by Bill Crider
“It might be something else,” Rhodes said, but he didn’t know what. “Don’t worry. I’ll find out.”
“What about my sister?” Storm said.
“Your sister?”
“Yeah, my sister. What about her funeral? You don’t think we’re gonna let this fella”—he glared at Ballinger—”put her in the ground without her jewelry on, do you?”
Rhodes hadn’t thought about it, to tell the truth. “It might be possible to delay the funeral,” he said.
“Better not be much of a delay,” Storm said.
“We’ll do all we can,” Rhodes said.
“I hope so,” Storm said. “I want this taken care of right now.” He turned and went back to join his wife in the Peace and Grace Room.
“Where’s Tom,” Rhodes asked when Storm was out of earshot.
“You go on back out to the office,” Ballinger said. “I’ll get him.”
Rhodes walked across the asphalt parking lot and entered the office. While he waited, he thumbed idly through one of Ballinger’s books, River Girl, an old Gold Medal book by someone named Charles Williams. Rhodes started reading a passage about a man weighing down a dead body with an outboard motor in order to dump him in a lake. Ballinger and Skelly came in, and Rhodes put the book back on the shelf. “That’s a pretty good story,” Ballinger said. “I think the guy who tells the story is a deputy sheriff. He gets involved with this woman, and then he—”
“Never mind,” Rhodes said. “How are you, Tom?”
Skelly looked more like a funeral director was expected to look. His suit was dark black, and his face was thin and drawn. He looked as if he had never smiled, though he wasn’t frowning. His mouth just seemed to turn down naturally at the corners.
“Not too good,” he said. “I guess Clyde’s told you what happened.”
“He told me about the missing jewelry,” Rhodes said, “but he didn’t tell me how it happened.”
“I guess he couldn’t,” Skelly said. He had a deep voice, like the bass singer for a country quartet. “We don’t know what happened, exactly.”
“Did you ever see the jewelry?” Rhodes asked.
“Sure. I’m the one who put it on her,” Skelly said. “I always do those things. It’s my job.”
“You’re sure you remember doing it?”
“Sure I’m sure. I don’t forget something like rings and necklaces.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Ballinger spoke up. “We put her in Peace and Grace around two o’clock. We could look at the register to see what time she started having visitors.”
“And she had the jewelry on then?”
“She must’ve,” Skelly said. “But I don’t remember checking.”
“And I didn’t bother to check,” Ballinger said. “Tom’s never made a mistake about anything like that in his life.”
“So between somewhere around two o’clock yesterday afternoon and this morning whenever the Storms came in, the jewelry was stolen,” Rhodes said. “Is that about right?”
“That’s about right,” Ballinger said. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” Rhodes said.
“Well, I hate to say something like this, but do you think maybe they took it? The Storms, I mean.”
Rhodes thought about the Storms and everything he’d ever heard about them. It didn’t amount to much, but he’d certainly never heard anything about them that would lead him to think they would steal jewelry off a dead woman. In fact, he couldn’t think of anyone he’d ever heard of who would do a thing like that.
“They do seem pretty anxious to sue us,” Skelly said. “Maybe they need money real bad right now. They could sell the jewelry, and get the insurance, too.”
“I’ll check into it,” Rhodes said. “See what I can find out. At least you’ve got insurance.”
“We won’t have much of a reputation, though,” Ballinger said. “Not if this gets out.”
“That’s true,” Rhodes said. “Let me check up on Jack Storm’s finances. Then I’ll talk to him, see if I can find out anything.”
“You do that, Sheriff,” Ballinger said. “We’re counting on you. It’s times like this I wish we had the 87th Precinct down here in Texas. I bet Carella and Hawes could get right to the bottom of it.”
“I’ll try to do halfway as well as they could,” Rhodes assured him, but Ballinger didn’t look too hopeful.
As Rhodes drove out of the parking lot, he looked back and saw both Skelly and Ballinger standing there, looking after him. It was hard to say which one of them looked the more depressed.
Chapter 2
As soon as he was out of the lot, Rhodes called Hack on the radio. He intended to stop somewhere to get a Dr Pepper if nothing was happening at the jail. Then he wanted to see what he could find out about the finances of Jack Storm. And, though he hated to think that someone like Ballinger could be involved in theft, he thought he should probably check on him and Skelly, too.
Things were not, however, going smoothly at the jail.
“You better get on back,” Hack said. “Ruth’s here, and she has a few things to tell you about.”
Ruth meant Ruth Grady, one of Rhodes’s deputies.
“What things?” Rhodes asked.
“Not things we want to talk about on the radio,” Hack said.
Uh-oh, Rhodes thought. He could imagine all the scanner owners in the county wondering just what the heck was going on at the sheriff’s office. Rhodes didn’t blame them. He was wondering, too. He headed for the jail. When he got there, Ruth Grady was talking to Hack. Their relationship had improved considerably since she had come to the department. Hack had been a little reluctant to accept a female deputy at first.
“What’s the trouble?” Rhodes asked. He walked over to sit in his swivel chair, which no longer squeaked, thanks to Ruth’s application of WD-40.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Ruth said. She was short and stout and in Rhodes’s opinion an excellent deputy. Maybe he was prejudiced, considering who she had replaced, but he didn’t think so. It was true that Johnny Sherman had been something of a disgrace to the department, but Ruth had more than proved her worth, and she would have been an asset to anyone’s law-enforcement operation.
“I’ve already heard one of those today,” Rhodes said. “I guess another one wouldn’t hurt anything.”
“Something funny going on down at the funeral home?” Hack said.
Rhodes could tell that the old man was curious, but when he thought about all the times that Hack had made him wait to hear a story, he decided not to tell anything yet.
“I’ll tell you later,” Rhodes said. “You first,” he said to Ruth.
“Well,” Hack said, “I got this call while you were out—”
Rhodes looked at Ruth. “I thought you were the one with the story.”
She grinned. “Hack has part of it, too. Maybe he ought to start.”
Now he’s got her doing it, Rhodes thought, but he didn’t say anything. It would only encourage them.
“Yeah, I ought to start,” Hack said when he saw that Rhodes wasn’t going to stop him. “I got this call while you were out, from old lady McGee out at the lake.”
“Which old lady McGee is that?” Rhodes asked.
“Sammie,” Ruth said. “She lives out at the lake since her husband died. His name was Ferris.”
“Ever’body called him Fibber,” Hack said. He looked at Ruth. “I bet you don’t know why.”
“Sure I do,” Ruth said. “They used to call everybody Fibber if his last name was McGee. It was because of some old guy on the radio. He had a closet that was so full he never wanted to open it.”
Rhodes could tell that Hack was impressed. “I didn’t think you’d be old enough to remember that,” Hack said.
“I’m not,” Ruth told him. “I heard about it from my grandfather.”
Hack looked miffed. “Well, anyway, that’s what they called him. He bought one of those l
ots out at the lake back in the Fifties, before the dang things got so high that nobody could afford ‘em. He was always goin’ to move out there, but he never did. So after he died, his wife decided that she’d go. They had a couple of kids, but neither one of ‘em stayed around here. I think the boy is out in California—”
“Wait a minute,” Rhodes said. “What’s her family history got to do with this?” He hated to interrupt Hack, but he was afraid they’d never get to the point of the story.
“Nothin’, I guess,” Hack said. “I just thought you might be interested in hearin’ about it.”
“I am,” Rhodes said. “Just not right now.”
“Humpf,” Hack said, and turned back to his radio.
“She called in right after you left for Ballinger’s,” Ruth said, “or about then. Hack told me you’d just left. She wanted to report some prowlers.”
“Out at the lake?” Rhodes said.
“That’s right. Her husband built a little house out there right after he bought the property, and that’s where she’s living. There’s quite a little community, but it’s pretty deserted a lot of the time. People build houses out there and then live in them on the weekends.”
Hack turned back to them. “Most of those folks ain’t even from the county. Most of ‘em are from Houston or Dallas, and they just come down here to fish or hunt.”
“That’s part of the problem,” Ruth said. “To get to the place, you have to turn off the highway and go down that gravel road that winds back around the far side of the lake and then go across the dam. It’s a pretty little area, but there are a lot of trees. It’s hard to see one house from another one, and there’s hardly ever anybody around.”
Rhodes knew what she was getting at. “The houses are vulnerable to break-ins,” he said.
“That’s right. And Mrs. McGee thought someone was doing just that—breaking in.”
“What made her think so?”
“It mighta been the moving van,” Hack said. “That’s usually a pretty good clue.” Hack was still mad at being interrupted and also at being compared to Ruth’s grandfather.
“What moving van?” Rhodes said.
“I was coming to that,” Ruth said. “For the last couple of days, there’s been a moving van traveling around some of the roads out there. She’s seen it twice.”
Rhodes was familiar with the area she was describing. “Those roads are pretty twisty and narrow for a moving van,” he said.
“I don’t think she really meant it was like a Mayflower Truck,” Ruth said. “She described it to me as being more like one of those rental jobs. Green and white, with a pack mule painted on it.”
“I’ve seen those,” Rhodes said. “U-Truck-’Em.”
“That’s the one.”
“So she’s afraid some of the homes may have been burglarized.” Rhodes had it figured out now. “Did you check any of them or just talk to her?”
“I thought I might need more than just her suspicion to enter a home,” Ruth said.
“She needed to talk to somebody with authority,” Hack said.
Rhodes ignored him. “All right. Let’s drive on out there and have a look around. There’s no need to start calling the owners and getting them all excited until we check it out. It might be that someone’s just moving into a home out there.” He looked at Hack. “If you need us, you know where we’ll be.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I sure know where you’ll be.”
The lake wasn’t at its best in January. In the summer, the tall pecan trees were green and thick with leaves, but now their branches were stark and black. The water was a muddy brown, and most of the aquatic vegetation had disappeared from its surface. Though the day was relatively warm, the water did not look as inviting as it often did to Rhodes, who sometimes contemplated what life might be like if he had a bass boat and the time to use it. He had often wanted to cruise along the shore, guiding his course with a trolling motor, and fish some of the minuscule coves, drag a lure beside some of the submerged tree stumps or try a topwater near the riprap of the dam. But not today. The bare trees, the muddy water, and the barren shoreline had no appeal for him.
They drove across the dam and down a winding gravel road. The houses were set back in the trees. Though you could see one from another, even without leaves, the trees pretty much obscured the view. He wondered why anyone like Sammie McGee would want to live out here all alone.
“Did Mrs. McGee have any idea where that truck might’ve been going or where it might have come from?”
“Maybe you ought to talk to her,” Ruth said. “She lives right down here.”
She turned the car into a gravel drive, and Rhodes could see the house through the tree trunks. It was small, built up off the ground on thick pilings in case the lake ever flooded, and had a porch running all along the front.
“That’s her, sitting on the porch,” Ruth said.
High, thin clouds had begun to mar the blue of the sky, but there was still plenty of sun. Rhodes saw a figure sitting in a chair in a patch of sunlight. Despite the unseasonably warm temperature, the figure was swathed in several layers of clothing. Ruth stopped the car near the porch, and she and Rhodes got out.
“Hello, again, Mrs. McGee,” Ruth said, as they climbed the steps and walked down to where the old woman sat. “I brought the sheriff out to talk to you.”
Mrs. McGee looked up at Rhodes from her seat in the chair. She had a crocheted afghan, red and blue and black, wrapped around her, and she was wearing a red knit cap pulled down low on her forehead. She had watery blue eyes and thick jowls that quivered when she spoke.
“I hope you can do something about this, Sheriff,” she said. “I’m just sure that something bad’s going on around here.”
“Why is that Mrs. McGee?” Rhodes said.
“I’ve been sittin’ out here on my porch, seein’ that truck,” she said. “Nobody around here’s got a truck like that. Somebody’s up to no good.”
“Have you seen the truck stop at anyone’s house?” Rhodes asked. He looked around. He could see only the top of one other house through the trees.
“Nope,” she said. “Can’t see that good. But I’ve seen it on the road. What else would a movin’ truck be doin’ out here?”
“We’ll have a look around, then,” Rhodes said. He was thinking that the old woman was just jumpy, as who wouldn’t be, living out here practically in isolation like she was. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.
“We’ll let you know if we find anything,” he said.
“You do that,” the old woman said. “Not that it worries me.”
She lifted the afghan and gave Rhodes a glimpse of what looked like an old Frontier model Colt’s .44. He couldn’t be sure; she dropped the afghan back too quickly for him to get a good look.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “I just like to know what I’m up against.”
When they got back in the car, Ruth said, “Admit it. You were feeling sorry for the poor, defenseless old lady.”
“You knew she had that cannon, didn’t you?” Rhodes said.
Ruth laughed. “She showed it to me earlier. I didn’t think to mention it. I think she knows how to handle it.”
“She probably does,” Rhodes said. “I don’t guess we have to worry about her as much as we do anybody who tries to sneak up on her.”
“That’s the truth,” Ruth said “I wouldn’t want to try it.”
They drove to the house whose top Rhodes had been able to catch sight of from Mrs. McGee’s porch. Although it wasn’t more than a city block from her property as the crow flies, they had to drive back to the road and turn down another drive to get to it. The mailbox said, The Washburn’s.
“I never could figure out why people use apostrophes like that,” Ruth said.
“Maybe they want to let you know that somebody named Washburn owns that mailbox,” Rhodes said.
They parked in front of the house and Rhodes got out. The d
rive was covered in fallen leaves, and he kicked through them as he went to the front door. This house was a small wooden-frame structure, no larger than Mrs. McGee’s and not built up on pilings as hers had been. Either the Washburn had more confidence that the area wouldn’t flood or they had better flood insurance.
There were two steps up to the door. Brown leaves lay on them almost as thickly as on the drive. Rhodes knocked, but he was sure no one was there. The owners might not have cleared the drive if they had been in residence, but surely they would have knocked the leaves off the steps. Also, there was no car to be seen.
No answer came to Rhodes’s knock. The door had rattled loosely in its frame. He looked at it, then tried the knob. The door was unlocked.
Rhodes went back to the car. “Call Hack,” he said. “Let him know where we are and tell him we’re going inside.” He went back to the house and opened the door, letting it swing inward.
He stepped through and looked around. He was standing in what was obviously the living room or den. He couldn’t tell which one for sure because there was no furniture. In fact, the room was completely bare. There were no pictures on the walls, no chairs or couch, no carpeting on the floor.
Ruth Grady came into the room behind Rhodes. He glanced back to see that she had her .38 drawn and ready. He didn’t object. She had gotten him out of more than one bad situation where he had gone in carelessly or too quickly.
“Looks like they moved out,” she said.
“Maybe,” Rhodes said.
They went through the entire house. It didn’t take long. There was one other large room—a bedroom probably—a bathroom, and a kitchen. All of them were as bare as the first room had been. There hadn’t even been any medicine in the cabinet in the bathroom, though Rhodes had noticed a roll of toilet tissue sitting beside the commode. In the kitchen there was a length of copper pipe sticking out from the wall, the end crimped.
“Looks like they had an icemaker on the refrigerator,” Ruth said. She had holstered her pistol and was looking curiously around the room. “Wonder why they didn’t just cut off the water?”
“There’s no cutoff in here,” Rhodes said. “It must be outside. Maybe it was too much trouble.”
