Red, White, and Blue Murder

by Bill Crider

  “I think Grat Bilson bought it last year.”

  “I was afraid you were going to tell me that,” Rhodes said.

  6

  RHODES HAD THOUGHT HE REMEMBERED SOMETHING ABOUT GRAT Bilson’s buying the old Parsons place, and with Hack’s confirmation, he knew he’d remembered correctly. The talk around town was that Bilson had bought the land because he wanted a place to go fishing and, so people said, get away from his wife.

  Bilson was well known around Clearview. He owned a small electrical repair shop and worked as much or as little as he pleased. He spent his spare time fighting with his wife, fishing, and working with the Sons and Daughters of Texas, not necessarily in that order. In his younger days, he’d played football for the Clearview High Catamounts, and his interest in county history had kept his name in the papers in recent years. He was also concerned about the environment, which had led to his current preoccupation with getting some kind of fireworks ban enacted for the county.

  Rhodes had a feeling that Bilson would be getting his name in the papers one more time, but that he wouldn’t be around to enjoy the publicity. It seemed likely that it was his body in the bed.

  He was about to drive back to Clearview when another car pulled through the gate. It drove right up beside Rhodes and stopped. Jennifer Loam got out.

  “I was covering some stupid ‘color the flag’ contest at Wal-Mart,” she said. “No one thought to call me about this until now. What happened?”

  “There was a fire,” Rhodes said. “It’s about all over.”

  That was true. The firemen were gathered around the trucks, still looking watchful, though it appeared that all the flames had been extinguished.

  “I can see there was a fire,” Jennifer said. “But there’s something about a body.”

  “Someone was in the house.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. The only way we’ll get a positive identification is through dental records.”

  “It was Grat Bilson, wasn’t it.”

  Rhodes wondered how she’d arrived at the conclusion.

  “There’s no way to tell for sure,” he said.

  “This was his place,” Jennifer said. “He came out here to fish and get a little peace and quiet.”

  For someone who was fairly new in town, she seemed to know a lot about Grat Bilson. He was a prominent citizen, and he was active in civic affairs, but not everyone would know about his private life. But someone who’d been talking to him in secret would.

  “I didn’t know you were acquainted with Grat,” Rhodes said.

  “I … he was president of one of those historical societies. I interviewed him once.”

  Rhodes couldn’t remember reading any interview with Bilson in the paper.

  “He was your source, wasn’t he,” Rhodes said.

  Jennifer shook her head but then seemed to change her mind. She said, “Okay, you’re right. How did you know?”

  “I figured it out, and you’re not very convincing when you’re not telling the truth. You must have come out here to meet with him. That’s how you knew why he bought it.”

  Jennifer was silent for a while, as if thinking over how much she wanted to tell Rhodes. Finally she said, “You’re right. Hardly anyone ever drives by here, and it seemed like a good place to meet. He didn’t want us to be seen together, and of course I didn’t want to compromise my source.”

  “If he’s dead, he won’t be a source anymore. That could be a problem for your story.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Did you have corroboration for everything he told you?” Rhodes asked.

  Jennifer shook her head and said, “You sound like one of my old journalism professors.”

  Rhodes had never thought of himself as being very professorial. He didn’t feel that way now, either. And he didn’t like the sound of the word old.

  “I don’t know much about journalism,” he said, “but I do know that you can’t print anything without corroboration.”

  “People do it,” Jennifer said, a little defensively.

  “And they usually get caught. What happens then isn’t very pretty. You wouldn’t want it to happen to you. So the question is, do you have it?”

  “I have it,” Jennifer said. “Well, sort of.”

  “‘Sort of’ doesn’t count. It doesn’t even come close.”

  “I know that. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I have plenty.”

  “For example?”

  “I think I told you before: you’ll have to read about it in the Herald.”

  “So you’re going ahead with the story?”

  “Sure,” Jennifer said. “I’m sorry Mr. Bilson’s dead, if he’s the one who died. But that doesn’t change anything about the story. On the record, do you know what started the fire?”

  Rhodes was a little taken aback by the sudden change in subject until he noticed that a tiny tape recorder had suddenly appeared in Jennifer’s hand. He said, “I don’t know, and neither does Chief Parker. There’ll be an investigation, as usual in these cases.”

  “Is there suspicion of foul play?”

  Rhodes thought about it. He hadn’t been suspicious at first, but that was before he learned that Bilson had been telling Jennifer things about the commissioners. Was it possible that someone had killed him to shut him up? Rhodes didn’t think so. Surely the commissioners of a such a small county didn’t have that much to hide.

  “No,” he said. “Right now it looks like an accidental death. There’ll be an autopsy, though, and we’ll see what that tells us.”

  “Do you think there’s any connection between this death and the deaths of Faye Knape and Ty Berry?”

  Berry and Knape had been the presidents of the two historical societies before Bilson and Lindsay, and they’d both been killed a while back, before Jennifer had moved to Clearview. But she was a woman who did her research, and it wasn’t surprising that she knew about the deaths of the society presidents. Rhodes figured it was going to be hard to get anyone to take Bilson’s job, what with Bilson’s being the third president to die within the last couple of years. Not that being president of any organization had a thing to do with the deaths, but who’d want to take the chance?

  “No connection at all,” Rhodes said. “Let’s try not to scare anyone by bringing that up. We know who killed Knape and Berry, and, as I said, this looks like an accident.”

  “But there’ll be a thorough investigation?”

  Rhodes smiled at that. He never turned down the chance to let the voters know what a great job he was doing.

  “There always is,” he said.

  7

  RHODES FINISHED THE IMPROMPTU INTERVIEW AND LEFT JENNIFER TO tackle Chief Parker. He drove back to town, passing by the fireworks stand on the way. There were four cars parked in front this time, and Rhodes got another salute from the person behind the counter.

  By the time he got to Clearview, it was nearly two o’clock, and Rhodes thought about lunch. He missed lunch a lot, but he usually made up for it in one way or another. He was trying to eat healthier foods these days, and Ivy was a big help in that endeavor. Sometimes Rhodes thought she was too big a help, what with all the tofu-based foods that he found in the refrigerator. Still, he’d lost a little weight, so he couldn’t complain. Not that he was fat. It was just that for a while there, it had been a little tricky for him to get a glimpse of his belt buckle. But he could see it just fine now, thank you very much.

  At the moment, he wasn’t in the mood for tofu, so he wheeled through the drive-through window at McDonald’s and got a Big Mac and an order of fries. He got water to drink, not because he was cutting down on calories but because he didn’t like ice-diluted soft drinks.

  He drove to the city park, where the Fourth of July celebrations would take place in a couple of days, and parked under a shade tree to eat his burger. There was no one in the park because it was far too hot to be swinging or seesawing or riding the merry-go-round.


  Sitting there under the tree with the car windows rolled down, Rhodes tried to pretend that there was enough of a breeze to keep him cool.

  He remembered the days when he’d played in that same park. The old concrete-and-stone bandstand was still there, but it was too small for a band. There had been a shuffleboard game painted on the floor when Rhodes was young, but he doubted that it still existed. The paint would have worn off long ago, and what kid would want to play shuffleboard now? It couldn’t compare with Sony’s video games.

  The softball field was there, too, with the dead outfield grass almost worn down to the bare ground. Rhodes had shagged a lot of flies there in the days when he was collecting baseball cards and trying to get a complete set of the year’s offering from Topps. He wondered how long it had been since he’d swung a bat or put on a baseball glove. Too long to remember, but the smell of the leather and the sound of a wooden bat hitting the ball were as clear as if it had been yesterday.

  Rhodes finished his meal and went by the jail to see if anything needed his attention. Hack said nothing much was going on, but he wanted to know about the fire.

  “You think that’s Grat Bilson’s body they found?” he asked.

  “Could be,” Rhodes said. “But I don’t know that. We’ll have to check the dental records to be sure.”

  “What about the cause of death?”

  “We’ll have to wait for an autopsy. It looked like a case of smoking in bed.”

  Rhodes’s conversation with Jennifer Loam had made him wonder if there might be more to it than that, but there was no need to go into that idea with Hack, at least not at the moment.

  “Too bad,” Hack said. “Grat was a pretty good fella, most of the time. Him and his wife sure didn’t get along, though. You goin’ to talk to her?”

  Rhodes said that he was.

  “Gonna ask her if Grat was out at that old house last night?”

  “That’s why I’m going to talk to her.”

  “I wonder how she’ll take the news?”

  “It might not have been Grat, so there might not be any news.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But what if it was him? How do you think she’ll take it?”

  Rhodes didn’t know the answer to that. Everyone knew that Yvonne Bilson wasn’t exactly a stay-at-home wife who devoted herself to cooking, cleaning, and creating arts and crafts. One of the things she and Grat fought about was her numerous flings with other men. Somehow, their marriage had survived her wanderings, but it hadn’t been easy on either of them.

  “She prob’ly won’t be too upset if it’s Grat,” Hack said. “She might even thank you for bringin’ the news. Wonder if Grat had a will.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Rhodes said. “Are you implying that there might be something suspicious about the death?”

  Hack raised his hands and shook his head.

  “Not me. I’m not implyin’ anything. I’m not the sheriff. It’s not my job to investigate stuff and come to conclusions about it. They don’t pay me enough for that. I just answer the phone.”

  Hack had the perfect confidence man’s deadpan face and voice, but Rhodes had been working with him too long to buy the act. The dispatcher obviously knew something, but he’d never come right out and say it. No, that wasn’t the way it worked. Hack would prefer to have Rhodes beg him for information, but Rhodes wouldn’t go that far. So Hack would string him along as far as he could before actually parting with any details of what he knew. Rhodes was willing to play along for a while, at least until he lost his patience.

  “Is there anything you’ve heard about Grat and Yvonne Bilson lately?” Rhodes asked. “Anything about them you’d like to tell me?”

  While Rhodes was asking his question, Lawton came in from the cell block and quietly closed the door behind him. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and stood there listening.

  “Well,” Hack said, “you know how it is. A man hears things, but that don’t mean they’re true. Could be just rumors. I don’t like to repeat rumors.”

  “I know how it pains you,” Rhodes said. “But just this once wouldn’t hurt.”

  “What rumor is it that you want to hear?” Lawton asked. “I don’t mind repeatin’ a good story, myself, and I hear as much as Hack does.”

  Hack turned and glared at him. “Nobody asked you to butt in. This is my story, and I’ll be the one to tell it.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to go against your ethical principles,” Lawton said. “Wouldn’t want you to compromise your integrity when it comes to passin’ along unsubstantiated gossip.”

  “You don’t even know what those words mean,” Hack said. “You couldn’t spell unsubstantiated if your life was to depend on it.”

  “Maybe not. I don’t have me one of those fancy computers that tells me when I spell something wrong like the one the county bought for you. But I have ears, and I do hear some of the gossip that goes on around town. I don’t have to be able to spell Yvonne Bilson’s name to know that she’s been runnin’ around with—”

  “Jay Beaman,” Hack said before Lawton could beat him to it.

  Maybe Rhodes should have been surprised, but he wasn’t. In fact, it made sense. Grat Bilson had always seemed to hate his wife’s tendency to make friends so easily, but he’d never done anything much about it, other than argue with her. Sometimes the arguments got loud, with lots of name-calling, but they never got violent, and for whatever reason, neither Grat nor Yvonne had ever considered divorce, at least not as far as Rhodes knew.

  But if Yvonne had been playing around with Jay Beaman, Grat might have changed his methods. He might very well have turned to Jennifer Loam in an attempt to get back at both Yvonne and Jay. The president of the United States might be able to get away with a certain amount of slap and tickle, or even quite a bit of it, and the electorate would overlook his behavior even if the Congress didn’t. A county commissioner, however, couldn’t count on that kind of forgiveness from the voters, and come the next election, he might find himself losing a job he thought would be his until he retired or died, whichever came first. It wouldn’t be hard for Bilson to provide the corroboration Rhodes had mentioned to Jennifer Loam, either.

  On the other hand, the editor of the Clearview Herald wasn’t likely to print a story alleging adultery by one of the commissioners if that was the only thing that Beaman was involved in. There had to be more to it than that.

  “Yvonne Bilson has messed around with half the men in the county,” Rhodes said. “That’s not exactly big news.”

  “Hasn’t ever messed around with me,” Lawton said.

  “Don’t blame her,” Hack said. “Who’d want to mess around with the likes of you?”

  “Maybe Miz McGee would,” Lawton said, referring to the woman with whom Hack was keeping company. “She’s prob’ly tired of an old sourpuss like you by now.”

  Hack’s face went red, and Rhodes knew it was time to step in before Hack popped a blood vessel and died right there in the office. Teasing Hack was fine, as long as you didn’t cross the line and bring Miz McGee into it.

  “All right,” Rhodes said, “let’s break it up.”

  “He oughtn’t talk about Miz McGee like that,” Hack said.

  “He knows that. Right, Lawton?”

  Lawton did his best to look contrite, but Rhodes suspected that he wasn’t chastened in the least.

  “Yeah,” Lawton said. “I know better’n that. Miz McGee’s a fine woman. It’s just that she’s too good for the fella that she’s going with.”

  Hack stood up. There was a little vein standing out on his forehead, and Rhodes was afraid that he might be on the verge of a stroke.

  “You’ve got Hack so upset that it makes me wonder,” Rhodes said.

  “Wonder what?” Lawton asked.

  “How worked up a man can get about a woman,” Rhodes said. “And whether a man would kill for Yvonne Bilson.”

  Hack took a deep breath, and his face got a shade paler. The little vein s
topped throbbing.

  “Are you sayin’ that Commissioner Beaman might’ve burned Grat Bilson up?” he asked.

  “What?” Lawton said, his eyes wide. “Is Grat dead? Is there something goin’ on here I don’t know about?”

  Hack realized then that he was one up on Lawton, and the look of anger on his face was replaced by something resembling satisfaction.

  “Me and the sheriff were just talkin’ about that,” Hack said. “I guess you don’t know as much as you think you do about what’s goin’ on around here.”

  “Well, I sure do wish somebody would fill me in, then. It’s not right to keep me in the dark when ever’body else knows what’s happenin’.”

  “You may not have a high enough security clearance for this information,” Hack said. “What about it, Sheriff?”

  “I guess he could be told,” Rhodes said. “But you’ll have to do it. I’m going to see Yvonne.”

  “You better watch out for her,” Hack said. “She might want to mess around with you.”

  “I don’t mess around, boy,” Rhodes said, in his best Ricky Nelson voice, which even he had to admit was none too good.

  8

  THE BILSONS LIVED IN ONE OF CLEARVIEW’S “NEW” ADDITIONS, which meant that their house was only about ten years old. Building wasn’t exactly on the boom in Blacklin County.

  Rhodes parked in front of the brick home with its mailbox on a pole in front. Someone had been watering the grass, which wasn’t as dead as that in Rhodes’s yard. There was still a good bit of green in it, so it had probably been fertilized as well, and it was neatly mown and edged. There were flower beds in front of the house with carefully tended rosebushes. Rhodes didn’t know the names of the roses. They were red and yellow, which was enough for him.

  Rhodes went to the door and pushed the bell button. The chimes played the first few notes of “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” Either that, or “The Eyes of Texas.” It all depended on your point of view, Rhodes supposed.

  Yvonne Bilson opened the door. She was thin, almost too thin, and nearly as tall as Rhodes, one of the few women he knew who didn’t have to tilt her head to look him in the face. Her white shirt and jeans fit her like the clothes of a scarecrow. She had a cigarette between the first two fingers of her right hand, and while she looked Rhodes over, she took a puff and blew a plume of white smoke in his direction.