Too Late to Die

by Bill Crider

  The mourners, of which there were a goodly number for Thurston (about fifty in Rhodes’s estimation), were silent and respectful. In the pews near the back were Hod Barrett and his wife. Rhodes recognized Larry Bell and a few others as well. Elmer sobbed quietly and alone in the front pew.

  It was at the graveside that things got bad. The rain had made digging easy, and Rhodes could see the backhoe machine parked at a discreet distance behind some trees at the edge of the Thurston cemetery. The mound of muddy earth scooped from the grave was covered with something resembling Astroturf. The mourners were seated under an open-sided tent in wooden folding chairs. Almost everyone from the church had come to the cemetery.

  Elmer’s sobbing was louder in the tent, and the vague outdoor sounds of the winds in the trees and the insects in the grass did nothing to drown him out. The minister seemed to have decided to make up for the lack of sentimentality in the previous service by making his opening remarks about “a beautiful young woman, struck down in the prime of her life,” at which a number of women began digging in their purses for tissues and handkerchiefs. One of the women so engaged was Mrs. Barrett.

  Then the minister made a few remarks related to the scriptures, about returning to dust and the sun also rising and the sun going down. Several of the women, and Elmer, were weeping openly.

  Rhodes looked at the casket sitting over the open grave on the belts that would be used to lower it. Elmer was walking toward it, and it was only then that Rhodes realized that this was going to be one of those funerals in which the casket was lowered in full view of the mourners and in which the deceased’s husband was going to throw on the first clods of earth. Rhodes understood the theory—it would be a definite parting, shocking the husband into the realization that life must go on and his dead wife could no longer be a part of it. He understood the theory, all right, but he didn’t necessarily approve of it.

  The coffin was lowered slowly and expertly into the ground by two men from the funeral home who had been standing quietly by in their black suits, looking for all the world like any other mourners there.

  Elmer worked a clump of the damp black earth in his hands as the tears streamed down his face. “I love you, Jeanne,” he said in a choked voice, so quietly that Rhodes could hardly hear. “I’ll never forget you.” He crumbled the dirt in his hands and tossed it into the grave, then stood silently looking down.

  It was a dramatic moment, and Mrs. Barrett couldn’t have chosen it better if she had been Cecil B. DeMille. She leaped out of her chair, slamming it into a stout woman in black who sat behind her. The stout woman may have cried out, but if she did Rhodes didn’t hear her. All he could hear was Mrs. Barrett, yelling at the top of her lungs. “The Whore of Babylon!” she shrieked. “The Scarlet Whore of Babylon!” Apparently she hadn’t bought the minister’s picture of a reformed Jeanne Clinton after all. She’d been crying about something else.

  After her first outburst, Mrs. Barrett ran amok. Rhodes was pretty sure that he’d never seen anyone run amok before, but that was about the only way to describe Mrs. Barrett. She ran crashing through the mourners, knocking chairs right and left, and knocking a few of the less agile mourners right and left as well. Once she leaped into the air. Had she flapped her arms, she might have taken flight.

  The minister was paralyzed. Like Rhodes, he’d never seen anything to resemble what was going on. Mrs. Barrett didn’t stop for him. She bowled him over and kept on going. She came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the open grave, yelling down at the coffin.

  “You lured the men with your skimpy clothes and your painted face,” she yelled. “But you never gave them what you promised. A teaser, that’s what you were, and now you’re dead! Killed by Hod Barrett, that you lured from his proper bed, and serves you right!”

  She worked her throat, and Rhodes was horrified that she was about to spit into the grave. He finally managed to get himself into action, at just about the same time as Hod Barrett. Elmer Clinton had started for her first, a strangled cry ripping from his throat, but when she had named Hod as the killer, Clinton had changed course and made for Hod.

  Rhodes didn’t know which way to go. Clinton had collided with Barrett and had his hands wrapped around his throat. Barrett had Clinton in a bear hug and was squeezing for all he was worth. At the edge of the grave Mrs. Barrett was hopping around. Her shoe heel caught in the soft earth and her right leg gave way beneath her. She started to fall into the grave.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rhodes saw Larry Bell start for Mrs. Barrett, so he went for Clinton and Barrett. The two men had also lost their footing and were rolling around in the chairs already knocked over by Barrett’s wife. Women were screaming and trying to get out of the way. Men were yelling and cursing; a couple of them tried to reach into the whirling mass that Barrett and Clinton, had become. One of them got a huge fist in his eye and fell aside. The other backed off and stepped aside for Rhodes.

  The two men rolled forward. The minister sat up and watched them dazedly. Rhodes tried to grab Clinton’s jacket, but his hand slipped. The men rolled up against the pile of dirt from the grave and somehow struggled to their feet. Clinton slammed Barrett into the Astroturf.

  Barrett fell against the carpet. Struggling to stand again, he pulled a section of it off the dirt it covered. When Clinton plowed into him, both men smacked into the wet earth. They pummeled each other, the dirt, and the air.

  Rhodes knew of only one thing to do, so he did it. He was wearing his .38 in a discreet holster at the back of his belt where it was covered by the coat to his suit. He pulled it out and fired it three times. It put an end to the fight, and it shocked everyone into a complete and utter silence. No one there had ever heard a pistol fired at a funeral before. Most of them would talk about this occasion for the rest of their lives.

  Rhodes looked at Barrett and Clinton. They were covered with mud and grass stains, red-faced and sweaty. He looked over at Mrs. Barrett. Larry Bell was holding her hand as she sat at the edge of the grave, one leg dangling over, her carefully pinned hair all disarranged around her face. The minister was up and going over to her.

  Rhodes considered Barrett carefully, arranging the puzzle pieces in his mind, trying to make them fit. “I guess you’re under arrest, Hod,” he said.

  Barrett was panting and breathing through his mouth.

  “You’d take the word of a crazy woman?” he asked. “You know she’s not right in the head. You can’t arrest me!”

  “I guess I have to, Hod. Everyone here heard her accuse you. It wouldn’t look right if I just let you go. We can just say I’m taking you in for questioning. Then we can talk to your wife after she’s calmed down some. If she wants to change her story, that’s fine. We’ll see what evidence she’s got against you. “ ‘

  “You’d damned sure better take him in, Sheriff,” Elmer Clinton said. “You don’t, and he’s a dead man.” Clinton was as winded as Barrett, but he sounded convincing. His eyes were narrowed and his voice was shaky with anger as well as fatigue.

  “The Whore of Babylon!” Mrs. Barrett shouted.

  Elmer Clinton’s shoulders tightened, and his hands formed claws. “Take that bitch, too.” he said.

  “Watch your language, Elmer,” Rhodes told him. “Have a little dignity at your wife’s funeral.” He turned toward Mrs. Barrett. “Come on, Hod,” he said.

  Larry Bell was patting Mrs. Barrett on the shoulder as Rhodes walked up. “Now, now, Mrs. Barrett,” he was saying. “Jeanne wasn’t no whore. I went to high school with that girl, known her ever since. She might of been wild at one time, but not no more.”

  The puzzle pieces shuffled themselves in Rhodes’s mind once more. He didn’t like the new arrangement any more than he’d liked the old one. “Can you get her home, Larry?” he asked.

  Bell helped her to her feet, his hand under her elbow. “Sure,” he said. “Be glad to.”

  “Thanks, Rhodes said. He led Barrett over to the county car and opened the back door.
Barrett sighed and got in. Rhodes got in the front, started the car, and drove away. He looked in the rearview mirror. The mourners were beginning to head for their cars, the ones that weren’t still waving their hands and talking. The minister was making no effort to call them back. For all practical purposes, the funeral of Jeanne Clinton was over.

  Barrett had little to say on the way back to Clearview. It was only when they arrived at the jail that he began to talk. “You really going to arrest me?” he asked.

  “Sure enough,” Rhodes said. “But not for murder. Right now the charge will be more like ‘disturbing the peace.’ You were guilty of that, don’t you think.”

  “Me and a few others,” Barrett said.

  Rhodes pulled up in front of the jail, got out of the car, and let Barrett out. “If you’re innocent, you won’t be in but overnight,” Rhodes said “In fact, if you call a lawyer you can get out sooner. Be damned hard to find a lawyer in Clearview on Sunday afternoon, though.”

  “I won’t be needing a lawyer. And it won’t hurt me to spend the night here,” Barrett said. “The way Elmer’s feeling, I might be better off here than at home.”

  “Now you’re showing some sense,” Rhodes said. They went inside.

  After the formalities were taken care of, Lawton led Hod Barrett up to his cell.

  “Think him and Billy Joe’ll get along up there?” Hack asked.

  “I expect so,” Rhodes said. “Seen Johnny today?”

  “This is his day off,” Hack said. “He comes in sometimes, but not today. He hasn’t had much to say lately, to tell the truth. Why?”

  “Nothing much,” Rhodes said. “A few things have been bothering me, that’s all. I think I need to have a long talk with Mr. Sherman.

  “If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him,” Hack said.

  “You do that,” Rhodes said. “Meantime, I think I’ll go look for him myself.”

  Johnny Sherman wasn’t at home, however, and Rhodes went to his own house on the off chance that Kathy and Johnny had patched things up. Kathy was there, alone.

  “How was the funeral?” she asked when Rhodes entered. She was eating popcorn—the real thing, made at home, not some flavored stuff like the kind Rhodes had gotten in a big can at Christmas from one of his cousins.

  Rhodes took off his suit coat and hung it on a chair back. Then he scooped up a handful of the popcorn. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” he said.

  “Try me,” she said severely. “Or no more popcorn.”

  Rhodes grabbed another handful and proceeded to give a slightly exaggerated but generally accurate account of the events at Jeanne Clinton’s funeral.

  “I know I shouldn’t laugh,” Kathy said, laughing. “I know it’s not really funny. And that poor Mrs. Barrett. Do you suppose that she has any real idea about her husband and whether he’s guilty?”

  Rhodes scraped the bottom of the popcorn bowl, getting a few of the unpopped kernels along with the good ones. “I thought she might, at first,” he said. “Then I got another idea that I want to check out. I’ll talk to her again tomorrow and see if she’s just batty or if she has some information that I can really use.”

  “Not to change the subject,” Kathy said, “but I’ve put out some steaks to thaw for supper, and there’s plenty for three. You could cook them on the grill, and we could ask Ivy Daniels to join us. I’ll bet she’d like to hear that story about the funeral.”

  Rhodes was hesitant. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “She’s too much of a lady to laugh about a funeral.”

  “I laughed,” Kathy pointed out.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Rhodes said. “I just meant that, well, maybe we ought not to rush things with Ivy. I don’t want to seem too pushy, and . . . uh . . .” He couldn’t think of how to end his sentence.

  “You do like her, don’t you?” his daughter asked.

  “Well, of course, but . . . I’m not really sure how she feels about me. After all, we’ve only seen each other a couple of times.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Kathy said. “You get out of that monkey suit and find that apron you wear when you cook outside. I’ll do the calling. I won’t make her feel obligated. I can be very tactful when I try. If she turns me down, I can always call Mrs. Wilkie. I’ll bet she could get herself over here in a New York minute.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Rhodes said.

  “Don’t be too sure. Anyway, I’ll bet Ivy will not only come over, she’ll also laugh at the story about the funeral.”

  “If she doesn’t laugh, will you do the dishes?”

  “I always do the dishes.”

  “And a good thing, too,” Rhodes said.

  He was right. It was a good thing, because Ivy not only came, she laughed. But that was all right with Rhodes. He liked a woman with a sense of humor.

  Chapter 14

  Rhodes didn’t even go by the jail the next morning. Sunday night was the quietest night of the week. It was almost impossible to get liquor or beer on a Sunday, so there were very few accidents or fights. Even the few burglars in the area seemed willing to take the day off. Too, he wanted to talk with Mrs. Barrett before questioning her husband. He doubted that a night in jail would do anything to soften Hod up, and if there was a chance that Mrs. Barrett could provide him with any solid information he wanted to get it.

  As he pulled into the Barrett drive, he once more marveled at the way things were kept. Such neatness, while undoubtedly commendable from most standpoints, was foreign to him. He got out of the car and knocked at the door.

  There was no answer. Rhodes waited about thirty seconds and knocked again. Still no answer. It was possible that Mrs. Barrett had taken some sort of medication after arriving at home. She had certainly been in a state that would seem to have called for something like that.

  Rhodes knocked for a third time, much more loudly than before, at the same time calling Mrs. Barrett’s name. When he still received no response, he opened the screen and tried the door knob. It didn’t move. The door was locked.

  Rhodes thought he might as well try the back door before disturbing the neighbors. He walked around the side of the house on the neatly trimmed lawn, hoping that he wasn’t displacing any of the carefully manicured blades of grass beneath his feet.

  The back yard was as meticulously cared for as the front. Rhodes walked to a small screened-in porch and opened the door. Then he stepped inside. There was a wooden door leading from the porch to the kitchen. The top half of the door had a window in it, but Rhodes didn’t try to peek past its curtains. He knocked loudly and called.

  No one answered, and Rhodes tried the knob. Locked. He peeked in the crack between the curtains. He could see very little, but what he could see was more than enough. He stepped back, took off his left shoe, and smashed out the window, after which he reached in and unlocked the door.

  Mrs. Barrett lay in the middle of her kitchen. There was a .30-.30 rifle on the floor beside her. Most of her head was gone. There was blood and other material on the ceiling and on the walls. Even a little on the stove, and of course on the floor.

  Rhodes looked around. No note was evident. He stepped carefully around the body and looked quickly through the house. There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could spot.

  There was a wall phone in the bedroom. Rhodes picked it up and began making his calls.

  Once again it was afternoon when Rhodes got back to the jail. He felt that it was his job to tell Hod Barrett about his wife. In a way it was Rhodes’s fault that she was dead.

  Rhodes spoke briefly to Hack, filling him in. Then he went up to Barrett’s cell. Billy Joe was nearby, making not a sound. Barrett was making enough noise for both of them.

  “Goddammit, Sheriff,” he said. “How long you think you can keep me locked up like this? I may be just a dumb country storekeeper, but I know that I got as many rights as the next fella. I guess it’s time I called me a lawyer and saw about suing the whole lot of y
ou!”

  Rhodes didn’t answer. He opened Barrett’s cell, not locking the door behind him, and went to sit on the bunk.

  “You tellin’ me I can go, leavin’ the door open like that?” Barrett wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

  “You can go, Hod,” Rhodes said, “but first you got to listen to what I have to say. You aren’t going to like it, any more than I’m going to like saying it. Your wife’s dead.”

  “Dead? What you mean, ‘dead’? She was fine yesterday.”

  “She was in her kitchen, shot dead with a .30-.30. The rifle was right there on the floor by her. You have a rifle like that, Hod?” Rhodes asked.

  Barrett couldn’t quite take it in. He sat beside Rhodes on the bunk. “Yeah, yeah, I got a gun like that. Winchester. Haven’t fired it in years. Keep it behind the bedroom door. In case of break-ins at the house. A man’s got a right to protect his house.”

  “Of course he does,” Rhodes said. “I’d be willing to bet money that rifle’s the same one used on Bill Tomkins, though. It won’t take too long to find out.”

  Barrett’s mind wasn’t working in sequence. “Dead? My wife is dead? Shot in our own house?”

  “That’s right, Hod. I know how you must be feeling, and I know what you must think of me and my department. She’s dead.”

  Barrett shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “This is some kind of cheap trick to get me to say something. Well, it won’t work, because I got nothin’ to say. I sure didn’t kill Bill Tomkins, but even you can’t be dumb enough to think I could kill my wife while I was locked up in your jail.”