That Old Scoundrel Death

by Bill Crider

  “No freebie for you, Sheriff,” she said, righting the treat and setting it on the table.

  “Maybe next time,” Rhodes said.

  “Not if I’m here,” Julia said. “I never forget to turn ’em upside down.”

  “I’ll wait for a trainee,” Rhodes said.

  Julia laughed. “Good luck, and enjoy your Blizzard.”

  “I plan to,” Rhodes said, and went outside.

  As he sat in the DQ parking lot eating the Blizzard, Rhodes thought about Lawrence Gates. He had been secretive about his identity with all his aliases, and for some reason he’d been interested in the Thurston schoolhouse controversy. That seemed odd for someone who wasn’t from Blacklin County, but maybe he was just looking for a big story for the blog, something that would pull a lot of page views.

  Rhodes wondered about Mayor Clement and how he’d taken the news about who’d been writing the blog and about what had happened to Lawrence. It was barely possible that Clement had somehow learned who was doing the blog even before Seepy had, and that would make him a suspect. It was hardly worth considering but not something Rhodes could disregard completely.

  Thinking about what might have happened, Rhodes thought that Lawrence must have known whoever shot him. They were together in the schoolroom, and Lawrence had allowed someone to get close to him as he was about to write something on the blackboard. It was too bad that Lawrence hadn’t been able to leave a dying message the way some victims did in mystery novels and movies.

  As Rhodes reconstructed the crime, someone had come into the building through the second-floor window, met Lawrence, killed him, taken his car keys and other personal items, and driven away in Lawrence’s car. It would have been easy to do, and anyone seeing the car leaving the school would assume that it was being driven by the owner. If Rhodes could find the car, he might get a step closer to the killer, but the car could be anywhere by now, sold in Houston or even sent across the border into Mexico. The killing had resulted from something more than just a car theft, however. Rhodes was sure of that.

  Could the destruction of the school building have led someone to kill? Maybe, but were people really that upset? He’d start by talking to Wanda Wilkins again. She might have thought of something she hadn’t told him, or she might have remembered something else Lawrence had said. Or something she’d seen.

  And as he’d told Clyde, even Roger Prentiss was a suspect. He could’ve gone to the school with Lawrence, even though Wanda Wilkins hadn’t seen him. He could have killed Lawrence and driven the car home, disposing of it or hiding it later.

  Rhodes scraped the last of the Blizzard from the cup and ate it, crunching the bits of the Heath Bar that remained. He’d gotten the smallest-size Blizzard, so he thought of himself as being somewhat virtuous. He got out of the Tahoe and put the empty cup in the trash, then got back in and headed for Thurston.

  * * *

  Wanda Wilkins came to the door when Rhodes knocked. She was wearing the same camouflage baseball cap. She also wore jeans, but this time her shirt was green.

  “Good afternoon, Sheriff,” she said. “You come for supper?”

  “Is it suppertime?” Rhodes asked.

  “It is for me. I like to eat early. I go to bed early, too. Sometimes I like to have breakfast for supper, and that’s what I’m having tonight. Scrambled eggs, sausage patties, toast, and grits. Sound good?”

  Rhodes was tempted, and he felt a bit guilty because he’d had the Blizzard, even though it was a small one. He knew that Ivy would fix something healthy for their supper, possibly something involving kale. Sausage patties were preferable to kale. Most things were preferable to kale, but Rhodes summoned up some inner strength and said, “Sounds fine, but I’m not here for supper.”

  “What’re you here for, then?”

  “To talk.”

  “I like talking almost as much as I like early supper. Come on in.”

  The door opened directly into a small living room, which contained furniture that Rhodes thought might be as old as he was. It didn’t look excessively worn, just old. A blue-and-pink-floral-print couch sat against one wall, and two matching chairs stood nearby. They looked a little like those in Roger Prentiss’s living room, except less comfortable. The coffee table in front of the couch had claw feet, and it had a glass top that could be lifted off with the handles on each end. The only modern thing in the room was the flat-screen TV set that sat on a stand against the wall opposite the couch.

  “Have a seat, Sheriff,” Wanda said. “I don’t get a lot of visitors since I’m so old. Nobody but old people like to visit old people, and there aren’t many people in town as old as I am except for the ones in the cemetery, and they don’t get out much.” She laughed at her own joke. “The couch’s more comfortable than the chairs. I’d sit there if I were you.”

  Rhodes sat on the couch, and Wanda took one of the chairs. She sat up very straight, and as soon as she was seated, she said, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “The schoolhouse,” Rhodes said. “Who wants to keep it and who wants it to go.”

  Wanda didn’t appear interested in that topic. She said, “You ever find out who that dead man was?”

  “I did. His name wasn’t Bruce Wayne. It was Lawrence Gates. He lived in Clearview, and he was down here to find out about the schoolhouse.”

  “I told him about it.”

  “He must have wanted to know more. Somebody met him there and killed him. I want to find out who.”

  Wanda smiled. “I already told you I didn’t do it.”

  “I remember,” Rhodes said. “I wondered if you’d had time to think things over and maybe make a suggestion or two about who might’ve done it.”

  Wanda pushed up the brim of her cap and gave Rhodes a piercing look. “I don’t rat people out.”

  “So you know who did it?”

  “That’s not it,” Wanda said. “I might not have told you that I’m the president of the Thurston Ex-students Association. A lot of people who live here are members, and if I went around talking about them, they’d feel like I was a gossip, which I’m not. That Lucy Perkins who lives over on the other side of town, now, she’s a gossip. She can’t help you, though. She didn’t go to school here. Moved here with her husband when he retired about ten years ago and thinks she knows it all because they come from the big city. Her husband didn’t go to school here, either. They just wanted to move to a little town for some peace and quiet.”

  Rhodes overlooked the digression. He said, “All I want to know is who’s most interested in saving the schoolhouse and who’s most interested in having it torn down. That wouldn’t be gossip. It’s information I need in an investigation.” He paused. “I could always go talk to Lucy Perkins, though, if you don’t want to help me out.”

  Wanda sat up even straighter. “You wouldn’t get anything you could trust from Lucy Perkins. She’s not from here, and she doesn’t know the people in this town like I do.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Rhodes said. “That’s why I came to you. I need to get the facts, and I knew you were the one who could give them to me.”

  “Well,” Wanda said after a few seconds’ consideration, “I guess I could help you a little bit, but you can’t spread around where you got the information.”

  “I’d never do that,” Rhodes assured her. “Everything you tell me is strictly confidential.”

  “All right, then. You need to look at the Hunleys and the Falkners first, but the Reeses are worth a look, too.”

  “Charlie Reese?” Rhodes asked.

  Reese was a rancher who’d once owned property all over the county and in other counties, too. He’d started buying land years ago when it was cheap, and while he’d held on to a few choice acres, he’d sold most of his property as the prices went up. He’d done quite well for himself, and he might have been as rich as the Falkners. The Hunleys weren’t rich, but they had such a good reputation in the county that they were sometimes thought of as rich.<
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  “That’s right, Charlie Reese. You know he carries a pistol out in the open?”

  The Texas open carry law hadn’t proved to be much of a problem in Blacklin County. Most people who carried a weapon preferred to keep it concealed, but Charlie Reese was different. He liked to dress in cowboy garb, and wearing a revolver in a holster was part of the rig.

  “I know,” Rhodes said, “but he’s never been in trouble.”

  “He’s a bully,” Wanda said. “He doesn’t have to use his gun. He pushes people around without it.”

  Rhodes had heard a story or two about Charlie’s bullying. He was a big, imposing man, a couple of inches over six feet and over two hundred fifty pounds, not much of it fat. If he was doing the pushing, not many people were going to push back, especially with that gun on his hip.

  “He’s a hunter, too,” Wanda said. “Kills things like deer and feral hogs.”

  “With the hog problem we have around here,” Rhodes said, “we could use a few more hog killers.”

  “I think he does it for fun,” Wanda said, “not because he’s trying to help control the hog problem.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Rhodes said. “Is he for or against the demolition.”

  “For it. From what I’ve heard, he didn’t have a very good time of it when he was there. That’s just gossip, though, and I don’t gossip.”

  “You told me that,” Rhodes said.

  “Well, I don’t, and you can believe it. And don’t forget Charlie’s wife.”

  “What about her?”

  “Arlene, that’s her name. She’s as bad as he is, lording it over people because she has a lot of money, not one penny of which she earned herself. Got it all by marrying Charlie, although I guess that’s the same as earning it the hard way. She wants that building down in the worst way. She was never one of the popular girls, and she hates the place because of that. Faye Falkner’s no prize, either.”

  “What about her?” Rhodes asked.

  “Anything I had to say would just be gossip, and I don’t repeat gossip. Just what I know firsthand.”

  Rhodes pressed her, but she wouldn’t go further, so he said, “I’ll talk to everybody you’ve mentioned and see what I can find out for myself. Anybody else I should talk to?”

  “You can ask the Hunleys and the Falkners and Charlie Reese about that. They might know. I don’t.”

  Rhodes knew he’d have to be satisfied with that. “Did you happen to remember seeing anything else over at the schoolhouse last night? Cars? Pickups? Did you see anybody drive away in Lawrence’s car?”

  “I didn’t see any of that.” Wanda pointed with a thumb at the TV set behind her. “I was watching TV. That’s what I like to do at night. There’s a lot of good programs on if you have the satellite, which I do. You can watch the old shows in black-and-white if you want to, or you can watch the new ones. The old ones are better, mostly.”

  At that point in the conversation, a big orange cat strolled into the room. It walked over to Rhodes and rubbed up against his leg. Rhodes reached down to give its head a pat and asked its name.

  “That’s Leroy,” Wanda said. “He’s a mess. Sleeps most of the day and goes out at night for a while.” She gave Leroy a thoughtful look. “Come to think of it, I might’ve seen something when I let him out last evening.”

  Rhodes was glad Leroy had shown up. “What did you see?”

  “Not much, just some old pickup that drove by. Looked like a junker.”

  “What model?”

  “I don’t know anything about pickups or cars. Used to be able to tell them all apart when I was a girl. Now they all look alike. Cars, too. Might as well buy one as another if you’re going for looks. All just the same.”

  Leroy jumped up onto Rhodes’s lap. Rhodes rubbed his head, and Leroy started to purr. He turned around a couple of times, then settled down and closed his eyes.

  “He’s a lazy one,” Wanda said. “If he’s bothering you, just put him on the floor.”

  “He’s not bothering me,” Rhodes said. “Now about that pickup you saw. You said this was an old one.”

  “Not that old. Might’ve been a Chevy, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  That could have been Kenny, Rhodes thought. He said he hadn’t been in Thurston, but Kenny was as big a liar as he claimed the Whiteside boys were.

  “I didn’t get more than a quick look at it,” Wanda said. “Soon as Leroy went out the door, I went back to the TV.”

  “I guess I don’t have any more questions, then,” Rhodes said.

  He set Leroy on the floor and stood up. Rhodes’s lap was warm where Leroy had lain. Leroy gave him a resentful look and went off to sleep elsewhere.

  “I appreciate you giving me the time,” Rhodes told Wanda.

  Wanda stood up as well. “I like talking, like I told you. You sure you don’t want some early supper? I got my own hens out back, so the eggs are fresh. Had to buy the sausage at the store, but it’s not bad.”

  Rhodes wanted to say yes, but he didn’t. “My wife will be expecting me for supper. I don’t want to disappoint her.”

  “She might be glad to have supper by herself for a change.”

  “She might,” Rhodes said, “but then I’d be disappointed.”

  Wanda laughed. “I like you, Sheriff. Any time you want to come by for a talk, you’ll be welcome.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Rhodes said.

  It was getting late in the afternoon as he drove back to Clearview. He had just about enough time to go by the jail for any updates he needed before going home. Mika Blackstone, the fingerprint tech and just about every other kind of tech the department had, might have come up with something from the prints Andy had collected at the school.

  Rhodes didn’t think about the fingerprints for long, however. He thought about sausage patties and scrambled eggs all the way back. He wondered if Leroy got any bites of the sausage as a treat. Probably not. Rhodes wished he had a bite, but that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe supper with Ivy wouldn’t involve kale. He could always hope.

  Chapter 12

  When Rhodes arrived at the jail, he could tell that Hack and Lawton were dying to tell him something, or not tell him something and make him drag it out of them, but he waved them off. It wasn’t quite five o’clock, so there was a chance he could call the courthouse and find the county judge still there. He wanted to get a warrant for Lawrence Gates’s cell phone records.

  Sure enough, Judge Casey was there, although he said he’d been on his way out the door when the phone rang. Rhodes asked about getting the warrant for the cell phone records and explained why he needed it.

  “Send somebody over in the morning, and I’ll have it ready,” the judge said. “You know the phone provider will drag its feet, warrant or not.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said, “but the sooner I get started, the better.” He thanked the judge and hung up.

  Hack started to say something, but Rhodes waved him off again. “Was Mika able to do anything with the fingerprints Andy got in Thurston?”

  “She sent a report to your computer,” Hack said. “I been thinkin’ about those fingerprints. When’s the last time we solved a case by usin’ fingerprints?”

  Rhodes knew the answer to that, and Hack did, too, but Rhodes went along with him. “Never, but we can’t pass up the chance that this will be the first time.”

  “We got a first time thing for you,” Lawton said.

  “Let me look at this report first,” Rhodes said. He put on his reading glasses and called up the report. It was clear from the start that this wouldn’t be the first time they solved a case with fingerprints. There were a lot of prints in the room where Lawrence had been shot, but they were no help at all. None of them showed up in any of the national databases. Andy hadn’t gotten any prints from the window on the second floor of the school, just smudges, as if someone might have been wearing gloves.

  “You ready to hear about our first time thing?” Hack asked
when Rhodes closed the file and looked away from the computer.

  Rhodes sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “Happened last night,” Lawton said, “but we just found out about it an hour or so ago.”

  “Assault case,” Hack said. “One man in the hospital.”

  “Who?” Rhodes asked.

  “Bailey Dalton. Lives out east of town. Happened in his backyard.”

  “Never heard of anything like it before,” Lawton said.

  “I’m tellin’ this,” Hack said, giving him a hateful look. “I’m the one took the call.”

  “Go on and tell it, then,” Lawton said. “I was just tryin’ to help.”

  “More of a hindrance than a help,” Hack said.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.”

  “Hold it,” Rhodes said, stopping them before they descended to the grade-school level, if they hadn’t already. “That’s enough of that. Just tell me what happened.”

  “Bailey was assaulted by an armadillo,” Hack said.

  “That’s not right,” Lawton said. “Shot is what he was. That’s not assault. That’s a different thing.”

  “Didn’t we just say that I was tellin’ this?” Hack asked.

  “You said it, not me.”

  “I’m sayin’ it again.”

  “That’s enough,” Rhodes said again. “Hack, if you’re going to tell it, tell it.”

  “Lawton won’t let me,” Hack said. “He keeps interruptin’.”

  “He won’t interrupt you again. Right, Lawton?”

  “You’re the sheriff,” Lawton said. “I guess I gotta do what you say or you’ll take me in the back room and give me the third degree.”

  “You need it,” Hack said.

  “You ain’t the sheriff.”

  “Never mind who’s the sheriff,” Rhodes said. “Tell it, Hack.”

  “I’m tryin’.” Hack rolled his eyes and resumed his account. “You know how it is with armadillos sometimes when they get on a person’s property?”