Cursed to Death

by Bill Crider

  “So I wanted to know what she meant by that. Just when did you get there yesterday? I don’t think Tammy would have put it that way if you’d gotten there on time.”

  Carol leaned back on the couch. “Why didn’t you ask her what she meant?”

  Rhodes thought that she was much more sure of herself than she had seemed the day before. “I could have,” he said. “I wanted to hear it from you, though.”

  “I was a little late,” Carol said. She leaned forward and crushed out the cigarette. There were several other butts in the ashtray already. Maybe she was showing her nervousness in a different way today.

  “How late?” Rhodes asked.

  “I didn’t really check. We don’t punch a clock.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “But you have customers with appointments. I imagine they get pretty upset when you aren’t there on time.”

  Carol shook her short blonde hair. “Not all of them,” she said.

  “What time did you get in?” Rhodes didn’t want to get too far from the main subject.

  “About ten,” she said. “I guess.”

  “And the office opens at nine?”

  “Usually.”

  “I guess I have another question for you,” Rhodes said. “Why were you so late?”

  Carol searched around under a tented newspaper that lay on the floor at her feet and came out with a package of more menthol cigarettes and a green Bic lighter. She took one of the cigarettes out of the cardboard box, put it in her mouth and lit it, exhaling smoke. “You must think you know, or you wouldn’t be asking,” she said.

  “Thinking I know isn’t the same as having you tell me.” Rhodes was tired of standing, looking down on Carol. He walked over to an uncomfortable brown padded chair and sat down.

  “All right,” Carol said. “I might as well. I was waiting for someone. He didn’t show up. So I went to work.”

  “Someone?”

  “Sammy,” she said. “Dr. Martin.”

  Sammy? Rhodes thought. He found it hard to think of Dr. Martin as a Sammy sort of person. “Why didn’t he show up?”

  “I don’t know.” Carol leaned forward. Rhodes could see the tension in her now. “I just don’t know.”

  “I guess you know why he was coming here, though, don’t you.”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Why?”

  “You seem to think you know everything,” Carol said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know, or I would,” Rhodes said. “I have an idea, that’s all.”

  “We were planning to go away together,” Carol said. She seemed to deflate like a balloon. “He wasn’t happy with his wife, and he was going to leave her.”

  Rhodes had heard a lot of similar stories, but he knew that the facts often proved to be different from what Carol, or anyone else hearing the story, believed. Husbands, especially husbands with thriving dental practices, didn’t just leave everything behind on the spur of the moment.

  “Where were you planning to go?” he asked.

  “Somewhere out of state, where we could get jobs.”

  Oh sure, Rhodes thought, the whole thing seemed more and more unlikely. “How long had you been planning this?”

  “Not long. A month, maybe.”

  Rhodes believed from Carol’s actions the day before and from her behavior now that she was telling the truth, or what she thought was the truth. She seemed too hurt, too vulnerable, to be lying, though he might have been fooled.

  “And he just didn’t show up?”

  Carol’s cigarette went into the ashtray to join the others. “That’s right. He just didn’t show up.” She made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  Lost his nerve, Rhodes thought. Changed his mind. Assuming, of course, that he’d ever planned to go through with it. “Did Mrs. Martin know about the two of you?”

  For the first time a shadow of evasiveness crossed Carol’s face. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  Rhodes looked at her for a second. He wondered where Martin was now. Scared to face either his wife or his lover and headed for Argentina? In some cheap motel room, waiting for things to cool off? And where did this leave Higgins and Swan?

  “So you just came on in to work? Gave up on him?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” Carol said. “He was supposed to come by early, but he didn’t. I thought . . . I thought maybe he’d be at the office. But he wasn’t there, either.”

  No, thought Rhodes, because by then he’d been gone somewhere or other for a couple of days. Getting a head start on any pursuit?

  Or had he gone back home later, attempting to reconcile things with his wife, and killed her? He could have taken a few things to make it look like a house burglary.

  “I’m going to have to talk to you again, Carol,” he said. “I hope you’ll be around town for a while.”

  Carol lit another cigarette. “I’ll be here. Where would I go?” She held the cigarette in front of her mouth and smiled behind it. “Who would I go with?”

  It wasn’t a happy smile.

  Chapter 13

  Rhodes drove idly around after his visit with Carol Shamblin, trying to sort things out in his mind. He drove through mostly residential areas, his mind registering only vaguely the many lawns decorated for Christmas with their miniature sleighs and tiny reindeer (usually not eight), their manger scenes, their shepherds watching over flocks, their characters from Peanuts decked out in scarves and mittens. He turned on his radio and even managed to ignore “White Christmas,” though he did get a momentary jolt of pleasure when some disc jockey reached far enough back in his stack of oldies to find the Drifters’ version of the same song.

  He put what he knew together in so many ways that the patterns he came up with made a lot of sense and no sense at all. He thought of Mrs. Martin and her husband, the dentist and real estate entrepreneur. He thought of Carol Shamblin and Swan and Higgins.

  He thought of buying a gift for Ivy Daniel, so he drove downtown.

  When he went back by the jail, Hack eyed him carefully.

  “No present?” Hack asked.

  Rhodes was empty handed, and confessed it.

  “Well, you better look on your desk,” Hack said.

  Rhodes looked. There was a large coffee mug, brown on top and white on the bottom. There were two scraps of paper in it.

  “Ever’body else’s drawn already,” Hack said. “Just you and Buddy left to go.”

  Rhodes reached into the mug and took one of the scraps of paper.

  “Don’t tell me whose name you got,” Hack said. “That’d take all the fun out of it.”

  Rhodes unfolded the paper. The name of Ruth Grady was printed on it in block letters.

  Rhodes sighed.

  “Who’d you get?” Hack asked.

  Rhodes looked at him. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

  “You could tell me,” Hack said. “I wouldn’t tell anybody else.”

  Lawton walked in from the cells just as Hack was finishing his sentence.”You’d tell,” he said. “You tell everything.”

  “Any calls this morning?” Rhodes asked. He didn’t want Hack and Lawton to get into an argument. “Anybody bite Santa Claus today?”

  “Dead man lying by the highway out by the Dairy Creem. Between there and Blacklin Inn,” Hack said

  “WHAT!” Rhodes yelled.

  “I told you he’d act that way,” Lawton said. “I told you he’d get all wrought up.”

  “I’M NOT—” Rhodes began. “I’m not wrought up,” he said, in a more normal voice. “What about a dead man? Why didn’t you—”

  “See?” Lawton said. “All wrought up.”

  Rhodes took a deep breath and walked over to the chair at his desk. He sat down and took another breath. There was no way on earth to hurry them when they got started. It was like they’d planned it. They probably had planned it.

  “Now,” he said after a minute. “What de
ad man?”

  “Got a call right after you left,” Hack said. “Man’s voice. Wouldn’t say who he was. Said there was a dead man lyin’ in the bar ditch out by the Dairy Creem. Then he hung up.”

  Rhodes wanted to ask any number of questions, but he didn’t. He knew now that Hack and Lawton were teasing him along, and he wasn’t going to give them any more satisfaction than he already had. He kept quiet.

  “I sure don’t like those anonymous phone calls,” Lawton said. “They make a man wonder too much.”

  “Me, too,” Hack said. “I hate ‘em more than you do, though, because I’m the one who has to log ‘em in.”

  “I can see how that would make you feel,” Lawton said. They both looked at Rhodes. He looked back.

  “I sent Buddy out to check it out,” Hack said at last. “Sent an ambulance, too.”

  “I bet Buddy got there before that ambulance,” Lawton said. “I bet a man could die of gangrene while he was waitin’ for that ambulance. I remember when old man Fogarty had his heart attack—”

  “Anyway,” Hack said, interrupting, “I figured if it was anything important I could get you on the radio, Sheriff.”

  “I was questioning a suspect,” Rhodes said. “A suspect in the disappearance of Dr. Samuel Martin. You may have heard of him. Local dentist? Disappeared without a trace?”

  “I know about all that,” Hack said.

  “If it turns out that he was lying dead in the bar ditch out by the Dairy Creem,” Rhodes said, “and if it turns out that I didn’t hear about it, I’m going to be real depressed.”

  “I told you he’d act that way,” Lawton said.

  “I’m not acting,” Rhodes said.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Hack said. “Not a bit. If any of my trusted employees—”

  “We are trusted employees, ain’t we?” Lawton asked.

  Hack stared at him. Then he went on. “If any one of my trusted employees didn’t inform me of somethin’ of real importance, like a call about a dead man, well, I’d be depressed too.”

  Rhodes leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. “So why didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Didn’t we what?” Hack said.

  “Inform me,” Rhodes said.

  “I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble,” Hack said. “I figured that you wouldn’t want to be bothered by it.”

  Rhodes closed his eyes. “I see,” he said. “Didn’t think I’d want to be bothered. Just because there’s a man missing and his wife’s dead, you didn’t think I’d want to be bothered if somebody found a dead man in a ditch.”

  “That’s right,” Hack said. “Didn’t think you’d want to be bothered.”

  Rhodes swung his feet to the floor and opened his eyes. “Why not?”

  “Wasn’t any dead man,” Lawton said. His hand was on the door knob as he began to speak, and he was out, with the door closing behind him, as soon as the last word was spoken.

  Hack glared at the door. Lawton was getting too fast for him.

  “Wasn’t any dead man?” Rhodes said.

  “That’s what he said,” Hack told him. “He’s right, too.”

  “You want to explain that?”

  “Well, the fella who called said there was a dead man, like I told you,” Hack said.

  “But he lied,” Rhodes said. “OK, I get it.”

  “Well, he didn’t exactly lie,” Hack said.

  “What do you mean by ‘exactly’?” Rhodes asked.

  “Well, there was a man there, all right,” Hack said. Drunks weren’t uncommon in Clearview, but they were more likely to turn up on Friday or Saturday nights.

  “Too much Christmas celebrating, I guess,” Rhodes said.

  “Not exactly,” Hack said.

  Rhodes was tired of the game again. He didn’t say anything.

  “He was passed out,” Hack said. “But he wasn’t drunk.”

  “Fainted?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Make it exact,” Rhodes said.

  “Diabetic,” Hack said. “Had a flat a little piece down the road and was walkin’ to a phone. Forgot to eat his mid-mornin’ snack, I guess. Passed out right there in the bar ditch.”

  “He was walking in the ditch?” Rhodes decided to get a little of his own back.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Hack said. “I expect he was walkin’ on the shoulder of the road and fainted there. Then he prob’ly rolled down in the ditch.”

  “Good thing you sent the ambulance along,” Rhodes said.

  “Buddy might have arrested him for being drunk in public.”

  “Buddy’s the one who figured out he was diabetic,” Hack said. “The fella was wearin one of those bracelets.”

  “He have a name?” Rhodes asked.

  “Clarence Woolfe,” Hack said.

  “You could’ve told me that to start with,” Rhodes said.

  “Lawton told me you’d act this way,” Hack said.

  Lawton was upstairs talking to Barney Higgins, who had insisted on being allowed to stay in the women’s cell. Since there were no other female prisoners at the time, Rhodes hadn’t seen any harm in going along with the request. Lawton had agreed.

  When Rhodes walked up, Lawton said, “That sure gets off with old Hack. He can’t stand for me to get to tell any part of a good story.”

  “He takes the calls,” Rhodes said.

  “I need to know what’s goin’ on, same as him,” Lawton said.

  “You’re probably right, but why don’t you go on down and apologize for spoiling the story. I need to talk to Barney.”

  “Betsy,” Barney said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Lawton?”

  “Whatever you say,” Lawton said. “I got to go now.” He walked off down the corridor, and then Rhodes heard steps going down the stairs.

  Blacklin County didn’t provide fancy coveralls for its prisoners like some of the larger and richer counties, but it did provide a plain white cotton jail suit similar to the ones worn by convicts in the Texas Detention Center. Barney had managed to make his look almost presentable, having come up with a small piece of red ribbon from somewhere and tying it around the arm for a spot of color. It also appeared that Lawton had let him use his makeup, or at least the lipstick. There was a blush of red on his lips.

  “You shouldn’t stare, Sheriff,” Barney said in his whiny voice. “It’s not polite.”

  “You haven’t been too polite to me yourself,” Rhodes said. “Jumping me like that in the dark. Trying to run me down with that pickup truck.”

  “I was scared,” Barney said. “Both times.”

  Rhodes could believe it. Barney was small and delicate, though a lot stronger than he looked. His long hair was combed around his face, and he looked so much like a woman that Rhodes still found himself thinking of Betsy instead of Barney.

  “Where is the pickup, by the way?” Rhodes asked.

  “There’s an empty house about two blocks down,” Barney said. “I parked in the back yard. I was going to get it after I got the TV set out in my yard.”

  “You were just going to take the TV and the truck and leave Phil here in jail?”

  “I would’ve come back,” Barney said. “Maybe in a couple of weeks. After you’d let him go.”

  Rhodes listened to the wind whine around the corners of the old jail. It wasn’t easy to keep a building that old as snug as a new one, and this part wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the office area. There were cracks in the wails that were hard to fill in, and various pests sometimes got in almost as easily as the wind.

  “We might not let him go,” Rhodes said. “Or you either.”

  “Moi?” Barney said.

  “What?” Rhodes said.

  “Me! You might not let me go?”

  “That’s right. We might not. I take murder pretty seriously.” Rhodes meant what he said. He didn’t like the idea of murder at all, the idea of someone being deprived of life.

  He believed that everyone had a rig
ht to live, no matter if it seemed that life was treating them badly. He particularly believed that in his county. He felt in some way vaguely responsible for the lives of everyone there.

  “Murder?” Higgins was yelling now in his thin, whiny voice. “Murder?”

  “Hold it down, will you? I’m busy trying to write!” Phil Swan was yelling from down the corridor. He had asked for paper and pen earlier, and Lawton had given them to him. Rhodes had no idea what he was writing.

  “That’s enough,” Rhodes said, loud enough for both of them to hear. He didn’t want any communication between them right now. Obviously there hadn’t been any earlier, or Swan would have told Barney the score. Probably he was still mad at Barney for running out.

  “But you said murder,” Barney said in a calmer tone, though not much calmer. “I thought you maybe had us on some kind of morals charge.”

  “I think you might have killed Dr. Martin’s wife,” Rhodes said.

  “But we didn’t! Surely Phil told you that! Didn’t Phil tell you that? We didn’t kill anybody! Sure, we saw her!” Barney was talking very fast, but now he paused. “Well, I didn’t see her. And after Phil told me what he’d seen, I wasn’t about to go in there. No way. Not on your life. Things like that just gross me out. We had a cat, a big black one, and it got run over. I found it in the road. Well, I just had to leave it there. Its head was all . . . well, I had to leave it. Phil had to take care of it later. We buried it in the back yard. I just couldn’t touch it, even after Phil put it in a bag. We didn’t kill anybody. No way.”

  Barney had to stop and take a breath, so Rhodes asked, “What about that cat? Part of the witchcraft thing? I wouldn’t think witches would be so squeamish. Don’t a lot of the rituals involve blood sacrifices?”

  Barney blushed. The color in his cheeks looked natural, the same color he made them with makeup. “I’m not really a witch,” he said.

  “You sounded like one to me,” Rhodes said. “And to Dr. Martin.”

  “Well, I’m not. I just do that sometimes. It’s a way of . . . I don’t know. Protecting myself, I guess. It works, sometimes.”

  “It worked on Dr. Martin,” Rhodes said.

  Barney smiled. “It sure did. I got our TV back.”