Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl (7 page)

Now that the three of them hadn’t had a drink for a good while, none of them was feeling so well. Their complexions were grayish green, and their eyes were red. Rhodes could tell that they would’ve liked to go somewhere nicer than a jail cell and lie down for a long time.

But he kept after them, questioning them about the portable toilet and the pistol. “Did you find them together or in different places?” he asked Ferrin.

Ferrin’s hat was on the iron cot in the cell, and he put his hands up to the sides of his head. “I can’t remember. I told you ten times I couldn’t remember. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because there was a dead man in that toilet, and you were shooting at it. Maybe you even killed him. That’s why.”

“I didn’t kill anybody!” Ferrin said. “We just found the damn pistol and we thought it’d be fun to shoot at somethin’. That’s all there was to it.”

“Maybe,” Rhodes said. “But maybe not. I’ll be talking to you again.”

Ferrin didn’t say anything; he just sat with his head between his hands as if trying to hold it together.

“If I were you, I’d try to remember where I found that pistol,” Rhodes said before he left the cell.

Ferrin just grunted. Rhodes couldn’t tell if that was a yes or a no.

All three of them probably knew that Rhodes didn’t really have anything on them other than a few misdemeanor charges:  public intoxication, creating a disturbance, and unlawful possession of a firearm. The last one was a Class A, but it still wasn’t a felony. He’d keep hammering at them anyway.

L
awton was waiting in the office when Rhodes came back down. He was over by Hack’s desk watching the Ranger game.

“Cockfighting,” Rhodes said.

Lawton’s head jerked up. “That’s it!  That’s what I heard about Lige Ward. How’d you know, Sheriff?”

Rhodes resisted the urge to say that a little bird had told him. He reached into his pocket and brought out the gaff.

“Ever see one of these before?”

Miz McGee and Hack looked too. Miz McGee didn’t appear to know what it was, but Hack did. So did Lawton.

“It’s a gaff like they use on fightin’ cocks,” Lawton said. “But it don’t look quite right, someway.”

“What way?” Rhodes asked.

“Hand it here,” Hack said, and Rhodes gave it to him.

Hack looked at the gaff, then handed it to Lawton. “I see it. How ’bout you?”

Lawton examined the piece of steel, then ran his finger along it. “Sure. Somebody’s filed an edge on the bottom. Usually a gaff is just round, like a needle, but this one’s more like a sword.”

He handed the gaff back to Rhodes, who took it and ran his thumb along the sharpened edge. It was not quite as keen as a razor blade, but it would do.

“Yeah, it’s like a sword,” Hack said. “See, a round one, which is the way they usually are, will generally just slide off if it hits a bone. But one with an edge on it like that, it’s likely to penetrate. Maybe break the bone.”

“That’s not fair, is it?” Mrs. McGee said.

“Who cares?” Hack said. “Cockfightin’s illegal anyway, so what’s one more crooked trick?  What’re you gonna do if you catch somebody at it?  Go to the Sheriff?”  He looked at Rhodes. “Where’d you get that thing, anyhow?”

“Lige had it,” Rhodes said. “It was in his pocket.”

“Not the kinda thing a fella’d usually be carryin’ around,” Lawton said. “Unless he had somethin’ to do with cockfightin’.”

“Did he?” Rhodes asked. “You said you’d heard something. And you and Hack seem to know an awful lot about cockfighting.”

“I heard somethin’, all right,” Lawton admitted. “But you know how that is. You can’t put any faith in what you hear.”

“Tell me anyway,” Rhodes said.

“Well,” Lawton began, “this was before your time, I guess, but Lige Ward’s daddy —”

“What does Lige’s daddy have to do with this?” Rhodes asked, trying to keep Lawton on the subject. If he let the jailer get started down a sidetrack, they might never get to the subject. Hack and Lawton were worse than Ballinger when it came to meandering all over the place.

“I was tryin’ to tell you what he has to do with it,” Lawton said. “If you’ll just let me get to it.”

Rhodes walked over and sat down at his desk. He might as well make himself comfortable.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. You go on ahead.”

“You do that a lot lately,” Hack said. “Interrupt, I mean.”

Rhodes took a deep breath. “I said I was sorry. Go on, Lawton. What about Lige’s father?”

“His name was Smokey,” Lawton said. “‘Course that wasn’t his real name. People just called him that.”

A strong feeling of
deja vu
came over Rhodes, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew it wouldn’t do any good to ask what Ward’s real name had been. He just hoped it didn’t turn out to be Ed McBain.

It didn’t.

“His real name was Elton,” Lawton said. “I don’t know why they called him Smokey. But anyway, back in the Thirties, Smokey raised fightin’ roosters out there on that place of his close to Obert.”

That was news to Rhodes, but as Lawton had said, it was before Rhodes’ time.

“Had him some pretty good birds,” Hack said. “Fought ’em, too.”  He glanced at Mrs. McGee, who was looking at him with disapproval. “Not that I ever went to any of the fights myself, mind you. I just heard about ’em.”

“Yeah,” Lawton said. “Me too. Anyway, he quit durin’ the war. I don’t know why. Maybe there was too many men off fightin’ in the war for there to be any crowds for a cockfight. But I guess Lige must’ve known about those roosters. Maybe he even remembered ’em.”

Rhodes thought they were getting somewhere now. “Did he ever raise them himself?”

Lawton shook his head. “Not that I ever heard of.”

“Then what was the connection between Lige and cockfighting?”

Lawton gave Rhodes a hurt look. “I was gettin’ to that part.”

Rhodes forced himself to relax. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to rush you.”

“You been doin’ a lot of
that
lately, too,” Hack said. “Rushin’ people. I’m beginnin’ to wonder if gettin’ married was good for you.”

“That’s the truth,” Lawton said. “Bein’ married don’t agree with just ever’body. I remember —”

“Lige Ward,” Rhodes said. He couldn’t help himself. “Cockfighting.”

“Cranky,” Hack said. “You’re gettin’ downright cranky.”

Rhodes didn’t apologize this time. He just waited for Lawton to get on with his story, which he finally did.

“Well, anyway, I was out at Wal-Mart, sittin’ on the bench in the entranceway there, when Gad Pullens came in. He sat down, and we got started talkin’ about first one thing and then another, and I said somethin’ about how Lige Ward sure did hate Wal-Mart, and Gad mentioned something about how it was a shame that Lige had closed up his store and how he’d heard that Lige was thinkin’ about maybe stagin’ a cockfight to make a little money.”

“You heard that there was going to be a cockfight, and you didn’t think about mentioning it to me?” Rhodes said.

“Downright cranky,” Hack said under his breath, though not so low that Rhodes couldn’t hear him.

“I didn’t hear that there was gonna
be
a cockfight,” Lawton said. “Or I’d’ve told you. I heard that Lige was
thinkin’
about havin’ one. That’s all. I didn’t really believe it, and I guess that’s why I forgot about it. He couldn’t make much money that way, nohow.”

“Depends on how much the entrants had to put up,” Hack said. “And on how much prize money he gave out.”

“Just when was this fight supposed to be?” Rhodes asked Lawton.

“I told you I didn’t know that there
was
goin’ to be one. That was a good while back. If there was a fight, it’s all over by now.”

“Maybe there’s been more than one,” Hack said. “I’ll ask around if you think it might help.”

“Me too,” Lawton said.

“Talk to Gad Pullens,” Rhodes told Lawton. “See if you can find out who’s raising fighting cocks, aside from the two or three we already know about. And get me another one of these gaffs if you can. File it till it’s just like this one.”  He turned to Hack. “Did you get out that APB on Lige’s pickup?”

“Sure did. It’s a black Ford Ranger.”  He gave Rhodes the license number, and Rhodes wrote it down. “Anything else you want?”

“Yes,” Rhodes said. “Have Ruth go out to Press Yardley’s and take some impressions of the footprints around his emu pens. The ones close to the gate. While she’s out there, get her to take one of Press’ shoes, so we can eliminate them.”

Rhodes didn’t have much more faith in footprints than he did in fingerprints, but you could never tell when something would turn out to be useful.

“And first thing tomorrow,” he continued, “call up the people who rent out those Sani-Cans. Tell them there’s one missing, and try to find out where it was.”

Hack didn’t write anything down. He prided himself on being able to remember. “Is that all?”

“You can run a man named Nard King through that computer of yours. His whole first name’s probably Bernard.”

Hack nodded. “That it?”

“For now. If you hear from Dr. White about the autopsy, call me at home.”

“Even if it’s late?” Hack said.

“That’s right,” Rhodes told him. “Even if it’s late.”

Chapter Five

B
efore going back out to Obert to talk to Nard King, Rhodes drove by the veterinary clinic owned by Dr. Slick, who had recently helped Rhodes with a case involving cattle rustling. Slick’s house was located only a few yards away from the clinic, and Rhodes was hoping that the vet would be home on a late Sunday afternoon.

Rhodes was in luck. Slick came to the door and asked Rhodes in. “What brings you by here on a Sunday?  Got another case I can help you with?”

“Maybe,” Rhodes said. He fished the feather out of his pocket and handed it to Slick in its plastic bag. “Can you tell me what that is?”

Slick took it and looked at it closely. After a few seconds he said, “Looks like a feather to me.”

Rhodes was surrounded by comedians. “I figured that out for myself. I was hoping you could tell me what
kind
of feather it was.”

“It’s not a chicken feather,” Slick said. “I can tell you that much. I’ve seen plenty of chicken feathers, and this isn’t one.”

Rhodes waited.

“I’d guess it’s an emu feather,” Slick went on. “Until a year or so ago, I’d never seen one of those, and I still don’t see too many. Had an emu in the clinic the other day, though. Dog got after it. Anyway, this looks like an emu feather to me. I could examine it more carefully if it’s important.”

Rhodes was willing to bet that Slick was right, but he said, “If you wouldn’t mind. I’d better make absolutely sure.”

“I’ll give your office a call tomorrow,” Slick said.

Rhodes thanked him and left. For the time being, he’d work on the assumption that an emu feather had been among Lige Ward’s effects. It seemed likely enough, even though the feather had been on the floor when Rhodes found it.

R
hodes drove out to Obert again as the sun began to sink behind a bank of dark clouds that lined the horizon, outlining the clouds with orange and turning the western half of the sky an orangey pink.

Rhodes wasn’t in any mood to enjoy the sunset, however. He was thinking about Lige Ward. Ward had caused Rhodes a little trouble now and then, but not until he’d been forced to close his hardware store. He’d been a decent man, and now he was dead. Murdered, most likely. Someone had killed him, and Rhodes was going to find out who and why. He was confident of that, though things had already gotten very complicated.

For one thing, there were three drunks who might or might not be implicated in Lige’s death, but who were surely involved with stealing the outhouse that he’d been found in.

For another thing, somebody had stolen two of Press Yardley’s emus.

And it seemed at least likely that there was cockfighting going on in Blacklin County.

Besides that, there was Nard King to deal with. Though Rhodes had no idea how he fit into the picture yet, he was sure there was bound to be a connection. Yardley had already mentioned one possibility.

Add to all that the fact that Ivy had, at least half in seriousness, suggested the idea that Rayjean Ward had killed her own husband.

About the only thing that hadn’t been suggested, in fact, was that Hal Keene, the Wal-Mart manager, had killed Lige, and someone would surely think of that possibility before too long. It wouldn’t have surprised Rhodes to hear that someone had already thought of it.

Rhodes hoped that he could get everything sorted out before something else happened, but that wasn’t the way things usually worked out. Things usually got uglier than anyone would expect them to where murder was concerned, but maybe this time could be an exception.

Rhodes hoped that would be the case, but he didn’t really believe that it would.

N
ard King didn’t have an impressive house. It was just a little wood-frame building that needed paint, but there would soon be a much bigger one nearby. The foundation was already poured, and the frame was up.

The pens he was building for his emus were also going to be well made, certainly the equal of any that Rhodes had seen. They were roofed with tin to provide shade, and a sizeable barn had been started behind them.

There were no members of the construction crews present late on a Sunday afternoon, and there were only a few emus in the pens. Rhodes counted four. He wondered if someone living so near to Press Yardley would actually have stolen two of Yardley’s birds. It would have taken a lot of nerve, that much was sure, but unless the birds were marked in some way that Rhodes didn’t know about, he didn’t see how Yardley could prove that they were his.

Rhodes parked in the front yard, got out of his car and stood looking around. Just forty-five or fifty yards back of King’s house a thick stand of woods began, the same woods that ran behind the houses of Lige Ward and Press Yardley. It was already dark back in the trees.