Murder in the Air

by Bill Crider

  “Can you be a little more specific?” Rhodes asked. “Is there anybody in particular who has a grudge?”

  “You want specific?” Crockett asked. “Okay, I can be specific. I’d check out that Garrett fella, and that other old geezer, too.”

  “Which other old geezer would that be, exactly?”

  “Gillis,” Crockett said. “Hal Gillis. You know who that is?”

  “I know him,” Rhodes said.

  15

  Rhodes didn’t get much more from Crockett, and none of what he got was helpful. Crockett might have had more to say if Jennifer Loam hadn’t been there, or if she’d turned off the recorder, but Rhodes doubted it.

  Benton was still sitting on the hood of the county car when Rhodes and Jennifer went back outside. All the protestors had left except for one, the redhead who had talked to Jennifer eariler. Now she stood by the car, where Benton had engaged her in conversation.

  “This is Maddie Spencer,” Benton said when he noticed Rhodes.

  A good bit of Spencer’s bare skin was exposed, and after noting that she had an innie, Rhodes tried to focus on her eyes, which were green. She had a band of freckles across her face, and of course she wore mostly fake feathers. She put our her hand, and Rhodes shook it.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said.

  “My pleasure,” Rhodes said and hoped as soon as he said it that she didn’t take it the wrong way. “You’ve already met Jennifer Loam.”

  Maddie smiled, showing white, even teeth, the result of either good heredity or expensive orthodontia.

  “Jennifer’s going to do a story about us,” she said.

  “I’ll include it as part of the series I’m doing on this farm,” Jennifer said.

  Maddie’s smile disappeared. “This is a terrible place, and Seepy tells me there’s nothing that can be done about it, legally.”

  Seepy? Rhodes thought.

  “That’s right,” Jennifer said. “The only way to get anything done is to bring public pressure to bear on some of the state agencies. Even then, they can’t close it down.”

  “They can investigate,” Benton said. “They can find out if everything’s being done in accordance with whatever laws there are.”

  “They’ve investigated before,” Rhodes said. “The farm’s come out all right.”

  “That might be because they haven’t looked closely enough.” Benton slid off the hood of the car and stood between Maddie and Jennifer. “If they come out again and if they know what they’re looking for, they might find something. What with Hamilton dying, Jennifer’s articles, and this demonstration, they might feel the urge to take another look.”

  “Not to mention the attack by Robin Hood,” Jennifer said.

  “I hope your bunch didn’t trample any of the evidence,” Rhodes told Maddie.

  “Seepy told us to be careful,” Maddie said. “So we were. I don’t think we touched a single one of the arrows.”

  Rhodes looked around. The arrows he could see didn’t appear to have been disturbed.

  “I think I’ll pick them up now,” he said.

  “I’ll help you,” Benton said. He looked first at Maddie, then at Jennifer. “I’ve been trained in crime-scene investigative techniques.”

  “The Citizens’ Academy doesn’t count,” Rhodes told him, “so quit bragging. I’ll pick up the arrows.”

  Benton gave in and continued to talk to the women while Rhodes picked up the arrows on the ground. He put those into the Charger and then looked at the ones sticking out from the side of the metal building. No way was he going to climb up on top to remove the one there, and he found that taking the ones from the side would be no easy job. The only way to do it was to cut a hole around them, and he wasn’t willing to do that. They had no message attached, and they appeared to be no different from any of the others, though Rhodes knew they had arrowheads attached. He decided to leave them where they were.

  “What about this one?” Benton asked. He pointed to an arrow on the ground near the Charger. “It nearly hit me. I’m lucky I’m still alive.”

  Rhodes rolled his eyes, but the women didn’t see him. They were too busy admiring Benton for his bravery under fire.

  “That one doesn’t appear to have an arrowhead on it,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think it could have hurt you much even if it had hit you.”

  “That was lucky,” Maddie said. “This has been fun, but I’d better be going. It’s a long drive back to my town.”

  “Where would that be?” Rhodes asked.

  “Fort Worth,” Benton answered for her. “She’s a math instructor at Tarrant County Community College.”

  Rhodes figured that explained Benton’s connection to the group of protestors. He’d probably arranged for them to be there, even though he’d tried to make it sound as if Qualls had been involved.

  “Actually I live in Arlington,” Maddie said, “but Fort Worth is close enough.” She grinned. “This was fun. I hope we helped.”

  “If you did, you’ll see it in the paper,” Benton said.

  “I doubt if she subscribes,” Jennifer said.

  Benton waved that away. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll send her a copy.”

  Jennifer walked Maddie to her car, a Prius, which figured. They talked a minute or so, and Maddie left. Jennifer waved to Rhodes and got into her own car.

  “Seepy, huh?” Rhodes said to Benton as Jennifer drove away.

  “I met her at a math convention,” Benton said.

  “So she knows what you look like without your mask.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bet those math conventions are pretty wild.”

  “You have no idea,” Benton said.

  “That’s the truth. Get in the car and let’s go see your buddy Qualls.”

  Benton got in the car. Rhodes thought he was smiling beneath the mask.

  Qualls lived in the only new house in Mount Industry. It was just past the second curve of the road on the way to the chicken farm, but set well back on a little hill. To get to it, Rhodes had to drive through an open gate and up a road paved with white gravel.

  About fifty yards behind the house, dark green cedar trees stood in a clump. A couple of oak trees were nearer the house, but most of the land was clear. Rhodes wondered what it had cost Qualls to get rid of all the mesquites. A lot, he was sure.

  Qualls probably thought he’d have a nice view when he’d built the house, and it wasn’t too bad even now if you didn’t consider all the chicken barns an eyesore.

  The house had two stories, like most houses seemed to these days. Rhodes thought that houses for people Qualls’s age should be on one level, but maybe Qualls didn’t mind the stairs. He’d seemed to be in good enough shape when Rhodes met him. The stair-climbing would help with that, Rhodes supposed.

  Qualls must have seen them coming, or heard them. By the time Rhodes had stopped the car, he was out of the front door and standing in the entranceway. He had on his breathing mask and still looked like some kind of alien creature. It occurred to Rhodes that he’d never seen the man without the mask.

  “What are you doing here?” Qualls asked through the tinny speaker when Rhodes got out of the Charger.

  “We’re here to ask you a few questions,” Benton said as he got out on the other side.

  Qualls might have been surprised to see Benton, but Rhodes couldn’t tell. He hadn’t thought about it, but questioning a man whose expression you couldn’t see wouldn’t be easy. Rhodes didn’t think Qualls would remove the mask voluntarily.

  “Are you part of the sheriff’s posse?” Qualls asked Benton.

  “Just helping out. The sheriff asked me to come along, and since I’m a graduate of the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy, I’m qualified to do interrogations.”

  “I wish you’d quit telling people things like that,” Rhodes said. “You know better.”

  “I thought we got the best of training,” Benton said. He sounded hurt. “Are you telling me we d
idn’t?”

  “Never mind that.” Rhodes turned to Qualls. “Can we go inside?”

  “We can talk out here,” Qualls said.

  “What about the mask?”

  “It stays on.”

  Rhodes didn’t insist on its removal. He didn’t want to get into a tussle. He was afraid Benton might try to help out and get hurt.

  “What did you want to ask me about?” Qualls asked.

  “Let’s start with the demonstration that just happened.”

  “What demonstration?”

  Rhodes couldn’t tell if Qualls was puzzled by the question or not. The combination of the mask and the little speaker was too much for him.

  “The women from Tarrant County,” Benton said. “They showed up.”

  “Great,” Qualls said. “I wasn’t sure they’d do it. Was anyone from the paper there?”

  “Yes. Someone must have let one of the reporters know they were coming.”

  Rhodes thought he had a pretty good idea who that someone might have been.

  “Excellent,” Qualls said. “Sooner or later the state’s going to have to take notice of the situation over there.”

  “Speaking of the situation,” Rhodes said, “do you own a bow?”

  “Who, me?” Qualls asked. “What would I do with a bow?”

  “Shoot arrows,” Rhodes said. “You know. At utility poles, car tires, people, things like that.”

  “I’d never hurt anyone,” Qualls said. “I’m a college professor.”

  As if that made a difference. Besides, Qualls’s statement was ambiguous. The blunt arrows hadn’t been intended to hurt anyone.

  “Did you ever practice archery?” Rhodes asked.

  “Look at me,” Qualls said. “Do I look like an Errol Flynn?”

  It was hard to tell because of the mask, but Rhodes suspected that Qualls looked nothing like Errol Flynn. Or like Kevin Costner, for that matter.

  “You don’t have to look like a movie star to shoot arrows from a bow,” Rhodes said. “You just need a little practice.”

  “Are you making an accusation, Sheriff?”

  “No, just asking a question that I’d like to get a straight answer to.”

  “What he wants to know is were you the one shooting arrows over at the chicken farm this afternoon,” Benton said.

  So much for subtlety. Again, Rhodes couldn’t tell anything about Qualls’s expression.

  “Me?” Qualls’s voice gave nothing away because it came from the speaker. “I was here all afternoon. I listened to music and corrected some papers for my class at the college.”

  “What music did you listen to?” Benton asked.

  Rhodes didn’t mind the irrelevancy. The interview had gone so far downhill already that it didn’t matter what questions got asked, and Rhodes already knew that Qualls and Benton were working together, if not on the Robin Hood imposture, then on the protest.

  “I prefer Peruvian flute music when I’m correcting papers. It relaxes me.”

  “The pan flute,” Benton said. “Very nice. Did you know I play the Native American flute?”

  “I didn’t know, but I’d like to hear you.”

  “It’s hard to play a flute with a face mask on,” Rhodes said. He knew about Benton’s alleged guitar playing, but not about the flute. “I’m going back to town. If you want to ride along with me, come on. Or would you rather stay here and discuss flutes?”

  “I’ll come,” Benton said. “I need to correct a few papers myself.”

  * * *

  The sun had dropped down nearly to the horizon and outlined the low clouds in orange and red by the time Rhodes dropped Benton off at the community college campus. Benton removed his face mask after they left Qualls’s house, but he didn’t have much to say as they drove back to town. Rhodes didn’t push him.

  “You think I had something to do with those women protestors,” Benton said when Rhodes parked in front of the building.

  “I think it’s a good possibility,” Rhodes said. “Even a likelihood.”

  “Okay, I confess. I did have something to do with it.” Benton paused. “Let me amend that. I had a lot to do with it. Qualls knew about it, but I’m the one who set it up.”

  “I had a feeling you were.”

  “I could tell. I don’t want you to think Qualls was guilty of it.”

  “Is he guilty of anything else? Like being Robin Hood?”

  “I don’t know about that. If he’s been running around with a bow and arrow, he hasn’t told me about it.”

  Rhodes believed him. While Benton wasn’t much good at keeping secrets, Rhodes was sure Qualls was.

  Benton got out of the car. Rhodes thought it was too late to grade papers, but Benton assured him that it wasn’t.

  “College teachers don’t keep regular hours,” Benton said. “We work all the time, day and night.”

  “I’ll be sure to vote for your next pay raise.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do the same for you. We both have tough jobs.”

  “Not exactly the same,” Rhodes said.

  “If you think yours is tougher, try standing in front of a classroom of college kids and see. Come to think of it, that might be a good idea. You could talk to my classes and see what it’s like.”

  “What would I talk about?”

  “Something simple. How to factor second-degree polynomial equations, maybe.”

  Rhodes was never sure when Benton was kidding. “We’d better start with something a little easier. Like converting one-half into a decimal figure.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “Never mind,” Rhodes said. “I think I’ll stick to arresting people for breaking the law.”

  “You have to catch them first.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Rhodes said.

  16

  After dropping Benton off at the college, Rhodes went to the jail. He was glad to see that Buddy was there, working on his report about the incident at the chicken farm. That meant Rhodes could ask him about Lester Hamilton’s will instead of trying to get the information from Hack.

  It turned out that Buddy didn’t have the information. He hadn’t found out who Hamilton’s heirs were.

  “You mean there’s no will on file?” Rhodes said.

  “That’s right. There was one, but now there’s not.”

  Thinking about that answer, Rhodes wondered if Hack had somehow inhabited Buddy’s body. He told himself that wasn’t possible, but it was possible Hack had been coaching Buddy as part of an insidious plan to drive Rhodes crazy. Rhodes couldn’t rule it out.

  “You mean they can’t find the will?” he asked.

  “No,” Buddy said. “I mean it was there, and now it’s not. It’s been pulled. The way I understand it, Hamilton’s lawyer’s making a new one.”

  “Means you’ll have to talk to Randy Lawless,” Hack said. He’d been listening in. “I know you’ll love that.”

  Rhodes wondered how much he’d be able to get from Lawless. Sometimes he cooperated. Sometimes he didn’t.

  “Did they tell you when the old will was removed?” Rhodes asked.

  “Last week,” Buddy said.

  Rhodes appreciated getting direct answers. Hack hadn’t been coaching Buddy after all. Rhodes had misjudged them.

  “That means you might have you a suspect,” Hack said. “Could be the old heir killed Hamilton before the new will could be put into effect.”

  “Or the new one killed him because he wanted to run the chicken farm,” Buddy said.

  “Why would anybody want to run the chicken farm?” Hack asked.

  “Naked women,” Buddy said. His mouth twisted with disdain. “Some people like that kind of thing.”

  “What naked women?” Hack asked.

  “The ones at the chicken farm,” Rhodes said.

  “Just awful,” Buddy said, shaking his head in disapproval. “Stiff-starch naked.”

  “They weren’t stiff-starch naked,” Rhodes said, enjoying th
e look on Hack’s face. “They wore feathers.”

  “Might as well have been naked,” Buddy said. “It’s not decent to talk about it. I still can’t believe you didn’t put every one of them in a cell.”

  “Nobody told me anything about naked women,” Hack said.

  “The jail doesn’t have room for them,” Rhodes said. “We’d be cited for overcrowding.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Hack asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Buddy said.

  “He’s right,” Rhodes said. “You’re way too old to be interested in something like that. What would Miz McGee say?”

  Mrs. McGee was the woman whom Hack was dating, if that was the right word. Rhodes had never quite figured out their relationship.

  “Don’t you bring her into this,” Hack said.

  “Into what?” Lawton asked, coming into the room from the cellblock. “What’s Miz McGee been up to now?”

  “Nothing,” Buddy said. “We weren’t talking about her. I think we ought to get off this subject. It’s not fit to talk about naked women on the loose.”

  “Whoa!” Lawton said. “Don’t be in such a rush. What naked women?”

  “The ones wearing feathers,” Rhodes said.

  “I still say we should’ve arrested ’em,” Buddy said.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Lawton said. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “Buddy can tell you,” Rhodes said. “I have work to do.”

  With that, he left the jail.

  Rhodes grinned all the way to the Lawj Mahal, thinking about Buddy’s consternation at the protestors and their lack of attire, and about the problems Hack and Lawton would have in getting him to talk about it.

  As Rhodes had suspected they might be, the lights were on in the Lawj Mahal. It was the only place in the old downtown area where a light burned. The other buildings, what was left of them, were dark and deserted. Nothing new in that. They were dark and deserted even during the day for the most part. Even the town’s two traffic lights had been removed.

  The only car in the parking lot was a big black Infiniti, which had probably cost as much as or more than Lester Hamilton’s Lexus. Lawyering was about the only thing in Blacklin County that paid as much as chicken farming.