by Bill Crider
Before he could get to them, however, he had to get through Hack. “Mornin’, Sheriff,” Hack said.
Rhodes waited. He knew something more was coming. It usually did.
“You feelin’ better today?” Hack was being solicitous, something he liked to practice on occasion, to put off telling what was really on his mind.
“I’m fine, Hack,” Rhodes said.”I guess we made things a little hectic in here last night. I was pretty tired after it was all over. How about yourself?”
It was the opening Hack had been waiting for. “I was pretty tired, too,” he said. “But I didn’t get to go right to sleep like some people. I tried to sack out on my cot, but you might know there’d be trouble.”
Now he was getting to the heart of the matter. “What kind of trouble?” Rhodes asked.
“Damned rabbit hunter,” Hack said.
“Rabbit hunter?” Rhodes asked. “It must have been two o’clock in the morning.”
“ ‘Bout that,” Hack said. “That was the trouble.”
Hack stopped. Rhodes knew that Hack wanted him to say something to urge him on, but Rhodes couldn’t think of anything. So he just sat and waited.
“Well,” Hack said finally, “there was this fella who waved Ruth Grady down. Wanted to buy a permit to shoot rabbits at night, he said. Said he used to do that all the time up in Arkansas when he was a boy and wanted to give it a try here. Spotlight ‘em, he said. Like deer.”
“That’s illegal,” Rhodes said. “Deer and rabbits both. Maybe they don’t know that in Arkansas.”
“They don’t know diddly in Arkansas, if you ask me,” Hack said. “Anyway, Ruth told him about it bein’ illegal. Then he wanted to know if she was a real deputy sheriff. Them people in Arkansas got a hell of a nerve. She could tell he was about three sheets to the wind, so she brought him in. He’s still sleepin’ it off upstairs.”
Rhodes had to restrain his laughter. Hack’s indignation was comical enough on its own, but based on Hack’s past feelings about Ruth Grady it was downright hilarious. Rhodes kept a straight face with difficulty. “I hope the judge sets a high bail,” he said.
“Damn right,” Hack said. “Damn Arkansas.”
Rhodes went back to the cell area. The cells were old and uncomfortable. The mattresses were thin, the pipes were rusty. Blacklin County needed a new jail, and before too long they would have to build one. Or else some judge would order them to do it. So far no prisoners had complained, but that was probably because Lawton took such good care of things. Everything was old, but everything was clean. Lawton was mopping the hall when Rhodes stopped in front of Rapper’s cell.
“Did you give them a good breakfast today?” Hack asked.
“The best,” Lawton said. “Miz Stutts outdid herself.”
Mrs. Stutts cooked for the jail. It was sort of a hobby for her, and she did it mostly as a favor to the county, which paid for the groceries and a little for her time. Mrs. Stutts’s meals were another reason that no one had ever complained very strongly about the jail. Most prisoners would readily admit that they ate better there than anywhere else. Some got themselves arrested regularly around Thanksgiving, just for her dressing.
Rapper didn’t look especially thrilled with what he had eaten, but his plate was clean. He sat on his cot, looking like a pudgy man with a problem, his oiled hair in disarray. He was leaning forward, with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands hanging down. The left hand was tied with a white bandage that was already beginning to look a bit dirty. He looked up as Rhodes stopped outside his cell.
The disappointing thing to Rhodes was that Rapper looked better than Rhodes did. Rhodes was sore in places that he didn’t know could even get sore, but Rapper looked basically unscratched except for a few streaks of red on his face where the ground had scraped it. And, of course, his hand. Rhodes knew that under the bandage three of the fingers were shorter than they had been the night before.
Rapper looked up at Rhodes with bored eyes.
“I think we can tie you in to the Cullens murder as an accessory,” Rhodes said by way of opening the conversation.
Rapper almost laughed. “If that’s what you booked me for, I’ll be out of here before you can read me my rights. I’ve already called my lawyer.”
“There are a few other things,” Rhodes said. “Like assault on a police officer, possession of a deadly weapon, conspiracy, intent to commit murder . . .”
Rapper stood up and walked over to the bars. “Don’t try to shit me,” he said. “I doubt any of that will stand up. Most of it’s your word against mine. Yours and your deputy’s maybe. Nothing solid. Nothing.”
“Maybe,” Rhodes said. “Maybe not. Then there’s the dope. Lots of solid evidence there.”
“Growing on Bert Ramsey’s land,” Rapper said, gripping the bars and smiling. “Prove I ever had a connection with Ramsey. What Wyneva said last night? Forget it. She’ll never say it again.”
“Let’s say we just forget it,” Rhodes said. “Fine by me. Then we have you, Nellie, Jayse, all standing around in the room with a dead body and Jayse holding the murder weapon. You got a pretty good lawyer?”
“The best,” Rapper said, the grin still in place. “Good enough to get Wyneva to admit the murder again if I want her to.”
Rhodes hated Rapper for being able to stand up so easily. If Rhodes had been able to sit on a soft cot, he would have done so. He had to stand. He wished he’d been able to hurt Rapper more. Then he was sorry he’d wished it.
“All right,” Rhodes said, “but there’s still Bert Ramsey. We’ll get you on that one. All I have to do is find the gun. And when I tell Wyneva that you killed Bert, she’ll tell us everything she knows. The only riding you’ll be doing then is in the prison rodeo down in Huntsville. No more motorcycles for you.”
Rapper laughed, let go of the bars, and went back to sit on the cot, giving Rhodes a little satisfaction, but not much. Rhodes didn’t like the laugh. It was entirely too confident.
“There’s only one little problem with that idea, Sheriff,” Rapper said.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll never find the gun.” Rapper put his arms behind his head, lifted his feet up on the cot, and lay back.
“I’ll find it,” Rhodes said.
“It won’t be easy,” Rapper said to the ceiling.
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Rhodes said. “I said I’d find it.”
“How’ll you prove it’s mine?” Rapper asked, still looking up.
Rhodes paused. He didn’t know.
“Anybody ever see me with a gun?” Rapper said, pressing it. “Did you? Except for your own pistol, of course.”
“Fingerprints,” Rhodes said, but he wasn’t confident.
“What if I wiped it clean?” Rapper said. “Or better yet, what if I didn’t kill Ramsey?”
Now it was Rhodes who was gripping the bars, looking in at Rapper. “If you didn’t, who did?”
“How do I know? I’m not the sheriff.” Rapper sat up. “Look, you’ve caught me and roughed me up, and I’m not complaining. I may even be guilty of a couple of things. Or maybe I’m not. But I’m not going to be set up for some stupid charge like murder. Think about it. Why would I kill Ramsey? The guy was a gold mine for me. We were raking it in. That is, we were if what you think is true. So why do I kill him? Answer that one.” Rapper put his hands behind his head and lay back down.
Rhodes stood looking at him through the bars for a minute, then went out into the office. He sat in his chair that no longer squeaked and waited for Cox and Malvin.
Chapter 19
Cox and Malvin had even less luck than Rhodes. Rapper refused to talk to them.
“There’s no way we can really tie him to the stuff,”
Cox said. Malvin nodded in agreement. “We all know what he was doing in the county,” Cox went on. “The Greer woman had to get in touch with him and let him know that she was suspicious of Cullens. Otherwise, I don’t think he woul
d have come around until time for a harvest. Apparently, though, Rapper is willing to let her take the fall for Cullens and trust that she won’t implicate him. He may just walk out of this.”
“He might,” Rhodes said. “It’s pretty obvious that we can get him on some assault charge, along with the others, but that might be the extent of things.”
“They have a pretty clever operation going,” Malvin said. “They find these little counties and they grow just a little patch of dope, not enough to call attention to themselves. Then they cut it and sell it somewhere else, never where they grow it. Rapper is just part of the whole operation, not the brains.”
“He’s pretty smart,” Rhodes said.
“True enough,” Cox said. “Smarter that we are, maybe.”
At that minute, the jail door opened and a man walked in. He was dressed in a conservative blue suit with faint chalk-colored stripes in it, a suit that made the suits worn by Cox and Malvin look like something they’d picked up at a local discount store. He wore lots of gold—rings on both hands, and a thick gold watch. He was young, maybe thirty-two, with a smooth, unlined face. His hair had been carefully styled, and though it was not long, it was cut full and carefully layered. “I’m Wayne Gault,” he said. “I believe you have my clients, Mr. Rapper and Mr. Nelson, in custody here.” His rich baritone was carefully modulated, but Rhodes could tell that he could make it boom if he wanted to.
“Show him,” Rhodes said to Lawton, who was sitting by Hack at the radio table.
Lawton got up and led Wayne Gault to the cells.
Cox and Malvin looked depressed. “At least we cut off the supply,” Malvin said. “A lawyer like that, we don’t have much chance of anything else. Looks like Los Muertos can afford the best.”
“We’ll get some indictments when all this comes to the grand jury,” Rhodes said.
“Sure,” Cox said. “But what do you think will happen when—or if—you get to court? How much can we really prove?”
“We can get them on the assault,” Rhodes said. He knew it wasn’t much. It certainly wasn’t enough.
“And the Greer woman,” Malvin said. “Don’t forget her.”
“I’m glad to get her,” Cox said. “Damn her. If Buster had just gotten a little more information.”
“Let’s not speak ill of the dead,” Malvin said.
“Damn,” Cox said.
Rapper and Nellie were out on bail by early afternoon. Wyneva was clearly to be the scapegoat. She didn’t even seem to mind it very much. Jayse and his buddy in the hospital would be free as soon as the doctor released them. Rhodes doubted that he would ever see any of the four again. They had made their bail and they would gladly forfeit it, just as long as they never had to come back to Blacklin County again. He had told Malvin and Cox that the assault charges would stick, but they would stick only if they could get the men in court. Rhodes figured that they would disappear in Houston or Dallas, or maybe even out of the state. It was a depressing thought.
It was equally depressing that Rapper had proved smarter than Rhodes thought he was. He had easily pointed out the flaws in Rhodes’s own thinking. Rhodes wondered why he had even considered Rapper guilty of shooting Bert Ramsey in the first place.
Sitting at home in his chair, Rhodes was going over the whole thing one more time. He had left the jail after Rapper’s lawyer had posted the bail. He had called Cox and Malvin first, then gotten into his pickup and left. He’d fed Speedo and eaten a sandwich, thinking he would watch the movie and think. The movie was Hell’s Angels on Wheels. Rhodes turned it off.
He thought about all the things that had bothered him from the beginning. The first thing was Bert Ramsey’s finding the boxes of amputated limbs. That was just coincidence. Had to be, and Rhodes was glad that at least that part of things had been brought to a more or less satisfactory ending. The contents of the boxes had been safely buried and could do no harm now, if they ever could have.
Anyone with normal curiosity would have opened those boxes, and Bert Ramsey was normal. When he saw what they contained, he decided to report them rather than take a chance on stirring up even bigger trouble. After all, they weren’t found on his land, and there would be no call for Rhodes to do any searching there. Bert was clean on that one, and he’d probably figured that he could only get into more trouble by failing to report what he’d found if it turned out later than an axe-murderer was on the loose.
So did Dr. Rawlings kill Bert to retaliate for his finding what Dr. Rawlings was trying to dispose of quietly? That was too ridiculous for real consideration.
Were the murders of Cullens and Ramsey even connected? They had to be, somehow, Rhodes thought. But maybe not in the way he’d first imagined.
Rhodes prided himself on his ability to read people, to keep asking questions until he discovered the motives that led to crimes. He didn’t have all the latest equipment, but he was persistent. This time, he’d been on the wrong track. Rapper had been there, and Rapper was convenient; so Rhodes had elected him as the most likely suspect. There was nothing particularly wrong with that, except that Rapper hadn’t done it, and Rhodes had been led astray by concentrating on him.
Annoyed with himself, Rhodes clicked the movie back on, but at the first sight of a motorcycle he switched it off again.
Then a new thought occurred to him, one that he would never have considered earlier. There was something in the story that Wyneva had told, though. Suppose that Buster Cullens had tried to question Ramsey. Cullens was certainly overeager—even Wyneva had spotted his questions as being too obvious. Maybe he had seen that she was catching on and had decided to try his luck with Ramsey. Then the two had gotten into an argument, and Cullens had shot Ramsey.
That wouldn’t wash, though. Where was the gun? That’s what I should have been thinking more about all along, Rhodes realized. The gun. There was no gun in the run-down house where Cullens had lived, and there was no gun in Ramsey’s house, either. Whoever had done the shooting had taken the gun with him. No gun had ever turned up anywhere around Rapper and his crew, but they could have gotten rid of it easily enough. Still. . . .
Rhodes got up and walked outside to the back yard. Speedo, in the shade of the tree, lifted his head and looked up. Rhodes sat on the back step, and the dog trotted over and sat down. Rhodes reached out and scratched its head. “Looks like you’re getting pretty used to things around here,” Rhodes said. Speedo thwacked his tail on the grass.
“It’s all got to do with motorcycles and dope, some way or another,” Rhodes said. Speedo lay down. Dope and motorcycles didn’t interest him.
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “Take it easy. Leave all the thinking to me.” There were times when he wished he could live a dog’s life, all right, and this was another one of them, but he couldn’t. So he sat there on the steps and ran everything back through his mind, just as if he were watching a familiar movie.
And eventually he came up with the answer.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but that didn’t matter. It was the answer that fit, the only answer that really could have fit. Well, no one had ever said that life had to be perfect.
Rhodes stood up. A lot of time had passed as he sat on the step, and he was stiff. His rear end hurt, and his back was tired. He stretched upward, lifting his arms. Speedo watched but didn’t move. He wasn’t a dog given to overexertion.
“You never know, do you?” he said to Speedo. Speedo didn’t say a word.
Rhodes went inside and called Ivy.
“I really don’t like it,” Ivy said as they sat in her living room. “I know you have a dangerous job, but getting tied up in chairs, getting run over by motorcycles, getting into fistfights . . . it’s just too much.”
Rhodes could tell that she was really annoyed. He’d debated with himself about whether to tell her about last night’s events, but he’d decided that honesty was really the best policy in this case. After all, they were going to be married. She had to know what she was getti
ng into. “Well,” he said, “I wasn’t actually run over by the motorcycle.”
Ivy looked at him. “It doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same thing. You’re lucky you’re not in the hospital again.”
She was referring to another recent case, after which Rhodes had wound up in even worse condition than he was in now. It wasn’t a case that he particularly liked to remember. “But I’m not in the hospital,” he said.
“And whose fault is that? You’ve been hit with axe handles, too, and it’s a wonder that Rapper didn’t shoot you. I just don’t know how you can keep on dealing with that kind of person.”
“It’s part of the job,” Rhodes said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. But that’s not all of it.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s worse,” he said, and then he told her.
“Well,” she said when he was finished.
“I told you,” he said.
“You were right,” she said. “It’s worse. Are you sure, though?”
“I’m sure. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure.”
“If you can’t prove it, what are you going to do?”
“Get a confession, I expect,” Rhodes said.
“Just like that?” Ivy asked.
“Probably not,” Rhodes said. “But I think it’ll come pretty easy. I thought you might like to be there.”
“Me?”
“You felt sorry for her before,” he said.
“And I still do. Even more now, if you’re right. Are you sure you’re right?”
“As sure as I ever am about anything,” he said.
“All right,” Ivy said. “I’ll go.”
Rhodes had one of the county cars back now, and they drove out to Eller’s Prairie in it. He parked in front of Mrs. Ramsey’s house, just as the sun was going down. They got out and Rhodes knocked. Mrs. Ramsey’s voice called for them to come in.