by Bill Crider
“Mrs. Ramsey, this is Ivy Daniel,” Rhodes said. “She’s a friend of mine.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “Y’all have a seat.”
Rhodes and Ivy sat in the wooden chairs. Mrs. Ramsey sank to the couch. The room was dim and cool.
Rhodes was aware of an efficient window-unit air conditioner purring quietly, and he thought of Hack and Lawton down at the jail.
“I know this is a bad time, Mrs. Ramsey,” Rhodes began, “but I have to ask you a few questions.” He paused and looked at Mrs. Ramsey, who sat solidly and quietly on the couch.
The silence stretched out. Rhodes looked at Ivy, who shrugged. Rhodes decided to go ahead.
“Mrs. Ramsey, I always thought that Bert was in the Army before he came back here to work, but what you said last night about the motorcycles made me wonder. Was Bert ever a member of one of those motorcycle gangs?”
Mrs. Ramsey didn’t move. Rhodes waited. Finally, she said, “I heard motorsickles last night. Buster Cullens has a motorsickle.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. “I’ve seen it. But what I’m asking about is Bert, not Buster Cullens.”
“Bert was livin’ in sin with that Wyneva before Buster Cullens come up here. Bert was a good boy, before he got mixed up with them motorsickles.”
“That’s what I’d like to know about,” Rhodes said. “The motorcycles.”
“That was a long time ago,” Mrs. Ramsey said.
“How long?” Ivy asked. Rhodes was surprised, but he didn’t say anything. He figured Ivy knew what she was doing.
Mrs. Ramsey’s eyes had a sad, faraway look. “It was right after he got out of high school,” she said. “His pa had died the year before, and Bert took it pretty good. We lived right in this house, here. I’ve got a picture of Bert in his graduation gown. He was standing right by that chair you’re sittin’ in. It was that summer he got mixed up with a bad crowd, drinkin’, ridin’ them motor-sickles. It wasn’t that he did anything real wrong. That was later, with that Wyneva.”
“He had a tattoo,” Rhodes said.
“He got that tattoo that summer,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “He said he was one of the dead, now. I didn’t know what he meant, but I thought maybe his daddy dyin’ affected him more than he let on. But he got over it, finally, come back here, settled down, and made somethin’ of himself. But that Wyneva was the ruination of him. And then them motorsickles come back. . . .”
“When?” Ivy asked. “When did the motorcycles come back?”
“Two years ago,” Mrs. Ramsey said.
Rhodes looked at her, surprised. He wasn’t able to keep tabs on every single thing in Blacklin County, but he didn’t think that a gang of motorcyclists like Los Muertos could hide out there for two years without him hearing a thing about it. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“About that,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “It was after he took up with that Wyneva, but a good while before they started in to livin’ in sin.”
“Did you ever see them?” Rhodes asked.
“No, but then they never came around very often. I’d hear ‘em in the night, though. Late. They always woke me up.” Mrs. Ramsey shifted her weight on the couch.
Ivy stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Ramsey,” she said. “I believe it’s time for us to go.”
Rhodes stood up with her. “Yes,” he said. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Ramsey. I may have to talk with you again.” Mrs. Ramsey started to rise from the couch. “Don’t you get up. We can see ourselves to the door.”
When they were in the car, Rhodes said, “I ought to swear you in. You’d make a good deputy.”
Ivy smiled. “Probably not. She just needed someone she felt comfortable with. You’re too intimidating.”
Rhodes had to laugh at that. He considered himself one of the least intimidating men he knew, even though he wore a badge.
Ivy shook her head. “No,” she said, “don’t laugh. It’s true. I know you don’t threaten or bully, but you look so serious.”
“I am serious,” Rhodes told her. “Murder is serious. I don’t like it.”
“I know,” Ivy said. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
It had gotten dark while they were in the house with Mrs. Ramsey, and Rhodes hoped that Ivy couldn’t see him blushing.
Chapter 7
As they drove slowly down the back roads on the way to town, Rhodes remembered summer nights as a child, riding in the car with his family. There hadn’t been any television sets then, and often his father would drive them around in the family car, touring the dark and peaceful country. The country still looked peaceful, despite the death of Bert Ramsey, but it was no longer dark. Every house and yard and most of the barns were bathed in the eerie blue glow of a mercury vapor lamp.
Rhodes stopped the car in Bert Ramsey’s front yard. “I just want to see what it must have been like,” he told Ivy. “Whoever shot him was in plain sight of the road, what with that lamp lighting everything up. If anybody came by, they would have seen. Somebody took a big chance.”
“Not too many people come by here,” Ivy said. “I’ll bet we could sit here for hours and not see more than one car go by.”
Something in her voice made Rhodes turn and look at her. Her face looked a little strange and unearthly in the blue light, but suddenly Rhodes felt like a teenager, or at least as much like a teenager as a middle-aged man could feel. Here he was, parked in the country, on a lonely stretch of road, with a woman beside him in the car. For an instant, or the briefest part of an instant, he remembered other summer nights and other cars, not the ones his father drove, but the ones he drove. He remembered the girls who had ridden in those cars with him, and he felt a tightening in the back of his throat and in the pit of his stomach.
He put his right arm up on the seat back, and Ivy slid into the curve that it made. They looked at each other, and when he kissed her he knew that he was in real trouble this time.
Dr. Malcolm Rawlings didn’t look very much like a doctor to Rhodes. He had on a polo shirt with an alligator where the pocket should be, but there was no pocket. A cigarette package caused the doctor an obvious problem, because he was carrying it in his left hand. He had on a pair of old blue slacks, held up with a brown belt, and a pair of brown loafers. He had thinning, reddish-brown hair and the build of a former athlete, maybe a baseball player.
He stood looking around the jail office and then shook a cigarette out of his package. Jamming the package in the left front pocket of his slacks, he brought a disposable lighter from the right pocket and lit the cigarette. Then he walked over and shook hands with Rhodes.
“I’m Dr. Malcolm Rawlings,” he said. “You must be Sheriff Rhodes.”
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “This is Hack Jensen.” Hack walked over from the radio table and shook hands.
Rawlings took a deep drag from his cigarette and puffed the white smoke into the air. Its odor seemed particularly sharp to Rhodes, since neither he nor Hack smoked.
Rawlings pulled a worn billfold from his back pocket, opened it, and took out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s that list you asked for, Sheriff. That ought to take care of everything.” He stood waiting, as if ready for Rhodes to tell him to leave.
“Fine, Dr. Rawlings,” Rhodes said. “Come on over here and have a seat.” Rhodes walked to his desk and sat in his chair. There was a captain’s chair by the desk. Rawlings sat in it reluctantly.
“What’s that hole over there?” Rawlings asked suddenly, looking at the opposite wall.
“That’s where the air conditioner used to be,” Hack said. “Kinda warm in here, ain’t it?”
Rawlings didn’t answer. He turned back to Rhodes. “I’m in kind of a rush, Sheriff,” he said. “I have to get back and—”
“Just a minute,” Rhodes said. “You don’t seem to realize the problem here. I called the state Health Department about an hour ago, and I was told that I’d have to sue you if I wanted to get you to take care of what you’ve d
umped in my county. And I was told that I’d probably lose the suit unless I could definitely prove that you’d caused a health problem, which I probably can’t prove. So, I’m a little frustrated. On top of that there’s been a murder. And you think you need to leave in a hurry?”
Rawlings looked around for an ashtray. Not finding one in sight, he moved his fingers to the cigarette’s filter tip. “Uh, well, I just thought that, ah . . .”
“You just thought you’d leave me stuck with the problem, I guess,” Rhodes said. “But it won’t work like that. You’re not going anywhere until we both go over to the funeral home and check that list against the remains in the boxes. And then we’re going to decide what to do with them.”
“Can you force me to do that?” Rawlings asked. “I mean, is it legal?”
“I’m not sure,” Rhodes said. “Shall we call the county judge and get a ruling?”
“No, no, of course not,” Rawlings said. “That won’t be necessary at all. I’ll be glad to go with you.”
“Fine,” Rhodes said. “Let’s go. You can ride with me.”
Rawlings didn’t look happy, but he went.
Clyde Ballinger watched as Rawlings and Rhodes inventoried the contents of the boxes. “Tell you what, Doctor,” Ballinger said, “as one professional man to another, I can’t see how you could do such a thing as to dump those body parts like that. Seems like you could get in real trouble with your professional organizations. I know if I were to try it, why I’d be branded forever.”
Rawlings looked up. “I’ve explained the circumstances,” he said. “There’s not going to be any report of this, is there?”
“Not if everything tallies and we can arrange a satisfactory way to dispose of these things,” Rhodes said. He didn’t really have any desire to ruin Rawlings’s reputation.
“I don’t know,” Ballinger said. “It just doesn’t seem right. I bet Carella or the boys at the 87th wouldn’t let something like this slide by.”
It was Rhodes’s turn to look at him. “Seems to me you could be a little more helpful, yourself, Clyde,” he said. “You don’t seem to want to do a thing about this.”
“And get sued? You must be kidding. I wouldn’t touch this for a million bucks. Not without a court order. The way I see it, it’s the doctor’s problem.”
“I did nothing illegal,” Rawlings said.
“Just immoral,” Ballinger said.
“Cut it out,” Rhodes told them. “Let us finish checking, Clyde.”
It was a fairly gruesome business, going through the three boxes, and Rhodes wasn’t too happy to be doing it. However, it was necessary, and he kept going along, matching the limbs up to the list that Rawlings had brought, watching the doctor as he made a neat little check mark whenever there was a match. Soon they were all done.
“Everything accounted for,” Rawlings said. “Let’s get out of here.” He had goose bumps on his arms from the chill of the room. “I need a cigarette.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Rhodes said. “Not until we settle the question of what’s to be done with all this.” He gestured at the boxes and the neatly wrapped limbs scattered around.
“That’s all between you two,” Ballinger said. “I’m not going to have a thing to do with it.”
“All right, all right,” Rawlings said. “Let’s get to a phone, and I’ll see what I can do.”
They left the room and went outside. Ballinger took them to his office. Rawlings had lit a cigarette, but Ballinger made him put it out. “I don’t want my books smoked up,” he said.
Rawlings paid no attention to Ballinger’s books once they were in the office. He went right for the phone and punched long distance information. When he got a voice on the other end, he asked for the number of Gulfside Biomedical Waste Disposal. He hung up, then dialed the number using his calling-card digits. His conversation was not satisfactory.
“They won’t take these items,” he said. “They’ll take any that I have in the future, but not these. I shouldn’t have told them the whole story.”
Rhodes looked at Ballinger.
Ballinger looked at Rawlings.
“Look,” Rawlings said, an edge in his voice, “I was just trying to save a buck.” He reached in his pants pocket for his mangled cigarette pack, looked at Ballinger, and withdrew his hand. “They just didn’t mean anything to me, is all. I just used them for tissue samples. It was like they were something I bought at the dime store. Didn’t you ever get to feeling that way about the bodies you deal with?”
Ballinger managed a shocked look. “We here at Ballinger’s take a personal pride and care with every client. It’s very important to us that the loved ones are treated with respect and dignity. We would never, ever—”
“Skip it,” Rawlings said. “I wasn’t interested in a sales pitch.”
“What about it, Clyde?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, I might be persuaded,” Ballinger said.
“Wait a minute,” Rawlings said. “Persuaded to what?”
“To bury your leavings,” Ballinger said. “To get your ass out of the crack you got it into.”
“How much?” Rawlings asked.
Ballinger told him.
“But . . . but that’s more than it would have cost me to get them burned at the biomedical place. That’s robbery!”
“Not exactly,” Rhodes said. “It’s just taking advantage of a situation, which may not be exactly fair, but then nobody asked you to dump things in this county.”
Rawlings thought about it for a minute. “No charges will be filed if I get this taken care of? No publicity?”
“People talk in a little town like this,” Rhodes said. “I can’t make any promises. But there won’t be anything done in court.”
Rawlings reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn leather billfold, cracked and ripped in places, but stuffed full. “Will cash be OK?”
There was a new air conditioner in the hole in the wall.
Hack and Lawton were smiling in contentment.
“Listen how quiet that sucker is,” Hack said.
“Sure enough,” Lawton said. “And cool, too.”
“Too cool for some folks, I guess,” Hack said.
“Maybe too cool for us,” Rhodes said, “especially when the commissioners get the bill.” Robert Romig had been in early that morning and looked over the old unit. He’d told Rhodes that there wasn’t a chance of fixing it, and the sheriff had ordered a new one. He hoped the county had the money in the budget.
“Wasn’t talkin’ about us,” Hack said.
Rhodes knew then that he’d missed a hint. Something had happened while he was at Ballinger’s.
“Who’s it too cool for?” he asked.
“Somebody who’d steal a gas stove,” Hack said.
“A gas stove? To cook on?” Rhodes wasn’t quite sure what was being discussed, but then he often felt that way when Hack was reporting a crime.
“Not that kind,” Lawton said helpfully. Hack glared at him.
“A Dearborn heater,” Hack said. “One of those that you can back up to in the winter. Nothing feels better when it’s cold than being able to back up to a heater like that.”
“It has a cool top,” Lawton said. “You can put your hand on the top, or set a flowerpot on it, or anything.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. “I have that kind of heater at my house.”
“When’s the last time you checked?” Hack asked. “You mean to tell me somebody stole my stove?” Rhodes said.
“Maybe not,” Hack said, “but don’t be too sure. Somebody stole two of ‘em out of Ham Richardson’s rent house over on Rose Street. The renters skipped out two weeks ago, and they took everything they could, even the light bulbs, but they left the stoves.”
“I remember that,” Rhodes said. “Maybe they came back for the stoves when they got moved in somewhere else.”
“That’s what I think,” Lawton said. “Some don’t agree, though.”
Hack shook his head. “It could be,” he said. “Ru—the new deputy is checkin’ out the scene.”
“Let me know if she finds out anything,” Rhodes said. “I’m going home and have a sandwich. You all having something brought in?”
“Lawton’s goin’ for hamburgers,” Hack said. “When you comin’ back in?”
“Later,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes would never have admitted it, but he liked to go home for lunch, not because he liked bologna sandwiches, which was about all he ever ate there, but because he could catch all or part of the Million Dollar Movie for the day. Kathy had kept after him about eating a more balanced diet, but she’d never bothered him about the movie. He wouldn’t have missed her very much if she had.
The feature was The Naked Jungle, which he’d seen several times before—a good thing, since he’d missed the first twenty minutes. With any luck, though, he’d get to see the climactic scenes with the attacking army ants devouring everything in their path. Besides, he’d always liked Eleanor Parker, if not the usually wooden Charlton Heston.
As he ate the sandwich and watched the movie, Rhodes worried about the death of Bert Ramsey. He’d thought from the beginning, or at least since Ruth Grady had discovered the yellow tags, that Ramsey’s death had nothing to do with the arms and legs he’d found. It had to be something else. Ramsey’s conspicuous consumption, not to mention the cash in the dresser drawer (now safely locked in the jail safe), pointed to something, and possibly something illegal. The Los Muertos connection gave a pretty good hint that dope was involved. But how?
Rhodes didn’t like the idea that there was something going on in the county without his being aware of it. Of course, Los Muertos didn’t have to be staying there.
They could be riding in and out, which would be easy enough to do without anyone’s being conscious of their presence. Late at night on any of the little-traveled back roads, they could come and go with impunity. A deputy would see them only on an off chance.
Then there were Buster Cullens and Wyneva. He had only Mrs. Ramsey’s accusation to go on there. The fact that Cullens was living with Bert’s old girl friend and that he rode a motorcycle wouldn’t go far toward convicting him. Wouldn’t even come close to being grounds for arrest, for that matter. Still, it was worth considering.
