by Bill Crider
“Let’s say we just forget it,” Rhodes said. “Fine by me. Then we have you, Nellie, Jayse, all standing around in the room with a dead body and Jayse holding the murder weapon. You got a pretty good lawyer?”
“The best,” Rapper said, the grin still in place. “Good enough to get Wyneva to admit the murder again if I want her to.”
Rhodes hated Rapper for being able to stand up so easily. If Rhodes had been able to sit on a soft cot, he would have done so. He had to stand. He wished he’d been able to hurt Rapper more. Then he was sorry he’d wished it.
“All right,” Rhodes said, “but there’s still Bert Ramsey. We’ll get you on that one. All I have to do is find the gun. And when I tell Wyneva that you killed Bert, she’ll tell us everything she knows. The only riding you’ll be doing then is in the prison rodeo down in Huntsville. No more motorcycles for you.”
Rapper laughed, let go of the bars, and went back to sit on the cot, giving Rhodes a little satisfaction, but not much. Rhodes didn’t like the laugh. It was entirely too confident.
“There’s only one little problem with that idea, Sheriff,” Rapper said.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll never find the gun.” Rapper put his arms behind his head, lifted his feet up on the cot, and lay back.
“I’ll find it,” Rhodes said.
“It won’t be easy,” Rapper said to the ceiling.
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Rhodes said. “I said I’d find it.”
“How’ll you prove it’s mine?” Rapper asked, still looking up.
Rhodes paused. He didn’t know.
“Anybody ever see me with a gun?” Rapper said, pressing it. “Did you? Except for your own pistol, of course.”
“Fingerprints,” Rhodes said, but he wasn’t confident.
“What if I wiped it clean?” Rapper said. “Or better yet, what if I didn’t kill Ramsey?”
Now it was Rhodes who was gripping the bars, looking in at Rapper. “If you didn’t, who did?”
“How do I know? I’m not the sheriff.” Rapper sat up. “Look, you’ve caught me and roughed me up, and I’m not complaining. I may even be guilty of a couple of things. Or maybe I’m not. But I’m not going to be set up for some stupid charge like murder. Think about it. Why would I kill Ramsey? The guy was a gold mine for me. We were raking it in. That is, we were if what you think is true. So why do I kill him? Answer that one.” Rapper put his hands behind his head and lay back down.
Rhodes stood looking at him through the bars for a minute, then went out into the office. He sat in his chair that no longer squeaked and waited for Cox and Malvin.
Chapter 19
Cox and Malvin had even less luck than Rhodes. Rapper refused to talk to them.
“There’s no way we can really tie him to the stuff,”
Cox said. Malvin nodded in agreement. “We all know what he was doing in the county,” Cox went on. “The Greer woman had to get in touch with him and let him know that she was suspicious of Cullens. Otherwise, I don’t think he would have come around until time for a harvest. Apparently, though, Rapper is willing to let her take the fall for Cullens and trust that she won’t implicate him. He may just walk out of this.”
“He might,” Rhodes said. “It’s pretty obvious that we can get him on some assault charge, along with the others, but that might be the extent of things.”
“They have a pretty clever operation going,” Malvin said. “They find these little counties and they grow just a little patch of dope, not enough to call attention to themselves. Then they cut it and sell it somewhere else, never where they grow it. Rapper is just part of the whole operation, not the brains.”
“He’s pretty smart,” Rhodes said.
“True enough,” Cox said. “Smarter that we are, maybe.”
At that minute, the jail door opened and a man walked in. He was dressed in a conservative blue suit with faint chalk-colored stripes in it, a suit that made the suits worn by Cox and Malvin look like something they’d picked up at a local discount store. He wore lots of gold-rings on both hands, and a thick gold watch. He was young, maybe thirty-two, with a smooth, unlined face. His hair had been carefully styled, and though it was not long, it was cut full and carefully layered. “I’m Wayne Gault,” he said. “I believe you have my clients, Mr. Rapper and Mr. Nelson, in custody here.” His rich baritone was carefully modulated, but Rhodes could tell that he could make it boom if he wanted to.
“Show him,” Rhodes said to Lawton, who was sitting by Hack at the radio table.
Lawton got up and led Wayne Gault to the cells.
Cox and Malvin looked depressed. “At least we cut off the supply,” Malvin said. “A lawyer like that, we don’t have much chance of anything else. Looks like Los Muertos can afford the best.”
“We’ll get some indictments when all this comes to the grand jury,” Rhodes said.
“Sure,” Cox said. “But what do you think will happen when-or if-you get to court? How much can we really prove?”
“We can get them on the assault,” Rhodes said. He knew it wasn’t much. It certainly wasn’t enough.
“And the Greer woman,” Malvin said. “Don’t forget her.”
“I’m glad to get her,” Cox said. “Damn her. If Buster had just gotten a little more information.”
“Let’s not speak ill of the dead,” Malvin said.
“Damn,” Cox said.
Rapper and Nellie were out on bail by early afternoon. Wyneva was clearly to be the scapegoat. She didn’t even seem to mind it very much. Jayse and his buddy in the hospital would be free as soon as the doctor released them. Rhodes doubted that he would ever see any of the four again. They had made their bail and they would gladly forfeit it, just as long as they never had to come back to Blacklin County again. He had told Malvin and Cox that the assault charges would stick, but they would stick only if they could get the men in court. Rhodes figured that they would disappear in Houston or Dallas, or maybe even out of the state. It was a depressing thought.
It was equally depressing that Rapper had proved smarter than Rhodes thought he was. He had easily pointed out the flaws in Rhodes’s own thinking. Rhodes wondered why he had even considered Rapper guilty of shooting Bert Ramsey in the first place.
Sitting at home in his chair, Rhodes was going over the whole thing one more time. He had left the jail after Rapper’s lawyer had posted the bail. He had called Cox and Malvin first, then gotten into his pickup and left. He’d fed Speedo and eaten a sandwich, thinking he would watch the movie and think. The movie was Hell’s Angels on Wheels. Rhodes turned it off.
He thought about all the things that had bothered him from the beginning. The first thing was Bert Ramsey’s finding the boxes of amputated limbs. That was just coincidence. Had to be, and Rhodes was glad that at least that part of things had been brought to a more or less satisfactory ending. The contents of the boxes had been safely buried and could do no harm now, if they ever could have.
Anyone with normal curiosity would have opened those boxes, and Bert Ramsey was normal. When he saw what they contained, he decided to report them rather than take a chance on stirring up even bigger trouble. After all, they weren’t found on his land, and there would be no call for Rhodes to do any searching there. Bert was clean on that one, and he’d probably figured that he could only get into more trouble by failing to report what he’d found if it turned out later than an axe-murderer was on the loose.
So did Dr. Rawlings kill Bert to retaliate for his finding what Dr. Rawlings was trying to dispose of quietly? That was too ridiculous for real consideration.
Were the murders of Cullens and Ramsey even connected? They had to be, somehow, Rhodes thought. But maybe not in the way he’d first imagined.
Rhodes prided himself on his ability to read people, to keep asking questions until he discovered the motives that led to crimes. He didn’t have all the latest equipment, but he was persistent. This time, he’d been on the wrong
track. Rapper had been there, and Rapper was convenient; so Rhodes had elected him as the most likely suspect. There was nothing particularly wrong with that, except that Rapper hadn’t done it, and Rhodes had been led astray by concentrating on him.
Annoyed with himself, Rhodes clicked the movie back on, but at the first sight of a motorcycle he switched it off again.
Then a new thought occurred to him, one that he would never have considered earlier. There was something in the story that Wyneva had told, though. Suppose that Buster Cullens had tried to question Ramsey. Cullens was certainly overeager-even Wyneva had spotted his questions as being too obvious. Maybe he had seen that she was catching on and had decided to try his luck with Ramsey. Then the two had gotten into an argument, and Cullens had shot Ramsey.
That wouldn’t wash, though. Where was the gun? That’s what I should have been thinking more about all along, Rhodes realized. The gun. There was no gun in the run-down house where Cullens had lived, and there was no gun in Ramsey’s house, either. Whoever had done the shooting had taken the gun with him. No gun had ever turned up anywhere around Rapper and his crew, but they could have gotten rid of it easily enough. Still. .
Rhodes got up and walked outside to the back yard. Speedo, in the shade of the tree, lifted his head and looked up. Rhodes sat on the back step, and the dog trotted over and sat down. Rhodes reached out and scratched its head. “Looks like you’re getting pretty used to things around here,” Rhodes said. Speedo thwacked his tail on the grass.
“It’s all got to do with motorcycles and dope, some way or another,” Rhodes said. Speedo lay down. Dope and motorcycles didn’t interest him.
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “Take it easy. Leave all the thinking to me.” There were times when he wished he could live a dog’s life, all right, and this was another one of them, but he couldn’t. So he sat there on the steps and ran everything back through his mind, just as if he were watching a familiar movie.
And eventually he came up with the answer.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but that didn’t matter. It was the answer that fit, the only answer that really could have fit. Well, no one had ever said that life had to be perfect.
Rhodes stood up. A lot of time had passed as he sat on the step, and he was stiff. His rear end hurt, and his back was tired. He stretched upward, lifting his arms. Speedo watched but didn’t move. He wasn’t a dog given to overexertion.
“You never know, do you?” he said to Speedo. Speedo didn’t say a word.
Rhodes went inside and called Ivy.
“I really don’t like it,” Ivy said as they sat in her living room. “I know you have a dangerous job, but getting tied up in chairs, getting run over by motorcycles, getting into fistfights. . it’s just too much.”
Rhodes could tell that she was really annoyed. He’d debated with himself about whether to tell her about last night’s events, but he’d decided that honesty was really the best policy in this case. After all, they were going to be married. She had to know what she was getting into. “Well,” he said, “I wasn’t actually run over by the motorcycle.”
Ivy looked at him. “It doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same thing. You’re lucky you’re not in the hospital again.”
She was referring to another recent case, after which Rhodes had wound up in even worse condition than he was in now. It wasn’t a case that he particularly liked to remember. “But I’m not in the hospital,” he said.
“And whose fault is that? You’ve been hit with axe handles, too, and it’s a wonder that Rapper didn’t shoot you. I just don’t know how you can keep on dealing with that kind of person.”
“It’s part of the job,” Rhodes said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. But that’s not all of it.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s worse,” he said, and then he told her.
“Well,” she said when he was finished.
“I told you,” he said.
“You were right,” she said. “It’s worse. Are you sure, though?”
“I’m sure. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure.”
“If you can’t prove it, what are you going to do?”
“Get a confession, I expect,” Rhodes said.
“Just like that?” Ivy asked.
“Probably not,” Rhodes said. “But I think it’ll come pretty easy. I thought you might like to be there.”
“Me?”
“You felt sorry for her before,” he said.
“And I still do. Even more now, if you’re right. Are you sure you’re right?”
“As sure as I ever am about anything,” he said.
“All right,” Ivy said. “I’ll go.”
Rhodes had one of the county cars back now, and they drove out to Eller’s Prairie in it. He parked in front of Mrs. Ramsey’s house, just as the sun was going down. They got out and Rhodes knocked. Mrs. Ramsey’s voice called for them to come in.
Mrs. Ramsey was sitting in her living room with the TV set on. She had the sound turned very low, and she didn’t seem to be watching it. It was just on to keep her company. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said as they walked in. “Mrs. Daniel.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Ramsey,” Rhodes said. Ivy didn’t speak. Rhodes had told her on the drive out that she didn’t need to play a part in the proceedings. He just wanted her there for moral support. He wasn’t looking forward to what he had to do, but it was his job. Her being there would make it a little easier for him, he thought, and maybe for Mrs. Ramsey.
Mrs. Ramsey sat in her chair, not making any move to get up. She looked dull and listless. “What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I think you know that,” Rhodes said. “Do you mind if we sit down?”
Mrs. Ramsey made an idle gesture with her thick wrist as if to indicate the other chairs, but she didn’t say anything. Rhodes sat where he could look into her face, and Ivy sat nearby.
“I need to talk to you about Bert,” Rhodes said. Mrs. Ramsey shook her head but still said nothing. “You knew about what he was doing, didn’t you?”
Rhodes asked.
Mrs. Ramsey nodded. Rhodes waited. “It was that woman that ruined him,” Mrs. Ramsey finally said.
“He was a good man,” Ivy said. “He put in some flower beds for me once. He really had a skill for working like that.”
Mrs. Ramsey didn’t look at her. She seemed to be staring inward more than looking at anything in the room around her. “He surely did,” she said. “He was a fine boy. It was that woman.”
“She’s the one, all right,” Rhodes said. “If it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have gotten into growing that dope. I know that. How did you find it out?”
“It was the money,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “All that money. He bought things for me. I knew he wasn’t earnin’ that kind of money from puttin’ in flower beds. It had to be somethin’ else. He finally told me what it was.”
Now that she had started, Mrs. Ramsey didn’t need much coaching. “You knew Los Muertos was mixed up in it,” Rhodes said.
“Those motorsickles,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “He got away from that a long time ago, and that woman brought it all back.”
“The night Bert was mu-the night he died, you didn’t really hear anything, did you?” Rhodes asked.
“Naw, I never did. That Buster Cullens, he was one of ‘em, though, and he had a motorsickle. They were around, somewhere. It was all their fault, them and that woman. They ought to all be in the pen.”
Rhodes agreed, and he hated to tell her that they weren’t in jail, except for Wyneva, and that they weren’t likely to be. The one in jail would be Mrs. Ramsey. It was pretty much as he’d thought, so far. All the little things that Mrs. Ramsey had said pointed that way. It was Wyneva and Rapper and the rest that she wanted to punish. They were really to blame for Bert’s death, she thought, and Rhodes had to admit that she had a point. They hadn’t pulled the trigger, though.
“Do you have a shotgun, Mrs. Ram
sey?” he asked.
“My husband’s old Remington automatic is in the gun cabinet,” she said.
“I expect you carried it with you when you went down to talk to Bert last Saturday night, didn’t you? In case you met any of his friends along the way?”
“I guess I did,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “I guess that’s right.”
“What happened then?” Rhodes asked, though he thought he knew. Mrs. Ramsey had expressed her feelings about dope pretty clearly, already.
Mrs. Ramsey sighed. “I told Bert that he’d have to give up doin’ what he was doin’. I told him that it was the Devil’s work that he was into, and that he’d lost the woman, and that it was time to stop.”
“And he didn’t want to?”
“It was the money,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “He got to where he liked it. You don’t know how it is, to have all that money. He had plenty for what he needed, just by doing jobs around town, but after he was getting so much, he got to where he liked it.”
The large old woman shook her head and closed her eyes. Her chin sank slowly toward her chest. “I didn’t go to kill him,” she said. “But that dope is the ruination of the world.”
Those words, or something like them, were what had not quite registered on Rhodes the previous night. If he hadn’t been so tired, so beaten up, maybe he would have caught on sooner. No one had told Mrs. Ramsey that Bert had been involved with marijuana. Cox and Malvin hadn’t talked to her, and Rhodes certainly hadn’t told her. But she had known, and with her attitude being what it was, she couldn’t have been happy. So she’d talked to Bert about it.
“He argued with me,” she said. “Told me that if he didn’t do it, someone else would. I guess we got to yellin’. I. . I didn’t point the gun at him, but it got in his face. He grabbed the barrel, and then it just. . it just. .”
Ivy reached out and put her hand on Mrs. Ramsey’s hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “We know you didn’t mean to do it.”
Large tears rolled down Mrs. Ramsey’s cheeks. “No,” she said, “I didn’t mean to do it.”
