Evil at the Root

by Bill Crider

  “I’ve already talked to the kids at the Whataburger,” Ruth said. “Now I guess it’s time to see if we can find the rest of Mr. X. I’d better get busy.” She took off her gun belt and laid it carefully on the ground away from the dirt piles.

  Allen helped her down in the hole. He was tired from working the backhoe, and Rhodes wasn’t capable of doing any digging. This wasn’t the time to be chivalrous, and Ruth wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway. Besides, she was small and therefore the only one really suited to the close-quarters work in the hole.

  After another hour or so Ruth had managed to dig out nearly a complete skeleton, skull and all. That was all they found—bones. No belt buckles, no buttons from a shirt, no pieces of leather from shoes.

  “Whoever dumped him in there probably stripped him first,” Ruth said. Her face was streaked with mud, and her uniform was filthy, but she didn’t seem to mind. She seemed quite happy with her part in the operation. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to identify him?”

  Rhodes didn’t really see how it would be possible. Whoever Horn’s dentist had been, if he’d even had one, would be long dead by now, and the records would most likely not have been preserved.

  “It’s still a pretty sensational deal,” Allen said. He was happy, too. “It’ll give the paper something to write about instead of the lawsuit. I think we ought to go back to town and give the reporters a call, let ’em bring a photographer out here and get a few shots of the backhoe and the well and our hardworking law enforcement folks.”

  “Not to mention our hardworking commissioner from precinct three,” Rhodes said.

  “Yeah,” Allen said, smiling. “That, too.”

  Rhodes didn’t have the energy to object. Allen had done him a favor, after all, and this would be his chance to pay it back.

  “You can drive me back to the jail,” he told Ruth. “I’ll make the call, and you can come back out here for the picture taking.”

  “Don’t take a bath or anything,” Allen said. “And don’t put on a clean uniform. We want this to look good.”

  “What about the bones?” Ruth said. “After the pictures, of course,” she added, looking at Allen.

  “Take them to Ballinger’s,” Rhodes said. “This is just like one of those books he reads. He’ll like it even more than the newspaper will. And he’ll know what to do with them.”

  “Nice kid,” Allen observed as Ruth walked over to put on her belt. “She’s dating one of the other commissioner’s boys.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Rhodes said. It seldom occurred to him to think about the private lives of his deputies. It didn’t surprise him that Ruth was dating, however. She was young and attractive. If he had thought about it at all, he would have been surprised if she hadn’t been going out with someone.

  “Sammy Hensley,” Allen said. “Teaches history at the junior high.”

  Love in bloom, Rhodes thought. Hack, Ruth, even me. Old, young, middle-aged. Maybe life was the same no matter what age you were.

  Unless you were Louis Horn. Or Lloyd Bobbit.

  It took Rhodes a while to catch up on events from Saturday night, especially since one of the calls involved someone going swimming.

  “That’s pretty unusual for February,” Rhodes admitted. He was sitting in his chair, leaning back with his eyes almost closed. The morning at the Wishing Well had tired him out more than he would have liked to admit. “But there’s no law against swimming, is there?”

  He didn’t really feel like going through this. When he died, he would surely be rewarded for having suffered a great deal of his punishment on earth.

  “Depends on where you’re swimmin’,” Hack said. Rhodes waited. He wasn’t going to try drawing him out. “It wasn’t the municipal pool,” Lawton said. “They drain that in the winter.”

  “He knows that,” Hack said. He didn’t like it when Lawton tried to muscle in on the story. “Besides,” he went on, “there was all that about the footsteps.”

  “Yeah,” Lawton said. “That was what got it all started. The footsteps.”

  “What footsteps?” Rhodes said, hating himself. He blamed it on the pain in his shoulder.

  “The ones on the roof,” Lawton said.

  “The apartment house roof,” Hack added. He wasn’t going to let Lawton take over.

  The apartment house must have been the crucial point, since neither one of them would say anything after that. Hack sat at his desk and Lawton leaned against the wall, a broom handle in his hands. Occasionally he scraped the broom on the floor. They both looked at Rhodes expectantly. He watched them from under half-closed lids.

  “All right,” he said after a minute. They always won in the end. “What does the apartment house roof have to do with swimming in February?”

  “Drunk guy,” Hack said. “He was runnin’ across the apartment house roof to jump in the swimmin’ pool.”

  “Don’t see how he could hit it, myself,” Lawton said. “Had to jump off an eave, kinda at an angle, and even then he just barely missed the other edge of the roof where it squares off around the pool. It’s just a little bitty pool. Looks like he’d’ve missed and hit the concrete.”

  Rhodes thought fleetingly about his dream.

  “Didn’t, though,” Hack said. “The Lord takes care of idiots and drunks. That’s what they say.”

  “Not near all of them,” Lawton said. “How many highway fatalities did we have in the county last year? And ever’ one of ’em caused by drunks.”

  “What about this drunk?” Rhodes said, trying to get them back on the subject.

  “Oh, him,” Hack said. “He’s up in one of the cells. It wasn’t easy gettin’ him out of that scuba gear, though.”

  “Scuba gear?” Rhodes said. Vaudeville wasn’t dead, he decided wearily. It had just moved off the stage and into the small-town jails.

  “That’s how they caught him,” Hack said. “He got tired of jumpin’ off the roof, finally. When the deputy got to the apartment house, the guy was layin’ on the bottom of the pool, sound asleep. Breathin’ with his scuba gear.”

  “I hope he doesn’t get pneumonia in the cell,” Rhodes said. “You two can’t afford another million-dollar lawsuit. Neither can l.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lawton said. “I gave him an extra blanket.”

  There were any number of things Rhodes knew that he should be doing, including talking to Lyle Everett, but he didn’t feel up to them. He wanted to have another conversation with Mr. West, too. There was something about their first talk that had bothered him, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. And he wanted to see the Smarts. If there was anyone who could keep him up to date on the Sunny Dale gossip, it was them. Maybe they had heard something more about Kennedy and Bobbit.

  Instead, he went home and watched fifteen minutes of Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman before he fell asleep on the couch.

  The doorbell woke him. He was momentarily disoriented and looked around the darkening room to make sure he wasn’t still in the hospital or at the jail. The TV screen anchored him, however. The second Sherlock Holmes feature of the afternoon was coming to an end. Rhodes thought it was Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, but he wasn’t sure.

  The doorbell rang again, and then someone started knocking on the facing. Rhodes heaved himself off the couch, stifling a groan, and walked to the front door, turning on a light on the way.

  When he opened the door, Miss Bobbit was standing there. The light reflected off the lenses of her glasses as she shook her head at him.

  “I hope you’re not trying to avoid me, Sheriff,” she said. “They told me at the jail that they didn’t know where you were, but I knew better. I knew I could find you at home.”

  At least Hack and Lawton had tried. “I wasn’t trying to avoid anyone, Miss Bobbit,” Rhodes said. “Would you like to come in?” He stood aside and held the door open.

  Miss Bobbit looked up at him suspiciously, but she stepped inside. “I want to know what
you’re doing about my father’s death,” she said. “I haven’t heard a word since Friday night.”

  Rhodes walked over to his recliner. “Have a seat, Miss Bobbit,” he said, indicating the couch. He sat in the chair, not really caring whether she sat or not.

  She did, however, and regarded him solemnly. “Well?” she said, putting her shoulder bag on the floor by her feet.

  “Well,” he said, “I found out those ‘stories’ about your father and Maurice Kennedy were true, for one thing.”

  She sat up straight. “How dare you! All of this started with my father’s teeth! You’re supposed to be looking for Kennedy, not digging up the past. I want that man arrested, and I want him arrested immediately.”

  She didn’t know just how literally that past had been dug up.

  “I was looking for a motive,” Rhodes said. “I think I found one. Your father may have known about a murder Kennedy committed years ago. He may have been killed to silence him. It wasn’t the teeth at all. Or if it was, that was only a little bit of it.”

  She didn’t say anything. Rhodes thought that her chin might have quivered, but that was the only sign of emotion he could detect. He thought Miss Bobbit was a pretty cold fish.

  “And another thing,” he said. “You didn’t mention that you and Andy West were going together.”

  “We’re engaged,” Miss Bobbit said. “I don’t see that my fiancé has anything to do with my father’s death.”

  “I didn’t say he did,” Rhodes said, wondering why West had not mentioned that little fact. “But his father happens to have the room right next door to where your father was killed. I just thought that was interesting.” He decided not to tell her that West Senior had overheard the conversation between Kennedy and her father.

  “That’s how I met Andy,” she said. “Because our fathers had adjoining rooms. We talked in the hallway one day, and we just seemed to hit it off.”

  Rhodes tried, but somehow he just couldn’t imagine Brenda Bobbit “hitting it off” with anybody. It wasn’t that she was physically unattractive, though she was—at least she was to Rhodes. It was that she seemed cold, distant, and thoroughly self-centered. It seemed to Rhodes that even her father’s death meant little to her. She was concerned with finding Kennedy, true, but only because of the affront the murder was to her personally. The fact that her father was dead seemed beside the point.

  He remembered how she had acted when her father had disappeared, how she wanted him found at once and how she wanted everything kept out of the papers. She didn’t want her name associated with unpleasant publicity. That was too bad, because as soon as the discovery of the bones at the Old Settlers’ Grounds became public knowledge there was going to be a lot of publicity. Even a reporter like Red Rogers was going to make the connection between the bones and Maurice Kennedy, and the Bobbit name would be dragged into the story not long after that.

  He thought of something else. “Did you ever talk to your father about the night Louis Horn disappeared?”

  “No,” she said. “I did not. He had nothing to do with that. I don’t see why you keep coming back to it.”

  Because, Rhodes thought, it just might be important. It had suddenly occurred to him that Miss Bobbit wasn’t off the hook, after all. It was more than simply her coldness. It was the fact that she was just the kind of woman who could kill to avoid publicity.

  What if her father had told her about threatening Kennedy? What if she saw the chance of the Horn murder being made public and decided to do something about it? If she could pin the murder on Kennedy, because of the business about the teeth, she would be off the hook. And after the will was probated she would have the money again, though she lost control of it with her father’s death.

  He couldn’t say any of that to her, however. Instead, he made a mental note to find out from the lab as soon as he could exactly where that plastic grocery bag had come from. Hadn’t she said she was on her way to the grocery store the day he was killed? What if she had been there first?

  And then he told her about finding the bones.

  For the first time, she showed definite emotion. She picked up her shoulder bag and clenched her hands on it. It was as if she were trying to compress the leather. “But you don’t know whose bones they are, do you?” she said. “Not for sure.”

  “No,” Rhodes admitted. “I don’t. But I can’t prevent the news people from speculating.”

  “You’d better,” she said, standing up to go. “You’d just better.”

  Rhodes stood up, too, but he didn’t bother to walk her to the door. She slammed it so hard behind her that the glass rattled in the windows.

  Chapter 13

  After Miss Bobbit left, Rhodes went outside and fed Speedo. The dog was glad to see him and wanted to play, but Rhodes was too sore for running and roughhousing. There was a high, cold moon and a lot of icy stars, which Rhodes didn’t feel like looking at for long.

  He went back inside and called Ivy. She didn’t want to come over. She was sure he needed his rest. He was beginning to wonder whether they were really going to get married on Friday or not, but he was too tired to worry about it. He went to bed early. He didn’t even try to watch a movie. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember it the next day.

  The phone rang early. It was Hack, telling him that Ruth had been checking on Kennedy’s whereabouts already that morning and that Mr. Patterson had called from Sunny Dale. “Wouldn’t say what he wanted. Just said they’d found something you needed to see.”

  “I’ll go on over there,” Rhodes said. “Anything else?”

  “Well, there was a shootin’ incident last night, or a reported one. Nobody got shot, far’s I know. The only interestin’ thing is where it was.”

  “Where was it, then?”

  “Out by Andy West’s store. We got one of those anonymous calls that shots were bein’ fired, but when the deputy went out there, West wasn’t even home. No sign of any trouble. Happened at just about good dark. Six thirty-seven. Thought you might want to check it out.”

  “I do,” Rhodes said.

  He got dressed, looking at his bruises in the bathroom mirror. They were turning a yellowish-green. Kennedy might be old, but he was still plenty strong.

  Rhodes took the bandage off the back of his head. The wound probably needed air. He hadn’t dreamed, but his sleep had been disturbed several times. Every time he rolled over on his back, the back of his head felt as if he was hitting it on the rock again.

  He went into the kitchen and ate a bowl of Quaker Oat Squares for breakfast, thinking that he was turning into a real health-food fanatic. Then he fed Speedo and got ready to drive out to West’s store. Speedo wanted to go along, but Rhodes was going in the county car and couldn’t take him. To tell the truth, Speedo hadn’t proved too useful on his one other foray into investigative work.

  West’s store looked even less prosperous than it had a couple of days before. Rhodes wondered if there had even been a customer since then. Obviously the signs weren’t doing their job of luring buyers.

  West was in the store, looking gloomily over the stock, when Rhodes went inside. West looked back at the door hopefully, but the look changed to a frown when he saw Rhodes.

  “What can I do for you, Sheriff?” he said. He was wearing his long white apron. “Need some groceries this time?”

  “I heard there was some shooting going on out here last night,” Rhodes said. “I wondered if you heard it.”

  “Never heard a thing. I’m a sound sleeper.”

  “This was early. Six-thirty or so.”

  “Oh. Well, I was over at Brenda’s at six-thirty. Eating supper.”

  “You didn’t mention that you were engaged to her,” Rhodes said.

  “I thought I did,” West said. He stuck his hands beneath his apron and into his jeans pockets. “Does it make any difference?”

  “Probably not. You ever get any out-of-season hunting out here, things like that?”

  “Nope. I w
ouldn’t worry about those shots, Sheriff, if there were any. My neighbors are mostly old and skittish. It was probably just some kids shooting at mailboxes, or maybe somebody spotlighting rabbits. Maybe somebody’s old pickup backfiring.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Rhodes said. Things like that weren’t uncommon. “It was just something I had to check. I thought maybe Maurice Kennedy had paid you a visit.”

  “Now why would he want to do that? I’d send him right back to Sunny Dale if I could catch him.”

  “That might not be as easy as you’d think,” Rhodes said. West looked at the dusty shelves. “Sure I can’t sell you some groceries?”

  “No, thanks,” Rhodes said. “Not today.”

  At the nursing home, Rhodes said hello to Earlene and went back to Patterson’s office. There was a set of dentures on Patterson’s desk, sitting on top of a small stack of papers.

  Rhodes suddenly remembered a set of plastic teeth someone in his high school class had owned. You wound them up with a key and they chattered and clicked and bounced around. They were supposed to be funny. He didn’t think this set would be funny, however.

  “Bobbit’s?” Rhodes asked, pointing at them before sitting in the hard chair.

  “I think they must be Mr. Kennedy’s,” Patterson said. “They were found in his…room.”

  Rhodes noticed the hesitation. Here we go again, he thought, wishing that for once he could get a straight story from somebody. From anybody. “Where in his room?” he asked.

  Patterson looked up at the ceiling as if for guidance. Then he looked back down at the desk. “In the plumbing,” he said finally, having avoided the indelicate subject for as long as he could.

  “You must mean they were found in the toilet,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t see them in the sink the other day.” He hadn’t seen them in the toilet, either, for that matter, but they could have been in the pipes. “How did you find them?”

  “The room was being cleaned,” Patterson said. “When the cleaning woman flushed the toilet, it overflowed. We called a plumber, and he located an obstruction in the line but he couldn’t clear it.”