Evil at the Root

by Bill Crider

  “You don’t have any idea where Maurice Kennedy might have gotten off to, do you?” Rhodes asked them.

  “Not a one,” Mr. Stuart said. “He’d have to walk, though, ’less he stole somebody’s car. Wouldn’t put it past him, either.”

  “Why?” Rhodes said.

  ‘Cause that Maurice Kennedy was a real hell raiser in his day,” Mr. Stuart said. Then he looked at his wife. ’Scuse my language, honey.”

  She shook her head. “It’s what comes of reading those rough books. That Mickey Spillane uses such crude words.”

  “It’s nothin’ compared to what that King fella does!” Mr. Stuart said. “Why I bet he uses the F-word more than Mickey Spillane ever did!”

  “That’s beside the point,” Mrs. Stuart said primly. Rhodes interrupted before they got too far off the track.

  “What were you going to say about Maurice Kennedy?” Mr. Stuart struggled to get his mind back to the topic.

  “Maurice Kennedy?”

  “About how he was a... how he was pretty wild in his day,” Rhodes said.

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, he was, and that’s a fact. There was this girl named Peggy Rainey, pretty little thing, blond hair, cute figure—”

  He broke off when his wife poked him in the ribs. “How do you know so much about her, you old goat?”

  Mr. Stuart looked to Rhodes for help. Rhodes looked the other way.

  “Well, ever’body knew her,” Mr. Stuart said. “She was a popular girl, but she was a little younger than me. I was never interested in her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Ha,” Mrs. Stuart said.

  “Well, I wasn’t. She was pretty, but she had a wild streak. I wasn’t ever interested in that kind of a girl, myself.”

  “Ha,” Mrs. Stuart repeated.

  “Maurice Kennedy,” Rhodes said helpfully.

  Mr. Stuart looked at him gratefully. “Oh. Yeah. Him and Louis Horn both liked Peggy Rainey, but she seemed to favor Louis. His daddy was a big landowner around here in those days, and ever’body thought they might strike oil on his land. They struck it lots of places, but they never did strike it on his. They started callin’ him Dry Hole Horn, as I remember.”

  Mr. Stuart’s eyes dimmed as he wandered somewhere back into the past that was still alive in his head.

  “I didn’t know that girl, but I remember the rest of this story,” Mrs. Stuart said. “Dry Hole Horn’s son disappeared one night after a dance in town. There was a big storm that night, and some folks thought he got struck by lightning. They found his car down by the river, and some other folks thought he might’ve got out for some reason or another and drowned.”

  Mr. Stuart came back from wherever he had been. “But most folks thought Maurice Kennedy killed him. Dry Hole Horn raised a big stink about it, and the sheriff even arrested Maurice, but they never proved anythin’. Never found the body, neither. Too bad Mr. Bobbit’s dead. He and Maurice Kennedy go ’way back. If anybody could’ve told you about those days, he could.”

  “Who was the sheriff then?” Rhodes asked.

  Mr. Stuart thought about it. “Musts been Reb Trotter. Only, that was a long way back. Sixty years, if it was a day.”

  Rhodes would check the old records in his courthouse office. It was possible that there was still something there about the Kennedy business. No one ever seemed to throw anything like that away.

  “I’ll look into it,” he told the Stuarts. “Meanwhile, you forget about those teeth. They may turn up when we search Mr. Bobbit’s room.”

  “Bet they don’t,” Mrs. Stuart said, and she turned out to be correct.

  Before he left the nursing home, Rhodes talked to Earlene one more time. He wanted to know who had visited the rooms that afternoon.

  She was sitting behind the reception desk, filing her nails. She seemed to have recovered from the shock of Mr. Bobbit’s death.

  Rhodes asked if Mr. Bobbit’s daughter had been informed of her father’s death.

  “Mr. Patterson takes care of things like that personally,” Earlene said.

  Rhodes assumed that meant “yes,” so he asked about the visitors for the afternoon.

  “Well, we don’t exactly keep records on that,” Earlene said. “It’s not like there’s a book they have to sign or anything.”

  Rhodes told her that he was aware of that. “But you’re sitting right out here. You can see whoever comes in or goes out, can’t you?”

  Earlene reached down to the floor and came up with a brown leather purse. She unzipped a compartment in it and stuck the nail file inside.

  “There’s usually two of us out here,” she said when she had put the purse back down on the floor.

  “I know that,” Rhodes said. A black woman named Linda usually helped out at the desk. “Where’s Linda?”

  “She’s out with the flu. We can’t have anybody with the flu comin’ in to work. If all these old folks came down with the flu, we’d be in a real mess.”

  Rhodes understood that. “But what does that have to do with your seeing who came in or went out?”

  Earlene looked at him defensively. “Well, if you must know, I went back to the storeroom for a cigarette. A gal’s got a right to have a break, you know?”

  “How long were you back there?”

  “Not long. I didn’t even smoke the whole thing, either time.”

  “You were back there twice?”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that? Mr. Patterson can’t expect me just to sit here all day and never even get a break, can he?” Earlene was obviously worried. “You won’t tell him, will you?”

  “Not unless it makes a difference to the murder,” Rhodes said. “Why don’t you just make me a list of the people you can remember seeing while you were here. That might be all I need.”

  Earlene took a note pad from beside the phone and began writing on it with a Bic pen that she took from the desk top. When she finished there were only six names on the list, and Rhodes did not recognize any of them except for that of Brenda Bobbit, Mr. Bobbit’s daughter.

  “Do you remember what time any of these people came in?” he asked.

  Earlene looked as if she couldn’t believe he had asked such a stupid question. “Of course not,” she said.

  Rhodes folded the paper and stuck it in his shirt pocket. If called upon, Earlene was going to make a wonderful witness.

  Rhodes stopped his car behind Ballinger’s Funeral Home, which had once been one of the more elegant mansions in Clearview. Clyde Ballinger had his office in what had been the servants’ quarters in back of the main building.

  Rhodes got out of the car and knocked on the door. “Come on in,” Ballinger called.

  Rhodes opened the door and went in. Ballinger, who would not have fit most people’s idea of a funeral director, being a cheerful man who was always ready with a joke or a story, was sitting at his desk reading an old paperback with a lurid cover. He laid it on the desk when the sheriff came in.

  Rhodes glanced at the title and saw that it was The Lady Kills, by Bruno Fischer. The cover showed a blond woman holding a shotgun on someone who was standing out of the picture. All that could be seen of the person was a hand holding a coiled bullwhip.

  Ballinger saw Rhodes looking at the book. “It’s not as kinky as it looks,” he said. Then he shook his head. “Used to be you could find books like this all the time, at garage sales or used-book stores, but they’re just about gone now. Too many people collecting them, and it’s pushed the prices up. I didn’t pay more’n a dime for most of these.” He indicated the shelves of the office, which held other titles by any number of writers Rhodes had never heard anyone except Ballinger express any enthusiasm for, writers like Richard Telfair, John Flagg, Hallam Whitney.

  “You have any more by this Fischer?” Rhodes asked.

  Ballinger got up and looked on the shelves. He took off a copy of The Lustful Ape and handed it to Rhodes. “How’s that for a great title?” he asked.

  Rhodes looked the book over
and handed it back to Ballinger. The cover, which showed an apparently frightened woman wearing a slip and standing in front of a rumpled bed, was not nearly as interesting as the other one.

  “Has Miss Bobbit been by yet?” Rhodes asked as Ballinger put the book back on the crowded shelf.

  “She sure has,” Ballinger said. “And she’s pretty upset. I’d hate to be in Patterson’s shoes, or yours either. It would have been bad enough if the old man had just died of natural causes, but this is really something. Dr. White’s having a look at the body now, but it looks like a simple case of suffocation to me. I’m not a doctor, but that’s what it looks like to me. Now if Carella and the guys in the 87th got hold of a case like this, you might think it was the Deaf Man on the loose, killing an old man like that.”

  “Most of the men in Sunny Dale can hear as well as you and I can,” Rhodes said. He had heard Ballinger go on about the 87th precinct before.

  “What I meant was—” Ballinger began.

  “I know what you meant. Did Miss Bobbit say anything about her plans?”

  “To hear her tell it, she’s going to sue Patterson and run you out of town on a rail if you don’t catch whoever killed her daddy. And I gather that you better do it quick.”

  Rhodes had been afraid of that. After Hack’s reminder, he had recalled that Miss Bobbit could be a real nuisance if she chose to be. Arid she probably would.

  “I’d better go talk to Dr. White,” he said.

  Rhodes did not learn much from Dr. White that he had not already known. Mr. Bobbit had indeed died from suffocation. There were no marks on his body, other than those caused by the fact that he had been bound to the bed by the sheets.

  “No blows to the head, no signs of a struggle?” Rhodes asked.

  “None at all,” Dr. White said. “He might have been asleep when he was tied to the bed. That would account for it.’’

  “Any sign of drugs?”

  “None of that either. Apparently he wasn’t taking any medication at Sunny Dale.”

  “And no teeth, either,” Rhodes said.

  “No teeth,” Dr. White agreed. “I’d say he’d been using false teeth until recently, however.”

  “He told me earlier today that someone stole his teeth,” Rhodes said.

  Dr. White shook his head. “I hope I don’t ever wind up in a place where somebody might steal my teeth.”

  “So do I,” Rhodes said. “So do I.”

  Chapter 6

  Rhodes wanted to talk to the people on Earlene’s list, but first he drove back to the jail to check on the bulletin he had called in to Hack from Sunny Dale in case anyone had found Maurice Kennedy. He could have called in on his radio, but he wanted to see if there was anything else going on that he needed to take a personal hand in.

  As it turned out, there was.

  “James Allen’s been tryin’ to call you for about an hour,” Hack said when Rhodes walked through the door.

  “Did he say what he wanted?”

  ‘Nope, but he sure didn’t sound happy. I could almost hear him sweatin’ over the phone.”

  Uh-oh, Rhodes thought.

  “You reckon it’s about that lawsuit?” Hack asked.

  “Could be,” Rhodes said. “What about Eoff?”

  “Bailed out. You think we’re gonna have to pay that million dollars?”

  “I’m not. I still don’t have the money.” Rhodes didn’t want to talk about it. If Allen sounded worried, it couldn’t have been good news. “What about the bulletin on Maurice Kennedy. Did you send it out?”

  Hack thumbed through a stack of penciled notes on his desk and came up with the one he was looking for. “You bet I did. All the deputies know about him, for all the good that’ll do. I sent it on to the state highway boys, too. You think he’s got himself a car?”

  “If he does, he didn’t steal it at Sunny Dale,” Rhodes said. “And he didn’t have one of his own. He got any family here in town?”

  “Not that I know of,” Hack said. “If he had a car, and if we knew the license number, we could send that in and the state boys could get it on the computer. They’d get him then, I bet. Them computers are somethin’.”

  “Never mind the computers right now. You know any of these people?” He handed Earlene’s list to Hack.

  Hack went over the names. “Miz Bobbit, I know her, all right. Dave Foley, never heard of him. Lyle Everett, never heard of him, either. I think I know Andy West, though. His daddy used to run that fillin’ station out on the Obert Road. Had a stroke last year, and he’s probably out there in Sunny Dale himself.”

  Rhodes remembered the station. It had closed several years before. West had been able to keep it going for years after the gas crisis had passed by making it a self-service facility, putting in a few groceries, and hiring a full-time mechanic.

  “Where does his son live?” Rhodes asked.

  “Out there in back of the old station, I think,” Hack said. “Works in the furniture factory. Why?”

  “Those are the people Earlene saw come in this afternoon,” Rhodes said. “You know of any connection between the Wests and Mr. Bobbit?”

  “Nope. That don’t mean there ain’t one, though.”

  “All right. I’ll talk to both of them later. I guess I’d better see what James Allen wants first, though.”

  It wasn’t a chore he was looking forward to.

  It turned out to be even worse than he thought.

  Since he preferred to talk to people face to face rather than on the telephone, he drove back out to the precinct barn. It was getting late, and the shadows were lengthening across the gravel yard. The wind had picked up a little and had a bit of a bite in it.

  Rhodes hunched his shoulders, walked to the door, and went in. It was much warmer inside, almost too warm. The small window in the front wall was covered with moisture. Mrs. Wilkie was still there at her desk, and she looked up, surprised to see Rhodes again.

  “Why, hello, Sheriff,” she trilled. “How can I help you?”

  There was probably no invitation at all in her words, but Rhodes couldn’t help thinking that there was a note of hope there, as if he might have come to see, not the commissioner, but her.

  “Is Mr. Allen in?” he said.

  “Oh. Yes, I believe he is,” Mrs. Wilkie said. She picked up the beige phone and announced Rhodes.

  Rhodes went into Allen’s office, noting that his old friend did not look happy. The commissioner did not even get up and offer to shake hands.

  “What’s the problem?” Rhodes asked, sitting in the wooden chair and expecting the worst.

  Allen leaned forward. “I’ve been getting a lot of calls this afternoon,” he said. “The news is definitely not good.”

  “The other commissioners?” Rhodes said. “They’ve been calling?”

  “Them, too,” Allen said.

  “Who else?”

  “The problem’s money,” Allen said, evading the question.

  “I thought the power plant was going to take care of all that,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, that’s the problem. We’re not the only ones getting sued.”

  “You want to explain that?”

  “The power company’s getting sued, too. They built that big newkular plant down on the coast, but one of the cities they were going to sell that newkular power to has sued ’em.”

  “I read about that,” Rhodes said. “But what does that have to do with us?”

  “Well, the power company has offered the city a big percentage of the coal plant here in Blacklin County to replace what they owned of the newkular plant.”

  Rhodes didn’t see the connection. He said so.

  “Well, hell,” Allen said. “If the city gets the percentage, they won’t have to pay taxes on it.”

  “Oh,” Rhodes said.

  “And that ain’t all,” Allen said.

  Rhodes didn’t think he wanted to hear the rest, but Allen told him anyway.

  “See, what the other commissi
oners told me is that there’s another tax thing. The way it works, the power plant paid us a lot of money last year, and we used most of that to fix up some of the roads and to get the courthouse renovation project started.”

  Rhodes didn’t recall seeing any renovation going on. When he mentioned that, Allen said, “Well, we haven’t really gotten started on it yet, but the bids have been let. They’ll be getting an elevator over there, for one thing, and some ramps out front. We gotta make things more accessible for the handicapped; it’s a federal law or something.”

  “I remember now,” Rhodes said. “But why can’t we use this year’s money for the jail?”

  ‘Cause there might not be that much money. See, the way it works is that the power plant depreciated all its equipment, and they took a lot of coal out of the ground, so that depreciated the value of the land.”

  Rhodes didn’t like what Allen was saying, but he could see how it worked.

  He started to say something, but Allen didn’t give him a chance. “And that’s still not all.”

  Rhodes leaned back in his chair and awaited the rest. The hard wood pressed into his backbone, but he hardly noticed. He was getting numb.

  “OK,” he said. “Go ahead and tell me.”

  “Well, see, the way it is, is they’ll go on depreciating a whole lot every year. That means—”

  “That means there’ll be less and less tax money coming in every year that passes,” Rhodes finished for him.

  “You got it,” Allen told him.

  “So what does all that mean?”

  “It means that building a new jail won’t be as easy as I told you it would. There’s gonna have to be a bond election, of course, which would’ve passed easy if we’d had the money from the power plant. Now it won’t be so easy.”

  “And I guess the lawsuit is a little more important than it was, too.”

  “Damn right. Maybe that lawyer will listen to reason, though.”

  “Sure he will,” Rhodes said. “And Ed McMahon will bring ten million dollars right to my very own door this week.”

  “You send in those things, too?” Allen asked. it.