Too Late to Die dr-1

by Bill Crider

  Chapter 18

  Hack answered, as always. Things were going along just fine, he told Rhodes, except for one little problem. “You remember them hippies?” Hack asked.

  Rhodes remembered them.

  “Well, we got us one. Hair down to his tailbone. Braided kinda nice, though, like Willie Nelson wears his. Beard, too.”

  “You mean. .” Rhodes started to ask.

  “No, I don’t mean the beard’s braided. I just mean he has one. Could braid it, I guess. It’s pretty long. Uses a piece of rope instead of a belt. Don’t even own a shirt, I guess.”

  Hack paused. Rhodes knew he’d come to the point any minute now and didn’t try to hurry him.

  “Seems like he was lettin’ cattle out of the pastures all up and down Highway 11. Some of ‘em went in other pastures, but a lot of ‘em just wandered up and down the road. Some of ‘em wandered up and down the middle of the road.”

  “Any wrecks?” Rhodes asked.

  “Two,” Hack said, “but not bad ones. Killed the cows, of course.”

  “Of course,” Rhodes agreed. In any contest between a cow and an automobile, the cow almost always lost, though the cars were often demolished. Sometimes the passengers died, but apparently not in these cases. “So what’s the problem?”

  “‘You ever try to round up three or four hundred cows and get ‘em separated and back to their rightful owners?”

  “Three or four hundred?” Rhodes didn’t think he’d heard right.

  “Three or four hundred,” Hack repeated. “I guess you wouldn’t be up to herdin’ cows in your condition, would you?”

  “Not hardly,” Rhodes said. “He must have been busy.”

  “Said he didn’t think cows would like bein’ penned up. Thought he’d give ‘em their freedom. He hit every gate he could find for a long way down the road.”

  “How does he like being penned up?” Rhodes asked.

  “Not worth a damn,” Hack said. “But he might as well get used to it. Criminal mischief, I’d call it. He may not see the light for a while.”

  “Billy Joe still there to keep him company?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, no,” Hack said. “County judge found out about him and made us let him go. Said we didn’t have no charges on him and we’d be up the old creek if the ACLU ever found it out. What’s the ACLU?”

  “Don’t worry about it,”‘ Rhodes said. “I doubt we’ll be bothered by them. Listen, Hack, there’s something you’ve got to do.”

  “Just say the word, I’ll do it.”

  “Get over to Johnny’s house and look around for a.30-.30. If there’s one there, take it back to the jail and take the butt plate off, if it has one. Soon as you get it done, give me a call at the hospital.”

  “Won’t take long, Sheriff,” Hack said. “Gimme about an hour.”

  “I won’t be going anywhere for a while,” Rhodes said. “Just take your time.”

  Rhodes had hardly hung up the phone before it rang again. He said hello and then heard the deep voice of Ralph Claymore.

  “I hear you got the fella that killed Jeanne,” Claymore said. “Mighty fine work, I have to say, even if I’m running against you. And you can be sure that I won’t bring up a thing about it being one of your own deputies that did it. When I said I’d run a clean campaign, I meant it. I want you to know that.” Rhodes held the phone silently. “Rhodes? You there, Rhodes?” Claymore asked.

  “I’m here,” Rhodes said, finally. “Who told you that I caught the man that killed Jeanne?”

  “What do you mean, who told me?” Claymore said. “It’s all over town. Everybody knows about it.”

  “Well, everybody just might be wrong,” Rhodes said. “I never told anyone that. They just assumed it.”

  “What do you mean?” Claymore said. His voice sounded suddenly unsure.

  “I mean what I said. Nothing’s been proved yet.”

  “Listen, Rhodes,” Claymore said, “I know what you’ve been doing. I know that deputy of yours has been sneaking around asking questions about me. You’re not going to drag me into this! I won’t stand for it.”

  Well, well, thought Rhodes. Buddy must have been really worried about losing his job to do some investigating on his own. He’d have to speak to him about that. “Calm down,” he told Claymore. “If you don’t have anything to hide, you won’t be in any trouble.”

  “I know it looks bad, Rhodes,” Claymore said, a pleading note finding its way into his voice now. “But you’ve got to believe me.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Rhodes said. Then he hung up and did.

  Hack may have taken his time, but it was less than an hour when he called back. “I done what you told me, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Good,” Rhodes said. “Now look where the butt plate was. Are there any initials carved on the stock there?”

  “Not a thing,” Hack said.

  Rhodes sighed. “OK,” he said. “Hang on to that rifle for a while. Put it somewhere safe in case we need it. I don’t think we will, though.”

  “Something the matter, Sheriff?” Hack asked.

  “No,” Rhodes said. “It’s just that things would have been easier right now if there had been some initials carved on that gun butt. I guess you looked all over the house.”

  “Sure did. I guess I could’ve missed something, but I think if I did you’ll have to do some damage to find it. I didn’t take up any floors or anything like that. You want me to give the place a real goin’ over?”

  “No,” Rhodes told him. “I don’t think you’d find anything if you did. Thanks, Hack.”

  Rhodes hung up. He’d had a bad feeling ever since Johnny had talked to him in the woods, but it could all have been worked out had Hack been able to find the right gun in the house. Since he hadn’t, Rhodes would have to put his mind to work again. He already had a pretty good idea of how the pieces would fit. It didn’t make him happy.

  They let Rhodes leave the hospital the next day, not that they felt very good about it. He didn’t feel too good about it, himself. His ribs felt as if someone were hitting him in the side with a sledge hammer at every step.

  In another way, though, it was a relief to get out of the hospital and back into some real weather. The cold air in there had been making him feel even worse than his ribs. Air-conditioning was all right in moderation, but there was no pleasure in too much of a good thing.

  Besides, he’d hardly been able to sleep at all the previous night. Every time that he dozed off, someone came in to check his blood pressure or to give him a pill or to shine a light in his face to see if he was asleep. It was the light that exasperated him.

  So he’d spoken to Dr. Williams, who had objected to his leaving at first but who had given in when Rhodes threatened to walk out with his gown on and not come back. Williams had cautioned him to take it easy-no strenuous exercise needed. R amp; R was the order of the day. That was all right for Williams to say. He didn’t have an unsolved murder on his hands.

  Kathy picked Rhodes up and drove him home. “I’ve put fresh sheets on your bed,” she said. “You can just get right in bed and watch television. I checked the schedule, and The Searchers is on this afternoon. You can watch that and get a good rest.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Rhodes said, in a lame imitation of John Wayne. “I’m going to eat lunch, and then you’re going to take.me to see the DA. I need to find out if we can go ahead and charge a dead man with murder.”

  Kathy swerved the car to the right, almost running up over the curb and onto a lawn. “I thought you said that Johnny didn’t. .”

  “I said he beat her up, and I think he beat her pretty badly. She could have died as a result, I guess. Anyway, you’re the only one who knows what he said, except for me, and I could have been addled when we talked. I was doped up and might have said anything. Right now, I think Johnny will be charged. If I change my mind later, well, we can worry about that when it happens.”

  “You’ll tell me why, I
guess.”

  “Maybe,” Rhodes said, but she couldn’t get any more out of him.

  The district attorney was a young man with a shock of wild reddish hair that he could never quite get combed down. It made him look even younger than he was, and he always wore navy blue blazers to compensate for it. Rhodes suspected that he’d read a book about “power colors.” Anyway, it seemed to work. He had a good record for convictions.

  Of course they could charge a dead man with murder, he told Rhodes, but since Johnny had confessed it might be easier just to take the whole thing off the books. Was Rhodes sure that the confession was freely given and that Johnny wasn’t just trying to shield anyone else?

  “I didn’t exactly read him his rights, if that’s what you mean,” Rhodes said. “But you’d have to call it a deathbed admission.”

  “Perfectly acceptable,” the DA said, shaking his red hair. Rhodes shook his hand and left.

  At the jail, Hack and Lawton were glad to see Rhodes back. “Not that things have been too tough for us, you understand,” Lawton said.

  “Not a bit,” Hack said. “We may be old, but we’re still able to do this piddlin’ little job.”

  “Course we did have one bad one this morning,” Lawton said.

  Rhodes waited.

  “Case of a parrot in a tree. Kids let it out of its cage, and it flew up in a pecan tree in the yard. Buddy went out there.”

  “Worse than a cat in a tree,” Lawton said. “With a cat, you know it’s not going anywhere, except maybe higher in the tree. Parrots can fly on off.”

  Rhodes admitted that parrots could probably do that. “So how did they get it down?” he asked, knowing that he shouldn’t have.

  “Well,” Hack said, “Buddy didn’t hardly know what to do, so he just stood there lookin’ up at it for a minute, tryin’ to come up with some idea of how to get it down. While he was lookin’, one of the kids came up with a rock and chunked it.”

  Lawton shook his head sadly. “Killed that parrot dead as a hammer,” he said.

  “Got it out of the tree, though,” Hack said. “You got to admit that.”

  “That kid is goin’ to make some team a fine pitcher one of these days,” Lawton said. “You mark my words.”

  Rhodes was just glad it wasn’t Buddy who had thrown the rock. He went out and got in the car, which had been brought back to town. It was time for one more trip to Thurston.

  While he drove, Rhodes thought about what he knew and what he now thought he knew, and he wondered just how much the election meant to him, really. He knew it meant a lot, in a way, but did it mean enough to make him do something he knew wasn’t right?

  It wouldn’t be hard, and it wouldn’t be exactly wrong, either. After all, Ralph Claymore should have come forward immediately when he heard about Jeanne Clinton’s death. Instead, he’d kept quiet and hoped he wouldn’t be found out. Just like any other man would have done, maybe, but no other man was a candidate for sheriff. Hod Barrett and Bill Tomkins had kept quiet as well, but they weren’t running for anything, much less the highest law enforcement job in the county.

  So he could go public, tell what he knew about Claymore, back it up with witnesses, and probably win the election hands down. And if he could prove that Claymore actually had something to do with Jeanne’s death, that would just be the cherry on top of the whipped cream.

  The trouble was that he wanted to win the election because he was the best man. And not just that. He wanted the voters to choose him because he was the best, not just because they had no other choice.

  All in all, there was nothing he could do, he decided, except follow his thoughts and the few facts he had and see where they led him. If Johnny had been telling the truth, hard as that might be for folks around the county to believe, then someone else had killed Jeanne and Mrs. Barrett and Bill Tomkins. And if those last two had seen Claymore’s car at Jeanne’s house, it was certainly possible that a desperate man might want to get them out of the way before they told anyone. How possible? Rhodes thought he would know soon.

  Rhodes got himself a Dr Pepper out of the Coke cooler in Hod Barrett’s store. He wiped the cold water from the bottle with a tissue from the box that Barrett kept nearby for that purpose. While he drank it, he watched Barrett wait on a woman who had gathered up a small order of groceries. When she left, Barrett walked over.

  “You get the man who killed my wife, Sheriff? Was it that deputy of yours?” Hod looked old and tired. Even his spiky red hair seemed limp and bedraggled.

  “I’ll get him,” Rhodes said. “It wasn’t Johnny.”

  “Word’s around, he’s the one killed Jeanne Clinton,” Barrett said.

  “It is, huh?” Rhodes said. “It was Billy Joe that robbed your store, though. I just wanted to let you know. You going to press charges?”

  Barrett shook his head in disgust. “I don’t care about that anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t even matter.”

  “He might try it again,” Rhodes said, “or someone else might find out how easy this place is to get into. Then you’d probably lose a lot more than just beer and a few packages of cigarettes.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Barrett said listlessly. He walked over to his counter to wait on a customer who had come in.

  Rhodes put his empty bottle in a wooden case and went outside. He got in the county car and drove to Elmer Clinton’s house. The chickens were still in the yard, and the car was still parked in its usual spot under the chinaberry tree. Elmer was different, though. He was sitting in a metal lawn chair under the tree instead of inside.

  Rhodes got out of his car. “Haven’t gone back to work, yet? They must have a liberal leave policy at the cable plant.”

  Elmer hardly looked up. “Quit,” he said.

  Rhodes walked over near him and leaned against the car. It was coated with dust and chicken droppings. Rhodes tried to avoid the latter. “You ever do any deer hunting, Elmer?”

  Elmer still didn’t look up. “Some,” he said.

  “I expect you have a.30-.30, then,” Rhodes said.

  “Yeah, I got one in the house somewhere.” Elmer sat with his legs straight and his hands crossed loosely in his lap. He was so still that only his lips moved.

  “Would you be surprised if I told you I thought you had Hod Barrett’s rifle in there?” Rhodes asked.

  Elmer just sat.

  “Why, Elmer?” Rhodes asked. He thought he knew, but he wanted Elmer to tell him.

  Elmer looked up for the first time. His eyes were red and slightly unfocused. He didn’t seem to really be looking at Rhodes, or at anything, except possibly at something only he was able to see. “What you mean, Sheriff?” he finally said.

  “I think you know, Elmer,” Rhodes told him.

  “No. No, I don’t,” Elmer said, dropping his head again.

  Rhodes kicked at a chicken that was pecking near his foot. “I’ll just have to tell you then,” he said. “I was asking why you killed Bill Tomkins and Mrs. Barrett, and I think you know why. But maybe you don’t. I think they talked too much, myself.”

  Elmer stiffened, but he said nothing.

  Rhodes waited a minute, then went on. “Somebody had to stop them, I guess. They were saying things about Jeanne.”

  “A whore,” Elmer said, so softly that Rhodes almost didn’t hear. “Called her a whore, and she was a girl that wouldn’t do wrong for anything. Maybe before she married me, but not since. Never once. She was like an angel on earth.” He shook his head sadly. “Called her a whore.”

  “And Bill Tomkins?” Rhodes prodded.

  Elmer said nothing.

  “He told me things,” Rhodes finally said. “Maybe, he told some others the same things.”

  “Lies,” Elmer said. “All lies. About how people all came to my house at night while I was at the plant, came here to see my wife. How could a man tell a lie like that?” Tears squeezed themselves out from behind Elmer’s eyelids.

  “I guess you know I’m going to have
to take you to the jail,” Rhodes said quietly.

  “What?” Elmer looked up, directly at Rhodes, his eyes wide, the tears running down his cheeks. “Take me to jail? What for?” He seemed genuinely puzzled, as if Rhodes had asked him to factor a binomial equation.

  “For killing those people, Elmer,” Rhodes said. “You’ll have to go to jail for that.”

  The tears continued to run down Elmer’s face. “But they needed killing,” he said. “They were the ones tellin’ the lies. They had to be punished for that. I couldn’t let them go around sayin’ those things about Jeanne. They were lies.”

  “‘Mrs. Barrett was wrong about what Hod was doing over here,” Rhodes said, “but that’s no reason to kill her.”

  “He was never here!” Elmer yelled.

  “Yes. .” Rhodes began, but he never finished the sentence. Elmer Clinton catapulted out of the lawn chair and charged him.

  Rhodes shifted to the side, pain coursing up and down his rib cage, but Elmer managed to grab him and wrestle him to the ground. Elmer was yelling incoherently, and Rhodes was yelling with pain.

  It was probably the pain that saved Rhodes. He was never sure later exactly what happened, but it seemed as if he literally ripped Elmer’s arms from around him, grabbed the other man’s biceps, and stood up. Then he threw him back into the car as hard as he could. It seemed later as if such a feat would have been physically impossible, but it seemed to have happened that way.

  All the air went out of Elmer, and he sagged forward. Rhodes stepped up and tapped him on the jaw. Elmer keeled over in the dirt. A couple of curious chickens came over to see what the matter was. They scratched in the dirt by Elmer’s head as Rhodes tried to get his breath and to fight down the pain that screamed in his body.

  After a few minutes, he could breathe almost normally again. He looked down at Elmer, who was beginning to show signs of recovery, and took out his pistol. He wasn’t going to take any more chances. He’d used bad judgment in just about everything so far.