by Bill Crider
“I haven’t liked much of it so far, anyway,” Rhodes said. “So you might as well give me a try on the rest of it.”
“Well, it’s this way,” Malvin said. “Cullens was one of ours.”
Rhodes tried not to let his surprise show, but this was one thing he hadn’t taken into account. Then he realized that this was one of the things that he wasn’t supposed to like. And he didn’t. “You mean you sent a man into my county to do some sort of investigation and you didn’t tell me? That’s a little bit insulting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Cox said. “We were pretty sure we could trust you. Your record is as clean as any I’ve ever seen. But when it comes to dope, you never know who you can trust.”
“I figured there was dope mixed up in this,” Rhodes said. “I’m just not sure how.”
“That’s where we can help you out,” Cox said.
“Yes,” Malvin said. “Have you ever flown over this county in a helicopter?”
Rhodes was tempted to say that he flew around in helicopters all the time, but he restrained himself. “No,” he said.
“Well, we have,” Malvin said. “You’d be surprised what you can see when you do. Later we may give you a little ride.”
“We got started on this because of some information we picked up from informants in an investigation of Los Muertos,” Cox said. “We’ve learned a lot about them and their sources of dope.”
“OK,” Rhodes said. “I know that Bert Ramsey had a lot of money that he shouldn’t have had. I’ve got some of it in my safe, and even more of it is tied up in television sets and microwaves. I just don’t see how he was involved with dope, either as a source or as a consumer.”
“He was growing it,” Malvin said.
Rhodes was surprised again. “Where?”
“On his farm,” Cox said.
Rhodes shook his head. “I’ve been there,” he said. “It’s right on the road. Anybody can see there’s nothing growing there except grass and a few weeds. Besides, it’s been too dry here to grow anything.”
“That’s why you need a little helicopter ride,” Malvin said. “You know those woods on Ramsey’s place?”
“Yes,” Rhodes said.
“They aren’t woods,” Malvin said. “At least not much. Ramsey cleared them out. There’s a row or two of trees, but inside that row there’s a nice field of marijuana, irrigated out of a stock tank.”
Rhodes knew that it must be true, but it was still hard to believe. “We’ll have to harvest that marijuana and burn it,” he said.
“Of course,” Cox said. “But there’s another little matter, don’t forget. We’ve got a dead agent to account for.”
“I think I might be able to help you on that one,” Rhodes said.
Chapter 14
Rhodes had never been in a helicopter before. What really amazed him was the noise. Whenever Malvin had anything to say, he had to put his head right next to Rhodes’s ear and speak very loudly, almost in a shout. Cox had stayed behind. The pilot hadn’t been introduced.
They had had to drive over to the next county to get the chopper, which was being looked after at the National Guard headquarters there. “It’s not that we didn’t trust you,” Cox said as they drove over in the navy blue car that matched the navy blue suits. “It’s just that we had to be sure. You know how it is . . . you find a huge marijuana field growing in a man’s back yard, so to speak, and you have to wonder if he knows something about it.”
“No,” Rhodes said, “I don’t know.” And it was the truth. Rhodes knew himself, knew that he would never have dreamed of cashing in on something like marijuana, knew that such a thing would have been impossible for him. And nearly anyone who knew him knew that about him. Of course, he would have thought that it would have been impossible for Bert Ramsey to grow and sell dope, too.
“No hard feelings, I hope,” Cox said. “After Ramsey was killed and you started questioning Cullens, he was convinced you were straight.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for us to trust anyone,” Malvin said from the back seat. “Sometimes we don’t even trust each other.”
“Which brings us to Wyneva Greer,” Cox said. He steered the car along at exactly the legal limit. He even wore his seat belt and shoulder harness, as required by law.
“How does that bring us to her?” Rhodes asked.
“It’s a matter of trust,” Malvin said. “We sent Cullens up here not long after we made a flyover of the county. He had a good cover. We arranged for him to live in a house on land owned by someone supposed to be his cousin, and anyone checking with the cousin would get the same story. So what was he doing with Wyneva Greer? How come he’s dead?”
“He was living with Wyneva, that’s for sure,” Rhodes said. “But that’s all that’s sure. Why he was living with her, whether it was his idea or hers, that’s something we’ll have to find out. When I walked into that house, Rapper and his goons were there, and one of them had an axe handle. We’ll know more about that when we hear what killed Cullens.”
“Maybe we should have stopped by that hospital before we did this flyover,” Malvin said.
“Rhodes needs to see this,” Cox said. “Those guys will keep.”
Rhodes had made sure they would keep. He had called Ruth Grady from the jail and put her on guard at their adjoining rooms, not that he was really worried. Any stranger would have been noticed and called down immediately in the Clearview Hospital, especially a stranger that looked like Rapper or Nellie. Besides, Rhodes wasn’t at all sure there was any urgency about talking to the two men. They weren’t the type to tell their life stories at the drop of a hat.
“If those men don’t talk, then what?” Malvin asked, echoing Rhodes’s thoughts.
“I don’t know,” Rhodes told him. “It may be that Rapper and Nellie have split the scene entirely. They could be in Houston by now, for all we know.
“But you don’t really think that,” Cox said.
“No,” Rhodes said. “I don’t. I think they’re still around. I’m not sure why, but I think they’re still around.”
“It’s either the dope or the money,” Cox said. “You can bet on that.”
“Could be,” Rhodes said. “But you haven’t had any run-ins with Rapper. I have. I think he’s crazy. Oh, maybe not crazy enough to be put away, but bad enough.”
“How bad is that?” Malvin asked.
“Bad enough to stay around just because he wants to get back at me,” Rhodes said. “I’ve messed his playhouse up. If you could have seen the way he acts, you’d know what I mean.”
“I guess that’s another one of those things we’ll find out about later on,” Cox said.
It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought.
While the pilot warmed up the helicopter, Rhodes stood by the car and looked at it. Cox had called it a Jet Ranger, but he had assured Rhodes that it wasn’t jet propelled. “Carries four people in comfort,” Cox said. “Comfort’s relative, of course. Anyway, it’s just right for the kind of jobs we do.” Even as far away as they stood, he had to raise his voice almost to a yell for Rhodes to hear him.
Then Malvin tugged at Rhodes’s arm and they went to get on board. They bent from the waist as they passed under the whickering blades. Rhodes wasn’t sure just how tall he was, or just how high the blades were, but he’d seen people on TV duck when they went under them, and he wasn’t going to take any chances.
There was hardly any wind at all, and the lift-off was smooth and effortless. Rhodes had carefully strapped himself in, but the open sides still gave him a distinct feeling of discomfort.
The feeling soon wore off, however, as Rhodes was caught up in the new view he had of Blacklin County. This was nothing like flying in a plane; they seemed so close to the ground that it was almost as if they could jump down.
“Give him the scenic route,” Malvin yelled to the pilot, and that’s what they got.
They went over the courthouse and jail, and Rhodes was even able to p
ick out his own house.
“You’d be surprised at how some people keep their back yards,” Malvin said in Rhodes’s ear, and it was true.
Protected from everyone’s eyes by wood fences, the back yards of some homes were littered with everything from old, rusting auto bodies to broken toilets. Some of the homes that had immaculate front yards might have a back yard that looked like a dog run, or was filled with piles of trash consisting of everything from bathtubs to oil drums. It all surprised Rhodes a little, but at least it made him feel better about his own back yard.
Then they were out of Eller’s Prairie. As they coasted past Bert Ramsey’s house, Rhodes noted the tops of the trees that formed the line at the back of the property. They gained a little altitude, and he could see where the trees had been cleared out. Then he could see into a clearing, where the marijuana plants were growing.
They circled around three times. After Rhodes had seen enough, they headed back to the National Guard Armory.
“You guys take cruises like that often?” Rhodes asked Malvin after they were back on the ground.
“Often enough,” Malvin said. “You’d be surprised at the stuff we find growing around in clearings just like that one at Ramsey’s place.”
Rhodes would have been surprised once, but not anymore. If dope was growing in Blacklin County, it could be anywhere. He thought about it all the way to the hospital.
The Clearview Hospital was small and old, but it had been kept up well and served the needs of the county. Most patients requiring any kind of specialized care or treatment went to Dallas or Houston, and the residents of Blacklin County felt lucky to have any kind of hospital at all. It wasn’t as hard now for Clearview to attract young doctors as it had been a few years earlier, so the hospital was more than adequately staffed.
It was not especially designed for security, but anyone entering one of its three wings had to pass by the front desk, unless he took the emergency room entrance or the service entrance. He would be noticed immediately in any case, and if he looked suspicious he would be in trouble. Rhodes figured that Rapper would look suspicious even if he tried a disguise.
Jayse and the other man were in adjoining rooms at the end of a hall. Ruth Grady sat on a chair between the two closed doors. She stood up when she saw Rhodes and the federal men coming. Rhodes made the introductions, all the time thinking about the smell. Hospitals all smelled the same, no matter whether they were small or large, and it was a smell that Rhodes always associated with unpleasant memories. He had done so even before the death of his wife, but now the smell would always remind him of death. He wondered how many people felt that way, and thought that it was no real surprise that so many people feared hospitals.
Ruth stayed in the hall while Rhodes and the federal men went into the room. Jayse lay in the bed, his leg in a cast. The county hadn’t sprung for a TV set, so he was looking vacantly at the ceiling. The room contained an uncomfortable-looking chrome chair with a vinyl-covered seat and back, a nightstand, and the inevitable shelf-on-wheels device that served as a table. The walls were a pale institutional green. Rhodes was glad he didn’t have to stay there, and he wondered if Jayse might not prefer the jail.
“Well, Jayse,” Rhodes said, “it looks like you’re in for some trouble.” He introduced Malvin and Cox. “These fellas can get you put away for a long time. Me, I’m just a small-town sheriff who can probably get you for murder. These guys are going to get you for the murder of a federal agent.”
“I didn’t kill nobody,” Jayse said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What federal agent?” Jayse was a bad liar. His voice quavered, and he refused to look at anyone in the room, keeping his eyes on the pale green ceiling.
“Look,” Malvin said, “we know it looks bad for you, you being found with the axe handle. It’s really too bad, but we know from the autopsy that Cullens was killed with blows from a blunt instrument. Some of the bruises match that axe handle exactly. But maybe you didn’t do it. Maybe you just picked up the handle. Maybe someone else did the dirty work.” Malvin was a much better liar that Jayse. They hadn’t even checked the autopsy report. But Malvin’s voice never wavered from the calm, matter-of-fact tone in which he began talking.
It was quite cool in the room. In fact, it was too cool.
Rhodes had never been in a hospital room that was warm, as far as he could remember. Still, Jayse was sweating. He wiped his upper lip. “I didn’t kill nobody,” he said. “You’re right about the handle. I just picked it up. We thought the sheriff here was the killer comin’ back, so I hid to get him.”
“Now that just won’t do, Jayse,” Rhodes said. “I called out before I came in. I even said Rapper’s name.”
Jayse shook his head. “Don’t matter. You didn’t say you were the law, did you?”
Rhodes wasn’t sure, but he didn’t recall identifying himself. “I don’t remember,” he said.
“Well, you didn’t,” Jayse said. “So we couldn’t be sure who you were. You might’ve been the killer, come back for us.”
“But you had the axe handle, Jayse,” Rhodes said. “What could I have killed you with?”
“How do I know? Maybe you had a rocket launcher.” Jayse was getting cocky now. Rhodes had seen it happen before. A man would try his story out, afraid of being caught in the lie. But when it couldn’t be contradicted, he’d relax and stick to it until hell froze over. Jayse was that way.
Malvin and Cox tried. Rhodes helped all he could. But Jayse just stuck to his story. Rhodes wondered if it would work with a jury. It might. It just might.
The other man, whose name turned out to be Ted Barrett, was sullen and withdrawn. He was, if anything, less helpful than Jayse, because he simply refused to talk at all. He answered only with grunts and head shakes—very small shakes, since he was still suffering from a concussion.
Back in the hall, Cox shook his head, too, more vehemently than Barrett had. “Damn! Those two are bound to know something. There’ve got to be better ways to get it out of them.”
“They’ll be a lot less comfortable when they get to the jail,” Malvin said. “How long will that be, Sheriff?”
“Whenever the doctor releases them,” Rhodes said. “That might be a while, though.” He turned to Ruth Grady. “Could you drop a word with that informant of yours?”
“I imagine so,” she said. “When?”
“The sooner the better,” Rhodes said. “Just mention that you’ve been guarding Jayse and Ted, and say that they’ve talked. You don’t have to be too specific. Just let the word get out that we’re satisfied with what we’ve heard. Stress the federal involvement.”
“I can do that tonight,” Ruth said.
Cox and Malvin weren’t too happy, but they had to be satisfied. It was the best they could do until either they had some solid evidence or they got hold of Rapper. They drove Rhodes back to the jail and dropped him off.
Lawton and Hack were having a laugh when Rhodes came inside, but they stifled it long enough to say that Dr. Sam White had called. Cullens had died just about exactly as Malvin had described it—several blows from a blunt instrument, probably the axe handle. The blow that had killed him was a particularly strong one to the back of the head.
“I don’t guess you two were laughing at a man being killed like that,” Rhodes said.
“You know us better than that, Sheriff,” Lawton said. He looked a little disappointed that the thought would ever have crossed Rhodes’s mind. “It was something else entirely.”
“I see,” Rhodes said, and waited. He knew that he was being set up again, and that it would be Hack’s job to finish the story. “What’s happened?”
“Old Lady Laughlin’s been arrested,” Hack said.
Rhodes looked at both men sternly. There was such a thing as carrying a joke too far. “In the first place,” he said, “ ‘Old Lady Laughlin’ isn’t as old as either one of you.”
Neither man looked ashamed. “Don’t matter,” Hack said. “
That’s what ever’body calls her.”
“You’re talking about the president of the historical society, one of the best schoolteachers this town’s ever had, right?” Rhodes said.
“That’s the one,” Lawton said.
“The woman my daughter thought was about the only saving grace of the Clearview Independent School District?”
“You got it,” Lawton said.
“I just don’t believe it,” Rhodes said. “What’s the charge?”
“Squeezin’ the Charmin,” Hack said. Both he and Lawton broke into laughter.
Rhodes just looked at them until they stopped. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “Have you two been sniffing glue?”
Hack tried to look serious. “Swear to God, Sheriff. It’s the truth.” He put his hand over his heart.
“Squeezing the Charmin?”
“Over to the Safeway,” Lawton said helpfully.
“The manager called it in,” Hack said. “He caught ‘er in the act. I sent Buddy right on over. He’s the one wrote the ticket. Ask him if you don’t believe me.” He crossed his arms and looked righteous.
“All right, I guess I believe you. But there must be more to it than that,” Rhodes said.
“Nope,” Hack said. “That’s it . . . well, that’s most of it.”
“I thought so,” Rhodes said. “Let’s have all of it.”
“Well, the manager saw her. She was squeezin’ the Charmin, just like I said. Or at least that’s what it looked like she was doin’ at first. Now that’s all right, the manager said. They see those ads on the TV and they just can’t resist. Nothin’ like a little advertisin’ to get folks’ attention. But then she just kept it up. Seemed like she was really gettin’ into it. When she finally stopped, he went to check it out. Seems like she’d ripped the label off the package, needed it for some kind of mail-in refund or somethin’. He figured that was theft. She was still in the store when Buddy got there.”
“He didn’t write her a ticket for theft,” Rhodes said. “I guess he has a little sense.”
