by Bill Crider
“It was the Fondrell game,” Velma said. “Brady called three straight passes into the end zone, every one of them to D’Andre Jackson, and he couldn’t catch a ball if it had handles all over it.”
“He’s our blocking tight end,” Jasper explained. “We put him in on the goal line when we’re going to run the ball, but this time we didn’t run it.”
“Did you have words with Brady about the Westico game or the one with Fondrell?” Rhodes asked.
“You bet he did,” Velma said. “You would too if you were the head coach. Brady was a little too big for his britches if you ask me.”
Nobody had asked her, and it suddenly seemed to dawn on her that maybe she had talked a bit too much.
“Not that what he did would be any reason to kill him,” she said. “He just needed a good talking to, and that’s what Jasper gave him. A good talking to. Isn’t that right, Jasper?”
“That’s right,” Jasper agreed.
“Where?” Rhodes asked. “On the sidelines or in the dressing room?”
“I waited until after the game, of course. It’s not good for the team to see the coaches arguing. I thought Brady knew that, too, until last night.”
“But Deedham knew about the arguments,” Rhodes said.
“He might have overheard me talking to Brady. It was after the team had dressed and left. We were in my office, and I didn’t exactly keep my voice down.”
“Did Brady have any excuses for what he did?”
“He told me he was trying to fool the Fondrell defense,” Jasper said. “He said we always ran when D’Andre was in the game, so he thought he’d cross ’em up and try a pass.”
“That D’Andre couldn’t catch a cold,” Velma said. “He’s a good blocker, though.”
“What about the Westico game?” Rhodes asked.
“He said he lost track of the downs,” Jasper said.
“And last night he lost track of the penetrations,” Velma said. “You’d think a college graduate could count higher than five, wouldn’t you?”
She didn’t seem to expect an answer, so Rhodes didn’t offer one.
“Will you be showing the game films tomorrow?” he asked Jasper.
“I guess so. The funeral’s not until Monday. We’ll have a team meeting, and then look at the films.”
“How’s Meredith’s wife taking it?”
“Better than you’d think,” Velma said. “I was over there this afternoon, and she cried a little. Then she washed her face and she was fine. I went over to Ballinger’s with her to pick out the casket. She got a real nice one.”
Rhodes couldn’t think of anything more to ask. He didn’t see much to help him in Brady’s disagreements with Knowles. All coaches had their differences.
“I appreciate your help,” Rhodes said. “I’d like to meet with the team tomorrow, before you show the game films if that’s all right.”
Knowles nodded. “Come by the field house about two o’clock. You can talk to the boys then.”
Rhodes stood up. “By the way, do you know whether anybody on the team is using steroids?”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Velma said. “I can’t believe you’d ask Jasper any such question. He runs a clean program, and he always has. Not a one of those boys would dream of taking a drug like that. Why, it can do all kinds of terrible things to you!”
“Good Lord, don’t get all worked up, Vel,” Jasper said. “Sheriff, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Vel’s right. Those boys don’t use any drugs. I don’t even let ’em get B-12 shots unless they’re under doctor’s orders.”
“They seemed a little contentious last night. I know that’s one of the side effects.”
“So’s bad skin,” Velma said. “I hope you’re not going out and try to arrest every boy in Clearview with pimples. You wouldn’t have enough room in the jail to hold them.”
Rhodes figured she was right about that. Maybe there was no basis for the rumor. But then there was Rapper.
“You’re right,” he said. “We’d have to build a new wing, and the commissioners wouldn’t stand for that. It was just a stray rumor. I had to ask about it.”
“Sure you did,” Jasper said. “I understand.”
He appeared to, Rhodes thought, but Velma didn’t. If looks could kill, Ivy would be the next widow picking out a casket. He hoped she’d get him a real nice one.
“What other rumors have you heard?” Velma asked.
“None,” Rhodes said. “But I saw someone that looked a little like Brady last night right before the game started. He was outside the stadium talking to Hayes Ford.”
“My God,” Velma said. “The biggest gambler in the county, and you think Brady was in with him. First the steroids, and now this! Next you’re going to accuse us of shooting JFK!”
“Brady did go somewhere before the kick-off,” Jasper said, trying to ignore his wife. “I thought he had to go take a pee.”
“Jasper!” Velma said.
“Well, I did, Vel. Surely he wouldn’t be crazy enough to talk to Ford right before a game.” He stopped and thought a second. “But that might explain those funny calls he made for the offense. You think he was gambling, Sheriff?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “But I’m going to try to find out.”
Chapter Nine
Most people who operated dancing and drinking establishments these days preferred to call their places “clubs,” no matter what they looked like. But The County Line was a honky tonk. There was no other word for it.
It was located seventeen miles to the southeast of Clearview, a low, sprawling building that sat about thirty yards off the road. The parking lot was white gravel with no lines and no rules. You parked where you could find a spot. Those who arrived early had to be very choosy about where they left their cars, or they might find that there was no way out until the parking lot cleared.
There were live oaks and pecans growing on the sides and in the back of the building with lights strung in the limbs, and tables underneath. There was even a wooden dance floor in back with a speaker from the jukebox dangling from a tree limb overhead. When the weather was good, couples could sit at the tables and enjoy the fresh air, though Rhodes didn’t think that most of The County Line’s customers were really the fresh-air type. There were no windows in the building at all.
He could hear the jukebox when he stepped out of his car. Someone Rhodes didn’t recognize was singing. He knew it would be somebody who wore a big white hat, which seemed to be what all the singers wore these days, at least the ones who weren’t wearing big black hats. The singers were as hard to tell apart as their songs.
Rhodes felt a brief tug of nostalgia for the days when you could hear Merle Haggard on the radio. No self-respecting country station would play Merle today, and no one would put him on a jukebox, either, which is why Rhodes had just about stopped listening to country radio. He’d never been much for jukeboxes.
He started across the parking lot, threading his way through the tangle of vehicles. The majority of them were pick-ups, some old, some battered, and some shiny new; but there were also quite a few cars, and even couple of semi tractors. Near the building there were five motorcycles.
The County Line didn’t put up much of a front. The white paint was old and cracking, and there was no lighted sign to let a casual passer-by know the place’s name. “The County Line” was printed over the double doorway in peeling black paint.
Rhodes opened the doors and went inside. The front room was a combination bar/restaurant with no pretensions. If you wanted a drink, you could have a beer. If you wanted to eat, you could get a hamburger, a cheeseburger, or a chicken-fried steak. There were only five booths. Eating wasn’t the first thing on the minds of most of the visitors to The County Line.
Beyond the front room was the dance floor, which took up all the rest of the available space, not counting the seating area that ran along two sides and a small stage at the far end, which was reserved for
the live band that would go on later in the evening.
There was a chicken-wire barricade in front of the stage so the band members wouldn’t be injured by flying beer bottles if a fight erupted. Or if the dancers and listeners decided to show their disapproval of the band’s selections or playing skill by throwing the nearest thing at hand — a beer bottle, a chair, or a friend. You didn’t get the cream of Blacklin County society in The County Line.
The music was much louder inside the building than it had been in the parking lot. Rhodes was pretty sure he could feel the floor pulsating under his feet. He stood in the doorway for a minute to let his ears adjust to the noise and to the dim light, most of which seemed to come from an array of neon beer signs behind the bar. The signs advertised every brand of beer that Rhodes had ever heard of, including Hamm’s, “the beer refreshing,” which he wasn’t sure was even being brewed any longer. Even if it was, he didn’t think you could buy it in Texas.
There were no “No Smoking” sections in The County Line.” A filmy haze hung just below the ceiling, and the smoke tickled Rhodes’ nose and throat. He resisted the urge to sneeze.
Most of the people Rhodes could see were dressed in full honky tonk drag. The men wore tight Levi’s or Wranglers, wide hand-tooled belts that had names like “Buddy” and “Joe Don” inscribed on the backs, Western shirts, and cowboy boots.
As for the women, Rhodes guessed that there was enough hair in The County Line to stuff about seven hundred mattresses. How much of it was actually growing on the heads it seemed to sprout from and how much of it was part of elaborate wigs, he couldn’t even begin to guess. Big hair was a longtime Texas tradition, but there were women here who couldn’t walk under a ceiling fan without risking catastrophe. And it seemed to Rhodes that there weren’t any moderate shadings to the hair. It was all very blonde, very red, or very black.
And if the jeans on the men were tight, there’d have to be a new word invented to describe the way the women’s fit. Most of the women looked as they’d lain down on their beds to wiggle into their pants, then gotten into a tub of hot water and let the jeans shrink even more.
Not everyone was dressed that way, of course. There were a couple of bikers at the bar, dressed pretty much the way Rapper had been except that one of them was wearing a leather jacket and the other had on a T-shirt that said “Born Too Loose” in red letters. He either had a sense of humor or he couldn’t spell. Rhodes didn’t figure it made any difference which.
Rhodes walked over to the bar, standing at the end away from the bikers. He had Rapper’s old mug shot and a newspaper photo of Brady Meredith in his pocket, and he took them out while he waited for the bartender to come over. Under the beer signs in front of Rhodes there was a fake-rustic wooden sign that said, “Even a fish wouldn’t get caught if he kept his mouth shut.” Rhodes hoped the bartender didn’t take the sign seriously.
The bartender took his time. He gave a couple of bottles of beer to the bikers, wiped the bar with a cloth that looked none to clean to Rhodes, and then wandered down to the sheriff.
“Well?” he said.
Rhodes had dealt with him once or twice before, when fights in the parking lot had gotten so far out of hand that someone actually called for the law. He was taller than Rhodes and quite fat. In fact, standing across the bar from him, Rhodes felt almost slim. He had a surprisingly high voice for a man so huge, but it cut through the noise of the music easily.
“Well?” he said again.
Rhodes laid the pictures of Rapper and Meredith on the bar next to a bowl of peanuts. “When’s the last time either of these two was in here?”
The bartender hardly glanced down. “Never saw ’em before.”
Rhodes shook his head. “Now, Zach. You know better than that.”
Zach looked out over the crowd on the dance floor. “I don’t want to get mixed up in any murder, Sheriff.”
“I’m not asking you about a murder. I just want to know when you saw these two men.”
“That one’s dead,” Zach said, putting a fat, damp finger on Meredith’s face. “The coach. I heard all about it.”
“What about the other one?”
Zach gave a sidelong glance down the bar at the two bikers, who were both now looking at Rhodes.
“They don’t like you much,” Zach said.
“I probably wouldn’t like them if I got to know them. They have any connection with this guy?”
“I don’t know anything about that. He’s been in once, last weekend.”
“Did he talk to Meredith?”
“Not that I know of. The coach was more interested in better-looking conversationalists, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I can figure it out. Do you have any names for me?”
“I don’t ask names. I just hand out beers. You want one, by the way?”
“No thanks. You have any Dr Pepper?”
Zach didn’t bother to answer that one.
“She was a looker, though,” he said after a pause. “The one the coach talked to. Blonde and built.”
That description, sketchy as it was, pretty well matched the one that Goober Vance had given Rhodes of Bob Deedham’s wife, but then about half the women in The County Line matched that description.
“Can you be a little more specific?” Rhodes asked.
Zach shook his head slightly. “Nope.”
“What did he have to drink? The coach, I mean.”
“He never had more than a couple of beers. I don’t know why he didn’t just buy him some at the grocery store and drink ’em at home.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get the same kind of conversation at home,” Rhodes said.
“I know what you mean,” Zach said, looking out at the dance floor. “You can sure find it here, though, if you want it. I guess that’s why the coaches like it here.”
Rhodes had been about to ask something about Rapper, but he suddenly changed his mind.
“Coaches,” he said. “More than one?”
“Did I say that? I musta been thinking of something else. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I think you did,” Rhodes told him. “How many coaches have been coming in here, anyway?”
“Just the one,” Zach said, looking over the top of Rhodes’ head.
“Is that a roach I see on the floor over there?” Rhodes asked. “I think the county health inspector better come have a look at this place tomorrow. And every day after that, for about a month.”
“That’s blackmail,” Zach said.
“Just genuine concern for the health of the voting public. They’ll thank me for it later.”
“All right, all right. I get it. There was another one of the coaches in here. The one that really looks like a football player, that Needham.”
“Deedham,” Rhodes said.
“That’s the one. Played pro for a while.”
“Not really,” Rhodes said. “When was he here?”
Zach had to think about that. “Now that you mention it, he was here the last time that Meredith was, last Saturday night.”
“Did they have a drink together?”
“I don’t think they even saw each other. Meredith was in there dancing and talking to that blonde. Deedham was in here at the bar.”
“Did he have much to drink?”
“Just one beer. Then he left.”
“What kind of mood was he in?” Rhodes asked.
“Hey, I can’t remember everything. He looked OK, I guess. I gotta go now. I got some customers.”
Two men in jeans and a woman with hair so blonde that it was nearly white stood a little way down the bar. The woman was laughing at something one of the men had said.
As Zach moved away, Rhodes said, “Come back when you’re through with them.”
While Zach was gone, Rhodes thought about what the bartender had told him. Could it be that Deedham had followed his wife to The County Line and seen her with Meredith? If he had, could that have led to Meredith’s murd
er? And where did Rapper fit into all this?
The jukebox played two indistinguishable songs before Zach returned.
“Band’s gonna come on in about half an hour,” Zach said. “Tommy and the Texans. You ever hear ’em?”
“Does Tommy wear a big white hat?”
“That’s him.”
“Then I’ve heard him. Or somebody just like him.” Rhodes tapped Rapper’s photo. “Now about this one.”
“Nothin’ to tell about that one. He comes in, he leaves. We get bikers here now and then.” Zach looked back down the bar, but the two bikers had left. “They usually don’t stay long, though.”
“When was he here?”
“Don’t remember. But it wasn’t long ago. Last week sometime, I guess.”
“Think about it.”
Zach thought. It didn’t do any good. “He didn’t do anything, just had a beer or two and left, like those guys did.” He motioned to where the bikers had been. “I just serve the beer. I don’t keep up with ’em.”
“All right, Zach. I appreciate the conversation.”
“Well, I don’t. Nothing against you personally, Sheriff, but I’d just as soon not have you comin’ in here. It’s not all that good for business.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rhodes said.
A thin sliver of moon hung in a clearing between two cloud banks, and a few stars twinkled in the black sky. Rhodes took a breath of the rain-washed air, a real pleasure after the smoke-filled building. He’d have to throw his clothes in the hamper when he got home.
As he moved to his left to avoid a puddle, the two bikers who had been at the bar stepped around a Ford Ranger and stood in front of him. They seemed bigger than they had when they’d been fifteen feet away.
The one in the leather jacket smiled broadly, revealing an amazingly white and even set of teeth, which Rhodes realized must be false. Rhodes didn’t even want to think about how he might have lost the originals.
“Evenin’, Sheriff,” he said.
“Evenin’,” Rhodes answered. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so. But you know a friend of ours.”