Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 08 - Winning Can Be Murder (19 page)

T
he interrogation room was as old-fashioned as everything else in the Blacklin County jail.  Hack kept saying that someday the county was going to be forced to build a new jail, and then they’d have a proper interrogation room, one with a two-way mirror, a built-in voice-activated recorder, a video camera, and all the other amenities.

That might happen in the unforeseeable future, but for the present they were stuck with an eight by ten room with scaly green walls, a scarred wooden table, and three metal folding chairs so old that no one, not even Hack, remembered where they had come from.

“Maybe the old Clippinger funeral home,” he had told Rhodes once.  “The one Clyde Ballinger bought out.  But maybe not.  They might be older than that.”

No matter how old they were, they were bent and scratched, with legs that were just slightly out of line so that not a single chair sat quite level on the floor.

The floor itself wasn’t exactly level, either.  It was rough, unfinished concrete, covered with dark stains that Rhodes had never been able to identify, which he figured was just as well, considering what Hack had told him of the history of the room.  Rhodes never knew how much of what Hack said was true, though he’d heard similar stories about some of his predecessors for most of his life.

“Old Sheriff Thomason, now,” Hack had said, “he was the one that they used to call ‘Delco.’  That was ’cause he’d take a prisoner in that little back room and whack ’em with a ba’try cable till they told him what he wanted to know.  They say he could get a confession out of a man faster than a minnow can swim a dipper.

“That woulda been when you were just a young fella, I guess.  Couldn’t get away with anything like that these days, even if it did save a lot of hard investigatin’.  And before old Delco there was Sheriff Elbert.  He’s the one liked to use a wet lariat rope.  Worked pretty good, from what I hear.  Good as a ba’try cable, they say.  Yes, sir, that old room’s seen a lot of things.  Heard ’em, too, I imagine.  But I guess I’m just as glad that kinda stuff don’t go on these days.”

Rhodes, not being a big believer in brutality, was just as glad as Hack was, though there were times when he wondered if maybe Sheriffs Elbert and ‘Delco’ Thomason didn’t have the right idea.

And this was one of those times.  Bob Deedham wasn’t being exactly cooperative.

Deedham was slumped in one of the rickety chairs, staring at the little tape recorder in the middle of the table.  Rhodes was standing across from him, one foot in the seat of a second chair.  Ruth was seated in the third chair, watching, listening, and acting as the stenographer, but so far she hadn’t had to write down much.

“Look, Deedham,” Rhodes said, “we know a lot already.  You might as well go ahead and tell us the rest of it.”

“You don’t know anything,” Deedham said.  “You’ve just been listening to that idiot Goober Vance.  If there was ever a guy with the perfect nickname, he’s the one.  He’s the biggest goober in town.”

“Goober’s not the only one I’ve talked to,” Rhodes said.  “But let’s just start with him.  What’s the problem between you two?”

It was obvious to Rhodes there was a problem, and he wanted to find out about it.  It might help him to explain why almost all the rumors that Vance had passed along to Rhodes seemed to be extremely exaggerated or to lead nowhere.

“There’s not any problem,” Deedham said.  “You’re just fishing.”

That reminded Rhodes of something.  He turned to Ruth.

“Did Hack say anything to you about the Methodist preacher’s son?” he asked.

“He said Buddy got his arm out.  The cooking oil worked just fine.”

Rhodes nodded and turned back to Deedham.  “Now, then.  Let’s start all over.  I didn’t just talk to Goober Vance.  I talked to some members of the football team who confirmed at least part of what he told me.  I’ve also talked to your wife, and she confirmed the other part.  So now it’s your turn.  If you want to set the record straight, you’d better get started.”

Rhodes was exaggerating considerably as far as the confirmations were concerned, but he thought that doing so might give Deedham a push in the right direction.

It did.

“What did Terry say?” Deedham asked.  “I’ll bet she didn’t tell you about Goober Vance trying to put the make on her at The County Line?  Did she mention that?”

As a matter of fact, she hadn’t mentioned it at all, but that reminded Rhodes of something else.  Both Meredith and Roy Kenner had been somewhat more successful with Terry than Vance had.  Rhodes wondered whether Terry had ever mentioned them to her husband.

“No, she didn’t say anything about Goober.  She goes out there to The County Line a lot, doesn’t she?”

“I never gave it much thought,” Deedham said, which may even have been the truth.  Or it may not have been.

“Did she ever talk about any other men?  Besides Goober Vance?”

Deedham stiffened.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just exactly what it sounds like.”

“I know what you’re getting at,” Deedham said.  “I saw her there with Meredith once.  Maybe your bartender buddy told you.  Well, so what?  Terry likes to have a good time, and I’m not much fun for her.  She likes dancing, and I like football.  If she wants to dance with a guy, I’m not going to try to stop her.  She deserves some entertainment.”

That was a generous attitude, but considering what Deedham had told Ruth Grady earlier, Rhodes wasn’t convinced that the coach was sincere.

“Why did you lie to Deputy Grady about your wife’s relationships with other men?” Rhodes asked.

Deedham looked embarrassed.  “It’s not the kind of thing you like to admit to anybody, much less to a woman.  Besides, I was sure those ‘relationships’ you’re talking about never went beyond The County Line dance floor.”

“What if they did?”

Deedham shrugged.  “Then they did.  I don’t think so, though.”

Besides, Rhodes thought, deciding that Deedham was being truthful enough, it was football season.  Deedham didn’t have time to worry much about his wife.

“Your wife enjoys The County Line, but she wasn’t there tonight.  Why not?”

“She doesn’t go on Sunday.  She likes to watch
Sixty Minutes
and
Murder She Wrote
.”

“So you knew she wouldn’t be there.”

“You’re getting way off the subject, Sheriff.  Don’t you want to know about her and Goober Vance?”

“Tell me, then.  What
about
her and Goober Vance?”

“That’s why that toothpick-chewing son of a bitch is spreading lies about me.  He’s trying to get back at Terry because she laughed at him when he tried to pick her up.  Not that
she’d
tell me that.  It was Vance.  He was really mad, and he said he’d get me for it.  I don’t know why he’d want to get me.  I didn’t do anything.”

If Deedham were telling the truth, and Rhodes was beginning to believe more and more that he was, his story might explain a lot.  Vance had certainly embellished his account of Terry and Brady Meredith.  And he might have been trying to get at her indirectly by implying that someone on the team was considering the use of steroids.  Vance had thought Rhodes would be smart enough to know he meant Deedham, but Rhodes had been too intent on Meredith and hadn’t caught on.

“So now we know about Vance,” Rhodes said.  “Let’s talk about a man called Rapper.”

“I never saw him before,” Deedham said too quickly.  “He was just some guy I was having a beer with.”

“Let’s see,” Rhodes said.  “I believe you were the one who said that, among other things, you didn’t like Brady Meredith because he went drinking on the weekends.  Do you remember telling me that?”

Deedham admitted that he remembered.

“So tell me where I’m wrong here.  This is the weekend.  And you were out drinking.  You must do it all the time or you wouldn’t pick somebody like Rapper to share a table with.”

“So I didn’t like Meredith.  Maybe I don’t like myself very much, either.”

“Maybe not, but if you don’t, it’s not because you make a habit of going out to The County Line.  I talked to the bartender.  You’ve just been there once before, and you were with Rapper.”

“The bartender told you that?”

“Didn’t I just say that I talked with the bartender?  He’d make a pretty good witness, too.  He’s the kind of man who never forgets a face.”

“So you say.”

Deedham was a stubborn cuss.  Rhodes wondered if there were any old battery cables lying around the jail.  Probably not.  So Rhodes would just have to try something else.

“You’re right.  So I say.  And so the bartender will say.  And when I tell a representative from the University Interscholastic League that I think you were out there buying steroids, what do you think is going to happen to the Clearview Catamounts?”

Deedham straightened.  “Who said anything about steroids?”

“I did.”  Rhodes didn’t think it would be wise to mention Goober Vance again.  “Rapper is a known drug trafficker, and if any of the Catamounts test positive for drugs, God help you.  You’ll be begging me to keep you in jail for the rest of your life because you wouldn’t dare show your face on the street.  You’d be lynched.”

Deedham straightened even more.  His chair creaked, and one leg scrapped on the concrete floor.

Ruth Grady stood up, holding her steno pad.  “Don’t be too hard on him, Sheriff.  Maybe he was just trying to help the team.”

“Steroids don’t help anyone,” Rhodes said.  “And they’re illegal.  Clearview will have to forfeit every single game of the season.”

“Maybe we can find a way around that,” Ruth said.  She walked over to stand by Deedham.  “We can’t let a man’s reputation go down the drain if he was just trying to help.”

Rhodes thought she was overdoing the Good Cop bit a little.  He said, “I don’t see how.  Cheating is cheating.  Breaking the law is breaking the law.”

“I didn’t break the law,” Deedham said.  He slumped back down in the chair.  “I tried, but I didn’t do it.”

Now they were getting somewhere, Rhodes thought.  He said, “Tell us about it.”

Deedham did.  He’d found out about Rapper through a sporting goods salesman.  He refused to name the salesman, but Rhodes wasn’t interested in that right now.  He could find out later.  He told Deedham to go on.

Deedham explained that the salesman had set it up for Rapper and Deedham to meet.  Deedham had picked the spot.  He didn’t think anyone would find it curious if a coach had a drink with a biker.  They’d just be two guys who met at a bar.

“But he never sold me any drugs.  I’d decided by the first time I talked to him that I didn’t want to risk it.  We’d worked too hard this season to take the chance of losing everything because of something that I’d done.”

Rhodes could see where Deedham might have been of two minds about things.  The team was winning without the drugs, and winning was all Deedham cared about.  As long as they were winning, there was no need to take the risk.

“Besides,” Deedham went on, “I’d sort of hinted around to some of the team, and it was pretty obvious that they weren’t interested.”

“Brady Meredith,” Rhodes said.  “He preached against drugs pretty hard.”

“He sure did, and he was right.  I’m sorry I ever got mixed up in anything like that.  I shouldn’t have let wanting to win get to me like it did.”

“If you’re so sorry, what were you doing out at The County Line tonight?” Rhodes asked.

Deedham shook his head wearily.  “I was stupid.  Just talking to Rapper in the first place was stupid.  I thought it didn’t matter how you won, just as long as you won.  Surely you’ve seen how much winning the district means to everybody in Clearview.  But if you get involved with the wrong people, it makes a difference.  It takes away from the winning.  I should have known better.”

Everything that Deedham said was true, but Rhodes didn’t want to appear to be sympathizing with him.

“You were stupid, all right,” he said.  “You didn’t just talk to him once.  You went back.”

“Because he threatened me,” Deedham said.  “He said he thought we had an agreement.  He said he’d taken a risk for me, and that I was going to have to pay off or he’d tell about the steroids.”

“Who was he going to tell?” Rhodes asked.  “Meredith?”

“Brady was already dead when Rapper called me.  He was going to tell Jasper if I didn’t buy the drugs.”

“Jasper wouldn’t have liked that,” Rhodes said.

Deedham looked up.  “Wouldn’t have liked it?  He’d have killed me.”  Deedham thought about what he’d just said.  “Well, he wouldn’t have done that, but he would’ve fired me, and he would’ve put out the word on me.  I wouldn’t have been able to get another job in this state, not in coaching.”

“So what were you going to do about it?”

“I was going to pay Rapper off,” Deedham said.  “I was just going to give him the money and not take the drugs.  He said that would be fine.  The money was all he wanted, something to compensate him for his trouble.  We were just about to settle up when you walked in.”

Everything that Deedham said made sense, and it sounded a lot like the truth.  But that still didn’t let Deedham off the hook for Brady Meredith’s murder.  Rhodes thought it was time to move on to that.

“Do you smoke, Deedham?” he asked.

“No.  Why?”

“No reason.  Did you see Meredith after the game Friday night?”

“Wait a minute.  Why are you asking me that?  I’ve already told your deputy about that.”

“You lied to her about your wife.  Maybe you lied about that, too.”

Deedham looked for a second as if he might stand up.  Rhodes put the foot that was in the chair down on the floor and braced himself.

Ruth started her Good Cop act again.  “The sheriff has to go over some of the same ground I covered,” she said.  “It doesn’t mean that he suspects you of anything.”

“
Do
you suspect me?” Deedham asked Rhodes.

“Just answer the question,” Rhodes told him.  “Did you see Meredith after the game?”

Deedham looked at the tape recorder as if to check on whether it was still working.  It was.

“I saw him.  So did Jasper and Kenner.  We were in the locker room with the team.  For that matter, so was Goober Vance, the son of a bitch who’s trying to set me up.  He knows that if we lose to Springville, it’ll kill me.  He’s trying to keep me distracted.”