Too Late to Die

by Bill Crider

  Elmer crushed the thin metal can, and beer spewed up and over his hands, spilling on the floor and running under the Redbook that lay nearby. “By damn, Sheriff! Don’t you dare say a thing like that about my Jeanne! She wasn’t seein’ anybody! There wasn’t nobody for her but me! Understand?”

  Rhodes had gotten more of a reaction than he anticipated. “I understand, Elmer. I wasn’t trying to imply something that would make Jeanne look bad. I just thought that if she had a regular visitor, you know, we might have a starting place.”

  Elmer slumped back in the platform rocker in which he sat and reached for another beer. “No visitors,” he said. “No matter what anyone else tells you. No visitors.”

  Rhodes decided to drop the subject for the time being, but it was clearly something that he needed to check up on. He took a different approach. “OK, Elmer, if you say so, it must be true. No visitors. I’ll just have to think about something else. By the way, why were you so late getting home this morning?”

  “Wasn’t so late. Don’t usually get here until around ten or so. Have a little breakfast, talk to the boys. You know. I was at Sally’s this morning.”

  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.

  Chapter 3

  Driving back to Clearview, Rhodes thought about his conversations with Clinton and Barrett. Both men were obviously nervous, both on edge, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Rhodes knew that anyone involved in the investigation of a serious crime was likely to feel nervous. Everyone seemed to feel guilty about something or other, even if it wasn’t something directly or even indirectly related to the crime under investigation. He would trust his instincts and keep on probing, asking questions, talking to anyone involved
in the case, and eventually he’d find out what he wanted to know. He was sure of that.

  He thought about some of the questions he would have to ask as he drove the county car toward Clearview, oblivious of the bluebonnets that grew in state-planned profusion by the side of the road. He was not so wrapped up in his thoughts, however, that he missed the huge sign, done in red, white, and blue, that advertised Ralph Claymore’s candidacy for sheriff. It was firmly affixed to a farmer’s fence. If it had been on public property, Rhodes would have pulled it down.

  When Rhodes got back to the jail, Hack was ready with all the news. “Those two guys that Johnny brought in have walked. Their wives got up their bail money.”

  “I figured on that,” Rhodes said. “We probably don’t have to worry too much about any lawsuit from those two. They’re glad to be gone.”

  “Right. Buddy Reynolds brought in a couple a while ago, by the way.”

  Hack paused. He had a way of wanting Rhodes to draw things out of him.

  “A couple of birds.

  “Birds? What kind of birds?”

  “Lovebirds,” Hack said. “Tried to set up housekeepin’ in the city park. Trouble was, all they had was a quilt. Charged ‘em with adultery.”

  Rhodes laughed. “Buddy always has been a narrow-minded devil. What happened?”

  “Well, it turns out they’re married, but not to each other. So we called the husband and wife and the district judge. The judge told us to release the lovebirds into their spouses’ custody and he’d have them make an appearance before him later.”

  “Where’s Buddy now?”

  “‘We got a call about a wreck over toward Milsby. Buddy’s on the way over to help out the highway patrol. Don’t think it’s a bad one, though. “

  “Good,” Rhodes said. The mention of Milsby had reminded him that he was supposed to appear at a candidates’ forum and cake auction there that night. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to, but he had to be there. Ralph Claymore sure would. “What about Billy Joe?”

  “He seems to be doing OK. Ate a pretty good lunch. Just sits on the cot most of the time, humming to himself.”

  “Any word from the state boys on that shirt of his?”

  “Hell, Sheriff, you know better than that. If we hear within a week, we’ll be doing good.”

  “Good’s not good enough in this case. Give them a call and tell them it’s an emergency. Same with the autopsy on Jeanne Clinton.”

  Hack looked skeptical. “I’ll give it a try,” he said, “but I wouldn’t count on it doin’ any good.”

  “Try anyway,” Rhodes told him. “I’m going over to the house to get ready for that forum tonight. Put any important calls through to me there, but save the routine stuff for Buddy or Bob. Where’s Bob, by the way?”

  “We got a call from some woman out by the rock crusher, says her kid found a pickup stripped and abandoned in the field out behind their house. Might be the one that was stole from Larry Harper night before last.”

  “Who’s going to tow it in?”

  “Five Star.”

  “OK. Tell you what. I want Buddy and Bob to take all the routine stuff. I’ll probably be through at the cake auction before they go off shift, but tell them I’ll be devoting all my time to the Clinton case if I don’t see them.”

  Hack nodded. “Right. Sheriff, I’ll do that for sure.” As Rhodes was leaving, Hack started for the radio.

  Clearview was a town of about eight thousand people, and like any town of that size it had clearly established neighborhoods. Some were new, and the houses in them were large and expensive. A few back yards even had swimming pools in them, and the lawns were kept green and trimmed by black or Chicano yardmen. The people living in these neighborhoods were generally fairly young, many of the men holding some sort of executive position at the cable company or the decorative products factory, both located in the optimistically named “industrial park” area of the town. So far these were the only two industries of any size located there, but the city council members had great hopes for the future.

  There were large and impressive houses in other neighborhoods, too, but these were older homes, huge, two-story stone structures resembling, somewhat, small castles or lavish haciendas. They had been built in the 1920s and 1930s, when Clearview had experienced a minor oil boom. The boom hadn’t lasted for very long, but it had proven quite profitable for some of the landowners at the time. Their descendants lived on in their old homes, quite comfortable, insulated for the most part from the daily life of the community by their money and their social position.

  Quite the reverse was true in the area called “the flats.” Most of the black and brown population lived there in board shacks with hard-packed dirt yards. Their porch roofs sagged, and the yard furniture often consisted of an old automobile seat or a decrepit living-room couch cast off by one of the well-to-do families from the better neighborhoods. Small, ragged children could occasionally be seen sleeping outside on warm nights, sharing the buckled and sprung couch with a dog or a scrawny chicken.

  Sheriff Dan Rhodes lived in none of these areas. He lived instead in an older part of the town that had once been quite respectable but which was now on the way down. Most of the yards were still neatly kept, and there were certainly more and larger trees than in the newer additions to the city’s residential sections, but many of the frame houses needed paint. Some had needed it for quite a while. Some could also have used new roofs, while others displayed wire screens that were rusted with age.

  The house where Rhodes lived was about average for the block on which it was located. White paint on the wooden sides peeled only slightly. The cement sidewalk that ran from the front door to the street was slightly buckled, but no grass grew in the cracks. The shrubs around the house were neatly trimmed. In the front yard, a huge pecan tree shaded the freshly cut lawn.

  Very little of this appearance was due to Rhodes’s own care. He hated yard work and would do almost anything to avoid it. But his daughter seemed to enjoy it, and he was glad she did. He didn’t mind living in a well-kept home. In fact, he liked it, as long as he didn’t have to do too much of the work.

  He parked the county car in the driveway and walked to the front door. It was four o’clock, and Kathy would most likely be at home. Rhodes pushed open the front door and called her name.

  “I’m in the kitchen, Dad,” she answered.

  Rhodes walked back through the living room and a short hall to the kitchen, where his daughter was putting groceries from a sack into a white metal cabinet that stood against the wall next to an equally white refrigerator. She was twenty-three years old, not quite two years away from her college days at the state university in Huntsville where she had taken her degree in elementary education. After graduation she had gotten a job in Clearview to be close to her terminally ill mother, and after Claire Rhodes’s death eighteen months ago Kathy had remained at home to look after her father.

  Rhodes looked affectionately at his only child. Her dark brown hair was slightly windblown, and she had a smudge on her left cheek where she had wiped her hand after setting down the grocery sacks, but Rhodes thought she was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. He wasn’t far from wrong. Kathy’s beauty had made her a real item with the young men of the town, and Rhodes wasn’t sure he liked for her to be dating Johnny Sherman. Not that there was anything wrong with Johnny. It was just that Kathy was a wise and sensitive woman, and Johnny tended to think with his emotions. But maybe two like that could make a good match. Rhodes didn’t really feel equipped to give advice on the subject, and he felt a twinge of unease. If only Claire were still alive . . .

  “What’s the matter, Dad?” Kathy interrupted his thoughts. “Why’re you looking at me with that blank stare?”

  Rhodes gave a rueful laugh. “Sorry, honey. Just woolgathering, I guess. Must be getting old.”

  Kathy walked to her father’s side and gave him a quick hug. “You know better than that. You’re lookin
g younger every day. Why, not two minutes ago you had a call from that nice Mrs. Wilkie.”

  The grin that had formed on Rhodes’s face changed to a frown and he gave a mock groan. “Not again.”

  Mrs. Wilkie was a widow of approximately Rhodes’s age, by her own estimation. By Rhodes’s estimation, she was at least ten years older. Not to mention about twenty pounds heavier, with brassy red hair that looked almost orange in the sun, a color that had never, Rhodes was sure, appeared in nature. Mrs. Wilkie was convinced that a year was a decent period of mourning and that the sheriff had already had a year. Now it was time for him to begin looking for a new wife, preferably herself.

  “Yes, again,” Kathy told him. “She wanted to remind you that tonight was the big night in Milsby.”

  This time Rhodes’s groan was real. Mrs. Wilkie was the one who had asked him to appear tonight, so he had been certain that she would be there. But he’d allowed himself to forget that fact until now.

  “I have too much on my mind today to have to face up to that woman,” he said, rubbing his forehead.

  “Yes,” Kathy said. “I heard about poor Jeanne Clinton on the noon news. Any leads?”

  “Just some suspicious characters. Ralph Claymore is going to chew me up over the whole mess tonight, no doubt about it. Your beau, Johnny Sherman, had the night tour through Thurston and didn’t notice anything wrong in town. Hod Barrett’s store was robbed, too.”

  Kathy put the last can of Green Giant corn in the metal cabinet and closed the door. “Well, he really can’t say too much. It only just happened. No one expects you to solve it immediately. Besides, Mrs. Wilkie will be there to protect you.”

  “Even Mrs. Wilkie might not be able to help me out of this one,” Rhodes said. “Do you have a date tonight?”

  “Yes, Johnny’s coming by and we’re going to the early movie.”

  “Then I’ll take a bath now. I don’t want to be in your way when Johnny gets here. Just be sure not to keep him out past time for his shift to start.”