Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 09 - Death by Accident

by Bill Crider

  Rhodes pushed open the door to Overton’s office.

  “If you need any help with Yancey, just call me,” Mrs. Burkett said.

  Rhodes didn’t think he’d need any help. What could a Pomeranian do to him, after all?

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Pomeranian could surge out from under a desk and try to bite a hole in Rhodes’s ankle, for one thing.

  Rhodes shook the dog off before he destroyed a sock and turned on the light in the room.

  The mess was worse than he had expected, and the smell of stale smoke was much stronger than it had been in the other room. There was a small desk littered with papers and magazines, and an overflowing ashtray sat on top of a Playboy. There were papers on the floor, too, and in the chair at the desk. Rhodes wondered where Overton sat. Probably on top of the papers.

  Rhodes picked up some of the papers and looked at them while Yancey stood four or five feet away, barking at him.

  “Hush, Yancey,” Rhodes said.

  To his surprise, Yancey did just that. The dog walked over to the corner, where something that might once have been a towel lay in a mangled yellow heap. Yancey walked around on the fabric a couple of times and then lay down, his paws stretched out in front of him and his eyes on Rhodes.

  The papers that Rhodes had picked up weren’t of any interest. They consisted of form letters asking if Overton wanted gold credit cards (“No Annual Fee, Ever!”), offers to put siding on his house if he would allow the company to use the house as a “demonstrator” for the rest of the neighborhood, proposals to lend Overton money by mail (“No Credit Check!”), and attempts to sell Overton insurance — term life insurance, automobile insurance, hospitalization, workman’s compensation, and even Medicare supplements. Overton hadn’t been nearly old enough to worry about Medicare, but that didn’t bother the direct mailers.

  Rhodes put the form letters back on the desk. He wondered what kind of person kept things like that. Rhodes received much the same kind of mail practically every day, both at home and at his office, but it always went directly into the trash can, sometimes without being opened. Overton must never have thrown anything away. There wasn’t even a trash can in the room as far as Rhodes could see.

  Moving the ashtray, Rhodes picked up the Playboy. June 1993. Maybe there was a whole collection of Playboy somewhere in the house, or maybe this was the only issue that Overton had ever bought. Rhodes started to put the magazine down when he saw the red corner of a spiral notebook sticking out from under a copy of Texas Monthly.

  Rhodes pulled out the ledger book and put the Playboy in the chair. Then he opened the notebook and flipped through the pages. Each page was headed with the name of one of Overton’s customers, and there was an accounting, written in pencil in an awkward scrawl, of what Overton had received from each one of them, along with a record of the materials he had bought for each job.

  Overton had cheated Brother Alton’s church, all right. The evidence was right there. And he’d cheated a lot of other people, too. Some more than others.

  There were several names and amounts that interested Rhodes more than the others.

  Grat Bilson. Unless Overton had done magnificent work for him, something that Rhodes doubted very much, Bilson had been cheated out of more than two thousand dollars on a room remodeling job.

  Mack Riley. He’d been cheated out of nearly nine hundred dollars on an interior painting job. Of course there was Overton’s labor to figure in, but nine hundred dollars to paint two rooms and a hall seemed excessive.

  Bull Lowery. Overton had charged him five thousand dollars to roof his house. As far as Rhodes could see, Overton hadn’t bought enough shingles to roof a room, much less an entire house. But maybe Overton’s records were as sloppy as his housekeeping.

  Ty Berry. Overton had remodeled his kitchen at a cost of four thousand dollars.

  There were plenty of other names, but those were the interesting ones. Three of them were connected in one way or another to the Old Settlers’ Grounds where Yeldell had died, and the other was Yeldell’s boss.

  The records went back nearly three years. In every case, Overton had spent next to nothing on his materials, buying the cheapest available and usually not buying enough to complete the job. And if the way he kept up his own house was any indication, he wasn’t really capable of doing the work he’d been hired to perform.

  Rhodes had dealt with people like Overton before. They weren’t basically dishonest. They advertised in the newspaper that they did “handyman” jobs, and when someone called and asked if they could remodel a kitchen or put on a roof, they said “sure,” because they needed the work and because they didn’t think it would be too hard.

  Later, when they saw that they’d gotten in over their heads, they always promised to make things right. And sometimes they actually tried to do that, time after time, but they simply couldn’t, either out of incompetence or laziness or both. So they quit answering their telephones or went off to East Texas for a few weeks to stay with relatives. Eventually the people who had hired them gave up and found someone else to do the work and do it right.

  They rarely came to the sheriff because they knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything, not really. It was pretty much like Brother Alton had said. Getting a judgment against a deadbeat didn’t mean anything if the deadbeat couldn’t pay. Having him arrested for a misdemeanor like deceptive business practices didn’t help matters, either. So they accepted their losses and chalked them up to experience.

  Usually. Now and then things got a little out of hand. Someone would catch the deadbeat in the Wal-Mart parking lot and want to fight him. Or someone would call and threaten the deadbeat’s wife or dog, and then it was the deadbeat who showed up at the jail, wanting someone arrested. People had to be really angry to make threats like that.

  Rhodes wondered if anyone ever got angry enough to kill.

  He closed the notebook and went into the other room. Yancey followed him. Mrs. Burkett wasn’t there, but Rhodes could hear her in the kitchen.

  He went in there, with Yancey trailing along behind him. Mrs. Burkett was standing beside a sink filled with dirty dishes. On the stove there was an iron skillet about half full of grease. Overton probably cooked his bacon in there every day but poured out the grease about once a month. There were dirty dishes on the little wooden table, too, and on the sink counter. The smell was even worse than in the other rooms. Rhodes didn’t think he’d want to eat a meal there.

  “I swear, I just don’t know where to start,” Mrs. Burkett said.

  Rhodes didn’t have any advice for her. The job seemed almost overwhelming.

  He showed her the notebook. “I found this in the office. I’d like to hold onto it if you don’t mind.”

  “Lord no. Take anything you want. That’s one less thing I’ll have to deal with. What is it, anyway?”

  “Your brother’s business records.”

  “He kept records? Randy?”

  “Not very good ones,” Rhodes said. “But they might help me. There was something else I wanted to ask you, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “Did your brother know someone named John West?”

  “I couldn’t say about that. I didn’t know many of Randy’s friends.”

  Rhodes was disappointed, but he thought he might as well try the other name.

  “What about Pep Yeldell?”

  “Oh, Pep. Sure. I knew him all right. He and Randy were buddies.”

  Rhodes felt the spot between his shoulder blades begin to itch furiously. It was a feeling so real that he wanted to reach around and scratch it, but he restrained himself.

  “Pep and Randy used to run around together all the time,” Mrs. Burkett said. Then she stopped talking and looked surprised, as if something had just occurred to her. “That’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?” Rhodes asked.

  “Not funny. Peculiar. You know what I mean.”

  Rhodes said that he knew the feeling b
ut not what she meant about something being funny.

  “You know. Pep dying the way he did, and now Randy. I tried to get Randy to stop smoking all the time, but it didn’t do any good. And it would never have done any good to tell either one of them to stop drinking.” She shook her head. “And just look where it got them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rhodes said.

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Burkett looked at the notebook that Rhodes was holding. “I don’t guess Randy mentioned anything about money. Do you think he had any?”

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said, looking around the kitchen. “There’s not any mention of a bank account in here. But he might have had some money.”

  Mrs. Burkett smiled ruefully. “I know what you’re thinking. If he had anything at all, he sure didn’t spend it around here. All he did was leave me with a mess to clean up.”

  She looked down at Yancey, who was sniffing at something on the floor. Rhodes wasn’t sure what it was. It looked a little like a stick, but it might have been a piece of nearly petrified bacon.

  “Well, I guess he left me with more than a mess,” Mrs. Burkett said. “He left me his dog, too. And then there’s that old car out there in the driveway. It hasn’t been driven in twenty years. Maybe more than that. Lord knows what I’m going to do with it.”

  “Now there’s something I might be able to help you with,” Rhodes said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rhodes drove home with no idea how he was going to explain to Ivy that they were the proud owners of both a 1958 Edsel and a Pomeranian named Yancey.

  He didn’t know how he was going to explain it to Speedo, either, not that Speedo would mind the car part. It was the new dog part that he might not understand.

  Rhodes still wasn’t quite sure just exactly how he’d gotten Yancey as part of the deal. It just seemed that by the time he and Mrs. Burkett had finished talking about the Edsel, he had agreed to take the dog as boot.

  He was too soft-hearted when it came to animals, that was it. In fact, he’d gotten Speedo pretty much the same way, while he was working on an earlier investigation.

  Yancey was with him now in the front seat of the county car, sitting on the remains of the blue towel and looking more like a dust mop than ever. He was too small to put his feet on the window and look out, though he’d tried to do so a couple of times. He’d given up soon enough, and now he was just sitting there, breathing, the pink tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

  Another little problem that Rhodes was going to have to deal with was the fact that Yancey wasn’t exactly the rugged, outdoors type. He was used to the comfortable environment found inside a house, if you could call the environment in Overton’s house comfortable. Whatever it had been, it was better than the weather outside the car. The temperature had dropped below freezing, and it would no doubt continue to drop all through the night.

  The good news was that Yancey was housebroken. There was plenty of evidence of human uncleanliness in Overton’s house, and thank goodness Rhodes hadn’t looked in the bathroom, but there was no evidence of canine uncleanliness.

  “All you have to do is take him outside for a while in the morning and in the late afternoon,” Mrs. Burkett had told Rhodes. “That’s what Randy always did.”

  Rhodes didn’t really believe it. Overton might have opened the door and let the dog out and opened it again to let him back in, but he wasn’t the type to take him out and walk with him. Yancey didn’t even have a collar, much less a leash.

  Rhodes tried to think of how to break the news to Ivy. He didn’t know whether to bring up the car first, or the dog. The car was going to be a little touchy, since it involved money.

  Yancey had come as a bonus, but he’d had to give Mrs. Burkett a check for the car. It wasn’t much. She hadn’t asked for much, and Rhodes had no idea what the car was worth. He just knew that he wanted it, so he didn’t try to bargain. He gave her what she asked.

  But Rhodes knew the check was just the beginning. There was body work to be done, and then there would have to be a new paint job. Rhodes hadn’t even looked at the interior, but the seats couldn’t be in very good shape, not unless they’d been re-upholstered sometime in the last 40 years. And there was bound to be some engine repair needed. For all Rhodes knew, birds were nesting under the hood. It was all going to run into a lot more money, he was sure.

  When Rhodes arrived at his house, it was nearly 6:30. Ivy was already there. The lights in the living room and the kitchen were on.

  Rhodes drove into the driveway and stopped the car. “Well, Yancey, this is it. What do you think?”

  Yancey didn’t move, though it was barely possible that the pace of his breathing increased a bit.

  “You’re not a lot of help,” Rhodes said. “I guess I’m going to have to do this on my own.”

  He grabbed Yancey, got out of the car, and walked to the front porch. Instead of going inside, he rang the bell. When Ivy opened the door, Rhodes held up Yancey and said, “I brought you a present.”

  Yancey took to his new home right away. Rhodes put the remnants of the towel in a corner of the utility room near the washer and dryer, and Yancey lay down on it and promptly went to sleep. Ivy found a couple of plastic bowls that had once held margarine and would do for now to hold Yancey’s food and water. She put them on the floor near the blanket.

  “He’s cute,” she said. “Why don’t we get him a red collar?”

  “Red is fine,” Rhodes said.

  “Do you think he’s had all his shots?”

  Considering where Yancey had been living, Rhodes doubted that he had gotten any shots at all. He told Ivy that one of them would have to take Yancey to the vet.

  “Which one of us would that be?” she asked.

  “Whichever one of us gets the chance. I’m going to be pretty busy for the next few days, though.”

  “That means me.”

  “Probably,” Rhodes said. “And after all, he’s your dog.”

  “Ah. I’d almost forgotten that. A present, you said.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Besides the present, what else did you find at the late Mr. Overton’s house?”

  Rhodes had already told her about Overton’s “accident.” Now he told her about Overton’s notebook and how it might actually be a clue, thanks to Overton’s record-keeping.

  “Overton and Pep Yeldell were good friends,” he said. “And several of the people that Overton worked for had good reason to dislike both him and Yeldell. Grat Bilson and Bull Lafferty for two. And there were a couple of other names in there. Mack Riley and Ty Berry. Berry seems to know an awful lot about Yeldell for some reason. And Mack Riley’s tied in with both Bilson and Berry, so I might as well talk to him, too.”

  “Tonight?”

  Rhodes didn’t want to go out again, but he said, “Well, I can get started.”

  “Who’s going to tell Speedo about his new brother?”

  “I thought I’d let you do that. Yancey’s your dog, after all.”

  “I thought you might say that. What if Speedo’s jealous that Yancey gets to sleep inside?”

  “Remind him that he has his own private residence. Well insulated, too. Styrofoam walls, straw on the floor. What more could he ask for?”

  “Right.”

  “You don’t sound convinced. You’d better practice before you talk to him.”

  “Right. And what about supper?”

  “Haven’t you fed him yet?”

  “Of course I fed him,” Ivy said. “I was talking about your supper.”

  “What are my choices?”

  “Meatloaf, with scalloped potatoes. Do you have time?”

  “I’ll make time,” Rhodes told her. “There’s something else we have to talk about.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After he’d eaten, Rhodes drove by the jail to check in and see what was going on.

  “It’s Saturday night,” Hack said. “You want to hear any more?”

 
“It’s not generally as bad as Friday,” Rhodes said.

  Friday was payday for a lot of people, many of whom seemed unable to wait until Saturday to spend their money on wine, women, and honky-tonk music.

  “It’s pretty quiet, to tell the truth,” Lawton said. He was standing near the door that led to the cells. “Buddy hasn’t had to bring anybody in yet except one kid.”

  Hack turned to Lawton. “I’m the one he asked about what was goin’ on. It’s for me to say how quiet it is.”

  “OK, OK, I was just tryin’ to help out. You gonna tell him about the kid or not?”

  “He’s not a kid,” Hack said.

  Lawton disagreed. “Looks like a kid to me.”

  “That’s because you’re older’n dirt your ownself. Ever’body under a hunnerd looks like a kid to you.”

  Lawton grinned. “I wouldn’t say that. You don’t look like a kid. And then there’s Miz McGee.”

  Hack stood up. “You better not say nothin’ about Miz McGee.”

  Rhodes thought for a second that he might, just this once, stand back and see what would happen if he didn’t intervene. Probably nothing at all. Hack and Lawton would jaw at one another for a few minutes and then forget all about their differences. He should just let them go.

  But he couldn’t do it. He said, “Let’s don’t get off the subject here. What about the kid?”

  “He ain’t no kid,” Hack said, sitting down and turning his back on Lawton.

  “What about the prisoner, then?” Rhodes said.

  Lawton turned the knob of the door and opened it slightly. He was clearly planning to make a break for it.

  “He’s just a kid,” Lawton said before plunging through the door and closing it behind him.

  Hack picked up a stapler as if he were going to throw it, but of course he didn’t. He put it back down on the desk and said, “He’s twenty-two. That ain’t no kid.”

  “I’m willing to concede the point,” Rhodes said. “But only if you’ll tell me the whole story.”