by Bill Crider
He walked from the jail, and he hadn’t gone more than ten yards before he’d begun sweating. He was glad to get under the shade of the pecan trees that surrounded the courthouse, and gladder still to get inside the old building, which, with its high ceilings and marble floors, seemed to be even cooler than it actually was.
Another nice thing about the building was the Dr Pepper machine on the second floor not far from Rhodes’s office, where you could still get Dr Pepper in glass bottles. Rhodes wasn’t sure who was responsible for the machine, but he suspected that Jack Parry, the county judge, had some kind of arrangement with the local bottler.
For about a second, Rhodes wondered if that was the scandal that Jennifer Loam had uncovered about the commissioners.
Couldn’t be, he thought. Who’d care about a thing like that?
He put his money in the coin slot. There was a rattling inside the machine, and Rhodes was rewarded with a chilled glass bottle that slid out of the chute. He opened it and took a drink. It felt cold all the way down his throat, and he hoped that Jennifer Loam wasn’t going to deprive him of one of life’s little pleasures by having the machine taken away.
There was no one in the office. Rhodes didn’t even keep a secretary there. The telephone was forwarded to the jail, so if anyone called, Hack would answer and pass the word to Rhodes.
Rhodes sat behind his desk, which needed dusting, and waited for the reporter. As he drank his Dr Pepper, he wondered what Jennifer Loam’s informant could possibly have said about him. As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything wrong.
He hoped her big story wasn’t something about the money the county was wasting on maintaining an office for him when he spent hardly any time there. He thought the expense was justifiable, but it was possible not everyone would see it that way.
In about ten minutes, Jennifer Loam knocked on the pebbled glass of the door. She didn’t wait for an answer, just opened the door and came in. She looked very young to Rhodes, but then he was finding that more and more people were looking young to him these days. He stood up and said, “Hot enough for you?”
Jennifer looked at him for a second and then laughed.
“I’m never sure what to make of you, Sheriff,” she said. “But somehow I think you know you’re the fifth person today who’s asked me that.” She glanced at her watch, a sensible Timex. “And it’s not even nine o’clock.”
“I was hoping to impress you with my wit,” Rhodes said. “Why don’t we sit down.”
He sat behind the desk, and Jennifer sat in a dusty leather-covered chair across from him.
“Now tell me about this scandal you’ve uncovered,” Rhodes said.
“This isn’t funny,” Jennifer told him. “I’m very serious about it.”
Rhodes didn’t doubt it. He said, “I’m not joking. I’d really like to know. If you’ve uncovered something about me, I’m glad you’re going to talk to me before you publish something in the paper. Have you talked to the commissioners yet?”
“I tried.”
Rhodes asked what she meant.
“They were very condescending. Insulting. One of them called me ‘little lady’ and told me a blonde joke.”
“Which one?”
“Jay Beaman. He asked me if I was going to do a story about how you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.”
Rhodes had actually seen stories like that in the Clearview Herald. Once, though, someone had tried to fry the egg on the hood of a car.
“I’m sure Mr. Beaman didn’t mean anything by that,” Rhodes said.
“Ha. They all think I’m just some dumb kid just out of college.”
“You’re not dumb,” Rhodes said. He decided he wouldn’t bother to point out that she was just out of college.
“I know I’m not dumb. But they don’t. They treat me like I was their daughter or something. I’m surprised I didn’t get a pat on the head. They’ll be sorry, though.”
“I guess I’ll be sorry, too, if you have something on me.”
“I hate that part of it,” Jennifer said. “You’ve always treated me like an adult, and you seem like an honest man. I liked the way you handled that kidnaping.”
At Christmas, Jennifer had gotten her first big story when someone took the baby Jesus from the town’s living manger scene.
“It wasn’t exactly a real kidnaping,” Rhodes said.
“There was a real murder, though, and you solved that.”
“Just doing my job,” Rhodes said, wishing he had a forelock to tug.
A few years ago, he’d had a forelock, but lately he’d noticed that his hair seemed to be getting a bit thinner in front. In the back, too, for that matter.
“And you do your job very well,” Jennifer said. “I find it pretty hard to believe that you’d do anything illegal.”
“Thanks,” Rhodes said. “I’m glad you have confidence in me. Just what illegal act is it that I’m supposed to have performed, by the way?”
Jennifer sat up a bit straighter and said primly, “I’m sure you know.”
“Just for the purpose of discussion, let’s pretend that I don’t.”
“I’m the one who should be asking the questions. You’re just trying to find out how much I know.”
“No,” Rhodes said. “I’m not. I honestly can’t think of a thing. I need your help here. After all, you’re the one who called.”
Jennifer considered that. She must have decided that Rhodes had a point because she said, “I guess I was hoping you’d confess. But since you’re not going to, I’ll tell you. After all, you’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”
“That’s good to know. And I might not be proven guilty even in a court of law if I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“Right. But you did. You had county inmates paint your house.”
Rhodes didn’t know what he’d expected to hear, but that hadn’t been it. He said, “No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you for denying it. But my source says that you did. He has the photographs to prove it. And it gets worse. You used one of your deputies to supervise the inmates while they were out of the jail.”
“I hate to disillusion you,” Rhodes said, “but sometimes people have it in for the sheriff. They might think he’s not doing a good job, or they might not like having been picked up for DWI after some party they went to, or they might not like it that their son or daughter got stopped for speeding. So they might decide to get even by calling a reporter and lying to her about him. That’s probably what it is in this case.”
“You sound almost like you mean that,” Jennifer said, looking a little surprised.
Rhodes was disappointed in the surprise. He’d more or less expected that she would believe him unhesitatingly. He should have known better, however, because it was true that he’d recently had his house painted. He could see how that might look bad to her. But he would never use inmates for a job like that. And he would certainly never have used a deputy to supervise. The deputies had enough to do without that kind of thing being added to their duties.
“Roy Dean Turner painted my house,” he said. “I have the receipts for the labor and for the paint. I’ll be glad to show them to you. And you can ask my neighbors if there were ever any inmates around the place. They’ll tell you there weren’t. Inmates are pretty easy to spot in those orange jumpsuits they wear, and my neighbors are the kind of people who’d notice.”
“And you have the receipts?”
“Sure. I always save receipts. You can ask Roy Dean, too. He put a little sign up in the yard while he was working there: THIS HOUSE BEING PAINTED BY ROY DEAN TURNER. I DO THE JOBS YOUR HONEY DON’T DO. CALL FOR AN ESTIMATE. He did good work, and he might even have gotten another job or two because of the sign.”
“But that can’t be right. Are you sure there were no inmates involved?”
“You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Roy Dean. Ask my wife. Ask my neighbors. Let me show you the receipts.”
Jennifer looked genuinely puzzled.
“Why would my source lie to me?” she said.
Rhodes had an idea about that. He said, “Maybe he was lying to you about the commissioners, too. People get upset with them, the same way they get upset with me. Maybe the ditches haven’t been mowed, or maybe the roads in front of their houses haven’t been graded in a while. Little things like that irritate some people, and they want to cause trouble for whoever’s supposedly responsible.”
“He wasn’t lying. He wouldn’t do that.”
There was a hint of doubt in Jennifer’s voice, and Rhodes could tell she was disappointed. Obviously the story meant a lot to her.
“He lied about me, didn’t he?” Rhodes said. “Maybe that’s why the commissioners treated you the way they did.”
Jennifer didn’t let him get away with his halfhearted defense.
“Ha,” she said. “They treated me that way because they think no one cares about what they do. They get together and vote, and no one ever questions them. How many members of the public ever attend a commissioners’ meeting? None, that’s how many.”
Rhodes remembered at least once when there had been quite a few people present at a meeting, but that was before Jennifer had come to town. Besides, she had a point. Most of the time, no one was there other than the commissioners themselves, and Rhodes if he had the chance.
“All one of those men—and they’re all men, you notice. How many counties have women on the commissioners court?”
Rhodes said that he didn’t know.
“Probably none. I’ll do a little research and find out before I start my series of articles. Anyway, I was about to say that it’s all buddy-buddy and good-old-boying. All one of those men has to do to get the votes he needs for any project at all is talk to two of his pals and promise he’ll support them the next time some pet scheme of theirs comes up. They trade votes like little boys swapping baseball cards.”
“That may be true,” Rhodes said, “but it’s not illegal.”
“That’s not what I’m writing about, either. It just makes me angry.”
“What are you writing about, then?”
“You’ll see. I can’t understand why my source would try to implicate you in something, though, especially since it would be so easy to prove he was wrong. You can prove it, right?”
“I can prove it,” Rhodes said, though he was sorry that he had to. “I’ll bring the receipts to the jail, and you can stop by and see them any time. Feel free to call Roy Dean Turner and Ivy, too.”
“I will,” Jennifer said.
“Are you going to mention this in your story?”
“Mention what?”
“That your source lied about me. It might have some bearing on the way your readers think about the rest of your story.”
Jennifer wasn’t slow. She caught on at once.
“You mean they might doubt me,” she said, “but that I should give them all the evidence. And you’re right, so I’ll mention it. But it won’t make any difference. I have plenty of evidence about the commissioners.”
“Which ones?” Rhodes asked.
Jennifer smiled. “That was pretty sneaky, Sheriff. But it won’t work. You’ll have to read about it in the Herald like everyone else.”
“What kind of evidence do you have?”
“You’ll have to read about that, too.”
“It’ll have to be good,” Rhodes said.
“Why?”
“Because no one will believe you if it’s not. Your source lied about one thing. Why wouldn’t he lie about the rest?”
“That could be a problem, I guess.”
“And who did you say your source was?”
“I didn’t say, and you won’t find the answer in the paper, either. Reporters never reveal their sources. It’s like Watergate. Nobody knows who Deep Throat was, not even after all this time.”
Rhodes was pretty sure that Jennifer hadn’t even been born during the Watergate mess, so she must have learned about it in college. It was nice to know that she’d paid attention in her classes.
“I won’t press you,” Rhodes said, “and I appreciate your coming to talk to me before printing anything about that house painting. I don’t know where a story like that could have come from.”
“I’ll see if I can find out,” Jennifer told him.
“If you do,” Rhodes said, “give me a call. I’d like to know.”
“I can’t tell you if it would compromise my source.”
“I understand, but let me know whatever you can.”
Jennifer stood up and pushed back her chair.
“I’ll do that. Maybe I’ll have something to tell you when I come by to look at the receipts. Probably tomorrow.”
Rhodes stood up as well.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Rhodes said.
“Count on it,” Jennifer told him.
“If I’m not there, I’ll leave the receipts in my desk. Hack will know where they are.”
“That’s fine. I’m going to call Mr. Turner, too, you know.”
“I didn’t doubt it for a second,” Rhodes said.
4
AFTER THE YOUNG REPORTER HAD LEFT, RHODES SAT BACK DOWN behind his desk and thought things over, wondering just exactly what was going on. He supposed it wouldn’t be too surprising if one of the commissioners, or even a couple of them, had gotten involved in a little bit of hanky-panky. It happened from time to time, all over the state.
The trouble was that Rhodes knew the commissioners, worked with them, and for the most part respected them. He’d known one of them, James Allen, ever since he was young. They’d played football together in high school, even dated a few of the same girls. Rhodes hoped that if anyone was actually guilty of wrongdoing, it wouldn’t be Allen.
But maybe it wasn’t anyone at all. It was easy to make accusations, but it was a lot harder to prove them. That business about the house painting, for example. How could anyone have expected to prove that he’d used inmates on that job? It didn’t make any sense at all.
It was true that from time to time there would be articles in the paper about other sheriffs using inmates for personal work, like mowing the sheriff’s lawn or plowing up his garden in the spring, but Rhodes had never even considered doing anything like that. Though come to think of it, being allowed to use inmates for mowing his lawn would have been an excellent fringe benefit, at least in the years when there was enough rain for the grass to grow.
But the story about the house painting was simply ridiculous. Probably half the town had seen Turner’s sign in Rhodes’s front yard, and they’d also seen Turner himself, or one of his helpers, climbing around on a low scaffold or ladder, painting the eaves and soffit boards. Rhodes hadn’t wanted a spray-paint job, so the work had taken several days to complete.
He wished that Jennifer had given him a hint about what she was going to charge the commissioners with. Of course he could always go talk to James Allen and find out what he knew. Allen had proved helpful more than once in the past.
Rhodes picked up the dusty telephone and called Hack to let him know where he’d be.
“You goin’ by to give Miz Wilkie a thrill?” Hack asked.
Mrs. Wilkie was a woman who had once set her cap for Rhodes, in the days when Rhodes had been single. She’d thought Rhodes would make an excellent replacement for her dead husband. After Rhodes had married Ivy, Mrs. Wilkie had taken a job as James Allen’s secretary.
“I don’t think anything I do would thrill Mrs. Wilkie,” Rhodes said.
Hack laughed. “You know better’n that. She’d marry you in a New York minute if you’d just see the light and get rid of Ivy. Look at how she’s changed since you got married.”
“The only thing that’s changed about her is her hair,” Rhodes said.
After her plans for Rhodes had fallen through, Mrs. Wilkie had allowed her hair, which had been dyed a bizarre shade of orange, to return to its natural color, which was
mostly gray.
“She took that job, too,” Hack said. “That was a mighty big change for her.”
“So?”
“So she’s provin’ to you that she can fend for herself, just like Ivy can.”
Rhodes suspected that Hack was onto something, not that it mattered. He liked Mrs. Wilkie, but he’d never been interested in marrying her.
“Maybe you’re right,” he told Hack, “but she doesn’t have to prove anything to me. It’s too late for anything like that.”
“It’s never too late,” Hack said. “Soon as you realize what a fine woman Miz Wilkie is, you’ll divorce Ivy and marry her. It could happen.”
“I don’t think so. Give me a call if anything comes up.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Yes,” Rhodes said. “You do.”
Rhodes walked back to the jail and got the county car. The inside was like the inside of a brick pizza oven. Rhodes opened the windows to let some of the hot air out, but the air that came from outside to replace it wasn’t much cooler.
Rhodes had forgotten to open his cardboard sunscreen and set it in the windshield, and the sun shining through the glass had heated the ignition lock to something just short of the melting point. When Rhodes shoved in the key, it immediately became almost too hot to hold.
As soon as the car started, Rhodes turned the air conditioner down as cold as it would go and turned the fan on high. It took awhile, but eventually the interior of the car became cool enough for Rhodes to breathe without fear of scorching his lungs.
Driving out to the precinct barn, he went through downtown Clearview, only a few blocks from the courthouse. One block of old buildings had recently been cleared away, and now a brand-new chiropractic center and insurance office stood, shining bright and white, where there once had been a café, a drugstore, a dry goods store, a jewelry store, an electrical supply store, and a barbershop.
Several of the old buildings had collapsed because of a combination of old age and general neglect. The others had not been in such bad condition, but they’d been torn down anyway. The old buildings that still stood nearby looked drab and run-down compared with the new ones.