Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl (9 page)

“Press Yardley doesn’t strike me as the sympathetic type,” Rhodes said after he finished chewing.

“You can’t ever tell,” Ivy said. “You probably don’t seem like the sympathetic type to some people, but I know better.”

“So Press Yardley got to know Rayjean Ward and then killed Lige for love?”

Ivy grinned. “Either that, or he caught him stealing his emus.”

On the whole, Rhodes liked the second theory a lot better.

The telephone rang just as Rhodes was finishing the sandwich. It was Hack.

“Dr. White’s all done. He’s still at Ballinger’s if you want to talk to him.”

“Call him back,” Rhodes said. “Tell him I’m on the way. Tell him I’ll meet him in Ballinger’s office.”

I
vy turned down the chance to go to Ballinger’s with Rhodes, not that he blamed her. Whatever he found out, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Dr. White was sitting in Ballinger’s office, and when Rhodes walked in, the funeral director was regaling White with an account of autopsies he’d read about in mystery novels.

“It seems to me that every single time a cop goes to a morgue, there’s some guy in there eating a sandwich. Did you ever do anything like that, Doc?  Eat a sandwich while an autopsy was going on?”

“I’m usually a little too busy for that,” Dr. White said.

“Yeah, but what about somebody who’s helping you?  Or one of the witnesses to the autopsy?  Did any of
them
ever eat a sandwich?”

White shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”

“That’s what I figured. Those writers just put stuff like that in their books to gross people out. I’ve worked on clients here for twenty-five years, and I’ve never eaten a thing while I’m on the job. And I wouldn’t allow any of my helpers to do it either. It’s not sanitary.”

He turned his attention to Rhodes. “Hey, Sheriff. Are you ready for the big news?”

“I’m ready,” Rhodes said. “What did you find out?”

“Lige Ward was murdered,” White said.

That was no surprise to Rhodes. “I figured that. How?”

“He was shot,” White said. “I have the bullet for you.”

“There were two wounds that I could see,” Rhodes said.

“I have those bullets, too,” White said. “But those aren’t the bullets that killed him. The two visible wounds occurred after death. Both were from shots fired at very close range. The wound that killed him was in the chest. Right in the heart.”

That explained the blood on Ward’s shirtfront. “When did he die?” Rhodes asked.

White gave him a half-smile. “You know I don’t like to give answers to questions like that. I can give you an estimate, but that’s all.”

“That’ll have to do, then. What’s the estimate?”

“I’d say somewhere between two and four o’clock this morning.”

“All right. What else?”

White reached forward and pulled a notepad from Ballinger’s desk. He glanced down at it before he spoke again.

“He’d been drinking before he was shot.  And he might have been in a fight. There’s a large bruise on his chest that’s unrelated to the gunshot wound. It’s on the opposite side.”

“Is that the only bruise?”

“Yes, but there are some scratches on his arms. I can’t tell what made the scratches. There was nothing in the wounds that I could identify.”  White flipped through his notes. “That’s about all I can tell you.”

“Was he moved?”

“From where?”

“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “What I mean is, was he shot somewhere else and moved into the outhouse.”

Dr. White looked thoughtful. After a few seconds he said, “Probably. But he wasn’t moved far. The way the blood pooled in the body indicates that he was sitting on the seat for most of the time after his death. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s it.”

“What about the wounds,” Rhodes said. “Could they have been self-inflicted?”

“There were traces of gunpowder on his hand, but that might mean only that his hand was close to the gun when it went off. I wish I could do better for you, but that’s all I can say.”

“That’s a start,” Rhodes said. He looked at Ballinger. “What about Mrs. Ward?  Has she been in?”

“She and her sister came in and made the funeral arrangements, but she hasn’t seen Lige yet. I’ll have to get him ready tonight, and she can see him tomorrow.”

“What time is she coming in?”

“Sometime in the morning. There’s no rush. Do you need to talk to her?”

“I’ll see her at home,” Rhodes said.

T
he next day at the jail, Hack told Rhodes that Ferrin and his friends had bonded out. Rhodes would have liked to question them again, but he had their addresses. He had other things to work on first.

Ruth Grady stopped in and showed Rhodes the casts she’d made at Yardley’s emu pens.

“I’ve got all the fingerprints from that portable toilet, too,” she said. “There’s a jillion of them, all over the door, all over the walls, everywhere. Did you open the door?”

Rhodes admitted that he had.

“Then I’ve probably got yours. I don’t think there’s any help there.”

“What about the casts?”

“If you didn’t walk by the gate, then we may have something.”

“Nobody walked by the gate,” Rhodes said. “I asked them not to.”

“Good. There are some prints of Yardley’s shoes, but there was another set there. And somebody’d been walking around there in boots.”

“You’d better go down to Ballinger’s and take a cast of Lige Ward’s shoes. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a match,” Rhodes said.

As soon as Ruth left, Hack, who had his Watchman tuned in to
Good Morning, America
, gave Rhodes a report on what he’d found out about Press Yardley’s neighbor.

“That Nard King doesn’t have any record. Just a couple of traffic tickets in Dallas.”

Rhodes didn’t think that was much help. Anyone driving a truck in Dallas was likely to have traffic tickets.

“What about the portable toilet?” he asked.

“Sani-Can don’t open till nine, but I don’t think we’ll have to call ’em. I think I can already tell you where that porta-potty came from.”

“Where’s that?” Rhodes asked.

Hack, as was often the case, didn’t answer the question immediately. He had to lead up to it.

“I got a call early this mornin’ from Joe Bates.”

He looked at Rhodes as if he expected the sheriff to know who Joe Bates was, but Rhodes had no idea.

“Joe Bates,” Hack said. “He runs Bates Construction, with his daddy.”

“Oh,” Rhodes said. “And?”

“And he said that when he got out to the worksite this mornin’, he was missin’ a porta-potty. Said some son-of-a-gun musta stole it.”

“Where was the construction site?” Rhodes asked.

“That’s the interestin’ part,” Hack said. “Joe says he’s buildin’ a house for a fella named Nard King.”

Rhodes thought that was interesting, all right. “What about Lige’s pickup?”

“Nothin’ on that yet,” Hack said. “If it’s off in the woods somewhere, we may never find it. It’ll just rust down to the ground.”

“Call Sani-Can anyway,” Rhodes said. “It’s nearly nine, and we’ll have to make sure the one that’s missing is the one that Joe Bates lost. There might be two of them on the loose; you never know.”

Hack made the call while Rhodes tried to get caught up on his paperwork. He hadn’t gotten much done when Hack got his attention.

“They wanta know if you got the serial number,” he said.

“I didn’t see one,” Rhodes told him.

“Well, they gotta have it to make the identification.”  Hack turned back to the phone and talked, then faced Rhodes again. “It’s not on the front with the name. It’s on the back.”

“I’ll have to check it. You get the number of the one Bates is leasing.”

Hack spoke into the phone and then took down a number.

“Five-six-six-seven-four,” he said.

Rhodes got up and took the piece of paper. “Did you tell them that they might not be getting their toilet back for a while?”

“Yeah. Bates’d already called ’em about replacin’ the one he needs out at King’s. They say it’s not the first time they’ve lost one. But they usually find ’em themselves, pretty close by the place they’re missin’ from. This is the first time anybody’s hauled one off.”

“It’s probably the first time anybody’s stuck a body in one, too,” Rhodes said.

“I’d bet on that”, Hack said. “What’re you gonna do now?”

“First I’m sending the slugs Dr. White took out of Lige to the forensics lab to see what caliber they are.”

Rhodes had already looked them over. They were tagged in separate bags, but they all looked like .38s to him. He wanted to find out if the ones in the wounds inflicted after death had come from the same pistol as the ones in the wall of the Sani-Can, which he was also sending. If they had, that would mean that two of the shots fired by Ferrin and his buddies had gone through the wall and into Lige. He would also have to send the pistol to make the match conclusive.

He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find out about the third slug, the one that had killed Lige. Whatever the lab could tell him, he supposed.

And after he got the slugs and the pistol ready for mailing, he was going back to Sand Creek.

D
own at Sand Creek, Rhodes saw the Sani-Can surrounded by the black and yellow ribbon. The door on the front still hung open, and it appeared that no one had disturbed the scene. He walked around to the back of the portable toilet, and then he could see the black numbers, which were exactly what he’d expected:  56674.

That was one mystery solved. The portable toilet had come from Nard King’s place. Now all he had to do was find out how Lige Ward had gotten inside it.

Well, that and find out who’d killed Lige. And why.

It seemed as if Nard King’s emu ranch was the place to start, so he drove out there. Joe Bates’ crew was hammering away on the frame of the new house. There were four of them, and Rhodes walked over to see if he could tell which one was Bates.

He couldn’t, so he stepped up through the skeletal wall and said to the nearest man, “Joe Bates?”

The man glanced up at Rhodes, then gestured to the left with his hammer, to where a heavyset man was nailing a crosspiece to a two-by-four. The man looked strong enough to drive a nail with one blow.

Rhodes went over, and the man stopped hammering and looked at him.

“Hey, Sheriff. You here about the Sani-Can?”

“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “Are you Joe Bates?

“Sure am.”  Bates switched his hammer to his left hand and stuck out his right.

Rhodes shook it. Bates had a grip to match his appearance.

“I didn’t think they’d send the sheriff himself just to see about a stolen toilet,” Bates said when he let go of Rhodes’ hand.

“There’s more to it than just a stolen toilet,” Rhodes said. “Where was it located?”

“Over there by the pens,” Bates said, putting his hammer into a loop on the nail apron he was wearing. “That’s where we were working first, and there was no need to move it when we started on the house here. There’s still a little work to do on the pens, too. Why?”

Rhodes explained as briefly as he could.

“Good Lord,” Bates said when Rhodes was finished. “It’s hard to believe things like that go on right here in Blacklin County. Let’s go on over there, and I’ll show you right where it was.”

The location was right beside the gravel drive that led from the road to King’s emu pens. There wouldn’t be any useful tracks on the gravel.

“Be easy enough to drive in here off the road and tip that can into a pickup, I guess,” Bates said.

Rhodes thought so too. There was a gate at the road, but it seemed as if King never bothered to close it. Maybe with only four emus, he didn’t think he had much to lose. And maybe he’d had only two emus until a couple of nights ago.

He wondered why King hadn’t heard the outhouse being stolen, but then he thought about the noisy air-conditioner. If King slept with the air-conditioner running, he wouldn’t be able to hear much of anything that went on outside the house.

“Sani-Can’s bringing us out another portable this morning,” Bates said. “We could probably use the toilet in the house if we had to.”

“Is King in there?” Rhodes asked.

“Haven’t seen him today, but I guess he’s in there. He usually comes out sooner or later to see how we’re doing.”

“I’ll go talk to him, then,” Rhodes said. “Thanks for your help.”

“Don’t mention it. Just wish I could tell you something useful.”

Rhodes watched Bates go back to his framing, then knocked on King’s door. King answered at once.

“Good morning, Sheriff. You come about those bills of sale?”

“That’s right,” Rhodes said. He noticed that the air-conditioner was still banging away. “Do you have them?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t,” King said. “Can’t put my hand on ’em for some reason. I’m looking, though.”

King didn’t seem as nervous as he had the previous evening. And he didn’t invite Rhodes to come inside. Rhodes wondered if he’d called an attorney. Or maybe he’d just been thinking about how hard emus were to identify.

“I’d like to see the bills of sale as soon as I could,” Rhodes said.

“Am I being charged with anything?”

“No. But two emus were stolen. It would be a good idea for you to be able to prove you didn’t do it.”

“I thought it worked the other way,” King said. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

“That’s the way it works, all right,” Rhodes said. “It’s just that there’s murder involved now.”

“Murder?”

“Lige Ward,” Rhodes said. “He was murdered.”

King looked surprised. “Murdered?  Who did it?”

“I’ll find out,” Rhodes said. He decided not to tell King where Lige’s body had been found. At least not yet. “Now what about those bills of sale?”

“I’ll look,” King said, trying to appear as if he meant it. “I’ll give you a call if I find them.”

And that was all Rhodes could get out of him. It was evident that there was something King was trying to hide, but Rhodes wasn’t quite sure what it was. Emus had to be part of it, but was that all?

As Rhodes left, the Sani-Can truck was driving up with a new portable toilet. Rhodes waited until they had set it up, nearer to the house this time, and then drove over to Lige Ward’s place to talk to Rayjean. Now that he was certain that Lige had been murdered, there were a few more questions he had to ask her, such as who Lige’s enemies were, and what his relationships with Yardley and King had been.