by Bill Crider
“Whatever,” Rhodes said. “We’re just a small county where things like that don’t happen.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ballinger said. “I bet some guy has been hacking up bodies, and Ramsey was disposing of them for him. I bet his conscience got the better of him and he came to you. But he just couldn’t bring himself to tell the whole story. And then, when the hacker found out what Ramsey had done, he killed him. I bet that’s just the way it was!”
Rhodes sighed and changed the subject. “Why aren’t you assisting in the autopsy?” he asked.
“I don’t do that sort of thing much these days,” Ballinger said. “Always glad to allow the use of the facilities, though. Afraid you won’t learn much from this one.”
“I’m just hoping for an estimated time of death,”
Rhodes said. “Have you seen Deputy Grady today?”
“She’s in there doing her job. I haven’t bothered her.”
“I think I’ll just walk on over and have a word with her. See you later, Clyde.”
“Sure, Sheriff. As soon as I get in touch with Mrs. Ramsey and arrange for the funeral, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” Rhodes said. He wasn’t sure that he’d learn anything by attending Bert Ramsey’s funeral, but he wasn’t going to take a chance by missing it. He left Ballinger’s office and walked over to the back room of the funeral home where Ruth Grady was working.
Clearview didn’t have a morgue, but the back room of Ballinger’s was close enough. It was quite cold; there was no danger of putrefaction. Ballinger had kept bodies in there for days, when necessary.
Ruth was just finishing her job. There was a neat stack of fingerprint cards on a small table, but all the various limbs had been replaced in their boxes. Rhodes wasn’t sure just how much good the prints would do. He could eventually send them through the necessary channels, but he couldn’t do it over the telephone, or whatever the big-city boys did. Besides, he was hoping to clear up the whole mess when he got in touch with the Adamses.
Ruth looked up when he walked in. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said, seemingly cheerful in spite of the grisly nature of her assigned job. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Well, it was easy enough to get fingerprints and even footprints. That part’s OK. The bad news is that there aren’t any other prints. Not on the boxes, not on the plastic, not on the tape. Whoever did this was wearing gloves.”
“Surgical gloves, I’d bet,” Rhodes said. “Did you find any more of those tags?”
“Sure did.” She reached down to the table and picked up a stack of the yellow tags from beside the fingerprint forms. “I went ahead and wrote the names from the tags on a piece of paper and stuck it on the limbs.”
“Good job,” Rhodes said. “I’ll take this stuff back to the jail, and you can go out on patrol for a while. I’m going to give this Adams guy a call and see if he can tell us what’s going on.”
“Anything new on the disposal?” Ruth asked.
“No,” Rhodes said. “I’m sure I can get in touch with the state Health Department tomorrow and clear things up. That is, if all these things are legitimate.”
“I hope so. If there’s not a law against dumping something like this, there certainly ought to be.”
“Remember,” Rhodes said, “these boxes were on private property. That makes a difference.”
“Hack told me about Bert Ramsey,” Ruth said. “Any connection there?”
Rhodes concealed his surprise. It was hard for him to believe that Hack had told Ruth anything that he didn’t have to tell her. Maybe he was softening. “Not as far as I know,” he said. “There could be, but for now we’re going to treat this business as a separate incident. If we find a connection, then we’ll see.”
“Does that mean you have a suspect?”
“Not exactly,” Rhodes said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t say I have much of anything yet. You managed to find yourself any informants?
Ruth nodded slowly. “Maybe,” she said. “One, anyway.”
In a small county, informants-Rhodes had never liked to call them snitches-were just as important as they were in New York. Or Isola. Wherever. It was true that much of the gossip of the county could be heard through Hack or Lawton, who seemed to pick it up from the air, but there was nevertheless an underside of society whose comings and goings weren’t part of the common talk. The more informants a deputy had, the better his (or her, Rhodes reminded himself) chances of picking up a piece of talk, a hint, a word or two, that just might prove to be the key to whatever case he was working at the time. Or even to a case that had almost been forgotten.
Rhodes didn’t ask who Ruth’s informant was. Each deputy cultivated his own sources, and each kept them private. Rhodes had a few sources of his own. Instead, he said, “See what you can find out about motorcycles.”
“Motorcycles?”
“Yeah. Motorcycles. I’d like to know who’s riding them these days.”
Ruth looked puzzled, but she said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“If you hear anything, let me know,” Rhodes said. He gathered up the cards and went back to his car. Ruth Grady was not far behind.
Chapter 5
When Rhodes arrived at the jail, the air conditioner was making a peculiar clanking noise.
“Compressor goin’ out,” Hack said gloomily. “I bet it goes out any minute, and we’ll never get anybody in here to fix it on a Sunday. It’ll be a hunnerd and twenty degrees in here by dark.”
“Maybe it’ll wait until Monday,” Rhodes said. He looked over at the radio desk where the remains of a German chocolate cake rested on a paper plate. “What’s that?” he asked.
“That’s a cake,” Hack said.
“I’m a keenly observant lawman,” Rhodes said. “I can see it’s a cake. Where did it come from?”
“Need to improve your interrogation techniques a little, though, don’t you,” Hack said, laughing. “Ru-the new deputy brought it by.”
All right, thought Rhodes. Hack’s not getting soft; he’s just getting softened. But he didn’t comment. “Anything new?” he asked.
“Not except for Bert Ramsey. The drunks’ve all gone home with their wives and lawyers. Last one left about an hour ago. Pretty quiet around here now.”
“And that’s it? Nothing going on at all?” If there was, Hack would tell him, but it sometimes seemed to take forever.
“That’s it.” Hack paused. “Except for the heart attack,” he said finally.
“Heart attack?” Rhodes asked. “What heart attack?”
“Prisoner,” Hack said. “Prisoner had a heart attack.”
Rhodes controlled himself. “Oh,” he said. “I thought maybe you or Lawton had had one.”
“Not us,” Lawton said, as he came through the doorway leading to the cell block. He was carrying a broom. “Me and Hack, why I guess we’re healthy as a pair of mules.”
“Healthier,” Hack said. “I can’t even remember the last time either one of us two had a cold, much less had to take a day off. I think it was in ‘81. Or maybe it was ‘82. I remember it was in October, though, I’m pretty sure of that. . ”
“The prisoner,” Rhodes said.
“Oh, yeah,” Hack said. “Public Safety patrol car brought her in around midnight. Pretty little thing.”
“What was the charge?” Rhodes asked.
“Speeding,” Lawton said. “They lost her when she got that little Porsche of hers up over a hunnerd and thirty-five.”
“Lost her?”
“Yeah, but they found her.”
“Found her?”
Hack shook his head as if Rhodes were being especially dense. “She got a little scared about driving so fast, so she slowed down and turned in on one of the old oil field roads close to town. Must’ve waited in there till she thought the DPS was long gone and then came rollin’ out. So they caught her.”
“Yeah,” Lawton said.
“They wasn’t gone at all. They was still patrollin’ in the area, and when she came out of the oil field, they ran right up on her.”
“Brought her in and charged her,” Hack said. “She called a lawyer, and he come down early this mornin’ and put up bond.”
“What about the heart attack?” Rhodes asked.
“Oh, she had that right after she got here,” Hack said.
“Fell right down on the floor and rolled her eyes and kicked a little bit and yelled that her time was comin’. Said she had a weak heart, and the police brutality had done her in.”
“Wasn’t much to it,” Lawton said. “You remember old Billy Lee Tingley? Now, there was a guy who knew how to have a heart attack. I’ve seen him throw one or two right here in this room that would’ve fooled Dr. Denton Cooley his own self.”
Hack smiled a reminiscent smile. “He could sure do it, all right. Whatever happened to him?”
“Got drunk one night and went to sleep on the railroad tracks down near Thurston,” Lawton said. “Train killed him.”
“About this prisoner,” Rhodes said.
“Not much to tell,” Hack said. “Betty Thornton was her name. She ought to have been ashamed of tryin’ to fool two old hands like me and Lawton. I could do a better job myself.”
“Gave that DPS boy a few bad minutes, though,” Lawton said.
“Yeah, I didn’t know him,” Hack said. “He must be a new one. But he’s smart. He caught on pretty quick when you tipped him.”
“Yeah, and that young woman didn’t try to carry it too far,” Lawton said. “She even laughed a little about it. I hated to put her in a cell. It’s not the nicest place in town.”
“You give her the front one?” Rhodes asked. They kept the front cell for women prisoners. It was fairly clean, and it was private, separated from the others by a plywood wall.
“Right,” said Lawton. “We took good care of her, Sheriff. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Good,” Rhodes said. “Now I’m going to make a phone call. Hack, get on the radio and talk to the DPS, see if that new fella’s on patrol. Ask him if he’s seen any motorcycles around lately. Same thing with Buddy and Bob.”
“OK, Sheriff,” Hack said.
Rhodes got through to Charles Adams without any trouble. As Adams talked, Rhodes could hear a television set in the background, with an announcer doing a play-by-play of an NFL exhibition game. When he told Adams what the problem was, the Houston man began to sputter.
“Damn,” Adams said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“That’s just about the way I feel, too,” Rhodes told him, trying to get comfortable in his squeaky chair. “You don’t think you could enlighten us any, do you?”
Adams hesitated, and Rhodes could hear the TV announcer clearly. Danny White of the Cowboys had just been sacked for a ten-yard loss by a Miami linebacker.
Finally, Adams spoke. “You got a brother-in-law, Sheriff?” he asked.
“No,” Rhodes answered. “I surely don’t.”
“Well, I do,” Adams said. “He’s a doctor, an M.D. Works out of a little hospital not far from here up the interstate. We got to talking the other day, and I told him I was clearing some land, having the brush burned. He was real interested. Seems he was having this little disposal problem. . ”
“I think I’m beginning to get the picture,” Rhodes said. “Can you give me his name and number? I think I need to give him a call.”
“Sure, I guess so. He. . he’s not in any trouble is he?” Adams hesitated. “Hell,” he said, “I guess he must be in trouble or the sheriff wouldn’t be calling. I mean big trouble. He isn’t in big trouble, is he?”
“I’m not sure, to tell the truth,” Rhodes said. “That’s one of the reasons I need to talk to him.”
“Well, all right,” Adams said. He gave Rhodes the telephone number. “His name’s Rawlings. Dr. Malcolm Rawlings.”
Rhodes thanked Adams for his time and hung up. Just as he put the phone down, the air conditioner began to clank louder and faster.
“It’s goin’ out, I know it’s goin’ out,” Hack said, shaking his head gloomily.
“Try to think positively,” Rhodes said. “It might last through the night if you don’t think too many negative thoughts.”
“Sometimes I worry about you, Sheriff,” Hack said. “I really do.”
“I do, too,” Rhodes said. “What about the DPS?”
“Not a thing,” Hack said. “No motorsickles around, least not in a bunch. Not that the DPS knows about, anyway.”
That information didn’t really mean too much, Rhodes thought. There were plenty of places in Blacklin County where hundreds of people could hide if they were of a mind to.
“Ask Buddy and Bob when they come in,” he said. “I’ve got to make another call, if I can hear anything over that racket.”
“It’s goin’ out,” Hack said.
Rhodes turned to the telephone.
Dr. Malcolm Rawlings was in, apparently watching the same game his brother-in-law had been tuned in to.
Rhodes wasn’t quite sure, because the air conditioner was making so much noise that he had difficulty hearing the background noise. He could hear Rawlings just fine, however. The man’s voice boomed out when he answered the telephone. When Rhodes told him who he was and what he wanted, however, Rawlings got considerably quieter.
“Well, ah, you see, Sheriff, there’s been a little problem here, and. . well. . ah. .”
“Let’s put it this way,” Rhodes said. “Just answer yes or no. Did you put those boxes in that brush pile?”
“Well, now, Sheriff, there’s a word you lawmen use. . I think it’s ‘extenuating.’ Yes,” Rawlings said, sounding relieved, “that’s it. ‘Extenuating circumstances.’ That’s what we have here, Sheriff, a plain case of extenuating circumstances.”
“Yes or no?” Rhodes said.
“Well, yes, I did put the boxes there, but there are extenuating circumstances,” Rawlings said. Rhodes thought of Raymond Burr playing Perry Mason.
“Just exactly what are the circumstances?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, as you may know, Sheriff, we usually burn amputated limbs.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. He was getting a little tired of Rawlings’s runaround. “But not in fields.”
“Of course not,” Rawlings said. He chuckled to show that he understood Rhodes’s irony. “But I’ve been doing some work with tissue samples. That’s why I had the limbs in the first place, you see. I certainly didn’t do all those amputations in the little hospital here. We’re just not equipped. And in fact, that’s the real problem. A lack of proper facilities. The furnace is just too small, frankly. It just wouldn’t handle the job.”
“So you decided to dump the remains,” Rhodes said.
“Well, I, ah, wouldn’t say ‘dump.’ I just wanted to dispose of them in an accepted and sanitary manner. They would have been burned, you know.”
“There’s just a little complication,” Rhodes said. “The man who found those boxes is dead. Someone killed him last night.”
There was a lengthy silence. Rhodes listened to the clanking of the air conditioner and snatches of the football game. Finally, Rawlings spoke again. “Do you think that this, ah, incident will get into the news media? I have a. . a professional standing.”
Rhodes thought of the Blacklin County news media.
He thought of Clyde Ballinger. “It might,” he said. “But that’s beside the point. Right now, you’re connected with a murder case, and that’s more important than your ‘professional standing.’ Besides, there’s the matter of proper disposal. I’ll be talking to the state Health Department tomorrow about that problem.”
“I see.”
“No, Doctor, I don’t think you really do,” Rhodes said. He was trying not to lose his temper, but it wasn’t easy. “I want you up here in my office tomorrow morning. I want a strict accounting of every single limb in those boxes. I want you to be able to prove where
every one of them came from. And while you’re at it, you might be giving a little thought to exactly where you were on Saturday night.”
Rawlings sucked in his breath. “Are you accusing me. .?”
“Not at all,” Rhodes said. “But I want you here in the morning at ten o’clock.”
“But my patients!” Rawlings protested.
“Get someone to cover for you, or cancel your appointments,” Rhodes said. “It’s either that, or I get the Houston police to pick you up.”
“I suppose I’ll have to be there, then,” Rawlings said reluctantly. He didn’t sound happy.
“Fine,” Rhodes said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock.” He put the telephone down before Rawlings had time to reply. “Some people are more interested in covering their own backsides than in helping the law,” he told Hack.
“What do you mean ‘some people’?” Hack said. “You mean everybody.”
Rhodes grinned. “You’re right,” he said.
The telephone rang, and Rhodes picked it up. It was Dr. White, calling from Ballinger’s. “I can’t tell you much, Sheriff,” he said. “Not much to tell, really. Bert Ramsey died from a shotgun blast to the chest, fired at close range. I’d say not more than four or five feet. Double-ought buckshot. About ten P.M., depending on when he ate supper, which was steak and beans, mainly.”
“That’s it, huh?” Rhodes asked.
“Not exactly,” White said. “There’s one other little thing that might be of interest to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Ramsey had a tattoo,” White said.
“I think he was in the Army,” Rhodes said. “I guess lots of guys get tattoos in the Army.”
“Not this kind,” White told him. “I think I’ve seen a picture of one like it in the newspapers. It’s a skeleton, riding a motorcycle.”
“I’ve seen that, too,” Rhodes said. “Los Muertos.”
“That’s what I thought,” White said. “They’ve been in the news a lot lately.”
“That’s a fact,” Rhodes said. “Thanks, Doctor.”
“Anytime,” White said. They hung up.
“What’s that about Los Muertos?” Lawton asked.
