Ghost of a Chance

by Bill Crider

  But what had they seen? Rhodes didn’t have an answer for that one. Not yet. Something was itching at the back of his mind, and he could almost make the connections. But not quite. He’d have to keep worrying at it.

  When Rhodes arrived about a quarter of a mile from the house that Rapper was leasing, he was a little disappointed. He could see no cars or trucks parked anywhere around the house. If Rapper had any pupils, they were keeping their transportation out of sight. For a second Rhodes entertained the idea of Rapper driving a big yellow school bus around the county to pick everyone up, making sure they all had their lunches in little brown bags and that everyone got to class on time.

  Rhodes pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. Ruth stopped behind him, and they got out.

  “What do you think?” Ruth asked.

  “I don’t see any cars,” Rhodes said.

  “There’s a little stand of trees on down the road,” Ruth said. “They could be parked in there. If they drove them in far enough, they’d be hidden from the road. They’d have to walk a little way, but they wouldn’t mind that.”

  “We could check,” Rhodes said. “If we do that, though, they’ll see us when we drive by.”

  Ruth shrugged. “No use in giving them a warning like that. Let’s just drive up in the yard and say hello.”

  Rhodes thought it over and came up with what he thought was a better idea.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You go down to the trees and see if the cars are there. If they are, stay there and watch them. I’ll try the house.”

  “All right,” Ruth said. “But be careful. You never can tell what someone like Rapper might do.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “That’s what makes this job so much fun.”

  The word fun gave Rhodes another idea that he decided was worth a try. After Ruth swung her car around his and headed for the trees, he let her get a good head start. Then he turned on his light bar and siren and floored the accelerator, throwing gravel and mud against the car’s undercarriage and sending it spewing out behind him. The car rocked and bounced along the road. When Rhodes wrenched it into the turn into Rapper’s yard, the tires lost all traction. The car slewed around a hundred and eighty degrees, slopping a wave of mud two or three feet high across the yard.

  The flamboyant entrance had the effect Rhodes hoped for. He didn’t have a warrant, and he was sure Rapper would never have let him inside the house. If everyone had kept quiet, Rhodes might never have been sure what was going on in there.

  But surprise and panic were wonderful partners when they were combined with a house full of guilty consciences. By the time Rhodes had gotten out of the car and drawn his pistol, people were jumping out of windows and doors and running for their lives.

  Rhodes fired a shot into the air.

  “Everybody freeze!” he yelled.

  No one paid any attention, but Rhodes hadn’t really expected them to. He wasn’t too worried that they’d get away. Ruth was at the cars, or she was if they’d guessed correctly, so no one would be going anywhere.

  Except for Rapper and Nellie. Rhodes had forgotten about the motorcycles, and, sure enough, he heard them fire up inside the chicken house, the noise of their engines reverberating off the tin walls like thunder.

  The two bikers came roaring out of the chicken house while everyone else scattered across the field. Rhodes had nearly been run down by Rapper more than once, so he got behind his car, where Rapper would find it almost impossible to run over him.

  Rapper didn’t even try. He and Nellie zoomed past the car, mud flying away from the spinning wheels of their bikes. They took off down the road without so much as a backward glance at Rhodes.

  Rhodes watched them go. He could catch up with them later. Right now he wanted to deal with the people who were running across the field toward the trees. He’d recognized several of them, including Ferrell and Dude Packer.

  But one of them was someone he hadn’t been expecting: Nard King. Obviously the emu business was even worse than Rhodes had thought. And Nard was willing to take a little trip over to the shady side in order to make a financial recovery. When he thought about his previous dealings with Nard, Rhodes wasn’t at all surprised.

  But Nard wasn’t the same kind of criminal that the Packers were. Rhodes thought he might be the weak link, so he started after him on foot. Rhodes thought he could catch up with King, and there was no use taking a chance of getting the county car stuck in a muddy field.

  He’d gotten about halfway across the yard when the house exploded.

  Rhodes almost had time to think that Rapper had outsmarted him again, but everything happened too fast for that. Rhodes barely glimpsed the orange fireball that lifted the roof and bulged the walls of the house outward. Then the force of the blast picked him up and threw him away.

  30

  THE NEXT THING RHODES KNEW, HE WAS LYING FLAT ON his back in the mud, looking up at the blue sky. A buzzard was making wide, lazy circles, high and far away.

  There was a railroad track running right through the middle of Rhodes’s head, and the afternoon freight was rumbling along the steel rails and clicking over the crossties, right on time.

  Except that it had been years since there’d been an afternoon freight in Blacklin County, and even if there had been, the tracks wouldn’t have been in Rhodes’s head.

  Rhodes sat up and looked around. There were a few shards of glass sticking out of the mud, and Rhodes knew he was lucky that one of them hadn’t hit some vital part of his anatomy. A few loose boards and some shingles lay nearby.

  The house that Rapper and his pals had so recently deserted was blazing, and Rhodes felt the heat burn his face. He struggled to his feet and moved farther away. He thought about calling the Clearview Volunteer Fire Department, but the house was nothing but old, dry wood, and Rhodes knew that there would be nothing left of it but smoldering ash by the time he reached his car radio.

  He knew, too, that the flames should be making a crackling sound and that he should be able to hear the popping of the burning wood, but all he could hear was a steady roar.

  Or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he was simply hearing nothing at all. He wondered what kind of explosive Rapper had used, not that it mattered. Whatever it had been, it had been very effective, and it had undoubtedly destroyed everything in the old house, including any signs of drug manufacture. So Rapper wouldn’t be arrested for drugs, and unless there was some way to prove what he’d done to the house, he’d get away with that, too.

  And there wasn’t going to be any way to prove what he’d done. There wasn’t going to be enough left to give even the best arson investigator a clue, and Blacklin County didn’t have an arson investigator of any kind if you didn’t count Rhodes.

  Rhodes saw Ruth Grady drive into the yard. She got out of the car and ran toward him. He could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He pointed to his ear and shook his head.

  When she got closer, she mouthed some words very slowly. It appeared to Rhodes that she was saying, “Are you all right?”

  He hoped so. He didn’t think the hearing loss would last long, and he didn’t seem to have any other terrible aches and pains beyond what seemed to be some minor muscle strains in his back and shoulders. He twisted his body to the left and right to see if everything was working. It was.

  “What happened to the cars?” he asked.

  He couldn’t even hear his own voice. He knew he was saying the words, but they didn’t seem to be coming out.

  Ruth shrugged, which Rhodes took to mean that as soon as the house exploded, she’d left the cars and come back to see about him. That meant that everyone had gotten away. It didn’t really matter. Both Ruth and Rhodes had seen the Packers and Nard King, and they could pick them up at any time, just as long as they stayed in the county.

  Rhodes looked over Ruth’s shoulder at the house, or what was left of it. It was burning like tinder.

  Ruth
took out a notepad, flipped it open, and wrote, “Can you drive?” on a blank page with a ballpoint pen.

  Rhodes nodded, but he wasn’t ready to go yet. He wanted to see if Rapper and Nellie had left anything in the chicken house. He told Ruth what he was going to do, and she followed him.

  The old chicken house smelled of must and dust and mold and ancient chicken droppings, but there was nothing inside it. Rapper and Nellie traveled light, and any possessions they hadn’t kept on the bikes were gone in the flames that had destroyed the house.

  “Let’s go back to town,” Rhodes said.

  By the time they got back to the jail, Rhodes’s hearing was starting to return. It would probably be days before he could hear normally, but at least he should be able to get along.

  When he went inside, Hack said something, but Rhodes didn’t quite get it. Ruth went over to Hack and explained the situation.

  “That’s why he looks like he’s been shot out of a cannon, then,” Hack said.

  He must have said it loudly, since Rhodes could make out nearly all the words. Rhodes was watching him, too, which helped.

  “Ivy’s not gonna like it that you’ve been takin’ chances again,” Hack said.

  Rhodes didn’t need Hack to tell him that. He’d have to get cleaned up before he saw Ivy, and when he told her about what had happened, he’d have to make it sound as if there had been no danger involved.

  “Did ever’body get away?” Hack asked. “Rapper and all?”

  Rhodes nodded.

  “Figgers,” Hack said. “Pretty smart of Rapper, though, blowin’ up the house like that. You gotta admire a man who plans ahead.”

  Rhodes didn’t see anything admirable about it.

  “Prob’ly saw you comin’, too,” Hack said. “Soon’s he did, he lit the fuse. Gotta hand it to him.”

  Rhodes thought about it. He’d been wrong when he believed his sudden appearance with his siren howling and light bar flashing had emptied the house. It hadn’t been that at all. Rapper had spotted Ruth when she drove by, set up his explosion, and told everyone to clear out. It was every man for himself, as far as Rapper was concerned, and there would be no tuition refund at Rapper U.

  Rhodes wished things had worked out differently, but he had to move on. So he asked Hack what he and Buddy had found out.

  “Found out about what?” Hack asked. “We found out a couple of things.”

  Rhodes didn’t really feel like waiting for Hack to get to the point in his usual roundabout way.

  “Just tell me something,” he said.

  “I’ll start with the cats, then,” Hack said.

  Rhodes had forgotten about the cats, and he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know about them. But there was no stopping Hack now.

  “Those cats of Miz Knape’s were mighty lonesome,” Hack said. “I guess she must’ve given them a lot of attention. They came out and rubbed up against our legs, purrin’ so hard they were practically vibratin’. They need somebody to take care of them.”

  He stopped talking and gave Rhodes a pointed look.

  “I have two dogs,” Rhodes said, as if that would let him off the hook.

  “Don’t matter,” Hack said. “Cats and dogs can get along just fine if they want to, and these’d want to. You can’t just leave ’em in that house all by themselves.”

  “I’m allergic to cats,” Rhodes said. “They make me sneeze, and they don’t like me. They didn’t purr when I was there. They hid from me.”

  “They’d get used to you,” Hack said.

  “Not me. They just plain didn’t like me, either that or they were scared of me.”

  “Somebody’s gotta take care of ’em,” Hack said.

  Rhodes looked at Ruth.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I love cats, but they make me break out in a rash.”

  Then she blushed. Rhodes didn’t think he’d ever seen her blush before.

  “Boyfriend,” Hack said.

  Ruth turned to him and said something that Rhodes couldn’t hear. Then she turned back.

  “Hack’s right. I’ve been going with somebody, and he doesn’t like cats at all.”

  Rhodes could understand why some people didn’t like cats, even though he was fond of them himself. In fact, he liked them a lot. He just couldn’t stand being around them.

  “Those cats’d like you if you gave ’em a chance,” Hack told Rhodes. “They need somebody.”

  “I can’t take those cats,” Rhodes said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Dr. White could give you something for that allergy,” Hack said.

  “No,” Rhodes said. “I don’t like taking things that I don’t really need.”

  “You’d need it if you had the cats,” Hack said.

  “Forget it,” Rhodes told him.

  “If you say so. Those cats’re sure in pitiful shape with Miz Knape dead and gone, though.”

  “What about her family?” Rhodes asked, feeling desperate.

  “Hadn’t thought about that,” Hack said. “She has a son and a daughter. Somebody’s gonna have to call them.”

  “I can’t talk on the phone,” Rhodes said, pointing to his ear. “Call Clyde Ballinger and let him do it. I’m sure one of them will want the cats.”

  “Maybe,” Hack said. “Maybe not.”

  Rhodes chose not to think about the “maybe not” possibility. There was no way he was taking the cats.

  “What about the members of those historical societies?” he asked. “You said you found out something important about them.”

  “You can prob’ly figger it out for yourself,” Hack said, and he handed Rhodes two sheets of paper.

  Rhodes looked them over. One was headed “Sons and Daughters of Texas Membership Roll.” The other said that it contained the names of “Members in Good Standing, Clearview Historical Society.”

  Rhodes read down both lists, then handed the papers back to Hack.

  “Interestin’ stuff, huh?” Hack said. “You see what it is we found out?”

  Rhodes nodded. Everyone knew that the two associations were rivals and that their rivalry was heated. Rhodes wouldn’t have thought that anyone would want to belong to both groups.

  But someone did.

  Melva Keeler.

  31

  RHODES KNEW IT WAS TIME TO TALK TO MELVA KEELER again, but he also wanted Ruth to check up on Cathy Miller’s whereabouts on the night Berry had died. She would have had plenty of time to kill him and drive back to Austin before anyone even knew he was dead.

  “Do you really think she killed him?” Ruth asked when Rhodes told her what he wanted her to do.

  Rhodes heard her, though not very well, and now he could also hear a painful ringing in his head. It no longer sounded like a train.

  “I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “It’s something we have to check on.”

  “What about those Packers?” Hack asked. “I’ll bet they’re the ones that killed him. He was out there waitin’ for somebody to show up, and sure enough, somebody did. But he made the mistake of tryin’ to deal with them himself instead of givin’ us a call like he should have done. Bang. He’s dead. Those Packers would just as soon kill a fella as look at him. Rather kill him, prob’ly. They’re mean right down to the bone, those Packers.”

  “The Packers are mean, all right,” Rhodes said, “but you wouldn’t catch them using a .22. They’d just as soon use a peashooter. They’re into nine-millimeter automatics and assault rifles. And if they’d been the ones to kill Berry, they wouldn’t have left the cemetery empty-handed. They’d have taken what they came for.”

  “They might’ve been scared,” Hack said.

  “Maybe, but they would have torn the place up with their truck. Whoever killed Ty was parked on the road and didn’t leave tracks.”

  “What about Rapper and that friend of his, Nellie? They’re killers if there ever was a pair of ’em.”

  “You’re probably right,” Rhodes said. “But why would they want to kill Ty?
”

  “You’re the sheriff. You’re supposed to figger it out.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” Rhodes said.

  Driving to Melva Keeler’s house, Rhodes thought about everything that had happened and all that he knew or had guessed. It certainly seemed possible that Faye knew about Ty Berry’s interest in the buildings that she owned and that she, and her husband before her, had so seriously neglected over the course of the years.

  If Ty had threatened to reveal her ownership to the members of the Historical Society, Faye might well have felt desperate enough to kill him. And the pistol Rhodes had found in her desk could be the one that did the job. In fact, he suspected that it was, though proving it was a different matter and would likely be impossible.

  Ty wouldn’t have felt threatened by Faye, and if she had met him in the cemetery, she could easily have gotten close enough to shoot him. Rhodes would have been willing to bet that Faye hadn’t been an expert with a pistol. Even if she had been, the derringer wouldn’t have been accurate at a range of more than a few feet.

  As much satisfaction as it would have given Rhodes to blame the Packers or Rapper for Ty’s death, Faye was a much more likely suspect.

  But Rhodes wondered about the pistol and where it could have come from. Faye’s husband had owned guns, true, but she’d sold them and claimed to know nothing about how to use them. She must have been lying, at least in part. She could have sold all but one of her husband’s guns and kept that one back for personal protection. Lots of single women, at least in Texas, kept a gun in the house.

  The idea of keeping a pistol around for personal protection would explain why the pistol had been in her desk instead of in the gun cabinet, though Rhodes didn’t really understand why the cabinet was still there. Why hadn’t Faye gotten rid of it when she sold the guns?

  And, even more to the point, who had killed Faye? Rhodes had originally thought Vernell Lindsey had the best motive. Faye had tried to shift suspicion onto her for Ty’s death, after all, and Vernell hadn’t been the least bit happy about that. She’d been seen arguing with Faye on the afternoon of her death, and she’d been alone inside the house with her. Things didn’t look good for Vernell.