Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

  Rhodes looked around as he passed the tombstones. Some of them were mottled and worn, with dates from the previous century, and there was quite a group from 1918–1919; the flu epidemic hadn’t spared even small towns in Texas.

  Some of the newer stones had artistic touches that hadn’t been thought of in those days. On one of them was a picture of bluebonnets. On another was a picture of a man fishing from a bass boat.

  Rhodes wouldn’t mind having one like that for himself, except that it wouldn’t represent him very accurately these days. As much as he liked fishing, he hardly ever got to go.

  When he reached the storage building, he walked around behind it where a blue Ford pickup was parked. Rhodes had thought it might be there. There was nowhere else in the cemetery to conceal a vehicle.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary about the truck, but Rhodes was sure it belonged to Ty Berry. He’d seen Berry driving it often enough.

  Rhodes looked carefully at the ground all around the truck. He found an old rusty bottle cap, a bent nail that was even rustier, and nothing else.

  There was nothing in the rear of the truck, either, except a thick rubber mat to keep the paint from getting scratched when something was being hauled back there. Rhodes lifted the mat. There was no killer lurking under it, so he dropped it back down.

  Rhodes looked through the window into the cab of the pickup. Berry had been a neat man, and the interior of the pickup was very clean. There was a litter bag hanging from a knob on the dash, and there were a couple pieces of paper in it. Rhodes couldn’t see what they were.

  He tried the door. It was unlocked, and Rhodes let himself in, though he almost hated to open the door and get water all over the interior, possibly messing up the crime scene. He felt even worse about getting inside with his muddy shoes, but he was tired of being in the rain. His hat was already soaked, and his socks were squishing when he walked.

  So he got in the truck. The rain popped against the roof like number two buckshot, and Rhodes took the papers out of the litter bag, holding them carefully by the edges. He’d never solved a case with the help of fingerprints, but there was always a first time.

  One of the pieces of paper was a grocery list. The words were written in small, neat, precise cursive script, the kind of handwriting that Rhodes had always admired but had never been able to master. The list included black pepper, ground beef, onions, potatoes, hamburger buns.

  Rhodes almost smiled. Berry was a man after his own heart, or at least after his own appetite. Appetite was one thing Berry wouldn’t have to be worrying about anymore.

  Rhodes dropped the list back in the litter bag and removed the other paper. It was written in the same neat hand and said, “A.D. 11.”

  Rhodes didn’t know what that meant. Maybe it referred to some important historical event in the year A.D. 11. Rhodes tried to think of what the event could have been. Had the Romans taken over in Egypt about that time? He wasn’t sure. He could recognize Greek columns easily enough, but when he’d been in school, he’d always done better in American history than in the history of the world.

  He dropped the paper back in the litter bag and looked around the rest of the pickup’s interior. There was nothing of interest in sight, so Rhodes opened the glove compartment.

  There were no gloves inside it. The compartment held a road map of the United States, a map of Texas, and a map of Blacklin County with all the private cemeteries marked in red ink. Berry, or someone, had inked in the names.

  There was also another list. It had most likely been printed out on a computer. It was dated the previous day, and it had on it all the items that had been stolen from the various cemeteries around the county. Rhodes would have one of his deputies check to see if there was anything new missing from the Clearview cemetery. If there was, that might mean that whoever had been doing the looting might be responsible for Berry’s death.

  Rhodes put the maps and the list back where he’d found them and got out of the pickup, leaving the litter bag inside. He didn’t have much to show for his search. He could have one of the deputies do a more thorough job after the rain stopped, if it ever did, but he didn’t have much hope that she’d turn up anything more.

  He left the keys under the floor mat, got out of the pickup, and squished back to the county car. When he was inside, he radioed Hack and said, “I’m going to look around here a little more, and then I’m going home to put on some dry clothes.”

  “What about Ty Berry?” Hack asked. “You gonna call his cousin in Austin?”

  Rhodes should have realized that Hack would already know about Berry. It was impossible to keep anything a secret in a small town. And he should also have known that Hack would know who Berry’s relatives were. Hack knew more about most people in Blacklin County than they knew themselves.

  “I’ll call,” Rhodes said. “Get his number, and I’ll come by after I’ve changed.”

  “It’s a her,” Hack said. “He’s got an uncle somewhere, too.”

  “The cousin can make that call,” Rhodes said.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?”

  Rhodes knew that Hack wanted the whole story in order to keep ahead of Lawton. Both men liked to be the first with details. But the sheriff wasn’t going to broadcast anything on the radio. There were too many people who had nothing better to do than listen in on their scanners.

  “I’ll tell you when I get there,” Rhodes said. “Have there been any other calls?”

  “Nothin’ important. Some goats got out on the road down close to Thurston, and somebody hit one of ’em. Nobody’s hurt, though. Except the goat. Ruth Grady’s down there.”

  Ruth was one of the deputies. She could handle just about any situation that came up. A dead goat and a dented car wouldn’t be a problem.

  “What about the ghost?” he asked.

  “Nobody’s seen him lately,” Hack said. “Looks like he’d turn up today if he ever did, the weather we’re havin’. It’s not good for much of anything ’cept maybe ghosts.”

  “Maybe he’s gone for good.”

  “Maybe.” Hack didn’t sound convinced. “You gonna get back here pretty soon?”

  “Give me an hour,” Rhodes said.

  5

  RHODES DROVE OUT OF THE CEMETERY AND DOWN THE street to the highway. He turned right and headed for the railroad overpass, but just before he got there, he turned off on a one-lane gravel road that ran down beside the overpass and then turned to parallel the railroad tracks. There were soft spots in the road where the gravel had been washed away, and Rhodes had to be careful not to let the car slide off into the ditch.

  When he came to a spot near where he’d seen the figures running out of the trees, he stopped the car. There was no place to pull off the road, but he didn’t think he had to worry about traffic. Hardly anyone ever used the road, and it wasn’t likely that anyone was going to try driving on it in the rain.

  Rhodes put on his soggy hat and got out of the car. He’d have to cross the ditch to get to the trees, and the ditch was half full of water. As wet as he was already, he might as well just walk through it, but he didn’t want to do that. So he decided to jump it.

  Once, a long time ago, jumping across a couple feet of running water wouldn’t have been worth a second thought. These days, however, it was a different story. One of the things Rhodes didn’t like about getting older was the discovery that doing things he’d once taken for granted had become a good bit more difficult. And it wasn’t his fault; it wasn’t as if he’d asked for his body to deteriorate.

  Thinking about it didn’t help anything, so he took a couple of halfhearted running steps and jumped the ditch. The good news was that he made it. The bad news was that the landing jarred his knees so hard that he stumbled forward for several feet and nearly fell flat on his face. His pulse raced, and he had to wave his arms to maintain his balance. When he got his momentum under control, he stood still for a minute to let his heartbeat get back to normal. He hoped n
o one had been watching.

  After a while, he walked up to the trees. The ground was muddier than it had been up on the hill in the cemetery, and now and then his shoes made little sucking noises as he picked up his feet.

  When he got into the trees, Rhodes listened to the sound of the rain crackling on the dead leaves. He didn’t hear anything else for a few seconds, and then he heard a faraway train whistle as an engine came to a crossing. The whistle grew louder with each crossing the train passed, and before long the cars began passing by. Rhodes watched them go, listening to the familiar clickety-clack of the wheels on the tracks.

  There had once been a depot in Clearview, and trains had made regular stops there, though that had been before Rhodes’s time. There were no stops now, of course, and the depot had been razed when Rhodes was just a boy.

  The train passed by, and soon the only sound Rhodes could hear was that made by the rain. He wondered if he’d imagined the two figures darting across the clearing.

  He walked out of the trees and into the clearing. The rain was still falling, though it was slackening up some. Rhodes looked for tracks in the grass, but he couldn’t find any. Grass didn’t take tracks well, and the rain didn’t help. The only thing he found was an old cellophane-wrapped package that had held Camel cigarettes. It was empty and the colors were faded. It didn’t look as if it had been dropped there at any time in the recent past.

  He stuck the pack in the pocket of his raincoat and looked at the trees on the other side of the clearing. They went on for about a quarter of a mile. It would take a long time to search through them, more time than he had, but he could at least take a look.

  He didn’t find a thing, just dead leaves underfoot and rain dripping down from above. There were no houses within half a mile of the trees, and from what Rhodes could see, there was no activity at any of them.

  He squished and squashed his way back to the county car, jumping the ditch again, and then drove along the road until he came to a place where he could turn around. There was nothing in the fields along the road, and not a single car had passed since Rhodes had been in the vicinity.

  His raincoat was drenched, and his clothes were sticking to him. He had made a cold, damp spot where he sat in the front seat of the county car.

  He decided it was time to go home.

  The rain had finally stopped by the time Rhodes got home, but it was still dark and overcast. There was no more thunder and lightning, however, and Rhodes figured that the weather front had moved on to the south.

  He parked the county car in the driveway and checked in the back yard to make sure that his main dog, Speedo, whose real name was Mr. Earl, was doing all right. Speedo poked his nose out of the Styrofoam igloo that served as his doghouse and barked once in greeting, but elected to stay inside. Rhodes didn’t blame him.

  As he reached his back door, Rhodes heard a frenzied barking from inside the house.

  “All right, Yancey,” Rhodes said. “Hold it down. It’s only me.”

  The barking continued. Yancey, a Pomeranian that Rhodes had acquired in the course of an investigation, was fiercely protective of his territory. Or else he just liked to bark. Rhodes wasn’t sure which.

  Rhodes had been afraid that Speedo might consider Yancey an intruder, which would have been unfair to Yancey, considering that Rhodes had also acquired Speedo in the course of an investigation. Somehow, he seemed to accumulate dogs; it wasn’t a deliberate strategy.

  At any rate, Speedo and Yancey had gotten along just fine, maybe because Yancey was a house dog and Speedo was a yard dog. But even when they were together, they seemed to have a high old time. Yancey didn’t appear to notice that he was about a tenth of Speedo’s size. For that matter, Speedo didn’t seem to notice, either.

  Rhodes opened the door and stepped inside. Yancey swarmed around his ankles, nipping at them and barking.

  “Knock it off,” Rhodes said. “I’m the master here. You’re the dog.”

  Yancey ignored him, as always, but soon got tired of barking. He walked away a short distance and sat down by the washing machine, staring at Rhodes suspiciously.

  Rhodes took off his raincoat and draped it over a chair back. Then he undressed and dropped his clothes in a sodden heap on the floor by the washing machine. Yancey barked at the heap.

  “Hush,” Rhodes said, heading for the bathroom.

  Yancey stopped barking, which was a relief. He turned from the pile of clothes and followed Rhodes.

  Rhodes toweled off and went into the bedroom to get dry clothes. He had just finished dressing when the phone rang. Rhodes picked it up.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Sheriff? This is James Allen.”

  Allen was one of the county commissioners, probably Rhodes’s best friend among the group. He’d had almost nothing to say at the meeting where Ty Berry had appeared, but Rhodes knew exactly what the subject of this call would be.

  “I hear that Ty Berry got himself killed in the Clearview Cemetery,” Allen said.

  “You heard right,” Rhodes told him, no more surprised that Allen knew than that Hack had known. By now, probably half the county knew.

  “You know what people are going to say about us,” James said.

  Rhodes knew that the us referred to both the commissioners and to Rhodes himself, and he knew pretty much what people would be saying: that the commissioners should have hired some deputies to patrol the cemeteries; that because they hadn’t, Rhodes or one of the deputies should have been there anyway; and that because of what hadn’t been done, Ty Berry’s death was all the fault of the commissioners and the sheriff’s department.

  None of that was necessarily true, but that was what people would say. And after they’d said it enough, they’d believe it.

  “I know,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to find out who killed Ty Berry.”

  “And how soon are you going to do that?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  “I hope that won’t be too long,” Allen said.

  “So do I,” Rhodes told him.

  6

  AFTER ALLEN HUNG UP, RHODES WENT INTO THE KITCHEN. Yancey was sitting expectantly by the table.

  “You’ll just have to eat out of your bowl,” Rhodes said. “Besides, you wouldn’t like what I’m going to eat.”

  Rhodes didn’t much like it himself, as far as that went. His wife, Ivy, had recently discovered a form of fake baloney made of some kind of vegetable mixture. Rhodes suspected there was tofu in there somewhere. However, there was no fat, and Ivy had insisted that a sandwich made from it tasted just as good as the real thing. It didn’t to Rhodes, and the low-fat Miracle Whip didn’t, either. Put a slice of fake cheese, also made with tofu, on the sandwich, and Rhodes supposed you had a really healthy lunch, but one that he found about as tasty as the afternoon newspaper.

  For just a second or two, he thought longingly about a hot roast beef sandwich and how good it would taste. But since he couldn’t have one, he made the healthy sandwich of vegetable products, ate it, and washed it down with tap water. As far as he knew, there was nothing fattening at all in tap water. He’d tried diet Dr Pepper, but he couldn’t get used to it. For his money, Dr Pepper without the sugar just wasn’t Dr Pepper.

  When he was done with the sandwich, he went out on the porch and dropped the wet clothes in the washer. Yancey was over on the other side of the porch eating, which he enjoyed even more than he did barking. He paid no attention at all to Rhodes, who turned on the washer, put in the soap, and told Yancey it was time to go outside for a while.

  Yancey wasn’t enthusiastic. While Rhodes held the door open, he looked out at the puddles of water with what appeared to be vast suspicion.

  “Fine,” Rhodes said. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”

  Yancey immediately bounded outside, yipping and running over to Speedo’s igloo. Speedo came out, and they both charged ar
ound the yard chasing one another and splashing through every puddle they could find. Some of them they splashed through twice.

  When Yancey was finished with his business, Rhodes let him back in the house. Speedo hung around expectantly, as if hoping that Rhodes would stick around for a romp. Rhodes apologized for not having the time, and left.

  Back at the jail, Rhodes had to tell Hack and Lawton all about Ty Berry, though they already knew most of the story.

  “I’ll bet it was that Faye Knape who killed him,” Hack said when Rhodes was finished.

  Faye Knape was the immediate past president of the Clearview Historical Society, a group that was often in conflict with Ty Berry’s Sons and Daughters of Texas. Both groups wanted the same things, but they couldn’t always agree on how to get them. In fact, they could hardly ever agree on anything at all other than their basic goals. Rhodes sometimes thought that the disagreements were a result of each group’s desire to get the credit for whatever gains in historical preservation were made in the county.

  Recently the two groups had at last found something to bring them together: the cemetery issue. Though none of the Historical Society members had been at the commissions’ meeting, they had written a letter to the Clearview Herald expressing their support for the Sons and Daughters’ campaign to save the cemeteries.

  There was only one problem: Faye Knape didn’t agree with the rest of her organization’s members. She thought that Ty Berry was, as she put it, “grandstanding to get attention.” She didn’t believe that the looting was as serious as he said it was, she didn’t think that the county should be wasting its time and money on extra patrols, and she even hinted that Ty Berry might be ransacking the graveyards himself, just to draw attention to the Sons and Daughters.

  “I’ll bet what happened is this,” Hack continued. “Old Faye went out there to the cemetery to confront Ty, and he stood right up to her. She wouldn’t like that. So she shot him.”

  “Don’t sound likely to me,” Lawton said. “She’s a good-sized woman. She wouldn’t have to shoot him. She could’ve just squashed him like a fly.”