Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 20 - Compound Murder (24 page)

“Sort of a riot,” Lawton said. “Lots of screamin’, anyway. I could hear it comin’ over the phone when Hack took the call.”

“That doesn’t make a riot,” Rhodes said.

“Fightin’, too,” Hack said. “Hair pullin’. Bitin’. I’m not a hundred percent sure Ruth can handle it.”

Rhodes was curious in spite of himself. “How many people are involved?”

“Not many,” Lawton said.

“That’s not very exact. Give me a number.”

Lawton looked at Hack. Hack said, “Two.”

“Two,” Rhodes said. “That’s not a riot. That’s an argument. Ruth can handle it.”

“Might get bigger. It’s inside. Innocent bystanders might get hurt.”

“Look,” Rhodes said, “I have a lot on my mind today, and I’m not going to the Pizza Hut. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Couple of women,” Lawton said.

“One of ’em got the other one’s to-go order,” Hack said, “or that’s what it sounded like. The kid who called it in wasn’t too clear on that. Anyway, the one who got the order must’ve decided she liked it better’n what she’d ordered for herself. She ran for the door, and the other woman tripped her.”

“Pizza on the floor,” Lawton said. “Messy.”

“That’s when the fight started,” Lawton said. “It got messier. The kid said they were rollin’ on the pizza.”

“That sauce makes a bad stain,” Hack said. “Hard as the dickens to get out.”

“Yeah,” Lawton said. “One time—”

“Never mind,” Rhodes said. “Ruth can handle two women fighting over a pizza. She doesn’t need me to help her. By now it’s all over and they’re more worried about getting pizza stains out of their clothes than what they were fighting about. If they aren’t, Ruth will settle them down, and when Buddy gets there, he can give them cleaning advice. I can’t be running off every time there’s some little something to handle.”

“Gettin’ touchy again,” Hack said. “I heard that happens when people get older.”

“Yeah,” Lawton said. “Never happened to me and you, though. Wonder why that is?”

“We’re just on an even keel all the time,” Hack said. “Some people are like that. There’s a word for it. Big word. I can’t always remember it. Pragmatic or somehin’ or other like that.”

“Phlegmatic,” Lawton said. “I can even spell it. Don’t remember where I heard about it. Back when I was in school as a kid, maybe. We learned a lot more back then than the kids do now. You ask one of them what phlegmatic means, why, they wouldn’t have any idea that it was even a word, much less that it meant people like you and me. Cool as cucumbers, that’s us.”

Hack nodded. “Phlegmatic. Ain’t you glad we’re like that, Sheriff? Be nice if you were more phlegmatic yourself.”

Rhodes had tuned them out by that time. He was on his way to the evidence room to get Wellington’s cell phone and make another check on it. He should’ve let Seepy Benton do it to begin with. Seepy would never have overlooked something so obvious.

He signed out the phone and brought it back to his desk. Hack and Lawton had lost interest in tormenting him, so he sat down and looked it over without interference. While he didn’t have a smart phone himself, he knew how they worked.

First he had to turn it on, and when he did that, he saw that the battery level was very low. He didn’t have a charger for it, so he’d have to be sure he got things done before he ran out of power.

He looked for the
PHOTOS
icon and found it easily, but the photos themselves were disappointing. Rhodes had hoped there was some kind of overlooked evidence, but all he found was pictures of the black and white cat that was now named Jerry and happily residing in Rhodes’s kitchen.

Rhodes had thought that possibly Wellington’s obsession with Ike and his comment to Francie Solomon that he was going to get him might have meant that Wellington had taken some kind of action. Janet Sandstrom had said he was the sort of person who’d harass students who missed class by calling them and even showing up at their homes. He couldn’t have shown up at Ike’s home, but he could have staked it out.

Rhodes had been looking for photos of Ike breaking into the Beauty Shack. Wellington could have taken them and gotten back to the college before Ike arrived. He could have been smoking his morning cigarette by the trash bin when Ike got there, accosted Ike, and gotten his head smacked against the sharp end of the Dumpster for his trouble. There was nothing like that, and photos of a cat weren’t going to give Ike much of a motive.

Rhodes put the phone down and thought about it. Hack took advantage of the opportunity to ask Rhodes what he was doing.

“Looking for pictures on this phone,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t find any worth talking about.”

“Why’d you care about the pictures?” Hack asked.

“Evidence.”

“Did you check the videos?”

“I was planning to do that next,” Rhodes said, which was true. He should have done it two days ago.

“Always check the videos,” Hack said. “Ever’body in town’s got a video on that Jennifer Loam’s Web site. There was one today of those kid goats of Vernell Lindsey’s. You know about ’em?”

Rhodes knew about the kid goats, all right. Vernell had three goats, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. All three had a penchant for escaping their enclosure, and Shirley had strayed far enough to get herself in trouble. Now she was a mother.

“Those kids are pretty cute,” Hack said. “Cut all kinda capers.”

“I’m sure,” Rhodes said.

“Vernell did the video herself,” Hack said. “With her phone. It’s amazin’ what a phone can do these days. You say you’re gonna check Wellington’s phone for videos?”

“As soon as people will leave me alone long enough to let me.”

“Touchy,” Hack said, turning away. “Just plain touchy.”

Rhodes hoped the battery hadn’t run down while Hack was talking, but the phone had turned itself off to preserve power, so things were okay. Rhodes turned it back on, located the video icon, and discovered that there were four videos on the phone.

The first one was of nothing at all. Not really nothing, exactly, but it looked as if Wellington had been trying to figure out how to use the video function and hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. There were a few seconds of a rug, and then the camera swung up to get a ceiling. It steadied a bit, and Rhodes glimpsed chairs and bookshelves. He was looking at the inside of Wellington’s apartment, but by the time he realized it, the video had ended.

The second video was of Jerry, and Wellington seemed to have figured things out. It was far from professional quality, but at least the camera wasn’t jumping all over the place. Jerry wasn’t doing much of anything other than sitting in the room and looking at the camera. A small rubber ball rolled into the frame, and a voice that Rhodes assumed was Wellington’s said, “Chase the ball, Ginsberg. Chase the ball.” That was all.

Two things struck Rhodes. One was that this was the first time he’d heard Wellington’s voice. Nobody would ever hear it again unless they watched this video.

The second was that Ginsberg was a pretty good name for a cat. He’d have to mention it to Ivy.

Rhodes looked at the third video. He’d been right about Wellington stalking Ike. The video was taken after dark, so it was hard to see anything clearly, but Rhodes knew it could be enhanced at the state lab if necessary. For the moment he could see enough to tell that the video was of a car coming onto the highway from the road leading to the Terrell compound. It was the old Pontiac that Rhodes had seen on his visit.

That was all there was, however. Just a car leaving the compound. Not exactly the kind of evidence that was going to get anyone convicted of anything.

Rhodes had been thinking for a while about how the compound kept going. No matter how self-sufficient Able Terrell wanted to be, and no matter how much he tried to cut himself off from civilization, there had to be money from somewhere. The satellite bill and the electric bill had to be paid.

Rhodes punched the last video. Jackpot. It had been the Pontiac in the other video, all right, and it had apparently carried Duffy to town and to the church where the air conditioners had been stripped. Wellington had managed to follow him and get video. Duffy had used a light, so he showed up clearly enough for identification. There was another man with him, but it wasn’t Ike, and it wasn’t Able. Now Rhodes knew how the compound dwellers got their income, and he also knew that Duffy had a motive for fighting with Wellington.

The video ended abruptly. Rhodes wondered if Wellington had been spotted. It could have been like that, and he could have done something really stupid, like letting Duffy or the other man follow him home. If so, they’d done nothing that night, or any night for a while. The church air conditioner in the video was at the Nazarene church, and that one had been stripped several days ago. Somehow Duffy had discovered that Wellington had the video, and he’d done something about it.

Ike hadn’t been one of the men with Duffy, Rhodes thought, at least not that night. If he had, Wellington would have turned him in. Or maybe Wellington just hadn’t seen him. Wellington might never have done anything with the video at all, but Duffy couldn’t be sure of that, so he confronted him. Maybe.

It could have happened like that. All Rhodes had to do was prove that it had. That was going to be the hard part.

Rhodes was almost certain now that Duffy had been in the Post house the previous evening to strip the wire and that the gray car leaving the brush down the block had been the Pontiac.

“Did you have Ruth look for those tire prints?” he asked Hack.

“You told me to, didn’t you?”

“Right.”

“So I told her. I always do what I’m told, even if I don’t get any credit for it around here.”

Rhodes ignored the whining. Hack didn’t mean it, anyway. He just liked to whine.

“What did she find?”

“Found just what I said she’d find, which was nothing. Ground’s too hard to take any prints. Some of the bushes was broken, but that’s no help to you.”

Rhodes got the feeling that Hack was holding something back. That was his usual method of operation.

“There’s more,” Rhodes said. “Tell me.”

“Well, she did say that there was a little bit of something stuck on one of the bushes, maybe a piece of cloth from somebody’s shirt. Anybody could’ve been in that vacant lot, though, so it won’t do you much good as evidence.”

“It might,” Rhodes said. “She saved it, of course.”

“Sure she did. You think she’s not good at her job? Got it all locked up in the trunk of the car. She’ll bring it in at the end of her shift.”

“Good. I’m going back to the college. I need to talk to Ike Terrell.”

“He don’t strike me as the talkative type,” Hack said.

“He’ll talk to me this time.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so,” Rhodes said.

*   *   *

Rhodes got to the campus just as the eleven o’clock class was ending. It would be the last class of the day for many of the students and for a lot of the faculty members. Rhodes went to Seepy Benton’s office. He didn’t want the students to see him accosting Ike in the hallway, so he sent Seepy Benton to fetch him.

“Do I get a badge?” Seepy asked.

“No, you don’t get a badge. Just do it as a favor to me.”

“If that’s the way you want it.”

Seepy left and returned shortly with Ike Terrell. Tagging along was Sandi Campbell.

“She insisted,” Seepy said when he saw the look on Rhodes’s face.

“You two go have a talk about the quadratic equation somewhere,” Rhodes said. “I need to talk to Ike privately.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Sandi said. “He might need somebody with him. Maybe a lawyer.”

“This isn’t about anything he’s done,” Rhodes said. “Just a friendly little talk.”

“You say that a lot,” Ike said.

“It’s always true, too,” Rhodes said. “I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

Ike looked at Sandi and nodded. “All right,” she said, “but I’m not going to talk about the quadratic equation. Whatever that is.”

“How about Pringles potato chips?” Benton said, picking up the can that sat on his desk and giving it a little shake. “I know some fascinating stuff about potato chips.”

“Really?” Sandi said.

“Really,” Benton said. “Come on with me. We’ll go down to the student lounge and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Ike nodded again, and Sandi followed Benton out of the office. When they were gone, Rhodes shut the door and said, “She’s in for a big surprise.”

“What?” Ike asked. “You mean he doesn’t know anything about potato chips?”

“I mean he
does
know a lot about potato chips. Just not the kind of things Sandi might be expecting.”

“What about you?” Ike asked. “What are you expecting from me?”

“Let’s sit down and find out,” Rhodes said.

Chapter 22

Rhodes got right to the point by telling Ike that he knew all about Duffy’s nighttime excursions into town to steal metal.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been stealing it all over the county,” Rhodes said. “He’s pretty good at it. I don’t know who’s with him, though. Last night there were two others. They were at a vacant house, the old Post house.” He paused to let that sink in. “Was one of the others you?”

Ike looked at the floor. “You said this was a friendly talk.”

“I’m not accusing you of stealing metal,” Rhodes told him. “I’m just curious. I know it was you at the Beauty Shack stealing hair, so I wondered. Was Duffy with you then?”

Ike raised his head. “No. I did that on my own. Duffy didn’t know about it. Nobody knew about it. It was stupid, but … but I did it. That’s all, though. I never stole anything else. Never.”

“You ran when I got to the college a couple of days ago. It wasn’t just because of the hair in your trunk. I wouldn’t have had any reason to search the car, and you knew that. So why did you run?”

Ike’s gaze went back to the floor. “I was scared.”

“I’ll bet you were, but I don’t think you were scared of me. I think you were scared of Duffy. He knows that Dr. Harris saw him on the campus. He’s threatened Harris by phone. I don’t think he’d like it if he knew you’d seen him, too. You did see him, didn’t you?”