Cursed to Death

by Bill Crider

  This one twanged into one of the organ pipes at the front of the church. Rhodes groaned again, not just from the pain in his head.

  “Freeze, scumbag!” Ruth Grady yelled.

  “ ‘Scumbag’?” Rhodes said, or thought. Even Ruth had been watching too much TV.

  Barnes didn’t freeze. He slithered away from Rhodes down the pew row like a python after a big meal.

  Rhodes started after him, his head pounding.

  Barnes reached the end of the row and turned into the aisle. Rhodes crawled faster and threw himself at Barnes’s legs.

  Barnes fell, and they rolled together in the narrow aisle. As Barnes rolled on top of him, Rhodes felt his elbows getting rug burns through his shirt sleeves. His jacket sleeves had been pushed up almost to his shoulders in the struggles.

  Barnes was grunting and Rhodes was groaning. Then Rhodes felt Barnes’s body thumping into him, as if someone else had joined the fight.

  Someone had. Ruth Grady was kicking and pummeling Barnes.

  “Get up!” she yelled. “Get up, or I’ll fire!”

  Rhodes felt the weight suddenly leave him, and Barnes rolled off and stood up. Rhodes saw him standing over him in the dim light that came through the stained-glass windows, red and green colors falling across his face.

  Barnes towered over the much shorter Ruth Grady, and Rhodes tried to sit up, to tell her that she was standing too close to Barnes. He didn’t manage to do either, because Barnes thought of it first. He reached out and grabbed Ruth’s wrist, twisting the gun to the side.

  He was going to hit her when Rhodes tackled him again.

  Barnes didn’t let go of Ruth’s wrists, and this time all three of them were piled in the aisle.

  Rhodes was in the middle, feeling like the meat ma strange sandwich.

  Ruth Grady was on one side, kicking and scratching with her free hand, getting Rhodes as often as Barnes.

  Barnes was on the bottom, heaving upward and trying to get free. With a great effort he heaved Rhodes and Ruth backward and crawled off down the aisle.

  Rhodes crawled after him. He caught him near the altar.

  Barnes stood up, grabbed Rhodes by the shoulders, and threw him through the altar rail, which splintered as Rhodes crashed into it. Rhodes stopped rolling at the edge of the dais.

  There was another shot, and this time there was the unmistakable sound of a bullet smacking flesh.

  Little Barnes screamed something incomprehensible.

  “Freeze, scumbag!” Ruth Grady yelled. “I mean it, sucker!”

  Rhodes believed her. Evidently so did Barnes. He sat down on the floor and didn’t move.

  Rhodes got out of the hospital without any trouble, unless you counted the shaving of a patch of hair, the application of something wet and cold to his bare knot, and the pressing on of a bandage.

  At least there were no stitches. The skin was broken, but the cut wasn’t deep and there had been only a little bleeding. Most of the blood had dried in Rhodes’s hair, matted it and clotted it. Most of it had come out with the shaving.

  Little Barnes wasn’t so lucky. Ruth Grady had shot him in the arm, right at the elbow joint, breaking all kinds of bones that Rhodes didn’t even want to think about. The pain was no doubt considerable, but Barnes had made no sound at all since being put in the ambulance that Rhodes had called from the church. Barnes also had several pretty bad scratches on his face and hands from the leaves of the bushes where he’d been lying in wait for Rhodes.

  The Reverend Funk wasn’t so lucky either. He wasn’t physically harmed, but Rhodes could tell that his psyche had taken quite a beating. He lived only a block from the church, and he had gotten there almost at the speed of light after Rhodes called him. He seemed to be in a sort of shock, shaking his head and saying “I can’t believe it” over and over, a sentence he interspersed with remarks like “Not the rose window!” which meant nothing to Rhodes but a lot to the Reverend Funk, to judge from his astonished and sad expression. Rhodes went outside to look at the stable damage with him, but forgot to ask if the beheaded wise man was Balthazar.

  Rhodes did see two spare bales of hay behind the stable. Stacked one atop the other, they made a dark bulk that he had mistaken for Barnes. He also saw that by standing at the corner of the stable and looking around it he could see the spot where he and Ruth had been lying pretty clearly. Barnes had seen him slip away and guessed what he was up to. Well, it had turned out all right, except for a bit more damage to the property of the church.

  When Rhodes left in the ambulance, the Reverend Funk was standing by the stable with his glasses in his right hand. His left hand was massaging his face. Rhodes wondered if he was praying or crying.

  It was only seven o’clock when Rhodes left the emergency room. He had called Ivy to tell her that if he got by at all that night, he would be very late. He had also told Ruth Grady to get Buddy, the grappling hooks, and some lights and meet him at Little Barnes’s well.

  When he got there, the lights had already been set up on stands. Buddy and Ruth had not known exactly what was going on, but they had directed the lights at the well house.

  It was cold, but not as cold as Rhodes had thought it might be, not freezing at any rate. Buddy had on an old coat that had sleeves about an inch too short. His shirt sleeves were caught back by the elastic in the coat, and his naked wrists gleamed whitely in the light. He was as tall and thin as the posts in Barnes’s new corral.

  Rhodes got out of his car and felt as if he were entering the set of a Forties’ horror film. The cold air, the eerie lighting effects, the shifting shadows, all reminded him of House of Dracula, and he half-expected to see Lionel Atwill slink around the huge, dark oak.

  “It’s a little dark for a rodeo, even with these lights,” Buddy said. “I guess you got a better use for them.”

  “Will those cables stretch from the battery over to the well?” Rhodes asked.

  “I think so,” Ruth said. She had her coat zipped up and looked smaller and more compact than usual. It was standing next to Buddy that made the effect work.

  “Let’s move them, then,” Rhodes said.

  “I guess I can figure it out for myself,” Buddy said. “I’ll get the grapplin’ hooks.”

  They got two lights near the well housing, and Rhodes took the top off. All three of them peered down into the darkness.

  All they could see was one of the lights reflected in the water fifteen or so feet below them. It was like looking at the moon in an icy lake.

  “Who do we think is in there?” Buddy asked.

  “Dr. Samuel Martin,” Rhodes said.

  “Did Barnes admit it?” Ruth asked.

  “Not exactly,” Rhodes said. “Let’s get the hooks in there.” He was ready to get it over with. The cold air felt even colder on the bare, shaved patch on the side of his head.

  Buddy dropped the hooks down, letting the ropes slide slowly through his hands.

  They heard the hooks splash into the water.

  “Keep going,” Rhodes said.

  “How deep is this well?” Buddy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said.”Twenty feet? Twenty-five? Not too much deeper than the water, anyway.”

  Buddy continued to play out the ropes.

  “Feel anything?” Ruth Grady asked.

  “Nope,” Buddy said.

  “Keep going,” Rhodes said.

  “What makes you think he’s down there?” Ruth asked.

  Rhodes told them about the cement Barnes was using in the postholes, about Barnes’s animosity toward Martin, about what happened when he confronted Barnes.

  “But he didn’t say he dumped him in the well?” Ruth asked.

  “No,” Rhodes said. “He didn’t.”

  “Just as well,” Buddy said. “‘He woulda been lyin’. There’s nothin’ down there at the bottom of that well but a bottom.”

  “Are you sure?” Rhodes said.

  Buddy handed him the ropes. “Give it a try for yours
elf,” he said.

  Rhodes pulled the hooks up, then lowered them. They went down smoothly, without a hitch except when he bumped them into the sides of the well. There was nothing to slow their progress in the least. Then they hit the bottom.

  Rhodes pulled them up and tried again, with the same result. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  Back at the jail Rhodes was talking things over with Hack, who was of the opinion that they could convict Barnes anyway. “We got a motive,” he said. “And we got Barnes’s reputation. And we got the way he started in to shoot at you. I’d say he’s a goner. Life for sure.”

  “Motive,” Rhodes said. “He was just one of a lot of people who owed Martin money. So did Swan and Higgins, and I let them go. And Little’s reputation isn’t going to help us. How do you think most people on a jury feel about dentists? Probably half of them wouldn’t mind whipping the one they go to, and they might think that if Barnes did it and got away with it, more power to him.”

  He put his hand to the spot on his head, which still sprouted a considerable knot. “The other half of them would like to assault me. Or some peace officer that gave them a ticket they thought they didn’t deserve one time.”

  “Maybe the D.A. could work it out so the jury had just Presbyterians on it,” Hack said. “Maybe he could get Reverend Funk to be the foreman.”

  Rhodes smiled at the thought. “They wouldn’t put him in the jail.” Rhodes said.

  “They’d put him under it,” Hack finished for him.

  “That won’t ever happen, though,” Rhodes said.

  “What about that case in Houston not so long ago?” Hack asked.

  “Which case?”

  “The one where the jury convicted that fella of murder and there was no body. Not even much of a motive, if I remember rightly.”

  “I read about it,” Rhodes said. “The prosecution had witnesses, though.”

  “Yeah, but not a one of the witnesses saw the murder. One of ‘em saw something wrapped up in a sheet or a blanket that looked like it had blood on it, and one of ‘em heard some shots. That was about all.”

  “I’d settle for that,” Rhodes said. “I don’t even have witnesses that good.”

  “They were all drug fiends, too,” Hack said.

  “If you believe the defense attorney,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, they got that fella anyway,” Hack said. “I bet we could, too.”

  “We can hold him for assault with intent,” Rhodes said. “That ought to go pretty hard on him, what with his past record, but it won’t do a thing about Dr. Martin.”

  “What do you flunk about that?” Hack asked. “About Martin, I mean. You think Barnes did him in?”

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “I was convinced of it when he jumped me in front of the drug store. It just didn’t seem like there could be any other reason. Now I don’t know. I’ll have a talk with him tomorrow and see where it leads.”

  “What about Miz Martin?”

  “I thought he was good for that one, too,” Rhodes said. He got out of his chair and walked over to the Christmas tree, looking down at the presents. There still wasn’t one for Ivy under there. Or for Ruth. “I could see Barnes and his old mean daddy thinking that since the husband was dead, the wife would be easy pickings.”

  “I can see that myself,” Hack said. “Too bad it won’t work out that way in the end.”

  “It still might,” Rhodes said.

  “How’s that?” Hack asked.

  “I’m not sure” Rhodes told him.

  Chapter 18

  The next day a south wind came blowing up from Mexico, and the temperature had already warmed up into the fifties by the time Rhodes got to the hospital. The humidity was high, and it seemed as if there might be more warm weather on the way, one last reprieve from winter before Christmas.

  Little Barnes was in no mood for talking. The prospects were that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the weather because he would be either in the hospital or in jail. Neither idea seemed to make him very happy.

  “I got nothin’ to say,” he told Rhodes. “I want to get me a lawyer.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Rhodes said. He looked around the hospital room at the vinyl-covered furniture, the plastic water pitcher and glass on the cheap bedside stand, the tiny television set on its perch on the wall. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to talk to me.”

  “It’ll be later, then,” Barnes said. His arm was in a cast, a fact that probably added to his unhappiness. It was doubtful that he would ever have full use of it again, the flexibility being impaired permanently.

  “You know I’ll be filing on you for assault,” Rhodes said, his hand going to the bump on his head. The swelling had decreased some, but it was still tender.

  “I been there before,” Barnes said. He looked out of place in the cranked-up hospital bed. He was so big that the bed looked like a child’s bed. He was covered with the sheet, but Rhodes couldn’t help wondering what he looked like in his hospital gown. Those gowns did a pretty inadequate job of covering a normal-sized person, or at least that had been Rhodes’s experience. He figured that the nurses had gotten a few good laughs at Barnes’s expense.

  “I looked in your well,” Rhodes said. “I thought I might find somebody there.”

  “Ha!” was all Barnes had to say about that.

  “I’d still like to know what caused you to act the way you did,” Rhodes said.

  Barnes didn’t say anything.

  There was a telephone on the bedside stand, one of the old-style black ones that you seldom saw anymore. Rhodes put out his hand and touched it. “I’d give that lawyer a call if I were you,” he said. “I think you’re going to need him.”

  After leaving the hospital Rhodes drove around awhile to think. He was sure that Swan and Higgins weren’t guilty of anything more than being a little strange—at least for Blacklin County—and a little behind in their rent. If they had lived in San Francisco, they might just have been behind in the rent a bit and a lot less strange.

  And Barnes was going to deny, deny, deny. He couldn’t deny the fact that he’d jumped Rhodes when the subject of Dr. Martin had been brought up, and he couldn’t deny that he’d run away. He also couldn’t deny the shots he’d fired or the kidnapping of Rhodes.

  Kidnapping. It was a word that had just popped into Rhodes’s mind. Was it possible to get Barnes up on kidnapping charges? That was an avenue worth considering.

  So who did that leave? Among the possible suspects that Rhodes had considered, it left only one. He headed in that direction.

  The apartment house was quiet, most of the residents haying gone to their jobs and dropped the kids off at the day care center. Rhodes parked and walked to the door of Carol Shamblin’s apartment.

  He knocked. There was no answer. Rhodes looked around the apartment parking lot. There were only a couple of cars there besides his own. The sun sparkled off the bumper of a Ford Escort.

  Rhodes knocked again, a little harder.

  “It’s open,” someone said from inside.

  Rhodes turned the doorknob and gave a push. The door swung inward.

  The room was almost exactly as Rhodes had seen it previously. Nothing seemed to have moved. Carol Shamblin sat on the same cheap couch, and she was wearing the same maroon robe. The robe was a lot more wrinkled than it had been. There was a blue haze in the room, and smoke circled the light of a small lamp, the only light in the room.

  Even the stack of newspapers was there, if a little messier. The ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts. There were even butts in the cup and saucer on the coffee table.

  Rhodes walked over to the chair where he’d sat before. Carol Shamblin’s eyes followed him.

  “I thought you’d be back,” she said. There were dark circles under her eyes, dark as bruises. Rhodes wondered if she’d left the chair at all since he’d been there.

  “It took me awhile to figure things out,” Rhodes said. He sat in the chair. “You w
ant to tell me about it?”

  “Not particularly,” Carol said. She leaned forward and picked a cigarette butt out of the saucer and held it up to look at it. There was maybe a half an inch in front of the filter.

  “I thought you might want to,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, I don’t,” Carol said. She knocked a little of the burned end off the butt and lit it with the green Bic, which she took from a pocket of her robe. She inhaled smoke. “How’d you figure it out?” she asked, letting smoke out of her mouth as she spoke.

  “Process of elimination,” Rhodes said, hoping that sounded scientific and accurate instead of as haphazard as it had actually been. “When all the suspects are eliminated, the one that’s left is the guilty party.”

  Carol took another drag on the cigarette, then crushed it out before smoking the filter. “So you thought it might be someone else at first?”

  “That’s right. You had me fooled.”

  Carol leaned back on the couch. She seemed at ease for the first time since Rhodes had met her. The release of tension did that sometimes.

  “I wasn’t trying to fool anyone,” she said. “It was just something I couldn’t talk about. I . . . I didn’t mean to do it.”

  Rhodes wished he had a nickel for every time he’d heard that line, but it was probably the truth. Most people did the things they did without thinking of them, whether it was driving too fast or running over the neighbor’s dog. “I’m sure you didn’t,” he said.

  She looked at him, the circles under her eyes seeming to darken. “You don’t have to be condescending. I’m telling the truth.”

  “I believe you,” Rhodes said. He wanted to keep her talking, to get her to tell how she did it. Mostly he wanted to know where Martin’s body was.

  She put an arm up on the back of the couch. Rhodes noticed again how large and strong her arms looked.

  “Maybe I did mean to,” she said. “Maybe what I should have said was that I didn’t plan to. It was just something that happened.”

  “Because he wouldn’t go away with you?” Rhodes asked.

  “I guess that was it. I was pretty hurt.” She looked in the ashtray for another butt, found one, straightened it a little, and lit it. “I was foolish, of course. I should have known that he didn’t mean it.”