Of All Sad Words (26 page)

“Just call me Max.”

“Max. You can call me Dave. How much do I owe you?”

“Not a thing,” Rhodes said. “Mr. Schwartz is a graduate of the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy, and he made this because he’s a public-spirited kind of a guy.”

“That’s right,” Schwartz said. “I’m always glad to help out. If you ever need any musical instruments, repair work, or even a CD, you come by my store and I’ll fix you up.”

“I’ll do that,” Ellendorf said.

He shook hands with Schwartz and Rhodes and told them again how much he appreciated what they’d done.

On the way back to the store, Schwartz said, “Are you sure that thing will work?”

“All it takes is belief, and Ellendorf’s more than ready to believe it. It’ll work just fine. That’s why I guaranteed it.”

“What about those killings? Have you found out who did them?”

“I’m still working on that,” Rhodes said. “Do you keep any kind of weapon at the store? For protection?”

“I’m not licensed to carry,” Schwartz said, “and all I have under the counter at the store is a baseball bat. I’m not so sure it would help me if I came up against a robber with a gun, but Jackee doesn’t like guns. So I don’t have one. You don’t still think I killed Crawford, do you?”

“No,” Rhodes said. “I just like to be sure.”

“You can check when you drop me off. I don’t want you thinking I’m a killer.”

“I don’t need to check.”

“I want you to. We’ll both feel better about it.”

“All right, then. I’ll check.”

The baseball bat was a Louisville Slugger, solid black except for the brand and the player’s signature in gold. It was an Alvin Dark model.

“Dark played for the New York Giants,” Schwartz said as Rhodes hefted the bat. They called him ‘Blackie.’ I don’t know if that’s because he used black bats or not. He played so long ago that probably nobody even remembers him now.”

“Where’d you get the bat?” Rhodes asked, putting it back under the counter.

“At a flea market. I like flea markets, but I don’t get to go often now that I have the store.”

“You should go to Michal Schafer’s store in Obert. She has a lot of jun—antiques. Baseball cards, too. I don’t know about bats.”

“She probably doesn’t need one. Nobody steals antiques.”

Rhodes wasn’t so sure about that. Judging from his experience, people would steal just about anything. Michal didn’t seem like the type. On the other hand …

“I have to go,” Rhodes told Schwartz. “I have some sheriffing to do.”

Something had made all the pieces of the puzzle fly into place. Maybe it had been talking to Schwartz, or maybe it had been something else. Rhodes didn’t care. He was now almost certain he had the whole picture.

Well, that wasn’t true. Some of the pieces were still not in place, and he didn’t have the
whole
picture, but he had most of it. It was a little fuzzy, and it wasn’t the one he’d thought he’d see when the puzzle came together. That happens when you’ve lost the box and don’t have a picture to guide you. And without a picture, you are likely to create one for yourself, one that doesn’t really have as much to do with the puzzle as you think.

Rhodes’s problem now was to prove that what he believed to be the true picture wasn’t just another false image. He wasn’t sure he could do that. He could put together a good circumstantial case, but he needed some hard evidence.

Or a confession. That would be nice, Rhodes thought, but he knew that Rapper wouldn’t tell him anything even if Rapper could be found, which was looking less likely all the time.

Nellie might rat somebody out, if he could be separated from Rapper, but even that was doubtful. Besides, Nellie was going to be just as hard to find as Rapper.

The one piece of evidence that Rhodes had any hope of finding was the pistol that had been used to kill Terry Crawford. He thought he might even have an idea now of where it might be, but he’d need a search warrant.

He didn’t know what he’d do if the pistol wasn’t where he thought it was. Search somewhere else, maybe, but by the time he did that, it would be too late. The pistol would be long gone.

It could be long gone already, for all Rhodes knew, but he didn’t think so. There was no reason to get rid of it, since Rhodes was so far off the track.

He called Hack on the radio and told him to get in touch with Judge Parry, who’d make out the search warrant.

“You comin’ by here before you pick it up?” Hack asked.

“Why?”

“Your friend Mikey Burns was by lookin’ for you. He said if you came in, to keep you here till he got here. He wants to talk to you about something. He didn’t look very happy. I think he’s still mad about that car you wrecked.”

“Rapper wrecked it, not me.”

“Burns blames you, though. You oughta keep that in mind.”

“Thanks for the warning. Did you tell him about the Web site?”

“No. I figgered you’d want to be the one to do that.”

“You figured right. If he comes by or calls again, tell him I’m busy busting crimes.”

“Like Sage Barton,” Hack said.

“You’ve been reading the book.”

“Yeah. Just a couple of pages now and then. I gotta tell you, old Sage Barton’s one cool customer, bullets flyin’ all around him, and he don’t turn a hair.”

“Just like me,” Rhodes said. “You stop reading and call the judge.”

“Yes, sir,” Hack said. “Want me to send some backup?”

“Would Sage Barton need backup?”

“Sage Barton might be just like you, but you ain’t just like Sage Barton, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So what about the backup?”

“Send some,” Rhodes said.

Chapter 31

RHODES HADN’T BEEN TO A BARBERSHOP IN A LONG TIME. IN Clearview, most places that cut hair would take anybody who came in. Not the beauty shops, of course. Those were strictly female territory. But the old-fashioned men’s barbershop was pretty much a thing of the past.

So Jamey Hamilton’s place was a throwback to an earlier time. Even the mingled smells of hair tonic and aftershave reminded Rhodes of when he was a boy and the barber put a board across the arms of the barber chair for Rhodes to sit on so he’d be tall enough for the barber to reach.

“Need a little trim, Sheriff?” Hamilton asked when Rhodes came in.

A customer sat in the chair, a man Rhodes didn’t recognize.

“I just want to talk,” Rhodes said. “I’ll sit and wait till you’re finished.”

“Fine by me.”

Hamilton turned on the clipper he was holding, and it came to life with a hum that reminded Rhodes of the flying saucer repeller.

The interior of the shop was much cooler than it was outside, almost too cool. Rhodes picked up a newspaper and sat in a chair to wait. The newspaper turned out to be a copy of the
Clearview Herald
that was a week old. Rhodes put it on the chair next to him and watched Hamilton cut his customer’s hair.

Hamilton was good with the clipper and scissors. When he was finished with the haircut, he combed the customer’s hair. Then he sharpened a straight razor on a leather strop hanging from the chair. After he was satisfied with the sharpness of the blade, he ran some water in a shaving cup and whipped up a lather with a short-handled brush. He applied the lather to the back of his customer’s neck and shaved the neck smooth.

He washed off the razor, dried it, and put it back on a shelf. Then he applied lotion and talcum powder to the customer’s neck. Finished now, he turned the chair around so the customer could have a look at himself.

“All right?” he asked.

The customer nodded.

Hamilton unpinned the protective cloth from around the man’s neck and swept it off, shaking loose hair on the white tile floor. The man stood up, and Hamilton brushed him off with a whisk broom.

The man paid him and left without saying a word to Rhodes or Hamilton.

Hamilton stepped to the old-fashioned cash register sitting on the wide shelf in front of the mirror. Along with the register, the shelf held hair tonic and lotions. A narrower shelf underneath held the razor, the shaving cup, and the whisk broom.

The register was made of cast iron and was painted silver. It made a ringing sound when Hamilton punched in the sale, and the cash drawer popped out.

“Did you buy the cash register next door?” Rhodes asked.

Hamilton shook his head. “Came with the shop.”

He put the money in the cash drawer and pushed it shut.

“It’s an antique,” Rhodes said. “Probably worth a good bit of money.”

“I’ll sell it if I start going broke.” Hamilton got a broom and dustpan from a back corner of the shop. “I have to sweep up, and then I’ll talk to you.”

“Take your time,” Rhodes said.

Hamilton swept the hair into the dustpan and took it into a back room. Rhodes heard him open a trash can and dump the hair into it. He seemed to stay in the room longer than was necessary, but eventually he came back into the shop.

“Where did you learn to cut hair?” Rhodes asked. “You do a nice job.”

“My uncle taught me. He has a three-chair shop over in Nacogdoches.”

“It’s a useful skill,” Rhodes said. “Might come in handy in prison.”

Rhodes crossed his legs, resting his ankle on his knee, and leaned back in the chair.

“Prison? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheriff.”

“It’s where you’ll be going. You and Larry.”

Hamilton sighed. “Larry’s told you over and over that Terry was the one making the whiskey, and I wasn’t in on it with him. So why don’t you give it up?”

“Because you and Larry killed Terry. I think Larry killed Jerry Kergan, too. You might even have been in on it.”

“Look, Sheriff, I know somebody wrote a book about you, but that doesn’t mean you should go making stuff up. Unless maybe you’re gonna write a book yourself. Is that what it is?”

“I’m not writing anything except an arrest report.”

“Well, you must be crazy, then.”

“Maybe.” Rhodes pointed to the cash register. “I guess a man who owns a barbershop takes in a good bit of money, even if he’s not selling whiskey on the side. Is that right?”

“You can see I’m not exactly overrun with customers.”

“Still, you have cash in there. A man needs to protect himself in case somebody wants to take his money. Isn’t that right?”

Rhodes thought there would be more than a little cash in the register on a lot of days, not from haircuts, but from whiskey money. Nobody was going to give a check for moonshine.

Hamilton, looking a little nervous, moved over by the cash register.

“You’re not fixing to rob me, are you?” he said.

“If I was thinking about it, what could you do to stop me?”

Hamilton’s right hand twitched. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Well, then, you won’t mind if I take a look on that shelf, will you?”

Hamilton clenched his right hand into a fist. “You got no right to go looking on my shelf.”

“I have a search warrant.”

Rhodes pulled it from his shirt pocket with his left hand. He didn’t offer to unfold it or hand it to Hamilton. Instead, he tossed it in Hamilton’s direction.

Hamilton made no move to catch it. It dropped to the floor at his feet.

“I’m not picking that up,” he said.

“It’s your shop. You can do as you please.”

“That’s right. It’s my shop, and you leaving is what would please me.”

“Not until I make my search. I won’t make a mess. I’m only going to look in one place.”

“What if I do have a little protection? Anything wrong with that?”

“Not a thing. Unless the protection’s a pistol that was used to kill somebody.”

This was as far as Rhodes’s figuring had led him. If the pistol was there, and he thought it was, Hamilton would either have to make a move or let Rhodes take a look at the shelf.

If the pistol wasn’t there, well, Rhodes wouldn’t be any worse off than he’d been before, or so he told himself.

Because of the other things on the shelf, he couldn’t tell what else might be on it. Hamilton had not removed the other items all at the same time, and the pistol, if it was there, was most likely shoved back behind them, hidden by the overhang of the upper shelf.

“Well?” Rhodes said. “Are you going to let me take a look?”

“No,” Hamilton said.

He reached onto the lower shelf, knocking the whisk broom to the floor, and pulled out a small automatic pistol. It was mostly hidden by his hand, but Rhodes thought it was a Browning, though it didn’t really make much difference.

“Just stay right where you are,” Hamilton said.

“You can’t hurt me a whole lot with that thing,” Rhodes said. “You couldn’t even kill Terry with it. He got out of the trailer and bled to death while he was wandering around outside.”

“Shut up,” Hamilton said. “Come in here, Larry, and make him shut up.”

Larry Crawford came out of the back room wearing a T-shirt that said REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS. Rhodes hadn’t known he was there, though he’d guessed something had detained Hamilton when he was emptying the dustpan. It didn’t seem fair that Hamilton had backup and Rhodes didn’t. He wondered if Hack had forgotten to make the call to Ruth.

“You really oughta leave well enough alone, Sheriff,” Larry said. “Things were going along just fine until you started nosing around.”

“Blame Terry,” Rhodes said. “He should have stayed inside.”

“I thought he was dead. He was supposed to be blown up so I’d get the insurance money for the house and another bundle by suing the propane people. I’d have inherited the land, too.”

“You could blame yourself a little bit,” Rhodes said. “You should have bought some groceries at Wal-Mart or wherever you went that day. You shouldn’t have taken your clothes out of the trailer, either.”

Rhodes had noticed that there were no groceries in Crawford’s pickup, but the importance of that fact hadn’t registered with him at the time.

Also, there hadn’t been any tracks in the field around the house, which meant that Rapper hadn’t been there, not then.

And nobody could have found a new supply of unfunny T-shirts so soon.