Survivors Will Be Shot Again

by Bill Crider

  Maybe a December day, Rhodes thought, but not a summer day. He had to admit, however, that Joyce and Ellen’s confusion and concern seemed real. If they’d known about their husbands’ criminal activities, they were concealing the knowledge well. He’d thought they might know something, but he now thought he’d been wrong about that.

  “I suspected Melvin from the start,” Rhodes said. “How could anybody get past Gus-Gus and Jackie to steal the welding rig? The way they acted when they saw me made it pretty clear that a prowler wouldn’t stand a chance. Melvin tried to make you think it was Gene Gunnison who stole the rig, Joyce, but it wasn’t. It was Melvin. He even stopped drinking when the stealing started. He had something to keep his mind off his troubles, and he had the insurance money, too.”

  “I still don’t believe he did it,” Joyce said.

  “I don’t, either,” Ellen said, “especially about Will.”

  “It looks as if Will might have killed Melvin,” Rhodes said.

  This time the consternation, protests, and denials were accompanied by tears and shouting. Rhodes had to wait longer this time, but eventually there was just sniffling. Ellen left the room and came back with a box of tissues. She and Joyce dried their eyes, blew their noses, and started in on Rhodes.

  “You must be crazy,” Ellen said. “Will would never do anything like that.”

  “And Melvin would never steal,” Joyce said. “Ellen’s right. You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe,” Rhodes said, “but let me tell you what happened a couple of hours ago before you decide for sure.”

  He told them about Will pulling his gun on him and shoving him into the cellar. “He planned to leave me there. I don’t know for how long, but I got the feeling that I might wind up just a skeleton in a few inches of water if I didn’t drink it all before I starved to death.”

  Ellen was stunned into silence by the story. Joyce didn’t have anything to say, either.

  “I’ll be going back out there later,” Rhodes said. “I have a feeling I’m going to find stolen goods in the cellar, things Melvin hadn’t been able to sell or was planning to keep. I expect there might be some stuff around here, too. Maybe in that storehouse in the backyard.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ellen said. “I just can’t.”

  “We could have a look,” Rhodes said.

  “I’m not sure Will would want me to let you do that.”

  “Will’s in jail. If he’s innocent, then there’s nothing in the storeroom that can hurt him. If there’s nothing there, it might help him.”

  “He was kind of secretive about that storeroom,” Joyce said.

  “All right,” Ellen said. “We can go look.”

  Gus-Gus and Jackie were happy to see them when they came into the yard. They greeted Rhodes as if he were an old friend. They must have enjoyed their romp in the woods with him.

  After the dogs calmed down, Rhodes discovered that the storehouse was locked with a hasp and padlock. Ellen said she didn’t know where the key was.

  “I never come out here,” she said. “I didn’t even know it was locked. I don’t think it used to be.”

  The key was probably on the key ring that Will had turned in with the rest of his property at the jail, Rhodes figured, but everybody kept a spare key around somewhere. He looked above the door and didn’t find one. The storehouse was up on cinder blocks, so he felt along under the bottom edge. Sure enough there was a key on a nail, and the key opened the door.

  Just inside the storehouse, Rhodes saw a can of diesel fuel, which was out of place since Will didn’t own a diesel engine as far as Rhodes knew. The can probably had once belonged to Billy Barton. The whole storehouse was stuffed with tools that Rhodes was sure would have been headed for a flea market as soon as Will got a chance to take them.

  “I don’t know where all of those things came from,” Ellen said. “I know Will put things in here now and then, but I didn’t know they were stolen.”

  “We still don’t know that,” Joyce said. “Maybe these are all Will’s tools.”

  Rhodes saw a hammer with a wooden handle. He picked it up and showed it to the two women. The B-Bar-B brand was burned into the wood.

  “That’s Billy Bacon’s brand,” Rhodes said.

  “Maybe Will borrowed the hammer,” Ellen said.

  “How likely is it that he’d borrow a hammer from someone’s barn way on the other side of the county and bring it here?” Rhodes asked. “I see a few other hammers, too. How many hammers did he borrow?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellen said.

  “Look over there,” Rhodes said, pointing with the hammer. “See that saddle stand? Will doesn’t have a horse. He’s never had a horse.”

  “No,” Ellen said. “He’s never had a horse.”

  “That’s Billy Bacon’s saddle stand,” Rhodes said. “Will must have stolen it and sold the saddle.”

  Ellen was shaking her head, but Rhodes could tell she was convinced that her husband was mixed up in something he shouldn’t have been.

  “Have you asked Will about any of this?” she asked.

  “I have,” Rhodes said. “He won’t talk to me without his lawyer, and his lawyer’s in court.”

  “He’ll talk to me,” Ellen said, her voice firm. “Come on, Joyce. We’ll go to the jail.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Rhodes said. “You can talk to him if I can listen. Would Will agree to that?”

  “He’d better,” Ellen said.

  * * *

  The little interview room was crowded with three people in it, and it would be even more crowded with four, but it wasn’t meant to be a comfortable place. The old table and the metal folding chairs seemed to look shabbier than usual to Rhodes, but that might have been because of the reactions of the two women. They looked at their surroundings as if they’d been tossed into a dungeon right out of the Middle Ages.

  Lawton brought Will into the room and left. Rhodes got everybody seated at the table, Ellen and Will on one side and Joyce with Rhodes on the other.

  “I’m ashamed of you, Will Smalls,” Ellen said. “I can’t believe you’re in jail.”

  Will looked a bit sheepish, as well he should have, but he didn’t say anything or even look at his wife. Rhodes thought Joyce might have something to say, but she just gave Will a look that made Rhodes glad she didn’t have a weapon.

  Then Ellen saw Will’s wrist. She took his hand and asked what had happened.

  “The sheriff shot me,” Will said.

  Ellen gave Rhodes a look that should’ve turned him to stone.

  “It was my fault,” Will said. “I shot first.”

  “Will Smalls! You tried to kill the sheriff?”

  “It was just an accident. He threw a door on me.”

  “A door?”

  “You tell her, Sheriff,” Will said.

  Rhodes explained what had happened and how Will had come to fire his pistol, though Rhodes was pretty sure he’d have fired it anyway if he’d had a chance.

  “He broke my ankles, too,” Will said.

  “He did what?” Ellen asked.

  “The door fell on his feet,” Rhodes told her. “He’s not hurt. He was walking just fine.”

  “I can’t believe you’re in this mess, Will,” Ellen said, ignoring Rhodes. “I never knew you had a bad side to you.”

  “I’m not bad,” Will said. “It wasn’t my fault. Well, not all of it, anyway.”

  Rhodes thought he’d better interrupt and set the ground rules for the conversation.

  “Will, you do understand that you’ve waived your right to have an attorney present, don’t you?”

  Will nodded.

  “Better say it aloud,” Rhodes told him.

  “I understand,” Will said.

  “Good. Then let’s get started with some questions. I know you’ve been involved with Riley Farmer and Melvin Hunt in stealing farm equipment, tools, and household goods—”

  “That’s not right,” Will said. “
You’ve got it all wrong.”

  Rhodes wasn’t surprised that Will was protesting, but he was surprised he’d protested so soon.

  “You want to tell me about it?” Rhodes asked.

  Will looked at Ellen. She nodded, but he still didn’t say anything. She gave him a poke in the side with her elbow.

  “All right,” Will said, “but if I tell you, will you go easy on me?”

  “I’m not the one who’ll decide what happens to you,” Rhodes told him. “That will depend on the charges that are filed, and after that it will depend on the jury. If you clear things up, I’ll tell the DA that you cooperated. That’s the best deal you can get.”

  “He’ll take it,” Ellen said. “Isn’t that right, Will?”

  “I guess so,” Will said. “I never meant to get into this mess in the first place. It was all Melvin’s fault.”

  Joyce spoke up. “Don’t you dare try to blame this on Melvin.”

  Will had a good strategy, Rhodes thought. Blame it on the dead man. Melvin wasn’t going to be able to testify on his own behalf, so maybe Will could pull it off.

  “Melvin’s the one got me into it,” Will said. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Joyce, but that’s the truth of it. It started when he stole his own welding rig.”

  “He never did that,” Joyce said, her face getting red.

  “He sure enough did,” Will said. “He’d taken a few things before, but this was his first big score. One day when you were in town visiting Ellen, he called Riley Farmer. Riley went out to your place, hooked up the unit to his pickup, and hauled it down to Houston. He sold it and gave Melvin some of the money, maybe most of it. They never told me that part of it. Whatever they got, it wasn’t a bad deal, since Melvin collected the insurance on it, too. He got more out of it than it was worth in the end. You got a new TV, too, and got hooked up to the satellite. He told me about it ’cause he knew I wouldn’t blame him for doing it. He was hard up and needed the money bad.”

  “That’s a lie,” Joyce said. “We needed the money, all right, but somebody stole the welding rig. Melvin didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  “I’m not lying about it,” Will said. “I know it’s hard for you to think of Melvin as a thief, but that’s what he was.”

  “So are you,” Joyce said.

  “I never stole anything in my life,” Will said. He paused. “Not since I was a kid, at least.”

  “What about all that stuff in our storehouse?” Ellen asked.

  “I didn’t steal that. I was just keeping it there for Melvin and Riley, doing a favor for some friends. Riley didn’t have any place to put it, and Melvin couldn’t keep it all at his place. See, what happened was that Melvin found out how easy it was to steal from himself and make some money. He hadn’t really thought about how easy it was before, but now he was sure of it. He could take whatever he wanted to. People around here don’t always lock their doors, and some people even just leave stuff lying around in plain sight, like Billy Bacon. Melvin didn’t like Billy one bit, so he thought he’d relieve him of some of his property. Besides, if the people Melvin took stuff from had insurance, they could get their money back, same as Melvin did. If you look at it from his point of view, he wasn’t hurting anybody but the insurance companies, and they have plenty of money.”

  “If you weren’t involved,” Rhodes said, “why keep me out of Melvin’s house? Why lock me in the storm cellar?”

  “That was just to protect Joyce,” Will said.

  “You better not try to put what you did on me,” Joyce said, her face getting even redder.

  “She’s right, Will,” Ellen said. “Trying to blame somebody else is nearly as bad as stealing.”

  “It’s the truth,” Will said. “I hoped nobody would find out that Melvin was stealing. He was dead, and that was bad enough. I wanted to be sure nothing was left in the house. I couldn’t do anything about the storm cellar. There was more than I wanted to haul off, and I didn’t think anybody would look in the cellar anyway. The things Melvin kept in there were mostly things he wasn’t going to sell. He was just going to bring something out now and then and play like he bought it. When I got out to the house and found you snooping in the cellar, Sheriff, I didn’t know what to do. You were going to find out about Melvin, and I thought you might rope me into it, even if I was innocent and all, which I was. I wasn’t thinking straight when I kicked you down those steps, and I’m sure sorry about it. I’d have let you out of that cellar after I came to my senses.”

  The apology wasn’t going to do Will any good because Rhodes didn’t believe a word of it. He was sure Will was more involved than he was admitting, although his story might be good enough to get him a fairly short jail term, especially if he could make the jury believe he hadn’t really intended Rhodes any harm.

  “What about killing Melvin?” Rhodes asked. “Why did you do that?”

  Will looked surprised at the question. “I didn’t kill Melvin.”

  “Then who did?”

  Will looked down at the table. He didn’t want to answer. Ellen gave him the elbow again.

  Will jumped. “All I know is, I didn’t do it.”

  “You don’t have any ideas about who might have done it?” Rhodes asked.

  Will looked at Joyce. “To tell you the truth, I thought she did it.”

  Chapter 23

  Joyce jumped to her feet and kicked back her chair. It scraped across the floor and hit the wall with a clank. For a second Rhodes thought she might jump across the table and throttle Will, but she just stood there staring at him, breathing hard through her nose. Her face was so red that Rhodes was afraid her head might explode.

  “I can’t believe you’d say a thing like that about Joyce, Will,” Ellen said. “You know better than that.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of TV shows about stuff like this,” Will said. “It’s always the wife.”

  He and Ivy would be in agreement, Rhodes thought, at least on that point.

  “It’s not the wife this time, Will Smalls,” Joyce said, her voice tight.

  Rhodes thought it was time to see if he could get another reaction from any of them.

  “There’s something we need to remember,” he said. “Melvin’s not the only one who’s been killed.”

  “What?” Joyce said. “Who?”

  “Riley Farmer’s dead,” Rhodes said. “Shot, just like Melvin.”

  “Riley? Who’d kill Riley?”

  “I had Will in mind,” Rhodes said.

  Joyce walked over to her chair and pulled it back to the table. She sat down and said, “I think you’re right, Sheriff. Will did it. Or maybe he wants to blame that on me, too. Are you going to accuse me of killing Riley, Will?”

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything. I just said—”

  “Never mind what you said,” Ellen told him. “Sheriff, you’d better tell us what’s going on.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Rhodes said.

  He’d watched the two women carefully when he’d told them about Riley’s death. Will had known already, so he hadn’t been surprised. Both Ellen and Joyce seemed genuinely shocked.

  “I didn’t kill Riley any more than I killed Melvin,” Will said. “I never killed anybody. I didn’t steal anything, and I didn’t kill anybody. I was wrong to try to lock you in that cellar, Sheriff, like I’ve been saying. I did do that, and I know it was wrong. If I had it to do over, I’d just let you look in there. Anyway, I don’t have it to do over, and I did lock you in. That’s all I did, though.”

  It wasn’t all he’d done, not by a long shot, but Rhodes didn’t want to enumerate all the rest of it in front of Ellen and Joyce. They were upset enough as it was.

  “My ankles hurt,” Will said. He gave Ellen a pitiful look, but she didn’t show any sympathy. “I think you did break them, Sheriff, or at least sprained them. I don’t plan to sue or anything, though.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you, Will,” Rhodes said, “but it�
��s not going to help your case. There are two dead men and a lot of stolen goods that you’re partially responsible for. If there’s anything else you know, you need to tell me now.”

  “You hear him, Will?” Ellen asked. “You tell him whatever else you know.”

  “I don’t know another thing,” Will said. “Not one single thing.”

  Rhodes tried a few more questions to draw him out, but Will was through talking. He’d already said a lot more than Randy Lawless would have allowed him to say if he’d been there, but Rhodes didn’t believe most of it. There was one thing that struck Rhodes, however, and reminded him of something that he wanted to think over.

  He ended the interview and walked with Ellen and Joyce back into the main office of the jail. Ellen was more upset than she had been during the interview with Will, but Joyce had recovered her composure and was comforting her.

  Buddy was at his desk, writing a report while regaling Hack and Lawton with his latest adventure, which involved someone trying to steal a window air conditioner from a deserted house. Rhodes interrupted the story and told Buddy to take Joyce and Ellen home.

  “I’m going to the courthouse,” Rhodes told Hack when they’d left. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “You gonna go over there and do some thinkin’?” Hack asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You could just think in here,” Hack said.

  “There’s too much going on in here,” Rhodes said.

  “Nothin’s goin’ on here. You just want a Dr Pepper in a glass bottle.”

  “I’ll resist the temptation,” Rhodes said.

  * * *

  A Dr Pepper in a glass bottle was harder to resist than Rhodes had made it sound to Hack, and there was an old machine in the courthouse basement that still dispensed them. However, Rhodes steeled himself and walked right past the machine without giving in. He’d reward himself for his strength of character later if he could talk Ivy into going out to dinner for a third night in a row.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the courthouse was quiet. Rhodes seldom used his office there, going over only when he wanted to avoid people, and this was a perfect time of the day for privacy. He got to his office without seeing anyone at all.