Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl (12 page)

In the sheriff’s office, they didn’t have to look far.

Only two weeks previously, Rogers had uncovered what he considered a hideous scandal. Sheriff Dan Rhodes, he announced on his show, was using county vehicles for private transportation.

It was true that Rhodes often visited his home in the county car and that he drove it to and from work. But, as Rhodes pointed out to the Commissioners, it made sense for him to do so. Otherwise, when he got a call at home, he would have to drive to the jail and get the county car before going out on a call. The extra time that would take could be crucial in plenty of situations, and it wasn’t as if he were driving to fancy restaurants in Dallas or dance clubs in Houston on county gasoline.

The Commissioners agreed that Rhodes had a point, and he continued to drive the car with the admonition that he’d better never be caught going to the grocery store in it.

“I never have gone anywhere like that in it,” Rhodes told them.

“And you’d better not start,” they said.

None of that really satisfied Red Rogers, but he was distracted the next week by the fact that one of Clearview’s trash pick-up men had been paid an extra fifty dollars one month, thanks to a clerical error. What enraged Rogers wasn’t the error; it was the fact that the man hadn’t paid back the fifty dollars immediately. It had taken him two weeks.

Rhodes felt sorry for the trash pick-up man, but he was glad that Rogers’ attention was at least momentarily distracted from the sheriff’s office.

But now Rogers would be back. The fact that the Ward’s deaths would get a big play on the news didn’t matter to Rhodes. By now, half the population of Blacklin County had heard about that. You didn’t need a radio to get the news in a small place like Clearview. What mattered, however, was that Rogers would no doubt play up the murders on his talk show, thereby putting pressure on Rhodes and on the Commissioners. It wasn’t going to make finding the killer any easier.

Rhodes stood up. “I think I’d better go do a little investigating,” he said.

The door to the office swung open.

“Too late,” Hack said.

“Too late for what?” Red Rogers asked, stepping into the room.

He was wearing a pair of gray Levi’s Dockers, a white cotton shirt, and a pair of white-soled deck shoes. And he was carrying his tape recorder.

“Too late for me to be hangin’ around here,” Lawton said. “I’ve got to check on those cells.”

He went out the back door, leaving Hack and Rhodes to deal with Rogers.

“And I’ve got to check on these serial numbers,” Hack said, turning to his computer.

Rhodes was on his own.

Rogers smiled broadly, then turned on his radio voice. “Well, Sheriff, it looks as if we’ve got ourselves a real hotbed of trouble here.”

Rhodes looked over Rogers’ shoulder at Hack, who was staring at the computer screen. “Hotbed?”

“You know what I mean, Sheriff,” Rogers said, switching on the recorder. “On the record now, what’s this about a vicious criminal ring of fowl abusers running amok in the county?”

“Foul abusers?”

“F-o-w-l. Fowl.”

“As in cockfighting?” Rhodes asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Rogers said. “Dead animal carcasses littering the countryside to satisfy the brutal bloodlust of men and women little better than savages.”

Rhodes thought that Rogers had spent too much time watching
Geraldo
.

“I don’t think there are that many carcasses around,” he said. “Has anyone found one?”

“Well, no. Maybe not. But what about
human
bodies, Sheriff?  Are there too many of those?”

“Even one would be too many.”

“And how many do we have now?  Two?  One of them sadistically stuffed into a portable toilet like just another mound of human waste?”

Too much
Geraldo
and too much
Donahue
both, Rhodes thought.

“There’s an investigation underway,” he said.

“And I suppose we could say that you have the full resources of the department engaged in that investigation?”

“You could say that.”

Rogers could hardly contain his excitement. “And I suppose you think that’s just fine?  To allocate all the resources of your department to solve these two murders, while the abusers of fowls have free sway to do as they please and while who knows what other crimes are being committed in the county?”

Rhodes looked at Hack again. The dispatcher’s shoulders were shaking with laughter. Hack turned his head slightly and caught Rhodes’ eye. He made his hand into a pistol, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger.

Rhodes didn’t smile. He didn’t think that Rogers was really all that funny.

“Do you have any helpful information, Mr. Redden?” he asked.

Rogers looked shocked at the use of his real name. He probably thought of himself as Red Rogers, having established that as his radio persona.

“I mean, Mr. Rogers,” Rhodes said. “Do you have any information that might lead me to the capture and arrest of all these criminals you’re talking about here?”

Rogers was indignant. “Of course not!  That’s not my job!”

“It’s the job of every citizen to assist in the curtailment of crime,” Rhodes said.

And how do you like
that
alliteration? he wondered.

“Well, of course, naturally, I know that,” Rogers said, thrown off stride. “What I meant was that it seems to me that your department has a large responsibility here, and that it might be that—”

Rhodes pressed his advantage. “Are you suggesting that it might just be that as a small, underfunded department we don’t really have the resources necessary to do what’s required to protect the citizens of the county?  Is that what you mean?  Are you suggesting a tax increase for the citizens of Blacklin County to provide for more officers and more modern equipment?”

“No, no, no,” Rogers said, practically running the words together in his eagerness to get them out. Suggesting that he might favor a tax increase was tantamount to blasphemy. His listeners would lynch him in a heartbeat if he ever hinted at such a thing. “I’m simply suggesting that—”

Hack cleared his throat loudly. “Lawrence R for Raymond Redden,” he said.

Rogers turned to look at the dispatcher. Rhodes could see letters glowing on the computer screen.

“No Red Rogers in the records here,” Hack said. “But there’s a Mr. Lawrence R for Raymond Redden who looks to have two outstandin’ tickets for exceedin’ the speed limit, both issued by the DPS out on the Interstate.”

Rogers clicked off the tape recorder.

“Law and order,” Hack said. “Pretty important in a little town like this. Most folks pay their tickets, and they think ever’body else should, too. Makes you wonder about this Lawrence R for Raymond Redden, don’t it?”  He tapped the screen of the monitor with a fingernail.

Rogers’ face was as red as his hair. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, —”

“No one’s trying to do that,” Rhodes said.

“Besides, that’s privileged information,” Rogers said. “You can’t use that against me.”

“Nothin’ privileged about it,” Hack said. “It’s right there in the files for anybody who’s authorized to read ’em.”

“And nobody said anything about using it against you,” Rhodes told him.

“You can’t stop me from talking about the fowl abuse that’s going on here in Blacklin County, and about the lack of response from the Sheriff’s Department.”

“No one’s trying to stop you from talking,” Rhodes assured him.

“Good,” Rogers said. “I hope you’ll tune in my show this week and see what I have to say on the subject.”

“I’ll try,” Rhodes said. “If I get any time off from my investigation.”

“Maybe you oughta do a show on the highway boys,” Hack said. “On how they’re always stoppin’ innocent fellas for speedin’.”

Rogers didn’t bother to respond. He took his tape recorder and left.

Rhodes looked over at Hack. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Hack grinned. “He left, didn’t he?”

“True,” Rhodes said. “Maybe you were right about that computer. We should’ve gotten it years ago.”

“Tried to tell you,” Hack said.

L
awton was swabbing down one of the cells when Rhodes found him. There was a strong smell of Lysol in the air.

“You get that gaff for me?” Rhodes asked.

Lawton reached into the pocket of his worn khakis and pulled out a gaff in a plastic bag. The business end of the gaff was slipped into an elongated plastic fishing bobber that covered the point and most of the filed edge.

Rhodes took the gaff and put it in his own pocket. “Now let’s talk about cockfights.”

Lawton leaned the mop he was wielding in a corner. “What about ’em?”

“Have you talked to Gad Pullens again? Found out who’s in on it?”

“Ever’body’s too close-mouthed,” Lawton said. “The ones I’ve talked to know where I work. They don’t have a thing to say to me.”

Rhodes nodded in understanding. “I guess I’ll have to do the talking, then.”

“If they won’t talk to me, they ain’t gonna talk to you.”

“They have to. I’m the sheriff.”

“Won’t make any difference.”

“We’ll see. Where should I start?”

“You know Wally Henry?”

Rhodes already knew that Henry raised fighting cocks. “Lives down below Thurston?”

“He’s the one,” Lawton said. “If anybody knows anything about those fights at Lige’s, he does. I haven’t seen him to talk to, though, not that he’d say anything if I did.”

“I’ll give him a try,” Rhodes said.

“I hear he don’t much like it if folks go pokin’ around in his private business.”

“He doesn’t have to like it. He just needs to help me out a little.”

“He’s pretty mean,” Lawton said. “You remember that time five or six years back when those kids went snoopin’ around his place.”

Rhodes remembered. Henry had fired off a couple of rounds of buckshot. One of the boys had wound up in the hospital getting it plucked out of his backside.

“I’d watch myself if I was you,” Lawton said.

“I always do,” Rhodes told him.

Chapter Nine

R
hodes always liked the drive to Thurston. The road was smooth, there was never much traffic, and there were still a few wildflowers growing in the thick green grass beside the road, mostly yellow daisies of some kind. Rhodes had given up on trying to learn the names of anything except bluebonnets, Indian blankets, and Indian paintbrushes. He also knew the difference between buttercups and primroses, though he hadn’t admitted it to Ivy.

While he was in Thurston, he stopped at Hod Barrett’s store for a Dr Pepper. The store wasn’t air-conditioned, but it had a high stamped-tin ceiling with fans that hung down and stirred the air around. There were a couple of naked bulbs hanging down on wires to provide what light there was. The shelves were sparsely stocked, and Rhodes often wondered how Barrett was even getting by.

A bell rang when Rhodes pushed open the door with the fading Rainbo Bread ad stenciled on the screen. Hod Barrett came out from the back room and stopped when he saw Rhodes. He had never been one of the sheriff’s biggest supporters.

“Can I help you, Sheriff?” he said.

“Just thought I’d stop in and have a cold drink,” Rhodes said.

His ankle twinged a little as he walked over to the red and white Coke box and helped himself, pulling a bottle of Dr Pepper from the cold water inside.

“How much?” he asked.

“Fifty cents, includin’ the tax,” Barrett said, moving behind the cash register. He was so short that the top of his head barely reached the top of the register.

Rhodes dug in his pocket and came out with two quarters. He pulled a Puff from the box on the counter and wiped the water off his Dr Pepper bottle.

“You want anything to eat with that?” Barrett said. “I got sandwiches now.”

“Where?” Rhodes asked, looking around.

“Back in the butcher case, keeping cool. Have a look.”

Rhodes walked back to the white porcelain-enameled case and looked through the windows. There was a short row of deli sandwiches wrapped in plastic with yellow labels.

One called “The Double Stacker” caught Rhodes’ eye. It had lettuce, tomatoes, two kinds of cheese, two kinds of lunch meat, mustard, and mayonnaise. He knew he should resist, but he didn’t.

He pointed at it. “I’ll take that one,” he said.

Barrett disappeared behind the case and slid open a door. He reached in and got the sandwich. He had to stand on his tiptoes to hand it to Rhodes over the top of case.

“That’ll be two ninety-seven,” Barrett said.

Rhodes paid him with three ones, unwrapped the sandwich, and took a bite. It was just as good as he’d thought it would be.

 “What’s business like these days?” he asked when he’d finished chewing.

Barrett shook his head. “How do you think?  That big grocery store by the Wal-Mart in Clearview’s sucked away all my customers ’cept for the ones want a half-pound of ground meat delivered thirty minutes before their supper. And I sell a sandwich ever’ now and then.”

Rhodes looked around at the half-empty shelves and thought about Lige Ward.

“I’ll prob’ly have to close up in another year or two,” Barrett said. “You wouldn’t think it to look at the town now, but I remember when we had five grocery stores, a drug store, two hardware stores, and even a couple of doctors and a picture show. It wasn’t all that long ago, either. You can look out my front window and see all that’s left of the place now.”

Barrett even sounded like Ward. Rhodes looked out the window. Barrett was right. There wasn’t much to see. Most of the buildings in Thurston had been torn down and the brick sold to contractors. The buildings that still stood were deserted for the most part. Only the Post Office was anywhere near new, that and the bank, and Rhodes couldn’t see the bank from where he stood. It wasn’t in the town. It was out on the main highway.

“What brings you to town, anyway, Sheriff?” Barrett asked. “We don’t see you down here much ’cept in election years.”

That wasn’t strictly true, but Rhodes didn’t feel like getting into an argument. Hod Barrett would have enjoyed it too much. So Rhodes finished his sandwich and his Dr Pepper. He tossed the plastic sandwich wrapper in the trash can by the candy counter and stuck the bottle in the wooden case that sat by the cooler. He looked into the candy counter and was strongly tempted to buy a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups for dessert, but he’d already sinned enough for one day.