The Wild Hog Murders

by Bill Crider

  Rhodes went to his chair and sat down. “Okay, Dalton, your days as Garver are over, no matter what. Maybe we can work a deal if you talk, though. Keep things out of the paper, so the Herndon brothers won’t read about you. You can start using your real name and stay right here in Clearview after you settle up for your crime. The Herndon brothers will never know where you are.”

  “You can’t be sure they won’t. They’re sneaky.”

  “I can’t be sure, but I’d bet on it.”

  Dalton sat quietly for a while. Finally he said, “Okay, I’ll tell you what happened. You might not want to hear this, Mr. Lawless.”

  “Are there more crimes involved?”

  “Could be.”

  Lawless settled back in his chair. “I’ll stick around, then.”

  “Tell me what happened, Dalton,” Rhodes said.

  “Well,” Dalton said, “it was like this…”

  Chapter 19

  The hunters had met about dark the way they always did, according to Dalton. Nothing was different at the start, not that anybody noticed, but then they ran up on a whole mess of hogs that they hadn’t expected.

  “Usually they’re up and stirring around by sundown,” Dalton said, “but this bunch was still holed up, and we sort of stumbled on ’em. Even the dogs were surprised. I don’t know what the deal was. It was like they were fed and happy and didn’t need to go off and root around.”

  That was unusual enough in itself, but what happened next was the really bad part, and the confusing part as well. Dalton still hadn’t quite figured it all out.

  “That’s when the shooting started,” he said, but he didn’t know who was doing the shooting.

  “All I know is, the bullets ricocheted all around us, the bark flew off the trees, the dead limbs fell all over the place. We thought somebody was trying to kill us. The hogs thought somebody was trying to kill them, too, I guess, ’cause they jumped up squealing and snorting and took off at a dead run.”

  Rhodes knew about that part.

  “Nobody got hit, though,” Dalton said. “We were lucky, or maybe whoever was doing the shooting was aiming at something else. That’s the whole story, Sheriff.”

  Rhodes didn’t think so. If that had been the story, it wouldn’t have been a secret, and every one of the hog hunters would have marched right to the jail to file a complaint against the unknown shooter. Or shooters.

  “There must be a little more to it, Dalton,” Rhodes said. “You might as well tell me the rest.”

  Dalton didn’t have any more to say. “That’s it, Sheriff. That’s all I know.”

  “No, Dalton, that’s not all you know. With what you’ve told me, I can probably get Hugh and Lance to fill me in on the rest, but it would be easier if you did it.”

  Dalton looked at Lawless.

  “You’re on your own,” Lawless said. “I told you not to talk, but you didn’t listen.” He relented a little. “You still don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

  “Hell, he’s right,” Dalton said. “Somebody else’ll tell him now if I don’t. I sure hate it that the others will know I ratted ’em out, though.”

  “I won’t tell them,” Rhodes said.

  “They’ll figure it out.”

  “Maybe not. Go ahead and tell me.”

  Dalton slumped down in the chair. “Somebody shot back.”

  Now they were finally getting to it. Rhodes had suspected something like that because even as he’d fled the stampeding hogs, he’d been sure he’d heard more than one gun.

  “Who shot back?” he asked.

  “All I know is, it wasn’t me,” Dalton said. “It might have been one person or it might have been two. I was ducking and covering, and I didn’t pay any attention.”

  Rhodes wasn’t sure he believed that. Last night, Fowler hadn’t hesitated to shoot at Rapper and Nellie, and the others had been ready to do the same. Rhodes figured Fowler might have fired the first shot the other time, too. He’d have to ask him about that.

  “So after it was over,” Rhodes said to Dalton, “you all agreed not to talk about it?”

  “That’s right. It didn’t last long, and we got out of there as soon as we could. We didn’t think anybody was hurt, so there was no harm done. We just wanted to get away from those woods in case somebody came back after us.”

  “And you didn’t see who it was.”

  “We didn’t see anybody, and we didn’t know why they started shooting at us. We were scared, Sheriff. Wouldn’t you have been scared?”

  Just running from the hogs had been scary enough for Rhodes, without any shooting involved.

  “Nobody was hit?” he asked.

  “That’s what I said. We were all fine, and we didn’t see who was shooting. I guess they got away, too.”

  Rhodes wondered what had happened to the shooter, or shooters. What had they been doing there, and why had they started shooting? What did they have to do with the murder of Baty, if anything?

  Dalton didn’t seem able to answer those questions, but Rhodes didn’t trust him. He’d lied about who he was for years, so who was to say he wasn’t lying now?

  There was something else that worried Rhodes, too, so he asked about it. “You all left the woods together? Nobody stayed behind?”

  “We wanted out of there,” Dalton said. “Who’d stick around and maybe get shot? Not me.”

  What if he had, though? What if he’d been the one who killed Baty? The bank robberies had been in Arkansas, and that’s where Dalton came from. A coincidence, maybe, but one that deserved a little consideration.

  Hoss Rapinski was yet another consideration. Dalton had disappeared into the trees, and Hoss had been killed. A second coincidence?

  Rhodes wondered about Rapinski, too. He was a bounty hunter, true. Everybody seemed to know that, but what if he’d been more than a bounty hunter? What if he’d been a licensed private investigator? Or even an unlicensed one? Could he have been in Blacklin County for more than one reason? Could he have been hired by the Herndons to find Dalton?

  It bothered Rhodes that whoever had been shooting at the hunters had gotten away without being seen, and it bothered him even more that Baty’s killer had done the same.

  If Dalton had killed Baty, what had happened to the man who jumped out of Baty’s car? Had he run from all the shooting and disappeared? Why hadn’t anyone seen him?

  Those were all questions that had been bothering Rhodes, and he would have liked to find the answers. He had a feeling Dalton either didn’t know them or wouldn’t tell.

  “You’re sure you didn’t see who was shooting at you?” Rhodes asked.

  “I’m sure,” Dalton said.

  “The Chandlers are rumored to do that kind of thing.”

  “Might’ve been them. I wouldn’t know. I told you, I was too scared to worry about who it was.”

  “You know why they don’t like hog hunters?”

  “Animal lovers,” Dalton said. “Got that farm and all. Had some trouble about a pig, so I heard.”

  “And of course you wouldn’t know anything about what happened to the pig,” Rhodes said.

  “That’s right. Nobody I know had anything to do with it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Maybe Dalton was telling the truth. Maybe not.

  “You’re not planning to leave town, are you?” Rhodes asked.

  “No, sir,” Dalton said. “If you don’t think the Herndons will get me, I’ll stay right here.”

  “What about your name?”

  “I’ll fix that. I’ll talk to Mr. Allison. He’ll understand. I’ll keep right on doing my job for him if you don’t put me in jail.”

  “I’m not going to put you in jail,” Rhodes said. “Not yet, anyway. Don’t do any more hog hunting, though. You understand?”

  “I sure do. I don’t want to hunt any hogs for a while. Maybe never.”

  “That’s what Fowler said last night. He was kind of trigger-happy, wasn’t he.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff,” Dalton said, but Rhodes thought he knew, all right.

  “He’s told you everything you’ve asked, Sheriff,” Lawless said. “Are you going to arrest him? If you aren’t, then cut him loose.”

  Rhodes thought it over. There was no reason to hold Dalton at the moment, so he said, “He can go.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” Dalton said. “I’m a solid citizen. Always have been. You watch and see.”

  “I’ll be watching, all right,” Rhodes said. “You can count on it.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, Dalton wasn’t the only one who’d been cut loose. When Rhodes returned to the outer office, Hack said, “The Eccles boys are back on the street.”

  “Back on the county roads is more like it,” Lawton said.

  “What happened?” Rhodes asked.

  “It was your college pal that did it,” Hack said.

  “My college pal?”

  “The goofy one,” Lawton said.

  “Seepy Benton,” Rhodes said.

  “That’s the one. He went their bail. Said to tell you to give him a call. Jennifer Loam wants you to call her, too. Wants an update on the murders.”

  “What about Ruth?”

  “She’s on her way in,” Hack said. “She’ll tell you all about that Dalton fella.”

  “Garver is Dalton,” Rhodes said.

  “Huh?”

  “Later. I have work to do.”

  Rhodes sat at his desk. He didn’t plan to call Loam or Benton at the moment. He started to write up his interview with Dalton. He had the recorder to refresh his memory, but he didn’t really need it.

  Ruth came in after about ten minutes. She told Rhodes that she’d looked on the computer in her car and found out about William Dale Dalton from Ozark, Arkansas.

  “He disappeared about three years ago,” she said. “He went squirrel hunting and never came back. His wife said he might have been killed in the woods. That’s about all I could find. I guess they’re still looking for him. Is he around here?”

  Rhodes told her about Ed Garver, who was really Willie Dalton. Hack listened in.

  “Well, well,” Ruth said. “It’s easy enough to live under a false identity if you work at it. Remember that case in Florida, Pompano Beach, I think? A man robbed a 7-Eleven, got caught, then escaped from prison, and lived free for thirty years or so under a name he got from a stolen driver’s license.”

  “I read the story in the paper,” Rhodes said.

  “Garver didn’t make it thirty years, I guess. You want me to check up on his story to see if he’s telling the truth?”

  “Absolutely,” Rhodes said.

  “If he is, what are we going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” Rhodes said. “He doesn’t want to go back, and I’m not going to make him. I don’t want to be responsible for what might happen.”

  “We have to let his family know he’s alive,” Ruth said. “They’re suffering.”

  Rhodes didn’t think so, but he said, “I’ll talk to him in a day or two about it. I’ll see to it that he lets them know.” Rhodes didn’t have any idea how he was going to do that, but he’d figure it out later. “Right now, he’s still a suspect in the killings. Did you happen to turn up any connection between him and Baty?”

  “Nothing like that. No connection to those bank robberies, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one. Keep digging around and see if you can find anything else.”

  “I’ll try,” Ruth said. “Will you be around?”

  “I have some people to see,” Rhodes said, “but I’ll check back later.”

  “You’re leaving me here with those two?” Ruth asked, looking around at Hack and Lawton.

  “Best-looking two men in town,” Hack said. “You know you like it.”

  “There you go,” Rhodes said, and he left her there.

  * * *

  Bob Lindsey, the station manager of KCLR—“the Mighty K-Clear,” as its slogan had it—was in his office when Rhodes showed up. He had short gray hair cut in a military flattop. He wasn’t the only man in town who favored that style, though none of them had been around when it was first popular.

  The office was in one of the few downtown buildings still in decent condition. Most of the others hadn’t been kept up over the years, and at least half of them were deserted. The windows were cracked and dirty, and the old awnings sagged.

  Across the street, the new offices of Randy Lawless glistened white in the sun. Lawless had bought half a city block after some of the old buildings had been demolished, and he’d built what Rhodes referred to as the Lawj Mahal. It was by far the most impressive building in the old downtown, mainly because it was the only new building there.

  “You must never get tired of looking at that place,” Rhodes said to Lindsey, who could see the Lawj Mahal from his office window.

  “I don’t even think about it anymore, Sheriff, but I’ll bet you didn’t come by to discuss the local architecture.”

  Lindsey was tall and thin and looked like a former college basketball player who’d been on a diet. He seemed a little nervous to have Rhodes in his office.

  “No, architecture wasn’t what I had in mind,” Rhodes said.

  “Have a seat, then, and tell me what you’re here for.”

  Rhodes sat in an upholstered wing chair that looked about a hundred years old. Nearly everything in Lindsey’s office looked old, as if it might have been a part of the building’s original furnishings. The rolltop desk pushed up against the wall to Rhodes’s right was new, though. Either that or it had been well cared for.

  Lindsey sat in the swivel desk chair and turned to face Rhodes.

  “I want to talk to you about Milton Munday,” Rhodes said.

  Lindsey brushed a hand across his flattop. “Look, Sheriff, I know Munday steps on a lot of toes, including yours, but I have him on a tight leash. There’s a line I won’t let him cross. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I’m not worried, and I’m all for freedom of speech. Munday can say whatever he wants to say.”

  “Oh.” Lindsey relaxed a bit. “What about him, then?”

  “I was wondering how you went about hiring a talk show host. Do you advertise for one? Do you put out the word informally? Do you have tryouts? That kind of thing.”

  Lindsey relaxed even more and leaned back in the chair. It had a tight spring and didn’t tip over with him.

  “It’s a funny thing about that,” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking about having a talk show again. Red Rogers was good, and he got us some good ratings, but after he, you know, got killed, I couldn’t really work up any interest in trying a talk show again.”

  Rhodes did know. Rogers had been murdered, and Rhodes had solved the case.

  “You did try again, though,” Rhodes said.

  “Yes. I got a letter from Milton Munday. A package, actually. It had an audition disc in it. I suspect he sent them out to a lot of stations, but most of the station managers don’t bother to listen to an unsolicited disc. I’m not sure why I did, to tell you the truth.”

  “You must have liked what you heard.”

  “I did. It was better than I’d expected. A good bit better. You’ve heard Munday, I’m sure.”

  Rhodes nodded.

  “Then you know why I was interested,” Lindsey said. “He has a fine radio voice, and while he’s not polished, he’s very good at getting his point across. So I had him come in for a tryout.”

  “Come in from where?” Rhodes asked.

  “I don’t remember. He’d worked at some little station somewhere, though.”

  “You didn’t do a background check? Find out why he’d left his last job?”

  Rhodes found it hard to believe that anyone got hired these days without someone doing at least a cursory Internet check on him. Maybe a small-town station could afford not to worry about who was hired, but Rhodes c
ouldn’t see it that way. It didn’t bother Lindsey, however.

  “I didn’t need to check on him,” Lindsey said. “He was good, and we hadn’t had a talk show for a while. I thought I’d let him try it for two weeks and see what happened. Turned out very well for both him and the station, so I kept him on.”

  “You didn’t check with the station where he’d been before to find out why he’d left?”

  “He told me he was just looking for a new challenge in a different location.”

  “It had been his lifelong dream to be a talk show host in Clearview, Texas?”

  “Look,” Lindsey said, “I told you he’d probably applied in a lot of different places. He just happened to wind up here, and he was a good fit for us. I didn’t see any reason to worry about him.”

  Rhodes thought that was a poor business practice, but he didn’t mention it. He said, “Is Milton Munday his real name?”

  “No. It’s just his air name. He’s probably had others.”

  “So who do you make the paychecks to?”

  “Ralph King.”

  “That’s not a bad name for a radio personality,” Rhodes said. “Ralph, King of the Airwaves.”

  “We don’t talk much about the airwaves these days,” Lindsey said.

  “I guess not. You’re sure King is his real name? Something doesn’t sound right about it.”

  “He has a Social Security number,” Lindsey said.

  As if that proved anything. Willie Dalton could tell Lindsey a thing or two about how easy it was to get a fake ID.

  Rhodes stood up. “I guess that’s all I wanted to know,” he said. “I appreciate your taking time to talk to me.”

  Lindsey stood, too, and stuck out his hand. Rhodes shook it.

  “I don’t know what you were looking for,” Lindsey said, “but I get the feeling I wasn’t much help.”

  “I don’t know what I was looking for, either,” Rhodes said. “Maybe I’ll figure it out.”

  Lindsey grinned. “Good luck,” he said.

  Chapter 20

  Just as Rhodes got in the county car, the radio crackled. Hack came on to let him know that Buddy had located Rapper.

  “Least he thinks he has. He heard from a fella in Obert that someone’s holed up at the Boynton place. You ever been out that way?”