Shotgun Saturday Night

by Bill Crider

  SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT

  Book Two of the Dan Rhodes Mystery Series

  Bill Crider

  First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Bill Crider

  Texas flag image courtesy of:

  Nicolas Raymond

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Meet the Author

  BILL CRIDER is the author of more than fifty published novels and numerous short stories. He won the Anthony Award for best first mystery novel in 1987 for Too Late to Die and was nominated for the Shamus Award for best first private-eye novel for Dead on the Island. He won the Golden Duck award for “best juvenile science fiction novel” for Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror. He and his wife, Judy, won the best short story Anthony in 2002 for their story “Chocolate Moose.” His story “Cranked” from Damn Near Dead (Busted Flush Press) was nominated for the Edgar award for best short story.

  Check out his homepage at: http:// www.billcrider.com - or take a look at his peculiar blog at http://billcrider.blogspot.com

  Book List

  Novels:

  The Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery Series

  Too Late to Die

  Shotgun Saturday Night

  Cursed to Death

  Death on the Move

  Evil at the Root

  Booked for a Hanging

  Murder Most Fowl

  Winning Can Be Murder

  Death by Accident

  A Ghost of a Chance

  A Romantic Way to Die

  Red, White, and Blue Murder

  “The Empty Manger,” (novella in the collection entitled Murder, Mayhem, and Mistletoe.)

  A Mammoth Murder

  Murder Among the O.W.L.S.

  Of All Sad Words

  Murder in Four Parts

  Murder in the Air

  The Wild Hog Murders

  The Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen

  The Carl Burns Mystery Series

  One Dead Dean

  Dying Voices

  …A Dangerous Thing

  Dead Soldiers

  The Truman Smith Mystery Series

  Dead on the Island

  Gator Kill

  When Old Men Die

  The Prairie Chicken Kill

  Murder Takes a Break

  The Sally Good Mystery Series

  Murder Is An Art

  A Knife in the Back

  A Bond with Death

  The Stanley Waters Mystery Series (Willard Scott, Co-Author)

  Murder under Blue Skies

  Murder in the Mist

  Stand-Alone Mystery and Suspense Novels

  Blood Marks

  The Texas Capitol Murders

  Houston Homicide (with Clyde Wilson)

  House-Name Spy Fiction

  The Coyote Connection (a Nick Carter book, in collaboration with Jack Davis)

  Western Novels

  Ryan Rides Back

  Galveston Gunman

  A Time for Hanging

  Medicine Show

  Outrage at Blanco

  Texas Vigilante

  As Colby Jackson:

  Dead Man’s Revenge

  Gabby Darbins and the Slide-Rock Bolter

  Horror Novels (all published under the pseudonym “Jack MacLane”)

  Keepers of the Beast

  Goodnight, Moom

  Blood Dreams

  Rest in Peace

  Just before Dark

  Books for Young Readers

  A Vampire Named Fred

  Muttketeer

  Mike Gonzo and the Sewer Monster

  Mike Gonzo and the Almost Invisible Man

  Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror

  Short Story Collections:

  The Nighttime is the Right Time

  CONTENTS

  SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT

  A Preview of TOO LATE TO DIE

  A Preview of DEAD ON THE ISLAND

  A Preview of ONE DEAD DEAN

  SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT

  To All the Members of DAPA-EM

  Past and Present

  Chapter 1

  Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew it was going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey brought in the arm and laid it on the desk.

  The arm was neatly wrapped in a sheet of clear plastic, which was circled in three places with plastic strapping tape, the kind with fibers running through it. The arm was pale and bloodless and had been cleanly severed from the torso at the shoulder.

  “Got another one out in the truck,” Bert said around the wad of snuff he had tucked between his cheek and gum on the left side of his mouth. “Got a couple of legs, too, but they don’t match up with each other.”

  Bert Ramsey was a short, wiry man with a sun- and wind-burned face. Rhodes had once seen a briefcase made of industrial belting leather. Ramsey’s face looked as if it were made of the same material.

  Hack Jensen got up from his broken-down swivel chair by the radio and walked over to Rhodes’s desk. He was a tall, thin old man, who had always reminded Rhodes of the comedian Bud Abbott, though he certainly didn’t sound like him.

  “Good Lord,” Hack said. “Where’d you find that thing?”

  Ramsey reached out and touched the arm, making the plastic crackle. “Down to the old Caster place,” he said. “I been clearing brush down there.”

  Bert did odd jobs all over Blacklin County, preferring to work outside and with his hands. He strung and stretched barbed wire, roofed houses, built sheds, baled hay, painted, cleared brush, and generally did whatever came to hand.

  Rhodes sighed and leaned back in his chair, causing the spring underneath it to make a high-pitched squeal. “Who owns the Caster place now?” he asked.

  Hack answered. “Some folks named Adams. Bought it a couple years ago.”

  “That’s right,” Ramsey said. “They live down in Houston. Called me last weekend to ask about me clearing the brush.”

  Rhodes slid his chair back and stood up. “I guess we better have a look in your truck and then go on out there,” he said. He walked over to a scarred hat rack that had been there since long before he had taken office and took down his hat.

  “You want me to let Buddy or the new deputy know about this?” Hack asked.

  “No,” Rhodes said. “Not yet. Let’s go, Bert.”

  Outside, the late-August sun and the scorching westerly breeze were enough to take your breath away. As the two men walked down past the low wrought-iron fence that surrounded the jail, Rhodes looked back wistfully at the back of the window-unit air conditioner hanging from the side of the jail. Condensation from its coils was dripping down into the red dirt, turning it to mud.

  Bert Ramsey’s pickup was parked in front of the walk. It was a blue Chevy S-10, and in the back Rhodes could see three more of the plastic packages, all neatly wrapped, the ends turned carefully down and bound with the strapping tape. There was another arm and the two legs Ramsey had mentioned. One of the legs was short; the other was quite a bit longer.

  Rhodes laid his left h
and on the hot side of the pickup and pushed his hat back slightly with his right. “I wouldn’t believe this if I weren’t seeing it,” he said.

  “Me either,” Ramsey said. “And that ain’t all.”

  “There’s more?”

  Ramsey nodded.

  “Let’s have the whole thing,” Rhodes said.

  “Well,” Ramsey said, “I went down to the Caster place this mornin’ to burn some brush. I been clearin’ down there since Monday. Lots o’ brush stacked up here and there.” He paused.

  “I can imagine,” Rhodes said. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down his ribs.

  “Yeah,” Ramsey said. “Anyways, I went down there, and all up in one of the brush piles was these boxes.”

  “What kind of boxes?”

  “Just boxes. Cardboard boxes. Good, solid cardboard, though. Corrugated. All wrapped up with brown plastic tape, tight as drums. I naturally wondered what was in ‘em, seeing as how I didn’t put ‘em there. They sure as heck weren’t there when I left yesterday afternoon, late. So I opened one of ‘em up.”

  “And this is what you found?”

  “Yep. Scared the hell out of me, I can tell you that. A whole box full of arms and legs, just comin’ out of nowhere, almost. I don’t usually scare easy, but that set me back some. I figured I better bring ‘em in to you.”

  “You said ‘boxes.’ You mean there’s more than one?”

  “Two more I didn’t open,” Ramsey said. “I figured if it was arms and legs in the first one, I didn’t even want to see in the others.”

  Rhodes didn’t particularly want to see, either. He’d never dealt with mass killing before, never even considered the possibility of it. Not in a place like Blacklin County. “I guess I better go on down there and check it out,” he said. “You go in the truck. I’ll follow you in the county car.”

  Rhodes turned away, but Ramsey called him back. “What about these?” Ramsey asked, gesturing toward the back of his S-10.

  “We’ll just have to take them with us,” Rhodes said. “I guess a few more hours in the sun won’t hurt them.”

  He remembered the arm that was still in his office. He hoped that Hack would have sense enough to get it out of sight, just in case anyone happened to come by. “After we check out the other two boxes, well, we’ll just have to see.”

  “I guess so,” Ramsey said, not looking any too happy about it. He got in his pickup, and Rhodes walked around to the side of the jail to get the county car. He was looking forward to turning on the air conditioner, but as soon as he did, a blast of hot air hit him in the face. It would take a while for the air to get cool enough to help.

  The Caster place was about nine miles from Clearview, the county seat of Blacklin County. The road was straight and narrow, with deep ditches on either side.

  Rhodes had heard that it was built in an old railroad bed, which was probably true. As he followed the little blue pickup, Rhodes thought about the body parts in the boxes. He could hardly believe that something like that could turn up in an out-of-the-way place like this, but on second thought he decided that no one would try to dispose of arms and legs in a public park in Houston, either. Or maybe they would.

  In fact, the more he thought about it, the more logical it seemed. The road he was driving on was a farm-to-market road that was actually only a few miles from an interstate highway, and connected to the highway by another farm-to-market road. Someone looking to get rid of a body or two might easily come off the interstate, look for a wooded area, spot the brush piles, and leave the boxes and their grisly contents there. If whoever had dumped the boxes had been lucky, Bert Ramsey might have burned them without ever looking inside.

  The thought that the boxes might have come over from the interstate made Rhodes feel a little better. He couldn’t think of anyone missing in Blacklin County, much less three or four people. At least, people weren’t disappearing right under his nose.

  The blinker on Bert’s pickup began flashing for a right turn, and Rhodes followed him through a patch of white, sandy loam. They bumped across a cattle guard and then followed the rutted trail for a quarter of a mile to where Bert had stacked the brush.

  The brush was in three huge piles, ready for burning. Off to one side was Bert’s tractor, with a front-end loader attached. Some of the brush had been cleared by hand, but most had been pulled or pushed up by the tractor and then stacked.

  Bert stopped his pickup near one of the piles and got out. Rhodes stopped behind him. He could see the boxes even before he got out of his car. Whoever had put them there had made little or no attempt to hide them.

  Bert was pointing when Rhodes walked up. “Right out in the open,” Bert said.

  “Hard to figure,” Rhodes said, and it was. Though the foliage on the brush was scanty, the boxes could have been hidden easily if a little effort had been expended.

  “Maybe they was in a hurry,” Bert said.

  “Maybe,” Rhodes said. He was looking around in the white sand for tire tracks, though Bert had already driven over the road twice and Rhodes himself once. The sand was so dry and fine, however, that even the recent tracks had left no clear impressions.

  “Well, I guess I might as well get to it,” Rhodes said.

  “I’ll just stand over here if you don’t need my help,” Bert said. “I’ve looked in enough boxes to suit me already.”

  Rhodes didn’t say anything. He reached in the right-hand pocket of his pants and took out his little Schrade-Walden knife and opened the blade. It wasn’t a pig-sticker, but it was sharp enough to do the job. He walked over to one of the sealed boxes and slit the tape.

  Inside were more body parts, carefully wrapped in plastic. Arms and legs.

  Being careful not to touch the box with his hands, Rhodes used the tip of the knife blade to close the flaps. Then he stepped over to the third box and slit the tape. The flaps raised slightly, and he flipped them up with the knife blade. Arms and legs.

  “I don’t know what’s happened here, Bert,” Rhodes said, “but I can see that something’s missing.”

  “I don’t care about lookin’,” Ramsey said.

  “I don’t blame you,” Rhodes said. He pushed the box lid down with the knife. “I am going to have to ask you to help me, though. These boxes are evidence, just as much as what’s in them. If you don’t mind it too much, maybe we could load them in your truck and you could take them back to town for me.”

  “I guess I could do that,” Bert said. “After all, I been haulin’ parts around for a while already.” He walked over to his truck, got in, and backed it up near the pile of brush.

  When he got out, Rhodes said, “Just kind of grab the boxes by the edges. Try not to handle them too much.”

  Bert lowered the tailgate of the S-10. “I get it,” he said. “Fingerprints.”

  “I doubt it,” Rhodes said, “but it’s a possibility.” They set the boxes on the tailgate and then slide them to the front of the bed near the cab.

  “Where you plannin’ to take these things?” Bert asked.

  “Good question. I think we’ll take them to Ballinger’s. Clyde ought to know what to do with them if anybody does.” Clyde Ballinger owned Clearview’s oldest funeral home. In the course of his job, Rhodes had gotten to know him fairly well.

  “Good idea,” Ramsey said. “I’ll meet you in the back.”

  Ballinger’s Funeral Home had once been the home of one of Clearview’s wealthiest citizens, and it was located on one of the town’s main streets, conveniently near both a large Baptist church and the town’s only hospital. Its immaculate grounds, shaded by huge oak trees, had once held Clearview’s only private swimming pool and tennis courts. The pool had long since been filled in, and the tennis courts had been replaced with lawn grass.

  The building itself was an impressive affair of red brick with a semicircular walk in front and large, white columns running the length of its fifty-foot porch. A side street led
to the driveway, which in turn led to the rear entrance, the one through which most of Clyde Ballinger’s clients, as he preferred to think of them, were admitted to his place of business.

  Behind the main building was a much smaller house, also of brick, which had once served as servants’ quarters. Now it was Ballinger’s private office and retreat, a place where not just anyone was allowed to enter. Rhodes was one of the privileged ones, however, and he was there to explain to Ballinger about the three boxes sitting in the driveway.

  “As you can see, Clyde,” Rhodes was saying, “I’ve got a little problem here.”

  “Little’s not the word I’d use,” Ballinger said. His voice boomed in the small living room where the two men sat. Everything Ballinger said was loud, except when he was engaged in the practice of his trade. He was, in fact, a very unlikely funeral director, or at least unlikely to anyone who thought morticians wore black suits and gloomy looks. Ballinger was short, fat, and dapper. He knew all the latest jokes, and he never wore black except to funerals.

  “In fact,” Ballinger said, “it looks to me like you got something that would even give the boys at the 87th a bad time.”

  Rhodes looked around the office at the bookshelves that lined three walls. They were filled with paperback books. Ballinger was an inveterate garage-sale shopper, and he bought nearly any crime-related paperback that he could find. One shelf was filled with old books by authors Rhodes had never heard of—Harry Whittington, Charles Williams, Jim Thompson, Gil Brewer. Another was devoted to John D. MacDonald and the 87th Precinct stories of Ed McBain. Rhodes had read a few of the latter, though he usually stuck to Louis L’Amour.

  “I don’t know, Clyde,” Rhodes said. “Seems like crime stories in books are a lot worse than the real thing.”