by Bill Crider
That would be easy enough for Rhodes to check. He’d already called the cable plant, and Clinton had worked his full shift. He’d have Johnny Sherman or one of the other deputies check at Sally’s to make sure Elmer had been there, too. “Well, that’s about it for now, Elmer,” he said. “I guess I’ll have some more questions later; maybe one of the boys will be by instead of me. Don’t go off anywhere so we can’t find you, hear?”
“I hear, Sheriff, I hear. You just find out who killed Jeanne. Then you let me have a few minutes with him. That’s all I’m asking.”
As Rhodes walked back onto the porch, Clinton was staring off into space with unfocused eyes and swallowing beer.
Hod Barrett’s little grocery store was caught in its usual mid-afternoon lull. There were no customers, except for two old men on the loafer’s bench, and it wasn’t likely that either of them was going to buy anything. Rhodes pulled open the left screen and walked in.
The store was much darker than most modern groceries. It was lit by three fly-specked hundred-watt bulbs that hung down from the ancient stamped-tin ceiling by twisted, fabric-covered cords. The floor was the same cement as the walk out front, stained darker from years of spills and sweepings. There were shelves along the walls to Rhodes’s left and right, and a long, two-sided shelf in the middle. To his left was the bench and the soft-drink cooler, a very old one in which the drinks sat up to their necks in icy water circulated by a small pump. To his right was the glass candy case, filled mostly with hard candy and gum. The store wasn’t air-conditioned, and chocolate tended to melt.
Hod Barrett was at the back of the store beside the meat cooler that separated his small butcher shop from the rest of his stock. He was leaning over a counter working on his accounts. About the only way he could keep any customers was to offer credit; otherwise, everyone in town would drive to the Safeway in Clearview. Beside Barrett was an old cash register that doubled as his adding machine when he worked on the accounts.
“Figuring your taxes, Hod?” Rhodes joked as he strolled to the rear of the store.
“Already done that,” Barrett replied. “Next time I ought to get a lot of money back, considering all my losses to thieves that you can’t catch.” He flipped an account book shut with a snap and stuffed it in a file.
“Does Elmer Clinton have an account in there, Hod?” Rhodes asked.
Barrett looked up. “Of course he does. Nearly everybody in town has an account with me, large or small. You can’t drive all the way to Clearview when you need a quart of milk, and if you can get credit you take it.”
“Is Elmer’s account one of the large ones or one of the small ones?”
Barrett didn’t even have to check his account books. “It’s one of the small ones. I think Elmer buys most of his groceries before he comes home after work. He has to drive over to Clearview anyway. I don’t hold it against him. What’s all that got to do with my store being robbed, anyway?”
Rhodes shrugged. “Nothing, probably. But your robbery kind of has to take second place now that Jeanne Clinton’s been killed.”
Barrett started to protest, but Rhodes went on without giving him an opening. “I guess it was Jeanne that did most of the buying here, and not Elmer.”
Barrett nodded. “That’s right. She came in every day or so for little items. Bread. Milk. Laundry powder. Never bought more than two or three items at a time. Always put them on the bill, always paid right on the first.”
“How well did you get to know Jeanne, Hod?” Rhodes inquired mildly.
Barrett shoved his account file aside roughly and started around the counter. “Now, see here, Sheriff, I’ll have you know. . .”
“Now, Hod, don’t get your blood pressure all elevated,” Rhodes said. “I just thought you might be able to tell me if she had any enemies here in town, anyone that might want to do away with her. I don’t believe a single thing was stolen from that house, like there was from your store, and since you live right nearby I thought you might be able to give me a lead.”
Barrett pushed both hands down on the counter and took a deep breath, visibly getting control of himself. “OK, Sheriff, I see what you mean. I just thought . . . never mind. No, I don’t know of anyone who didn’t like Jeanne. She was a nice, friendly girl.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Say, you don’t think there could be any connection between the robbery here and the killing, do you?”
“Now that’s a right interesting idea, Hod,” Rhodes said. “Can’t say as I’ve given it any real consideration, but now that you mention it, I’ll give it some thought.”
Barrett had a disgusted look on his face, which indicated his idea of the dim mental processes of the county’s law enforcement officers. If he had to give them all their ideas, he seemed to be thinking, then things were really in a mess.
“By the way, Hod,” Rhodes said, interrupting Barrett’s thoughts, “Do you think your wife might be able to tell me any more than you have about Jeanne? I mean, seeing as how you all live so close by her and all. Not more than a block away, is it? Since Miz Barrett stays home most of the day, she might have seen something more than you.”
Barrett’s stocky body didn’t move, but his Adam’s apple rose and fell several times as if he were swallowing a golf ball. His voice, when he spoke, was thin and forced. “You stay away from my wife, Sheriff,” he said. “She don’t know nothing, and she won’t have nothing to tell you.
“You seem a little tense today, Hod,” Rhodes said kindly. “I know this robbery has you on edge, and you probably aren’t thinking too straight. But you know that there’s been a murder, and it’s my job to ask questions of anybody that might have information. You understand that, don’t you?”
Barrett’s arms went limp and dangled at his sides. For the first time Rhodes noticed how long they were, way out of proportion on Barrett’s chunky body, like the arms of an ape. He must be hell to buy shirts for, Rhodes thought.
“Yeah, I understand,” Barrett said. “I just didn’t think it was necessary.”
“You never know, Hod,” Rhodes said, turning and walking to the front of the store. “You just never know.”
He glanced at the two old men as he passed by the loafer’s bench. Their ears looked like they were growing on stalks. Rhodes smiled, stopped, and handed each one of them one of his cards.
Purchase TOO LATE TO DIE at your favorite eBook retailer
A Preview of DEAD ON THE ISLAND
Book One of the Truman Smith Mystery Series
Chapter 1
There was no one on the seawall except for me and the rat.
I was there to run; I don’t know why the rat was there. Maybe he just didn’t have anywhere else to go. Or maybe he was looking for a handout. If he was, he’d come to the wrong place. Even the few forlorn gulls that were floating around above us knew better.
In the summer it would have been different. The seawall is crowded then, and it’s no good for running, though some people still try. The tourists are out in force, walking, riding their rented bikes and pedicycles, dragging their recalcitrant offspring, cruising along on skateboards, and in general making the seawall a place to avoid.
Unless you’re a seagull, that is. Or a rat.
In the summer, the seawall is rat paradise. The remains of hotdogs with mustard, corn chips, potato chips, jelly sandwiches, half-eaten candy bars, parts of pickles, the leavings of a thousand picnics—it’s all there for the taking.
And if you can get your snout into the opening of an aluminum can, there’s the dregs of a beer or a diet Coke to top off the meal. Then you can slip into a crack in the wall or into a crevice among the boulders at its base and watch the world go by.
Tanned skin and pasty white; burned and peeling; oiled and leathery—all cinched up in whatever manner of suit that might happen to catch your fancy, from a string bikini to a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty model from the early days of Hollywood.
But it wasn’t summer. It was the last week in February, and a cold
norther had managed to push its way down from the Panhandle all the way to the coast, dropping the temperature into the lower forties and turning the sky the color of lead. The wind pushed back at the Gulf and moved the heavy clouds along. A frosty mist hung in the air. There were still plenty of beer cans down in among the boulders, but they had long since been emptied of anything a rat might want to drink.
Traffic was sparse on the boulevard to my left. Today qualified for the depths of winter on the Texas Gulf Coast. It was a day to stay home and read a good book or watch Jeopardy on TV.
I wasn’t worried about the weather, though. I had on a pair of Nike Air Spans, fleece-lined running shorts, and a black and gray sweatshirt that I’d bought at K-Mart. The north wind cut right through the sweatshirt, but I knew I’d get plenty warm once I started the run.
The rat was wearing dark brown fur, a leathery tail, and a quizzical look. I wondered if the wind were bothering him, but before I could ask he disappeared over the side of the seawall. It would be a lot warmer down among the boulders, out of the wind. I hoped maybe he could find an old can of bean dip that might still have a dried brown rim of beans left for him to eat.
I started into the run, going slow at first, not that I ever got up too much speed. I was at the west end of the seawall, running east. I figured to go for a mile or two or three and then turn back, depending on how well my knee held up.
After half a mile I was warming up, and the knee was feeling all right. As long as I held myself to about eight-and-a-half minute miles it would probably be fine. It was only when I pressed myself that I found myself listing to the right. Even then I could usually keep from falling if I stopped in time, but I told myself there was no need to worry about that. Eight-and-a-half minute miles were perfectly acceptable.
After about two miles I saw someone coming from the opposite direction. I wasn’t surprised, since it was more likely that there would be people in that direction, even in February. It was about time for me to turn around, anyway.
I was about to make my turn when I recognized the other runner, even though he was a good way off. You can do that, recognize runners from their gait. Me, for instance. I have a sort of modified version of the Ali Shuffle, except that it’s all forward motion. My feet don’t ever get too far from the ground. Can’t afford to jar the knee.
The runner up ahead wasn’t like me in the least. He was getting his knees up and moving right along, smooth and steady. Probably hitting the miles in seven minutes or a little less. I’d’ve bet a dollar it was Raymond Jackson.
So I didn’t turn around, after all. Later, I wished that I had, but he would just have caught up with me. There was a time when . . . . But that was quite a while ago.
When we met, Raymond turned and slowed to my pace. “What’s happenin’, Tru?” he said
“Nothing much, Ray,” I said. Ray’s a black man, late thirties or thereabout. My age. He’s about the size of a good NFL defensive back, but he looks to be in better shape than most of them. “How’s it with you?”
“Not bad,” he said.
We ran along together for a few minutes. I was breathing a little harder than he was.
When we got to the three mile mark, I said, “I’m turning it around, Ray. Good to see you.” I sprinted out ahead and made an easy, wide turn.
Ray turned, too. “I’ll go along with you for a ways,” he said.
Neither one of us was inclined to talk much, so we ran in silence for a while. The scudding gray clouds, the mist, the gray-green water of the Gulf—all of them together didn’t seem to make it much of a day for talking.
Finally Ray spoke up. “Dino wants to see you.”
I’d been afraid all along that running into Ray hadn’t been a coincidence, though I’d hoped it was.
“What for?” I said.
“He’s lost somethin’. He wants you to find it,” Ray said.
“I can’t do that anymore,” I said.
“Hey, I know that,” Ray said. He wasn’t having any trouble talking at all. I was having to pause a little between every second word. “I told Dino that. I said, ‘Man, he don’t do that kind of job anymore.’ Dino just looked at me. You know how he does. ‘He’ll do this one,’ he said. ‘Find him.’ So I found you. I hope you not gonna make me look bad and not talk to him.”
We ran on for a minute or two. “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “Thanks for making it look like I had a choice.”
Ray laughed, but he didn’t say anything. We ran along until we got nearly to the end of the seawall, where my car was parked.
“You don’t put up much of a front, man,” Ray said. He was probably talking about my car, a ‘79 Subaru GL with two doors and a fading gray paint that just about matched the color of the day.
“It gets me where I’m going.” I opened the door and reached into the back seat where I usually have a couple of towels. I threw Ray a green one and kept the yellow one for myself. It’s softer.
I stripped off the sweatshirt and dried off as best I could in the cold mist. I put on another sweatshirt from the back seat.
“Sorry I don’t have another one,” I told Ray.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Just give me a ride up to my car.”
We scrunched ourselves into the Subaru and started up Seawall Boulevard toward the east end of the Island. “About Dino,” I said, shifting through the gears. “When?”
“Today’s fine,” Ray said. He had my green towel draped around his neck. “You wanna come by after lunch?”
“Two o’clock?”
“Two o’clock it is. I’ll tell him. There’s my ride.”
We were almost to the Moody Center, which had been the Buccaneer Hotel when Ray and Dino and I were young. From buccaneer to retirement home. There was probably a message somewhere in that for me if I let myself think about it. I didn’t let myself.
Ray’s car, a maroon BMW, was parked across the street from Moody Center. I stopped by it.
“I didn’t know you’d become a yuppie, Ray,” I said.
He got out of my car and leaned in to toss the green towel into the back seat. “In the words of Chuck Berry,” he said, “‘it jus’ goes to show you never can tell.’”
I laughed, remembering the song. I probably had the record someplace.
“Two o’clock,” he said. “Don’t you forget, now.” He shut the door and the window rattled a little bit.
“Yeah,” I said to myself, driving to the corner and turning left. “Two o’clock.”
I was living that year in a two-story unrestored Victorian house not far from St. Mary’s Hospital on Avenue I. Or on Sealy Street. Call it either one; that’s what the locals do. I get the letters just the same, but they’re mostly addressed to “Occupant.”
For a long time, Galveston seemed determined to destroy all the relics of its historic past and was doing a damned good job for the most part. Now the buildings on the Strand, some of them anyway, have been restored to their former glory, and a lot of the Victorian houses in the Historical District are looking better than they have for over a hundred years. The trim sparkles, and the pastel paint jobs inspired by Miami Vice most likely, would turn Sonny Crockett puce with envy.
The place where I lived didn’t look that good.
I wasn’t exactly in the Historical District anyhow, and the guy who owned the house was just holding onto it as an investment. Which meant that he was paying the taxes and hoping that someone would come along and offer him a whopping profit for it. In the meantime I was serving as a sort of glorified house-sitter, supposedly making sure that thieves didn’t break in to steal and vandals didn’t corrupt the investment.
I drove into the alley behind the house and parked in the back yard. There was no carport, but I had a cloth cover I could toss over the Subaru in case of storms. I climbed the outside stairs of the house to the second floor. The first floor was used mostly for storage, and it would take a lot of work to get it back where it had been in the previous century. T
he original hardwood flooring was still there, but not much else.
Upstairs wasn’t that much better. I’m not known for my neat housekeeping habits, and the furniture hadn’t been approved by anyone’s decorator. In fact, most of it was cast-off items that I’d picked up from friends or found lying in the streets. The sofa was missing a cushion, the recliner wouldn’t recline, and the old RCA color set insisted that most of the people on TV these days had a vaguely green cast to their skin. It also had a nearly round picture tube. I didn’t particularly care. I also had an old Voice of Music portable hi-fi record player that I could play my 45s on. It sat on the floor by the sofa.
There was a real brass bed in the bedroom, but the mattress sank in toward the middle and was probably as old as the bedframe, not that I minded.
Most of the rest of the furnishings were books, paperbacks mostly, stacked haphazardly by the couch and the chair and the bed. I was reading Faulkner then, straight through, starting with Soldier’s Pay and working my way up to The Reivers. It passed the time.
There was an old chiffonnier by the bed, and there was a picture of my sister, Jan, on it. I kept it there just to remind me.
Nameless was lying in the middle of the bed. He’s an old orange tomcat who is totally unrefined and doesn’t really care where he lies down. The couch, the bed, and the recliner are all the same to him. He comes in most every day and since he can’t read, or so he pretends, he passes the time sleeping. He lets me feed him if I behave myself.
I hadn’t intended for him to be nameless. When he first came in I tried various names on him—Sam, Leroy, Elvis—but nothing seemed to fit. Besides, I didn’t really expect him to take up permanent residence. By the time he did, I’d run out of names. So now he was just Nameless.
Nameless looked at me through slitted eyes as I came in, then ducked his head around and tried to shape himself into a ball.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m not going to roust you.” I threw the towels and sweatshirt I was carrying into the corner by the chiffonnier and then stripped off what I was wearing and added it to the pile. There was an old Maytag washer on the first floor that still worked pretty well. I’d take a load down later.