by Bill Crider
Rhodes tipped his chair back and thought about what Allen had said. “Why didn’t anybody tell me this when Johnny came around about a job?”
“Letting bygones be bygones, I guess you could say. Giving Johnny a chance to show he’d changed.”
“But now we’ve got some people who’re thinking he hasn’t changed, and they’ll be saying that they knew all along he was no good. They’ll be saying they tried all along to keep me from hiring him.” Rhodes sighed. He’d been through things like this before, on a smaller scale. It was a part of his job that he didn’t like, any more than he liked slapping backs and shaking hands, the kind of things that Ralph Claymore was so good at. Maybe Claymore would make a better sheriff than I do, at that, Rhodes thought.
“It won’t be as bad as all that,”‘ Allen said. “At least I hope it won’t. If we can just prove that Johnny didn’t start that fight and that Terry Wayne and his buddy are just two drunks lookin’ to take the county for some money in a false suit, everything will be all right.
“And if we can’t prove that?” Rhodes asked.
“Don’t even think like that, especially out loud,” Allen said. “It’s bad luck.”
Rhodes got out of his chair. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ve got to have a positive attitude. Thanks for talking to me, James.”
Allen stood and put out his hand, which Rhodes shook. “Don’t worry about it,” Allen said. “Everything will work out fine.”
“I know,” Rhodes said as he started for his car. “I won’t worry about it.”
But of course he did.
Chapter 12
The county courthouse had always looked to Rhodes like a smaller version of the Kremlin, but he’d never mentioned the resemblance to anyone. He wasn’t sure there was anyone in Blacklin County who could appreciate the irony. He liked the old building himself, and he hated to think what might happen to it if some of the good citizens of the county started trying to give it a facelift to remove any suspected communist influence.
He walked up the broad walk under the shading pecan trees, up the wide front steps past the usual crowd of courthouse loafers, and through the pneumatic glass doors which were one of the only modern features of the building. They had been added a few years back when the building had been air-conditioned, and Rhodes still regretted both additions—the doors and the air-conditioning. With its thick stone walls and twelve-foot ceilings, the courthouse had always seemed to him cool and comfortable even in the summertime.
His shoe heels struck echoes from the marble floors as he walked down the hall to the stairs. He mounted the stairs, turned left into a corridor much narrower than the main halls, and came to his own private office. Like most sheriffs of Blacklin County, Rhodes spent most of his time either at the jail or on the road. No one ever called the courthouse office without calling the jail first, and no one ever came by the office looking for the sheriff because he was never there. Unless, of course, he wanted to be alone.
Rhodes wanted to be alone. The Terry Wayne business had him worried, and the two murders in Thurston had him even more worried. Allen hadn’t mentioned the murders. After all, there was no real pressure from the murders yet. Jeanne Clinton and Bill Tomkins weren’t from prominent families, so the county fathers weren’t taking any particular interest in them. But Rhodes knew that the murders were being talked about, and they certainly bothered him. He didn’t like for things to happen in his county unless he could take care of them.
He unlocked the door to his office. The top half was of pebbled glass, with the words “County Sheriff” somehow inlaid in gold letters. Rhodes’s name was not on the door, which saved the county the expense of changing glass after elections. That reminded Rhodes of his own prospects in the upcoming election. Obviously two unsolved murders were not helping him, not to mention the Terry Wayne case. Besides, Ralph Claymore was an imposing opponent, and Rhodes felt honor bound not to mention Claymore’s involvement with Jeanne Clinton unless it became apparent that the involvement was more than it seemed at present.
Rhodes walked over to a sagging leather office chair behind a completely bare oak desk. He sank into the chair, leaned back, and put his feet up on the desk top, which was inlaid with scratched and scarred black leather. Probably scarred by a lot of feet propped on it rather than a lot of hard work, Rhodes thought.
He wondered briefly how Ralph Claymore would be at investigating a crime like the murder of Jeanne Clinton. Whereas Rhodes had done most of the work himself, questioning everyone who looked as if he might be involved, Claymore would probably have laid all that kind of thing off on the deputies, preferring to talk to the judge and the commissioners, clapping them on the backs and assuring them that everything was being taken care of. Claymore could be very convincing, with his confident voice and manner. Even if he never caught the killer, he’d have the commissioners believing he had, and the whole thing would blow over in a week or two. By then, everyone would have forgotten all about it. It wasn’t the first time Rhodes had wished he could have a little of Claymore in himself, but he didn’t, and that was that.
Johnny Sherman was another problem. He’d offered to resign, of course, and of course Rhodes had turned him down. One of Rhodes’s many faults was his loyalty to the men who worked for him. If he could take the heat instead of passing it along to them, he took the heat. If he could put himself in as a buffer between them and public opinion, he put himself in. He’d never been sorry in the past, but things were beginning to look different to him this time. There were a number of troubling signs, none of them big enough in themselves to call for Rhodes to change his mind about his policies, but taken together they were certainly beginning to look bothersome.
Rhodes got up from the desk and went back out into the hall. He took some change out of his pocket and headed for the Dr Pepper machine. It was the only machine in town, as far as Rhodes knew, that still held bottled drinks in returnable bottles. There was a rack beside it which held two wooden soft-drink cases partially filled with empties. He put in his change, pushed the button, and picked up his bottle. It was somehow much more satisfying to hold a cool, moisture-beaded bottle than an aluminum can. He opened the bottle and went back to his office.
It was very quiet in the old building, even for a Saturday. Rhodes thought that he might be the only person there. From his office he couldn’t hear the old men loafing around the front door. He took a drink from his Dr Pepper and sat back down in his chair.
Rhodes sat for quite a while, drinking his drink and enjoying the silence. He hardly thought about the various problems that confronted him, at least he hardly thought about them consciously. He thought about his daughter, and he thought about Ivy Daniels, both of whom were much more pleasant to contemplate than murder and assault. Finally he called Hack. There were no problems at the jail, nothing that required the immediate attention of the High Sheriff of Blacklin County.
Rhodes removed his feet from his desk and went home.
Clearview was one of the few towns of any size at all that still had no franchise hamburger stands. No MacDonald’s. No Burger King. No Wendy’s. This was just fine with Rhodes, who did not want something that you had to order by a number or by some funny name. When he went out for a hamburger, he wanted a hamburger—a bun, a meat patty, pickles, mustard, onions, and lettuce—and he wanted to order a hamburger. You could get a hamburger nearly anywhere in Clearview, but Rhodes took Ivy Daniels to the Bluebonnet Cafe because the owner was a friend of his.
“Cafe” was probably too fancy a name for the Bluebonnet, to tell the truth. It was nothing more than a ramshackle wooden building that contained one big room to eat in and a kitchen separated from the room by a high counter. There were no fancy plants, and probably none could have survived the atmosphere of the Bluebonnet, which had a high grease content. Rhodes didn’t mind that, either. A real hamburger was, by definition, a little greasy. There were a lot of old wooden tables and benches—no chairs—scattered around the room. Sev
eral men in working clothes sat at the tables drinking beer from long-necked bottles. They hadn’t bothered to remove their gimme caps.
Everyone looked up when Rhodes and Ivy Daniels entered. One man waved a hand idly, then went back to his beer. “It’s not exactly Jeoff’s, is it?” Rhodes said.
“Not exactly,” Ivy said, but she clearly didn’t care. She walked over to one of the benches. “Let’s sit here. I’ll have a hamburger all the way. Do you want to split an order of fries?”
“Sure,” Rhodes said. He was feeling slightly giddy. He’d decided to bring Ivy to the Bluebonnet as a sort of a test. He didn’t know exactly what he’d been trying to prove, but whatever it was, Ivy had passed without question. She hadn’t even asked him to get salad dressing on her hamburger. She hadn’t even asked him to cut the onions. She was almost too good to be true.
Rhodes walked over to the high counter, which came almost up to his shoulders. “Hey, Sheriff, how you doin’?” the cafe’s owner asked. Lonnie Eslick was a short man with a crew cut. If there hadn’t been a raised platform behind the counter, only his crew cut would have been visible.
“Fine, Lonnie, just fine. Give me two hamburgers all the way and an order of fries.”
“Comin’ right up, Sheriff. I’ll call you,” Eslick said. He disappeared from view as he stepped down off the platform and went back into the kitchen.
Rhodes walked back to the table and sat on the bench across from Ivy Daniels. She grinned at him. “Come here often, Sheriff?” she asked.
He smiled back. “Often enough to know this is the place with the best burgers in Clearview. You said the other night that a hamburger would be fine, so here we are. I hope you weren’t kidding.”
“I wasn’t kidding,” she assured him. “I like a good hamburger as well as anyone. To tell the truth, I’d just as soon have a good burger as that tenderloin.”
Rhodes found himself not knowing what to say next. It struck him suddenly that he was too old to be out on a date, and he felt awkward.
If Ivy sensed his feeling, it didn’t show. The brief silence didn’t seem to bother her at all. She let it lengthen for a minute, then spoke again. “How is your investigation going?” she asked. “Have you cracked the case yet?” She laughed. “Or do real lawmen really say things like ‘crack the case’?”
Rhodes laughed too. “I don’t know about ‘real lawmen,’” he said. “I do know that nobody around the sheriff’s department is likely to say anything like that. That could all change, though, if Ralph Claymore is elected. I expect he’ll require everybody to talk like they talk on television.”
The conversation went smoothly after that, with Rhodes telling Ivy about what he’d been doing and about the lack of progress. “Of course, the second killing hasn’t made it any easier,” he added.
“I’ll just bet,” Ivy said. “Nothing is ever as easy or as simple as it should be.” She then launched into some funny stories about the hazards of running for justice of the peace. There had even been a letter about her in the Clearview Herald, which Rhodes hadn’t read.
“Well, you should have read it,” Ivy told him. “It was a classic. Really, it’s hard to believe that people could believe such things, especially in 1986.”
The letter had been from a woman who objected to Ivy’s campaign. The woman felt that it was a fine thing to live in a free country, where women had the right to do as they pleased; but she thought that it was a shame that some women were pleased to run for public office. She knew that she, as a mere woman, would hate to be put in a position where she might have to make a decision that reflected unfavorably on a man, one of those creatures that God had clearly intended as her superiors. For her part, she was quite content to cook and clean for her husband, as every woman should do in the natural order of things.
“Honestly, I almost felt guilty after I read it,” Ivy said, laughing. “I wondered if I were doing the wrong thing. Thank goodness I came to my senses before I resigned my job and gave up my campaign.”
Rhodes laughed with her, then got up and walked over to the counter in response to Eslick’s call. “Burgers up, Sheriff.”
The hamburgers were warm in their grease-spotted paper wrappers, and the wedge-shaped home fries almost burned Rhodes’s fingers through the thin cardboard of their box. He hustled them back to the table, almost overwhelmed by the smell. He hoped that his mouth wasn’t watering.
Ivy again impressed him. She made no small talk but went right about unwrapping her burger and taking a healthy bite, and he followed suit. Plenty of mustard, just the right amount of sweet white onion, and a generous portion of fried meat.
It was probably terrible for your heart, but it did the soul good. Rhodes took a paper napkin from the holder on the table, wiped his mouth, and continued eating.
Only then did he remember that he’d forgotten to order drinks. He was saved embarrassment by Eslick, who came to the table carrying two large paper cups.
“Dr Pepper, right?” Eslick asked.
“Thanks, Lonnie,” Rhodes said. “I guess I was in a hurry to eat.”
The short counterman grinned. “That’s fine with me. I always take it as a compliment when someone wants to eat my cookin’.”
“These really are delicious hamburgers,” Ivy said. Eslick didn’t quite blush.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, then scurried back behind his counter.
After they had eaten, Rhodes and Ivy drove around Clearview. Ivy brought up the killings once more. “What about Ralph Claymore?” she asked, referring to the information she had given Rhodes earlier. “Don’t tell me if you think I shouldn’t know,”‘ she added hurriedly. “I don’t want you to gossip about your job. It’s just that I’m curious about what I’d heard.”
“There’s no confidential information involved,”‘ Rhodes said. “‘I don’t think Claymore had anything to do with Jeanne’s death, but you were right. He had been seeing her.” He went on to tell her about Hod Barrett, Barrett’s wife, and Elmer Clinton’s grief.
“I’ll bet Hod Barrett did it,” Ivy said. “The way you describe him, I can almost see it. Why, I think he could even have staged the robbery of his store to put you off, to make you think of something else instead of him.”
“That’s possible, I guess,” Rhodes said. “I’ve thought about it. And of course Mrs. Barrett’s an unusual woman.” He had mentioned only Mrs. Barrett’s cleaning habits, not her views of sex.
“She surely is,” Ivy agreed. “Anyone who is that clean must be putting a lot of energy into house and yard work to avoid putting it somewhere else. If she directed it toward Jeanne Clinton, who knows what might have happened? She sounds a lot like the woman who wrote that letter I mentioned.”
Rhodes figured that he knew exactly what energy Mrs. Barrett was putting into her physical labor, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t quite ready to talk with Ivy about intimate things like that. He changed the subject. “How did you ever get a name like Ivy?” he asked.
She looked at him. “What?”
“How did you get a name like Ivy? I mean, I like it. It’s a nice, old-fashioned name. These days I find myself having to deal with grown women named ‘Fawn’ or ‘Sharamee.’ Not long ago ,I had to deal with one named ‘Rainbeau.’’” He spelled it. “I’m not making this up,” he added.
Ivy laughed. “I believe you,” she said. “Remember, I work in an insurance office. I’ve probably heard a few that you haven’t heard.
“For example?”
“How about ‘Winsey’?”
“‘Winsey’?”
“Her father’s name is ‘Winston,’” Ivy said.
“OK, but I still think ‘Rainbeau’ wins the prize,” Rhodes said. He noticed that somehow Ivy had gotten closer to him. In fact, she was very close. Feeling almost like a teenager, Rhodes put his arm around her, and his heart chugged as she settled against him.
Rhodes woke up the next morning thinking that it was a good thing he was no longer a teenage
r, even if he had briefly felt like one. As he remembered his teenage years, the hormones, or whatever they were, had been coursing through his veins at such a rate that Ivy Daniels would not have been safe within half a mile of him. As it was, he didn’t know exactly what he might be getting himself into. He knew that he had strong feelings for Ivy, but he didn’t know just what she felt about him. Oh, she liked him. That much was pretty clear. But whether she was beginning to think of him as something more than just a friend was a question that Rhodes couldn’t answer.
Still, he could hardly keep a sort of half-grin off his face as Kathy scrambled eggs for their breakfast. It was to her credit, he reflected, that she said nothing at all about it.
After breakfast, he called the jail to check in and found that nothing out of the ordinary had happened overnight; everything was under control, and there was no need for him to go in. He could relax, read his Sunday paper, and think about the bad part of the afternoon ahead. Hack had told him that the autopsy on Jeanne had been completed—she had died of a broken neck and had not been raped. Her funeral would be that afternoon at two o’clock.
Even the thought of the funeral didn’t bother Rhodes. For some reason, he had the confident feeling that things were going to start going his way and that the case would take a turn for the better soon.
He was wrong, however. That afternoon at the funeral, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 13
Things started out as well as anyone could expect. The church service, held at the Thurston Baptist Church, was quietly dignified. Only one hymn was sung, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” which surprised Rhodes. He hadn’t thought anyone in Thurston, particularly Elmer Clinton, had the good taste to choose something other than a traditional weeper like “The Old Rugged Cross.” The minister painted Jeanne as a fine young woman, who if not a pillar of the church had at least “reformed” since her marriage to Elmer and had no longer sought the “bright lights and glamour” of the “world of the flesh,” a reference which Rhodes took to mean that she’d given up participating in wet T-shirt contests at the Paragon.