That Old Scoundrel Death

by Bill Crider

  Chapter 2

  Clearview was building a new City Hall, but Calvin Clement had told everyone that he was going to keep his office in the old place. He said he liked it there, that people knew where to find him, and it was quiet.

  Rhodes walked down the cool, dim hallway toward the office. He could understand the mayor’s feelings, but he wasn’t sure that Clement would stay. It didn’t matter to Rhodes whether he did or not. Clement would summon him from wherever he was.

  Clement’s administrative assistant was Helen King. She’d been in high school with Rhodes, and she’d been the head cheerleader when Rhodes had starred on the football team for one game. After that he was out with an injury for the rest of the season, but he’d earned a nickname and had sat on the bench with the team at every game.

  From the bench he’d had the opportunity to watch Helen in action. She’d been the very embodiment of cheerleading, leaping and prancing and yelling on every play, her long black hair bouncing as she ran up and down the sideline under the Friday-night lights, rousing the crowd to a fine pitch of enthusiasm for the generally lackluster Clearview Catamounts.

  The amazing thing to Rhodes was that Helen had remained just as enthusiastic and perky from that day to this, so he was a little taken aback when he went into the mayor’s outer office and saw her sitting somber and quiet behind her desk, looking at her computer screen.

  “What’s up?” Rhodes asked as he entered.

  Helen’s head jerked up. Her hair was still black, just as it had been in high school. Rhodes figured she had a little help with that.

  “Oh,” she said. “Hello, Sheriff. You surprised me.”

  Rhodes nodded. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to. I thought you were expecting me.”

  “I was. We are. I mean…” Helen looked back at the computer.

  “Is everything okay?” Rhodes asked, not knowing what else to say.

  Helen looked away from the computer toward the closed door to Clement’s inner office, then back at Rhodes.

  “Not really,” she said.

  For a long time now, the feeling had been growing on Rhodes that nobody was ever going to tell him anything straightforwardly again. It seemed to him that he spent far too much of his time trying to drag information from them. Holding back was something that came naturally to Hack, the dispatcher, and Lawton, the jailer, but surely not to everyone else. Maybe there was something in the Clearview water that caused the problem.

  “You want to tell me what it is?” he said.

  “It’s Mayor Clement.”

  “I know. He called and asked me to come by.”

  “Yes. It’s just that … I’ve never seen him like this before.”

  Rhodes figured he’d gotten all he was going to get from Helen. “Maybe I’d better just go in and see what he wants.”

  “Yes. That might be a good idea. But be careful. He’s in a real bad mood.”

  “I’d kind of guessed that,” Rhodes said.

  “You don’t have to knock,” Helen said. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  “What if I hadn’t showed up?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Helen said.

  Rhodes shrugged and opened the door into Clement’s office. Being mayor of Clearview was in some ways a mostly honorary position. Clement was paid only a dollar a year, and for that salary he presided over a sometimes rambunctious city council, tried to keep as many citizens as possible satisfied and happy with their city services, and made at least some attempts to improve the town and to make it a better place to live. He didn’t make everybody happy all the time, but nobody could do that, and Rhodes thought that he did a good job for the most part, even though he did seem to think that he was Rhodes’s boss, which wasn’t the case. The county commissioners were responsible for the Sheriff’s Department, and the city of Clearview had a contract with the county for law enforcement services. There were times, however, when Clement thought that Rhodes was responsible directly to him, and this was one of those times.

  “It’s about time you showed up,” Clement said as Rhodes stepped through the door. “I’m glad you could find a spot in your busy schedule for me.”

  Clement’s full-time job was as a financial adviser, and he dressed the part, in a dark navy blue suit, white shirt, and navy blue tie. He was bald on top and his gray hair was cut short on the sides. His gray beard was neatly trimmed. None of this went with his face at the moment because it was a dark red, almost purple. He looked like a man whose blood pressure had just peaked around 250/150.

  “I got here as soon as I could,” Rhodes said.

  Clement hadn’t looked at Rhodes since he’d entered, and he didn’t do so now. He was staring almost bug-eyed at the computer monitor on his desk.

  “What’s the problem?” Rhodes asked, taking a chair in front of the desk without an invitation to do so.

  “This,” Clement said, and he turned the computer monitor around so Rhodes could see the web page Clement had been looking at.

  Rhodes was familiar with it. It was called Digging that Blacklin County Dirt, and it was devoted to gossip about the county in general and the Clearview city government in particular.

  “The other thing was bad enough,” Clement said, “and now we have this.”

  Rhodes assumed that “the other thing” was a blog called A Clear View for Clearview. It was produced by Jennifer Loam, who had been a reporter for the local paper until it downsized and she lost her job. Instead of leaving town, she’d started a news blog that had in a short time gained many more readers than the paper had, and which sold enough advertising to bring in more money than she’d been making as a reporter. She had a generally positive attitude toward the town and the county, but she did sensationalize some things, including a lot of Rhodes’s own exploits. He wished she wouldn’t do that, but she’d told him that his doings were by far the most popular feature of the blog. Clement seemed to Rhodes to be a bit jealous of that fact, and what Rhodes saw on the computer monitor wasn’t likely to make Clement feel any better. In fact, Rhodes now understood the reason for Clement’s barely contained fury.

  The headline read “Clearview’s Nincompoop Mayor.” Rhodes couldn’t read the rest without fumbling out his reading glasses, and he didn’t want to do that.

  “Seems uncomplimentary,” he said.

  “Uncomplimentary! It’s libel, that’s what it is. Libel!”

  Rhodes was tempted to say something about sticks and stones, but he restrained himself. He didn’t know a lot about the defamation laws in Texas because libel wasn’t something that came up often, but he did know that name-calling wasn’t included.

  “What does the article say?” he asked.

  “It says I’m a nincompoop!”

  “I can see that much.” Rhodes kept his voice level. “I meant do they offer any proof?”

  Clement glared at him. His eyes bugged out. “Proof? What proof could they possibly have of something like that?”

  Rhodes sighed, dug around in his shirt pocket for his reading glasses, and put them on. He leaned forward a little until he could read what was on the screen. When he was through, he folded the glasses and stuck them back in his pocket.

  “That’s not really so bad,” he said as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Not bad?” Clement was incredulous. “Not bad? They called me a nincompoop.”

  “It’s just a word,” Rhodes said. “There’s nothing bad about you in the article.”

  Clements wasn’t mollified. “Other than that I’m a nincompoop, you mean. Who uses words like that anymore, anyway?”

  “For that matter,” Rhodes said, “who are ‘they’?”

  “Anonymous cowards, that’s who,” Clement said, “hiding behind fake names. Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry, my foot. I want you to find out who they are and put a stop to this.”

  Rhodes wasn’t ready to launch into a defense of freedom of the press, if blogs were the press. He was sure that Jennifer Loam’s
site was real journalism, but he wasn’t quite so certain about Digging that Blacklin County Dirt. Still, there was the issue of freedom of speech and the First Amendment. Clement would most likely think of those things himself when he calmed down.

  “There’s really nothing to the article,” Rhodes said. “It’s just kind of a joke about your not wanting to move into plush new accommodations when the new City Hall is finished. The writer thinks you’re a nincompoop for not doing it.”

  Clement’s face looked a little better now. “Let the next mayor make the move. I’m not.” He looked around his office. “I like this old place. Sure, it just has one small window. Sure, there’s a water stain on the wall there by the filing cabinet. Sure, it’s small and old-fashioned. I like small and old-fashioned. People know how to find me here, and I don’t want to go anywhere else. So that’s that. Besides, whoever writes this stuff has said things about me before.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Rhodes said. “I don’t generally read things on the internet.”

  “Good for you.” Clement pointed to the stain on the wall. “They blamed me for that water leak.”

  Rhodes could see how that might be a sore point. The leak had been an annoyance during heavy rains. It had affected other offices in the old building, and Clement had asked the council to have an expensive study done to see how to fix it. As it turned out, the problem had been nothing more than a stopped-up drain from the roof. Luckily someone on the council had suggested that the drains be checked before the study was done. Clement had looked a bit like a nincompoop that time for sure, but the city had saved a lot of money. Things could have been worse.

  “This whole blog thing’s a smear job on the city and the county,” Clement went on, “and it’s run by hypocrites. How can they call me a nincompoop about not wanting to move into the new City Hall when they wrote for days about how it was a waste of taxpayer money to build it in the first place?”

  The new building was causing trouble, in a small way, like the new community center in Thurston, except that nobody had proposed tearing down the old Clearview City Hall when the new one was built. At least not yet.

  Rhodes had forgotten about that. The rogue website had done some solid investigative work into the costs and benefits of a new City Hall. There was real journalism going on there, all right. Maybe not all the time, but some of it.

  “Hypocrites or jokers, it doesn’t matter,” Rhodes said. “They have a right to free speech, and the law’s not going to shut them down.”

  Clement nodded. “Okay, that’s probably true, but they need to be held accountable instead of hiding behind fake names. I want to know who’s doing this stuff. If people are going to say I’m a nincompoop, I want to know who they are.”

  “Finding that out isn’t my job,” Rhodes said.

  Clement brushed his beard with his right hand. “You’re right, now that I think about it. I was upset, so maybe I got a little excited and went overboard. I realize that now. I’m not going to ask you to find out who these people are.” He brushed a hand over his beard. “There are other ways I can find out.”

  Rhodes didn’t like the sound of that. He started to say so, but Clement cut him off.

  “I can hire a private detective. We’ve never had one of those in Clearview before, but someone’s just opened an office. I can give him a call.”

  Rhodes sighed. This was turning out to be worse than he’d thought it would.

  “Seepy Benton,” he said.

  “So you’ve heard about it,” Clement said. He turned the computer monitor around, made a few clicks with his mouse, and turned the monitor back to Rhodes.

  Rhodes looked at the screen. He’d seen the website before. The banner across the top announced that the viewer had reached the site of C. P. Benton, Confidential Investigator.

  “I believe this Benton has helped you out on a few cases,” Clement said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “In a way,” Rhodes said.

  “And you can vouch for him?”

  Rhodes had to think about that. C. P. Benton, or Seepy as Rhodes thought of him, had come to Clearview to teach in a community college branch that had been established there by a school from a neighboring county. Rhodes had the impression that Seepy had left his former job at a college somewhere down on the Gulf Coast because of an unrequited love affair, but Rhodes had never asked for details. He didn’t think it was any of his business. After arriving in Clearview, Benton had sat in the Citizen’s Sheriff’s Academy and started thinking of himself as an official member of the department. More than once he’d provided Rhodes with some valuable assistance and had even helped solve a case or two.

  Those accomplishments weren’t enough for Seepy, however. As he would have been the first to tell anyone who’d listen, he had a big brain, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. He’d not only devoted some of his spare time to helping Rhodes, but he’d opened his own ghost-busting business, which had led to some interesting times for Rhodes, among others. For a brief time Seepy had even done some reporting for Jennifer Loam’s A Clear View for Clearview, and now, having grown bored with busting ghosts and writing clickbait headlines, he was a private detective.

  Rhodes couldn’t help thinking that it was partly his own fault. Seepy had asked for help in meeting the requirements to become an investigator, and Rhodes had done him the favor he needed. The requirement that Seepy had to meet was three years of private investigation experience, and Rhodes had vouched for him as an investigator for the sheriff’s department. It involved a bit of fudging, but not enough to bother Rhodes’s conscience. Benton had done good work, as much as Rhodes sometimes hated to admit it.

  “Well?” Clement said. “Can you vouch for him or not?”

  “Yes,” Rhodes said. “I can vouch for him.”

  “Does he know computers like it says on his website?”

  “He knows computers.”

  “So he can help me find out who those dirt diggers are?”

  “Maybe,” Rhodes said.

  “Good,” Clement said. “I’ll give him a call.”

  “You’re not going to harass the bloggers if you do find out who they are, I hope.”

  “I’m not that dumb. I’ll be satisfied if I can just put a face on my accusers.”

  Rhodes hoped that’s all there was to it. Even though he’d calmed down a good bit, Clement had looked angry enough to twist someone’s head off earlier.

  “I’ll give this Benton a call,” Clement said. “I’ll tell him you recommended him.”

  Rhodes stood up to leave. “I’d rather you didn’t. I like to remain anonymous when it comes to private eyes.”

  “If you say so,” Clement said.

  “I do,” Rhodes said.

  “Then I won’t mention you.”

  “Good,” Rhodes said.

  Chapter 3

  When Rhodes left the mayor’s office, he gave Helen a thumbs-up, and she gave him a smile.

  “Did you solve his problem?” she asked.

  “He solved it himself,” Rhodes said, which might’ve been an exaggeration. There was no guarantee that Seepy could do what Clement wanted, but it was better to be optimistic about it than to depress Helen.

  “You probably helped,” Helen said.

  “Maybe a little,” Rhodes admitted.

  Rhodes left and drove to the Blacklin County jail, where he’d have to face up to the mistake that he’d made with Kenny Lambert. As it turned out, however, Hack wasn’t interested in talking about Kenny. When Rhodes asked if Ruth had brought in the prisoner, Hack got that out of the way fast, which was unusual if not unheard of.

  “Yeah,” Hack said. “We got snake-boy all booked and printed and settled in a nice, clean cell. You better write up an arrest report quick, else his lawyer’ll get him before a judge, get a bail set, and have him outta here before you get the report done. He’s whinin’ about his finger bein’ broke, but it’s just swollen a little. That lawyer won’t bother to make anything of it. He’ll ju
st get him loose.”

  Lawton, the jailer, came through the door before Hack had finished talking and said, “Happens ever’ time. Right back out on the streets. And speakin’ of snakes—”

  “Now just a dang minute,” Hack said. “I’m the one talkin’ here.”

  Rhodes sat at his desk and readied himself as best he could for what he knew was coming. Something had happened, and both Hack and Lawton knew what it was. Instead of telling him straight out, however, they’d try to make him drag the story out of them. They always did when they had the opportunity and time wasn’t pressing. Rhodes sometimes thought they believed they were a reincarnation of the old comedy team, Abbott and Costello, and in fact, they resembled them in a small physical way. Hack was lanky and had a thin mustache, and Lawton was a bit chubby. That was as far as the physical resemblance went, and where Rhodes was concerned, the humor resemblance had never materialized. Or if it had, he couldn’t detect it. Hack and Lawton seemed to get a big kick out of tormenting him, but then so did everybody else in the county.

  Rhodes wondered for a second if he was getting paranoid but decided he wasn’t. He was just sticking to the facts.

  “I got a right to talk, too,” Lawton said.

  “You ain’t got a right to interrupt me, though,” Hack said.

  “I thought you was finished.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. I was goin’ to say that real snakes’ve been sneakin’ around. The sheriff needs to know stuff like that.”

  “What real snakes?” Rhodes asked.

  “Giant ones,” Lawton said, and Hack glared at him.

  “We have giant snakes in Blacklin County?”

  “That’s what George Gore said when he called,” Hack told him. “Said it was a giant snake at his house and he needed some help identifyin’ it.”

  Rhodes was glad he hadn’t been called on for that job. He wasn’t fond of snakes. “Did you send Alton?”

  Alton Boyd was the county’s animal control officer and fully qualified to take care of all snake calls as far as Rhodes was concerned.

  “Yeah, I sent him.”