strenuous activity, so he lifted his pants leg and pulled his pistol. Cecil didn’t seem to notice. He swung the paint can by the wire bail, ready to hurl the can, paint and all, at Rhodes, who decided he didn’t want to be drenched with red paint or hit by the heavy can. So he pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the paint can, which flew from Cecil’s fingers, showering paint all over the grass, and Cecil, too. A little of it even got on Rhodes.
Cecil stood right where he was, panting.
Olive yelled from the back door, “Danny Rhodes, you’re going to have to clean up that mess!”
Rhodes thought the grass would survive. After the paint dried, someone could mow the lawn and get rid of most of it. Rhodes, however, didn’t plan to be the one who did the mowing.
“I’m going to have to arrest you, Cecil,” he said.
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“No, but you assaulted me. I’m getting really tired of being assaulted. It’s happening way too much lately.”
“No wonder, the way you act.”
“Did you hear me about that paint?” Olive called.
“I heard you,” Rhodes said.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing right now.”
“Humph. I don’t know if I’m going to vot
e for you again, Danny.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand. Come on, Cecil. It’s time for us to go before we do any more damage.”
Cecil didn’t have any more fight left. He shrugged and walked ahead of Rhodes. The red paint made both of them look as if they’d been seriously bloodied, but Olive didn’t have any sympathy for them.
“Who’s going to clean up this mess?” she said from the door. “That’s what I want to know. Is the county going to send over a crew to clean it up? Will the commissioners pay me to do it? I’m an old woman. I can’t do it.”
Rhodes thought the commissioners were going to have a problem on their hands if something wasn’t done, and then it would become his problem, just the way Cecil’s problem had become his.
“I’ll send somebody to take care of it,” he said, wondering who he’d send.
“You’d better send somebody to finish painting my shed, too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rhodes said.
“And don’t leave that junky old truck parked out in front of my house, either.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rhodes said.
26
HACK AND LAWTON WERE SO SURPRISED BY THE WAY RHODES and Cecil looked that they didn’t have much to say at first. When they discovered that both men were all right and that what they thought was blood was instead just red paint, they became more talkative.
Rhodes, however, didn’t banter with them. He got Cecil booked and printed and into a cell, but he wasn’t happy about doing it. The more he thought about it, the less he liked his whole scenario.
A couple of things bothered him. One was the fact that he still didn’t have any hard evidence against Cecil.
Another was that Cecil hadn’t admitted anything. Nothing unusual in that, but maybe, just maybe, Cecil didn’t have anything to admit.
Going back over everything from the beginning, Rhodes still wondered why nobody had seen the murderer arrive at the flower shop or leave it. People had seen Neal Carr even in the nearly deserted downtown area. Only a few people, granted, but he’d been seen.