Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 20 - Compound Murder (12 page)

“Everything will come out at his trial.”

“Shouldn’t be any trial. You need to let him go.”

Rhodes stood up. “I told you. I can’t do that. If he makes bail, that’s a different story. You go in and post his bond, then he can come home. He’ll still have to stand trial, though.”

“You think he killed that teacher, don’t you. Well, he didn’t. I can promise you that.”

Rhodes hoped they were finally getting to the information that Terrell had told Hack about. So far he hadn’t learned anything at all.

“If you know anything that will clear this up,” Rhodes said, “tell me now. Otherwise I’m leaving.”

Duffy angled his AR-15 in Rhodes’s direction. “I wouldn’t get too sure about that,” he said.

Chapter 10

It occurred to Rhodes that he’d made a rookie mistake. Going to talk to Terrell wasn’t it. Going alone was. It had been that way most of Rhodes’s career. He’d seen far too many of the things people were capable of at their worst, but he somehow remained trusting and hopeful about nearly everybody he encountered. He’d even thought only minutes before that there was no reason not to go into the compound.

He’d been expecting a pleasant conversation, or at worst something along the lines of the wild hog in Hannah Bigelow’s house. Knowing what he knew about Terrell, he should’ve thought it through better. He should’ve expected something like Duffy. There was always an enforcer, and in Terrell’s compound, it was Duffy. Not that Rhodes was going to let Duffy or his rifle bother him.

“Like I said, I’m leaving,” Rhodes told Duffy. He looked at Terrell. “Unless you have something to tell me.”

Terrell nodded at Duffy, who moved the rifle barrel until it was pointing at the wall. Rhodes sat back down.

“I didn’t want Ike to go to the college,” Terrell said. “He got all his other schooling right here in this house.”

“Good schooling, too,” Duffy said. “I was the math teacher.”

Duffy didn’t look like any math teacher Rhodes had ever known. It would be fun to introduce Duffy to Seepy Benton. They could sit around drinking green tea and discussing the finer points of the Fibonacci number or the binomial theorem.

“I don’t like government schools,” Terrell said, and Duffy nodded. “What Ike was getting off the Internet and from Duffy and others was good enough. I don’t like the liberal ideas that they teach in colleges, but Ike said he wouldn’t pay any attention to that kind of thing. He said he needed more education than we could provide for him. There might be more to it than that. He might’ve wanted to be one of the elites, maybe, instead of living here in the woods.”

Rhodes wasn’t sure that you could call community college students the elites, but if Able wanted to believe they were, Rhodes wasn’t going to discourage him.

“Anyway,” Terrell said, “I let him go. I believe in personal freedom, and if the boy wanted to go, well, it was up to him. He was doing pretty well, to tell the truth, until he got into it with that English teacher of his.”

Maybe now Terrell was going to tell Rhodes something. Finally.

“What kind of trouble?” Rhodes asked, even though he was sure he already knew the answer.

“It was that paper he wrote,” Terrell said. “The teacher said it was stolen off the Internet. He couldn’t find any proof of that, but he said he knew Ike didn’t write it. He reported Ike to the higher-ups and got him in trouble with the college, all because he couldn’t believe some kid from the sticks could write a decent essay. That’s how those liberal left-wingers think.”

“Did Ike write it?” Rhodes asked.

“Are you asking me if my boy would tell a lie?”

“I guess that’s what I’m asking you. Would he?”

“We taught him better than that,” Duffy said. His hands twisted on the rifle. “You could ask Eden. She’d tell you.” Terrell looked at him. “I mean you could ask her if she was here, which she’s not. She was his English teacher.”

Rhodes figured that the women had been sent elsewhere while this meeting was taking place. Terrell wouldn’t want them around if things got out of hand and there was a body, namely his, to dispose of.

“Eden’s my wife,” Terrell said. “She knows all about writing, where to put the commas, what a semicolon is, all that stuff. Ike does, too.”

Rhodes seemed to recall from his own schooling that there was more to writing a good essay than knowing about commas and semicolons, but he didn’t think this was the time to mention it.

“Ike was pretty upset about being accused of cheating, I guess,” he said.

“Now there you go, Sheriff,” Duffy said. His voice was harsh, and his eyes, though nearly hidden under the brim of his hat, were hostile. Duffy was on the edge of losing his temper. “You lawmen are always trying to trick somebody into saying something wrong.”

“Just asking a question,” Rhodes said.

“Ike wasn’t as chapped by that teacher as I was,” Duffy said. “I don’t like it when some ivory-tower elitist accuses somebody of something he didn’t do.”

Wellington wasn’t there to defend himself, and Rhodes didn’t know who was right about it. Maybe Ike was an excellent writer, but if he was, Wellington should have known it from other writing samples. The paper must have been really well done.

“How upset were you?” Rhodes asked.

“Sheriff, you aren’t half as smart as you think you are,” Duffy said. His voice now was not just harsh but angry. “You should know better than to ask something like that. Didn’t I tell you that Able don’t ever leave this place? He’s not going to go into town to meet with somebody and risk the government arresting him on some piddling little charge just because we don’t believe the way they want us to.”

There were lots of ways to resist the government, but Rhodes didn’t see Terrell as much of a threat. He wasn’t bothering anybody. He was just living in the woods and minding his own business, unless there was more going on around the place than Rhodes could see.

“I didn’t mean to imply you’d killed anybody,” Rhodes said. Of course, all three of them knew that wasn’t the truth. The apology seemed to be accepted, though, and it smoothed things over for the moment.

“Like Duffy told you,” Terrell said, “I don’t ever leave this place. Ike shouldn’t have, either, but you can’t keep a kid away from town until he’s learned what it’s like. Anyway, you need to be looking at the college for whoever killed Wellington. They didn’t like him there.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Nobody liked him,” Terrell said. “Students didn’t. Other teachers didn’t. He didn’t fit in. That’s why they killed him.”

Rhodes leaned forward. This was the first interesting thing Terrell had said.

“Who’s ‘they’?” Rhodes asked again. He was getting tired of asking people to be specific.

“If you don’t know already, you aren’t much of a sheriff. You ought to find out more about that kind of thing, see who’s spreading lies. Then you might get somewhere.”

Terrell had a point, but he hadn’t told Rhodes anything new. Terrell didn’t have any information. All he wanted was to get Rhodes there and try to talk him into releasing Ike.

“I’ll check into it,” Rhodes said.

“That’d be a good idea. Meantime, you can let Ike out of the jail.”

“Not until somebody posts his bail. You know that.”

It occurred to Rhodes that Terrell might not be able to afford bail for his son. Rhodes didn’t know the amount, but Terrell couldn’t have had much disposable income, considering that he didn’t do any work. Rhodes wondered again if the rumors about the meth lab were true, even it there was no evidence of it. Nothing was being cooked up at the moment, or Rhodes would have caught the odor. There was no hiding it. All he could smell was the beans.

“That’s why people don’t like the justice system,” Terrell said. “A poor man hasn’t got a chance. Neither does an innocent man, once he’s accused.”

“If Ike is innocent,” Rhodes said, “we’ll find out.”

“You must not hear the news much, Sheriff,” Duffy said. “How many men have been let off death row in this state in the last few years? Five? Ten? Every one of ’em innocent based on the DNA evidence when it finally got used, but every one of ’em convicted by a jury, every one of ’em behind the walls for half their lives.”

That was a little exaggerated, but there was enough truth in it to make Rhodes uncomfortable.

“None of those men were from around here,” Rhodes said, knowing as he said it how weak it sounded.

“There’s always a first time,” Able said, “but it better not be my boy.”

“It won’t be,” Rhodes said, and this time he was certain.

“I’m taking your word for that,” Able said. “There’s another thing, Sheriff.”

“What’s that?”

“You could talk to the judge, tell him to let Ike out on a personal bond. Ike’s never been in trouble before. He’s not down on your books for anything. If he stays locked up, he’s going to fail all his classes at the college, and you’ll be the one to blame.”

Rhodes didn’t feel guilty about Ike being locked up or about the college classes. Nevertheless, Terrell had a point. Ike was just a kid, really, and his record was clean. Letting him out on a personal bond wasn’t a big risk at all since as far as Rhodes knew none of the Terrells had left the county in the last forty years or so, much less the state. Odds were that Ike would come in for his court dates even if he were released.

“I’ll think about it,” Rhodes said. “Maybe it’ll work out.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Terrell said. He stood up, and Rhodes knew it was time for him to go.

“Duffy’ll show you to the gate,” Able said as Rhodes got to his feet.

Rhodes didn’t much care for Duffy’s company, but somebody had to open and close the gate. It might as well be Duffy.

Duffy stood, the AR-15 still in his right hand. “Let’s go, Sheriff,” he said.

“You first,” Rhodes said.

Duffy looked at Able, who nodded. Duffy went to the door, opened it, and went outside.

“You do the right thing by my boy, Sheriff,” Able said.

“I always try to do the right thing.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. We’ll see how it works out this time.”

Rhodes didn’t know what to say to that, so he followed Duffy out the door. Duffy was at the bottom of the steps, and he fell in beside Rhodes as they started toward the gate. Rhodes could still smell dust in the air even though it must have settled back to the road by now. Maybe it was just his imagination.

After they’d walked a few yards, Duffy dropped back, and Rhodes felt the barrel of the AR-15 poke him in the back.

“You know, Sheriff,” Duffy said, “I don’t like you much.”

Rhodes kept on walking. “You aren’t the only one.”

“Yeah, that figures, you being a sheriff and all, but the rest of ’em aren’t here. I am, and I’m the one with the gun. You do what Able said, or you’re gonna be sorry.”

Rhodes didn’t know what Duffy was trying to prove, but Rhodes didn’t like threats, and he wasn’t going to let Duffy get away with one.

Rhodes had made a rookie mistake by coming without backup, though things had turned out all right. Now Duffy had made a mistake by getting too close to Rhodes with the rifle. Rhodes wasn’t going to let that one turn out all right. Not for Duffy, anyway.

Rhodes stopped abruptly. When the rifle poked him in the back, he turned around and grabbed the rifle barrel in his right hand, pushing it up and causing the butt to swing down. He took the butt in his free hand and twisted to the left as hard and quickly as he could. Duffy’s finger made a satisfactory
snap,
and Rhodes took the rifle from him.

Duffy bent over, his hands clutched at his belt. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Rhodes said. “You’re thinking you like me even less now than you did a few seconds ago, and I don’t blame you a bit. What you have to consider, though, is that you brought this on yourself.”

Duffy stared at him as if he’d like nothing better than to break Rhodes in half like Rhodes had broken his finger. He was strong enough to do it easily, but now Rhodes was the one with the rifle.

“You might even be thinking about police brutality,” Rhodes said. “If you are, you ought to be thinking about what a judge would say to a man who was poking the sheriff in the back with an AR-15. I have a feeling he’d have some harsh words for you. Do you want to find out?”

Duffy thought it over. He wasn’t entirely stupid, so it didn’t take him long. “You mean you’re not going to arrest me?”

“I might. I haven’t decided. Maybe you’ve learned an important lesson and won’t do anything stupid again.”

“What if I have?”

“Then we’ll just forget this ever happened. I can understand why you’re upset. Your friend’s son is in jail, and you think I haven’t done enough for him. I said I’d consider talking to the judge. That should be good enough for you. Threats don’t work very well.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“You might want to get a splint on that finger. I know you folks don’t go in for doctors, but that’s all one would do for you anyway. You have anything else to say?”

Duffy shook his head. “Can’t think of anything.”

“I’ll be leaving, then,” Rhodes said. “If you ever come to town, you can drop by my office and see about getting your rifle back.”

“You’re taking it with you?”

“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.” He paused. “Well, I guess that’s not true. It
is
because I don’t trust you. You’re the one who was poking a gun in my back.”

Duffy just nodded. Rhodes turned his back to him and went to the gate. When he got there, he turned and said, “You going to open this for me, or shall I do it myself?”

Duffy didn’t bother to answer. He turned and went toward the house.

“That’s okay,” Rhodes called after him. “I can let myself out.”

So that’s what he did. Then he locked the rifle in the trunk of the county car and got out of there.

Chapter 11

As Rhodes drove back toward town, he got Hack on the radio and asked for an update on the investigations. Hack told him that both Ruth and Buddy had left reports for him.