Half in Love with Artful Death

by Bill Crider

  “You have not come for a social visit, I suppose,” Patel said.

  “No, not exactly,” Rhodes said. “Is there somewhere that we can talk?”

  “Most certainly. Come.”

  Patel walked to the end of the counter and opened the gate that allowed Rhodes to go behind it.

  “We will go into my office,” Patel said, and Rhodes followed him in.

  The office was small and just as neat as the lobby. The top of the black desk was bare except for a computer monitor. There were framed photographs on the wall that weren’t of anywhere Rhodes had ever been or was ever likely to be. They showed buildings with domes, towers with staircases circling the outside, dancers in colorful saris.

  Patel closed the door. “Gujarat. Where my parents come from. I have never been there, but I like to think that someday I will travel to see it.”

  Burt Collins thought of the Patels as immigrants, but Rhodes remembered that Manish had been born in Dallas. Manish’s wife, Sunny, was from Houston.

  “After you get rich in the hotel business, maybe you can go there,” Rhodes said.

  “That is the plan,” Patel said. “Please. Have a seat.”

  Rhodes sat in a straight-backed chair with a seat covered in what appeared to be the same black leather as that on the chairs in the lobby. Patel went behind his desk and sat in his office chair.

  “I have had no problems here,” Patel said when he was settled. “No one has skipped on a bill. No one has tried to rob me.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “This is about something else. Or someone else. Burt Collins.”

  “Ah, the late Mr. Collins. I am sorry that he is dead, but I cannot say I liked the man. We have had no visits from him recently, for which I am grateful.” He paused. “His wife, however, is visiting us at this very moment, as you probably know. Along with her sister. That is how I know Mr. Collins is dead. I heard about it late last night when Mrs. Collins and her sister checked in. Mrs. Collins seems like a nice woman, much too nice to have been married to someone like Mr. Collins.”

  “He spray-painted your walls,” Rhodes said.

  “Yes, and not the back walls, either. The ones facing the highway. As I told you at the time, and I will say it again now, not to insult Mr. Collins’s intelligence and his memory, but I was surprised that he even knew what an insult ‘wog’ could be.”

  There had been worse words than that, as Rhodes recalled. “That wasn’t all he wrote on the wall.”

  “No, indeed, but it was a part of it. I did not wish the man ill, but I cannot say that his death fills me with great sorrow. I am a fan of A Clear View for Clearview, so I know that there are others he has irritated almost as much as me. The artists visiting Clearview, for example, some of whom are staying in this hotel.”

  It seemed to Rhodes that everyone in the county, or at least those who had a computer, took a daily look or two or three at Jennifer Loam’s Web site. He hoped it was generating some good ad revenue for her.

  “Did Mrs. Collins tell you how Burt died?”

  “She said it was a heart attack, or maybe a stroke.”

  Rhodes wondered if Mrs. Collins thought that repeating that story often enough would make it true. He also wondered if Patel knew more about Burt’s death than he was letting on.

  “It was nothing like that,” Rhodes said. “Someone killed him.”

  Patel’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  Rhodes had been asked that question more than once under similar circumstances. It was as if people believed the county sheriff would tell them a lie or be mistaken about something as serious as murder.

  “I’m sure,” Rhodes said. “You said you were here when Mrs. Collins and her sister came in. Were you working?”

  “I was. I often work late hours.”

  Rhodes knew that was true. Patel and his whole family had worked hard to make the hotel a success. The clock meant nothing to them.

  “Had you been out last night?”

  Patel tensed. “Sheriff, I hope you are not thinking I had anything to do with Mr. Collins’s death.”

  “You and Burt have a history,” Rhodes said. “I’m sure you’re in the clear, but I have to ask.”

  Patel relaxed a bit. “I understand. I assure you that I never left the premises last night. You can ask any member of my family.”

  Rhodes had more or less expected that answer. The Patels were a close-knit group, and they would say Patel had been there even if he hadn’t.

  “What happened between me and Mr. Collins was months ago,” Patel said. “I have forgotten it. He apologized, and I believe he paid a fine. I was satisfied.”

  Rhodes didn’t believe it. Patel’s earlier words about Collins had made it clear that Patel hadn’t forgotten anything. Rhodes didn’t think Patel was satisfied, either, but maybe he was just being polite. Now wasn’t the time to press the issue.

  Rhodes stood up. “I’m glad to hear it. I have to speak with Mrs. Collins now. Do you know her room number?”

  Patel rose, too. “No, but Jack can tell you. I hope you find the one who killed Mr. Collins.”

  “I always get my man,” Rhodes said.

  “Or woman,” Patel said, “as the case may be.”

  “True,” Rhodes said.

  Chapter 10

  The room looked like any hotel room anywhere. Two double beds, a landscape painting on the wall opposite the door, a flat-screen TV set on the dresser, a small desk, a night table with a lamp and clock radio sitting on top, and a desk chair. Not exactly suited for receiving visitors.

  Rhodes stood just inside the door, and the sisters looked at him as if expecting him to say something profound. He wished he could think of something, but he couldn’t. So he just said, “We need to talk about Burt.”

  “He was a son of a bitch,” Bonnie said.

  Rhodes looked at her. She was stocky, like her sister, but she wore her hair longer and appeared to be a few years younger.

  “Please, Bonnie,” Ella said. “Don’t talk about Burt like that.”

  “It’s about time somebody did. You’ve spent thirty years of your life defending him, and you know better than anybody what he was like. Even now when he’s dead, he’s still got you in a mess. You can’t even get to what little money he has in the bank. You should’ve left him a long time ago.”

  Rhodes found himself liking Bonnie. She didn’t try to hide her feelings.

  “He was so tight,” Bonnie said, more to Rhodes than to Ella, “that if he had a penny, it’d have his fingerprints mashed into Abe Lincoln’s face. He didn’t give Ella a dime without quizzing her about how she’d spend it.”

  Rhodes remembered what Abby had told him about Ella’s not being able to pay for having her hair done. Burt probably hadn’t put much stock in a woman getting her hair done at a beauty shop, not when she had a sink and some soap to wash it with at home.

  “Tighter than the bark on a tree,” Bonnie said, “and mean besides. Did I mention that he was a son of a bitch?”

  “I believe you did,” Rhodes said.

  “He was good to me,” Ella said. “I know you don’t believe it, but he was. In his own way.”

  “Baloney,” Bonnie said. Rhodes had a feeling she would’ve used a stronger word if he hadn’t been there. “He treated you like dirt, and I know he hit you more than once. I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you’d killed him.” Bonnie paused and looked at Rhodes. “Not that she did.”

  “He died of a heart attack,” Ella said. “Or a stroke. Something like that.”

  “Tell her, Sheriff,” Bonnie said. “She won’t listen to me.”

  Rhodes nodded. “Somebody killed him, Mrs. Collins. I believe somebody hit him with that bronze head that’s gone missing, and that’s what killed him, not a stroke or a heart attack or anything like that. You have to accept it.”

  Ella started to sob and sat in the desk chair. Bonnie stood behind her and patted her shoulder.

  “He’s right, Ella,” Bonnie said. “
You can’t keep denying it. Somebody killed Burt. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.”

  Ella sobbed harder. Rhodes kept quiet.

  After about half a minute, Ella got control of herself. “Who would have done a thing like that? Everybody loved Burt.”

  “Not everybody,” Rhodes said, wondering if Ella could possibly be as oblivious to the obvious as she seemed. “He made some enemies around town. You must remember the trouble he had with the people who run this hotel.”

  “He said he was sorry about that. He didn’t like the idea of foreigners coming here and taking our jobs, but he was sorry about painting the walls here.”

  “The Patels are from Houston,” Rhodes said, thinking that Houston was like a foreign country to some people in Blacklin County. “They’re all U.S. citizens.”

  “Burt never believed that. He said they came from India.”

  “A generation ago, maybe, but everybody working here was born in this country.”

  “If you say so.”

  Rhodes recalled that Burt had said the same thing only the day before. Neither he nor Ella was going to be confused by the facts.

  “Was there anybody else that Burt had problems with?” Rhodes asked.

  “No, nobody. Everybody liked him.”

  “I didn’t,” Bonnie said. “I have to tell you the truth, Ella, I’m not sorry he’s gone.”

  Ella started to sob again. Bonnie looked at Rhodes. “I was in Thurston when he died, in case you’re wondering.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “I was at the house when Ella called you.”

  “She might’ve called my cell phone. I could’ve been lurking right outside.”

  “I’ll check with your husband.”

  “You do that. Elbert Crowley. We live about a block off the street that runs in front of Hod Barrett’s store. Hod doesn’t much like you, did you know that?”

  “I know that,” Rhodes said. “He’s not the only one.”

  “Hod says he’s never voted for you and never will. That’s all right. Elbert likes you. I think I do, too. You check with Elbert about me.”

  “I will. Will you and Ella be all right?”

  Ella was still sobbing, but very quietly.

  “Of course we will. I’m going to check out of here and take her by the funeral home. She needs to make the arrangements.”

  “Good idea,” Rhodes said.

  He said good-bye and left. He wanted to visit the funeral home, too, and he thought it would be a good idea to get there before the sisters did.

  * * *

  Rhodes pulled in behind Ballinger’s Funeral Home and parked on the small paved lot. The funeral home had once been a mansion with tennis courts and a swimming pool on its grounds. Those were gone now, and the brick outbuilding that had been the servants’ quarters was the office. It was also where Clyde Ballinger, the owner of the funeral home and its director, who was a bachelor, lived in the upstairs half.

  “Come on in,” Ballinger called when Rhodes knocked on his door.

  Rhodes went inside and looked around. The office had changed a bit over the last few years, especially the top of Ballinger’s desk, which used to be partially covered at all times by old paperback books, the kind that Ballinger liked to say weren’t being written anymore. Their colorful and politically incorrect covers had been part of their appeal, but not to Ballinger, who was interested mainly in their contents. He still liked to read them, but now the only thing on his desk was some kind of tablet computer. He’d started out with a Kindle, Rhodes recalled, but that had been replaced.

  “I thought you’d be dropping by, Sheriff,” Ballinger said. “Dr. White’s autopsy report is right here.”

  He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a folder, which he handed to Rhodes.

  “Take a seat,” Ballinger said. “Look it over. Then we’ll get the personal effects. They’re in the locker in the main building.”

  Rhodes sat down and flipped through the report. It confirmed that Burt’s death had resulted from a blow to the head and mentioned that there were no defensive wounds. Burt hadn’t been expecting anybody to pound in the back of his head. No mention of any residue on Burt’s hands, either. If he’d been using spray paint, none of it had clung to him.

  “You know who did it yet?” Ballinger asked when Rhodes was finished reading.

  “Not yet,” Rhodes said.

  “Just a matter of time, though, right?”

  “I hope so.”

  Ballinger patted his tablet. “If the boys from the Eight-Seven were on the case, they’d have it wrapped up in no time.”

  One of Ballinger’s favorite writers was Ed McBain, who’d written a long series of books about the detectives of the 87th Precinct in a city a lot like New York. Ballinger loved to tell Rhodes what great crime-solvers the members of the Eight-Seven were. He didn’t mean to imply that Rhodes and his deputies were inferior, or so he claimed.

  “I don’t have quite the manpower and facilities of the Eight-Seven,” Rhodes said.

  “They didn’t have any more facilities than you do, back when they started. It was mostly grinding it out.” Ballinger patted his tablet again. “You know the trouble with these things?”

  “No,” Rhodes said. “I don’t own one.”

  “Well, you should, but here’s the trouble. Even if you had one, you couldn’t get all Ed McBain’s books about the Eight-Seven for it. He wrote fifty or sixty of them, and they don’t have near that many for sale.”

  “I thought you’d read all of them.”

  “Nope. There are still a few I need. I’ve about given up on garage sales, though. They don’t turn up there anymore. I’ll just have to wait till they get them into electronic format, I guess. I hope it’ll be soon.” He stood up. “You want to get those personal effects?”

  “Sure,” Rhodes said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The back room of the funeral home was small and had probably been some kind of mudroom back in the old days. It was just fine now for holding two men, a locker, and not much else. Rhodes got the personal effects from the locker. They were sealed in a bag, but there was a list of them printed out: shirt, socks, pants, underwear, wallet, shoes, belt, keys, and thirty-seven cents in change.

  “No cell phone,” Rhodes said. He’d learned a lot about the value of cell phones in criminal cases over the last few years.

  “I didn’t know Burt very well,” Ballinger said, “but if there was one man in town who didn’t have a cell phone, it would be Burt.”

  Rhodes supposed that was true. No computer, no cell phone. Burt didn’t care much for the twenty-first century. He probably hadn’t cared much for the twentieth, either, considering the way he treated his wife.

  “I’ll take all this with me,” Rhodes said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Always happy to help the forces of the law. Will you be at the funeral?”

  “Maybe. Depends on a lot of things. I’ll decide after the arrangements have been made.”

  “Mrs. Collins is coming around later this morning. With her sister.”

  “I’ve met her sister,” Rhodes said. “You’ll like her.”

  “I like everybody,” Ballinger said, and Rhodes almost believed him.

  * * *

  Rhodes went by the jail to file the autopsy report and to put Collins’s possessions in the evidence locker. He’d have Ruth Grady go over them later.

  Hack and Lawton looked ready for conversation as soon as Rhodes walked in, but he didn’t give them a chance to get started. He wanted to log in the evidence and file the report before they got started on him.

  When Rhodes was finished, he leaned back in his chair to relax for a second. That was all the opening Hack needed.

  “Got a call from Miz Harbison this mornin’. You know Miz Harbison?”

  Rhodes knew her, but Lawton didn’t give him a chance to answer. He jumped right into the conversation. “She’s a widow-woman lives down outside of town close to the old g
rain elevator. Lives by herself.”

  Hack wasn’t about to let Lawton take over the conversation. “You know how it is with women livin’ by themselves. They get a little nervous, and what she called about was a man who came bangin’ on her door this mornin’.”

  “Told her his car broke down,” Lawton said, earning himself one of Hack’s patented glares.

  “I’m the one took the call,” Hack said.

  Lawton just grinned, and Hack gave up glaring at him after a few seconds.

  “Anyway,” Hack said, “the man came up to her house and right up on the porch and started to bang on the door.”

  “You told that part already,” Lawton said.

  “I know I did, but you keep interruptin’ me. If you’d let me tell it straight out, I wouldn’t have to repeat things.”

  “Sorry ’bout that,” Lawton said, but Rhodes could tell he wasn’t sorry in the least.

  “All right,” Hack said, “where was I?”

  “Man was banging on the door,” Rhodes said before Lawton could.

  “Yeah, and he was hittin’ it pretty hard, Miz Harbison said. It was a brand-new door. She’d just got it the other day from Elmer at the hardware store out on the highway, and he’d sent somebody to install it. Good solid door, but she didn’t want it banged up.”

  “She didn’t open it, though,” Lawton said.

  Hack didn’t even bother to look at him that time. He just sat and waited. When Lawton didn’t offer anything more, Hack said, “She called out and asked him what he wanted. That’s when he told her his car had broke down and could he use her phone.”

  “She didn’t believe him,” Lawton said.

  Hack turned in his chair. Lawton clamped his mouth shut, and Hack turned back to Rhodes.

  “She asked him if he had a cell phone,” Hack said, “and he told her he wasn’t gettin’ any bars. No service out there. She didn’t believe that, either. Her phone worked, so he must be lyin’.

  “She has a cell phone?” Rhodes said.

  “Nope. Just a landline, but it worked, so she figured his phone should work, too. She told him she was goin’ for her shotgun, and she did. When she came back to the door, the man was gone, and she found out he’d punched a hole in her door.”