by Bill Crider
Ruth Grady came into the jail a little after two, just as Rhodes realized that he’d missed lunch again and started to think about a Blizzard. He forgot about that when he heard Ruth’s news.
“Larry Colley’s car was a Chevy pickup,” Ruth said. “A twenty-year-old S-10 model. I don’t know where it is, but I have the license plate information.”
She pulled out her notebook and read off the combination of letters and numbers. Rhodes said he’d put out a bulletin on it.
“Larry Colley had a cell phone, too,” Ruth said. “You know how those things save the numbers you call and the numbers of the people who call you?”
“Sure,” Rhodes said. “I was hoping he’d have a phone on him and that it would give us a clue. We could use one.”
“Well, we might not have the phone, but we have the next best thing. I talked to the people at Clearview Cells, and they said Colley had bought a phone from them. Knowing that, I called the company and got his records.”
“And you found a clue.”
“I’d call it that.”
Rhodes wondered if she’d been taking lessons from Hack and Lawton on how to stall him. He said, “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Colley had two calls from the Sandstroms’ number,” Ruth said.
Rhodes wasn’t really surprised. He’d believed Karen Sandstrom when she told him that she’d had no contact with her ex-husband, but he’d been lied to before. He was disappointed, however, both in himself and in Karen Sandstrom.
“And the calls from the Sandstroms’ number aren’t even the best part,” Ruth said.
“What is?”
“There were two calls on there to someone else you’ve met recently.”
She’d definitely been taking lessons from Hack and Lawton, Rhodes thought.
“And that was?”
“Chester Johnson,” Ruth said.
16
CHESTER JOHNSON WAS SITTING ON THE DENTED TAILGATE OF his GMC pickup kicking his feet in the air when Rhodes arrived. He was wearing his Clearview Catamounts cap, jeans, and an aloha shirt. The last item seemed a bit incongruous to Rhodes, but more and more people were wearing them lately, even in Blacklin County, which was about as far away from Hawaii as you could get.
The pickup was parked in the shade of a plum tree. Johnson jumped off the tailgate of the truck and walked over to the county car when Rhodes got out. Johnson’s jaws were working, and Rhodes smelled the Juicy Fruit.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?” Johnson said.
Johnson had a little vegetable stand not far from his house on a farm road between Clearview and Obert. He raised tomatoes, beans, potatoes, corn, okra, peas, peaches, and just about anything else that would grow in the Blacklin County soil. People who wanted fresh produce could always find something at Johnson’s stand from early spring until late fall, when he closed up shop for the winter.
“I have some nice corn,” Johnson said. “I didn’t grow it, though. It was shipped in. I got it from a grocery supply place. And I got some okra. Some squash, too. Grew that myself. Go mighty good with cornbread if you’d make you some.”
The vegetable stand was just an open-faced shed with a front that swung up and was propped on a couple of poles to create a little shade. The vegetables sat in boxes on long tables, and Johnson had a cashbox on a smaller table. The yellow squash and green okra looked good to Rhodes, who liked both vegetables fried. Frying wasn’t on the current agenda at his house, however.
“I didn’t come for the vegetables,” Rhodes said. “I wanted to talk to you about Larry Colley.”
Johnson turned away, walked back to his pickup, and sat on the tailgate again.
“That was a damn shame,” he said. “Poor old Larry.”
“You and Larry weren’t exactly friends, though, were you?”
“Well, I guess we weren’t buddies if that’s what you mean.”
“Funny,” Rhodes said. “You never mentioned before that you even knew him, not even when we were looking at his body.”
Johnson adjusted his cap and looked off into the distance.
“I didn’t see much point in it.”
“I called Bud Turley before I came out here,” Rhodes said. “He told me that you’d had some trouble paying for the work he and Colley did on your pickup.”
Johnson patted the tailgate with his right hand. “This old truck’s got a lot of miles on it. I need it to haul things in, and I don’t make enough out of this vegetable stand to buy a new one.”
He looked as if he might want to say more, but Rhodes thought he knew what was being left unsaid. “You don’t make enough to pay your bills, either, I guess.”
“I pay my bills.” Johnson’s voice rose. “But they overcharged me for the work they did. A hundred and fifty dollars for a tune-up! And this old hoopie don’t even have all that fancy computer stuff.”
“Bud didn’t think it was too much to charge. He said that Colley came out here to ask you about making a payment.”
“Ask, my ass. He came out here to kick the crap out of me.” Johnson gestured toward the little white house where he lived. “My wife was here, too. He wanted to kick the crap out of me and make me look bad in front of my wife.”
“But he didn’t,” Rhodes said. “Not the way I heard it. You stopped him before he could do anything. You want to show me the rifle?”
Johnson jumped off the tailgate and walked over to the table where the cashbox was. Rhodes went right along behind him.
A cardboard box stood beside the table. Johnson pushed aside a flap and brought out his rifle, a .30-30 Winchester.
“That the one you took hunting with you?”
“Yeah. It was my daddy’s gun,” Johnson said. “He bought it right after World War II, around the time I was born. He always called it ‘the Big One.’ The war, not the rifle.”
Just like Blimp Connor, Rhodes thought. And most likely a lot of others.
“I need to have a gun handy, living out here and running a business the way I do,” Johnson said. “Somebody could drive up and rob me and be gone in half a minute. Not being critical, Sheriff, but by the time you or one of your deputies got here, he’d be long gone, and I could be lying dead on the ground.”
“Like Larry Colley,” Rhodes said.
“I didn’t kill him, Sheriff, if that’s what you’re thinking. When he came out here that day, all I had to do was give him a look at this gun and he changed his mind real quick about whipping my butt. He decided he’d give me another week to come up with the money, if that’s how long I needed.”
“So you didn’t call him up to go hunting for hogs the other day, get him out there in the woods, and bash his head in with your rifle barrel.”
“No sir, I did not.”
“He called you a couple of times on his cell phone. What about?”
“It wasn’t about me taking him out in the woods and killing him. It was about that bill I owed. That’s all.”
“And you didn’t arrange to meet him at Big Woods for a little hog hunting?”
“You don’t really think I’d have gone off in the woods with him, do you?” Johnson said. “Or that he’d have gone with me after getting a look at my rifle?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “I was just wondering if you could bash somebody’s head in with that thing. It looks heavy enough.”
“Dang right it is. But why would I do that? I could’ve just shot him if I’d wanted to kill him. Anyway, if I’d done either one, would I have called you and told you about it?”
“I don’t know why you called. Maybe it was just to throw off my suspicions. Is that it?”
“Hell no. I could’ve just left him there for the hogs to eat up. There wouldn’t have been a sign of him left after they got through with him, or at least not enough for anybody to put a name to. That ought to prove I didn’t kill him.”
It made sense to Rhodes, but he also knew that people will lie to save their necks. He said, “If you didn’
t kill him, I guess you won’t mind if I take your rifle in and have it checked out.” Rhodes put out his hand. “Just to make sure it wasn’t used on the back of someone’s head.”
Johnson hesitated, but he gave up the rifle. Rhodes took it and held it with the barrel pointed down at the ground.
“I guess you know you’re leaving me defenseless,” Johnson said. “Somebody could come by here and rob me, and there’s not a thing I could do about it.”
“You could close for the day,” Rhodes said. He looked up and down the road. “You’re not doing much business anyway.”
“You gonna bring my gun back tomorrow?”
“No. It’ll take a while to get the tests done.”
“What am I supposed to do for protection, then?”
Rhodes nodded toward a tarp-covered lump beside the vegetable stand. “Is that a four-wheeler under the tarp?”
“Sure is. Handy for getting around the farm.”
“If someone tries to rob you, jump on and ride away,” Rhodes said.
“Take a while to get it uncovered and started. Might be dead by that time.”
“Hope for the best,” Rhodes told him.
The Round-Up was crowded, but that was nothing unusual. People in Clearview liked the kind of food Sam Blevins served, and he served plenty of it, at what he liked to call “small-town prices.”
Blevins met Rhodes and Ivy at the door. He shook Rhodes’s hand and said, “Glad you decided to have a steak, Sheriff. And you, too, Ivy.”
Ivy said, “You’re sure you don’t have a chicken breast you could grill for me?”
Blevins gave her a horrified look. “Don’t even say that word in here,” he told her. “I can fix you a nice lean filet, but nothing that clucks and flies.”
“The filet sounds fine,” Ivy said. “Where’s the Bigfoot convention?”
“In the private dining room. There must be thirty of them.”
“I might need to talk to them later,” Rhodes said.
“Fine with me,” Blevins said. “You want me to let them know you’re here?”
“That might not be a good idea. We’ll let it be a surprise.”
Blevins shrugged and led the way through the crowded restaurant, weaving between the tables with the expertise of long practice. Rhodes and Ivy trailed along behind, with Rhodes stopping now and then to acknowledge the people who spoke to him.
“Here you are,” Blevins said, putting the menus down on a clean wooden tabletop. “Mary Jo will be your waitress.”
“Isn’t that Larry Colley’s ex-wife?” Ivy said when Blevins left the table.
“One of them,” Rhodes said. “I need to have a talk with the other one later tonight.”
“Assuming that the Bigfoot hunters let you leave here alive.”
“They’re fine folks,” Rhodes said, knowing that he was being a little too optimistic. “If Bud Turley doesn’t get them too stirred up, they won’t be a problem.”
“You said that Bud was going to be sure there wasn’t any trouble.”
“He’s supposed to. I’m not so sure I trust him not to do just the opposite.”
“I don’t blame you for not trusting him.” Ivy opened her menu. “Where’s that filet Sam was talking about?”
Before Rhodes could point it out to her, Blevins was back at their table. Claudia and Jan were standing right behind him, smiling at Rhodes over his shoulder.
“These two say they know you,” Blevins said to Rhodes. “They said they hoped you wouldn’t mind if they joined you for dinner.”
Rhodes looked at Ivy, who nodded.
“They’re welcome to sit with us,” Rhodes said, standing up as Blevins put a couple of menus down on the table.
Rhodes introduced the two women to Ivy and explained who they were and what they were doing in town.
“After they finish the articles they’re working on,” Rhodes said, “they’re going to get their novel published. It’s about a handsome crime-busting sheriff.”
“A fantasy, then?” Ivy said.
Everyone laughed, except Rhodes, and Mary Jo appeared to take their orders. No one had decided on what to eat, but when Ivy mentioned the filet, Claudia and Jan said they’d have that as well. Rhodes went for the rib-eye.
“Full of fat,” Ivy said.
“That’s what makes it good,” Rhodes said, and got a disapproving look even though he’d smiled to show he was kidding.
After Mary Jo repeated their orders to make sure she had them right, she took the menus and went away.
Claudia said to Ivy, “It’s noisy in here, isn’t it?”
“Eating out is a social event in Clearview,” Ivy said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the general buzz of talk, the clatter of silverware, and the piped-in country music. “People have a lot to talk about.”
“We’ll just have to talk loud enough to be heard, then. We wanted to tell you our latest theory about the murder.”
“I was sure you’d have a new one,” Rhodes said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Larry Colley was killed by Bigfoot.”
“That’s not a new theory. That’s the same one you had the last time.”
Ivy gave Rhodes a puzzled look.
“They’re not crazy,” Rhodes said. “Jan’s just joking. I think. Right?”
“Not really,” Claudia said. “Tell him, Jan.”
“It’s simple,” Jan said. “Have you read today’s Clearview. Herald?”
Rhodes confessed that he hadn’t. He’d planned to, but he hadn’t had time.
“There’s a good story about Larry Colley’s murder by someone named Jennifer Loam. Do you know her?”
Rhodes nodded.
“We’d like to meet her,” Claudia said. “She can give us some pointers about writing.”
Jan agreed. “She surely can. Anyway, she says in the story that she interviewed the man who found the body.”
Rhodes hadn’t known that, and Johnson hadn’t mentioned it. Jan bent down and pulled a little notebook from her purse. She flipped the notebook open and read what was written there.
“Chester Johnson. That’s the man’s name. And he claims that he saw Bigfoot.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Rhodes said. “He saw a shadow if he saw anything. He was just spooked.”
Or he was the killer himself and making things up to make people think he wasn’t, but Rhodes didn’t add that.
“What if he really did see something?”
Rhodes started to say that was impossible, but Jan held up her hand. Rhodes wondered if that was how she got people to be quiet in faculty meetings.
“Maybe something is putting it a little strongly. But what if he just saw a shadow or saw something move?”
“I don’t think he did.”
“But he might have,” Claudia said. “We’re not saying it was Bigfoot. But what if someone is in those woods posing as Bigfoot?”
“Why would anybody do that?” Ivy asked. “Those woods are full of feral hogs. Hanging around there would be dangerous.”
“There must be something there besides the hogs,” Jan said. “Something someone’s protecting or hiding or looking for.”
“For example?” Rhodes said.
“A meth lab,” Claudia said. “We think the woman at the store was killed by someone who was stealing ammonium nitrate fertilizer to use for making methamphetamine in an illegal lab. And he’s posing as Bigfoot to keep people away from the lab that’s hidden in the woods.”
“That’s not bad,” Rhodes said, “except for the fact that Louetta didn’t sell fertilizer. Just cattle feed. And there’s no meth lab in those woods.”
Rhodes had dealt with meth labs before, and he knew how easy they’d become to set up, hide, and move around. Nobody would set one up in the woods where the feral hogs were a problem. There were too many other places.
“It’s a good try,” Rhodes said. “But I’m afraid it’s not quite right. What’s your next theory?”
“We don�
��t have one. You’ll have to come up with something better if you want one.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You will,” Claudia said. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
Rhodes didn’t have a response to that, but he didn’t need one. Mary Jo arrived at the table bearing food.
Mary Jo was professional and efficient, but Rhodes thought she seemed preoccupied. When he mentioned it to the others, they agreed.
“Maybe she just needs a cigarette,” Rhodes said.
“Or maybe she’s just realized that Larry’s really dead,” Ivy said.
“I don’t think it really bothers her that Larry’s dead,” he told them.
“You mean she didn’t care about him?” Jan said.
“Not much, or so she says.”
Claudia and Jan got very interested in Mary Jo as a possible suspect. They told Rhodes that they were going to ask her for an interview.
Rhodes said that would be fine with him. He was beginning to wonder if Mary Jo might have lied to him, too, the way Karen Sandstrom had. Mary Jo’s number hadn’t shown up on Colley’s cell phone, but they might have met and talked in person.
“She’s a big woman,” Claudia said. “Big enough to kill somebody, if she hit him hard enough.”
“I don’t think Mary Jo is the kind of person who’d be hiding out in Big Woods,” Ivy said. “Not for any reason whatsoever. And certainly not posing as Bigfoot.”
“Well, somebody took her ex-husband there and killed him,” Jan said. “Maybe she’s the one. It’s nearly always the ex-wife or the ex-husband that the police suspect. They never admit it, though. They just say something like ‘Naturally we want to ask him some questions.’ Or ‘her.’ But in the end it turns out that the ex is the one who did it.”
“Nearly every time,” Claudia said. “Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”
Rhodes said he never excluded anybody from an investigation.
“A typical nonanswer,” Claudia said. “But I think the article in the paper said that there were two ex-wives. Isn’t that right?”
Rhodes said that it was.
“Makes it a little harder for the handsome crime-busting sheriff,” Ivy said, grinning at Rhodes. “He has to make a choice.”
