Of All Sad Words (21 page)

Rhodes got to his feet. He was a little dizzy at first, but the feeling passed quickly. He looked around and saw his pistol lying nearby. The shotgun wasn’t far from where Rapper had been standing.

Rhodes told Ruth to check the shotgun. While she was doing that, he bent over to pick up the .38. He was hardly dizzy at all when he straightened up, but instead of putting the pistol back in the ankle holster, he stuck it in his waistband. No need to bend if he didn’t have to.

“This twelve-gauge is messed up,” Ruth said, holding it by the end of the barrel.

The stock was splintered and had blood on it.

“Bag it,” Rhodes said. “If we ever need Rapper’s DNA, we’ll have it.”

“I don’t have a bag with me.”

“There’s one in the car. We need to get to Jerry Kergan’s place.”

“Why?”

“That’s where Rapper will be going, if he’s able. There’s a lot of whiskey there. He won’t want to leave it.”

“He’s losing blood,” Ruth said. “I saw more on the ground where the gun was.”

“If those feral hogs that bed up in here smell it, we might have company before long.”

Having had a run-in with the hogs once before, Rhodes didn’t want to meet them again.

Neither did Ruth. “Let’s get out of here, then.”

Rhodes started walking. “Rapper won’t get help unless he’s desperate. Let’s see if we can get to that whiskey before it’s gone.”

“I’m right behind you,” Ruth said, and she followed him into the trees.

“Be careful,” Rhodes told her. It didn’t get dark until nine o’clock or so at that time of year, but even at twilight it was hard to see in the trees. “You don’t want to step on a snake.”

“You’re a real comfort, Sheriff. Are you sure your head’s all right?”

Rhodes’s head wasn’t throbbing now. He just felt a dull ache in the place where Nellie had hit him.

“It’s fine. I’ll be able to drive.”

When they got to the cars, however, he saw that he wouldn’t be doing any driving.

“I thought maybe I heard a crash,” Ruth said as they looked at Rhodes’s county car. “Rapper must really hate you.”

“You could be right,” Rhodes said.

Rapper and Nellie had wanted to get away fast, so they hadn’t done any more to Rhodes than Nellie had already accomplished. Maybe they thought he was dead, or hoped he was. But they couldn’t just leave without lashing out in some way or another. That wouldn’t be like Rapper. So they’d plowed into the side of the car with the brush guard of the truck. Rhodes thought they might have hit it more than once.

“I can’t wait to tell the commissioners about this,” he said.

“We’re heavily insured,” Ruth said. “They won’t mind.”

“You don’t know them very well, do you?”

“No, and I don’t think I want to. Come on. I’ll get out the first-aid kit and we’ll put something on your side and your head.”

Ruth went to her own cruiser and opened the trunk. She bagged the shotgun and got out the first-aid kit. Rhodes wanted to get started, but Ruth was adamant about doing something to his wounds. The antiseptic she used stung, but Rhodes hardly noticed. He helped her stick a bandage on his side, but he wouldn’t let her do anything to his head. He started to get into the car as Ruth put away the first-aid kit.

“I’ll drive,” she told him.

Rhodes got in on the passenger side and called Hack to tell him to send a wrecker for the other cruiser.

“He might not be able to find it,” Hack said. “Off down there in the woods like that.”

“It’s not in the woods,” Rhodes said. “It’s at the edge of the woods. He can see it from the road if he looks.”

“I’ll tell him, but I can’t promise anything.”

Rhodes said that was good enough and asked if a deputy was near Thurston.

“Just Ruth, and you know where she is.”

Rhodes had figured that was the case. “Get the word out to the DPS and the departments in all the surrounding counties. Tell them to be looking for a black Dodge pickup, no license plates. It’s Rapper and Nellie.”

“Those two never learn.”

Rhodes thought about the knot on his head. He might be the one who never learned.

“Call Jack Mellon, too. He’ll need to come up tomorrow and have a look at the still.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I call the other counties.”

“Check with all the hospitals while you’re at it,” Rhodes said. “Rapper might be hurt enough to check into an ER.”

“How’d you hurt him?”

“Shot him in the hand.”

“Just like the Lone Ranger.”

“Not quite. He and Nellie probably killed Jerry Kergan and Terry Crawford,” he said. “We need to find them before they lose themselves somewhere.”

“I’ll put out the word,” Hack said. “They never seem to get caught, though.”

“We’ll get them this time,” Rhodes said, but even he didn’t believe it.

They got to Kergan’s house too late. The still was in the shed, but the whiskey was gone.

“Rapper must not have been hurt as much as you thought,” Ruth said. “Not if they loaded all that whiskey.”

“There were only eighteen boxes,” Rhodes said. “Nellie could have loaded them by himself if Rapper told him to.”

“Somebody will catch them, a state trooper or somebody.”

“Right,” Rhodes said.

“It could happen.”

“Right,” Rhodes said again.

Ivy was concerned about Rhodes’s head.

“I think you should go to the ER and have it looked at,” she said. “You might have a concussion.”

Rhodes suspected that she’d been talking to Ruth. “I don’t have a concussion. I’m fine.”

“You always say that.”

She was right. Rhodes always made light of things that happened to him. All the same, he was convinced that he just had a knot on his head and nothing more.

Unless you counted his chest, which was quite colorful now, and his shoulder, which still hurt if he moved his arm much, and the place where the shot had grazed him.

“What about that place on your side?” Ivy asked. She hadn’t overlooked it, as Rhodes had hoped she might. He should have known better. “What’s that bandage covering up?”

“Just a scratch,” Rhodes said. “Ruth put some antiseptic on it. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“I’m sure. When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“It’s only been a year or so.”

Ivy shook her head. “I hope you hurt Rapper as much as he hurt you.”

“I did.”

Rhodes wasn’t sure even of that, but considering the blood on the shotgun stock, he figured that Rapper had lost a good portion of his hand. Maybe the fingers, maybe just the meaty part of the palm. Rhodes wondered if it was the same hand that had already been maimed a little.

“I thought the book signing went well this afternoon,” he said, hoping to distract Ivy.

It worked.

“I wish I could have gotten there sooner and stayed a little longer,” she said. “That was quite a crowd. Did anybody take pictures ?”

Rhodes wasn’t sure. “Jennifer Loam was there. She took a couple, I think.”

“I’ll have to get a few extra copies of the paper tomorrow if there’s a picture.”

“I won’t be in it,” Rhodes said. “Claudia and Jan wrote the book, not me.”

“Everybody in Clearview knows there wouldn’t be a Sage Barton if it weren’t for you.”

“Sage Barton wouldn’t have as much trouble with Rapper as I do. He’d have put Rapper away long ago.”

“I’m not worried about Rapper. You’ll get him this time for sure.”

“Right,” Rhodes said.

Chapter 25

THE NEXT MORNING AFTER HE FED THE DOGS AND THE CAT, Rhodes went to the jail in the county car he’d borrowed. It wasn’t as new as the one he was used to driving, but it would do. He suspected he’d be getting an even newer one soon, because there wasn’t going to be much anybody could do about the one Rapper had wrecked.

Considering that, Rhodes hoped Hack might have some good news for him, but of course there wasn’t any.

“No word from any DPS troopers about the truck,” Hack said. “No word from any hospitals about a man with a wounded hand. No sign of Nellie or Rapper anywhere. Looks like they’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”

He didn’t add the word
again,
but he didn’t have to. Rhodes knew it was implied.

Hack paused and glanced at Lawton, who just grinned.

“That ain’t all,” Hack said.

Rhodes sighed. “Tell me.”

“We found out who owned the donkey.”

“It coulda been a mule,” Lawton said. “Mules are a lot more common around here. You see ‘em ever’ now and then. Turned out it was a donkey, though.”

“Who was the owner?” Rhodes asked, hoping to stave off another discussion of the differences between mules and donkeys.

“Pete Langston. You know him?”

“Lives on Peach Street?”

“That’s the one. He’s got himself a little pasture just out of town, not anything on it but some mesquite trees and a little barn. That’s where he had the donkey. He bought it for his kids to ride.”

“How’d it get out?”

“He says it didn’t. He says it was stolen. He called and asked if it was still the law that a man could shoot somebody who stole his donkey.”

“Still the law?”

“He said a donkey was the same as a horse,” Lawton said. “Said it was the law that you could shoot horse thieves, so couldn’t you shoot a donkey thief?”

Hack looked as if he might shoot Lawton for breaking into his explanation.

“I blame cable TV,” Lawton went on, ignoring Hack’s angry frown. “People watchin’ all those old Westerns. They think we’re still back in the Wild West days.”

Rhodes didn’t want to get into that discussion, either.

“So what did you tell Mr. Langston?” he asked Hack.

Hack looked pleased to have the floor again. “I told him if that was ever the law, and I wasn’t sure that it was, it’s not the law now and he’d better not go shootin’ anybody.”

“Who did he want to shoot?”

“Franklin Anderson.”

Rhodes must have looked dumbfounded, because Lawton and Hack both had a good laugh at his expression.

“Why Anderson?” Rhodes asked when he could get their attention again.

“’Cause somebody told him that they saw Anderson with a donkey in his trailer, and he naturally assumed Anderson was the one that stole his donkey.”

“Naturally,” Rhodes said. “I hope you straightened him out.”

“I did. Told him he’d have to pay to get his donkey back, too. He didn’t like that one little bit. Said he’s a taxpayer, and it was the county’s job to round up strays.”

“Did you remind him that his taxes would be even higher if we had to bill all the taxpayers for the care and feeding of stray donkeys?”

“Sure did. He didn’t want to hear it, though.”

“Did you tell him to check his fence?”

“Yep. That made him even madder. So I told him that he’d have to pay up ever’ time we caught that donkey out at the car wash.”

“How’d he take that?”

“He said if he saw who was lettin’ his donkey out, he’d shoot him, ’cause that was the law.”

“I think you oughta go to his place and disconnect his cable, Sheriff,” Lawton said. “Or just tell him he can’t subscribe to that Western channel.”

“He might have a satellite dish ’stead of the cable,” Hack said. “Lots of folks got those now.”

Rhodes wasn’t interested in getting into that. He said, “Send Buddy by to have a talk with him. I’m going to see Mel Muller about our departmental Web site.”

“What about Rapper?”

“If any news comes in, you can get in touch with me.”

Rhodes started for the door, but Hack didn’t let him get there.

“I called the TABC,” Hack said. “Mellon’s coming back this afternoon around two. You gonna be here?”

“I’ll try to be. If I’m not, have Ruth take him to the still. She can find it.”

“What if Rapper’s around?”

“He won’t be.”

“One more thing, then,” Hack said. “That Benton fella called late yesterday.”

Rhodes turned around. “What did he want?”

“It was something about those possums in Miz Owens’s attic. He wants to talk to you about that. He said he’d be out at the college this mornin’ if you wanted to drop by.”

Rhodes didn’t want to drop by, but he would if he had a chance. He was curious to see what Benton had to say about the possums.

“Is that about it?” Rhodes said. “No other calls, nobody else wants to shoot somebody? No bank robberies?”

“That’s it,” Hack said. “You can go now.”

“Thanks,” Rhodes said. “I appreciate it.”

Mel Muller opened her door when Rhodes knocked. She wore a gray sweatshirt and red sweatpants. Working at home has its advantages, Rhodes thought.

“What?” she said. “Is this about that Web site again? I told you it takes a long time to do a quality job. I’m working on it.”

“I know you are. So does Commissioner Burns, but I want him to hear it from you. I don’t like being a go-between.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

Rhodes didn’t believe her. One thing he’d decided when he was trying to sleep the previous night was that she and Burns didn’t have anything to do with the whiskey and the stills or the death of Jerry Kergan. They just had a problem with stubbornness.

Mel had told Rhodes more than once that Burns should come by himself or call her himself, but Burns wasn’t going to do that. Rhodes figured he was intimidated by Muller because he’d treated her badly, and now he didn’t want to face her. So Rhodes was going to put them together and let them work out their differences. Then maybe Burns would leave him alone about the Web site. And who could tell. It was possible that they’d reach an accommodation. Burns might even ask her for a date.

“I think you’d better come along with me, whether you want to talk to him or not,” Rhodes said.

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“No. Just taking you for a ride.”

“You sound like somebody in a Mafia movie.”

Rhodes had been hoping he sounded like Edward G. Robinson. Maybe Mel was too young to remember him.

“I’ll get ready,” she said, giving in. “Come in and have a seat.”

Rhodes went inside, and Mel disappeared. Rhodes shoved computer magazines off the chair. He wondered if they were the same ones he’d moved the last time he’d sat there.