Too Late to Die

by Bill Crider

  Rhodes shook his head. “No tricks,” he said. “I wish it was a trick. She’s really dead, Hod.”

  Barrett wrapped his huge hands around the edge of the mattress of the bunk and squeezed. “If she’s dead, who killed her? Answer me that one.”

  “I think it was meant to look like she killed herself, Hod.”

  “With my gun? She didn’t have no more idea how to use that gun than a chicken. She couldn’t even have got the safety off,” Barrett said with disgust.

  “I said it was meant to look like she did it, not that I thought she did. Anybody who’d think Mrs. Barrett would mess up her kitchen just to kill herself didn’t know your wife very well,” Rhodes said. “I only met her at home the two times, but I knew her well enough to know that much.”

  “We had our troubles,” Barrett said, his voice cracking slightly, “but I never thought about her bein’ dead. Good lord, Sheriff, how many more folks are goin’ to get killed around here before you put a stop to it?”

  “No more, if I can help it,” Rhodes told him. “Could you identify that rifle of yours, Hod?”

  Barrett gathered himself, pulling himself erect on the cot. “How do you mean? You mean officially? No way. I bought it off a fella at a flea market five or six years ago, the way I bet half the guns in this county get bought. There wasn’t any recordin’ of serial numbers that I can recall. There’s probably guns like it all over Thurston.”

  “That’s what I thought, and that’s probably what the killer thought, too, if he switched his gun for yours like I think he might have done. But I meant unofficially. I expect you marked your gun some way. Most folks do that.”

  “Yeah, I did that,” Hod said. “It’s got a butt plate on it, and my initials are carved under the butt plate. Just take out the screws and check it. Ought to be an ‘H.B.’ under there if it’s mine.”

  “I’ll check it,” Rhodes said.

  “Who did it, Sheriff? You know who did it?”

  “I thought I had a pretty good idea yesterday,”‘ Rhodes said. “At first I thought your wife might know something she hadn’t told, but then I had another thought. Your wife doesn’t fit into the pattern too well, but I guess she could be made to fit.”

  “Why are you sittin’ here talkin’ to me then?” Barrett asked. “Why ain’t you out arrestin’ the sonuvabitch that did it?”

  “There’s a big problem there,” Rhodes said. “I can make all the facts fit, but there’s one thing I don’t have. The important thing. I don’t have one bit of evidence.” He smacked his fist down on the thin mattress of the bunk. A faint cloud of dust motes rose in the air.

  Barrett stood up to his full height, balled his fists, and worked his arms in the air. “Evidence my ass. You get me the man who did it and then we’ll worry about evidence.”

  “That door’s open right now, Hod,” Rhodes said quietly, “but if you keep talking like that, I’ll close it mighty damn quick. You know better than to say things like that.”

  “It’s my wife that’s been killed, Sheriff,” Barrett said.

  “It’s too late to cry about that,” Rhodes said. “You should have worried more about her when she was alive. Maybe none of this would have happened if you had.”

  Barrett looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “Forget it. It’s hard to say anybody is really at fault in something like this. It’s my fault as much as yours, or as much as anyone’s, I guess. I’d just like for you to calm down and stop thinking about going out there and righting wrongs. That’s my job, and I’m the one to do it.”

  Barrett stepped back to the bunk and sat again. “Can I see her?” he asked.

  “You can see her if you want to, but I think you’d be better off not doing it,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think it would be a good idea. I think maybe you ought to go on home. Hack can drive you back.”

  Barrett continued to sit on the bunk, staring at the floor. Rhodes got up and went out the cell door. “I’m leaving the door open, Hod,” he said. “You can leave when you get ready to.” He walked out and down the corridor, taking a last look back over his shoulder. Hod Barrett still sat, his shoulders moving slightly as if he were crying. In the next cell, Billy Joe Byron sat watching him, his eyes round.

  Rhodes paused and looked at Billy Joe. If Billy Joe could get over his fear and start talking, things would probably work out, but that seemed unlikely. Rhodes was going to have to go with what he had, which was suspicion, hunch, and guesswork. Everything fit, but there wasn’t enough to make a case with. He’d just have to see how far he could get by just talking, and maybe with lying a little.

  He went on down the stairs. He hoped he was wrong, but he didn’t see how he could be. There was no other answer that fit with the facts. Maybe some scientific crimefighter somewhere could have done better, could have come up with the answer quicker, but Rhodes didn’t see how. The autopsy of Jeanne Clinton had told them nothing except how she’d been killed, which they’d known already. He had to find a rifle that fired the bullets that killed Bill Tomkins before he could pin that one on anybody, and now that he’d found it someone else was dead.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs. “Hack, if Hod comes down and needs a ride home, you give him one. I’ll be out for a while. But before I go, call the DPS lab and ask them to check under the butt plate on that rifle from Hod’s house. See if there’s any initials carved on the stock.”

  “Sure thing,” Hack said. “I guess Lawton could handle the dispatchin’ work while I’m gone.” He turned to the phone.

  There were no initials on the rifle stock. Rhodes hadn’t expected that there would be.

  “Where you headed, Sheriff?” Hack asked.

  “I’m going to have a little talk with Johnny Sherman,” Rhodes said, starting out the door.

  Chapter 15

  Johnny Sherman lived only a few blocks away from Rhodes, in a smaller and older frame house. His car was parked in his drive, and Rhodes went to the door.

  Johnny came and let him in. “Hey, Sheriff,” he said. “I was just getting up and stirring around a little. Thought I might have a bite to eat and watch some TV before going on shift. Come on in.”

  Rhodes stepped into a small living room dominated by a twenty-five-inch RCA Colortrak set. There was a La-Z-Boy recliner strategically placed so that its occupant could see the television set while leaning back in comfort. The only other furniture in the room consisted of an early American rocker of the kind that can often be bought on sale at major drugstore chain outlets, along with a small end table beside the recliner. The floor was covered with a cheap green linoleum that looked as if it might have been installed by an amateur. But the room was neat and clean, with no sign of sloppy bachelorhood in evidence.

  There was a small window-unit air conditioner in the room’s only window, and it labored noisily. The room was dim and cool.

  “Have a seat, Sheriff,” Johnny said. “Let me get you something to drink. I think I’ve got a Dr Pepper.”

  Rhodes went over to the rocker and sat in it. He didn’t rock. “We need to have a little talk, Johnny,” he said.

  “Sure thing, Sheriff.” Johnny smiled apologetically. “Just let me go change into something presentable.” He was dressed in a white V-necked T-shirt and faded blue jeans. He was barefoot. “It won’t take me but a minute.”

  Rhodes started to protest, but before he could say anything Johnny had stepped through the doorway into the bedroom and out of Rhodes’s sight.

  “Go ahead and talk if you want to,” Johnny called. “I can hear you all right.”

  “I’ll wait,” Rhodes said, leaning back in the rocker, trying to relax and organize his thoughts.

  In about ten minutes, Johnny was back. He had put on his uniform pants and his black shoes, and combed his hair. He had his uniform shirt in his right hand. “Still kind of warm to me,” he said. “I just had a bath before you drove up, and it got me pretty steamy. I’ll put on t
he shirt in a minute if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s OK,” Rhodes said, leaning forward in the rocker.

  Johnny sat in the recliner, but he didn’t put up the footrest. “So what did you want to tell me?”

  “It’s about Jeanne Clinton . . .” Rhodes began.

  “I’ve been keeping my eyes open,” Johnny said. He looked earnest and solemn. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. The shirt lay in his lap. “I haven’t noticed a thing. Tell you what I think, though, is that those break-ins at Hod Barrett’s store are tied in to the murder.” He waited expectantly for Rhodes to speak.

  “How’s that?” Rhodes asked. “How can you connect them?”

  “Well, not with evidence or anything,” Johnny said. “But I think it’s transients. That big new power plant they’re building down near Simmonsville? Uses that lignite coal to generate electricity? No telling how many folks that’s brought into the area, and not all of them are the kind of folks we need around here, let me tell you. You ought to see how they live—little cracker-box trailers that you wouldn’t think could hold two people, and they’ve got eight or ten in there.”

  Rhodes knew all about the power plant, which was in a neighboring county. “I don’t think somebody would drive all that way for a few cigarettes and beers,” he said.

  “They might to see Jeanne Clinton, though,” Johnny said. “She was really something.”

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that,” Rhodes said. “Didn’t you say you went to high school with her?”

  “Yeah, I might have said that. We weren’t good friends or anything like that, but we were in the same class.”

  Rhodes stood up. The rocker was not very comfortable to him. “It seems natural that a man might want to drive by some night to see how his old friend was doing,” he said.

  “Now wait a minute, Sheriff,” Johnny said.

  “No, Johnny, I’ve already waited too long,” Rhodes said. “Let me say what I have to say, and then we’ll see what you think about it.”

  “OK,” Johnny said, leaning back in the recliner. “I’ll listen.”

  “Good. Let’s say you might have driven by to see Jeanne. You might not have even wanted to stop, but it would be easy to see that Elmer wasn’t there. In fact, taking into account all the visitors that she had, I’d be surprised if you didn’t see one or two of them at her house some night or the other.”

  “Not saying I did, Sheriff, but so what? If she had all those visitors like you say, why should I mention it?”

  “Early on, it might not have made any difference,” Rhodes said. “Later it did. When Jeanne was killed you surely should have mentioned it to me, especially if you knew any of them. It might have been important to me. But you didn’t mention

  “Next I guess you’re going to tell me I robbed Hod Barrett’s grocery store,” Johnny said with a good-natured grin. “You know better than that, Sheriff. I can afford to buy beer.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think you robbed anybody. I think Billy Joe Byron robbed that store. When I picked him up, he smelled like a brewery; and he had enough Merit cigarettes stashed in his clothes to last him quite a while. I guess I know where he got ‘em. You can rest easy on the robbery business.”

  “Meaning I can’t rest easy on something else?” There was a hard edge in Johnny’s voice, and he wasn’t grinning anymore.

  Rhodes sighed. “I should have figured it out sooner, but I trusted you. You were one of my men. You were dating my daughter. That’s my only excuse. It was right there all the time.”

  “I don’t follow you. What was right there?”

  “That fight with Terry Wayne and his pal. They weren’t lying. They were telling the truth. You were coming back in, and you needed some way to explain the scratches and the blood, even if there wasn’t much. So you spotted those guys in the Paragon lot, stopped, and started a fight with them. You knew we’d all believe your side of it.”

  “I guess that makes me a pretty clever guy,” Johnny said, a trace of a smile back on his face. “Even if it were true, which it isn’t, it’s still my word against theirs.”

  Rhodes walked behind the rocker and put his hands on the chair back. “Yeah, but they’ve got Billy Don Painter on their side, and I’m afraid that they’ve even got me on their side. Anyway, I don’t know how many times you’ve washed the shirt you wore that night, but blood’s mighty hard to get out. There might be enough left for the lab boys to type.”

  “That’s pretty slim pickings to go to trial on.”

  “I’d have to agree with that. But of course that’s not all. You and I both know there was a witness to whatever happened in Jeanne Clinton’s house that night. I’m beginning to wonder just how many witnesses there were. They must have been lined up three deep.”

  For the first time Johnny Sherman betrayed surprise. “You’re really getting over my head now, Sheriff. Three deep? Why haven’t all these witnesses come forward?”

  Rhodes shoved down on the rocker, causing it to slide a bit on the linoleum floor. “Because two of them are dead. You missed the third one, though.”

  “You’re crazy,” Johnny said, and Rhodes was taken slightly aback. He’d been sure of his man, as sure as he could be without hard evidence, but Johnny sounded convincing. He really didn’t seem to know what Rhodes meant.

  Rhodes thought for a minute. “Let’s start with Billy Joe,” he said. “Lawton didn’t leave that cell door open. You opened it. I’d bet you even led Billy Joe right down to the door to the office. Then you got out that magazine with the spicy pictures in it and showed it to Hack and Lawton. A little loud talking and laughing, and Billy Joe could be out the front door and on his way home, which was the only place he knew to go.”

  “Billy Joe saw me at Jeanne’s, right? So I let him out of jail? You’ll have to do better than that, Sheriff. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes sense all right. Billy Joe’s never been scared of me in his life, but he ran from me that morning I picked him up. It wasn’t me he was running from. It was the uniform and the car. He thought I was you. We’d picked him up for window peeping a few years back. I guess he was doing it again. But this time he saw something he didn’t bargain for. He saw you beating Jeanne Clinton. I think after it was over, he even went in and tried to help her, but it was too late. I think you let him out of jail to kill him, and you would have if I hadn’t come along so soon.”

  “You must think I’m a pretty mean fella, Sheriff,” Johnny said. “Next you’ll even tell me you have a motive for me.”

  Both men were silent as the air conditioner’s hum filled the room. Then Rhodes spoke. “I’ve got one,” he said. “You were always a little hot tempered, a little fast with your fists. I think that with Jeanne you lost your temper when you tried to go a little farther than she wanted to go. You saw all those visitors, decided to have a little fun yourself, and didn’t believe it when she told you that all she did for those men was talk to them.”

  “It’s pretty hard to believe, you’ll have to admit,” Johnny said.

  “I admit it. I didn’t exactly believe it at first, myself. But it was true. Too many people told me for it not to be true.”

  “So Billy Joe was scared of me,” Johnny said, changing the subject again. “Then why did he come out when I opened his cell? Why’d he follow me out? Why not just stay where he was safe?”

  “I haven’t figured that one out yet,” Rhodes said. “It’s bothered me some, but I’ll get it if I keep after

  “Billy Joe won’t cut too much of a figure on the witness stand,” Johnny said. “He isn’t too smart, you know.”

  Rhodes let go of the chair back and flexed his fingers. He’d been squeezing too hard. “No, he surely won’t. But with everything else, maybe we won’t need him. It’s too bad we don’t have Bill Tomkins and Mrs. Barrett with us anymore.”

  “What have they got to do with this?”

&nb
sp; Once again, Johnny’s surprise looked real. He should have been an actor, Rhodes thought, not a deputy sheriff.

  “They probably saw you, too,” Rhodes said. “That’s why you had to kill them. I really wish you’d stopped with Jeanne.”

  “Sheriff, I never killed anybody,” Johnny said with sincerity and conviction. There was no quaver in his voice as far as Rhodes could tell. “I hope you believe that. I may have done some wrong things in my time, but I never killed anybody. And that’s the truth.”

  “I’d like to believe that, Johnny, I really would. And if it is the truth, you’ll be as much in my good graces as you ever were. We have to find out, though, and the best way to do that is for you to come on down to the jail with me. I imagine you can hire Billy Don Painter; you won’t have to spend long in jail with him on your side. He’ll get you a low bail setting, and you’ll be out right up till the trial.”

  “There won’t be any bail, Sheriff, or any trial,” Johnny said. “I won’t be going in with you.”

  “‘Yes, you will,” Rhodes said. “One way or another, you will.”

  “If you believed me, I think I would,” Johnny said. “But I don’t think you believe me, even though I’m telling you the truth that God loves. And if you don’t believe me, then I might have more trouble than I need if the case comes to trial.” He took his hand from under the shirt in his lap. He was holding his .38 Police Special.

  Rhodes stood there looking at the pistol. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he kept quiet. He felt a little like a fool. He would have felt more like one if he’d said something like, “You’ll never get away with it.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Sheriff, I really am,” Johnny said “Now if you’d just take your thumb and first finger and pull your own pistol out of the holster, I’d appreciate it.”

  Rhodes did as he was told. The pistol dangled from his hand.