Cursed to Death

by Bill Crider

  The block came out of the tank, sucking a little as it left the muddy bottom and stirring up mud and bubbles as it came.

  When it was on the bank, they looked at it under the lights. It was wet and dark, about a foot and a half thick and about eight feet long.

  “You think he’s in there?” Buddy asked.

  A bit of a breeze came by and Rhodes shivered. “I think he’s in there, all right. I think Barnes built him a frame in his pickup bed and covered him in concrete and then dumped him in the tank.”

  “Pretty good idea,” Buddy said. “Too bad he couldn’t’ve got him into deeper water. We never would’ve found him then.”

  Rhodes got his towel and started drying off. He was sure he’d have a cold by the next day. He could already feel his sinuses acting up. “You never can tell,” he said. “Ivy might have been fishing on the bottom for catfish.”

  “Do I get a Crimefighter’s badge?” Ivy asked.

  “No,” Rhodes said, “but I might let you come to the jail Christmas party.”

  Rhodes was right on two counts. They jackhammered open the slab of concrete and found Dr. Martin. Rhodes also had a bad cold.

  “Drixoral,” Hack said. “I saw it on TV. Highly advertised stuff. Bound to be good for you.”

  Rhodes sneezed. “I don’t believe in any of that stuff,” he said.

  “I didn’t use to,” Hack said. “But it may be better than what we used to have.”

  “Maybe I’ll try it,” Rhodes said. He knew he wouldn’t.

  “You talk to Barnes this mornin’?” Hack asked.

  “Sure enough.” Rhodes said. He sneezed again.

  “You need to wash your hands a lot,” Hack said. “I saw on TV that you can spread a lot more germs by touchin’ things than you can even by kissin’. Not that you’d be doin’ any of that. Kissin’, I mean.”

  Rhodes looked at him. Hack looked blandly back.

  “What’d Barnes say?” Hack asked. “Better ‘n that, what did old Wally Albert say?”

  “Not much,” Rhodes said. “They can’t seem to understand how that slab got in the tank.”

  “Can you prove how?”

  “Probably. We’ve got the tire tracks. We’ve got the concrete and the remains of it from Little’s truck. We’ve got a motive that might look better with those things in mind.”

  “How’d he die? Martin, I mean?”

  “Don’t know yet. Looked to me like he’d been hit. Barnes didn’t know his own strength.”

  “Still haven’t been able to find anybody who saw him drive that Suburban out to Milsby?”

  “Not yet,” Rhodes said, sneezing one more time. “Ruth’s still asking.”

  “I think we got him anyway,” Hack said. “You seen the mail?”

  “You mean the invitation?” Rhodes said. “I seen it.”

  It was a wedding invitation, requesting Rhodes’s presence at the uniting in holy matrimony of Marietta Ellen White and John Mark Stuart, the service to be held at ten A.M. at the Sunny Dale Home in room 121.

  “You goin’?”

  “Sure,” Rhodes said. “When is it?”

  “Day before Christmas,” Hack said. He looked over at their tree. “They got a tree out there?”

  “Not much of a one,” Rhodes said.

  “I was thinkin’,” Hack said. “Maybe we could share some of our presents with them out there. I hate to think of anybody not havin’ a good time on Christmas.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes you surprise me, Hack.”

  Hack didn’t say anything. He kept looking at the tree.

  “But we aren’t going to share two of those presents,” Rhodes said.

  “Them two wrapped in the silver and gold foil?” Hack asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I wondered why you was so late gettin’ in this mornin’. You didn’t spend all that time at the hospital with Barnes.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You wouldn’t want to tell me what’s in ‘em, I guess.”

  “Not me,” Rhodes said. “That would spoil the surprise.”

  A Preview of TOO LATE TO DIE

  Book One of the Dan Rhodes Mystery Series

  Chapter 1

  It was another damn election year, and if there was one thing that Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew for sure it was that Hod Barrett wasn’t going to vote for him this time either.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that Barrett could just be ignored. As sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas, Rhodes was obliged to listen to Barrett’s complaints and even try to help him out when his little grocery store got robbed, which seemed to be about every two or three weeks here lately.

  “It’s just some damn kids, Sheriff Rhodes,” Barrett said, jamming his big, blocky fists deep down in his pockets. He was about as tall as an anvil sitting on an oak stump, and just as solid. Thin, bristly red hair stuck straight up all over his head, and his face was almost as red as his hair. “They don’t never take nothing but a few cartons of smokes and some beers. Maybe a Moon Pie or two. Looks like you could catch a bunch of damn kids, or at least give us folks here in Thurston a reg’lar patrol.”

  Thurston, according to the green and white City Limit sign not a quarter of a mile from Barrett’s store, had a population of 408. It was seven miles from Clearview, the county seat. Rhodes considered these facts for a second or two. “Well, Hod,” Rhodes said, “if you could persuade the commissioners to hire me five or six more deputies, I’m sure we could have one of them spend lots of time around here. As it stands right now, though, the best I can do is send one through every now and then. Johnny Sherman was by here last night, if he followed his route.”

  Hod shoved his hands even further down in his jeans, not quite hard enough to cause the brass rivets to pop off the stitching at the top. “That Johnny Sherman couldn’t find his butt with both hands,” he said.

  “Now, Hod,”‘ Rhodes said patiently, “you know that’s not so, but if you don’t like the way we’re doing things over at the county seat, maybe you and some of the folks here in Thurston could get together and hire yourselves a town marshal.”

  Hod made a face and looked like he was about to strangle. “It’s the sheriff’s responsibility to protect us and our property!” he said in a choked voice. “We pay your salary with our taxes. You’re elected by the people of this county, and you’re supposed to protect us from damn thieving kids!”

  The two men were standing on the cracked gray sidewalk in front of Hod’s store, shaded by a heavy wooden awning. Rhodes looked through the screen doors of the store with their faded Rainbow Bread stencils. He could see some of the old men on the red loafer’s bench by the soft drink cooler lean forward and perk up their ears. One of them spit a stream of snuff into a Styrofoam cup he held in his left hand. Any minute now, they would get up the nerve to walk outside and join in the conversation. Rhodes didn’t want to make a campaign speech, so he changed the subject.

  “Tell you what, Hod,” he said. “Let’s us go take a look at where the break-in was.”

  The appearance of positive action calmed Barrett slightly, and he led the sheriff around to the back of the store. The grass in the alleyway was mowed short; even that around the building was trimmed. Barrett often boasted to his friends that he bought his wife the best lawn mower available.

  On the ground by the red brick wall of the store lay an old evaporative cooler that had been set up on a wooden stand. The remains of the stand were scattered around. Whoever had broken into the store had simply knocked, or kicked, the stand from under the cooler, which had then fallen to the ground, pulled by its own weight. That had left a rectangular hole in the wall about three feet up, easy enough to crawl through even if you were just a kid.

  “Last time they broke out my restroom window and then kicked the door to the storeroom open,” Barrett said, disgusted.

  “Maybe somebody just finds this place too easy to break into,” Rhodes suggested mildly.r />
  “Now just a damn minute, Sheriff,” Barrett protested, bringing his hands out of his pockets for the first time and waving them in the air like catchers’ mitts. “You got no call . . .”

  Whatever he had been about to say, was interrupted by the sound of a car humming up the gravel road that ran beside the store. They turned to look just as the driver threw on his brakes and brought the automobile to a sliding, fishtailing stop. White dust settled over them, pushed by the car’s momentum and a slight westerly breeze. Then Bill Tomkins catapulted himself out of the driver’s seat, yelling, “Sheriff Rhodes, Sheriff Rhodes, you gotta come quick! Elmer Clinton’s done killed his wife!”

  Two minutes later Rhodes pulled up in Elmer Clinton’s yard, scattering about thirty bantam hens and one scrawny rooster in all directions. The white frame house looked peaceful enough, shaded by a couple of big chinaberry trees, but the front door was standing open behind the screen. Rhodes got out of his car and started up on the porch. He had his right foot on the second of the two cement steps when Bill Tomkins and a load of the loafers from Barrett’s store drove up.

  “Don’t anyone get out of that car,” Rhodes yelled as he stepped up on the porch. “I’ll put every damn one of you in jail.”

  Bill Tomkins turned off his engine, but nobody in the car moved. Rhodes opened the screen and went on in the house.

  It was cool and dim inside, but not so dim that Rhodes had any trouble spotting Jeanne Clinton. She was lying in the small living room about seven or eight feet from the front door. The room looked as if a storm had blown through it. A platform rocker, its cushions printed with early American designs, was overturned, and a heavy glass lamp had been shattered against the wall. An end table lay on its side, and magazines were scattered around the room. A Redbook and a Cosmopolitan lay by the end table. Beside Jeanne Clinton’s body there was a copy of TV Guide with J. R. Ewing smiling evilly from its cover. The throw rugs that had covered the hardwood floor were wadded together as if someone had skidded on them.

  Rhodes walked over to the body, touching nothing. There was some blood, but not much. Jeanne Clinton’s face had been pretty, but now it was bruised and cut. Her slim neck was twisted at an odd angle; Rhodes was no doctor, but he thought it was probably broken. Though there had obviously been quite a struggle, there seemed to be no other marks on the body. Jeanne had been wearing shorts and a halter, showing off her spectacular figure, and her smooth arms and legs were unmarked except for some slight discolorations on the upper left arm, where someone might have squeezed it tightly.

  Rhodes looked around the rest of the house but saw nothing else that was disturbed—no open drawers or signs of robbery. He went back outside to deal with the crowd of curiosity seekers.

  Bill Tomkins and his friends had gotten up enough nerve to get out of the car, but they hadn’t moved away from it. They were leaning against its side, and Bill was telling them about finding the body.

  Rhodes figured that as long as Bill was telling the story, he might as well tell it officially. “Come on up here on the porch, Bill,” Rhodes called.

  Tomkins, a storklike man with weathered skin and a prominent Adam’s apple, reluctantly separated himself from his cronies and shuffled over to the house. He and Rhodes settled themselves on the edge of the porch.

  “How’d you come to find her, Bill?” Rhodes asked.

  Tomkins gestured toward the dirt road that ran in front of the house. “I live just up the road,” he said. His voice had a slight wheeze in it, because Bill smoked a lot. “Nearly every day I have to go get something or other at Hod’s store, like biscuits or milk maybe, and when I passed by here today I saw that the front door was open. So I just thought I’d stop by, you know, like a neighbor, and say hello to Elmer. That’s when I found her.” His voice trailed off.

  “Bill,” Rhodes said quietly, “Elmer’s car’s gone. You can see the ruts right over there by that chinaberry tree where he parks it.” The sheriff pointed over to their left where there were a couple of ruts and a patch of oil in the dirt between them. Two chickens were scratching in the ruts, and shriveled yellow berries with their stems still clinging to them lay in the oil. “You make it a habit to stop by and say hello to old Elmer when he’s not at home, do you?”

  The day was already warm, though it was still early, but Tomkins was sweating more than seemed natural. “No, Sheriff,” he wheezed. “Course not, but, uh . . . I, well . . .”

  Rhodes let him dangle for a second. Then he spoke. “You trying to tell me that Elmer might have had a reason to kill his wife? He’s not here, but you said he did it, remember? Did you say that because you think he might’ve wanted to?”

  Tomkins’s head wobbled on his thin neck as he gave a negative shake. Then he appeared to change his mind. “Hell, I’ll tell you. You’d find out quick enough anyways. Elmer works at the cable plant in Clearview, the twelve to eight shift. He usually don’t get home till around nine-thirty or ten, eats breakfast at some cafe—supper to him I guess—’fore he comes home. Sometimes I stop by and talk to Jeanne on my way to the store. Just talk, that’s all. She was a nice, friendly girl. But I ain’t never been here ‘cept in the broad daylight. Not like some other folks.”

  “What other folks you got in mind, Bill?” Rhodes asked.

  “I wasn’t thinkin’ of anyone in particular.” Tomkins looked out at the men standing by his car. They hadn’t moved, and they were watching the two men on the porch like a hawk watches a rabbit.

  “You might as well tell me, Bill. This is a murder case we have here, and I know you wouldn’t want to stand in the way of justice being done. Besides, like you say, I’ll find out soon enough anyhow.”

  “I don’t like to talk about my neighbors,” Tomkins said, though not as reluctantly as he might have if he really meant it. “But there’s Hod Barrett for one.”

  Rhodes thought about that for a while. Then he sent Tomkins and his friends on their way. As sheriff of Blacklin County, he had to perform the on-scene investigation.

  Rhodes got his evidence kit and his old Polaroid camera out of the trunk of the county car. County funds did not suffice to make him a well-equipped investigator, but he knew what to do with what he had: photographs of the body, fingernail scrapings, fingerprints, if any, all the little details. He wouldn’t vacuum the room or the body like they would in some big-city police department, but he would be careful.

  Rhodes didn’t mind taking the time, but he wasn’t convinced that anything he found would be of help. He was a man who believed in his instincts. He liked to talk to people, listen to their stories, size them up. If they had anything to hide, he could usually find it out. But physical evidence didn’t hurt anything when it was available.

  He found nothing significant. Oddly, there was not even anything under Jeanne’s fingernails, as if she hadn’t fought back, hadn’t even scratched her assailant.

  Rhodes thought about that for a while, too. Then he went into the kitchen to the telephone and called the justice of the peace and an ambulance.

  After Jeanne Clinton was pronounced dead at the scene, her body was taken away in the ambulance. It would go to Dallas for the autopsy, and Rhodes knew that it would be several days before he got the results. Rhodes was in no particular hurry. It seemed pretty certain that Jeanne hadn’t been raped, since the clothes were still on the body, and it appeared equally sure that she had died of a broken neck. Finding out who did it was all that mattered now, and to find that out he would have to find out who would have a reason to want her dead, either that or who would be mad enough to kill her in a quick and violent fit of temper and rage. Or maybe there was more to it than that. Not exactly the kind of case Rhodes needed in a reelection year.

  Elmer Clinton still hadn’t arrived home. Rhodes left Joe Tufts, the JP, there to give Clinton the news. Tufts and Clinton had gone to high school together. Rhodes started back to Clearview by way of one of the county roads. It was still early in the day, and the sheriff wanted to do some th
inking before he talked to Hod Barrett again.

  Rhodes had just crossed the plank bridge over Sand Creek when he spotted something lying in the bar ditch in a patch of tall Johnson grass. He pulled the car as far off the narrow road as he could and got out to take a look at what at first glance appeared to be a pile of discarded clothing. When he slammed the car door, the pile jumped up and started running.

  It was Billy Joe Byron. On an ordinary day, Billy Joe would never have run from the sheriff, and Rhodes wouldn’t have chased him, but this wasn’t an ordinary day.

  “Dammit, Billy Joe,” Rhodes yelled. “Slow down. If I get a cut on me from this Johnson grass, I’m going to kick your butt.”

  Billy Joe paid no attention to Rhodes’s threat. If Rhodes’s quarry hadn’t hung his pants leg trying to climb over a barbed-wire fence by the ditch, the sheriff might never have caught him. When Rhodes put his hand on Billy Joe’s shoulder, Billy Joe fell backwards into the weeds and grassburrs, tearing his pants leg from the knee to the cuff. He lay in the grass going “Uhh-uhh-uhh-uhh.” There was dried blood on the front of his clothes.

  Billy Joe Byron was a well-known character in Blacklin County. He wandered up and down all the roads and highways picking up aluminum cans to sell for twenty cents a pound, or whatever the current rate was. Before that, he’d picked up returnable bottles. He’d been making a living like that ever since Rhodes could remember. He had no other means of support. Most folks in Blacklin County figured that Billy Joe wasn’t quite right in the head.

  They were probably correct. A couple of years earlier, Rhodes had run him in a few times on Peeping Tom charges, but other than that he’d never been in any trouble. He couldn’t read or write, seldom talked, and seemed generally harmless. He stayed out of people’s ways. Now here he was with dried blood on his clothes.

  Rhodes sat down beside him on a spot relatively free of grassburrs. Billy Joe tried to burrow in the ground like an armadillo digging a hole, still going “Uhh-uhh-uhh-uhh.” He’d never seemed afraid of Rhodes before, not even when he’d been arrested.