by Bill Crider
The bull didn’t turn. It ran up the middle of the ramp and into the trailer, coming to an abrupt stop just in time to avoid smashing into the front of it. The bull stood there trembling, its hot hide quivering. Rhodes let go of the horns and scrambled as quickly as he could up the board sides of the trailer.
He flipped over the top and climbed down. He was drenched with sweat and doing a little trembling of his own, but he was all in one piece. Standing beside the trailer, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Only then did he hear the applause and cheers. He turned to look at the entrance to Walmart. It seemed as if all the employees and customers had come out to watch the fun, and they’d seen the chase and Rhodes being flung about by the bull. It must have seemed like a scene in a movie to them.
Alton Boyd came up, grabbed Rhodes’s hand, and started to pump it.
“I never seen anything like it,” Boyd said. “You’re a real hero, Sheriff, riskin’ your own life to save that little kid. Sage Barton couldn’t’ve done it any better.”
“All I did was get bounced around by a bull,” Rhodes said, “and don’t bring Sage Barton into it.”
Sage Barton wasn’t real. He was a character created by two women named Claudia and Jan, who’d been to a writing workshop in Blacklin County a few years back. They’d since written a series of very successful thrillers featuring Sage Barton, a character so daring, so dynamic, so unlike Rhodes that he didn’t see how anybody could ever confuse the two. Recently Seepy Benton had started telling people that it was no coincidence that Sage Barton had the initials S. B. and that it was clear that it wasn’t Rhodes but some other daring and dynamic Clearview resident who was the inspiration for the character.
“Old Sage’s got nothing you ain’t got,” Boyd told Rhodes, “that’s all I got to say.”
“If there was any hero,” Rhodes said, “it was the woman with the shopping cart. She’s the one who stopped the bull.”
Boyd looked toward the cart. “She’s gonna have a hard time gettin’ all that bull drool off her groceries. Maybe she can get a refund.”
Boyd moved away as Dr. Stanton came up.
“Thanks for the help, Sheriff,” Stanton said. “Steadman’s bull really didn’t want to get his booster shot. He got away from us before we had him penned. We’ll have some extra help at the clinic when Steadman gets him back there.”
“I can send Alton Boyd along if you need him,” Rhodes said.
“He’ll have to come along and get his rope back anyway,” Stanton said. “You were really good with that bull. I heard they were going to make a movie about Sage Barton. You ought to try out for the part.”
“I think the movie deal fell through,” Rhodes said, “and Sage Barton and I don’t have anything in common.”
Stanton nodded to Jennifer Loam, who was headed in their direction. “Whatever you say, but if you change your mind, I think there’ll be some great video to use as your screen test.”
Rhodes sighed as Stanton walked away. He had put out a hand to push himself away from the trailer when Jennifer Loam said, “Hold it right there, Sheriff.”
“What?” Rhodes asked.
“Some people want to thank you,” Jennifer told him.
A young woman and man walked up. A small boy walked between them, holding their hands.
“These are the Carrolls,” Jennifer said. “Elaine and Tom. Their son is Charlie.”
“Hi, Charlie,” Rhodes said.
“You saved our son, Sheriff,” Tom Carroll said. “We can’t thank you enough.”
“He’s right,” Elaine Carroll said. She let go of Charlie’s hand and gave Rhodes a hug. “We’ll never forget this. You’re our hero.”
“Hero,” Charlie said. “Hero.”
“Just trying to stop the bull,” Rhodes said.
“It was much more than that,” Elaine said, stepping away. “A whole lot more. Our son could’ve been trampled if you hadn’t grabbed that bull. I’ve never seen anything so brave.”
“Hero,” Charlie said.
Rhodes shifted his feet and looked to Jennifer to rescue him. She didn’t, however, because she was too busy taking video. The Carrolls continued to thank him and eventually left. Rhodes tried to leave, too, but Jennifer stopped him.
“Just stand there for a second,” she said.
“Why?” Rhodes asked.
Jennifer bent over and located a small rock on the asphalt. She straightened and tossed it at the trailer. It smacked against one of the boards and bounced off.
“Smile, Sheriff,” she said.
Rhodes didn’t smile. He turned and looked at the trailer, where the bull was glaring at him through the slatted boards. Rhodes turned back to Jennifer, who was working the camera again.
“I’m beginning to understand why so many law enforcement officers don’t like video cameras,” Rhodes said.
Jennifer continued to video him as Steadman started his pickup and pulled the trailer out of the lot. People had returned to the store or gotten in their cars. The fun was over.
“I’m going back to the office now,” Rhodes said, as Jennifer lowered the camera.
“You are?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I know what you said, but isn’t there something else you need to do first?”
“What would that be?” Rhodes asked.
“Well,” Jennifer said, “there’s the haunted house.”
“Who told you?” Rhodes asked. “Andy or Hack?”
“We journalists never reveal our sources.”
Rhodes thought about asking whether someone who had a Web site was a legitimate journalist, but he decided it wasn’t worth starting an argument. Jennifer had been a fine reporter when she’d worked for the Clearview Herald, and she hadn’t changed anything but the medium by which she delivered her stories.
“Anyway,” Jennifer continued, “I didn’t hear it from either of them. I went by the jail this morning to check on last night’s reports and read all about it.”
“Ruth’s already done her report?”
Jennifer nodded. “It’s a good one, too. Now tell me who killed Neil Foshee and I’ll go write it up.”
“I don’t know yet,” Rhodes said.
“But you will.”
“I will, but it might take a while.”
“You’re going over there before you go anywhere else, aren’t you?”
Rhodes admitted it.
“I’m going, too,” Jennifer said.
Rhodes didn’t mind that she hadn’t asked if she could go. She was free to do whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t intrude on the crime scene.
“I’ll see you there,” he said.
* * *
The old house looked even shabbier in the daylight. The paint was peeling, the roof needed to be replaced, and weeds covering the yard looked even worse in the daylight. The vines tangled in the wrought-iron fence were so thick in places that the fence seemed to have disappeared. Water from the previous night’s rain still dripped off the trees and the eaves of the house. Andy’s county car was parked in front, and Rhodes pulled in behind it. Jennifer stopped behind him.
They both got out of their cars, and Rhodes reminded her that she wasn’t to go into the yard. “It’s a crime scene now,” he said.
He pointed to the yellow tape that Ruth had put up all along the fence. It showed up well against all the green foliage. The tape also encircled the house itself, though of course it wouldn’t stop anybody who wanted to sneak in.
“I’ll stay out front here and take some pictures,” Jennifer said.
“Some video, too, I’m sure.”
“Naturally.”
Rhodes didn’t have anything to say to that. He slipped under the tape and opened the gate, which gave off an unearthly shriek. Rhodes wondered if Seepy Benton would think the fence was possessed by a ghost. Rhodes hoped not. He went on through the opening into the yard, noticing that the sidewalk was not only overgrown with grass and weeds but was cracked and uneven. He a
nd Ruth were lucky they hadn’t fallen down last night. He didn’t look back to see if Jennifer was taking video of him approaching the house. He was afraid he’d trip and embarrass himself, so he kept his eyes down.
Instead of going up on the porch, he went around to the back of the house. Rainwater that still clung to the taller weeds soaked the bottoms of his pants legs, but he ignored it. He found Andy Shelby bent over and looking at the tire tracks in the crushed weeds in the backyard. It was shady and cool there because of all the trees. Some of them had rotten limbs, but they all looked sturdy enough not to topple over for a while.
“Found any clues yet?” Rhodes asked.
The deputy was young and eager, and he looked so good in his Western hat that Rhodes felt a slight twinge of envy. In fact, Andy looked as good in the hat as Raylan Givens on Justified, which only made the twinge a little sharper.
Andy straightened. “Morning, Sheriff. I haven’t found much. These tracks are so messed up that there must have been cars in here more often than just last night.”
Rhodes remembered the fast-food sacks in the house. “Probably so. Any way to tell the fresher tracks?”
“It’s easy to see where some weeds were broken off last night,” Andy said, “but how many cars were involved is another story. More than one, I’d say, but that’s just a guess. They came through where the gate used to be. Once they got in the yard, there wasn’t a lot of room to manuever because of the trees, but you can see that some of them were able to turn around and drive out without backing up. Not that knowing that does us any good.”
“Maybe not, but at least it’s something we know. What about inside the house?”
“There are some hamburger wrappers that should have some greasy fingerprints on them, but since they’re greasy, they’re likely to be smeared. Maybe some of the other stuff will have some better ones. Something for Mika to work on.”
Mika Blackfield was the newest member of the sheriff’s department. Rhodes had talked the county commissioners into hiring someone to do the forensics work that had mostly fallen to Ruth Grady in the past, to the detriment of her ability to go on patrol. Mika had a law enforcement degree, and she’d been looking for work since moving to Clearview with her husband, Todd, who was a pharmacist at Walmart. Rhodes hoped that he hadn’t come outside to witness the episode with the bull.
Mika wasn’t a full-time member of the department, but she was on call and could come in just about anytime. She and Todd didn’t have any children yet, though they were hoping that would change.
“Anything besides the fast-food remains?” Rhodes asked.
“Traces of something that looks like marijuana and something that might be meth,” Andy said. “More stuff for Mika. That’s all, though. No shell casings or anything like that.”
Rhodes thought it over, then said, “It’s possible somebody’s been dealing drugs here for a while.”
“Looks like it,” Andy said, “and that somebody would be Neil Foshee.”
He was probably right. Foshee’s cousins were the ones who cooked the meth, and it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if they had a marijuana operation going, too. There were plenty of places in the county where they could cultivate it. Rhodes had broken up a big operation a few years ago.
“Why do you think he was killed?” Andy asked. “Drug deal gone wrong?”
“Could be,” Rhodes said, “but it’s too early to go that far without speculating. We need to get more information.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’ll start talking to people. Maybe somebody will tell us what we need to know, and if that doesn’t work out, we’ll find what we need some other way.”
“You sound awfully sure of that.”
A big drop of water fell from one of the trees and plopped down on Rhodes’s bare head. He wiped a hand across it and said, “It’s always worked out that way before.”
“Then maybe it will again,” Andy said. “You want me to go around and talk to people at the closest houses to see if they saw anything last night?”
“Take your evidence by the jail first and come back. Ask about the last few weeks, not just last night.”
“Got it,” Andy said. “You see that old pickup over there?”
He was referring to the rusted-out heap with the hackberry tree growing up through the engine compartment.
“Hard to miss,” Rhodes said.
“That thing’s older than I am,” Andy said. He gave Rhodes an appraising look. “It might even be older than you are. This place has been deserted a long time. I heard it’s supposed to be haunted.”
“So they tell me,” Rhodes said.
Andy took off his hat and shook off a drop of water. Rhodes envied him again.
“Most people probably stay away from it if it’s haunted,” Andy said as he settled the hat back on his head. “Makes it a good place for drug deals.”
“You didn’t run into any ghosts while you were in there, did you?”
“Nope. They don’t come out in the daytime, do they?”
Rhodes shook his head. “I’m not sure what they do. How about mice? See any of those?”
Andy grinned, and Rhodes suspected that Ruth had made some sort of comment to him.
“I think mice are like ghosts,” Andy said. “They only come out at night.”
“Maybe so,” Rhodes said. “Are you about through here?”
“I want to look around inside some more. Probably another hour and I’ll be done.”
“Don’t forget to ask the neighbors if they’ve seen or heard anything unusual lately, not just last night.” Rhodes didn’t think they’d get any information, but he liked to be as thorough as possible. “By the way, Jennifer Loam’s out front, taking pictures.”
Andy looked alarmed. “I hope you don’t think I told her about this.”
“I know you didn’t. She heard about it from Ruth.”
“Yeah, I was there. Ruth thinks Seepy Benton needs to look this place over. You know about his new business?”
“Clearview Paranomal Investigations,” Rhodes said.
“Right. If there are any ghosts here, he can find them. Maybe they saw the murder and can tell us who did it.”
Rhodes laughed. “That would sure save us a lot of work.”
“Are you going to let Benton look it over? See what he can find?”
“You think he’d find anything?”
“You never can tell,” Andy said. “It might be worth a try.”
“Probably not,” Rhodes said. “Besides, the results might be skewed because of what happened last night.”
“How’s that?” Andy asked.
“There might be a brand-new ghost haunting the place now.”
Andy took off his hat and held it in front of him in both hands as if out of respect for the dead. “You’re right, but that would be even better.”
“How could it be better?”
“We wouldn’t have to question the other ghosts. We’d just ask Foshee’s ghost who shot him.”
“If it were only that easy,” Rhodes said.
Chapter 6
Rhodes was on his way back to the jail when Hack called him on the radio.
“You need to stop by the mayor’s office,” Hack said.
“He’s in his office?” Rhodes asked.
“That’s what his secretary said.”
The city of Clearview contracted its policing services out to the county, but the mayor, Clifford Clement, liked to think of himself as Rhodes’s boss. Rhodes didn’t feel that way. He was paid by the county, and the county was paid by the city, so Rhodes thought of the county commissioners as being his employers.
Clement’s position as mayor was purely a part-time job, and not a well-paying one, either. Clement didn’t need the money, having achieved success in life the old-fashioned way, by selling mutual funds and managing other people’s money. Rhodes thought that Clement liked being the mayor because it gave him the opportunity to order the
city employees around. Or try to.
Clement usually spent the mornings at his place of business or on the local golf course and came into his office in the afternoons if there was anything that needed his attention, which is why Rhodes was surprised to hear that he was in the office this early in the day.
Clement didn’t like Rhodes very much because he’d been a suspect in a murder investigation at one time. Rhodes had told him there was nothing personal in the investigation, but Clement still resented it.
“Did his secretary mention what the mayor wanted with me?” Rhodes asked Hack.
“I meant to say administrative assistant,” Hack said.
“That’s okay,” Rhodes said. “Alice wouldn’t mind being called a secretary.”
Alice King was the mayor’s secretary, or administrative assistant, and Rhodes suspected that she did most of the work that got done in the office.
“Whatever you want to call her, you need to go by there,” Hack said.
“I’m on my way,” Rhodes said. “Anything else?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Hack said, which immediately caused Rhodes to worry.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Well, Miz Loomis has called three times.”
“Turn signals,” Rhodes said.
“You got it. Hard to believe, but some people just won’t use ’em.”
“She give you their plate numbers?”
“Always does.”
“You told her we’d send them all a citation, first thing?”
“Just like I always do. One of these days, she’s gonna catch on though.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we have to. What else?”
“That’s about it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Nothin’ to tell,” Hack said. “Just that Seepy Benton’s been by here.”
Now they were getting down to it. “What did he want?”
“He was just askin’ if I knew what you might think about somethin’.”
“What specifically did he want to know about?”
“That haunted house. The one where the murder was. The murder you wouldn’t tell me about last night. That one.”
If there was anything Hack knew how to do, it was to hold a grudge.