by Bill Crider
“I’m planning to do a little reconnaissance,” Rhodes said.
“A little intelligence operation?”
“With me doing it, there might not be much intelligence involved. You tell Lawton I want to borrow that boat. Tell him I’ll be at his place tomorrow morning at seven o’clock, and tell Buddy to meet me there.”
“Where you plannin’ to go?”
“On a little cruise down Crockett’s Creek.”
“Business trip?”
“Looking for marijuana patches,” Rhodes said.
“Think you’ll find any?”
“You never know,” Rhodes said.
Chapter 19
After leaving the jail, Rhodes drove to the Smallses’ house. He wanted to talk to Joyce and her sister, and to Will, too, if he was there, although Rhodes thought Will was probably going to be spending the night at Joyce’s house in the country. Rhodes liked to go by in the evening to talk to people because nobody expected to see him then. It wasn’t quite as if he were the Spanish Inquisition, but he did sometimes get some answers that he might not have gotten otherwise.
This time it didn’t work. Will wasn’t there, and Joyce and Ellen, while they were civil enough, made it clear that they didn’t want to talk to Rhodes. When he pressed them, they stuck to the party line, telling Rhodes pretty much what Will had told him earlier.
“It’s just that I thought I needed somebody to watch the house,” Joyce said. “Those thieves and all. You know.”
“Ellen, you told me that it was Will’s idea to watch the house,” Rhodes said.
“Did I say that?” Ellen asked. “I didn’t mean to. I must have been mixed up.”
What was more like the truth of the matter was that she’d had a call from Will, who’d told her to change her story.
“Okay,” Rhodes said, “but I still don’t see why you’d have any objection to me searching the house.”
“It’s personal,” Joyce said, avoiding his eyes. “Melvin wasn’t hiding anything, but I just don’t like the idea of anybody going through his stuff. It doesn’t seem right. You know?”
Rhodes knew, but privacy didn’t matter when it came to murder. “I can get a search warrant.”
Joyce looked at her sister.
“You don’t need to get a warrant, Sheriff,” Ellen said. “I told Will I didn’t want him staying out there anymore after tonight. He’ll be back tomorrow, and you can do whatever you want to, warrant or no warrant.”
Rhodes knew what that meant. Will would have gone through the house and removed or destroyed whatever it was that the family might have been worried about. Or whatever someone had been worried about. Rhodes still didn’t know for sure whose idea it had been for Will to go to the house in the first place, though he was pretty sure it wasn’t Joyce’s.
“That’s fine,” Rhodes said. “I’ll go by as soon as I get a chance now that I have permission. I do have permission, don’t I?”
“Yes,” Joyce said. “You have permission.”
“I’ll need a key if the place is locked. I gave the one I had to Will.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Joyce said.
She left the room, and Ellen and Rhodes looked at each other. Rhodes didn’t have anything to say, so he didn’t say it. Neither did Ellen, and in a minute or so Joyce came back with the key. She handed it to Rhodes.
“Thanks,” Rhodes said, knowing that he likely wouldn’t go by the house at all. There wouldn’t be anything useful to find, not after Will had cleaned the place up, and Rhodes had other things to do now. Still, he wanted Joyce and the others to think he’d gone by. He was sure they were hiding something, and he didn’t want them to get too comfortable.
“I wanted to make sure of something,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me that Melvin’s welding rig was insured?”
“Yes,” Joyce said. “We got a little insurance money for it, and that helped us out a lot.”
“I thought I remembered that.” Rhodes turned to go, then turned back. “If Will’s coming back to town, who’s going to take care of the dogs?”
“Will’s bringing them to town until after the funeral,” Ellen said. “We have a good fence in the back, so they’ll be fine for a few days. When Joyce goes home, we’ll take them back.”
Rhodes felt a little better about things knowing that the dogs would be taken care of. That was one less thing for him to worry about.
He thanked Joyce and Ellen for their help, though they didn’t deserve it, and left.
* * *
Ivy acted surprised to see Rhodes when he got home. She wasn’t nearly as excited as Yancey, however.
“I told you I’d get home in time to watch the news,” Rhodes said, with Yancey prancing around his legs.
Ivy bent down and tried to calm Yancey. It took a few seconds of sweet-talking and head stroking, but it finally worked. Yancey rolled over and wanted his belly rubbed. Ivy complied, told him what a good dog he was, and stood up. Yancey ran into the spare bedroom where he slept.
“I didn’t say you wouldn’t be home,” Ivy told Rhodes. “What I said was that you never watched the news.”
“And I said that there was always a first time. It won’t be tonight, though. I don’t need to hear any talk about any car wrecks or parking-lot shootings. I get enough of that in my job.”
“We don’t have shootings in the parking lots in Clearview,” Ivy said.
“We might as well have. We have bulls running loose in them.”
“That was months ago, so it’s not like it happens all the time. When it does we have a heroic sheriff to take care of things.”
Rhodes wished he hadn’t said anything about parking lots. The incident with the bull was yet another video that had been published on Jennifer Loam’s Web site, and everybody in Blacklin County had seen it. What bothered Rhodes even more than that was the fact that people outside the county had seen it. He wasn’t comfortable with being made out to be a hero. He just wanted to be left alone to do his job.
“Well?” Ivy said.
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to watch the news, or aren’t you?”
“Can’t you think of something better for me to do?”
“As a matter of fact,” Ivy said, “I can.”
* * *
The next morning Rhodes got up early and went to the funeral home at six thirty. Clyde Ballinger was an early riser, and Rhodes thought he could find him in his little apartment, either eating breakfast or reading a book or both.
Rhodes smelled bacon when he got out of the Tahoe and was a little disappointed when he found that Ballinger had already finished with his breakfast.
“If I’d known you were coming,” Ballinger said, “I’d have baked a cake.”
“What?” Rhodes said.
“It’s an old song. My grandmother used to sing it. I can’t bake, but I could have saved you some bacon. You like bacon, don’t you? I could go fry you up a strip or two.”
Rhodes did like bacon. Real bacon, that is. He wasn’t too fond of the turkey bacon that Ivy bought, and he wouldn’t have minded if Ballinger had saved him a piece of the real thing. That wasn’t the purpose of his visit, however.
“Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but I just wanted to check on the autopsy.”
They were in Ballinger’s office, and Ballinger opened a desk drawer and got out the report, along with a plastic bag holding the bullets that Dr. White had recovered from the body. Rhodes took the report and asked if Dr. White had found any identification on the corpse.
“It was Riley Farmer,” Ballinger said.
“He didn’t have a billfold,” Rhodes said.
“No, but he had a tattoo on his left biceps. Dr. White was Riley’s doctor at one time, and he recognized the tattoo. It’s all in the report.”
Rhodes flipped through the report and noted that Farmer had been shot with a .32. He’d have Mika do a ballistics comparison, but he’d have been willing to bet right now that the bullets w
ould match the ones that had killed Melvin Hunt.
He’d also been right that Riley hadn’t been killed where he’d been found. He’d been dead a while before he was dumped under the tree.
When Rhodes was through looking at the report, Ballinger handed him the plastic bag. “I hope you catch whoever killed those fellas, Sheriff.”
“So do I,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Rhodes dropped off the report and the evidence at the jail and drove to Lawton’s house, where he and Buddy loaded the jon boat into the back of Rhodes’s pickup. Rhodes hadn’t wanted to try to shove the boat into the Tahoe. It might have fit, but he didn’t want to take a chance on scratching the Tahoe, not while it was still new, at any rate.
“Y’all be careful with my boat, you hear?” Lawton said. “I might decide to retire one of these days. Might take up fishin’ like I started to do before, and I’ll need the boat for that.”
“We’ll be careful,” Rhodes told him, thinking that Lawton was like Hack and would never retire. “Is the battery for the trolling motor charged up?”
“Sure is. Got it on a charger in the garage. It’s a little too heavy for a weak old guy like me to carry, though.”
“Buddy can handle it,” Rhodes said. “Right, Buddy?”
“Easy,” Buddy said. “I’ll go get it.”
Buddy went into the garage. Rhodes and Lawton waited. In a couple of minutes, Buddy came back out with the battery.
“Doesn’t weigh more than ten or twelve pounds,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lawton said. “I know. I’m more lazy than weak.”
Buddy gave Lawton a disgusted look. He put the battery in the pickup bed and shoved it as far back as he could under the slanted boat. He went back in the garage and got the trolling motor and slid it in behind the battery.
“That’s it,” he said, dusting his hands.
“I hope you can navigate that creek,” Lawton said, giving Rhodes a critical look. “It’s deeper than it’s been in years, but with a good bit of weight in it, the boat might get hung up on some mud or an old stump.”
“If we start sinking in the mud, I’ll make Buddy get out and push,” Rhodes said.
Lawton smirked. “I don’t think it’ll be Buddy that’s weighin’ you down.”
“I was joking,” Rhodes said.
“I wasn’t,” Lawton said. “I don’t want you to get the propellor stuck in the mud on the bottom of the creek and burn up my motor.”
Rhodes wondered if he should start having the grilled chicken breast the next time he went to the Round-Up, but he knew he wouldn’t.
He thought of something else they needed. “Do you have any paddles? We’ll need them at first, and I don’t want Buddy to have to push if the battery plays out on us.”
“You don’t want to be up the creek without a paddle,” Lawton said. “I got some in the garage, not too far from where Buddy got the battery.”
Buddy went back into the garage and came out with a couple of old wooden paddles that he shoved into the back of the pickup.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
Rhodes looked at the sky to the north and west where some black clouds were building up.
“We might be in for a little rain,” he said, “but we won’t melt if we get wet. Let’s get started.”
“Y’all be careful,” Lawton said. “Don’t fall overboard. Don’t burn up my motor, either.”
“We don’t plan to,” Rhodes said, getting into the pickup.
“You know what they say about plans,” Lawton called as Rhodes started the pickup, but Rhodes didn’t answer him.
* * *
Not too far from Terry Allison’s place there was an old wooden bridge across Crockett’s Creek. Rhodes drove to the bridge and pulled off the road into the weed-lined bar ditch. He and Buddy wrestled the boat out of the pickup and down to the creek, then went back for the battery, motor, and paddles. They got the motor clamped on the mount and hooked to the battery, and Rhodes tossed the paddles into the boat. The clouds were thicker and closer now, and a low rumble of thunder rolled out of them.
“I kinda wish I’d brought a slicker,” Buddy said.
“Maybe you won’t need it,” Rhodes said. He looked at the boat. “I’ll get in first.”
Since the trolling motor was in the front, Rhodes thought it would be best if he was in the back. That way the front end of the boat would be a little higher, and maybe the motor wouldn’t get stuck in the mud. Rhodes didn’t think there was any chance of that, but he didn’t want to upset Lawton.
Rhodes stepped into the boat, which immediately sank deeper into the water, and made his way to the back. He sat down, and Buddy pushed the boat off into the creek. He jumped in at the front, and Rhodes grabbed the sides of the boat to avoid falling out. Buddy got seated and used one of the paddles to turn the boat downstream.
Rhodes picked up the other paddle, and they got the rowing arrangements settled, paddling for a few yards before letting the boat drift. The creek didn’t have much of a current, but it was enough to move the boat after a little momentum had been established.
Rhodes’s plan was to move slowly down the creek, all the way across the county, looking for likely spots for marijuana patches. On the return trip they could use the trolling motor and make better time since they wouldn’t have to be watching the shore.
The trees along both sides of the bank were thick and tall and grew far out over the creek, covering it completely in many places. The thunder rumbled above them and shook the leaves in the trees.
With the clouds and the trees it was almost dark along the creek. The humidity made Rhodes’s shirt stick to his back, and he smelled the mud along the banks and the oncoming rain. Gnats swarmed over the muddy water, and a few mosquitoes hummed near Rhodes’s ears.
Rhodes looked for the snapping turtle and the alligator, but he didn’t see either of them. A few small turtles stuck their heads out of the water now and then, but they ducked back down when the boat came near. The snapping turtle could have eaten one of them in a single bite.
“That slicker might have been a good idea after all,” Rhodes said as a loud clap of thunder rattled the tree limbs.
“Too late now,” Buddy said.
The rain started to fall, widely spaced drops the size of dimes dimpling the water. Once again Rhodes wished that he wore a hat. He needed to get over his vanity and wear one for practical purposes, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. However, a hat would both cover the thin spot and protect him from rain. That was something worth considering.
The rain began to come down harder but in smaller drops that were closer together. The trees blocked some of it, but not enough. Rhodes thought he and Buddy would be soaked before long.
“Just what are we looking for, anyway?” Buddy asked. “Besides a house we can get into, I mean.”
“There won’t be any houses,” Rhodes said, wiping the rain off his face. He wouldn’t have minded finding some cover, either. “Nobody has ever built near the creek. We’re looking for a place on the bank where a boat might have put in, with a trail up into the trees.”
The rain had brought a little breeze along with it, so the boat was moving along just fine without any effort from Buddy and Rhodes. All they had to do was guide it with the paddles and keep it in the middle of the creek. The bad news was that Rhodes was already starting to feel chilled. The weather might be warm, but the rain wasn’t.
The boat passed Allison’s place, and they were another mile along when the rain stopped. The sun came out almost at once, and while not much of it filtered through the trees, Rhodes started to warm back up. He’d gone from hot to cold to warming up, which was probably not good for his system. He hoped he didn’t catch a cold.
“Look over there,” Buddy said, pointing at the bank on the right.
Rhodes looked and saw a narrow opening where a boat could pull in. A muddy trail led up into the trees.
“Let’s get out and take a l
ook around,” Rhodes said, and Buddy used his paddle to turn the nose of the boat toward the bank.
They nudged into the mud, and Buddy jumped out of the boat. A rope tied to the bow was in his hand. He slipped and slid his way up the bank and wrapped the rope around a tree trunk. Rhodes followed along behind him, nearly falling twice but each time catching his balance before pitching headfirst into the mud.
“Looks like somebody’s been here, all right,” Buddy said. “There’s the irrigation pipe, and your marijuana patch is right over there.”
It was smaller than the other two patches, but that was probably because the trees here were thicker and there wasn’t any room for a bigger one. It had the same kind of fence as the others, so it had likely been planted by the same person or persons unknown. Rhodes and Buddy walked over to it to have a look.
The first thing Rhodes wanted to check was whether the patch was guarded by an intimidating reptile, but this time there was no reptile of any kind to be seen. Rhodes thought he knew why, but to check he took a short walk up in the direction of where a road was likely to be. He was in the trees all the way to the road. Nobody had put a cabin or a house or a barn on this property. The marijuana grower, or growers, must have assumed they were safe from scrutiny. You’d have to be looking for the patch to find it, and nobody but a snoopy lawman would cruise along the creek for that purpose, and how likely was that? No need for a guard here.
Rhodes returned to the patch, where he didn’t see anything helpful. Nobody had been thoughtful enough to leave him any clues, so he and Buddy returned to the boat. They drifted all the way down the creek past Billy Bacon’s land and found only one more small patch of marijuana. It was also on entirely wooded property. There wasn’t a lot of land like that in this part of the county. Most of it had been farmed at one time or was being used for ranching now, so it had been cleared. Mesquites and other trees were returning to take it over again in some cases, but they weren’t thick enough to hide anything yet. Trees grew all along the creek bank, of course, but the land beyond them was cleared and in use most of the way along the water. Whoever was growing the marijuana didn’t have a lot of choices for hiding places, at least in this end of the county.
