by Bill Crider
* * *
Buddy arrived about fifteen minutes later, siren wailing, driving much too fast on the unpaved road. He would’ve been driving too fast even if he’d been on a paved road. He stopped the Charger behind Ruth’s car and jumped out, eager for action. He carried a .357 revolver that was nearly as big as he was, not quite Dirty Harry’s weapon, but close. It was his lifelong dream to ask some punk if he felt lucky. So far, however, he’d never shot anyone or even come close to it.
“What’s the deal here, Sheriff,” Buddy asked. He looked at the four men sitting on the ground. “Looks like you’ve rounded up the usual suspects. Want me to interrogate ’em?”
“Nope,” Rhodes said. “I want you to take a couple of them to the jail, advise them of their rights, and get them booked. I think Ben and Noble would be the ones to ride with you. Ruth can take Glen and Kenny. That way there won’t be any unnecessary discussion.”
“Okay,” Buddy said. “Ben, you and Noble stand up now and come with me. Don’t make me have to come get you.”
The two men struggled to their feet, and Buddy led them to his county car. After he’d settled them in the backseat, he said to Rhodes, “You want me to go back on patrol when they’re booked? I could stay around and give ’em the third degree if you want me to.”
“I’ll take care of that myself,” Rhodes said, and Buddy left.
Ruth loaded up Glen and Kenny and followed him, and Rhodes stayed around to look over the house and the pickups. He didn’t find anything of interest in Kenny’s pickup, although maybe he’d been hoping to find the keys to a Toyota or something else to connect Kenny and Noble to the death of the man in the schoolhouse. He could easily imagine them driving aimlessly around, spotting the car, and going into the building with their cheap small-caliber automatics. It was harder for him to imagine them killing anyone, but he’d learned enough about human nature to know that something like that was entirely possible.
The inside of the house was just about what he’d expected. The heat radiated downward from the rusty tin roof, and he felt as if he were baking in an oven. The place had the peculiar odor of old houses, overlaid with the smell of fast food. Ben and Glen had been living there for a while, sleeping on an old mattress on the floor. Greasy fast-food wrappers and Styrofoam containers were strewn all around. Housekeeping wasn’t one of Ben and Glen’s virtues. In fact, Rhodes wasn’t sure they had any virtues worth mentioning.
It took him a while to find what he thought he might. It was hidden under the floor, and he had to move the mattress to discover the prised up floorboard and the black garbage bag stashed under the floor. Ben and Glen had been selling a little marijuana, it seemed. Rhodes figured that Kenny and Noble either wanted free weed or planned on taking it all and setting up their own operation. That was about how their thinking would go.
Rhodes knew that Ben and Glen would say they had no idea that the marijuana was there, that it most certainly wasn’t theirs, and that they’d never seen it before. If there were fingerprints on the bags, he could prove them wrong, but they might’ve been smart enough to wear gloves when handling things.
Rhodes marked the bags as evidence, put them in the Tahoe, and went on to search Ben and Glen’s pickup. As they’d told him, there were guns in the cab, a .30-.30 rifle and a genuine Glock niner. Kenny and Noble, whether they’d known it or not, had been severely outgunned. They were lucky Rhodes had come along before they got themselves shot up. Ben and Glen were lucky, too, because they might have killed the other two or at least wounded them badly, and even if they’d done it by accident, it would’ve gone hard with them.
Rhodes put the guns into the Tahoe and called Hack to tell him to get the trucks towed and put in the county impound lot.
“Won’t be there long,” Hack said. “Those fellas Ruth and Buddy brought in will be out of here before you know it.”
“Not before I have a little talk with them,” Rhodes said.
“Wanna bet?” Hack asked.
Rhodes didn’t want to bet. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
“Might not be quick enough.”
“We’ll see,” Rhodes said.
* * *
Rhodes should’ve bet. The prisoners were still there, as their lawyer wasn’t available at the moment. Rhodes wasn’t sure anybody would talk to him without a lawyer present, but it turned out that Kenny would.
The interview room wasn’t a pleasant place, just an old scarred table and a couple of chairs, one on each side of the table. Rhodes sat in one and Kenny in the other.
Things went about as Rhodes had thought they would. Kenny didn’t know a thing about the school building in Thurston. He and Noble had gone out for “a few beers” the previous night but hadn’t been in Thurston at all. Rhodes wasn’t sure he believed that, but he let it pass.
Kenny also repeated the story that he and Noble had just been out sightseeing when the Whitesides began firing on them.
“I tell you, Sheriff,” Kenny said, “it was bad. Here me and Noble are, just taking it easy, driving along a country road like people do, and somebody starts shooting at us. We had to defend ourselves. You can see that, can’t you?”
“I have a feeling that Ben and Glen didn’t see it that way,” Rhodes said.
Kenny gave his head a shake. “Yeah, maybe not, but you know those two. They’re liars and the truth’s not in ’em.”
“Unlike you and Noble.”
“You got it. The two of us don’t like to lie, ’specially to the law.”
Rhodes nodded, admiring Kenny’s ability at tale telling. If he’d gone into politics before he went bad, he’d probably be at least a state senator by now. Not that it was too late for a dramatic reformation and reinvention of himself. It would never happen, though. Kenny didn’t have the drive for it.
“If you’re so worried about that old schoolhouse,” Kenny said, interrupting Rhodes’s thoughts, “you oughta talk to the people who care about an old dump like that. And that don’t include me or Noble. They can tear that place right down to the ground and drive a ’dozer over it, and it won’t bother us even a little bit.”
He had a point there, not so much about himself and Noble but about other people living in Thurston who were taking sides in the fate of the schoolhouse. Rhodes would have to go back to Thurston and start poking around there. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with Kenny, Noble, Ben, and Glen when it came to the murder, and the murder was what really mattered. He sent Kenny back to his cell to wait for his lawyer and went out to do his paperwork, although it wasn’t really on paper anymore.
Rhodes had just gotten settled at the computer when Seepy Benton came in.
“Case closed,” Seepy said, sitting in the chair beside Rhodes’s desk.
“Already?” Rhodes said. “That was quick. I thought it would be harder to trace a VPN.”
“I didn’t have to trace it,” Seepy said. Removing his fedora, he crossed his legs and set the hat on his knee.
Rhodes waited, but Seepy didn’t say anything else. It was like talking to Hack or Lawton or just about anybody else in the county. Everybody seemed to get pleasure out of making Rhodes drag information out of them.
“So what did you do?” Rhodes asked after a couple of seconds.
“Advertising,” Seepy said.
“You advertised for the culprits to give themselves up?”
Seepy laughed. “I didn’t think of that. I thought about the advertising on the site. Not a lot of people want to advertise on a site like that, but it has a few ads from local people. So who solicits the ads?”
“I’m getting old and slow,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t think of that.”
Seepy gave him a pitying look. “You can’t think of everything. Anyway, I checked with a couple of the advertisers, pretending that I might like an ad on the site for my new business. I found out that they didn’t initiate the contact. They were all solicited by email. The ones who decided to risk an ad were told to send payment to an online
payment collection service.”
“You’re not going to tell me you hacked the payment service.”
“No, I’m not going to tell you that, but to do business that way, you have to use an email address. Maybe I can’t track down somebody using a VPN, not very quickly, anyway, but I can track down an email user. Want me to tell you how?”
Rhodes shook his head. “Even if you did, I wouldn’t understand it, would I?”
Seepy didn’t bother to hide the slightly condescending tone in his voice. “Probably not. It doesn’t matter, though. What I’d like to do is verify that the person with that email address is the one who’s running the website the mayor’s worried about. You want to go with me?”
Rhodes wasn’t sure what Seepy was trying to get him into. “I’m not involved in this mess. It’s between you and the mayor. Besides, I don’t want to intimidate anybody into thinking he might have to stop doing a blog.”
“It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Yes it would.”
“Let me put it another way,” Seepy said. “I’m a little worried about doing this. What if I get myself into a situation that I can’t get out of? You’d feel guilty if anything happened to me.”
Rhodes sat silently.
After a few seconds Seepy said, “Well?”
“I’m thinking it over.”
“It would be a big favor to me.”
Rhodes thought some more, then said, “All right, I’ll do it, but you’ll have to do most of the talking.”
Seepy smiled and picked up his hat. He set it on his head and said, “I’m good at that.”
* * *
Rhodes drove the Tahoe and followed Seepy to one of Clearview’s older residential areas. In some places in town, the older houses had been allowed to age ungracefully, but in the part where Seepy led Rhodes, most of the houses had been repaired and freshened over the years. The asphalt of the street was cracked, and the lawns were all dead because of the dry, hot summer with dirt showing through in places, but the houses themselves gleamed with neat siding or clean bricks. Colorful swing sets stood beside wading pools, although no children were in evidence. It was too hot for them, or for anybody, to be outside.
Seepy parked his car at the curb in front of a house on a corner. The house was surrounded by a chain-link fence and was hard to see because of several very old trees that hid most of it from the street. Rhodes stopped the Tahoe behind Seepy’s car, got out, and was immediately wrapped in the oppressive heat. The air was so still that not a leaf moved on any of the trees.
“This is the place,” Seepy said.
“I’m a trained cop,” Rhodes said. “I figured it out for myself.”
Seepy went to the gate in the fence. It opened easily with just a little squeak.
“Did you ever think there might be a dog in there?” Rhodes asked.
Seepy closed the gate. “I don’t see a ‘Beware of the Dog’ sign.”
“That doesn’t mean much,” Rhodes said.
“You go first, then,” Seepy said.
Rhodes didn’t mind. He didn’t think there was a dog. He’d just wanted to give Seepy a little jolt.
From the gate a cracked sidewalk led to the front door of the house. Rhodes had to bend down to avoid tree branches that overhung the walk.
“Are you back there?” he asked Seepy without turning around.
“I’m here,” Seepy said. “Any sign of a dog?”
Rhodes saw a carport to the right of the house. A gray Chevy Cruze several years old sat inside it, but Rhodes didn’t see any dogs.
“No dogs,” he said, walking up to the front door of the house. The sidewalk led directly to the door. There was no porch.
Rhodes figured that since he was in the lead, he might as well knock. He tapped the door frame a couple of times and waited. He heard a noise in the house and noticed that there was a peephole in the door. It was always possible that whoever was inside would take a look and keep the door closed. It wouldn’t be an unreasonable thing to do.
To Rhodes’s surprise, however, the door opened almost at once. A young man looked at Rhodes and said, “Sheriff, I’m glad you’re here. Come on in. I need to talk to you.”
Chapter 9
Rhodes got over his surprise and went inside the house. The interior was dark and cool after the oppressive heat of the early afternoon. He followed the man along a narrow hallway and into an old-fashioned living room, filled with what looked like furniture from the nineteen fifties, an upholstered couch, a couple of squarish low-backed chairs, and a low coffee table, above which a ceiling fan turned slowly. A writing desk sat up against one wall. A floor lamp stood beside the desk.
The man stopped near the coffee table and said, “Have a seat, Sheriff. Your deputy, too.”
Rhodes looked around. Seepy had followed right along, and he’d respectfully removed his fedora.
“He’s not exactly my deputy,” Rhodes said.
“Well, that’s okay, whoever he is. Please. Sit down. Can I get you something to drink? I have some Diet Dr Pepper.”
Rhodes didn’t drink diet drinks, although a genuine Dr Pepper would have tasted just fine.
“No, thanks. What about you, Seepy?”
“No, thanks. Water would be good, though.”
“I’d take some of that,” Rhodes said.
“Great,” the man said. “I’ll be right back.”
As he left the room, Seepy sat in one of the chairs and put his fedora on the floor beside him. Rhodes sat in the other chair. It wasn’t what he’d call comfortable.
“Who is that man?” Seepy asked. “And why is he so glad to see us?”
“It’s me he’s glad to see,” Rhodes pointed out.
“Okay, I grant you that. Why is he so glad to see you?”
“I have no idea,” Rhodes said.
They sat quietly until the man came back into the room. He carried a glass tray with a pitcher of ice water and three glasses on it. He set the tray on the coffee table and poured a glass of water.
“Don’t get up,” he said, handing the glass to Rhodes, who took it and drank. The cold water felt good as it slid down his throat.
Seepy took his glass, and then the man poured a glass for himself before sitting on the couch. Rhodes looked the man over. He was fairly young, under forty, and had black hair that he wore in a buzz cut. In spite of the dark hair, he was clean-shaven with no trace of a shadow on his cheeks. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, jeans, and a pair of some kind of running shoes. Rhodes wasn’t good on brand recognition.
“I’m Roger Prentiss,” the man said after taking a sip of his water. “I know you’re Sheriff Rhodes, but I don’t know your … associate.”
“That’s Dr. C. P. Benton,” Rhodes said. “He teaches math at the community college. He’s helped me out a time or two.”
If Seepy wanted to mention his private-eyeness, that was up to him. Rhodes wasn’t going to bring it up.
“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Benton,” Roger said.
“I’m glad to meet you, too,” Seepy said.
“Are you any relation to Howard Prentiss?” Rhodes asked Roger.
Roger smiled. “I’m not surprised that you remember him. He was everybody’s friend, never met a stranger, and I’m related to him, all right. He was my dad. I grew up here when he was working at the Ford dealership. We moved away not long after I went to college, and I never came back here until a couple of years ago when I bought this house and moved in. I was living in Dallas, and the big city didn’t suit me. I always liked it here in Clearview, though. The small-town life was what I wanted, and I can live anywhere, doing the kind of work I do.”
“So you came back to dig the old Blacklin County dirt?” Seepy said.
Roger set his glass back on the tray with a click and looked at Seepy. Seepy looked back. Rhodes stood up and took his own glass over to the tray and set it down, then went back to his chair. Seepy did the same. Roger just watched them.
“Well?�
� Seepy said after a few more seconds had passed.
“How did you find out about me?” Roger asked.
“I’m a private detective,” Seepy said. “I have a big brain—”
“And he’s not afraid to use it,” Rhodes said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”
“It’s not?” Roger said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Seepy said. “I just wanted to confirm that the blog was yours. I guess I’ve done that.”
“It’s not mine, exactly,” Roger said. “If you’re not here about the blog, Sheriff, what are you here for?”
“Why don’t you tell me why you wanted to see me,” Rhodes said. “Then we’ll talk about why I’m here.”
“It has to do with the blog in a way,” Roger said. “I think.”
Here we go again, Rhodes thought. “Just tell us, and then we’ll see.”
“It’s my friend,” Roger said. “Lawrence Gates. Not Larry. He hated that nickname. He was always Lawrence.”
“I don’t know him,” Rhodes said.
“He’s not from here,” Roger said. “He was my college roommate, and I lost touch with him over the years. Then we connected on Facebook a couple of years ago, and one thing led to another.”
“What things are we talking about?” Rhodes asked.
“The blog,” Roger told him. “It wasn’t my idea. It was Lawrence’s.”
“What would be his interest?” Seepy asked. “You said he wasn’t from around here, after all.”
“He just seemed to think it would be fun, or that’s what he said. We’d gotten along well in college, and he said we’d be good housemates. I didn’t argue with him. I have a little inheritance, and I make a little money doing freelance writing for some websites, but I thought having some help with the mortgage payment wouldn’t hurt. So Lawrence moved in and started the blog. It’s not the only thing he does. He writes for internet sites, too. Military history. He knows more about things like the Roman wars with Persia or the Battle for The Hague than just about anybody.”
“You said he wasn’t from around here,” Rhodes said. “Nobody who wasn’t from here could find out some of the local things he wrote about.”
