by Bill Crider
But he knew the value of being thorough, so they did the scene properly, took photographs, and bagged everything that looked remotely suspicious, such as the cigarette butt in the car’s ashtray. They didn’t try to go through Meredith’s clothing. Rhodes would do that later, at the funeral home.
It took them three hours to go over everything. When they were finished, they didn’t know much more than when they’d begun.
They knew that Brady Meredith was dead, shot in the head. Rhodes estimated that the bullet had been fired by a small caliber gun, maybe a .32, but they’d have to wait to know for sure. The bullet was still in Brady’s head.
“Probably knew the guy,” Buddy said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t let him in the car with him.”
“Are you sure it was a guy?” Rhodes asked.
“Car shut up like that, all the windows up, if it was a woman, you could still smell the perfume.”
Rhodes wasn’t so sure. “Some women don’t wear perfume. Besides, the car smells like smoke. That would cover up any perfume smell.”
Buddy didn’t approve of smoking. “Football coaches oughtn’t to smoke.”
“Maybe he didn’t. That’s why we put that butt in a bag.”
“Probably half the smokers in the county smoke Marlboros.”
“Probably.”
“Yeah. You ready for me to call the J.P. and the ambulance?”
“I guess you might as well.”
“Who’s gonna tell Brady’s wife?”
“I’ll see about that,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes didn’t go to Meredith’s house immediately. He drove over to the high school building and parked by the gym where he knew Jasper Knowles would be by now, watching the video from last night’s game with the assistant coaches. Except for Brady Meredith, of course. They would analyze the video and then bring in the team to go over it the next day in the field house.
The entrance to the gym had a big sign over the double doors, blue and gold on a white background: a bobcat’s head over the words “YOU’RE ENTERING CATAMOUNT COUNTRY!”
Rhodes went inside the building and was immediately struck by the fact that it smelled exactly the same as the gym at the old high school he had attended, a peculiar mixture of sweat, mildew, and wet socks.
The coaching offices were in the back of the gym, and Rhodes walked around the edge of the basketball court, remembering the admonitions of every gym teacher he’d ever had, all of whom told everyone never to walk on the floor of the court with street shoes on. His shoes had rubber soles, but even knowing that, he couldn’t overcome his old conditioning.
There were several doors at the back of the gym, all of them with blue and gold slogans painted above them: “THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO FAIL ARE THOSE WHO FAIL TO TRY!” and “NO GUTS, NO GLORY!” and “NO FEAR.” The third door led to the video room. Rhodes could hear voices inside.
“Damn, Jasper, I believe that Garton boy was out of bounds when Kelton hit him. Run that back and freeze it, Bob.”
Rhodes entered the room and stood silently by the door to watch the play again, and when the picture froze it showed clearly that the Garton runner’s feet had both been out of bounds before he was tackled. Not far out, mind you, but certainly far enough.
“Damn. Reckon that’ll help ’em with that pissant lawsuit, Jasper?”
“Don’t know, Roy,” Knowles said. “But I doubt it. I talked some to Gerald Bonny about it this morning, and he said he’d never heard about any case where the courts overruled a referee. He said he’d look it up, though.”
Roy Kenner was the defensive coach, a hard-featured man with dark, brush-cut hair. He was known as a tough disciplinarian who occasionally showed favoritism to players whose fathers had influence in the community. Rhodes didn’t know whether the latter part was true, though he suspected that the first part certainly was.
“I wish Brady was here,” Kenner said. “Where the hell is he, anyway?”
“Hiding his head in shame,” another voice said. This one belonged to Bob Deedham, the special teams coach. “That’s where I’d be if I’d swung at the coach.”
Deedham was burly and wide, with shoulders that filled a doorway with ease. He was the only member of the Clearview coaching staff who’d played football after college. He’d spent a season with the Houston Oilers, though he’d never made it past the practice squad.
“Anybody see where he went after he made such an ass of himself?” Kenner asked.
“Nobody was looking,” Deedham said. “We were all watching the field.”
“Bet he got drunk,” Kenner said. “I hear he drinks a bit.”
“He didn’t get drunk,” Rhodes said from the doorway.
Roy Kenner nearly fell out of his chair. “Damn! Don’t scare me like that. Who the hell’s back there?”
Rhodes reached out and flipped the light switch. Overhead, fluorescent lights hummed, blinked, and then stayed on. Knowles, Deedham, and Kenner were sitting on wooden folding chairs in front of the big-screen TV set. Deedham had a remote control in his right hand. He punched the power button, turning off the VCR. The screen of the TV set filled with electronic snow.
“It’s the sheriff,” Deedham said, just in case that wasn’t obvious to everyone. “What do you know about Brady?”
“I know where he is,” Rhodes said. He wished there was an easy way to say what he had to tell them, but there wasn’t. So he just said it. “He’s dead.”
Jasper Knowles stood up, knocking over his chair.
“Brady’s dead? What the hell happened? Was he in a car wreck?”
“He wasn’t in a car wreck.” Rhodes went on to explain about the boys and the car and what had happened to Brady.
“It wasn’t suicide, was it?” Deedham asked.
Rhodes said that he was pretty sure it wasn’t. There was no weapon in the car, for one thing.
“That makes it murder, then,” Deedham said.
Rhodes agreed that it was murder. There wasn’t much doubt about it.
“Double damn,” Kenner said, giving a sidelong glance at Knowles. “Murder. Who’d want to shoot Brady?”
Deedham was more practical. “This is going to play hell with our preparation for that bi-district game with Springville next week.”
“Good Lord, Bob,” Knowles said. “How can you think about a football game when Brady’s been killed?”
Deedham leaned back in his chair. “Easy. Brady’s dead, but that Springville quarterback’s not. He passed for nearly three hundred yards last night, and we have to get ready for him and all those sneaky little receivers he’s got. That game’s going to be played no matter what’s happened to Brady, and you’d better get your mind on it.”
“You never did like Brady much, did you?” Kenner said.
“You got that right,” Deedham agreed. “He was sloppy. I didn’t like the way he called a game, I didn’t like the way he treated the players, and I didn’t like it that he’d go drinking on the weekends. That’s no way to behave if you’re a coach.”
“He knew how to run an offense,” Knowles said.
Rhodes thought that was a pretty weak defense, and Deedham obviously didn’t agree with it, but it seemed to be the only one that Knowles had. It was the same one he’d used at the drugstore.
“I was hoping you’d call your wife,” Rhodes told the head coach. “She knows Nancy Meredith, doesn’t she?”
“She knows her.”
“What about your wives?” Rhodes asked the other coaches.
“Mine knows her pretty well,” Kenner said.
“Mine too,” Deedham said.
“I’m going to have to tell her about her husband,” Rhodes said. “Maybe your wives could go over there and give her some comfort.”
“That’s a good idea,” Knowles said. “We’ll call them. Is there anything else we can do?”
“You can be thinking about who might have a motive to kill Meredith.”
“You mean aside from Jasper?” Deedham said.
“Just what I said. Jasper’s the one Brady took a swing at, isn’t he? And they haven’t really gotten along all year.”
“That doesn’t mean I’d want to kill him,” Knowles said. “It was just something that happened in the heat of the game.”
Deedham shrugged. “If you say so.”
Kenner walked over to Deedham’s chair and stood over him. “Damn right he says so. And I say so. If anybody here didn’t like Brady, it was you. You were always tryin’ to undermine him with the team and with Jasper.”
“I’m not the one who said he liked to drink a bit,” Deedham pointed out. “That was you.”
“I was jokin’.”
“The hell you were.”
Rhodes could have spoken up and stopped the argument, but he decided to let it run on. He thought he might learn something. Jasper Knowles wasn’t interested in what Rhodes might learn, however.
“You two shut up,” he told his assistants. “The sheriff’s asked us to call our wives and have ’em go over to see Nancy, and that’s what we’re gonna do. Now you go phone, Roy.”
Kenner walked off without saying anything else. Deedham sat and fiddled with the remote control.
“You want anything else from us, Sheriff?” Knowles asked.
“Not right now. I’ll want to talk to all of you again, though. The players, too.”
Deedham looked up. “You don’t want to go upsetting our players, Sheriff. We’ve got a big game coming up in just about a week.”
“Brady Meredith doesn’t,” Rhodes said. “He won’t be there.”
“He’ll be there in spirit,” Deedham said. He sat up straighter. “That’s an idea, Jasper! We can dedicate the game to Brady. The kids’ll be so fired up, we’ll win in a walkover. Hell, we can dedicate the rest of the season to him! This could be our ticket to the championship!”
Rhodes didn’t know Deedham very well, but he thought he could grow to dislike him without putting too much effort into it. He was about to say something, but Knowles beat him to it.
“We can’t capitalize on Brady’s death like that, Bob. It wouldn’t be right. I don’t want to win that bad.”
“I do,” Deedham said. “I don’t like losing.”
“Hardly anybody does,” Knowles said. “But if you don’t win the right way, what good does it do you?”
Deedham gave a short, barking laugh. “Nobody cares how you win, Jasper. As long as you’ve been coaching, you ought to know that. They just want you to win. I’ll bet Rhodes finds that out before long.”
Rhodes had an uneasy feeling that Deedham was right.
Chapter Five
Nancy Meredith was nowhere nearly as big as her husband. She was a small-boned woman, about five-four, with mousy brown hair that hung to her shoulders. She didn’t ask Rhodes in after he told her who he was. She just stood and looked at him.
Finally she said, “Was there an accident?”
“No,” Rhodes said. “Do you mind if I come in?”
“Oh. No. Of course not.”
She stepped back into the house, opening the door wider. Rhodes went inside, and she closed the door behind him very quietly.
“We can go in the kitchen,” she said.
That was fine with Rhodes. Maybe the kitchen was where she was most comfortable. He followed her down a short hall, through the den and into the kitchen, which was also the dining area. There was a chrome table with a yellow Formica top and four matching chairs. A cut-glass salt and pepper set sat in the middle of the table.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.
Rhodes declined. “I have to talk to you about Brady,” he said.
Nancy pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. “He’s hurt, isn’t he? That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Rhodes said. “He’s dead.”
She didn’t faint or scream or even start crying. She just sat down in one of the chairs and looked up at Rhodes as if she were expecting him to say more.
He waited until she asked, “How did it happen?”
“Somebody shot him,” Rhodes told her
She shook her heard. “A hunting accident? Brady didn’t even like to go hunting.”
“It wasn’t an accident. Somebody shot him deliberately.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know that yet,” Rhodes said. “I was hoping that you might be able to give me some idea.”
“How could I? Do you think I did it?”
Rhodes didn’t think that, but it was always a possibility.
“I thought you might know if there was anyone who might have reason to want him dead,” he said. “Does he have any enemies? Has anybody been threatening him?”
“No. Everybody likes Brady.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “He never got any threats, even last year when the team wasn’t playing so well. Is this a joke?”
“I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” Rhodes said.
“Brady likes playing jokes, but this isn’t very funny.”
“I wish it were a joke, but it’s not. I’m sorry. Brady’s dead. Someone killed him.”
Nancy Meredith started crying then, putting her face in her hands to hide the tears. Rhodes didn’t have a handkerchief to offer her, but there was a roll of paper towels sitting by the sink. He tore one off the roll and handed it to her. It was all he could do. He was glad to hear the doorbell ring, knowing that one or more of the other coaches’ wives had arrived.
Nelson “Goober” Vance was the sports reporter for the Clearview Herald. Because the Herald could afford only one reporter, he was also the society writer, the feature writer, and the front-page columnist (“Around the Town with Goob”). But his heart was with the Catamounts. Rhodes figured that if anyone knew about Brady Meredith, it was Vance, so when he left Nancy Meredith, he went to the newspaper office.
Rhodes could remember a time when the newspaper office had a smell as distinctive as the gym, a smell made up of printer’s ink and hot machinery and paper. And the sound of the press was a constant hum.
It wasn’t like that now. The newspaper office could have belonged to an insurance agent or a real estate salesman. There were four desks, each one with a computer terminal sitting on it. There was a big stack of back issues on one desk, along with some forms for classified ads. The other desks were covered with note pads and papers.
The only person in the office was Goober Vance. He was sitting at his desk, typing on a computer keyboard. Or maybe he wasn’t typing, since he wasn’t using a typewriter. Rhodes wasn’t sure what the right word was.
“Just a second, Sheriff,” Vance said. A toothpick waggled at the corner of his mouth. He had quit smoking a year or so ago and had since contributed mightily to deforestation. “Have a seat. Be with you soon’s I finish this paragraph.”
Rhodes sat at one of the vacant desks. Vance stared at the words appearing on his computer monitor, typed a period with a flourish, and looked over at the sheriff.
“Now, then, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“Tell me a little about Brady Meredith,” Rhodes said.
“Funny you should want to know about him,” Vance said. He was a small man with wavy brown hair and small brown eyes that were a little too close together. “I was just writing an article about his death.”
“What were you saying?”
“I was saying that it was a shame that a young and successful coach had to die in such a bizarre way. You want to fill me in on that?”
Rhodes wasn’t surprised that Vance already knew about Meredith’s murder. It was almost impossible to keep a secret in a small town like Clearview.
“You probably already know as much as I do. What I want to find out is what’s not going into the article.”
Vance removed the gnawed toothpick from his mouth and looked at it for a moment before tossing it into a green metal trash can beside
his desk. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a plastic box, removed a toothpick, and stuck it between his teeth.
“You mean about his private life?” he asked after working the toothpick from the right side of his mouth to the left.
“I mean about his drinking and anything else that might give me some idea about how he wound up dead.”
“He drank a little, but not enough to make a difference to anybody. Everybody needs a beer now and then, Sheriff, just to relax. He was discreet about it.”
That was all that mattered. The Clearview school board didn’t care how teachers conducted their personal lives as long as their personal lives didn’t affect their performance in the classroom.
“Where he drank, now, that’s something else,” Vance said.
“Where did he drink?” Rhodes asked.
“He had to get out of town, so not too many people would see him. He went out to The County Line. I wouldn’t go there, myself.”
Rhodes resisted asking Vance where he would go. He said, “That’s a pretty rough place. We’ve had a few calls about it.”
“I know. I write the “Law and Order” column.” He was referring to a weekly column that gave readers a condensed version of the various crimes and arrests throughout the county. “You ever read that?”
“I don’t need to,” Rhodes pointed out.
“Right. Well, from what I hear, most of the stuff that happens out there at The County Line never gets reported to you. The people involved are the kind that like to settle things themselves.”
True enough. The emergency room of the Clearview hospital had a few cases every weekend that came from The County Line, though the patients usually said something like, “I fell off my bike,” or “I slipped in the tub.” While the former excuse was at least likely, the latter was clearly false. Most of the people who said it didn’t look as if they’d been near a bathtub for several weeks.
“Did Meredith ever get in any fights out there?” Rhodes asked.
“Not that I’ve heard about. There are plenty of rough customers out there, though. Wonder if any of them had a lot of money bet on the game last night?”
