Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 09 - Death by Accident

by Bill Crider

  The motorcycle episode was one that Rhodes would just as soon have forgotten about. He took another drink from the Dr Pepper can.

  “A few of your customers have had some bad luck since then,” he said, setting the can on the bar.

  “I heard about them,” Zach said. “John West, Pep Yeldell, Randall Overton. They were all good customers. It doesn’t do my business any good to lose them. I haven’t seen Tuffy in here since he left with his brother that night, and Pep and Randall won’t be back for damn sure.”

  Rhodes wondered if Zach cared about anyone except as a customer. He looked down at the floor where Bilson was sitting up groggily.

  “All the ruckus you stirred up out here that time didn’t help much, either,” Zach continued. “And we didn’t even go to the state play-off.”

  Rhodes was suddenly tired of talking to Zach. He said, “I don’t think I’ll need to make any arrests out here tonight, but I’d like to talk to the Bilsons somewhere in private if you have somewhere I could use.”

  “You can use the office,” Zach said, pointing to a door between two pinball machines. “There’s nobody in there right now.”

  “That’ll do,” Rhodes said. “I have to go out and check on Buddy first. You make sure the Bilsons don’t try to leave.”

  Zach wasn’t enthusiastic about that idea. “I’m not your deputy.”

  “No, but you could be my prisoner if I got upset with you.”

  “All right, I get the point. They won’t go anywhere.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Yvonne said.

  Rhodes was looking forward to having a conversation with her just to test her originality.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her. “Why don’t you see about your husband?”

  Yvonne leaned over and looked down at Grat, who was now leaning against the bar, looking dazed. She didn’t make any move to help him, however.

  “What did you hit him with, anyway?” Rhodes asked.

  “Beer bottle,” Yvonne said, and she smiled for the first time since Rhodes had entered the building.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Buddy had things under control in the parking lot. He’d rounded everyone up and sent them on their separate ways. Cars were pulling out of the lot, and white dust swirled through the light.

  “I was just about to win ’em over in there before you showed up,” Buddy said.

  Rhodes reached for the shotgun. “I could see that. You would have had them on your side in another second or two.”

  “Less, if I’d carried my shotgun in there with me,” Buddy said, handing Rhodes his weapon.

  They walked over to the county car, and Rhodes locked the shotgun back in place.

  “You want me to stay out here, help you get things sorted out?” Buddy asked.

  “I think I’ve pretty much done that. There are a couple of people I want to question about something else, but I can handle that by myself. You can go back on patrol.”

  “You don’t want to double-team them? Give ’em the old good cop, bad cop?”

  “It’s Saturday night,” Rhodes said. “You’d better get back on the road.”

  “Right. Thanks for getting out here so fast.”

  “Johnny on the spot, that’s me. That’s why I’m a highly-paid public servant.”

  “The county’s going broke paying your salary, all right,” Buddy said. “Will you be going back by the jail?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Rhodes told him.

  The County Line’s office was bare and utilitarian. There was a cheap assemble-it-yourself desk that held a computer and monitor. In front of it sat a desk chair, and against one wall there was a couch that sagged in the middle. A mud-colored carpet remnant covered about half the floor. The dark paneled walls were bare, except for a three-year-old Elvira calendar. Over in one corner was Elvira herself, or at least a life-size cut-out of her. She was holding a six-pack of Coors.

  Yvonne and Grat sat on the couch. Rhodes turned the desk chair backwards and straddled it, facing them.

  “Now, then,” he said. “Who wants to tell me what’s going on here?”

  Neither of them said anything. Yvonne yawned and tried to look bored, while Grat still looked a little glassy-eyed.

  “I guess it’s up to you, Mrs. Bilson,” Rhodes said. “Your husband doesn’t look quite ready to talk.”

  Yvonne looked over Rhodes’s shoulder at Elvira. “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “She’uz runnin’ ’round on me ’gin,” Bilson said.

  His voice was weak and his speech was slurred, but Rhodes could hear him all right. So could Yvonne, who didn’t like what he said at all.

  “I was running around on him again because he killed Pep,” she said. “That’s why.”

  That was the most interesting thing that Rhodes had ever heard Yvonne say.

  “Why don’t you tell me about that,” he said.

  Grat didn’t think that was a good idea. “Don’t lissen to ’er. She’s lyin’.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Yvonne said, reverting to her favorite phrase. “You’re the one who told me.”

  “I think I gotta ’cussion,” Bilson said. “Need to go to the ’mergency Room.”

  Rhodes thought Bilson might have a point, but he wasn’t ready for a trip to the hospital, not while Yvonne was being so forthcoming.

  “I’ll take you when your wife tells me her story,” he said. “The sooner she gets it told, the sooner we’ll go to the Emergency Room.”

  Yvonne looked at Rhodes, and then she looked at her husband. She didn’t appear to think very much of either one of them.

  “You don’t have a cigarette, do you?” she asked Rhodes.

  “I don’t smoke. Are you going to tell me about Pep or not?”

  “What the hell,” Yvonne said. “Grat killed Pep because he was jealous of him.”

  “How do you know that?” Rhodes asked.

  “Grat said so. It was just after we found out that Randy Overton was dead. He said he was glad of it, and he was glad Pep was dead too. They were two of a kind, he said, and the world was better off without them.”

  “Didn’ kill ’em, though,” Bilson said.

  “Yes, he did. Randy was with me and Pep that night John West —”

  Bilson flopped around on the couch and tried to hit her, but he wasn’t successful. He fell across her lap and lay there with his eyes closed, breathing quietly. Yvonne didn’t try to move him.

  “Like I was saying,” she went on, resting one hand on the back of Grat’s head, “Randy was Pep’s friend, and he was with us the night John West got killed. That’s the last time me and Pep went out together. Grat came after me that time, too.”

  “When I asked you before, you said you didn’t remember the last time you saw Pep.”

  “Well, I did. But I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “We won’t worry about that for a while, then. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’d told Grat that you weren’t going with Pep anymore, but you were. Grat found out and killed Pep.”

  “That’s right,” Yvonne said. “He’s always been the jealous type.”

  “But why did he kill Randy?”

  “He didn’t like Randy because he got to us on a remodeling deal, but I bet he killed him because he knew about Grat killing Pep.”

  Grat pushed himself up slowly and moved back to his side of the couch.

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” he said. His short nap had done him good. His eyes were clear and so was his speech. “And I never said that I did. She just used that as an excuse to come dancing.”

  “What did you say, exactly?” Rhodes asked.

  “Just what she said I did, that Yeldell and Overton were two of a kind and the world was better off without them. It’s the truth, isn’t it? They were both cheats and liars. Yeldell was worse than that though. He’s the one that tried to steal my wife.”

  Rhodes wanted to get back to another topic, one that really intrigu
ed him.

  “What happened when you came after Yvonne the night John West died?”

  “Not a thing. There wasn’t even a fight that time. I found him and Yvonne and took her home.”

  “Pep would’ve fought you,” Yvonne said. “But he and Randy had other things on their minds.”

  “Sure,” Bilson said. “Finding somebody else to screw out of a few hundred dollars. Or finding a couple of women to dance with.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re jealous and a killer.”

  This time Bilson didn’t swing at her. He just sighed and said, “I didn’t kill anybody. I took you home and put you to bed. Then I watched TV for a while and thought about what I ought to do. I didn’t do it, though.”

  “Yes, you did. You killed him!”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking about. I was thinking about a divorce.”

  “A divorce?” Yvonne was shocked. “Why would you want a divorce?”

  Rhodes thought he’d better interrupt before Grat tried to answer that one.

  “What about last night?” he asked. “Where were you then?”

  “I was at home,” Bilson said. “I’m always at home.”

  “You couldn’t prove it by me,” Yvonne said. “I was at my sister’s.”

  Bilson sighed. “That’s what she always says. She wasn’t at her sister’s. You can ask her sister if you don’t believe me. She was here.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Yvonne said.

  Rhodes was going to ask her to come up with a new expression, but then he thought of something.

  “Why is it that you remember being with Pep on the night John West was killed?”

  “I thought you knew that,” Yvonne said. “John was with us, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rhodes felt a surge of anger. He hadn’t known that at all, mainly because no one had told him. Zach, his only semi-reliable witness, at the County Line hadn’t been able to remember a thing. But Yvonne remembered. Rhodes had seen something in her eyes when he’d mentioned West that night at the Burleson cabin, and now he knew what it was.

  “Sure,” Yvonne said. “We were here at the County Line. We were having a pretty good time until Grat the party pooper showed up.”

  Rhodes thought about going out for a few words with Zach, but he knew talking to him wouldn’t do any good. Maybe Zach really didn’t remember who had been with John West on that night.

  West, Yeldell, and Overton, all in the same place at the same time. And Yvonne Bilson was there too.

  Not to mention Grat.

  “You told me you’d never met West,” he said.

  “We weren’t introduced,” Grat said. “It wasn’t exactly a formal social situation. I don’t know who was sitting at the table except for Yvonne and Yeldell. I wasn’t paying much attention to anyone else.”

  “What do you remember about that evening?” Rhodes asked Yvonne.

  She glared at her husband. “I remember I was having a good time until he got here.”

  “I was thinking more about John West. Did he seem worried about anything?”

  “No. He was having a good time, too. We were all having a good time.” She paused. “But anyway, Grat couldn’t have met John. John wasn’t there when Grat came. He and his brother left early. You know his brother?”

  Rhodes was a little disappointed to hear that Grat hadn’t met West after all, but he put his disappointment aside for the moment.

  “I know Tuffy,” he said. “What time did they leave?”

  “It was before things really got going good, I know that much. So it was before ten o’clock. Probably closer to nine.”

  “Was John with anyone?”

  “Just Tuffy. He was just drinking and having fun.”

  Rhodes wondered about that. And he wondered again about who had told Kara West that her husband was seeing other women. But Yvonne wouldn’t know about that.

  “And you don’t know where he was going when he left?” he asked.

  “Home, he said. He didn’t want his wife to worry about him.”

  Grat laughed at that. “He didn’t want his wife to know where he’d been is more like it.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t ask him,” Yvonne said. “It wasn’t any of my business.”

  “Did you see him leave the building?” Rhodes asked.

  “No. I was having a good time, too.”

  “What about Yeldell and Overton? What did they do after your husband came for you?”

  “If I was gone, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

  “I thought you might have some idea. Maybe they mentioned something to you.”

  “Well, they didn’t. I’m sure they stayed right at the table and had some more fun.” Her eyes got a faraway look in them. “Pep sure did know how to have a good time.”

  Rhodes turned his attention to Grat. “Did you go straight home?”

  “Where else would I go? I wanted to get somewhere that we could talk in private. Not that we talked. I put her to bed and she went right to sleep. Or maybe she didn’t.”

  Yvonne’s look went from faraway to nasty. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I slept on the couch that night, Sheriff,” Grat said. “I can’t swear that my wife was in the bedroom all night.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Yvonne said.

  Grat ignored her. “It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone out the window. If you’re looking for the person who killed John West, maybe it was Yvonne. She could have slipped out the window and driven off in her car, and I never would have known it.”

  “Was her car damaged the next morning?” Rhodes asked before Yvonne could express her opinion of Grat yet again.

  “I don’t know,” Grat said. “I didn’t look at it. But I do know that it wasn’t there when I got home that afternoon.”

  “Where was it, Mrs. Bilson?” Rhodes asked.

  “I took it in to Bull Lowery’s body shop for them to look at,” Yvonne said. “But not because I hit anybody with it. Why would I want to kill John? I’d just had a little fender bender, and I wanted to get it fixed up.”

  “Is that right?” Rhodes asked Grat. “About the fender bender?”

  “Yeah. She never could drive that car into the garage without hitting the side.”

  “Did you get the car fixed?”

  “No,” Yvonne said, looking over his shoulder again. “The estimate was too high. I didn’t think it was worth it.”

  “I’d like to have a look at that car,” Rhodes said.

  “Sure,” Grat said. “Drop by anytime.”

  Yvonne looked at him and opened her mouth, but this time she didn’t have a thing to say.

  * * *

  In spite of what he’d told Buddy, Rhodes did go back by the jail. Hack was watching a late movie on his little TV set, and Rhodes looked over his shoulder to see what it was.

  “Mansion of the Doomed,” Hack said. “You ever seen it?”

  There had been a time in the not too distant past — before his marriage — that Rhodes had watched more than his share of late movies. Now, it seemed that he generally had other things on his mind.

  “Richard Basehart?” he asked.

  “If he’s the guy that used to be on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, yeah.”

  “I’ve seen it, then.”

  “You sure? He’s out killin’ people to get their eyeballs.”

  “For his blind daughter,” Rhodes said. “I’ve seen it, all right. What’s been going on?”

  “It’s Saturday night.”

  “Nothing unusual, then?”

  “Nothing since that ki —” Hack caught himself. “Since that young fella’s grandma came by. She didn’t get him out. She thought it might be a good idea if he stayed here overnight.”

  “She didn’t think he should have hit the man who was using the toothpick?”

  Hack continued to stare at the TV screen. “She didn’t mind that part so much. She thought it might teach the fella a
lesson. But she says the front of a cafe isn’t the place to teach a lesson like that.”

  “She’s right. Anything else?”

  “Just that riot I called you about. I’ve already heard from Buddy about how he broke it up.”

  A commercial for a used-car dealer came on. The dealer was dressed in chaps, a huge cowboy hat, and boots. He was riding an elephant and screaming about making the biggest deals in Texas.

  “You didn’t come by here to tell me about how Buddy did your job for you, did you?” Hack asked, turning around in his chair.

  “No,” Rhodes said. “It was something else.”

  On the drive in from the County Line, he’d been thinking about the way Mack Riley had looked when Rhodes had brought up John West’s name. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Riley had been hiding something.

  “What is it, then?” Hack asked.

  “I wanted you to do something with that computer of yours.”

  “If you had one in the car, you could do it yourself.”

  “Not this. I want you to search some records. Can you do that?”

  Hack looked offended. “I’ve done it plenty of times.”

  “What I’m looking for might never have gone to court.”

  “If a complaint was filed, it’s in there. The courthouse is up to date, even if the sheriff’s office isn’t. What was it you wanted to know about?”

  “I want to know if there’s ever been trouble between Mack Riley and John West.”

  “You don’t think Mack killed anybody, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I just think there was something between him and West that he doesn’t want me to know about.”

  “Well, if there was, I can find it,” Hack said, turning to his computer. “You just give me a few minutes.”

  Rhodes went over to his desk to write up a report on his response to the County Line call. He was still working on it when Hack said, “Here it is.”

  Rhodes took off his glasses and put them in his pocket.

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven