by Bill Crider
“Well, maybe not armed ones, but they have surveillance drones. We’re already behind the curve.”
“Expensive, aren’t they?” Rhodes asked. “Plus you’d have to hire the operators. It takes a lot of training to pilot one of those from a desk.”
“Well, sure it does, but the county would benefit a lot. You have to spend money to make money.”
Rhodes didn’t think any of the other commissioners would agree with anything Burns had said. “Are you going to recommend this?”
“That’s where you come in,” Burns said. “You’re the sheriff. You run all the law enforcement, so you’re the expert on what we need. You make the recommendation, and I’ll support you.”
“I’ll have to study on it some first,” Rhodes said. “It’s a complicated thing to deal with.”
Burns would probably forget all about the drone in a few weeks, just as he’d forgotten other things, like the M-16 he’d wanted the county to buy.
“I understand,” Burns said. “It’s not something you can decide on in just a few minutes. You let me know next week. Now here’s something else for you to think about, and it’s an even better idea.”
Rhodes didn’t see how it could be much worse. “What is it?”
“An MRAP.”
“A what?
“An MRAP, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, and here’s the best part. It won’t cost us a penny. The army’s giving them away.”
“Why on earth would we need a tactical vehicle like that?”
“Think about it,” Burns said. “Need to execute a warrant? One of those babies would pretty much take care of any resistance. Got somebody holed up in a house with hostages? One of those babies would take care of that, too.”
“One of those babies would take care of a zombie apocalypse,” Rhodes said, “but do we really need one? We’re just a small sheriff’s department, not an invading army. So far nobody’s planted any IEDs to try to stop us. We haven’t had to break down any concrete walls to get to a fugitive.”
Burns ignored him. “We could get one easy. I know of one town a lot smaller than Clearview in this very state that’s gotten over three million dollars’ worth of equipment from the army, all at no cost to them. They didn’t get an MRAP, but they got all kinds of neat stuff. We might even get some grenade launchers. Other places have.” He paused, thinking something over. “You know what? We might be able to use the grenade launchers on the hogs if we don’t get the drones.”
“This will take a lot of study,” Rhodes said, hoping it wouldn’t take Burns long to forget about it. Rhodes didn’t want to be the commander of an army or anything like it.
“You study hard,” Burns said. “And fast. Everybody’s getting ahead of us. We’ll look like a second-class county if we don’t get our act together.”
“I’ll give it a lot of thought,” Rhodes said, “and I’ll let you know as soon as I can. Right now, I know you’re in a hurry to get away, so tell me what you want to say about Neil Foshee before you have to leave.”
Burns leaned back in his chair. “I heard he’d been killed. You know who did it yet?”
“I’m working on it,” Rhodes said.
“You talked to Roger Allen?”
Allen sold Chevrolets at the local dealership. As far as Rhodes knew, he had nothing to do with Foshee.
“I didn’t know he was connected to Foshee, so I haven’t talked to him. Should I?”
“Might be a good idea. He came by here a day or so ago complaining about the drug problem in the county. He said it was personal with him. Not here exactly, but because he had a cousin over in Longview that got hooked on meth and it ruined his life. He went crazy for the stuff. Lost his business, left his wife, wound up getting killed when he tried to break into a house to get drug money. Homeowner killed him with a rifle shot to the head. Anyway, Roger was saying that if something wasn’t done soon, he was going to do it himself. He didn’t want this county to be overrun with drugs like some of them are and have people breaking into houses and getting killed over drug money.”
“He’s never complained to my office,” Rhodes said. He was starting to feel like Hack about nobody telling him anything. First Wade Clement and now Roger Allen.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about what I told him,” Burns said. “I told him this county had less trouble with drugs than just about any county in the state and that was because you and your department were doing such a good job. I told him it was wrong to be thinking about taking the law into his own hands. I don’t think he meant he’d really do it. He was just wound up, but he mentioned the Foshee boys by name. Everybody’s heard about that big arrest you made on them, and then they bonded out. What got Roger started, though, besides the Foshees being back on the street, was some young guy asking around town about drugs. Seemed to think there was a problem here, and he was going to write it up for some college paper or something.”
“Wade Clement,” Rhodes said.
“Who?” Burns said.
“The mayor’s nephew. That’s who talked to Roger. Wade’s a college student in town for a visit with his uncle. He’s majoring in criminology in college, and he claims he’s writing a paper for some class about small-town drug problems. I think he’s causing more problems than we had before he got here. I’ve talked to him about it.”
“I hope so. We don’t need that kind of thing. You better talk to Roger, too. He’s got a temper. I wouldn’t put it past him to decide to go after those Foshees on his own, even if I tried to calm him down.”
Rhodes stood up. “I’ll talk to him.”
Burns stood up as well. “I don’t think he killed Neil, understand. I just think you need to talk to him.”
Rhodes nodded. “Right. That’s what I’ll do.”
“You think about those drones, too. Your recommendation would sell the idea. I’ll recommend the MRAP myself. It’s free, it’s tactical, and it looks great. That thing could drive right over a car if it had to. We could sure use one.”
“I’ll give it a lot of thought,” Rhodes lied, wondering why anybody would want to drive over a car. “You’re in a hurry to get away, so I’ll go on now and talk to Roger Allen. Thanks for the tip.”
“Always glad to help,” Burns said.
Rhodes went on out and saw that Mrs. Wilkie was getting her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk. He wondered if she and Burns were going to leave early together, not that it was any of his business. He gave her a wave and a smile and left.
* * *
Rhodes thought he had time to visit the Chevy dealership before he went home for dinner, so he drove out the highway toward Walmart where so many of the local businesses had relocated. Clearview’s downtown might have died, but businesses all along the highway leading up to Walmart on the east side of town had been thriving.
The Chevy dealership was no exception. It covered a couple of acres of ground, and Rhodes didn’t even want to think about the value of the inventory of new and used cars. If Mikey Burns’s drone malfunctioned and bombed the dealership instead of a bunch of hogs, the county would never be able to pay off the lawsuit the insurance company would bring against it, and that was if there were no casualties. Burns was the one who needed to do more thinking about what he was asking for, not Rhodes. Rhodes had already made up his mind.
Rhodes wound through the cars situated where people could see them from the highway and parked in front of the dealership’s building, which was at least half a block long. The entire front was made up of windows and big glass doors. Cars were parked inside the building as well as outside in front of the windows. Rhodes parked in one of the spots reserved for visitors, and he was barely out of the county car before Roger Allen came bounding out of the building to meet him.
Roger had been a football player for the Clearview Catamounts a good many years before, not long after Rhodes’s own inglorious athletic career. Roger had been a lineman, big and fast, as Rhodes recalled, but he hadn’t kept in shape. He was stil
l big, but he didn’t look fast, and he’d gained some weight that wasn’t as well distributed as it might have been. Not that Rhodes hadn’t done the same. He was no longer “Will o’ the Wisp” Dan Rhodes. Never had been, really, but it had been nice to be thought of that way even for a short time.
“You here about the Tahoes, Sheriff?” Roger asked, sticking out his hand.
Roger had a salesman’s jovial tone and a smile to go with it. He was dressed casually in cotton slacks and an open-necked shirt. Although it was late afternoon, he was closely shaved, and not just his face. Roger was completely bald, and his head was shaved as close as his chin.
Rhodes shook hands and said, “What Tahoes?”
“Nobody’s told you?” Roger said.
“Nobody ever tells me anything,” Rhodes said, knowing he sounded like Hack and not liking it.
“I know the feeling,” Roger said. “Come on in. We need to talk.”
That was something Rhodes could agree with, so he went inside with Roger. The air-conditioning was turned down to Arctic, but it felt good after the heat of late afternoon. Roger led Rhodes to one of the little desks scattered around the showroom, and they sat down.
By that time Rhodes had figured out what was going on. A few months previously he’d mentioned to Mikey Burns that the county’s patrol cars were becoming something of a problem. Because of the ways sedans had changed over the years, there wasn’t as much space at the back doors as there once had been, and there wasn’t a lot of room in the backseats, either.
If this had been a problem only for the people who were arrested and put into the cars, that would be one thing, and it could’ve been overlooked. However, it was also a problem for the officers if a prisoner didn’t want to get into the car and decided to put up a fight or if someone was impaired by drugs or alcohol and wasn’t cooperating. Something like a Tahoe would be a much better option in those circumstances, besides being more suited for the kind of country the officers had to travel in Blacklin County. A Tahoe would’ve come in handy, for example, if Rhodes had wanted to chase the Foshees across the pasture in a vehicle that morning.
Rhodes had explained all this to Burns, but Burns hadn’t seemed particularly enthusiastic, certainly not as enthusiastic as he was about drones and tactical vehicles. He must’ve paid attention, though, and actually looked into it.
Roger laid out some brochures on the desk. “This is what I’m thinking of for you. All black or all white, take your pick, and with the county decal on the side in gold it’ll look really sharp. Or we could go with those new stealth markings. Man, you can hardly see those things at all, but they’re there. You look like an unmarked car but you really aren’t.”
“Did Mikey Burns talk to you about this?” Rhodes asked without looking at the brochures.
“Yeah. He didn’t say it was a done deal or anything, but I’m glad you came by. I told him we could make the county a good deal. You wouldn’t have to buy a whole fleet all at one time. You could just transition from the sedans to the Tahoes when one of the sedans was taken out of service. Mikey mentioned that you were kind of hard on sedans.”
Rhodes didn’t think the damages to his county car were entirely his fault. The county cars were often involved in accidents, and even though he sometimes happened to be driving them when the accidents happened, they were never his fault. Well, not always.
“I hope we can do some business with you,” Rhodes said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope. I came about something else. We need to talk in private.”
The showroom was deserted except for a couple of salesmen who were a good distance away, the clerk who took payments for repair work, and two men and a woman in the service department, also a good distance away in the opposite direction.
“We can talk here,” Roger said. “Nobody’s going to hear us. What’s the problem?”
“Neil Foshee,” Rhodes said.
Roger got a guarded look. “What about him?”
“Somebody killed him.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Chapter 13
“That dang Mikey Burns never could keep his mouth shut,” Roger said. “Maybe we’d better not talk here after all. Let’s go to the break room.”
He got up and started off without waiting for Rhodes. Rhodes trailed along behind him. They went across the showroom and past the pay station, turned left, and went down a hall. At the end of the hall on the left was the break room. No one was inside, and when Rhodes followed him in, Roger shut the door and turned the lock.
Rhodes looked around the room and saw two bridge tables, eight folding chairs, an old couch, a counter with cabinets, and a coffeemaker sitting on the stained countertop. The flashy look of the showroom didn’t extend to this part of the building.
Roger pulled out a chair and sat at one of the bridge tables, so Rhodes joined him.
“I should’ve asked if you want some coffee,” Roger said.
“No, thanks,” Rhodes said. He didn’t like coffee.
“Smart move. The coffee here’s terrible. I don’t drink it myself. Just as soon drink muddy water.” He leaned forward, putting his arms on the table and clasping his hands. “Look, I think you have the wrong idea about me. I went off half-cocked the other day and said a few things to Mikey Burns that I shouldn’t have said. He tell you about my cousin?”
“He told me,” Rhodes said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“He was a good friend when we were kids. I haven’t seen him much since then, but he didn’t deserve to get killed like that. The meth made him crazy.”
Rhodes didn’t ask how or why the cousin had gotten started on drugs. The stories were always different, but all too often they had the same ending.
“You ought to think about gangs,” Roger said. “The Mexican gangs are bringing more and more meth into Texas. That’s what the sheriff told me when my cousin was killed. They had enough trouble there with the local meth cookers, but the gangs are bringing it in and pushing out the locals. Some of them have wound up dead. It could be the same with Foshee.”
“We don’t have that problem here,” Rhodes said. “Not yet.”
“I met this college boy the other day,” Roger said. “He was in Max Schwartz’s barbecue place with his uncle having lunch. His uncle’s the mayor, and I’ve been trying to tell him that a Chevy’s as good as that Lexus of his any day, so I sat down with them. Kid’s name is Wade, and he tells me he’s writing a paper on the drug problem. Got me all ticked off, and when I talked to Mikey, I was still feeling it. I shouldn’t ever have said anything. I didn’t mean anything by it, and I’ve calmed down now. Been calm ever since I blew off steam with Mikey, in fact. I just wanted to talk to him about the Tahoes, and I don’t think we ever even got around to it. You don’t think I killed Neil, do you?”
What Rhodes knew was that Roger had talked a lot and talked fast, the way a salesman would trying to close the deal. That didn’t mean he was telling the truth.
“I haven’t formed an opinion yet,” Rhodes said. “Where were you last night around midnight?”
“I get it,” Roger said. Little beads of sweat had formed on his bald head. “I know how it is. I can see you have to check up on everything. I watch this TV show, Dateline, so I know how it works. You have to rule everybody out, so you want to know if I have an alibi. On Dateline it’s just about always the husband who did it. You ever watch that show?”
“Life would be easier if all the murders were committed by husbands,” Rhodes said. “Foshee wasn’t married, though.”
He’d had a girlfriend, however, and Rhodes wondered about Vicki. He’d let her off the hook too easily, maybe because she and Ivy had become friends. He’d have to talk to her again.
“I’m married,” Roger said. “You know that. Evelyn and I’ve been married for twenty years. You can ask her about last night. We
were at home, watching TV until ten thirty, and then we went to bed. Just like always. You can ask her. She’ll tell you.”
Husbands didn’t just commit all the murders on Dateline. If their wives were alive, they always dragged them out for alibis. If Ace Gable had been married, he’d have done the same. What they didn’t know was that Rhodes didn’t necessarily believe wives when they vouched for their husbands. Sometimes they were telling the truth, sometimes they were doing what they thought was their duty, and sometimes they were planning to use the alibi as blackmail later on. Rhodes didn’t know which one of those it would be in the case of Roger’s wife, but he’d find out.
“You go talk to Evelyn,” Roger said. “She’ll tell you.”
“I’ll do that,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Rhodes didn’t spend much time with Evelyn Allen. As expected, she vouched for Roger’s whereabouts and swore up and down that he wouldn’t kill a fly, much less a human being, even if the human being was a scum of the earth like Neil Foshee, who probably deserved what he got, even if she shouldn’t say so.
Like her husband and the mayor, Evelyn wondered why Rhodes was even wasting his time investigating the death of someone like that when he could’ve been tracking down copper thieves or identity thieves or perfectly healthy people who parked in handicapped spaces.
Rhodes went on home after talking to her. He didn’t put much stock in her backing up Roger’s story. Roger might have called her as soon as Rhodes left the Chevy dealership. Probably had, in fact. Roger wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily.
“You’re home early,” Ivy said when Rhodes came in. “I can’t remember the last time you got home early.”
Rhodes couldn’t remember, either. Even Yancey was surprised, and for a couple of seconds he forgot to show how happy he was. He recovered, though, and began to yip happily. The cats, of course, couldn’t have cared less whether Rhodes ever showed up again or not, as long as they got fed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ivy said. “I’m going to fix a special supper for us.”