by Bill Crider
While the city wouldn’t spring for a real salary for the mayor, it did supply an administrative assistant. Her name was Alice King, and like Sandra she’d been in school with Rhodes. She was a year younger, though, and he hadn’t known her very well.
Alice was in a much better mood than Mrs. Wilkie had been, and she greeted Rhodes when he came in the office.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Alice had been a cheerleader in high school, and she had remained relentlessly perky ever since. She even had perky hair, and Rhodes wondered where she had it done. Her husband was a dour man named Wilbur, and Rhodes thought it must be hard on him to be faced with his wife’s perkiness on a daily basis.
“I just dropped in to see the mayor,” Rhodes said. “Is he here this afternoon?”
Rhodes figured he was. Clement did most of his business in the mornings, and he spent a couple of hours in the city hall nearly every afternoon.
“He sure is,” Alice said. She bobbed her head, and her perky hair bounced. “You just go right on in.”
Rhodes opened the door and saw that Clement was sitting at his desk, a newer one than Burns had, reading a book. He put the book down when he saw Rhodes.
“Come on in, Sheriff,” he said. “It’s good to see you.” Unlike Burns, Clement got up, came around the desk, and shook Rhodes’s hand. “Have a seat and tell me what’s on your mind.”
Clement had better chairs than Burns did, too, big leather ones, but they weren’t new. The leather was scuffed and worn. Rhodes sat down and so did Clement. He was a short man with a gray buzz cut and a gray beard. He had blue eyes with deep crinkles at the corners. Like Burns, he was a good bit older than Lynn Ashton had been. If he knew about Lynn, he was a lot better at hiding his feelings than Burns.
“I need to ask you about Lynn Ashton,” Rhodes said, closing the door and taking a seat.
The mayor assumed a solemn expression. “I just heard about that. A terrible thing. I expect you to wrap this one up quickly, Sheriff. It’s a real black eye for the town.”
“Not to mention an inconvenience for Ms. Ashton,” Rhodes said.
“You don’t have to take that tone with me,” Clement said. “I wasn’t being flippant. As mayor, I’m your boss, in a way, and I want this thing over and done with as quickly as possible.”
Clement was Rhodes’s boss in a way, all right, but that was all. Rhodes was paid by the county, but the city contracted with the county for its law enforcement.
“I do things the best way I know how,” Rhodes said. “If you want to hire a police force for Clearview, and if I apply for chief and get the job, then you can push me a little harder. Might not do you any good, though.”
“I didn’t mean that the way you took it,” Clement said.
He did, of course, but Rhodes didn’t call him on it. He wasn’t there to start a fight. Well, not about his job, at any rate.
“The real reason I’m here,” he said, “is to ask you about your relationship with Lynn Ashton.”
Clement gave him a puzzled look. “My relationship? What do you mean by that?”
He was good. Rhodes had to give him that.
“You were seen with her in a restaurant in Colby. That’s the relationship I mean.”
Clement didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. “Mikey Burns. I thought that was him. You can’t miss those stupid shirts of his.”
Burns had tried to be discreet. He’d told Rhodes that he didn’t think Clement had seen him.
“I kind of like them,” Rhodes said, “but we’re not here to talk about the commissioner’s taste in shirts.”
Clement sighed. “All right. You got me. I went to a restaurant with a young woman. What’s wrong with that?”
“Not a thing,” Rhodes said. “If your wife doesn’t mind, why should I?”
“Fran and I are having … differences.”
“About the company you keep?”
“Look,” Clement said. “I was there. I admit it. Let’s leave my family problems out of it.”
“For now,” Rhodes said. “Now, about that relationship.”
“It was over,” Clement said. “That’s why we were there that night. She was telling me it was over. I took her word for it, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“So you didn’t visit her yesterday afternoon to talk things over again?”
Clement sat up straight and puffed out his chest. “I resent the implication.”
“What implication?” Rhodes asked.
“You know very well. You’d better watch your step, Sheriff. You’re getting close to slander.”
Bluster. Rhodes loved bluster. He especially liked to ignore it.
“Where were you yesterday afternoon late?” he asked.
“I was at home with my wife. You can ask her.”
Rhodes thought that political wives always backed their husbands, no matter what they’d done. It was certainly true at the national level, and it worked the same way in small towns.
“I might have to,” he said. “Why was it over with Lynn?”
“You listen to me, Sheriff. I … what?”
“Why did Lynn say it was over? Did she give you a reason?”
Clement’s chest deflated. “She said she’d found someone else.” He tapped his desk with one finger. “And before you ask, she wouldn’t tell me who it was.”
“Not even a hint?”
“Not even a hint.” Clement’s chest swelled again. “I didn’t go by yesterday to ask who it was, either.”
Rhodes stood up. “Thanks for your cooperation. I might have a few more questions later on.”
“Then you understand that I’m in the clear on this?”
“I understand that I might have a few more questions later on. That’s about all I can say at this point.”
“Well, you’d better find Lynn’s killer, and you’d better do it soon. Remember that.”
Rhodes could have responded in kind, but he was tired of Clement. Why not let him have a point?
“I’ll remember,” he said and left.
* * *
Rhodes had gotten distracted from his interview list, but that happened too often for him to worry about it. When he got a tip on a new direction, he was always willing to check it out, and sometimes it was worth it. He’d learned at least two things from Burns and Clement. One was that Lynn had told both of them that she was getting into a more serious relationship with someone else. The other was something unspoken that seemed to be at least part of a developing pattern. Lynn Ashton had liked older men. Not that there was anything wrong with that.
There was a third thing, too, one that Rhodes had been thinking about all along. Lynn was very good at keeping her affairs secret. Everyone seemed to know she was having them, and she did nothing to discourage the idea, but nobody so far knew much about the people she was having them with. Even Lonnie, the supposed confidant, didn’t know. Rhodes found that a bit surprising, considering how hard it was to keep a secret in Clearview. Just something else for him to think about.
Rhodes’s list had the names of two more people that he wanted to talk to more than any others. One of them was Abby Tustin, Lynn’s co-worker.
The other was one of Lynn’s customers, the one he hadn’t put on Ruth’s list. Seepy Benton.
Chapter 9
When he left the city hall building, Rhodes stopped to look around before he got in his car. He was a block from what remained of the old downtown area. The Beauty Shack was only about three blocks to the south and east. In fact, there was hardly anything left between the two buildings. Clement could easily have walked there and back in a couple of minutes. Given the lack of traffic in town, he might even have been able to do it without being seen.
Just up the street a couple of blocks was the old hardware store where Lonnie’s friend Jeff Tyler had his antiques, which put Tyler even closer to the beauty shop than Clement was.
Rhodes got in the county car and
drove through the old central business district of Clearview. A little bit of life had returned to some of the few buildings that remained standing there. A thrift shop had opened on one corner. A couple of churches had set up in two other buildings, and Randy Lawless’s law office took up most of a block. That building was new and white and clean, a stark contrast to some of the others nearby with their cracked plate-glass windows thick with dust and their spiderwebbed entrances.
Rhodes didn’t linger.
Over on the highway things were livelier, and out on the community college campus a few students were still around even in the afternoon. Calling it a campus was something of an exaggeration, since it consisted of only one building, and it wasn’t exactly a college. Instead it was a branch of a college in another county. That didn’t matter, however. The people in Clearview were glad to have it in their town so that people could get some college hours or even a degree while living at home and saving money on gas, rent, and living expenses.
Rhodes had been to Seepy Benton’s office a few times, and he had no trouble finding it on the second floor of the building. Benton was inside, sitting at his computer, as usual, looking at something mathematical that Rhodes couldn’t possibly have understood even if Benton had explained it to him.
Benton’s office looked like something on a TV show about hoarding. Papers and books covered both desks so that there was barely any room for the computer. They also filled the chair that students would have sat in if they’d come in for appointments. Beside the computer desk a guitar stood in a stand. Rhodes hoped that Benton wouldn’t pick up the guitar and strum a tune. He was prone to do that sort of thing without warning.
Rhodes tapped on the door frame with one knuckle, and Benton swiveled the chair around to see who was there.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Benton said when he saw Rhodes. “Got a new case for me?”
Benton wore a battered black fedora and an aloha shirt that Mikey Burns might have envied. He had a closely clipped beard just as gray as Clifford Clement’s. A year or so ago, Benton had enrolled in the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy, and now he thought he was practically a member of the sheriff’s department.
“Not exactly,” Rhodes said.
“Too bad. My deductive powers are amazing today. Well, they’re amazing all the time, but especially today.”
Rhodes nodded.
“Toss those papers on the floor and have a seat,” Benton said. “I have something to show you.”
Rhodes followed directions while Benton turned to the computer and fiddled with the mouse.
“What was that you were just looking at?” Rhodes asked.
“Oh, that.” Benton didn’t look away from the computer screen. “I was just spiffing up my posting on separable differential equations at doc-benton-dot-com. Want me to explain it to you?”
“No thanks.”
“All right, then,” Benton said, “but don’t say I didn’t offer. Here, take a look at this. It’s easier to understand. I have a new math song loaded on my computer.”
Rhodes forced himself to watch and listen as Benton’s image on the computer sang about something called “simple groups.” They didn’t sound simple to Rhodes. The song was mercifully short.
“Where did you get the hat in the video?” Rhodes asked when the song ended.
“You like the hat?” Benton asked. “It’s a little different from my usual.”
It was a Western-style vented straw hat, and Rhodes had to admit he preferred it to the fedora.
“I can get you one,” Benton said. “What size do you wear?”
“Never mind,” Rhodes said. “How often do you get a haircut?”
Benton lifted the fedora. He was almost bald on top. “Not very often.” He settled the hat back on his head. “I just need the sides and back trimmed, and a little shave on the back of the neck.” He rubbed his chin. “What I need more often is a beard trim.”
“Who does that for you?”
“Lynn, at the Beauty Shack. Are you thinking of changing haircutters?”
Benton probably hadn’t been out of the building all day, and his students weren’t likely to have reported Lynn’s death to him. Some of the other faculty might know about it, but if Benton hadn’t been hanging out in the lounge, he might not have heard.
“I have a different reason for asking,” Rhodes said. “Somebody killed Lynn last night.”
Rhodes had never seen Benton befuddled before. He just sat there, his mouth slightly open. Finally he said, “What?”
“Somebody killed her. Hit her in the head with a hair dryer.”
“You’re not joking.”
“That’s right. I’m not.”
Benton shook his head and looked at the floor. “Who’d do something like that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Benton looked up. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?”
“No, but I thought you might know something that would help me find the killer.”
Benton perked up a little at the prospect of being of some help, but he didn’t look hopeful. “How would I know anything?”
“Lynn must have talked about something when you got your beard trimmed.”
“Not really. We didn’t have much in common. It was hard to get her interested in differential equations.”
Rhodes could understand why. As far as he knew, Benton was the only person in Blacklin County with a burning interest in that subject.
“What do you know about her reputation?” he asked.
“Oh,” Benton said. “That stuff.”
“Yeah. That stuff.”
Benton removed his hat again and rubbed the top of his head. He put the hat on some papers beside the computer.
“I never believed a word of all that,” he said. “Lynn wasn’t the way people think. Maybe she didn’t know anything about differential equations, but she could talk about other stuff.”
“Such as?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, movies. She knew a lot about movies.”
“For example?”
“The kind you like,” Benton said.
Rhodes had talked about old movies with Benton once or twice. Rhodes had a fondness for bad movies, the kind that had once turned up on TV with some regularity but now had disappeared from the tube. They’d found new life on DVD, but somehow watching them that way didn’t have much appeal to Rhodes.
“She knew about Hercules in the Haunted World?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Benton said. “Who does? Besides you, that is. She knew about Mega Python versus Gatoroid, though.”
“Ah,” Rhodes said.
Recently the SyFy Channel had been showing a lot of movies like that one. Rhodes had even seen a few, including the one Benton mentioned. Again, it wasn’t quite the same as seeing something older on a late-night show.
“So she never mentioned any men friends?”
“Not to me. I know some of the women who came in the shop supposedly didn’t like her, but I never saw anybody have a problem with her. Let me help you with this case, Sheriff. I liked Lynn.”
“Does Ruth know you liked her?”
Benton put on his hat again. “I didn’t like her the way I like Ruth. Is she working on this?”
“We all are,” Rhodes said. “You don’t need to help out. Leave it to the professionals.”
Benton looked hurt. “I’m a professional.”
“A professional teacher, not a lawman.”
“I’ve helped before.”
Benton had inserted himself into a couple of Rhodes’s cases, but he hadn’t always been useful.
“I’ll give it some thought,” Rhodes said. “How’s Bruce?”
Bruce was a dog. A large dog. Rhodes had sort of inherited him on a case, but having two dogs of his own, he hadn’t been inclined to take on a third. Benton had been coerced into adopting Bruce.
“He’s fine,” Benton said. “He eats a lot, though. I hope I get a raise this yea
r. Otherwise I’m not sure I can afford him.” He stopped and looked at Rhodes. “You changed the subject, you know.”
“And here I thought I was being smooth,” Rhodes said.
“That’ll be the day. Anyway, I have my own case to work on if you don’t need my help with Lynn’s murder.”
That didn’t sound good. “What case?”
“It’s one that Ruth’s been working on,” Benton said. “Here at the college.”
Rhodes knew the one. “The car batteries.”
“That’s it,” Benton said.
Car battery thefts weren’t a big problem in Blacklin County, but there had been several of them lately, all at night, and a couple of them had been at the college. Recyclers paid anywhere from two to twenty dollars for a battery, depending on the size.
Someone had stolen a few catalytic converters, too. That was a trickier proposition, but since the converters contained metals like palladium, rhodium, and platinum, they could be sold for around seventy-five dollars. Usually they were taken from SUVs because it was easier to get underneath them.
In fact, the battery and converter thefts had been the reason for one of Rhodes’s previous visits to the reclamation center. He suspected that the stolen batteries ended up there or in some other recycling facility in a different county. There were plenty of other, similar, thefts, too. Copper was still a big-ticket item, and copper wire was best kept locked away. Aluminum continued to sell well, too.
Recycling centers were supposed to get full identification from anyone who sold those things. Some places even required a fingerprint. Rhodes suspected that the center in Clearview might be a little lax when it came to making the checks, but so far he hadn’t been able to prove anything.
“Ruth doesn’t need your help,” Rhodes told Benton.
“I know that. I’m just asking around to find out if anybody remembers seeing someone lurking around after dark here. The batteries only go missing at night.”
“Any results?”
“Not yet.” Benton looked disappointed. “I guess if they’d seen anything, they’d have reported it.”
