by Bill Crider
“Aw, come on,” Ballinger said. “Parts of bodies dumped in a brush pile? Three boxes of parts? Hell, Sheriff, that’s like something the Deaf Man would come up with. I remember one time—”
“Not now, Clyde,” Rhodes said, cutting him off. He knew that if Ballinger got started telling about one of his favorite plots, they’d be there all day. “What I need right now is a place to store those boxes. And I need for you to keep quiet about what’s in them.”
Ballinger was clearly a little put out at not getting to tell his story, but he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. “All right, Sheriff. All right. I got a nice cool place where you can put those things. But it’s asking a lot to ask me to keep quiet about them. What am I going to tell Tom?”
Tom Skelly was Ballinger’s partner, the one who did a lot of the actual work. Clyde was more or less the public relations side of the business. “You can tell Tom,” Rhodes said. “But no one else. If this gets out, we’ll have the biggest scare this county ever saw. It’ll be like they were filming The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and everybody believed it was for real.”
“I guess I can keep it quiet,” Ballinger said. “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve had to hush up in this place. I remember the time that Old Lady Piikston died—”
“Don’t tell me,” Rhodes said. “Remember, you hushed it up.”
“Right,” Ballinger said.
“I’ll be sending someone over here later to fingerprint those boxes,” Rhodes said.
“I’ll tell Tom,” Ballinger said. “I guess you want to move them into storage personally.”
“That’s right,” Rhodes said.
“Well, let’s get on with it.” Ballinger stood up. “Did I ever tell you about that Jim Thompson book with the deputy sheriff in it? He’s a psychotic killer, see—”
“Yeah, I think you told me about that one,” said Rhodes, who had had some trouble with a deputy of his own fairly recently.
“It’s a good one,” Ballinger said as they went out the office door.
Chapter 2
After a hamburger and a Dr. Pepper at the Blue Bonnet café, Rhodes drove back to the jail. The arm was still on his desk.
“I’ve got to take that thing over to Ballinger’s,” he told Hack. “Any trouble while I was out?”
“Miz Thurman called,” Hack said.
Rhodes waited. Hack told things at his own rate and in his own way. There was no need to rush him. He worked for the county practically free, and he did a fine job. Rhodes was willing to put up with his approach to reporting on calls.
“Said she was goin’ blind again,” Hack finally said.
“Who’d you send to change the bulb?” Rhodes asked. Mrs. Thurman was nearly ninety and lived alone. Every now and then a light bulb burned out in her kitchen or her living room. When it happened, she called the sheriff’s office and said that she was going blind, that everything was getting dark. After the first call, Rhodes had begun sending over someone with a bulb.
“Sent the new deputy,” Hack said. The new deputy was a sore point with Hack.
“You know,” Rhodes said, “I think that new Wal-Mart is having a sale on those long-life bulbs. I ought to buy a few and keep them in reserve for Mrs. Thurman.”
“You ask me, you spoil that old woman,” a new voice put in. It was the jailer, Lawton, coming in from the cell block.
“Who you callin’ old?” Hack asked. “Miz Thurman’s not much older’n you, you old buzzard.”
Lawton was seventy, but he didn’t look it. In fact, if Hack Jensen resembled Bud Abbott, Lawton looked a lot like Lou Costello, his face still almost baby-smooth, round, and chubby. “Maybe so,” he said, “but she ain’t got so much on you, either.” Then he happened to look over at Rhodes’s desk. “Godamighty,” he said. “What’s that?”
“Just what you think it is,” Rhodes said. “That’s all I know, though.”
“What’s the county comin’ to, I wonder?” Lawton said. “I ain’t never seen anything like that on a sheriff’s desk before.”
“There’s more where that came from,” Hack said. “Ain’t that right, sheriff?”
“That’s right,” Rhodes replied. “But that’s something you’ll have to keep to yourselves.”
“I guess we know how to do that,” Hack said.
“I’m going to take that thing over to Ballinger’s,” Rhodes said. “Send the new deputy”—now he was doing it, he thought—”Send the new deputy over there with a fingerprint kit. I don’t expect we’ll find anything, but we’ve got to give it a try.” He carefully picked up the arm and carried it out to the car.
He drove toward Ballinger’s, thinking about the new deputy. He thought she was working out fine, but Hack and Lawton didn’t approve. The idea of a woman deputy was almost too much for them, and they couldn’t even bring themselves to call her by her name, which happened to be Ruth Grady.
Rhodes had been surprised when she applied for the job, but she was certainly qualified for it. She’d been to a community college near Houston and gotten an associate degree in law enforcement, which required her to work for a local law enforcement agency twenty hours a week for two semesters. Then she’d worked for a little police department in South Texas for a couple of years. The climate had been too humid and disagreeable for her, however, and she’d moved to Clearview to live with her bedridden father. Her father had died a few weeks before the episode that had involved Rhodes’s former deputy, Johnny Sherman. When she found out about the vacancy on Rhodes’s staff, she had applied.
Rhodes himself had been skeptical at first, but she was qualified for the job, certainly more qualified than anyone else who had applied, and he had hired her. Hack and Lawton were not pleased.
Rhodes left the arm at the funeral home with the others, told Clyde that Ruth Grady would be the one coming to do the fingerprinting, and drove home. Saturday afternoon was generally a slow time for the forces of law and order in Blacklin County. The business people were hard at work trying to earn a few dollars, and those who had the day off were at home relaxing and having a beer or taking a nap—maybe watching a little television. Saturday night was a different story, but for the time being things were quiet.
Rhodes pulled up in his driveway and called Hack on the radio to let him know where he’d be. “Have the new . . . have Ruth call me if she finds anything at Ballinger’s,” he said.
“I’ll do it,” Hack said. “She took care of Miz Thurman, and she’ll be over to Ballinger’s pretty soon.”
Rhodes got out of the car. Thanks to the August heat and the lack of rain, his yard was covered with brown, dry grass. He figured that he’d let nature take its course; if it rained, the yard got water. Otherwise, it didn’t. The grass would have to fend for itself. Rhodes hated yard work. Besides, if the grass died, that meant he didn’t have to mow it. The appearance of the yard had gone downhill considerably since his daughter, Kathy, had taken a teaching job in Richardson. She had left three weeks before to find an apartment and get settled, and the yard missed her already.
For that matter, Rhodes missed her, too. Since his wife, Claire, had died, Kathy had more or less taken care of him, not that he wasn’t capable of taking care of himself. But her involvement with Johnny Sherman and his own involvement—if that’s what it was, he thought—with Ivy Daniel had combined to make her decide that it was time to leave. Rhodes was glad, in a way, because she had a lot to offer the teaching profession. Still, the old house was empty without her.
He wandered into the living room and turned on the television set. John Wayne was just returning Natalie Wood to her family, after having searched relentlessly for her for years. Everyone in the family embraced and went inside their cabin, leaving John Wayne to stand alone on the porch outside. Rhodes knew how he felt. Then his mind drifted to the catch-phrase that the Duke had spoken throughout the movie: “That’ll be the day.” He thought about the Buddy Holly song that phrase had inspired and immediately felt better. One of these days he was
going to dig out all his old 45 rpm records and play them for Ivy Daniel.
He thought about Ivy for a minute and wondered if she was old enough to remember Buddy Holly. He thought she probably was, but her age was something they’d never discussed. He decided not to bring it up when he played the records.
He remembered that the records were in the back of the hall closet in a cardboard box. He was moving coats and sweaters out of the way when the telephone rang.
It was Ruth Grady. “I’m over at Ballinger’s, Sheriff,” she said. “I think you’d better come over here if you can.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Rhodes said. The records could wait.
Ruth Grady was short and compact. “Chunky” was the word that Hack had used, though not in her hearing. She had short, brown hair and wore a Western-style straw hat. There was a short-barreled .38 in a holster at her waist, and she looked every inch a law officer, even if she was only sixty-four inches tall.
“I found it when I opened the second box,” she said, showing Rhodes a yellow tag. Written on the tag was a man’s name, Frank Royster.
“Somebody identifying the victims?” Rhodes said. “That’s a new one.”
They were standing in one of Ballinger’s back rooms, the boxes open in front of them.
“Not exactly,” Ruth said. “That tag is for identification, all right, but it wasn’t put there by any crazed axe murderer or anything like that. It’s the kind of tag they use to identify amputated limbs.”
Rhodes hadn’t been to the same school that Ruth had attended, but he caught on quickly. “I had a feeling all along that this wasn’t a murder case,” he said. “It’s just a little too bizarre for Blacklin County.”
“I guess you’re right,” Ruth said, “but we still have a lot of arms and legs here. They have to be disposed of somehow.”
“Ballinger may be able to take care of that for us,” Rhodes said. “That still leaves us with a case of illegal dumping, though. I thought hospitals were supposed to dispose of things like that.”
Ruth hitched up her gun. “They are. I think we better talk to Mr. Ballinger.”
Clyde Ballinger was obviously disappointed. “I thought we had a really good case going here,” he said. “Well, who knows. Maybe something will turn up.”
“I hope not,” Rhodes said.
“Yeah. Well, I’d like to help you get rid of those things, but I can’t,” Ballinger said.
“You can’t?” Ruth asked.
“Don’t know if it’d be legal. Don’t know what the owners, so to speak, might think about it. It’s customary in some cases to bury the amputated part in the grave where the owner’s going to have his eternal rest; that is, it’s customary if he’s reserved a plot somewhere.” Ballinger was beginning to sound more like a funeral director.
“I thought hospitals burned them,” Rhodes said.
“Oh, they do, in lots of cases. I can’t figure why these turned up here,” Ballinger said.
“I think we’d better get in touch with the owners of that land,” Rhodes said. “I’m still not sure all this is on the up and up.”
“You might be able to get somebody on a health violation,” Ballinger said, “but I’m not sure there’s any state law about dumping body parts on private property.”
“He’s probably right,” Ruth said. “I think there’s a law about public dumping grounds, though.”
“This is ridiculous,” Rhodes said. “Ruth, go on back to the jail and see if you can get in touch with Bert Ramsey. Get the phone number of the people who own that land where he found these things. If he doesn’t have the number, go on over to the courthouse and find out the full name and get the number from information. I’m going to see what Dr. White has to say about all this.”
“All right,” Ruth said. “Will you be checking with me later?”
“As soon as I talk to Dr. White,” Rhodes said. They left Ballinger’s office and headed for their separate cars.
Dr. Sam White was the county health officer, a job he did more or less for free since he was seldom required to do anything. The rest of the time he took care of his herd of registered Longhorn cattle, having retired from his medical practice a few years previously.
Rhodes located White in the pasture not far from his rambling brick home. He was sitting in his pickup looking over his herd when Rhodes drove up behind him.
“They look pretty good to me, Doctor,” Rhodes said. The cattle were of all colors, but mostly red. Their horns weren’t really long, at least not as long as one might expect from the name. They were all slick and well-fed.
“Yes, they surely do,” Dr. White said. “What’s on your mind, Sheriff?”
Rhodes told him.
“Well, it doesn’t take an expert to tell you that such things are a definite health hazard,” the doctor said. “They should certainly be disposed of as quickly as possible.”
Rhodes told him why there would be a delay.
“I can see the legal problems, of course. No death certificates. Still, one would think . . .”
“No use in thinking,” Rhodes said. “Ballinger won’t do it.”
“Then I suggest that you call the state Health Department,” Dr. White said. “I have to admit that I’ve never heard of anything exactly like this before.”
Rhodes shook his head. “Me neither,” he said. “Me neither.”
Back at the jail, Lawton was nowhere in sight, which was usually the case when “the new deputy” was in the office. Hack was sticking close to his radio and not talking. Rhodes asked Ruth Grady what she’d learned.
“Not much,” she told him. “The property is owned by a man named Charles Dalton Adams, and he lives at 6616 Springalong in Houston. But I can’t get him on the telephone.”
“Great,” Rhodes said. “And I can just imagine trying to get in touch with the state Health Department on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Dr. White can’t do anything?” Ruth asked.
“He would if he could, I think,” Rhodes said. “He’s just as mixed up by all this as we are.”
At this point Hack could not resist talking. “If Bert Ramsey’d just burned those boxes like he ought, there wouldn’t be any trouble,” he said.
Rhodes had to admit that Hack had a point. “I’ll talk to Ballinger again tomorrow,” he said. “I’m afraid this is going to be a real mess.”
“Listen,” said Hack, “it’s Saturday night comin’ up. If this is the worst mess you have, you can count yourself lucky.”
That was two points for Hack, Rhodes decided, but he hoped nothing really bad came up. He was hoping to see Ivy.
“I’m going on home,” he said. “You call me if anything bad happens. Otherwise, well . . .”
“I know, I know,” Hack said. “Otherwise, leave you the hell alone. Pardon my French, ma’am.” He looked at Ruth for the first time.
She smiled at him. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m going home, too. Shift is nearly over. I’ll try to get in touch with that Adams fella again tomorrow. I ought to be able to catch him home on Sunday.”
“Good idea,” Rhodes said. He left, hoping for a quiet evening at home.
He got it. He even got to play his Buddy Holly records for Ivy Daniel. All in all it was as relaxing an evening as he’d spent for several months.
He wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much, however, if he’d known that at approximately ten o’clock somebody was blowing Bert Ramsey apart with a shotgun.
Chapter 3
People who had never been to Texas were often surprised by places like Blacklin County. They thought of Texas in terms of the densely populated Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth areas, never dreaming that within a few hours’ drive of either city there could be an entire county of an approximately 150-square-mile area that was home to a mere twenty thousand or so people. It seemed impossible, but there it was. And Blacklin County was not a rarity.
What was rare in the county was murder. In Houston, folks were disappointed if
their nightly news didn’t inform them of a murder or two every day, but then Houston’s population was considerably larger than that of Blacklin County. More than one hundred times larger, in fact.
There was crime in Blacklin County, of course. That very Saturday night, there were people arrested for speeding, for driving while intoxicated, and for disturbing the peace. Someone drove away from a convenience store without paying for a tank of gas. Someone spraypainted the concrete sides of a railroad underpass only a mile from the city limits of Clearview with the words SENIORS FOREVER 1988. There was nothing unusual about things like that.
Murder was unusual. But at ten o’clock that Saturday night, no one knew that murder was being committed. No one, that is, except for Bert Ramsey and the killer.
Rhodes didn’t find out the time until later, after an autopsy had been performed on what was left of Bert Ramsey. The time wasn’t exact, but it was as close as the doctor could come.
When he thought about it later, Rhodes wondered what he might have been doing at ten o’clock. He’d called Ivy Daniel, who’d agreed to have supper with him, and he’d picked her up about seven.
They went to the Taco and Tamale, a Mexican food café that had recently opened in what had been an old house. Rhodes liked the hot sauce especially, because it was just hot enough without burning all the skin off the inside of his mouth. They had tacos and tamales.
Then they went to Rhodes’s house to listen to the records. Ivy admitted that she dimly recalled Buddy Holly, and Rhodes was pleased that she remembered “Rave On” and “Not Fade Away,” two of his own favorites. For his money, Elvis wasn’t really the king. Buddy Holly was. But then, Holly hadn’t lived to get fat and turn into a Las Vegas entertainer.
“What else have you got in that box?” Ivy asked after he played both the “A” and “B” sides of all the Buddy Holly records.
Rhodes pulled out a handful of records. “Have a look,” he said.
Ivy took the flat 45s. “Fats Domino,” she said. “The Everly Brothers. Elvis. Gene Vincent. This is quite a collection you have here. Play some of these.”
