by Bill Crider
Rhodes said nothing. Barrett clasped his hands and studied them intently. The buzzing of the fly died away as it found a crack in the wall.
After a minute Barrett went on. “Jeanne Clinton came to the store a lot, she was friendly. You know. Not flirting, just friendly. I liked her, and she liked me too, I think. Anyway, it had gotten so that I was taking a walk at night, just to get out of the house. One night I saw the Clintons’ light on.”
“You mean you saw Jeanne’s light on,” Rhodes said. “You knew that Elmer worked at night.”
“This wasn’t that late,” Barrett said. “Elmer was still there. I just went up to the door and knocked. They invited me in and we talked a while. Harmless talk.” He paused again.
“And that’s all there was to it?” Rhodes said.
“Naw, that’s not all. That was all at first, but then I got to waiting a little later to take my walk. After Elmer had gone.”
“How long had this been going on?”
“A few months, that’s all.” Barrett’s voice began to regain its vehemence. “But there was nothing shameful about what I did there, Sheriff. Jeanne Clinton was a fine girl, not the kind to do anything wrong. Sure, she let me in after her husband had left, but all we ever did was talk. She had a way of talking that made me forget what was wrong at home; she made me laugh.”
Rhodes was skeptical. “Did Elmer know you were visiting over there after he went to work?”
“Probably not,” Barrett said, quiet again. “We weren’t doin’ anything wrong, but he might not have understood that. There was no harm in him not knowing.”
Rhodes had several doubts about that, but he had another question to ask. “How about the night she was killed, Hod?”
“I swear to God, Sheriff, I had nothing to do with that! I’ve told you the truth. Surely you couldn’t believe that I . . .”
“I’m not saying what I believe or don’t believe, Hod. What I want you to tell me is if you were over at the Clintons’ house the night she was killed.”
Barrett’s answer was interrupted by a voice calling from the main part of the store. “Hod! You better get out here. You got customers climbin’ the walls! Some of ‘em want to check out!”
Rhodes walked around the toilet tissue boxes and stuck his head out the storeroom door. “He’ll be out in just a minute, folks. Hod’s store got robbed the other night, and I have to conduct an investigation.”‘ He went back to where Barrett sat on the pineapple.
“Well, Hod?”
Barrett nodded wearily. “Yeah, Sheriff. Yeah. I was there.”
He’d gone over about twelve-thirty, maybe a little earlier, made the usual jokes with Jeanne about his insomnia (the reason he gave for being out walking so late; he’d never told the real one), had a soft drink, and walked back home.
“That’s all it was, Sheriff. That’s all it ever amounted to. We’d just talk, have a Coke, and I’d go home. I never laid a hand on her, never.”
“And your wife knew about-this?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been sleeping in the spare bedroom for so long, I don’t even know if she was awake. She goes to bed and reads her Bible and turns off the light pretty early. I think she’s been asleep when I’ve left the house.”
Rhodes thought for a minute. “All right, Hod. You go on out there and wait on your customers. I haven’t got any reason to hold you now. Just don’t think about making any trips to Mexico in the near future.”
Barrett got up and started out of the storeroom. “I’m not going anywhere, Sheriff. But I didn’t kill Jeanne. And I didn’t rob my own store. You forget that there was more than one crime here in Thurston that night?”
“No, Hod, I haven’t forgotten. And if you’re thinking that there might be a connection between them, you may be thinking right. We’ll see. I may be slow, but I usually get the job done.”
Barrett had recovered some of his antagonism. “Save that for the campaign speeches,” he said. “I go by results, myself.”
So do I, thought Rhodes, so do I. I just wish I had some.
It was shortly after noon when Rhodes got back to Clearview, so he drove by his house for a sandwich and a glass of milk. Attached to the door of the refrigerator by a magnet that looked something like a pregnant ladybug with red wings and a black head was a note from Kathy, written in her precisely formed characters:
“Ivy Daniels called this morning before I left for school. She wants you to call her back when you get a chance. She didn’t leave any other message. Think she wants a date?”
There was a phone number at the end.
Rhodes smiled at his daughter’s question. It was hardly likely that Ivy Daniels wanted a date with him. She probably had a busy enough social life without having to look for men on her own.
He wondered what she did want, though. Maybe it had something to do with what had happened at Milsby last night.
Rhodes opened the refrigerator and got out a plastic jug of low-fat milk, a package of thin-sliced bologna, and a jar of Gulden’s mustard. He’d hoped for a slice of cheese, but there was none in the usual spot. Kathy had forgotten to buy it. He made a sandwich with whole wheat bread and poured a tall glass of the milk.
After he ate, he would call Ivy Daniels.
Chapter 6
After Ivy Daniels’s husband had died in an automobile accident in another state, she’d immediately found a job. The husband had been a salesman of farm implements, had earned a good salary, and had been well insured; but Ivy was not the type of woman to sit around the house and live off insurance payments. She had an active mind and wanted to feel useful, which was also why she was running for justice of the peace.
Finding a job had been easy. She had happened to remark to Stan Pence, the owner of the independent insurance agency who had handled her husband’s policies, that she would like to go to work. Pence, who had been looking for a second secretary, hired her virtually on the spot. Ivy had been working for Pence for three years, and he secretly hoped that she would lose her political race. He would have a very hard time finding someone to replace her, because her efficiency and quick intelligence had made her almost indispensable to his office.
The office was where Rhodes reached her after he finished his lunchtime sandwich. “My daughter left a note asking me to call,” he explained after the first secretary had put him through to Ivy.
“Yes,” she said. “I . . . I don’t really know how to put this, Sheriff, but it’s related to what happened at the forum last night.”
There was a pause.
“Well,” Rhodes said, “sometimes it’s best just to come right out and say what’s on your mind.”
“That’s true, but since I called earlier, I’ve thought it over. It’s not something I’d like to discuss on the phone. “
What do you know? thought Rhodes. Maybe she does want a date after all. But he didn’t say it. “If that’s the case, maybe we could get together after you get off work,” he said, and stopped. He found himself almost embarrassed. It had been quite a while since he had talked to a woman about meeting him after work. In fact, he’d never done it. The idea of the date began to grow in his mind, and he found himself feeling more and more like an adolescent. He glanced down to make sure that he wasn’t digging his toe into the rug. Why should a simple conversation with Ivy Daniels affect him this way?
He ended the awkward silence by saying, somewhat to his surprise, “I could pick you up about seven. We could have dinner.”
“‘Why that’s a very nice idea, Sheriff,” Ivy Daniels said brightly. It was clear that she was a little surprised herself.
“Don’t dress up,” Rhodes said quickly. “I mean, don’t. . .”
“I understand, Sheriff. A man in your position wouldn’t have time for anything fancy. “
“Uh, it’s not that. It’s, well, never mind. We’ll go to Jeoff’s. Is that all right?”
“That would be very nice. I’ll see you at seven, then.”
“Yes, seven,�
�� Rhodes repeated and hung up the phone. He wondered what he might be getting himself into.
At the jail that afternoon, Hack had the report on the bloodstains on Billy Joe Byron’s shirt. “Type A,” he said. “Same type as Jeanne Clinton.”
“And Billy Joe?” Rhodes asked.
“Plain old type O, is what our records show.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Rhodes said. He sat down in a rickety desk chair. There might be all kinds of good reasons why Billy Joe had type A blood on his shirt, or there might not. Could Billy Joe be a murderer? To Rhodes it just didn’t seem possible. Billy Joe might peep in a window, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“What do you think, Hack?” he asked.
“I ain’t the sheriff,” Hack said. “I don’t get paid enough to do any thinkin’.”
“Pretend you’re getting a bonus this year.”
“In that case, I might think that it just don’t seem possible that a harmless sort of a fella like Billy Joe could murder somebody like Jeanne Clinton. Seems like if somebody like her told him to go away and leave her alone, he’d just go away and not say another word.”
Rhodes was glad to see that his own instincts weren’t too far out of line with Hack’s. “I feel exactly the same way,” he said, “but the same we better hang on to Billy Joe for
a few days. I don’t believe any lawyer is going to come around worrying about his civil rights, and it’s barely possible that he’s guilty. I wish he’d talk to us, but if he won’t I’ll just keep looking for answers somewhere else.”
“Fine with me,” said Hack. “Another thing. Buddy came in and told me to let you know that as far as he can establish there’s no connection a’tall between Terry Wayne and Ralph Claymore.”
Rhodes shook his head. “OK, but tell him to keep on looking. Something funny’s going on there.”
“Right,” Hack said, picking up a slip of paper from in front of his radio. “Now there’s a few other things I need to ask you about.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Ella Conner.”
Rhodes groaned. “The ducks?”
“You guessed it,” Hack said, smiling. Ella Conner started calling every spring, as regular as the change of season, about her neighbor’s ducks, which she felt were illegally harvesting her garden spot.
“Did you send anybody around?” Rhodes asked.
“Sent Buddy. He run the ducks back home. Ella wanted him to shoot one or two of them for what Buddy says she called an ‘object lesson.’”
“Lord, I hope Buddy had more sense than to do something like that.”
“He did, but if I was you I wouldn’t be countin’ on Ella’s vote this time around. Old Man Evans’s either, come to that. He was pretty mad about Buddy chasin’ his ducks.” At the thought of the deputy pursuing the criminal ducks, Hack laughed aloud.
Rhodes tried to manage a smile, but he wasn’t able. It was almost too much. Murder wasn’t bad enough. Now he’d lost two votes because of ducks in Ella Conner’s garden spot.
“Then there’s this guy upstairs,” Hack said.
“What guy upstairs?”
“The Polish refugee,” Hack said, clearly enjoying himself.
“You’re kidding,” Rhodes said. He was actually surprised. This was a new one on him.
“Not kidding a bit,” Hack said. “Picked him up out on 77, walking the median stripe. What do they drink over there in Poland? Besides water, I mean?”
“Vodka, these days,” Rhodes told him.
“Yeah. Well, this guy must have drunk about ten bottles of the stuff. “
“Can he speak English?”
“Some. Enough to say he’s a Polish refugee. Why, you goin’ to question him?”
“I thought I might,” Rhodes said.
“Wouldn’t do you no good right now,” Hack said. “He’s snorin’ so loud, you couldn’t hear what he said.”
“We’ll check him out later then,” Rhodes said. He changed the subject. “Tell me, Hack. What do you know about Bill Tomkins?”
Hack thought for a second or two. “He’s the fella found Jeanne Clinton’s body, right?”
“Right. You know much about him?”
“Not a lot, and that’s the truth. I don’t know too many folks over in Thurston. I hear he don’t work for a livin’, though. Supposed to have some kind of a disability pension from the government.”
Rhodes thought about Tomkins and his breathing problem. Maybe that was the reason for the pension.
“Ever hear anything about him and Jeanne?”
“Not a thing, and from all I’ve heard lately that Jeanne was a mighty nice girl. Maybe a little wild when she was younger, but not a bit of it anymore. Marryin’ old Elmer seems to have calmed her down a whole lot. Anything about her and Bill Tomkins, well, I expect you’d have to ask around over in Thurston for something like that.”
“That’s what I plan to be doing,” Rhodes said. But that will have to wait until tomorrow, he thought. He already had his evening planned; even a good sheriff couldn’t devote his whole life to the job.
He didn’t mention his meeting with Ivy Daniels to Hack. Hack might interpret it as a date instead of as a meeting with an informant.
That evening, Kathy was careful not to make any remarks about her father’s plans. She was privately of the mind that it was time he started having a little social life, but that wasn’t the kind of thing he would like to have her say.
Rhodes bathed and dressed in a sport shirt and slacks. It felt strange not to have on his badge and twill uniform. It felt even stranger not to have his .38 caliber Police Special hanging on his belt. He didn’t particularly like to carry it, but people expected it of him, so he did. Now, without it, he felt slightly unbalanced, as if he might tip over backwards and fall.
“I understand that Jeoff’s is a pretty fancy place,” he said to Kathy, who was sitting in the kitchen at the round oak table with a stack of ruled papers in front of her.
Kathy put down her red pen, moved the papers aside, and looked at her father. “‘Fancy for Clearview, maybe,” she said. “That’s about all you can say for it. But the food’s not bad.”
“You can get wine there,” Rhodes said, half questioningly.
“Yes, but you have to be a member of their private ‘club.’ That just means that you pay the waitress a five-dollar fee, and she gives you a card with your name and membership number on it. Then you can order wine anytime you go for a year.”
“I don’t know very much about ordering wine.”
“Just ask for the house wine. It’s not bad, and you can get it by the glass instead of by the bottle.”
“You’ve been there, I take it.” Rhodes was not really surprised.
“Sure. Where else is there to go if you want a good meal and a pleasant atmosphere?” Kathy picked up her pen and started looking over the top paper. “It’s very popular.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m just not used to this sort of thing,” Rhodes said ruefully. “I’m too old to be taking a strange woman out to dinner.” He glanced down at his stomach and was dismayed that he couldn’t quite see his belt buckle. “I don’t know why I didn’t just go by her house and see what she wanted to say. Sometimes I just talk before I think about what I’m getting myself into.”
Kathy stood up and kissed her father on the cheek. “Don’t be silly. It’ll do you good to get away from your problems and have a nice dinner with an attractive woman.”
Rhodes had to laugh. “It almost seems as if you’ll be glad to get rid of me. You sound like you want me out of the house.”
“That’s not it at all. Just enjoy yourself and don’t worry so much.”
“I’ll try,” Rhodes said, not making any promises.
Jeoff’s was on a side street just off a main thoroughfare. It was actually a remodeled private home, with tables in the various rooms. There was a green, tree-shaded yard, which was crossed by a sidewalk. To obtain entrance, customers had to ring the door
bell, which was answered by a young waitress dressed as if she might be about to set off for school. It was all a little too cute for Rhodes’s taste, but Ivy Daniels seemed to like it.
“Look at all the plants,” she said as Rhodes held her chair for her. “They’ve really done a nice job with them.”
It was true. The room in which they had been seated looked to Rhodes like a miniature jungle. The walls were hung with baskets of green plants, and not a corner was bare of something growing. In fact, the room was so small that there was room only for the one table and all the plants. Rhodes liked the privacy, but he wasn’t overly fond of the plants.
“They’re all right,” he said. “It’s the skylight that does it.” In remodeling the house, the restaurant owners had installed a sizeable skylight in each of the dining rooms.
Rhodes walked around the table to his own seat, brushing a Boston fern with his leg. The waitress came in, and he paid her five dollars to join the ‘club.’
“What wine can I get you?” the waitress asked, after Rhodes had slipped his new identification card into his billfold.
“What are the house wines?” Rhodes asked, feeling sophisticated.
“We have a white wine and a rosé,” the waitress said. “Which would you prefer, Ivy?” Rhodes asked. They had decided on first names while driving over.
“The rosé, please,” she said.
“I’ll have the same,” Rhodes said.
The waitress left them with menus, and Rhodes glanced covertly at Ivy while choosing his meal. He had to admit that he liked what he saw: a good, strong face, not exactly pretty, but certainly handsome. Her hair was short and seemed to accent her features in just the right way, softening them slightly. Her eyes were blue, and her teeth were even and straight.
But what does it matter? Rhodes thought. I’m not really interested. “What looks good to you?” he asked.