That Old Scoundrel Death

by Bill Crider

  That was a story Rhodes didn’t need to hear, and he didn’t have to. Dr. Childs came out and took a look at Betsy just then and said he’d have to sew up the cut in her head but that she’d be fine. Curtis seemed relieved, and so was Rhodes for that matter. He left Curtis in the clinic and got on the road again.

  Chapter 21

  Rhodes called Hack and asked where Karla Vincent lived.

  “You ain’t been keepin’ me in the loop,” Hack said. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on, and I can’t do my job right if I’m out of the loop.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to get into a discussion of what Hack’s job was, so he changed the subject. “Any report from Buddy about that crime scene?”

  “You want me to put you in the loop?”

  “That’s right. Put me in the loop.”

  “You gonna do the same for me?”

  “When I catch up. Now what about Buddy?”

  “Found a bunch of empty cartridge shells, tagged ’em and bagged ’em. Didn’t find anything else, though.”

  “Have them checked for prints,” Rhodes said.

  “You think I don’t know what’s what? I told Mika to check the one you brought in, too.”

  “Good work,” Rhodes said. “Now what about Karla Vincent?”

  “Gimme a minute,” Hack said.

  It didn’t take much longer than that. Hack said, “She lives out on the county road that turns off to the right past what’s left of the old school buildin’. It’s the third house on the right.”

  “I love computers,” Rhodes said.

  “You don’t know squat about computers.”

  “No, but you do. That’s all that matters.”

  “You’re just tryin’ to butter me up and get on my good side because you won’t keep me in the loop.”

  “Later,” Rhodes said, and signed off.

  * * *

  The third house on the right on the county road didn’t look like much. It wasn’t kept up like the one Mrs. Truelove lived in, but it was in better shape than the one Curtis Lambert had. The lawn was dead, like most lawns at that time of year, and the paint on the house was flaking. A couple of flower beds in front of the house had some plants in them, but the plants were as dead as the lawn.

  Rhodes drove up a rutted path and parked the car where it ended near the house. He got out of the car and looked around. He didn’t see Kenny’s pickup or any sign of where it could be hidden, so he went up onto the little front porch to see if he could rouse Karla Vincent. He didn’t have to rouse her, however. She was standing in the doorway, a shadowy figure behind the closed screen, waiting for him.

  A cotton ball was attached to the middle of the screen with a bobby pin. Rhodes hadn’t seen that for a long time, but for a while when he was growing up, just about every screen door had a cotton ball attached because people believed it would keep flies out of the house when the door was opened. They believed the cotton ball looked like a clutch of spiders’ eggs and would fool the flies. Rhodes didn’t know if it worked or not.

  “Karla Vincent?” Rhodes asked.

  “That’s me,” the woman behind the screen said. “If you’re looking for Kenny, he’s not here.”

  “How’d you know I was looking for him?” Rhodes asked.

  “I see your car. You’re the law, and there’s just one person the law would be coming around here to see.”

  “You’re right about me being the law. I’m Sheriff Dan Rhodes. You’re right about me looking for Kenny, too.”

  “What’s he done this time?”

  “Nothing. I just want to talk to him.”

  “Like I said, he’s not here. He stays with that sorry daddy of his, and he doesn’t come by here much anymore.”

  “I think some bad people might be after him,” Rhodes said. “I need to talk to him about that.”

  “If he was here, you could talk to him, but like I keep telling you, he’s not here. I’m not surprised people are after him. He’s in and out of trouble all the time. Takes after his daddy that way.”

  Rhodes could see that this conversation was going nowhere. He said, “I’ll be going if he’s not here, but if he shows up, you should call the department as soon as he gets here. I really do need to talk to him.”

  “If I see him, I’ll tell him you want to talk to him.”

  “That won’t work,” Rhodes said. “It’ll just spook him. You call, and don’t let him know.”

  “He won’t show up, anyway,” Karla said. “He’s just about forgot all about me.”

  “But if he does show up—”

  “I’ll call you if I can,” Karla said.

  That was all Rhodes could hope for. He thanked her and left her, a shadowy figure behind a screen door, protected from flies by a cotton ball.

  * * *

  Rhodes had one more visit to make, to the Hunleys, and that meant a drive back to Thurston. The drive gave him time to think about the case, but everything stayed jumbled in his mind. Now and then he thought he’d caught hold of something, but whatever it was, it was too insubstantial to be held on to and always slipped away.

  Rhodes didn’t think talking to the Hunleys would clear anything up. It was just something else he had to try. It seemed as if that was the way it usually worked. There was no CSI: Blacklin County. His methods were old-school ones. He simply kept on talking to people until things cleared up for him or until he caught somebody in a revealing lie.

  He thought about the election year coming up. Both Hack and Jennifer Loam had mentioned it, and he’d been honest when he told them that he wasn’t sure he’d run for office again. Maybe he was too old-fashioned for the times. Maybe the county deserved somebody who was more up-to-date and who could solve crimes using new methods. Not that he’d failed very often. He thought he had about as good a record as any sheriff in the state, but there was nothing flashy or fancy about what he did, no matter how hard Jennifer worked to make it look like there was on her website. Well, he wasn’t going to think about it now. What he had to do now was find out who’d killed Lawrence Gates, and if that meant he had to do more talking, then that’s what he’d do.

  * * *

  The Hunleys were decked out in camo again. Con was in the driveway, washing one of the big Suburbans, although it had been pristine the last time Rhodes had seen it. Pete was there helping him, and Edwina was sweeping out the garage. The table Con had been refinishing was gone, and Rhodes presumed it was now at Pete’s house.

  Con tossed a big sponge into a bucket of soapy water when Rhodes got out of the county car, and Edwina came out of the garage. Pete stood off to one side, watching.

  “Good to see you, Sheriff,” Con said, wiping his hands on a towel that had been lying on the hood of the Suburban. He was smiling and his tone was cordial, Rhodes didn’t think he sounded as if he meant what he’d said. “I thought you might have come by earlier.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Rhodes said.

  “I’ll bet,” Edwina said. “That was a wonderful thing you did last night, saving Wanda Wilkins from the fire.”

  “The fire’s what I’m here to talk about,” Rhodes said. “I know all of you must be pretty upset at the loss of the building.”

  “It was just a building,” Con said, not showing much concern. “As long as nobody was killed, I don’t know that I can complain.”

  Rhodes was a little surprised to hear that. “As much as you’ve talked about saving the school, I thought you’d be more upset.”

  “It was just a building,” Pete said, repeating Con’s words. “We don’t care that much about buildings.”

  “It was a building you wanted to save,” Rhodes said, “and I understand there were plans for a big reunion there later this year.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Pete asked.

  “I don’t reveal my sources,” Rhodes said. “Wouldn’t be ethical. Is it true about the reunion?”

  “It’s true,” Con said. He tossed the towel back on the Suburban. “I was hoping t
o get together a lot of people who’d lived here and who’d gone to the school. I thought I could raise some money to put toward saving the place. Not going to happen now, though.”

  “You don’t sound too disappointed about it,” Rhodes said.

  Con shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now. Everything’s changed now that there’s no building. What would be the point of having a reunion? Time for us to forget about it and move on.”

  Rhodes thought it was time for him to move on, too, as the conversation had already given him a few things to think about. He told the Hunleys that he was sorry about the school, but they again brushed off the idea that they’d suffered any great loss.

  Rhodes got in the Charger and drove back to Clearview. He dreaded facing Hack. It was getting late in the afternoon, and while Hack was sure to demand a full accounting of everything that had happened that day, Rhodes didn’t feel up to giving it.

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to put Hack in the loop since Hack and Lawton had something they’d rather discuss with him, yet another story that they could drag out almost endlessly. It had to do with a certain Mrs. Purcell.

  “You know her, don’t you?” Hack asked when he told Rhodes that there’d been a problem. “Widow woman lives on a county road just outside of Obert.”

  “I don’t think I’ve met her,” Rhodes said, not sure whether he’d rather hear this story or be forced to tell several of his own.

  “She’s not a reg’lar customer,” Hack said.

  “Might be one from now on, though,” Lawton said. “She thinks Andy hung the moon.”

  “I’m the one sent Andy out there,” Hack said, “so I’ll tell this.”

  “Just tryin’ to set the stage,” Lawton said.

  “Sure you were,” Hack said. “Anyway, Miz Purcell called in about these mysterious things flyin’ over her house and stealin’ her ’lectricity.”

  Lawton started humming the theme from The Twilight Zone.

  “You hush up,” Hack said.

  Lawton stopped humming.

  “I figgered Andy’d be the best one to deal with mysterious flyin’ things,” Hack said, “so I sent him on out there.”

  “Was birds, is what it was,” Lawton said. “The flyin’ things, I mean.”

  “You don’t know that,” Hack said. “Andy didn’t say it was birds.”

  “That’s what it was, though. Had to be birds.”

  “How can birds steal ’lectricity?”

  “They wasn’t stealin’ anything. You know that.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but the sheriff don’t know that. Now you hush up and let me tell this.”

  “Just tryin’ to help,” Lawton said.

  Rhodes sagged down in his chair. There was no telling how long this would take, but he’d decided he could stand it better than he could stand telling about his own day.

  “You never try to help,” Hack told Lawton. “You just mess things up.”

  “Do not.”

  “Hold it,” Rhodes said, sitting up straighter. “You’re losing the thread here.”

  “Not my fault,” Hack said. “Where was I?”

  “Mysterious flying things,” Rhodes said.

  “Birds,” Lawton said.

  “Dagnabbit, Lawton,” Hack said.

  “That’s enough,” Rhodes said. “Get on with it, Hack.”

  “Well, what Miz Purcell said was that these mysterious flyin’ things was stealin’ her ’lectricity. Andy didn’t put much stock in that, but he went out to see what he could do, and sure enough, he found out what was wrong.”

  “Wasn’t anything mysterious about it,” Lawton said.

  Hack didn’t bother to notice Lawton this time, other than heaving a sigh. He said, “Andy asked about how Miz Purcell knew the ’lectricity was bein’ stolen, and she said that it went on and off. Andy asked her if she’d called the power company, and she said she had. They said there was nothin’ wrong with her ’lectricity, and she kinda let on to Andy that they didn’t think too much about her idea that mysterious flyin’ things was stealin’ it.”

  “Easy to see why,” Lawton said, but Hack ignored him again.

  “Andy didn’t agree or disagree with her about the flyin’ things,” Hack went on. “He just asked her where her circuit breaker box was. House was so old, it didn’t have circuit breakers. Had a fuse box.”

  Rhodes thought he knew where the story was going now, but he let Hack finish it.

  “Fuse box was in a little pantry in back of the kitchen,” Hack said, “so Andy took a look. Sure enough, one of the fuses was loose. He screwed it in tight, and ever’thing was jim dandy.”

  “What about the mysterious flying things?” Rhodes asked, although he hated himself for doing it.

  “She figgered they’d got in the house somehow and loosened the fuse. Andy told her he didn’t think that was likely but that she ought to get a ’lectrician out there to check that fuse box. She said she didn’t know anybody to call, so Andy called Willie Seward. Willie’ll check it out and fix her up.”

  “Oughta put in a breaker box, is what she oughta do,” Lawton said. “That fuse box’s downright dangerous.”

  “Maybe she’ll replace it,” Hack said, “if she can afford it.”

  “Wirin’ in the house is probably eighty years old,” Lawton said. “Firetrap, that’s what the place is.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to talk about firetraps. He said, “I hope nobody was robbing the bank while Andy was working on the fuse box.”

  “We gotta do a little community service now and then,” Hack said. “Keep the public happy, what with an election year comin’ up and all.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to talk about the election year, either, so he changed the subject. “Did Mika find any fingerprints on those shells?”

  “She didn’t come in today,” Hack said. “She’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Rhodes could wait. He didn’t think she’d find any fingerprints, anyway. The shooter would never have left the shells if there’d been fingerprints. No solid clues to anything in the case existed, but Rhodes was beginning to have a better idea of how things might have happened, not that he could prove any of it.

  “Have you heard anything from Seepy Benton today?” Rhodes asked Hack.

  “Not a peep,” Hack said. “He’s probably off somewhere tryin’ on trench coats.”

  “Take more’n that to make him look like Alan Ladd or Bogie,” Lawton said.

  “I think he’s perfectly happy to look just the way he does,” Rhodes said.

  “Could be,” Hack said. “Takes all kinds.”

  “He’s a rare bird,” Lawton said.

  “That’s the truth,” Hack agreed.

  Rhodes couldn’t remember a time when Hack had agreed so quickly with Lawton, so he decided to get away before anything else was said. First, though, he called the hospital and was told that Wanda would be able to talk to him, but not for long. Rhodes hoped she’d have some information that he could use.

  “Woman nearly burned up,” Hack said when Rhodes told him where he was going. “She won’t remember a thing.”

  “You never can tell,” Rhodes said. “She might break this case wide open.”

  “Yeah, and I might sprout wings and lay eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

  Lawton cackled like a chicken.

  “Sounds right natural,” Hack said. “Oughtn’t you to be a rooster, though?”

  “Never could cock-a-doodle-do that good,” Lawton said.

  “I’m not su’prised,” Hack said.

  Rhodes got up and got out the door before they could get started on each other again.

  Chapter 22

  Wanda lay in the hospital bed, hooked up to a couple of IVs. She looked pale and weak, and her voice hadn’t recovered the way Rhodes’s had.

  “First thing, Sheriff, I want to thank you,” she said. “They told me you carried me out of the schoolhouse.”

  “Glad to do it,” Rhodes said. “Al
l part of the job.”

  “Part of the job or not, I appreciate it. I know I shouldn’t’ve been there.”

  Rhodes couldn’t disagree with her.

  “I went because I saw somebody,” Wanda said, “and I knew you couldn’t get there in time to stop him.”

  “Did you see who it was?” Rhodes asked.

  “No. He was wearing one of those masks you pull down over your head.”

  “A ski mask,” Rhodes said, thinking of Curtis Lambert.

  “I guess so. He was up on the stage, splashing something all over, and I tried to run down the aisle to stop him. I fell down. That’s all I remember until I woke up here in the hospital. I’m sorry I can’t be any more help.”

  Rhodes was a bit disappointed, although he hadn’t really expected anything more. He told Wanda not to worry about it and that he’d find whoever was in the building sooner or later.

  “I believe you will,” Wanda said. She looked away, then back. “I hate to ask a favor, but there’s one thing that I do worry about, and that’s Leroy.”

  “You don’t have to worry about him,” Rhodes said. “Manny Kingston’ll be going by to see about him every day. He’ll take care of everything.”

  “I don’t know him very well,” Wanda said. “I’ve just been to his store once or twice.”

  “He’s okay,” Rhodes said. “I had a long talk with him. You can be sure Leroy will be well taken care of. That reminds me, though, that I couldn’t lock your house. Do you have a key?”

  “There’s one in my purse. It’s in the bedroom in the top drawer of the dresser.”

  “I’ll have Manny get the key and be sure the house is locked,” Rhodes said.

  “You think we can trust him?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Rhodes said.

  “You better be,” Wanda told him.

  * * *

  That evening after Rhodes came in from romping with Yancey and Speedo, Ivy served up a dish she described as zucchini-stuffed lasagna. Rhodes wasn’t sure it was possible to have lasagna without the wide, flat noodles, but he didn’t mention that fact, and the dish turned out to be pretty good even without them. It even smelled like lasagna, although Rhodes was pretty sure the meat was ground turkey instead of ground beef. At any rate, the Italian seasoning made the kind of meat a moot point. Also, Rhodes had allowed himself to have one of the Dr Peppers made with real sugar that he kept in the refrigerator. That made up for any shortcomings in the meal.