by Bill Crider
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“They root it all up, just like a wild hog does, except not nearly as bad, what with an armadillo bein’ so small. They can root a place up pretty good, though, for somethin’ their size. Do it at night so nobody can catch ’em at it.”
“I know about that,” Rhodes said.
“Okay. Well, Bailey was tired of this armadillo rootin’ up his yard, so he decided to stay up one night and catch him at it. Turned out he stayed up until nearly the next mornin’ ’bout an hour before daylight.”
“I bet he went to sleep some durin’ that time,” Lawton said. “He’s nearly seventy. Old guy like that can’t stay up all night.”
“You oughta know,” Hack said.
“Well, I’m not as old as you are.”
“You are, too. Older, even.”
“Hack,” Rhodes said. “Lawton.”
“Anyway,” Hack said, as if none of the byplay had happened, “Bailey had him a thirty-eight revolver, and when he heard the armadillo in his yard, he went out to shoot it. He didn’t turn on any lights, ’cause that would’ve scared the armadillo off, but he thought there was enough light from the streetlight to see by. So he shot the armadillo three times.”
“The armadillo didn’t shoot back but once, though,” Lawton said. It was as if he couldn’t resist, although Rhodes knew he could if he wanted to.
“The armadillo didn’t shoot him, and you know it,” Hack said. “That’s just crazy talk. What happened was that the bullets ricocheted off the armadillo’s shell, and one of them hit Bailey right square in the face. His wife got him to the hospital, and they got his jaw all wired up. He’ll be okay, but he might not be as pretty as he was. That is, if he was pretty. I don’t know what he looked like. The hospital reported the bullet wound this afternoon and told me all about it. Said they’d never heard of anything like it.”
“Armadillo escaped,” Lawton said. “Got clean away. Back on the streets to shoot somebody else.”
Hack ignored him and said to Rhodes, “Hospital says that Bailey wants you to get down there and get that armadillo. Not arrest him for assault or anything. Kill him, is what Bailey told the hospital to say. He’s pretty mad at that armadillo.”
“You better get Alton Boyd on the case,” Lawton said. “’Cept Alton don’t like to kill things. He’s a real softie like that.”
“We don’t kill armadillos,” Rhodes said. “Not even if they go around shooting people. We’re protectors, not executioners.”
“Bailey won’t like that,” Hack said. “Might not vote for you in the next election.”
“I might not even run the next time,” Rhodes said. “It might be time for me to step down.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Lawton said. “It’d take me and Hack forever to break in a new sheriff.”
Rhodes didn’t think anybody else would put up with them.
“You’d miss us,” Hack said. “Who’d tell you stories if you weren’t the sheriff?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said, “but I’d manage.”
“That’s what you say now. You’d feel different if you knew you wouldn’t be around here. Besides, you got to catch whoever killed that fella down in Thurston.”
“I hope that won’t take me until the next election,” Rhodes said.
“Then you better get busy,” Lawton said.
“I’ll do that,” Rhodes told him.
* * *
Sure enough, Ivy was preparing a supper that involved kale. Rhodes thought he’d probably jinxed himself by thinking of it.
“You’ll love it,” Ivy said. “It’s spicy chicken breasts stuffed with corn and kale. Pepper jack cheese is the spicy part.”
Rhodes liked pepper jack cheese and corn and even chicken breasts, but he wasn’t fond of kale.
“Yancey’s excited about it,” Ivy said.
They were in the kitchen. Yancey pranced around Rhodes’s feet, but then he always pranced around Rhodes’s feet when Rhodes came home, kale or no kale.
“The cats aren’t excited,” Rhodes said.
There were two cats, Sam, black as midnight, and Jerry, who appeared to be wearing a tuxedo. They liked to sleep by the refrigerator, although they were awake now and giving Rhodes suspicious looks.
“What have you been up to?” Ivy asked Rhodes.
“I’ve had a strange cat sitting in my lap,” Rhodes said. “Not odd strange. Just a stranger. His name is Leroy. Our two don’t have anything to be jealous of. They’re much better-looking than Leroy.”
The cats didn’t look convinced that he was telling the truth, but they’d always seemed skeptical of him, even though he was the one who’d taken them in.
Rhodes ignored their looks and went on to tell Ivy about the murder and about Wanda Wilkins and Leroy. Yancey must have been bored by the account, since he left the room, probably to go sleep in his doggy bed. Rhodes tactfully left out the invitation to early supper and the sausage and scrambled eggs.
“I know the Falkners a little,” Ivy said when he’d finished. “They have insurance with us.”
Ivy worked at an insurance firm. She’d started as a secretary, but now she was a full participant in selling policies.
“Tell me about them,” Rhodes said.
“First you tell me about your heroic gun battle out at Milsby.”
Rhodes sighed. “You’ve been on the internet again.”
“It was a slow day at the office,” Ivy said. “I can’t resist checking in on A Clear View for Clearview. I’m not on Facebook, so I have to go somewhere for the local news. I’m glad you didn’t get shot.”
“I’m glad, too, but there wasn’t much danger of it. See, the cats aren’t impressed.”
Sam and Jerry had gone back to sleep. They were champion sleepers and could drop off anytime.
“The cats don’t know anything about being shot at,” Ivy said. “Or about car chases across open fields. Did I mention there was video?”
“No, but I knew there would be.” Rhodes didn’t want to discuss it. “Can we talk about the Falkners now?”
“Let’s sit at the table,” Ivy said.
They sat, and Ivy said, “Leslie Falkner seems like a nice enough man, but I wonder sometimes about his wife. Faye’s her name.”
“What do you wonder about her?” Rhodes asked.
“Whether she’s mentally stable.”
That was interesting, Rhodes thought, considering what Wanda had told him. “What gives you the idea she might not be stable?”
“She threw a hissy fit in the office one day. She and Leslie had come in to ask about some coverage, and it turned out that they didn’t have exactly what she thought they’d been paying for. They were a couple of cubicles down from me, talking to Wendy Solis, but I could hear the yelling from where I was. I talked to Wendy about it later, and she said it was just a minor thing but that Faye went ballistic. Wendy’s pretty levelheaded, and she laughed it off, but it was scary when it was happening.”
“I’ll be talking to her tomorrow,” Rhodes said. “I hope she doesn’t throw any fits. I don’t deal well with fits.”
“You deal well with everything. Now why don’t you go out in the backyard and give Speedo some exercise while I fix the delicious chicken breasts?”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Rhodes said. He tried not to think about the kale.
* * *
Seepy Benton called around nine-thirty. First the kale, then Seepy Benton. And the worst part was that Seepy called when Rhodes and Ivy were watching The Brain That Wouldn’t Die on TCM. Rhodes didn’t get many chances to see the kind of old bad movies he enjoyed, and when he did, he didn’t approve of interruptions. It was a good thing that he could pause the DVR.
“Sorry to bother you,” Seepy said, “but I thought you’d like to hear what happened when I talked to Mayor Clement.”
Rhodes did want to know, but he was still a bit peeved. “You could’ve called earlier.”
There was no kale at Max’s. Rhodes said, “I don’t want to hear about that. Just tell me about the mayor.”
“He’s satisfied just to know who was behind the blog.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“He’s had time to calm down, and he doesn’t plan to carry it any further. He realizes he shouldn’t have pried into this to begin with. Maybe something you said to him helped. The murder has him worried, though. He’s afraid it will reflect badly on the town when word gets out.”
“It’s not going to be on the national news,” Rhodes said.
“He’s worried that Jennifer Loam will give it a big play when we find the killer. Sometimes the big-city papers pick up a story like that.”
“What do you mean we?” Rhodes asked.
“I also talked to Roger Prentiss,” Seepy said. “He’s agreed to hire me as a private investigator to look into what happened to Lawrence.”
“You know better than to interfere in a police investigation.”
“I’m not going to interfere. I’ll be a big help. I have permission to look at Lawrence’s computer tomorrow. Roger knows the password. I’ll tell you if I find anything.”
Rhodes had to admit that would help, as he’d had to use Seepy for computer-related work before. “All right. It’s unorthodox, but I’ll go along with you. You have to let me know anything you find that’s relevant to the case.”
“I always did that even before I was a private eye. I’m not going to change.”
“I’m not entirely convinced,” Rhodes said.
“You’re going to hurt my feelings, talking like that,” Seepy said.
“I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings. I didn’t know you were so delicate.”
“It’s okay. I know you were only kidding.”
“Right,” Rhodes said. “Only kidding. You just be sure you call and report what you find.”
“You can count on me.”
“I hope so,” Rhodes said, and hung up.
When he went back to the couch and sat down, Ivy said, “You’re not going to be grumpy and spoil the movie, are you?”
“Me?” Rhodes said. “Grumpy?”
Ivy laughed. “We don’t have to watch the rest of the movie, you know. There are other things we could do.”
“Such as?”
“I think you have a pretty good idea.”
“Ah-ha,” Rhodes said. “I paused the movie, so I can just exit and watch it later.”
“Come along, then,” Ivy said, standing up.
Rhodes stood up, and then he went along.
Chapter 13
The Hunley families lived on a piece of land outside of Thurston that backed up on an old rock pit, now long since abandoned. It had filled up with water years ago, and rumor had it that Con had stocked it with bass and catfish. Supposedly several people had caught lunker bass there, but Rhodes wasn’t one of them. He loved fishing, but he hadn’t had time for it in much too long.
Past the rock pit was a large wooded area, and the Hunleys’ two houses were well shaded by trees, including some tall native pecans. There was nothing fancy about the houses. The larger one, which Rhodes figured was where Con Hunley lived, was an older ranch-style place, wide but probably not deep, with a columned concrete porch and an attached two-car garage. Rhodes saw security cameras at the corners of the house. He didn’t know what was in the garage, but a black Chevy Suburban, polished to a high shine, sat in the driveway. The grass in the yard was mostly brown and dead, but even in that condition it didn’t look bad, and the soil didn’t show through. It had been well cared for before the summer really set in, but Hunley apparently hadn’t cared enough about it to water it. Maybe he didn’t like mowing. If that was the case, Rhodes didn’t blame him. Rhodes didn’t like mowing, either.
Next door to the bigger house was another ranch-style one, also with a columned porch but with only four columns instead of five. Rhodes knew that Pete Hunley and his family lived there, and it occurred to him that he knew nothing at all about the wives of either Con or Pete, or any offspring other than Pete. The Hunley men were famous in the county. The wives not so much. He supposed he’d find out more about them before the day was over.
In front of both houses were tall flagpoles with the United States flag on one pole and the Texas flag on the other. The Texas flag was on a shorter pole than the U.S. flag, and both hung limp in the motionless air. That the flags were flown wasn’t surprising in Blacklin County, even when military families weren’t involved. Most people in Blacklin County still believed in God and country and of course the state of Texas.
Rhodes had driven down in one of the Department’s Dodge Chargers instead of the Tahoe, and he parked it behind the Suburban and got out. When he did, Con Hunley came out of the garage. He was tall, though not as tall as Rhodes, and solidly built. He was in his early seventies, but he looked strong and healthy. He had on jungle camouflage pants, shirt, and cap in various shades of green and black. The pants were tucked into a pair of shiny black combat boots. What got Rhodes’s attention wasn’t the clothing, however. It was the AR-15 cradled in the crook of his arm.
“Glad to see you, Sheriff,” Hunley said. His voice was deep and commanding. “I guess you must’ve heard about what’s going on around here and come to check on it.”
As he had with Roger Prentiss on the previous day, Rhodes got the feeling that he’d walked into the middle of a situation that he had no clue about. He said, “You mean besides the murder?”
“I heard about that,” Hunley said. “Terrible thing. That’s not what I was talking about, though.”
“Just what were you talking about, then?”
“Mischief,” Hunley said. “Lots of mischief going on.”
“Let’s get back to the murder. You ever meet a man named Lawrence Gates?”
Hunley didn’t even think about it. “Never heard of him.”
“He was here to talk about the school to someone. He didn’t get in touch with you? He might’ve been using another name. You have any calls from anybody wanting to talk to you?”
“Now that you mention it, there was some fella named Watson who called. John Watson. I told him I wasn’t interested in talking to him, though, and he never called back.”
That had to have been Gates, Rhodes thought. “You’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Now let me tell you about the mischief.”
“What kind of mischief would that be?”
“The latest is that last night somebody came slipping around here and threw out a bunch of lighted firecrackers. Did the same at Pete’s house, too. Sounded a little like gunfire at first, but only at first. I knew it wasn’t gunfire, and so did Pete. It didn’t bother me, but it upset Pete. He’s not over his war the way I’m over mine. Didn’t make our wives any too happy, either.” He patted his rifle. “They were gone by the time I got out of the house, not that I’d have shot at them if I’d had the chance.”
Rhodes wondered how much truth was in that statement, and as he was thinking it over, a woman came out of the garage. She was dressed almost identically to her husband, including the combat boots. The difference was that she didn’t have an AR-15. Her face was wrinkled and tanned, and if she had long hair, it was all tucked up under her camouflage cap.
“Morning, Sheriff,” she said. Her voice was almost as deep as her husband’s and a bit raspy. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met. I’m Edwina Hunley.” She stuck out a hand and Rhodes shook it. “It was those Falkners that threw out those firecrackers if you want to know who did it. They’ve been harassing us for a good while now. We never called you because it seemed too petty to complain about, but it’s getting real bothersome.”
“That’s what I’m here to talk about,” Rhodes said, although that wasn’t quite the truth. He figured that the conversation would get around to the schoolhouse controversy soon
enough.
“Let’s go inside, then,” Con said. “It’s already too hot to stand out in the yard.”
“Lead the way,” Rhodes said.
“We’ll just go in through the garage,” Edwina said, turning and going back through the open door. Con and Rhodes followed.
Inside the garage was another Suburban, just as black and just as highly polished as the one outside. Where that one would have been housed there was an old oak table that someone had refinished. The top gleamed even in the dim light. The garage smelled of varnish and kerosene.
“Bought that table for my son,” Con said with a glance at the table. “Just about got it done. Might put one more coat of varnish on the top.”
Rhodes thought it was fine as it was and said so.
“Maybe,” Con said. “Come on in.”
A door from the garage led directly to the kitchen, and Rhodes felt as if he’d stepped back in time, right back into the nineteen seventies or maybe it was the eighties. The cabinets were dark wood; the countertops were avocado green, as were the porcelain sink and the refrigerator. At the far end of the kitchen was a breakfast nook with a table that looked a lot like the one in the garage, with four oak chairs around it. Four avocado green place mats sat on the table in front of the chairs.
“Have a seat at the table,” Con said. “Edwina will fix us some coffee. I’ll be right back.”
Rhodes said, “Sorry, but I’m not a coffee drinker.”
Con had left the room, so Edwina said, “I thought all lawmen drank coffee.”
“Maybe most do,” Rhodes said. “I never had a taste for it.”
“I have some orange juice.”
“That would be fine,” Rhodes said.
Edwina started the coffeepot, and Rhodes thought, as he often had, that if coffee tasted as good to him as it smelled, he’d have drunk a quart every day. It didn’t work that way, however.
Edwina got the orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured a big glass of it. She set the glass on the mat in front of Rhodes and said, “Go ahead and get started. The coffee will be ready in a minute.”
Rhodes took a drink of the juice, which was cold and sweet, just as Con came back into the room. He’d left the rifle behind, but both he and Edwina kept their caps on.