Murder in the Air

by Bill Crider

  “Sure, but in a town this size even a fifty percent increase is no big deal. Forget it, Sheriff. Loam and me, newspaper reporters, we’re history.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to think about it, though he’d had similar thoughts of his own earlier.

  “You think Loam might be at the chicken farm?” he asked.

  “If I knew, I’d tell you. But I don’t know.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Rhodes said.

  “You didn’t say why you wanted to see her. She’s not under arrest, I hope. I have too much to do around here as it is. I don’t want the paper to fold today.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rhodes said. “I don’t plan to arrest her.”

  “Good,” Vance said. “I need the help.”

  Rhodes didn’t tell him that Jennifer might be in more trouble than a mere arrest would mean. He didn’t want to scare the man and have a heart attack on his conscience.

  “If I see her,” he said, “I’ll tell her how much you appreciate her.”

  “I tell her that all the time myself,” Vance said.

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Not long. That story might be important to her, but it’s not the only thing we have going on around here. If the story’s another day late, who cares?”

  “The readers?” Rhodes asked.

  “Yeah,” Vance said. “The readers. Right.”

  Rhodes’s mistake with Jennifer Loam had been in not asking her about the evidence Gillis was supposed to produce. She probably wouldn’t have told him for ethical reasons, but he should have asked. Maybe Jennifer hadn’t known what it was herself, but if she had, she might have gone looking for it.

  That might turn out to be trouble if Rhodes’s latest assumptions turned out to be true.

  One thing he should have considered more carefully was Hamilton’s cell phone. It had no record of any calls. Rhodes didn’t use a cell, but nearly everybody else in the county had one, and nearly everybody used them.

  Hamilton shouldn’t have been the exception. He was in business, and he needed to be in touch with people all the time, especially the one who was managing his business. Rhodes now believed that someone had erased all the calls from the phone, and that it hadn’t been Hamilton. Someone hadn’t wanted anybody to know who Hamilton had called or received calls from.

  Why? The only reason Rhodes could think of was that Hamilton had talked to his killer. Maybe even told him that he was going noodling and where he’d be. The record of the call wouldn’t really matter, but it would have been something that might have pointed the sheriff at a particular person. The timing of the calls could have been important.

  Rhodes didn’t know much about cell phone technology, but he knew that some phones had a SIM card that stored information. He’d have to ask Ruth Grady to check Hamilton’s phone. Even if it had a card, the information might have been erased from it. Maybe not, however. If it was there, it wouldn’t prove anything, but it would be suggestive.

  The other thing Rhodes had remembered while fishing at the rock pit was something he’d seen on his trip out to the chicken farm to talk to Jared Crockett. A pickup with an aluminum boat in the bed had been parked behind the building where Crockett worked. That tied in with Rhodes’s theory about the killer using a boat to get to the bridge. Crockett could even have planted the boat there days in advance and gone to the site with Hamilton. It might not have happened that way, but Rhodes thought it possible, even likely.

  If Crockett suspected that Gillis was spying on him and feeding information to Jennifer, he could easily have walked to where Gillis was fishing, killed him, and walked back to the chicken farm in well under an hour.

  Rhodes couldn’t prove any of his assumptions, but if the evidence Jennifer was looking for had to do with Crockett, things didn’t look good for the foreman. The evidence might have been anything, might have been about Terrall or Garrett or Qualls, but Rhodes didn’t think so. He thought Crockett was the man. Now he had to find Jennifer and make sure.

  Rhodes thought the reporter might be at the chicken farm, though he didn’t know how she planned to get the evidence she was hoping for. He’d just have to go out there and look around to find out if he was right.

  Rhodes didn’t see anyone when he parked in front of the headquarters building. It was as if the place were deserted. Rhodes wondered where everyone was.

  The smell of the barns rolled over him like a wave of noisome water when he got out of the car. It had been bad enough when he was inside, but outside it was even worse. He waded through it, taking shallow breaths through his mouth. He reached the door of the headquarters and knocked.

  Nobody answered. Rhodes tried the knob. The door was locked.

  It was only around four in the afternoon, too early for everyone to have left work unless Crockett had just decided to close the place down, now that Hamilton was dead. That didn’t seem likely. Someone had to take care of the chickens until at least the next pickup from the processing plant.

  Rhodes walked around the headquarters. He heard the raucous sound of the chickens as they squawked and cackled and scratched and flapped in their confinement, but he didn’t see any humans around.

  He did, however, see Crockett’s pickup. It was parked behind the headquarters in the same spot it had been when Rhodes saw the boat in it, but the boat was gone now. Rhodes wondered where it was and if Crockett had managed somehow to dispose of it completely.

  He went over to the pickup and looked in the bed. He didn’t see any trace of the boat, no telltale paint scrapings on the sides, no oars left around by accident.

  Rhodes took a breath and wished he had a respirator mask. The stink was so bad that his eyes watered, and the constant noise of the chickens didn’t help matters.

  Strolling along past the ends of the buildings, Rhodes looked for some indication that Jennifer Loam had been there. He didn’t find anything. He’d thought her car would be parked in front, but there was no sign of it.

  Crockett’s pickup was there, though, and that must mean Crockett was somewhere nearby. Rhodes just couldn’t figure out where.

  The only thing Rhodes saw other than the buildings was the tall gray metal chimneys of the incinerators. On the chance that Crockett was doing some burning, Rhodes decided to go take a look.

  Crockett was nowhere around.

  Jennifer Loam, however, was there. Rhodes saw her when he passed the last of the farm buildings. She was bound with duct tape and propped up against the side of the last building. Across from her were the incinerators.

  Rhodes ran to her and knelt down. He got out his pocketknife and started to cut the tape.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he worked.

  “It’s Crockett,” Jennifer said. “He was going to kill me and feed me to the incinerator.”

  She sounded calm about it, a lot calmer than Rhodes would have been in her situation.

  “Where is he now?” Rhodes asked as he started to peel the tape away.

  Jennifer helped him as soon as her hands were free. “He’s taken my car somewhere to get rid of it. He didn’t want anyone to know I’d been here.”

  “You should have told someone what you were doing.”

  “I didn’t think Crockett would go crazy on me.”

  “Did you confront him about anything?”

  Jennifer peeled off the rest of the tape and stood up. She was a little unsteady and put a hand on the side of the building to get her balance.

  “I didn’t confront him.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Well, maybe a little. He came across the desk and hit me. Then he taped me up and carried me here.”

  “What did you ask him about?”

  “Hal Gillis told me that the workers were abusing the chickens, killing them for fun. Sometimes they get out of the barns, you know.”

  Rhodes recalled the chicken he’d seen perched on the boat.

  “They catch them and wring their necks,” Jennifer said.

  Rhodes thought of
his grandfather with a twinge of guilt.

  “Or they stomp them,” Jennifer went on.

  At least Rhodes hadn’t seen his grandfather do anything like that.

  “Mr. Gillis was going to get pictures,” Jennifer said. “I don’t know if he did.”

  “If he did, they’re gone now,” Rhodes said. “Are you sure Crockett was letting things like that that go on?”

  “No, I wasn’t sure. I tried to be subtle about asking him, but I don’t think it worked.”

  “Me, neither,” Rhodes said, eyeing the sticky residue on her clothes.

  Rhodes had wondered about a motive for Hamilton’s murder. Now he had one, if the story Gillis had told was true.

  “We need to get you out of here,” he told Jennifer.

  “Too late,” a man said in a metallic voice as he came around the end of the building.

  Rhodes couldn’t see the man’s face because he wore a respirator mask, but it was Crockett, all right. He held a revolver in his right hand.

  “You didn’t mention the pistol,” Rhodes said.

  “I thought you’d take it for granted,” Jennifer said.

  “This is a real mess,” Crockett said. “I sure wish you’d stayed out of it, Sheriff.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Maybe so. Too bad about that, then.”

  Rhodes glanced over at the incinerators. “You’d have to chop us up mighty fine to get us in those things.”

  “The girl’s no problem,” Crockett said. “You’re a little hefty, though.”

  “I’ve been planning to exercise more.”

  “Ho, ho, ho.” The fake laugh sounded sinister through the tinny speaker. “Joking won’t help you any, Sheriff.”

  Crockett was nerving himself up to shoot, and Rhodes didn’t think it would take him long to get to it. Rhodes shoved Jennifer as hard as he could, so hard that she bounced off the wall of the building as he threw himself in the opposite direction.

  Crockett fired off some shots, two or three, Rhodes wasn’t sure.

  Rhodes could have rolled to the incinerators for cover, but he didn’t have time. Crockett would shoot him before he got there.

  Rhodes twisted around, pulled up his pants leg, and grabbed his .32. This was far from the ideal situation for the little pistol, but Rhodes had to use what he had.

  He looked for Crockett, but the big man wasn’t where he’d been. He’d grabbed Jennifer Loam and held her in front of himself as a shield.

  “Drop your gun, Sheriff,” he said.

  Rhodes hadn’t heard that line since watching an old B-Western on television years ago. He’d forgotten what the response was in the movie, but he didn’t have to use it because Jennifer raised her leg and stomped Crockett’s foot right on top of the arch.

  Crockett cried out and let go of Jennifer, who dived to the side. Rhodes fired his pistol, missing Crockett by a good two feet.

  Crockett shot back, coming a lot closer than Rhodes had, but not close enough to hit anything. Before Rhodes could get off another shot, Crockett turned and ran. Rhodes got to his feet and went after him.

  “You stay here,” he called to Jennifer, not waiting to see if she heard.

  Rhodes almost made a rookie mistake by running around the end of the building without checking, but he stopped just in time. It was a good thing he did, because when he took a peek, he saw Crockett waiting about twenty yards away.

  The foreman stood in a crouch and held the revolver in a two-handed grip. As soon as he saw Rhodes’s head poke out, he pulled the trigger. The bullet clanged through the corner, taking out a chunk of metal just above Rhodes’s head, but Rhodes had already ducked back.

  He waited a second, then took another look.

  Crockett was gone.

  29

  Rhodes knew of only one place where Crockett could go, and, sure enough, chickens exploded out the door of one of the big buildings, fluttering, skreaking, and scattering feathers.

  Crockett probably hoped Rhodes wouldn’t follow him inside, and Rhodes wished he didn’t have to do it, but it was all part of the job.

  Some of the chickens squatted on the ground, dazed and confused by their sudden freedom and all the commotion. Others flapped past Rhodes, not even seeing him, brushing him as he entered the building.

  The stench was incredible, like a spongy wall that Rhodes had to push through. Chickens swirled and danced around him, their loose feathers flying in all directions as his feet sank into the fetid litter.

  Rhodes brushed away feathers and tried not to think of lice, ticks, mites, E. coli, and worms. It was too bad he didn’t have a respirator mask. The only good thing he could think of was that Crockett couldn’t possibly shoot him, not with all the beating wings and the swirling dust.

  Crockett wasn’t reading off the same page, however. A boom sounded over the racket of the chickens, and one of them only inches from Rhodes flew apart in a haze of blood and feathers.

  Rhodes peered down the length of the building and saw a bulky shape that had to be Crockett plowing through the panicked birds, swinging his arms and swatting them out of his way like volleyballs as he made for the far exit.

  Rhodes crooked his left arm in front of his face to protect his eyes from errant beaks and slogged through the litter, trying to breathe shallowly through his mouth. The smell was still overwhelming, and it was made even worse because Rhodes and Crockett were agitating the litter and bringing up odors from its depths. Rhodes wondered if it had ever been cleaned out and changed and suspected that it hadn’t. No wonder the stink reeked all over the countryside. He was afraid he was inhaling toxins and airborne parasites of all kinds, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Crockett burst out the door well ahead of Rhodes, who was having more and more trouble fighting his way through the chickens. Crockett got them stirred up, and Rhodes had to blunder through them as best he could as he tried not to get pecked to death. Fending off the mass of chickens was like fighting through a jungle of living plants with beaks and claws.

  It seemed to take an eternity for Rhodes to get to the exit, and then he had to stop and wait. He couldn’t just run outside and let Crockett pick him off.

  He knew he couldn’t stay inside for much longer. The foulness was too much for him. He counted to ten and stuck his head out.

  Crockett wasn’t interested in shooting him. He was headed for his pickup.

  Jennifer Loam was running after him. She hadn’t heard, or hadn’t paid any attention, when Rhodes told her to stay where she was.

  Crockett either heard her coming or sensed that she was behind him. He didn’t shoot her. He turned and batted her away with a fist to her head.

  She fell hard and rolled over. Instead of looking down at her, Crockett looked back toward Rhodes. He brought up his pistol and fired.

  The bullet twanged through metal. Rhodes calculated that was Crockett’s fifth shot, maybe his sixth.

  Crockett kicked Jennifer in the side and got into his pickup. Rhodes was running as hard as he could, but he saw he wasn’t going to get to Crockett in time to stop him, and the little .32 wouldn’t do much damage at the distance Rhodes was from the pickup. Crockett was going to get away.

  Except that he wasn’t planning to try. He started the truck, backed it up, and headed for Rhodes.

  To get to the sheriff, he’d have to drive right over Jennifer, but that didn’t bother him.

  Rhodes yelled. He didn’t know if the reporter heard him, but she rolled away just as Crockett got to her. He missed her by less than a foot and directed the pickup at Rhodes.

  Rhodes had several choices.

  He could try evasive action, but Crockett would catch him eventually.

  He could try to get back into the chicken barn, but he didn’t think he could make it in time. He didn’t want to go back in there anyway.

  Or he could try shooting. He didn’t have much firepower, and he wished briefly for the M-16 that Burns wanted to buy. An M-16 would have ch
ewed the little truck up like a toy.

  Rhodes had only his .32, however, and that would have to do.

  He stood his ground, brought up the pistol, and steadied his right wrist with his left hand.

  As Crockett bore down on him, Rhodes could see the big man’s masked face through the windshield. He looked like some kind of demented spaceman out of a bad 1950s science fiction movie, flying his rocketship on a suicide mission as if it weren’t a job he wanted to do but one he had to finish.

  Rhodes didn’t want to be finished. He pulled the trigger three times. The .32 popped in his hand with no noticeable recoil.

  The bullets starred the windshield. Crockett’s head jerked to the left and slammed against the window. It bounced back to the right. Crockett’s hands lost their grip on the steering wheel, and the pickup careened off course, passing by Rhodes and crashing into the building behind him. It put a considerable dent in the building, but it didn’t break through. Chickens poured out the door beside it in a white avalanche.

  Rhodes checked on Jennifer first. She had gained her feet and stared at him, a little dazed.

  “Are you all right?” Rhodes asked when he reached her.

  “I think so,” she said. “My head’s buzzing. He hit me pretty hard.”

  “At least he didn’t run over you.”

  “He tried. You look worse than I do, though.”

  Chicken feathers clung to Rhodes’s clothing and hair. His shoes and his pants down from just above the ankles were covered with muck. Besides that, the inside of his mouth tasted as if a dozen chickens had nested in it.

  There wasn’t anything he could do about it. He turned to the truck. Steam hissed from its radiator. The driver’s door was sprung open, and the air bag had exploded. Crocket lay half in and half out of the pickup.

  “Did you kill him?” Jennifer asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Rhodes said.

  “It wouldn’t be any great loss if you did.”

  “We need him to tell us what he did with your car.”

  “Oh. I can tell you that. He said he was going to drive it into a tank.”