A Romantic Way to Die (22 page)

Rhodes took Serena’s elbow and escorted her outside. The sky was inky black, full of the stars Terry Don had been admiring not so long ago, and the night was getting cool.

“Very romantic,” Serena said, looking up at the stars and then back at Rhodes. “Are you married, Sheriff?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Too bad. But then you warned me you didn’t have romance in mind.”

“That’s right. I want to ask you something about Terry Don.”

“And what might that be?”

“You seem to have known him pretty well, and you knew Henrietta had a crush on him. You didn’t really mention how he felt about her.”

“He thought the book was funny. I told you that.”

“But the book and the woman aren’t the same thing.”

“You’re pretty insightful for a hick-town sheriff. “You’d be surprised at how many people don’t understand that.”

“I’d think it would be obvious,” Rhodes said.

“Well, it isn’t.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Now, tell me about Coslin and Henrietta.”

“He didn’t really say much about her. He did mention that they were a hot item when they were in high school. Maybe he still sort of liked her, even if he didn’t say so. But he could never be serious about any one woman. He liked women too much to let himself get tied down to just one of them.”

“But if she’d invited him to her room, he might have gone.”

Serena laughed. She had a nice laugh, one that didn’t seem to go with her temper.

“He’d have gone to anybody’s room. I liked Terry Don, Sheriff. I liked him a lot. But I wasn’t under any illusions about his character, thank God. And, as I said, I’m not the jealous type.”

“Not even of Jeanne Arnot?”

“You know about her and Terry Don?”

“All I know is what I read in Henrietta’s book.”

“It’s probably true. But even if it is, I don’t care. Jeanne’s my agent, and she makes a lot of money for me. What Terry Don does is his own business.”

Serena shivered as if from the cold and moved closer to Rhodes, so close that their shoulders were touching. Serena definitely wasn’t cold.

“What about your wife?” she asked. “Is she the jealous type?”

“I think so,” Rhodes said. “And she’s licensed to carry a handgun.”

That wasn’t true, but it seemed to Rhodes like a good idea to say it.

“Oh, my. A real Texas cowgirl.”

“Not exactly,” Rhodes said.

Serena moved even closer. Rhodes stood his ground, though he thought he might be making a mistake.

“You know, Sheriff,” Serena said, “you don’t seem to like me much, but I think we could get along if we’d just try a little harder.”

Rhodes didn’t ask what she had in mind. He said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too friendly with people involved in a murder investigation.”

Serena moved away from him, and her voice turned hard.

“You think I killed that little bitch, don’t you.”

There was another line that Rhodes was pretty sure Serena had never used in one of her books.

“You’re wrong about that,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think you killed her.”

“You don’t?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Then why did you get me off to myself out here and let me waste my feminine wiles on you? I thought you were going to handcuff me and cart me off to the jail.”

“I just wanted to ask you something.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Serena didn’t look as if she believed him. She said, “Let me ask you something first.”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you have shot me last night?”

“Of course not.”

“But you pointed a gun at my head.”

“I pointed it
over
your head. I haven’t shot too many people, and I wouldn’t want to add you to the list.”

“Thank you. I guess.”

“You’re welcome. Now what about letting me ask
my
questions?”

“It’s your turn.”

“Good,” Rhodes said, but then he changed his mind about asking. He had something he wanted to tell her first.

He was about to say it when the van from the Round-Up appeared. It stopped in front of the dormitory, and Sam Blevins got out of the cab.

“Seems like you’re always around at mealtimes, Sheriff,” he said. “I’ll be glad to give you a sandwich if you want one. Sell you one, I mean.”

“I might take you up on that,” Rhodes said. “Later.”

“There’ll be plenty,” Blevins said.

Two more men joined him. They opened the back doors of the van and began unloading large covered trays. They handed one to Blevins, who carried it inside. The men followed him in with another tray and a large plastic bag full of smaller bags of potato chips.

“You were going to ask me something,” Serena reminded Rhodes.

“That’s right, but first I want to say that nearly everyone I’ve talked to here has lied to me because they wanted to give someone else an alibi for the time of Henrietta’s murder. I don’t think you’re the exception.”

Serena batted her eyes, a tactic that Rhodes thought would have been more effective had the light been better.

“Why, Sheriff,” she said. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You vouched for Jeanne Arnot. But I’ve been thinking about it, and what the two of you said didn’t seem quite right.”

“Why not? It sounded fine to me.”

“Jeanne said something about how you didn’t mind if she smoked, and she implied that you were with her. You didn’t contradict her, but you never actually said that you were with her. I think that’s because she was smoking outside the building, and you were inside it.”

“There’s no smoking inside,” Serena said.

“I know that. But that’s not the point.”

“What’s the point, then?”

“The point is that you weren’t with Jeanne when you said you were.”

“What if I wasn’t?”

“That’s an easy one. Then she was somewhere else.”

“Oh, all right. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. You’re right. She was outside, smoking a cigarette. But she’d been talking to me just a few minutes earlier, so I know she didn’t kill anybody. She couldn’t just walk away from a conversation with me and go kill a woman.”

“Maybe,” Rhodes said.

He wished he could remember if Jeanne had walked up to the fight between Serena and Vernell after it was all over. If she had, she might possibly have been in the main building with Terry Don and might be the key to the whole thing. But Rhodes hadn’t been in a position to see who came strolling up to join the crowd.

And then he realized that it didn’t matter. Everything unknotted in his head, and he was almost sure he knew what had happened to both Henrietta and Terry Don. The answers had been there all along, but they’d all been kinked and tangled, like knots in a rope. But now it was as if Rhodes had tied the rope to one thing and pitched it away from him. As it glided through the air, all the knots and kinks disappeared. And when it landed, it lay perfectly straight between one point and the other.

“Sheriff?” Serena said, waving a hand in front of his eyes. “What are you looking at?”

“A picture,” Rhodes said.

“A picture? Of what?”

“A killer,” he told her.

31

R
HODES LEFT SERENA STANDING IN FRONT OF THE DORMITORY and went back inside. Blevins had set the sandwich trays on a table, and everyone had helped herself. Rhodes could see that some of the sandwiches had ham on them, and some had what looked like roast beef. As far as he could tell, there weren’t any vegetarian specials. Several people were sitting there eating and chatting, but the others were all in their rooms, or visiting in the rooms of friends.

Rhodes went down the hall to Vernell’s room. The door was open, and Carrie and Vernell were sitting on their beds, eating ham sandwiches and potato chips out of small bags.

“I have to talk to Vernell,” Rhodes told Carrie, who gave him a stricken look.

“I haven’t told her yet,” she said.

“Told me what?” Vernell asked.

“Nothing,” Rhodes said. “Why don’t you go to the front room, Carrie, and eat with some of the others.”

Carrie stood up with her sandwich in her hand, but she looked as if she’d lost all interest in eating it. There was a can of Dr Pepper on the nightstand, and she took that, as well. Then she walked out of the room without another word. She left the bag of potato chips behind.

“What’s going on, Sheriff?” Vernell asked.

Rhodes closed the door and sat down on the bed opposite Vernell.

“We have to talk about Henrietta,” he said. “I think there are some things you need to tell me.”

Vernell put her half-eaten sandwich beside a can of Pepsi that sat on a napkin on the nightstand.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“Then I’ll tell you something,” Rhodes said. “Here’s the way I think it happened.”

“Wait,” Vernell said. “Are you accusing me of murder?”

“No. I think it was an accident.”

Vernell looked relieved, but she didn’t reach for her Pepsi. She said, “You’re right. It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.”

“But if it was an accident,” Rhodes went on, “why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because … because it might have hurt someone.”

“You,” Rhodes said. “It might have hurt you.”

Vernell sat up a little straighter. She looked a lot less relieved than she had only seconds before.

“Just hold on, now, Sheriff,” she said. “What are you saying? Do you think I killed Henrietta?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You sure were coming close.”

“Not exactly. I was just wondering if I was right about you. And I think I am.”

“How do you mean? I didn’t kill anybody!”

“You did something just as bad, though, didn’t you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I think you do. You didn’t kill Henrietta, but you saw who did. And you didn’t tell me. You got Carrie to lie for you instead.”

Vernell looked at the closed door. She said, “Damn that Carrie! I should have known she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

“She didn’t want to tell me,” Rhodes said. “And she didn’t really have to. I already knew she was lying.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I think I can. Let me tell you what you saw. Then you can tell me if I’m right.”

Vernell just stared at him, looking stubborn as a statue.

“You told Carrie that you had to go to the bathroom,” Rhodes said. “Maybe that’s true, or maybe it’s not. Maybe you heard something in Henrietta’s room and wanted to get your ear to the door to hear it a little better. Your room is certainly close enough for you to have heard something.”

“I went to the bathroom,” Vernell said. “And that’s the truth. I was in there when the yelling started, and that’s the truth, too.”

“I guess that’s possible,” Rhodes said. “But if it’s true, you didn’t stay in the bathroom. You came out in time to see someone leaving the building through that back door.”

Vernell dropped her eyes and looked for her Pepsi. She picked it up, brought it to her mouth, then put it back down on the napkin without taking a drink.

“I didn’t see the killer,” she said. “Besides, it was an accident, like you said.”

“If you didn’t see the killer,” Rhodes said, “who did you see?”

“Jeanne Arnot.”

“That’s what I thought,” Rhodes said.

“How did you know?”

“She took you on as a client. She said she could get you a lot of money for your next book. Chatterton told me that everyone knows about it.”

“What does that prove?”

“It doesn’t prove anything. She could have wanted you for a client because you’ve written a really wonderful book. But the timing would seem to indicate that it might be something else.”

“I
have
written a wonderful book,” Vernell said. “You’ll see.”

“I read your first one, and it wasn’t bad,” Rhodes said. “It was pretty good, in fact. But it didn’t make a lot of money, did it?”

“I didn’t have Jeanne Arnot as an agent then. It would have done a lot better if I had.”

“You’re not going to have her now, either,” Rhodes said.

“Oh, yes I am. She promised.”

“It won’t be an easy promise for her to keep, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Rhodes said, “she’s going to be in prison.”

Rhodes left Vernell sitting in the room with her sandwich and Pepsi and started back to the front of the dorm. While he was still in the hallway, he saw Carrie Logan, who was heading straight for him, still crying. Or crying again. Her head was down, and she didn’t see Rhodes. The hall was too narrow for him to get out of the way, and she was coming too fast for him to back up. So she ran right into him.

Rhodes had been able to brace himself, so he didn’t fall. He didn’t even move much. Maybe a step backward, but that was all.

Carrie looked up at him. Her eyes were red, and her makeup was a mess.

“What’s the matter now?” Rhodes asked.

“Oh, S-Sheriff. It’s all my f-fault. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I didn’t know it would make any d-difference. And now she’s run off.”

“Who’s run off?”

“The p-person Vernell saw in the hall, I guess. I d-didn’t mean to warn her. I just said that you were t-talking to Vernell about it, and she ran out the front d-door.”

Carrie was still talking when Rhodes shoved past her, but he could no longer hear a word she said. He had his mind on other things.

The way Rhodes had worked it out, Henrietta and Terry Don had arranged a little get-together in her room. While Lorene was talking to the writers, Henrietta would be fulfilling her high-school dreams.

But Jeanne Arnot must have noticed that Terry Don had slipped away, and she’d gone to find him, either to see if she could fulfill some dreams of her own or to be sure he didn’t fulfill those of anyone else.

Maybe she’d even spent a few minutes waiting in his room and smoking a cigarette that she’d tamped out in the ashtray, which she’d then dumped into the toilet and flushed away. At any rate, by the time she’d located Terry Don, he was already halfway to doing what Henrietta wanted. Jeanne must have gotten into the room, but by that time Terry Don had slipped out the window and started on his way, his clothes tucked underneath his arm.