by Bill Crider
“Nope,” Lawton said. He was leaning against the wall by the door to the cell block. He was nearly as old as Hack, but thinner. He had a little mustache and slicked-back hair. “Not this time.”
“You’re gettin’ warm, though,” Hack said.
“A new crime lab?” Rhodes asked, knowing it was a ridiculous guess. The county crime lab was so primitive that they sent everything that needed to be analyzed or tested to the state lab, and the expense of bringing it up-to-date would be astronomical. Mikey Burns would never allow it. Even if he would, the county couldn’t afford it. Supposedly, Burns had someone working on a federal grant proposal that would help out with funding, but Rhodes hadn’t seen anything to prove it.
“That ain’t it,” Lawton said. “You’re gettin’ colder.”
Hack turned and looked at Lawton, who was overstepping his authority in the game. As the dispatcher, Hack was the official purveyor of information, and he didn’t like it when Lawton tried to cut in.
“It’s the Web site,” Rhodes said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Hack looked disappointed, as if the game had ended too soon, and Rhodes knew he was right.
“What did he say about it?” Rhodes asked.
“He said we were about the last department in the state without a Web site. He said he was gonna bring it up at the next meeting of the commissioner’s court. He didn’t say, but you know who he’s gonna blame.”
“The sheriff,” Rhodes said.
“Remember, he didn’t say that.”
He didn’t have to. Burns didn’t much like Rhodes, and Rhodes didn’t really blame him, considering what had happened to James Allen, Burns’s predecessor in the precinct office. Allen had been Rhodes’s friend for years, but that friendship had come to an end, along with Allen’s tenure as a commissioner.
“We have a Web site,” Rhodes said.
“Not accordin’ to Burns. He says it’s just a placeholder that’s been up for a year. He says he wants action.”
“He’s the one who hired the Web site designer,” Rhodes said. “He can’t expect us to do the job ourselves.”
“He says you’re responsible for seein’ that the job’s done, and done right. He says—”
Rhodes didn’t want to hear any more about what Burns had said. “The next time he calls, just tell him we have other things to worry about.”
“He’s not gonna call back. He wants to see you in his office today.”
Having already taken a little chewing out from the county judge, Rhodes wasn’t in the mood to talk to Burns. However, since Terry Crawford had been killed in Burns’s precinct, and since Burns liked to know what was going on in his territory, Rhodes thought it would be a good idea to keep him informed. Besides, Burns held the purse strings. There was no use in antagonizing him any more than necessary.
“All right, I’ll go talk to him,” Rhodes said. “Give me a call if Ruth comes in. I want to talk to her as soon as she’s finished with the crime scene.”
“You tell Miz Wilkie we said hey,” Lawton said as Rhodes started for the door.
Mrs. Wilkie had been Allen’s secretary, and now she worked for Burns. At one time, she’d set her cap for Rhodes, but he’d married Ivy Daniel instead. Mrs. Wilkie had never quite forgiven him.
“She’s a widow,” Rhodes said to Lawton. “Maybe I could fix you two up.”
For once, Lawton didn’t have anything to say in reply. Hack was still laughing when Rhodes left.
A backhoe sat in front of the precinct building, but the rest of the equipment was in the back in covered parking bays. The building itself was really just a big metal shed and workshop, with an office in front.
Mrs. Wilkie gave Rhodes a short nod when he came in. She typed a few more words at her computer and then said, “Good afternoon, Sheriff.”
She was a formidable woman, but not one who’d ever done any work outside her home. Even after her husband had died, she’d remained a homemaker. After Rhodes had married Ivy, however, she had tried to change, and she’d been quite successful. A few years ago, Rhodes wouldn’t have been able even to imagine her sitting at a typewriter, much less a computer.
“Good afternoon,” he said. He thought it would be best if he didn’t mention fixing her up with Lawton. “Is Commissioner Burns in?”
“Yes, and he’s expecting you.” Mrs. Wilkie smiled, as if she was pleased to think that Rhodes was being called on the carpet. “You can go right on in.”
Rhodes went through the hollow-core door and into Burns’s office. Burns sat at his desk, reading something on a piece of paper. He was balding, and the hair around the crown of his head was white. His eyes were blue, and he was always smiling, even when he was about to read the riot act to someone. He wore an aloha shirt, as he always did in the office. The one today was red, with yellow and green flowers.
For about half a minute, Burns continued to read, or to pretend to. Then he put down the paper and told Rhodes to have a seat.
Rhodes sat in a hard-bottomed chair across from Burns’s desk while Burns fumbled through some more papers. Burns wasn’t one of those men who kept a clean desk. Papers lay scattered all over. Some were folded, some were flat, and a couple were wadded into balls.
“Here we are,” Burns said, pulling the piece he was looking for from under a small stack. “Let’s talk about that Web site your department was supposed to have up and running”—he laid the paper down and put his finger at a point near the middle of it—“six months ago.”
At least he didn’t waste any time getting to the point, Rhodes thought.
“Melanie Muller’s the one who was supposed to get it up and running,” Rhodes said. “Not me.”
“Don’t go trying to shift the blame,” Burns replied, raising his finger from the paper and pointing it at Rhodes. “You’re the one responsible.”
Rhodes didn’t like people who pointed their fingers at him. He said, “You hired her.”
Burns saw the way Rhodes was looking at him and lowered his hand. “Mel Muller’s an expert at building Web sites. The best in Blacklin County.”
Probably the only one in the county, Rhodes thought. “Maybe she’s too busy to do our Web site. I gave her all the information and photographs long ago.”
“Then you’d better check with her and see why she hasn’t done it,” Burns said.
Rhodes wondered why it was his job to do that, but he didn’t want to antagonize Burns. He said he’d do it.
“And do it soon,” Burns said. “We’re lagging behind every county in the state, and I want us to have a sharp-looking Internet presence. Second to none.”
Rhodes wondered if the words Internet presence had ever been spoken in a Blacklin County precinct barn before. He doubted it. He was about to tell Burns that he had a few other things he had to work on, including a possible homicide, but the commissioner didn’t give him a chance.
“There’s something else that’s worrying me,” Burns said. “I believe Judge Parry has already talked to you about it.”
Rhodes nodded. “We had a meeting this morning.”
“Then you know that some college professor’s been causing trouble.”
“Benton’s his name,” Rhodes said, “and he hasn’t been causing any trouble. Someone has, though. Have you heard about Terry Crawford?”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead,” Rhodes said. “Somebody killed him. Or maybe he killed himself. It happened late this morning.”
Burns leaned forward. “Why wasn’t I told?”
“Because it’s not your job to enforce the law here. Anyway, I’m telling you now.”
“Whatever happens in my precinct is my concern. If somebody’s been murdered because of your carelessness, then I want to know about it. That troublemaker—Benton—lives near the Crawfords. Did he have anything to do with it?”
“Deputy Grady is going over the crime scene now,” Rhodes said, letting the remark about carelessness pass. “We don’t know what hap
pened or who might have been involved.”
“I’ll bet it was that Benton fella. He’s a smart-ass, nosing around and asking questions all the time. That kind is always trouble.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Rhodes said, standing up. “I know you’d want me to take care of the investigation into Terry Crawford’s death before anything else. You might want to give Ms. Muller a call.”
Burns stood up, too. He looked uncomfortable. “That’s going to be up to you.”
Rhodes didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He just stood there looking at Burns.
Burns looked away after a second or two.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll admit it. Mel’s a little temperamental. She thinks she knows more than anybody else, and in this case, she does. She’s a real prima donna. I don’t think I can deal with her.”
“But you recommended her.”
“Because she’s the best at what she does. She understands a computer better than anybody I’ve ever met. Being good with computers is a handy skill to have, but it can be a problem. Those creative types are always trouble, whether they’re into painting or computers or music. Anything like that.”
Rhodes grinned. “Dr. Benton plays guitar and writes his own songs.”
Rhodes knew he shouldn’t have said it, but he couldn’t resist.
“I might have known,” Burns said.
Chapter 6
RHODES WAS ON HIS WAY TO MELANIE MULLER’S HOUSE WHEN Hack called him on the radio.
“Ruth says you better get out to the Crawford place. She’s got some things to show you.”
“What things?” Rhodes asked.
“She didn’t say,” Hack told him.
Hack always wanted to be in the know, and Rhodes could hear the frustration in his voice.
“She probably didn’t want it heard on the radio. Tell her I’ll go right on out there.”
Instead of going to visit Muller, Rhodes turned back toward the road to Obert. He would check on the Web site later—if he got around to it.
Ruth Grady was waiting at the well when Rhodes arrived. He left the car and went to meet her.
“What do you have?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, it wasn’t suicide. I didn’t find any sign of a weapon.”
Rhodes hadn’t thought she would. Terry wasn’t the suicidal type.
“I don’t think Terry was shot down there where you found him,” Ruth said. “Look.”
She showed Rhodes a couple of spots in the dirt on the opposite side of the well. “I’m sure that’s blood. I’ve taken some samples so we can compare it to Terry’s. Now, look over here.”
She led Rhodes to the trail through the grass. “I found a few more blood spots along the way. Luckily, we didn’t step on them. I think that whoever shot Terry did it up here, maybe even in the house, but Terry got away. We won’t find any blood close to the house because of the explosion and fire, though.”
They wouldn’t find any tracks that would help them, either. The ground had been too dry before the fire, and now that it was soaked, Ruth and Rhodes were the only ones who’d walked on it.
“Nobody followed Terry,” Ruth said.
“How can you tell?”
“The path through the grass isn’t trampled down enough. You and I followed along where Terry had gone and didn’t get off the track, but if someone had been chasing him, he wouldn’t have been so careful.”
She and Rhodes looked at the trail again, and Rhodes had to agree with her.
“Did you find any ejected cartridges?” he asked.
“No. The killer either used a revolver or picked up the brass. Or maybe any brass he left was destroyed in the explosion. That’s assuming that Terry was shot in the mobile home.”
Rhodes wondered if that had been the case. If it was, why had the killer let Terry get away?
“Did you find anything else?”
“I didn’t find any of the spent bullets. There might be one in Terry, but I don’t know if that will help us any.”
Rhodes would check with Dr. White after the autopsy about the bullets. He said, “And that’s it? Nothing to help us find out who shot Terry?”
“You mean did Terry write the killer’s name in the dirt before he died?”
“It would have been thoughtful of him,” Rhodes said.
“How many times has that ever happened, that you know of?”
“I can’t think of any.”
“Well, this won’t be the first time it’s happened, either. Sorry about that.”
“Did you find anything at all that might help?”
“You’re talking about clues, right?”
“A clue would be nice.”
“Nothing like that,” Ruth said. “But I did find something interesting.”
She’s getting as bad as Hack and Lawton, Rhodes thought.
“Were you planning to tell me about it?”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”
They were standing near the spot where Rhodes had found Terry’s body, and Ruth headed off to the right, toward the copse of trees.
“How far are we going?” Rhodes asked.
“Not far. Just inside the trees.”
Rhodes should have known that Ruth would do a thorough investigation of the area. She hadn’t stopped at Terry’s body, but had gone over the whole place.
Sweat ran down Rhodes’s sides under his shirt as they walked. Earlier in the day, he’d felt a little breeze, but there was no wind at all now. The dry grass and leaves were as still as if they’d been frozen stiff.
The woods were thicker than Rhodes had thought. The elms, oaks, pecans, and hackberries grew crowded together and made it hard to see much past the first line of them. Rhodes couldn’t see anything that looked unusual or out of the ordinary.
As they walked, Rhodes asked, “What do you think about C. P. Benton?”
Ruth stopped abruptly. Rhodes stopped beside her.
“Why would I think about him?” she said.
Rhodes thought she might be blushing, but the redness of her face could have been just a result of the hot weather.
“I meant, what kind of person do you think he is,” Rhodes told her. “Judge Parry thinks he’s a troublemaker.”
“He was really interested in the academy,” Ruth said. “He’s smart and kind of … odd.”
“He seems interested in you,” Rhodes said.
Ruth looked at him and he said, “It’s not really any of my business.”
“What do you mean by ‘interested’?”
“You know.” Rhodes wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Like he might want to have a date with you.”
“We’d better check out the woods,” Ruth said. She started forward. “It’s getting late.”
Rhodes stayed beside her. “Right. What are we looking for?”
“It’s over here,” Ruth said.
She pointed to a gap in the trees. A narrow path led to it. Rhodes asked Ruth where the path came from, glad to be able to get back to business and off the topic of C. P. Benton.
“It comes from the top of the hill,” Ruth said, “but it’s pretty well hidden. A lot of it’s in the trees. When the Crawfords came down here, they didn’t want anybody to see them.”
They walked on down to the gap, and Ruth went into the trees a little ahead of Rhodes, who smelled something strange but somehow familiar.
“There it is,” Ruth said.
About fifteen yards ahead of them was a shed that covered a moonshine still.
Rhodes liked to watch old movies, usually awful ones, like Alligator 2: The Mutation. But now and then he’d watch something like Thunder Road, which the sight of the still immediately brought to mind. The daddy made the whiskey and the son drove the load, or something like that, according to the song that Robert Mitchum sang.
The Crawfords’ still wasn’t a big one, but it would make enough to keep their customers satisfied. Maybe about twenty ga
llons at a time. A copper boiler sat atop a brick furnace. Tubing ran from the top of it, coiling around and ending where a barrel or tub would have caught the finished product. The contraption was covered by the shed, which was concealed from the road by the trees and some camouflage netting that was strung over it. A couple of empty mash barrels stood nearby.
“Good grief,” Rhodes said.
“It’s a still,” Ruth said. “Isn’t it?”
Ruth was a good bit younger than Rhodes, and she’d probably never seen a still before, maybe not even a picture of one. Rhodes hadn’t seen one in years himself.
“It’s a still,” he said. “No doubt about it.”
“But what’s it doing here?”
“You mean on this particular spot? They’d want it close to the creek so they could get the water, and they’d want it in the trees to keep it hidden.”
“I meant why is it here at all? Do people still drink moonshine whiskey?”
“Sure they do,” Rhodes said, going on to explain the demand for it.
Blacklin County was dry in the sense that only beer and wine could be sold there. People who wanted the hard stuff had to drive a few miles to another county, and there were some who might not like to drive that far. Others would believe that ’shine was superior to any commercial brew. Some might even drink it because it had more of a kick.
The superiority was what appealed to a wider market. Sales of ’shine in the cities around the state had been booming in a couple of different strata of society. High rollers from the old-money families liked to buy it to show off for their friends at parties. People with new money, mostly in some area of the entertainment business, liked the novelty of it. They were willing to pay a premium for the good stuff.
“So there would be a good market,” Ruth said, “if you could get the whiskey to them.”
“I don’t think the Crawfords could do that,” Rhodes said. “They’re small-time, and so’s this still. They could sell some product here in the county, though, which explains the cars that C. P. Benton saw around here.”
“They didn’t come here for meth,” Ruth said. “They were looking for another kind of drug.”
“That’s right, and it explains why the Crawford boys didn’t look like meth users themselves.”