Murder in the Air

by Bill Crider

  “Some of these are the brand Robin Hood used, but there are a couple other brands mixed in. That’s funny. Not ha-ha funny. You know what I mean.”

  Rhodes knew. “I do. We’d better take these in as evidence. I’ll let you handle it.”

  “What’s on your agenda?”

  “I’m going to talk to the Terralls.”

  “What about?”

  “About Gillis. They were neighbors, and the Terralls are outside a lot of the time. Maybe they saw something or heard something.”

  “Like a man with a jet backpack.”

  “I’d settle for just a man on foot. Or a woman.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Rhodes said.

  The rain had never been heavy, and it had stopped by the time Rhodes arrived at the Terralls’ vegetable stand.

  The Terralls still sat where they’d been sitting when Rhodes had visited them earlier, but this time they wore matching sweaters, both gray. They didn’t get up when Rhodes stopped his county car, and they didn’t get up when he got out and approached them.

  “Afternoon,” Rhodes said.

  “What do you want?” Calvin Terrall asked. His tone was anything but friendly. “I know you didn’t come to buy any persimmons. You can see we aren’t exactly covered up with customers, either. I don’t blame ’em for staying away, not with the stink around here.”

  “It’s not so bad today,” Rhodes said.

  “Yeah, it’s not making my eyes water, but that’s thanks to the wind. Wind’s not good for business, though, and neither is rain.”

  “Some days you just can’t win,” Rhodes said.

  “Most days,” Terrall said. “Lately, anyway. You didn’t say what you wanted.”

  “You told me to come back when I had another question for you.”

  “So? You got one?”

  “It’s not a question. Hal Gillis is dead. Somebody killed him.”

  Margie Terrall sucked in a sharp breath. Calvin looked stunned. Rhodes didn’t think it was an act, but he’d learned that you could never be sure about something like that.

  “Who’d want to kill Hal?” Calvin asked. “What did he ever do to anybody?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” Rhodes said. “I hoped you might be able to help me.”

  Terrall’s face darkened. “You accusing me of killing Hal? Seems to me like you’re always coming here to accuse me of something.”

  Terrall was awfully touchy, just as he’d been on Rhodes’s previous visit.

  “I don’t remember that I accused you of anything,” Rhodes said. “You just keep assuming that I have. Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

  Terrall took a step toward Rhodes. Rhodes didn’t move.

  “Maybe there’s not a reason for it, either,” Terrall said. “Hal and I have been friends for a long time. He came by here every now and then to buy something. Just to help out. Not like some people I know.”

  Rhodes knew who Terrall was talking about. He started to say that he’d helped out Garrett by buying candy bars, but he didn’t think Terrall would appreciate it.

  “Speaking of helping out,” Rhodes said, “what I wondered was if you’d seen anybody walking along the road or maybe crossing Gillis’s property.”

  “Not me.” Terrall turned to his wife. “Not anybody that’s not usually on the road here, anyhow. What about you, Margie? You were out in the orchard before it rained. You see anybody walking around?”

  “It was foggy,” she said. “I couldn’t see more than a few yards on either side of me, and I sure couldn’t see over onto Hal’s property. I liked Hal. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “He’s dead, all right,” Rhodes told her. “Somebody was there with him this morning. I don’t know how he got there, though.”

  “There’s a county road that runs back of both our places,” Terrall said. “Anybody could park on the road and walk to Hal’s house through the pasture.”

  “I’ll check that out,” Rhodes said, but he didn’t think there was much chance he’d find anything. “About those people who usually drive on the road that goes by here. Who were they?”

  “Well, Snuffy Garrett was one of them,” Terrall said. “I don’t remember who else. Margie?”

  “I can’t think of anybody. We don’t have a lot of traffic, not since—”

  “Since the smell,” Rhodes said. “I know. Thanks for the help. I’ll stop by and talk to Garrett. If you remember later that you saw somebody else, give me a call.”

  “I’ll do that,” Terrall said, his tone not as surly as it had been. “I want you to catch whoever killed Hal. He might get after me and Margie next.”

  Rhodes didn’t think so. He had a feeling that Gillis’s death was connected somehow to Hamilton’s and that the Terralls weren’t in any danger unless they’d seen something that they hadn’t told Rhodes about. Or heard something.

  The bow and arrows worried Rhodes. He asked, “Did you ever know Hal to go bow hunting?”

  “He didn’t hunt with a bow or a gun or anything,” Terrall said. “He was a fisherman, not a hunter.”

  “What about target shooting?”

  “With a bow? Nope. Not with a gun, either. Like I said, Hal was a fisherman. He didn’t go in for that other stuff.”

  That’s what Rhodes had thought, too, so the bow and arrows didn’t figure, not unless Gillis was indeed Robin Hood. That would make Mikey Burns a prime suspect in the murder.

  “I’ll make sure the deputies make a regular check out this way,” Rhodes told Terrall. “If you see anything suspicious, call the jail, and Hack’ll alert them.”

  “Thanks,” Terrall said, “but we’ll worry anyway.”

  Rhodes didn’t blame him.

  21

  “How about a Dr Pepper, Sheriff?” Garrett asked when Rhodes walked into the store.

  This time Garrett wasn’t sitting behind the counter. He was standing on a chair, replacing a lightbulb, one of three that hung from twisted cords from the ceiling of the store.

  Garrett screwed in the bulb and stepped down from the chair, resting his hand on the back to do so.

  “Gettin’ too old for that kind of thing,” he said. “Nobody else here to do it but me, though. How about that Dr Pepper? I could use one myself.”

  Rhodes didn’t argue. Having missed lunch for what seemed like the tenth day in a row, he needed a little pick-me-up.

  “I’ll take a Zero, too,” he said and went to the refrigerator to get one.

  He unwrapped it, and Garrett brought him a Dr Pepper. Rhodes had to admit that when it came to lunch, a Zero and a Dr Pepper were hard to beat. Two of each would have been better, though.

  “You sure been out this way a lot lately,” Garrett said, taking a swig from the Dr Pepper bottle. “That chicken farm must be causing a real ruckus with folks out here.”

  “That’s not all,” Rhodes said. He bit the end off the Zero and chewed it. He swallowed and said, “Somebody killed Hal Gillis this morning.”

  “Damnation.” Garrett set his Dr Pepper on the counter and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m looking to find out. Could’ve been anybody. Have you seen him lately?”

  “Funny you should ask that.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess you talked to the Terralls. They must’ve seen me drive by this morning.”

  “They did.” Rhodes ate some more of the candy bar and washed it down. “They didn’t know you’d been to Gillis’s place, though.”

  “Well, that’s where I went. Hal and I go back so far it’s hard for me to believe. Grew up together right here in Mount Industry. I go to see him now and then.”

  “You just close the store and take off?”

  “Sure. No reason not to. Nobody ever comes by.”

  “So you haven’t had any customers today, say somebody who might have gone on to Gillis’s place.”
/>   Garrett looked at Rhodes. “Nobody. Except you, that is.”

  “Maybe if you stuck around somebody would come in.”

  “I don’t think so. Anyway, I’m never gone long. Me and Hal just talk over old times, and then I come back. We can remember when this was a hoppin’ little community. Been a long time, though.” Garrett picked up his drink and took a sip. “You sure he’s dead?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Damnation.” Garrett’s voice cracked. “I’m gonna miss that old boy. He was about the only friend I had left here.”

  “What about the Terralls?”

  “You never mind about them. They’re not bad folks, but they’re not friendly. What happened to Hal?”

  “Somebody hit him,” Rhodes said.

  He thought about that, wondering what the murder weapon might have been and where it was. Maybe in the middle of the stock tank, sunk in the mud under several feet of water.

  “Must’ve been somebody he knew,” Garrett said. His eyes were red. “Damnation.”

  “Who were his other friends around here?”

  “He didn’t have many. Not many people around, if you’ve noticed. Most of the ones we grew up with left long ago, and nobody much has moved in.”

  “What about Dr. Qualls?”

  “He’s moved in, all right. Hal knew him. I don’t know how well. He’d mention him now and then, mainly when we got to talking about the chicken farm.”

  Rhodes thought about that. Qualls didn’t live too far from Gillis. He could have cut across the back of his own property and walked to the back of Gillis’s place that morning before driving into town for his appointment at the jail.

  “Hal didn’t like the chicken farm, I guess,” Rhodes said.

  “No more than anybody else here did, which is to say not one damn bit.”

  Garrett looked as if he had more to say on the subject, but instead he stuck out his hand and asked Rhodes for the Zero wrapper. Rhodes had finished the candy bar, and he gave Garrett the wrapper. Garrett tossed it in the trash while Rhodes drank the last of his Dr Pepper.

  “You ever think back, Sheriff? About the way things used to be around here?”

  “All too often,” Rhodes said.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I hate it when things change. They don’t ever seem to change for the better, but then I guess all old men feel like that.”

  “I’m not that old,” Rhodes said.

  Garrett laughed. “Compared to me, maybe. Compared to the young whippersnappers I see when I go into Clearview, well, I don’t know.”

  Rhodes said he got the point.

  “Seems like most of the people I used to know are gone off or in the cemetery,” Garrett continued. “The new folks don’t act like they care much about the town or the way it used to be. Can’t blame ’em, I guess. They weren’t here then.”

  “It’s not a bad town,” Rhodes said. “Just different.”

  “The people are different, all right. You take that Qualls fella. He’s a strange bird if there ever was one. You might oughta talk to him.”

  “I will,” Rhodes said.

  He didn’t mention that he’d already talked to Qualls without producing much of a result, other than becoming convinced that Qualls was Robin Hood. If that was true, then Qualls had a motive for killing Gillis. He could plant a bow and arrows in the house and throw suspicion on Gillis. If Gillis was dead, he couldn’t very well deny anything. Of course, if Gillis was dead, there would be quite a search on for his killer, and murder was a more serious crime than anything Robin Hood had done.

  “You watch out for him,” Garrett said. “He’s always got that mask on. Bound to be something funny about a man like that.”

  “He doesn’t like the smell,” Rhodes said, “and he’s afraid he’s going to catch some kind of disease from the chickens. Bird flu or something.”

  “That bird flu’s bad stuff,” Garrett said. “Or so they say. So far nobody’s caught it that I know of, not around here anyway.”

  “You know,” Rhodes said, “you still haven’t told me why you went to see Hal this morning.”

  “Just to talk. He was about to go fishing. He was headed for his tank when I left. Said it was likely to get cold, and he wanted to wet a hook before it did.”

  “What time was that?”

  “ ’Round eight o’clock. I was back here a little after that.”

  Rhodes didn’t know what time Gillis had died, and he doubted that Dr. White would be able to pin it down closely enough to clear Garrett, if that’s what Garrett hoped, even if he was telling the truth.

  “Did he say anything about having an appointment to see me at the jail?”

  “Nope. Didn’t mention it. His memory was good, too. He was sharp as he ever was. Damnation.”

  “Did you see anyone else around?” Rhodes asked. “Anybody on the road or the property?”

  “Not a soul. Only people I saw were the Terralls, sitting out in their stand. They didn’t even wave to me when I went past.”

  “They didn’t wave to me, either,” Rhodes told him.

  “Sure are unfriendly,” Garrett said, shaking his head, and Rhodes had to agree.

  Rhodes drove from Garrett’s store to Qualls’s house. The weather had gotten progressively colder, and Rhodes was glad it wasn’t raining.

  Qualls came to the door, still without his mask.

  “I thought we’d said all we had to say to each other,” he said when he saw Rhodes standing at the door.

  “That was then,” Rhodes said. “This is now. We need to have a talk, and it might take a while. You can ask me to come in.”

  “Why should I?”

  The cold wind blew against the back of Rhodes’s shirt, a thin one that he had put on that morning in hopes that the cold weather wouldn’t arrive until much later in the day.

  “Because it’s cold and damp out here and because if you don’t invite me, I’m coming in anyway.”

  Qualls didn’t look happy with that response, but he stepped back, and Rhodes went past him into the house. It smelled new, the combination of new lumber and carpeting and fresh paint. Qualls was such a neat housekeeper that the place looked as if he’d moved in only days before.

  “This way,” Qualls said.

  He led Rhodes to a room just off the hall. It looked a little like Benton’s office at the college except that it was much more orderly. It held bookshelves, a computer desk, another desk, a couple of chairs, and a small TV set.

  “This is my office,” Qualls said. “I got used to having one when I taught, and I find I can’t do without one now.”

  He sat in the chair at the desk. Rhodes took the other one. He noticed that Qualls was keeping his hands pretty much out of sight.

  “Now, then, Sheriff,” Qualls said. “What brings you out here? I don’t have anything more to say than I’ve already told you.”

  “That’s what you think,” Rhodes said.

  He looked at the bookshelves, which, like the others he’d seen lately, held none of the kind of books that Clyde Ballinger liked to read. Not unless Ballinger had recently switched to Shakespeare or Faulkner or Hemingway.

  “You read?” Qualls said.

  “Newspapers,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes. When I’m not chasing criminals.”

  “Of course. I’m sure you watch television, though.”

  “Not much. I watch a DVD now and then. Just last night I was watching an old Abbott and Costello movie.”

  Qualls couldn’t quite keep the sneer off his face. “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a new Abbott and Costello movie.”

  “I guess not,” Rhodes said. “The old ones will have to do.”

  “No doubt you found the one you saw hilarious.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Rhodes said. “Those two guys crack me up. You ever watch them?”

  “No,” Qualls said. “I prefer foreign films.”

  “This one had Charles Laughton in it,” Rhodes said. “He’s not from around he
re, so I guess you could call it foreign. It was about Captain Kidd. He’s not from around here, either.”

  Qualls opened his mouth, closed it, and peered at Rhodes. “Sheriff, I think you’re putting me on.”

  “Now why would I do that?”

  “I can think of several reasons. One might be that you’re posing as an ignorant hayseed to lull me into a false sense of security.”

  “Hayseed,” Rhodes said. “Now there’s a word you don’t hear very often. Ignorant, though, that one I hear all the time.”

  “You can drop the act, Sheriff,” Qualls said. “It’s not going to work.”

  “Well,” Rhodes said, “you never know until you try.”

  “That act might work on some of the people you deal with around here,” Qualls said, “but it won’t work with me. Let’s just get on with it. Say what you came to say.”

  “Good enough. I came by to ask you if you killed Hal Gillis.”

  “What? Gillis? Isn’t he the man who lives not far from here in that old house he inherited from his parents?”

  “That’s the one. ‘Lived’ would be the right word, though, if you want to get technical about it.”

  “You think I killed him? Why in God’s name would I do that?”

  “Maybe to keep people from thinking you were Robin Hood,” Rhodes said. “It wouldn’t do your reputation any good if people thought you were going around shooting arrows into the air and letting them fall to earth in the tire of a county commissioner’s nice red car. I know the earth and a tire are different, by the way.”

  “All right, all right, I underestimated you. I have a feeling I’m not the first one.”

  “It happens now and then,” Rhodes said.

  “I apologize,” Qualls said. “You don’t have to keep rubbing it in. You’re probably some mute, inglorious Milton who’d have been chief of police if you’d lived in some big city like Houston.”

  “I seem to remember from high school that that’s what you’d call a mixed metaphor, unless you’re talking about Neal Milton. He’s the sheriff about two counties over and a whole lot smarter than I am.”

  “You never let go of a thing, do you.”

  “Not usually,” Rhodes said. “Not until I get the answers I’m looking for.”