by Bill Crider
Everyone found a chair, and soon they were all chatting like old friends. Rhodes asked Benton how it was that a college math teacher came to be singing in a roadhouse.
“I just do it for fun,” Benton said. “I’m a versatile guy. Did you ever hear of Tom Lehrer? He taught math at Harvard, but he was famous for his satirical musical recordings.”
Rhodes said he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of Lehrer.
“Well, that was a long time ago,” Benton said. “I have a CD of his material, though.”
“You’d be better off listening to the Kingston Trio,” Schwartz said. “Now that’s what I call music.”
“I can do ‘Scotch and Soda,’” Benton told him, and Schwartz recoiled in mock horror, his dark eyes large behind the lenses of his glasses.
“Don’t,” he said. “Just don’t. No one should sing that except Bob Shane.”
Benton looked hurt, as if he thought his voice was just as good as anybody’s.
Jackee changed the subject. She said, “Have you caught Terry Crawford’s killer?”
“No,” Rhodes said, “but it’s early yet. I have a few ideas.”
“Anything you can share?”
“No, not now.”
“Are we suspects?” Schwartz asked. “You can say so. It won’t hurt our feelings.”
“You’re suspects,” Rhodes said.
Schwartz looked crestfallen, as if his feelings were hurt.
“I’m sure you can account for your whereabouts this morning,” Rhodes said to cheer him up. “So you have nothing to worry about.”
Schwartz looked at Jackee, who looked at the floor.
“You can account for your whereabouts, can’t you?” Rhodes said.
“Sure, sure,” Schwartz said. “We were at the store. Isn’t that right, Seepy?”
Seepy? Rhodes thought. Then he got it. C. P. had become Seepy.
Benton’s eyes betrayed his confusion. “I’m sure you were,” he said. “I have to go do my closing set now.”
He stood up and went back to the stage.
“I hope he doesn’t try to do any Kingston Trio songs,” Schwartz said. “He’d screw them up.”
“He didn’t seem so sure you were at your store this morning,” Rhodes said.
“We only asked him because we were there together,” Jackee said. “Max and me, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Schwartz said. “We’d just be alibiing each other. Being a lawyer, I know how much you lawmen like that kind of thing.”
“Better than no alibi at all,” Rhodes said.
“It sure is. Well, I guess we’d better be going. Nice to see you, Sheriff. Nice to meet you, Ivy.”
Schwartz and Jackee left, and Ivy said, “They’re a nice couple.”
“I don’t trust them,” Rhodes said, though it was hard to think of either of them as killers.
“What you mean is, you don’t believe them. There’s a difference.”
“Not much of one,” Rhodes said.
Chapter 11
RHODES LEFT IVY TO LISTEN TO SEEPY BENTON.
“He can entertain you while I talk to Jerry Kergan.”
“You’re just trying to protect me in case Kergan pulls a gun on you.”
Rhodes laughed. “Nobody’s going to pull a gun on me. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He went into the foyer. Kergan wasn’t at the podium. Instead, the server was standing there, looking bored. He was a young man, probably a student at the college, and Rhodes asked him where Kergan was.
“He went out back to smoke, just like every night.”
The Clearview city council, in a controversial move, had voted to make all restaurants within the city limits comply with a nonsmoking policy. That didn’t sit well with some of the owners, who claimed that it would cost them business, but everyone had eventually gone along with it.
“Through there,” the young man said, pointing to the swinging doors that led to the kitchen.
Rhodes thanked him. He started to go through the doors, but he thought he should pay a visit to the bar first. Two men sat on stools, leaning forward, their elbows resting on the bar. Both of them had beers in front of them as they sat watching an Astros game on a flat-screen TV monitor that hung on the wall behind the bar. According to the box at the top of the screen, the game was in the ninth inning, and the Astros were behind by six runs. So what else was new?
The bartender looked at Rhodes, hopeful that he had another customer, but Rhodes just nodded and went back to the foyer, then over to the swinging doors.
He went through the kitchen, which smelled of both fried food and disinfectant. Rhodes was glad to see that the place appeared relatively clean. The county health inspector would be pleased, too.
He nodded to one of the cooks, who looked vaguely familiar, and went out through the back door. It was dark outside, the only light coming from a quarter moon and a light high on a pole at one end of the building. Rhodes could smell the garbage in the Dumpster.
Kergan stood about ten yards away, leaning back against the wall of the restaurant. Rhodes saw the tip of his cigarette glow red as he drew on it.
The night air was hot and dry, and there was no breeze. Rhodes thought he’d feel pretty much the same if he were to stand inside a furnace. He went over to join Kergan.
“Hello again, Sheriff,” Kergan said. “Did you come out for a smoke?”
“I don’t smoke,” Rhodes said.
“I do.” Kergan held up his right hand, the cigarette resting between his first two fingers. “I know they’re bad for me, but I like the way they taste.”
He took a deep drag and dropped the cigarette to the ground. He mashed it with the toe of his shoe, then picked up the dead butt, walked over to the Dumpster, and raised the lid. The smell of garbage became a little more obvious. He flipped the butt into the Dumpster and dropped the lid with a clang.
“If you didn’t come out here to smoke,” he said, “what did you come for?”
“Conversation,” Rhodes said.
“Well, I’m not much of a talker unless you want to talk about my business. That’s the only thing I know.”
“That’s good, since that’s what I want to talk about.”
“Then I’m your man. What do you want to ask me?”
“Tell me about your liquor license.”
“What?”
Rhodes repeated what he’d said.
“I didn’t think asking that question was in your job description. I’m right with the TABC, if that’s what you’re wondering about. My liquor license is displayed in the bar. You can take a look.”
Kergan pulled a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and shook one out. He put the pack back, stuck the cigarette in his mouth, and lit it with a disposable lighter from a pants pocket. He blew out a plume of smoke and didn’t seem inclined to say any more.
“I’ve heard rumors that you might be selling something other than beer in the bar,” Rhodes said.
“Then the rumors are wrong.”
“Most rumors are. I didn’t see any sign that you were doing anything wrong.”
“That’s because I’m not.” Kergan blew out smoke. “You’re on the wrong track, Sheriff. I’m just a guy trying to get a restaurant business started.”
“You seem to be doing all right.”
“It’s not as good as it looks. I have a lot of overhead. It’s hard to get a start in this business.”
Rhodes knew that. A number of restaurants had started and failed in Clearview over the years, and it was hard to figure why they hadn’t done well while others had.
“Maybe the music will bring in the crowds,” he said.
Kergan laughed. “You call that stuff Benton plays music? I just let Benton sing here because he begged me.”
“He sounded all right to me.”
“That shows what you know. Come back tomorrow night when the Ring-Tail Tooters are here. Now there’s a band.”
Rhodes had never heard of the Tooters. “Ma
ybe I will,” he said.
“You do that,” Kergan said, dismissing Rhodes, who went back inside.
Ivy was at the table, laughing at some line in Benton’s song, but nearly everyone else had left.
“Do you want to hear the rest?” Rhodes asked her.
“Not especially. Let’s go home.”
The parking lot was practically deserted, and Rhodes noticed that it wasn’t much better lighted than the rear of the restaurant had been. While there wasn’t a great deal of petty crime in Clearview, it could be dangerous to park in the farthest corners of the lot if someone decided to try a car jacking or a purse snatching.
Rhodes opened the door of the Edsel for Ivy, then started around to the driver’s side of the car. As he rounded the front of the car, he glanced at the highway and saw a pair of headlights moving fast—too fast, far above the legal speed limit for that stretch of highway.
There wasn’t much Rhodes could do about it. He wasn’t going to get into a high-speed chase in an Edsel that was nearly fifty years old. He hoped one of the deputies on duty would spot the car and ticket the driver, maybe get him off the road.
The headlights slowed, and Rhodes thought the driver must have come to his senses. Then he realized that the driver was going to pull into the restaurant’s parking lot.
Rhodes couldn’t give him a ticket because had hadn’t clocked his speed, but he could give him a little lecture. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but it would make him feel better.
He waited beside his car, holding the door open, and the truck made a turn into the lot. Only when he saw the heavy brush guard did Rhodes realize that it was the same truck that had chased him earlier in the day.
The driver of the truck seemed to recognize him at just about the same time. He cut the wheels, and the truck swerved in Rhodes’s direction, tires squealing on the asphalt.
The headlights of the oncoming truck shone in Rhodes’s eyes, and he couldn’t see who was behind the dark windshield, which was starred where the bullet from Rhodes’s pistol had gone through it that afternoon.
This time, there was nowhere for Rhodes to run. The wall of the restaurant was behind him, and the car was on one side. If he moved to the other side, the truck would smash him up against the wall like a bug.
Rhodes jumped into the Edsel. He grabbed for the handle to pull the door shut behind him, but he missed.
At the last second the truck turned aside, as if the driver had decided he didn’t want to crash into the wall. The back of the truck slammed into the Edsel’s taillight, knocking the car a quarter turn to the right and throwing Rhodes hard against the steering wheel. Ivy had put on her seat belt already, so she didn’t hit the dashboard.
Rhodes fumbled at his ankle holster. The Velco made a ripping sound, and he had the pistol in his hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I guess,” Ivy replied.
She sounded breathless. Rhodes was breathless, too, and his chest hurt. He hoped it was just bruised and that he didn’t have any cracked ribs. He stepped out of the car and hobbled off after the truck, which had scraped along the side of the building and turned the corner.
“Where are you going?” Ivy asked.
“After that truck,” Rhodes told her, nearly tripping on the truck’s rearview mirror, which was lying where it had fallen after being knocked off by the wall. He shoved the mirror aside and kept going, though it hurt to breathe.
He heard the howl of breaks behind the building, then a crash, followed by the grinding screech of steel on concrete. The truck’s engine roared.
Rhodes got to the back of the restaurant, and, forgetting everything he’d ever learned, known, and experienced, made the turn around the corner without first having a look.
The truck was coming straight at him, its high beams blazing.
He could have planted his feet, stood his ground, and maybe gotten off one shot before the brush guard hit him. He had a flash of himself spread-eagled on the front of it like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
So he didn’t take the time to shoot. He threw himself to the side, landing on his left shoulder. He rolled over a time or two and wound up on his back.
The big tires hissed by him on the asphalt. The truck squealed around the corner and was gone.
Rhodes lay on his back for a few seconds, making sure that he could still breathe. Now his shoulder hurt as much as his chest, but at least his lungs worked. That was bound to be a good sign.
He sat up and noticed that he was still holding his pistol. Another good sign. A lawman doesn’t let go of his weapon.
“Can you stand up?” Ivy asked.
She stood in front of him, looking down. Rhodes hadn’t noticed her arrival.
“I’m fine,” he said, and with a little effort he got to his feet. He stuck the pistol in his pocket and tried to brush himself off.
“You don’t look fine. What happened back here?”
Rhodes wasn’t sure. He turned to see if Kergan was still around. As he turned, the back door of the restaurant opened and people started to come out to see what all the commotion was about.
Someone screamed. Rhodes didn’t know who it was. He walked to where the Dumpster sat. It had been shoved five or six feet from its original position. Big gouges in the asphalt showed its path.
Kergan was in front of the Dumpster, looking like something that belonged inside it. The truck had hit him, then pushed him against the Dumpster. Kergan had been squashed, but not like a cartoon character. Like a flesh and blood man. Mangled flesh and too much blood. Rhodes was glad for the bad lighting.
Rhodes told everyone to go back inside. Some of the more morbid among them wanted to get a better look at Kergan’s remains, but Rhodes didn’t allow it.
When they tried to push past him anyway, he told them to get back in or he’d arrest them. That did the trick. They left, although reluctantly. Rhodes knew they’d be talking about what they’d seen for weeks. It wasn’t that they were bad people. It was just that violent death had a way of arousing a kind of curiosity in them that they might not even have known was there.
“What are you going to do?” Ivy asked. Her eyes looked stricken.
“Make some calls,” Rhodes told her.
Chapter 12
MUCH LATER, AFTER THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE HAD DECLARED Kergan dead, after the ambulance had taken him away, after the scene had been secured as well as possible, Rhodes walked back around to the front of the restaurant, where Ivy was waiting for him in the Edsel.
Seepy Benton stood beside the car, talking to Ivy. When he saw Rhodes approaching, he said something to Ivy and went to meet Rhodes.
“I’ve been talking to your wife,” he said.
“We trained lawmen tend to notice that kind of thing.”
“I liked talking to her. She’s very nice.”
“I’ve noticed that, too.”
“I don’t blame you for being a little surly. It must be hard to have to deal with dead bodies and murder.”
Rhodes didn’t think he was being surly. He was tired and his chest hurt, but he wasn’t surly.
“Were you too squeamish to come out back and have a look?” he said.
“I don’t like to look at things like that. I’m not squeamish. I’d just rather not.”
Rhodes didn’t blame him.
“You probably didn’t hang around out here just to talk to my nice wife,” Rhodes said.
“No, but I had a good reason. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I was quite a help to the police in the town I used to live in.”
“I believe you mentioned that a time or two in the academy classes,” Rhodes said.
“I did? I don’t remember.”
Rhodes just waited.
“What I was thinking,” Benton said, “was that I might be able to help you out with this murder.”
“It might have been just an accident,” Rhodes said. “The driver was lost, and Kergan got between the truck and the
Dumpster.”
“That’s what I’d say if I were the driver and I got caught, but I don’t believe it. I’ll bet you don’t believe it, either.”
“No,” Rhodes said. “I don’t believe it.”
“And even if it was an accident, it was a hit-and-run. That’s not murder, but it’s not good.”
“No, it’s not good.”
“So I was right. I’m right about being able to help you with this, too.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Rhodes told him.
“That’s because you don’t know the whole story. I have some information that you don’t have.”
It had been a long day, and Rhodes was tired. He didn’t feel like dragging information out of Benton the way he had to drag it out of Hack and Lawton.
“Tell me what it is,” he said.
“One of the things we learned in the academy is that one part of an investigation is learning about the victim’s associates.”
“I’m the sheriff,” Rhodes said. “Remember?”
“So you’d know all that, I guess. I teach math, and sometimes I tend to forget what people know.”
Next, Rhodes thought, I’ll be getting a lecture on the importance of fractions.
“You know that Mr. Kergan’s wife is dead?” Benton said.
Rhodes had heard that. “I know. You mentioned something about associates.”
“That’s right, I did. I’ve been singing here for the last three Fridays, and I’ve seen some of the people who come and go. Some of them don’t even eat here. They just go into Mr. Kergan’s office, along with Mr. Kergan. After awhile, they come back out and leave.”
“What people?”
“I didn’t know all of them, but I knew two of them.”
“And sooner or later you’re probably even going to tell me who they are.”
Benton gave a rueful grin. “I do tend to take my time about telling things. It’s one of my little failings, not that I have many of them. My students mention that one on the evaluations now and then.”
Rhodes wondered what it would take to move Benton along to the point. Something must have shown in his face, because Benton held up his hand as if to ward off a blow.