by Bill Crider
“You’ve got two prisoners,” Ivy reminded him.
“And another corpse,” Rhodes said.
“Not to mention a dog,” Ivy said, looking at the animal, which had followed Rhodes around to the front.
It sat a few yards away, its tongue hanging out. It was looking at Rhodes expectantly.
“Oh, no,” Rhodes said. “Wait a minute.”
“Somebody has to take care of it,” Ivy said. “Surely you weren’t planning just to leave it here to starve to death.”
“Ah, well, I hadn’t really thought about it, to tell the truth,” Rhodes said.
“Well I had,” Ivy said. “I think you should take it.”
“I’ll think about it,” Rhodes said. “How was Mrs. Ramsey doing?”
Ivy’s face clouded. “I’m not sure. I told her a little of what was going on here, and she started in about ‘that Greer woman being to blame’ and about how Bert had been a fine man until he met her. She was still upset about her being at the funeral, I could tell. She looked stony hard to me. I wouldn’t want her coming at me like she went at Wyneva Greer this morning.”
“I know what you mean,” Rhodes said. “Let’s check on our prisoners.”
Neither man was in any condition to talk, but Rhodes figured they would both be in pretty good shape by the next day. He just hoped that he would. Now that he’d had time to stiffen up, it hurt him even to take a step. “What time is it, anyway?” he asked.
Ivy looked at her watch. “Nearly two o’clock.”
“Seems like I never eat lunch anymore,” Rhodes said. “Now that you mention it. .”
“I guess in all the goings on, I kind of forgot,” Rhodes said. “To tell the truth, I never thought about eating until right now.”
“Me either,” Ivy said.
The dog barked. “Him either,” Rhodes said. He was almost resigned to having to adopt the dog. Then he remembered how the dog had come out from under the porch the first day he’d driven up. “Don’t you need a good watchdog?”
“Watchdog?” Ivy was incredulous. “He didn’t do Buster Cullens much good, did he?”
“I guess he didn’t at that,” Rhodes said. He shook his head and looked at the dog.
Then he looked down the road and saw the ambulance coming.
Chapter 12
Rhodes did not like to ride in the car with dogs. He insisted that if it would be safe to leave the motorcycles in the country overnight, it would also be safe to leave the dog. “He’s used to it here,” he said.
It didn’t do any good. Neither Ruth nor Ivy would listen to him, and so the dog was riding back to town with them in the county car. The fact that Rhodes had to share the back seat with him didn’t help. “After all,” Ruth told him, “you’re at least as dirty as the dog.”
Rhodes didn’t point out that Ivy wasn’t much cleaner. Probably, Ruth would have put the dog in front if he had. Ruth listened to the radio as she drove, a country station. Rhodes had once liked country music, but now it all sounded to him as if the singers were trying to get a job in a Vegas lounge. Occasionally there would be a song he’d like, but not often. It was the same with rock music. Rhodes had grown up with rock, and he had listened for hours to songs like those he’d played for Ivy a few nights before. But somewhere rock music had taken a turn that he had missed. The road forked, and he had taken the wrong fork. He seldom turned on the radio anymore.
So, what with having to sit in the back seat, the prisoner’s seat, Rhodes thought ironically, and having to share the seat with the dog, and having to listen to Kenny Rogers croon through a forest of syrupy violins and cooing backup singers, Rhodes wasn’t in a particularly good mood. Besides, he was dirty, and his back was sore. On top of everything, Rapper and Nellie had gotten away.
It didn’t improve things when Ruth brought up Clyde Ballinger’s latest telephone call. “Hack said you wouldn’t like it,” she said, explaining that Ballinger wanted to talk to Rhodes. Apparently, there was a hitch in the burial plans.
“Just drive by there right now,” Rhodes told her.
“Now?” Ruth looked at him in the mirror.
Ivy turned in her seat and looked back through the grille that separated them. “Are you sure? I think if you had a bath and something to eat. . ”
“I don’t want a bath, and I don’t want anything to eat,” Rhodes said. “I want to get this mess settled.”
“All right,” Ruth said. “You’re the sheriff.”
For a minute or two, no one spoke. The dog lay quietly in the seat, his tongue hanging out.
“So,” Ruth said finally, “what are you going to name the dog?”
“Don’t start,” Rhodes said. “Just don’t start.”
“It’s a sensible question,” Ivy said. “Are you sulking because I can ride a motorcycle better than you?”
“Of course not,” Rhodes said. But then he wondered if maybe she had a point. “I think I may name the dog Carella.”
“What?”
“Carella?”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Italian, I think.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Ivy said. “I meant, what kind of name is that for a dog to have?”
“I think it’s kind of nice,” Ruth said. “It has a nice sound.”
“I like it,” Rhodes said. He could hardly wait to tell Ballinger.
Ballinger liked the name, all right, but it didn’t change his mind. “I can’t bury them,” he said. They were in his office, and he looked at Rhodes as if he wished Rhodes would disappear, or at least go home and change clothes. Ruth and Ivy were looking at the books that lined the shelves and not really listening. Every now and then they would pull one down and read the cover blurbs.
“You took Dr. Rawlings’s money,” Rhodes said. “You’ve got to bury them.”
“I can send the money back,” Ballinger said. “I’ve talked to my lawyer, and he says burying them would be a mistake. What if someone decided to sue?”
Rhodes sighed. It was the modern way. Everybody was suing everybody else. He supposed that even a mortician could be sued. “No one’s going to sue,” he said.
“How do you know?” Ballinger asked. He didn’t ask in a smart way. He really wanted to know.
“Because all those limbs are from people who believe that they’ve already been disposed of.” Rhodes didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but it sounded plausible. “They’re from amputees who paid someone to remove them. They were supposed to be burned. No one will ever know that you buried them.”
“You’re sure?”
“Rawlings hauled them off up here and dumped them in a pasture. You think a doctor would take a chance like that if there was even a remote possibility he could be sued?”
“You’ve got a point there,” Ballinger said. “That lawyer of mine probably isn’t as smart as he thinks. I’ll do it.”
“I hope so,” Rhodes said. “I’m getting tired of thinking about those boxes. So give me an exact time. I want to be there.”
Ballinger thought for a second. “Tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. The north end of the cemetery. No use calling any more attention to this than we have to.” The north end of the cemetery was well back from the road and overlooked miles of open pasture.
“I’ll be there,” Rhodes said.
They left Ballinger and went back to the car, where the dog was waiting quietly. Ruth and Ivy were talking about the books.
“Can you believe there’s really a book called Guerrilla Girls?” Ivy asked.
“How about Backwoods Hussy?” Ruth said.
“Don’t laugh,” Rhodes told them. “Some of those old books are pretty good.”
Both women looked at him, but neither said a word. Rhodes sat in the back seat and rubbed the dog’s head.
After he had bathed and eaten a sandwich, Rhodes felt better. Several ideas about what was going on were beginning to form, and while he didn’t think he had all the answers, he did t
hink he was getting a handle on things.
He went outside and looked at the dog, which seemed content to lie by the back steps. Of course, he’d eaten practically a whole package of Rhodes’s bologna, so he certainly should have been content, at least for the time being. Rhodes knew he’d have to buy some real dog food pretty soon.
He had owned only one dog before, when Kathy was small. The dog’s name was Speedo, for no good reason that Rhodes could remember. Like most dogs, Speedo had soon become like another member of the family and had lived with them happily for nearly ten years. Then one day he had run into the street, something he never did, and been hit by a passing car. Claire and Kathy had cried and cried-Kathy continued to sniffle for days-and Rhodes had taken Speedo into the back yard and buried him. Rhodes had cried a little, too. The rock that marked Speedo’s grave still got in the way on those rare occasions when he mowed the back yard, but he’d never even given a thought to moving it. They had never gotten another dog.
“What the heck,” Rhodes said to the dog. “You don’t look Italian. I think I’ll just call you Speedo. Nobody but you and I will know that your real name is Mr. Earl.”
The dog, his tongue still hanging out slightly, looked at Rhodes. His tail thumped twice.
“That’s settled, then,” Rhodes said. He went back inside, ate another sandwich, using the last piece of his bologna, and went down to the jail.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Hack said when Rhodes walked in. “What you drivin’?”
Rhodes didn’t really want to think about the shot-up car he’d left at Buster Cullens’s house. “I’m in my pickup,” he said.
“Hear you got yourself a dog,” Lawton said, “one with an Eye-talian name.”
“His name’s Speedo,” Rhodes said. “I changed it.”
“Oh,” Lawton said. Whatever joke he’d planned about the dog’s name was ruined.
Hack took up the slack. “Guess you heard about the demonstration.”
Rhodes hadn’t heard, of course.
“Big demonstration down by the phone company,” Lawton said, wanting to get in on things. Hack looked at him and Lawton shut up.
“Lady called,” Hack said. “She thought it might be commonists, wantin’ to blow up the phone company.”
“I didn’t know there were enough Communists in Blacklin County to hold a demonstration,” Rhodes said.
“You may be right,” Hack said, “but I figured you’d want me to send somebody out to investigate.”
“Absolutely right,” Rhodes said. “We wouldn’t want a Communist takeover right here in the middle of Texas.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” Hack said. “So I sent Buddy.”
“That reminds me,” Rhodes said. “What about that doll?”
“The evidence is safe,” Lawton said. “Flatter than a flitter.”
“About this here demonstration,” Hack said.
“What about it?”
“You know where the Presbyterian church is?” Hack asked.
“That’s the one where the Reverend Funk preaches,” Lawton put in. Hack glared at him.
“Sure I know,” Rhodes said. “What’s that got to do-Wait a minute. There wouldn’t have been a wedding there today, would there?”
Hack was a little disappointed that Rhodes had caught on. “Yeah, there was,” he said. “Right catty-corner from the phone company. Looks like I sent Buddy down there to bust up a weddin’ reception. They was all out on the walk, wavin’ little bags of rice around and laughin’ and goin’ on. It prob’ly looked like a demonstration to somebody.”
“I can see that,” Rhodes said, not really sure that he could. “Did the caller give a name?”
“Nope. One o’ those ‘nonymous calls. Good thing, too. Whoever it was’ll feel bad enough when she finds out, anyway.”
“I doubt it,” Rhodes said. “Whoever it was will just think it was a bunch of demonstrators disguised as a wedding party.”
“You may be right, at that,” Hack said.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Rhodes said. “As long as it’s taken care of. Now, have you sent a wrecker out for the county car?”
“Sure have. Commissioners are gonna love that. First the air conditioner, and then the car. Bet our insurance goes up.”
Rhodes changed the subject. “I’m going out to Gottschalk’s place. You ever call him?”
“Yep. That Nellie is his nephew, all right. Hasn’t seen him in years, though. Remembers him as a pretty good kid when he was little.”
“Well, he’s not little anymore,” Rhodes said.
“What you goin’ out there for?” Lawton asked. “They surely won’t be stayin’ around after what happened this mornin’.”
“I know that,” Rhodes said. “They might have left something behind, though.” He was pretty sure they hadn’t. Rapper may have been psychotic, but he was smart. There wasn’t anything else he could do today, however. He knew that the doctors at the hospital wouldn’t let him do any serious questioning of Jayse and the other man until the next morning, after all the tests had been run and the injuries determined.
“Better take you some backup, just in case,” Hack said.
“No need for that,” Rhodes said. “They’ll be long gone from there by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were halfway to El Paso.”
“All the same,” Hack said.
“Don’t worry,” Rhodes told him. “There won’t be any problem.” He hoped he was right.
He was wrong, but he didn’t know it at first. The sun was setting when he arrived at Gottschalk’s and drove over the cattle guard, but there was still enough daylight left for Rhodes to see that the tent was gone, and that no motorcycles were parked anywhere around. He drove his pickup down to where the tent had been and parked it.
The ground was a good deal scuffed up where the tent had been, but there hadn’t been much rain here and things weren’t in a really disturbed state. Rapper had probably been in a hurry, but not such a hurry as to leave things behind. Only in such a hurry as to move things quickly.
Rhodes scoured the ground and found nothing. He tried to trace the tracks of the bikes, but the ground was too torn up for that. As it began to get darker, he stopped looking and went to stand under the oak tree and look out at the water.
There was something about a tank at dusk that Rhodes really liked. Maybe it was the stillness of the water, or the quiet. Or maybe it was the way he could see a fish strike at a water bug every now and then, causing the water to pop and swirl for just a second or two. He thought briefly about getting his fishing rod out from behind the truck seat and making a few casts, but he told himself that would be too unprofessional. Still, it was a strong temptation.
He rested his sore back against the rough bark of the tree and soaked up the tranquility for a while. Then, just as the first dark was settling in, he thought that he heard something.
It could have been just a trick of the quiet, but he didn’t think so. He strained his ears and listened. After what seemed like quite a while, he heard something again. Voices.
Out in the country, in the late, late afternoon, when things are so still you’d think movement almost didn’t exist, voices carry a long way. Even voices pitched low.
Rhodes wondered who could be in the pasture, but he figured he knew. Who else could it be? He should have looked for those tracks more carefully, he thought. He should have made a few circles, widening each one, around the campsite. Then he might have found out sooner. As it was, he’d almost missed it.
Rapper was smart, all right. Rather than risk finding another place to stay, he’d simply moved deeper into Gottschalk’s property. He’d thought that anyone looking for him would accept the obvious fact that he was gone and then go look somewhere else. And he’d almost been right.
Rhodes eased up on top of the tank dam. It was mostly clay, softened a little by the rain, with a few bushes and weeds on top, just enough to offer a little cover if he kept low.
Ther
e wasn’t much to see. Certainly there wasn’t a tent, and there were no motorcycles. There was, however, a little copse of trees about four hundred yards away. In the gathering darkness, it was impossible to tell if there was a tent in there, but Rhodes would have bet there was.
Rhodes had absolutely no desire to slither on his stomach for four hundred yards. Instead, he went into a crouching run, from one bunch of milkweeds to the next, feeling he looked a little like Wile E. Coyote running along after a boulder had fallen on him.
He got to the edge of the woods, and he could hear the voices clearly by then, though they were slightly muffled and he still couldn’t make out what was being said. He slipped his pistol out of its holster, stood up, and stepped behind the nearest tree. When he looked around it, he could see the dark outlines of the tent.
The rain had softened things up, and Rhodes thought he could make it to the tent without rustling the leaves. He just hoped that he didn’t hang his pants leg on a thorny vine or step on a dead branch. He eased around the tree and crept forward, his pistol pointed at the tent.
He reached the tent easily. When he was near enough, he said, “All right, Rapper. You and Nellie come on out.”
There was a brief shuffling around in the tent, and Rhodes began to wonder if they were armed. In a second, however, Rapper and Nellie came out the front of the tent. They were crawling, since the tent was a small one. It was dark now, especially in the trees, but Rhodes could see no sign of a weapon in their hands.
“Well, you found us, Rhodes,” Rapper said as he stood up. “I have to give you credit. You’re smarter than I thought you were.”
“Not smarter,” Rhodes said. “Just luckier. Now if you two would just step apart a little. . ” He motioned with the pistol, and the two men moved slightly apart. “A little farther. . fine.”
He moved over to Rapper to put the cuffs on him, all the time watching Nellie out of the corner of his eye. He had no idea that anyone could be behind him, but when he heard the slight rustle of the leaves he tried to turn. He was too late. The end of the tree limb hit him squarely on the side of the head.
