Too Late to Die

by Bill Crider

  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.

  “Come on, Billy Joe,” Rhodes said. “You know me. Sheriff Rhodes. You’re not scared of me, are you?”

  Billy Joe turned his head from the ground and looked up at the sheriff with little black eyes under bushy black brows. Something like recognition appeared in his glance. “N-nnot s-s-scared of y-you,” he managed to get out. His face was as smooth and unlined as a child’s except for a few wrinkles around the eyes. There was dirt in the wrinkles.

  “Good,” Rhodes said. “How’d you like to take a little ride in the county car?” When he’d been arrested before, Billy Joe had always liked to ride in the car and had always wanted to turn on the lights and the siren. But not this time. He threw a look at the car, jumped up, and started running again.

  Rhodes was caught off guard, but he got up and ran with grim determination. He’d be damned if he was going to let Billy Joe escape from him. He’d never lost a prisoner.

  This time Billy Joe didn’t try to cross the fence, proving that he could learn from experience. He ran straight down the ditch, thrashing through Johnson grass that was sometimes over six feet tall. When he slowed to get his bearings, Rhodes caught up with him and threw his arms around his waist. Billy Joe writhed and turned as Rhodes struggled back to the car with him, but Rhodes held on. It was a little like trying to hold on to the Tasmanian Devil from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, Rhodes thought, but he managed to do it. When they got back to the car, Rhodes held Billy Joe by the waistband of his pants, opened the back door, and shoved him in.

  When Rhodes got in the driver’s seat, Billy Joe was still squirming around in the back like a worm on a griddle. “Billy Joe,” Rhodes said patiently, “this car is county property, and if you damage it you’re going to be in big trouble. Now hold still.” Billy Joe quieted down some, and Rhodes started the car.

  In the confined space, Rhodes could smell Billy Joe, who had what could only be described as a distinctive odor. It was very likely, Rhodes thought, that Billy Joe had not had a bath since the last time he’d been in jail, two years before. Certainly, his clothes had never been washed. Rhodes detected a faint odor of beer along with the general ripeness that filled the car.

  “When you’re settled down a little, have a smoke,” Rhodes said, pulling the car onto the road and turning on the air conditioner. He watched in the mirror as from somewhere in his filthy khaki shirt Billy Joe produced a soft pack of Merit Menthol 100s and a Bic lighter. Without offering a smoke to Rhodes, who didn’t smoke anyway, Billy Joe lit up.

  The Blacklin County jail might not have been a disgrace, exactly, but it wasn’t the first place that anyone would want to point out to a visitor, either. It had been built in the early part of the century, when prisoners weren’t too well thought of, and it had gotten considerably less comfortable over the years. It looked like a fortress from the dark ages, except that its exterior was brown sandstone, and instead of a moat it was surrounded by a stubby wrought-iron fence. The fence wouldn’t keep anybody in or out, but no one on the outside wanted in, and those on the inside were kept in place by other barriers, like the heavily barred windows of the cells. The cells weren’t air-conditioned, and they weren’t very well heated in the winter. The walls were cracked, and the metal bed frames had rust spots on them. The plumbing was unreliable. A federal judge had recently given the county commissioners two years to do something about the conditions, something like building a new jail.

  None of that mattered a bit to Billy Joe Byron. He’d been to jail before, and it compared favorably to the little shotgun shack covered with tar paper and composition shingles where he lived. This time, though, he didn’t appear too eager to go inside. But Rhodes got him in.

  Old Hack Jensen was over by the radio. The county was always strapped for money and couldn’t afford a real dispatcher, but ever since Hack had retired from his job at the local Gulf station he’d helped out for far below the minimum wage.

  “Who you got there, Sheriff?” Hack asked as Rhodes and Billy Joe came through the door. Then he did an exaggerated double take. “I’ll be damned if it ain’t old Billy Joe Byron, one of my favorite customers. What you been up to this time, Billy Joe?”

  Billy Joe appeared glad to see Hack, so Rhodes let him go, and he walked over to the old man quite calmly. (“Looks like maybe you and Billy Joe had yourselves a little tussle, Sheriff,” Hack said, glancing at Rhodes’s soiled uniform and the blood on Billy Joe’s shirt. “Is that your blood or Billy Joe’s there?”

  “I’ve sort of been wondering about that blood myself,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think it’s mine or his. See if you can rustle up an old shirt for Billy Joe to wear while he’s with us. We may have to send that one to Houston for some lab tests. Where’s Lawton?”

  Lawton was the jailer, almost as old as Jensen. He’d been working for the county for over forty years, but they couldn’t retire him. He was the only certified jailer they had.

  “He’s upstairs in the block,” Hack said, referring to the second floor of the jail where the cells were located. “Johnny brought in a couple of guys last night, says they got in a fight out to the Paragon Club. He had to break it up, and they gave him a pretty bad time. I don’t know who looks worse, him or them.

  “And that reminds me,” Hack went on. “Miz Kinchloe called a while ago, mighty upset. Her husband just kicked out the windshield of that little S-10 pickup they bought last week. What really bothered her is that she was in the pickup when he did the kicking.”

  “They’re at it again, huh?” said Rhodes.

  “You ain’t lying,” Hack said. “I guess it’s just about time, though. She hasn’t taken a shot at him for three or four weeks now.”

  “I took the gun away from her after the last time,” Rhodes said. “It’s locked up in the property closet.”

  “Damn good thing, too. Want me to send someone over there?”

  “Not right now. I may drive by later. If they didn’t have each other to fight with, they’d start in on the neighbors.”

  While Rhodes was speaking, Lawton walked into the room through the stairwell doorway. He and Hack, when they stood together, looked a little like Abbott and Costello would have looked if they’d still been alive, Rhodes thought. Hack was tall, with slicked down hair and a thin moustache that still had a little brown in it. Lawton was short and stout, not really fat, but with a large, round stomach that started just under his chest. He was nearly seventy, but he still had an almost unlined, innocent face.

  “Those Kinchloes are a mess, ain’t they,” Lawton said as he walked into the room. “But they ain’t got nothing on them boys upstairs.”

  “They giving you any trouble?” Rhodes asked.

  “No more than I can handle,” Lawton said. “Mostly, they’re just loud. Claim they wasn’t doing nothin’ to speak of and that Johnny roughed them up with no reason. Goin’ to sue us for police brutality.” He grinned at the thought, showing that he still had all his teeth, slightly stained by the Tube Rose snuff that he insisted on dipping. He’d been dipping for years bef
ore professional football players had made the habit semi-respectable by shilling for the tobacco companies on TV.

  “I’ll talk to them about it later,” Rhodes said. “You put Billy Joe there, up in number five for the time being. Be sure to take his belt and shoelaces. Leave him his smokes, but take his lighter. We’ll be wanting his shirt later.” Rhodes turned to Hack. “Get Johnny Sherman down here for me.”

  “I expect he’s home asleep by now, Sheriff,” Hack said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Rhodes said. “It’s not about those two drunks up there. This is something I didn’t call in because I didn’t want every scanner in the county broadcasting it. Jeanne Clinton’s been killed over in Thurston.”

  Chapter 2

  “Jesus,” Johnny Sherman said when Rhodes gave him the news. “I went to high school with Jeanne.” Johnny was twenty-eight years old, and he’d been a deputy for three years. Before that he’d done a little bit of everything, Rhodes thought, including a couple of years in the Army and a few months of serving as a bouncer at some high-toned club in Dallas. He was big and good-looking, if a little fast with his fists. He’d been a good deputy, but there was something about him that bothered Rhodes, something that he couldn’t quite put into words. Lately, he hadn’t even bothered to try. Johnny had kept his nose clean, and for the last month and a half he’d been dating Rhodes’s daughter.

  “Did you notice anything out of the way when you drove through Thurston last night?” Rhodes asked. “Seems like they had a regular crime wave over there.”

  Johnny looked at Rhodes with his pale gray eyes. “You mean there’s more?”

  “Yeah, there’s more. Somebody broke in Hod Barrett’s store again.”

  “Damn. That must have happened after I went by. There was nothing wrong then. That town is as quiet as a school on Saturday.”

  “Not anymore, it’s not,” Rhodes said.

  “Right. Claymore’s going to love this,” Johnny said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  Ralph Claymore was Rhodes’s opponent in the May election, less than a month away. He was ten years younger and, Rhodes was convinced, much better-looking than the present sheriff. He had wavy black hair with no gray in it, and he could wear tight-fitting western shirts without revealing the slightest bulge in the area of his belly. He wore western hats like he was born in them, and boots, and big silver belt buckles. Rhodes didn’t like boots because they hurt his toes. He didn’t have any silver buckles, and he knew that in a western hat he looked like a cat turd under a collard leaf. And now he had a murder on his hands. He might not look like a sheriff, but he was damn sure going to have to act like one.

  “Yeah,” Rhodes said. “Claymore’s going to love this, all right, but if we get it cleared up in time, I’ll be a shoo-in.”

  “That’s, true,” Johnny said. “We’d better get on it.”

  “It’ll have to wait for a minute or two,” Rhodes said. “First you’d better tell me about those two guys from the Paragon.”

  “Not much to tell, really. I drove by there on the way in, and they were scuffling in the parking lot. I tried to stop them, and they got a little rough.”

  Rhodes looked Sherman over. His knuckles were scabbed over, and his face had a few superficial cuts on it. He’d been walking pretty carefully when he came in. “What time was all this?

  “Toward the end of the shift. Must have been about six-thirty. Pretty near sunup.”

  “‘They must have been pretty feisty for so early in the morning. That Paragon is livelier than I thought it was. Anyway, their story is that you’re the one that started things. They say they’re going to sue. Claymore would like that almost as much as the murder.”

  “Bullshit, they’re going to sue.” Johnny’s size 16 neck began to get red. “I didn’t lay a hand on them until they jumped me.”

  “That might be true,” Rhodes said, “but if they sue, the case will still be up in the air until well after the election.”

  “I could resign,” Johnny said.

  “Well, let’s don’t jump the gun. Maybe we ought to talk to them about what happened.”

  Johnny slapped his right fist into his left palm. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said. He got out of his chair, wincing a little.

  They walked up to the block. The two men were in number four, right next to Billy Joe, and when Rhodes and Sherman got there Billy Joe started jabbering and backing up in his cell. He was all the way in the corner looking for a hole.

  “What’s the matter with you, Billy Joe?” Rhodes asked him, but he couldn’t answer, or wouldn’t. Rhodes turned to the men in the other cell.

  “Is this the man you fellas want to sue?” Rhodes asked, pointing a thumb at Johnny Sherman.

  “Damn right,” said one of the men. He was about Rhodes’s height, five-nine or -ten, with very black hair shot through with gray streaks. He had a scraggly gray and black goatee, and he was wearing a red and white cap with an armadillo on it. “We’re gonna sue him and the whole damn county.”

  His friend, smaller but very tough-looking, something like James Cagney in White Heat, echoed him. “We’re gonna get you all, the whole rotten bunch. Our civil rights’ve been violated. You can’t get away with beating up on honest citizens. “

  Rhodes looked at Johnny Sherman’s cut face. “Looks like we weren’t the only ones doing the beating. You two aren’t marked up any worse than my deputy here.”

  “Hell,” said the one with the cap. “We never laid a hand on him. We was just trying to get in our car and get home before our wives got to worrying too much about us, and this sonuvabitch jumped us. I’ll probably have to get divorced now, by god, and that’s his fault too!”

  Rhodes put his hand on Johnny Sherman’s arm; he could feel the younger man’s muscles tense through the cloth. He hoped that Johnny wouldn’t reach out and grab one of the men by his shirtfront and try to jerk him through the bars.

  “It’ll all come out in court, boys,” Rhodes said. “Assaulting an officer is a pretty serious thing.”

  “Assaulting is what he did to us, not what we did to him,” said the Cagney look-alike. “And we’ll prove it, too!”

  “Goddamn liars!” Johnny burst out. “Just give me a few minutes with ‘em, Sheriff, and we’ll see . . .”

  Rhodes gently pressured Johnny’s arm and pushed him back from the cell. “Don’t worry about these two, Johnny,” he said. “You go on home now and get some rest. We’ll take care of this later. I’ve got to go back over to Thurston and talk to Elmer Clinton and Hod Barrett.”

  “Goddamn liars,” Johnny muttered again as he and Rhodes walked back toward the stairs.

  Billy Joe Byron huddled in the corner of his cell and whimpered.

  Elmer Clinton was sitting in his living room drinking a Coors Light when Rhodes arrived. Rhodes had stopped for lunch at Sally’s Truck Stop, but it appeared from the number of empty aluminum cans scattered around the room that Elmer was sticking to a liquid diet. He’d done nothing to clear up the mess, and there were still spots of blood on the floor. He didn’t even get up when Rhodes tapped at the door facing. “Come on in, Sheriff,” he said, taking another sip of his Coors.

  Rhodes opened the screen and stepped in, giving Elmer a quick once-over. Clinton was a stout man, only about five-six or so, but heavy, with massive arms and legs. His dirty-blond hair was thinning on top, and his close-set eyes reminded Rhodes of Lloyd Bridges.

  “How’re you making it, Elmer?” Rhodes asked.

  Clinton took a long pull at his beer can, tossed it aside, and popped open another. “I’m makin’ it, Sheriff,” he said, his words only slightly slurred. “That’s about all. That’s about all.” He took a drink from the fresh can.

  “I hate to have to ask you these things, Elmer,” Rhodes said, “but it’s what has to be done. You have any ideas about this? Know any reason why someone might want to kill Jeanne? Any enemies? Any big fusses with anyone here in town?”

  Elmer looked at the flo
or. “There was nothing, not a thing,” he said. “Everyone loved Jeanne. Why, that girl wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less cause trouble amongst the folks here in town.” He shot a quick glance in Rhodes’s direction. “I know you might’ve heard things about how she was a little wild, all that stuff that got out after she won that wet T-shirt contest at the Paragon that time, but that was a long time ago. She’s not like that”—he shook his head angrily—”I mean, she wasn’t like that anymore. She was just tryin’ to be a good wife to me. Lord knows, I loved that girl, Sheriff.”

  Rhodes was sometimes uncomfortable in the presence of what he took to be sentimentality, especially sentimentality that had a suspiciously false note in it. This was one of those times, and he wondered just what Elmer was trying to hide. He’d come in determined to spare Elmer’s feelings, but now he decided to give a jab or two in tender areas and see what happened.

  “What time do you leave for work every night, Elmer?” Rhodes asked.

  “Usually about fifteen or twenty till twelve,” Clinton said. “It don’t take very long to get there, and the roads are clear by that time of the night. No traffic at all.”

  “Was Jeanne in the habit of walking around the house in shorts and a halter at that time of night, even after you’d left?”

  Clinton rolled the Coors can between his palms. “I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff,” he said. “It’s pretty hot for April, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “That’s not it exactly, Elmer,” Rhodes said, looking at Clinton’s face, trying to watch his eyes instead of the silver and black can that he was rolling slowly between his palms. “I mean that you’d already gone. I mean that maybe she was dressed up for somebody else.”