by Bill Crider
“I’ll give her a try,” Rhodes said. “Thanks for your help.” He started for the Charger, then turned around and said, “Goodbye, Betsy.”
Betsy just growled.
* * *
Noble’s mother lived in a neat little house with a neat little yard, and she was just as neat as they were. She must have liked housecleaning more than Arlene Reese did. She said that she hadn’t seen Noble for a while.
“I don’t know where he gets off to, Sheriff, I honestly don’t. He never tells me anything, never has, not since he got to be a teenager. He’s not a bad son, but he does seem to get into trouble a lot. He tells me that it’s always a misunderstanding, though, and he hardly ever has to spend any time in jail.”
Thanks to lawyers, Rhodes thought. He said, “I’m sure he’s a fine son, and I’d like to find him and talk to him.”
“He’s gone off with that Kenny Lambert,” Mrs. Truelove said. “There’s just no telling where they are. When those two get together, you just never know. They might even be out of town.”
“You have no idea at all?”
“Well, sometimes they go off to an old fishing camp down by Sand Creek.”
“Where on the creek?” Rhodes asked.
“I couldn’t tell you that. It’s just an old shack, or that’s what Noble told me once. Whoever owns the land probably doesn’t know anybody goes there and might not like it if he did. I tell Noble he shouldn’t go, but sometimes he does. He says it’s a place where he can get away from it all.”
Rhodes thought that all Noble got away from was the people who were after him for one reason or another, and that would include the law as often as not.
“I appreciate your help,” Rhodes said.
He left Mrs. Truelove standing on her neat little porch, but he could feel her watching him even as he drove away. He thought she knew Noble was in some kind of trouble and that the feeling was nothing new to her. He wasn’t hiding from the law, however, and Rhodes wondered just what had spooked him and Kenny. He’d go looking for them later. Now he had other people to talk to, people who were easier to find. First, though, he had to visit a cat.
* * *
Rhodes parked the Charger in front of Wanda Wilkins’s house and looked across the street at the school. There wasn’t much there. Parts of all four walls still stood, but nothing else was left. Yellow tape on poles driven into the ground ten or fifteen yards from the building was supposed to keep people away, and no one was poking around there at the moment. Rhodes wondered how long that would last.
He got out of the car. There was no smoke or other evidence that the fire might not be out, but Rhodes could smell the burned wood. It was a sad loss in some ways, but the building would most likely have been razed sooner or later. The Reeses and Falkners had won. That was something to think about.
Wanda’s house was unlocked, as was to be expected. She wouldn’t have bothered to lock up if she was just going across the street to check on the school.
Leroy was none too happy to see Rhodes, or at least Rhodes supposed that was the case. The cat took one look at him and ran into another room. He was clearly puzzled by Wanda’s absence and didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone else.
Rhodes found an empty cat food dish and a water dish in the kitchen by the stove. The water dish still had water in it, but Rhodes poured out the old water and refilled the bowl. He located the dry cat food in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. As soon as he started pouring some of it into the bowl, Leroy forgot that he didn’t want to have anything to do with strangers. He came into the kitchen, looked at Rhodes with disdain, and started to eat.
“Not quite so standoffish now, are you,” Rhodes said.
Leroy didn’t look up. He just kept eating.
“Don’t worry,” Rhodes told him. “I’ll find somebody to make regular visits until Wanda gets home.”
Leroy still didn’t look up. Like most cats, he was confident that he’d be taken care of, as was his due. Rhodes left him there and looked around for a house key. He didn’t find one, so he’d just have to hope the crime rate in Thurston didn’t include burglary of a habitation for the next few days. Leroy had finished eating and was following Rhodes around.
“That’s all for this morning,” Rhodes told the cat. “If things go well, you’ll get fed again this afternoon.”
Leroy gave a polite “meow.”
“You behave yourself while Wanda’s gone,” Rhodes said.
“Meow,” Leroy said, and Rhodes left to have a look at the schoolhouse.
When he went outside, he saw Gary Parker’s car parked up near the yellow tape that surrounded the building. Parker wasn’t in sight.
Rhodes walked across the street and ducked under the yellow tape. He wasn’t going into what was left of the building. That would be too dangerous, and arson investigation wasn’t his job. Parker, however, knew a good bit about it.
“You in there, Gary?” Rhodes called.
“Right here,” Gary said. “Barely inside, and don’t you come in.”
“I don’t intend to,” Rhodes said. “I’ll talk to you when you come out.”
“Just a minute and I’ll be there,” Gary said.
It was longer than a minute, and when he came out, Gary had soot on his face, hands, and clothing. He had a bit of charred wood in his hand.
“Just making sure the fire’s out,” he said. “It is.”
“What’s that you’re carrying?”
Gary looked down at the piece of wood. “Burned wood.”
Everybody in the county was a comedian, Rhodes thought. “I can see that. Why do you have it?”
Gary handed the charred wood to Rhodes. “Take a sniff.”
Rhodes took a sniff. The wood smelled like charred wood to him, and he handed it back to Gary.
“You get anything?” Gary asked.
“No,” Rhodes said. “Just a burned smell.”
“My nose is better trained than yours. I smell coal oil, which would be a good accelerant.”
“So you think it was arson.”
“Deciding that is the fire marshal’s job. I’ll reserve judgment.”
“What you said sounded like a judgment of arson.”
“That was just an observation, but if I were an arsonist, I’d spread the accelerant on the ground floor first, move to the second floor, and get out by the fire escape up there. When I got here it looked like the first floor started burning first.”
“Looked that way to me, too,” Rhodes said, “and I was here early. Wanda Wilkins was in the building because she thought she saw somebody.”
“The fire marshal will figure it out,” Gary said. “For now I’m not going to say anything more.”
“I’m not either,” Rhodes said. “I’ll see you around. I have to pay a few visits.”
“Have fun,” Gary said.
“I plan to,” Rhodes told him. “Right now I have to see a man about a cat.”
* * *
“Sure,” Manny said when Rhodes asked him about seeing to Leory. “I don’t mind a bit. Gale and I like cats.”
Rhodes thanked him and told him where to find the cat food. “This will be a good way for you to build up some goodwill in the community. People appreciate neighbors who help neighbors. Maybe they’ll even start to treat you and Gale like natives.”
“I don’t care about that,” Manny said. “I just want to help out.” He paused. “Still, if they stopped thinking of me and Gale as outsiders, that would be a nice bonus.”
“I’ll bet they will when the word gets out,” Rhodes said.
“That was some nice work you did last night,” Manny said. “I saw it on A Clear View for Clearview this morning. Real heroic. I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried about you.”
Rhodes didn’t want to hear about it. “Just doing my job, and I feel fine. I was lucky.”
“I’m glad you were. If it weren’t for you, somebody would have to take on that cat-feeding job permanently. Any idea
how the fire got started?”
“Nope,” Rhodes said. “I’m leaving that to the state fire marshal. I’m just a sheriff, and he has the experts to do that kind of job. He’ll send one soon enough.”
“You think it was arson?”
“I have no idea,” Rhodes said, but he did.
Chapter 19
The Falkners didn’t appear to be at all happy to see Rhodes again, although Leslie had told him to drop by anytime. Unhappy or not, they invited him in, and Rhodes found himself sitting on the couch in the den again. Faye sat in one of the chairs this time and glared at Rhodes without speaking. Leslie tried to be amiable, although he wasn’t very good at it.
“What can we do for you today, Sheriff?” he asked. “You know we’re always glad to help.”
That was clearly not true, but Rhodes let it pass. He thought the direct approach to telling them how they could help would be the best, so he said, “For starters, you can stop pestering the Hunleys with firecrackers and whatever else you might have in mind.”
Faye jumped to her feet. “What do you mean by accusing us of that kind of thing? We’ll sue you and the whole county for lying if you spread that story around.”
“Calm down, Faye,” Leslie said. “I’m sure the sheriff will explain himself. Right, Sheriff?”
“Right,” Rhodes said. “I thought I was pretty clear, but I can repeat myself if you want me to.”
“Well, I never,” Faye said, balling her fists. “You’re as much as calling us liars to our faces.”
“When it comes to lying,” Rhodes said, “you and your husband are the ones who did it. I’m just the messenger.”
Faye opened her mouth to say something else, but Rhodes held up a hand to stop her. To his surprise, she shut her mouth.
“Here’s how I know,” Rhodes said. “The Hunleys have you on video from their surveillance cameras.”
“That’s impossible,” Faye said. “We had on our—” She stopped. She sat back down and looked at the floor.
“Hoodies,” Rhodes said. “You were wearing hoodies, but it was you, all right, and I appreciate that you confirmed it. You are on the video, but video’s not really how I knew. Leslie mentioned firecrackers the last time I was here. He couldn’t have known about them if he hadn’t been involved.”
Faye looked up from the floor and gave Leslie one of her glares. “Idiot,” she said, and Leslie looked sheepish.
Rhodes ignored that little bit of byplay and continued. “So you lied to me about being out of the house. The firecracker incident was at around three in the morning, which is after Lawrence Gates was killed. The question now is, did you lie to me about being out earlier, say about the time of the murder?”
“Look, Sheriff,” Leslie said, “I admit that we might have misspoken about being out of the house, and you’re right about the firecrackers. We did it. I’m ashamed to admit it, but we did it. Those Hunleys have gotten on our nerves so much that we had to do something. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“That wasn’t the only thing,” Rhodes said.
“We didn’t mean them any harm, whatever we did,” Leslie said. “It was just pranks, and it was stupid of us to mess with the Hunleys like we did. As I said, it won’t happen again.”
“It had better not,” Rhodes said.
“It won’t. I’m not lying this time. You have my promise.”
“Fine. We’ll see how that works out. Now how about telling me if you went out earlier than three, and I want the truth.”
Faye spoke up. “We were here all through the early evening. I swear it. We’d never kill anybody. That’s just crazy.”
Rhodes wasn’t entirely sure that Faye wasn’t capable of doing something crazy, but he said, “I’ll accept that for now, but I have some new questions. Where were you yesterday evening about dark?”
“The schoolhouse fire,” Leslie said. “Was it arson? You can’t possibly think we had anything to do with that.”
“Sure I could,” Rhodes said, not answering the question about arson. “You wanted it gone, and now it’s gone.”
Leslie shook his head. “Not because of anything we did.”
“Do you have any way of proving you were here at home?”
Leslie looked unhappy about what he was going to say. “No. It was just the two of us again.” Leslie paused. “I know what you’re thinking, but this time I’m telling the truth.”
“He is,” Faye said. “You have to believe him.”
Rhodes didn’t feel obligated to believe anybody, but until he could prove differently, he’d have to take the Falkners’ word for where they were. He thought Faye was just unstable enough to burn a building down if she got mad, but for now he’d let her off the hook.
“You’ve lied before,” he said, “but this time maybe you’re not. I’ll have to keep digging, and you’d better hope I don’t find out you’ve lied to me again.”
“You won’t,” Leslie said.
Faye just nodded. She was more subdued now, almost apathetic. Rhodes didn’t like her mood swings. He wondered if Faye were on medication.
“You should talk to the Reeses,” Leslie said. “If anybody wanted that school burned, they’d be my top suspects.”
Rhodes wasn’t surprised to hear that. Leslie was trying to shift suspicion, as was only natural. Rhodes had heard that kind of thing all too many times before.
“I’ll talk to them,” Rhodes said, “but you and Faye are still right up there with them at the top of my list.”
Neither of the Falkners had anything to say to that.
* * *
The Reeses were no happier to see Rhodes than the Falkners had been, but Charlie was much more aggressive and open about his displeasure.
“I know why you’re here,” he said when he came to the door to answer the bell. “You think we had something to do with the fire last night, and we didn’t. Case closed. You can leave now.”
“I’m not quite ready to leave,” Rhodes said. “I’d like to talk to you and Arlene for a minute.”
Charlie puffed out his chest. “All right, as long as it’s not more than a minute.”
“It could be longer,” Rhodes said. “That was just an estimate.”
“Are you making some kind of joke?” Charlie asked. “If you are, it isn’t funny.”
Nobody ever thought Rhodes’s jokes were funny, much to his disappointment. He said, “Let’s go inside. I want to see Arlene. Maybe I can interrupt her housecleaning again.”
Charlie looked at Rhodes as if he suspected another attempted joke, but after a couple of seconds he said, “Come in, then, but she’s not cleaning today.”
They walked into the rustic den, and again Rhodes sat in the cowhide chair. Just as he sat down, Arlene came into the room. She wasn’t wearing the cleaning garb this time, but she wasn’t wearing western clothing, either, just regular slacks and a blouse. Charlie, of course, had on his western duds.
Rhodes stood up.
“Nice to see you again, Sheriff,” Arlene said, and she sounded almost as if she meant it. “You can be seated. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“He thinks we burned the schoolhouse down,” Charlie said, sitting on the couch. Arlene sat down beside him, and Rhodes sat, too.
“Well, did we?” Arlene asked.
“You’re no funnier than he is,” Charlie said with a frown. “You know we didn’t burn any building, and before you ask, Sheriff, we were both here at home. We didn’t leave, not even to gawk at the fire. We don’t go chasing after excitement like some people.”
Rhodes hadn’t seen any of his suspects in the crowd. He thought that was a little strange, but maybe they all had good reasons for staying away, possible guilt being only one of them.
“You were there, though, Sheriff,” Arlene said. “I saw you on the internet earlier this morning, and I’m glad you’re all right. You looked bad when you came out of the school, but it was wonderful that you were able to save Wanda from the fire
.”
“Old busybody,” Charlie said.
Arlene laid a hand on his arm. “Now, Charlie, don’t talk like that.”
“She is a busybody, and I’ll talk however I please,” Charlie said.
Arlene gave Rhodes a look as if to say, What can I do with him?
“You have to admit that you’d be the logical suspects if the fire turned out to be arson,” Rhodes said.
“Are you accusing us?” Charlie asked, “because if you are—”
“I’m not making any accusations. Just making a remark.”
“I don’t like your remarks.”
“That’s a shame,” Rhodes said. “Anyway, you wanted the school gone, and now it’s gone. You’ve gotten what you and the Falkners wanted. You won and the Hunleys lost.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t because we did anything. If you ask me, the Falkners were the ones who did it.”
“No matter who did it, the building’s gone.”
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Charlie said.
Rhodes hadn’t heard that expression in years, but he didn’t mention that to Charlie. He said, “I guess it is. So you didn’t go for any horseback rides last night?”
“Damn right, I didn’t. I was too upset by your insinuations yesterday to ride. I might not ride today, either.”
For such a blustery bully, Charlie was being awfully sensitive. Rhodes said, “That’s a shame. I’m sorry I caused you such distress.”
“You’re joking again,” Charlie said. “Or you’re being a smartass. One’s as bad as the other.”
“He’s just being kind,” Arlene said with a serious look, but Rhodes could tell she was in on the joke or the smartassery, whichever it was.
“She’s right,” Rhodes lied. He stood up. “Just being kind. I think I’ll be going now. I do have one more question for you though, come to think of it. Nothing to do with the fire. Did you ever hear of an old fishing cabin on Sand Creek? Hasn’t been used in years, probably.”
Charlie thought for a second. “I might know the one you mean. It’s down from the wooden bridge across Sand Creek on the county road to the left just outside of town. You know the one I mean?”