Of All Sad Words (27 page)
“I figured I’d need the clothes, but not the groceries. Come on, Sheriff, we’ll go out the back way.”
“You planning to give me to Rapper?”
“That’d be a good idea. He doesn’t like you much. But I can’t do it. He’s long gone. You messed that up real good. He and Jamey and I were planning a partnership. Would’ve been a sweet deal. Terry didn’t like it, though, the little whiner.”
That was what Rhodes had figured. Terry had been the one against the whiskey making, not Larry. Larry had just taken Terry’s attitude and claimed it for his own.
“Rapper was going to move your still to get the evidence off the property. He should have done it sooner.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t think you’d be looking in those woods. We like to have got you, though.”
Rhodes had figured that part, too. Larry had been in the pickup with Rapper. He might even have been driving. Rhodes was sure now that Larry had killed Kergan or gotten Rapper to do it. Larry would have known when Kergan would go out to the back of the restaurant for a smoke, and he’d chosen that time to meet with him, maybe to introduce Rapper. When he’d seen Rhodes in the parking lot, either they’d panicked and killed Kergan by accident or they’d done it to keep Kergan from talking to Rhodes. Maybe they were afraid he’d already talked and therefore eliminated him as a witness before he could go on the record.
“Let’s go,” Hamilton said. He looked a little twitchy to Rhodes. “Somebody’ll be coming in here any minute.”
“You don’t have that many customers now,” Rhodes said, “not since you went out of the whiskey business.”
“Shut up and stand up,” Hamilton said, gesturing with the pistol.
Rhodes had been feeling a little uncomfortable anyway.
“All right,” he said, but he didn’t stand up.
His hand was already resting right over the ankle holster. He slipped it beneath his pants leg and pulled out the .38.
Hamilton’s reactions were good, and he was shooting before Rhodes had the pistol up.
Luckily, Hamilton’s aim wasn’t as good as his reaction time. He missed Rhodes and shot the mirror behind him.
Seven years bad luck, Rhodes thought, throwing himself out of the chair as the glass shattered. He landed on his bad shoulder and yelled, not so much because it hurt but because he wished he’d jumped the other way.
He steadied himself amid the shards of the mirror and got off a couple of shots of his own, plinking a bottle of hair tonic and spattering it all over the cash register.
The sound of the shot echoed around the shop and off the tile floor. Hamilton’s pistol had hardly made any noise at all.
Crawford scooted out through the back door without a word. Hamilton crouched behind the barber chair and fired at Rhodes again. The bullet smacked into the back of the chair Rhodes had been sitting in, but it didn’t go through. The .25 really didn’t pack much punch.
That didn’t mean that Hamilton couldn’t get lucky, however, and put one in Rhodes’s eye. It wouldn’t burst his skull, but it would kill him nevertheless. Rhodes wondered if this counted as a firefight and thought about what Sage Barton would do.
Probably he’d do some kind of mysterious martial arts move, flip over a couple of times, and land on the other side of the chair, after which he’d disarm Hamilton and cuff him.
Or maybe that’s what Seepy Benton would do.
Not being either one of them, Rhodes had to resort to something within his capabilities, so he just shot Hamilton in the foot.
Hamilton screamed and dropped the little pistol. He squirmed on the floor, squealing and grabbing at his foot.
Rhodes stood up and went over to him. He toed the pistol and sent it sliding across the white tile, which was now spotted red by Hamilton’s blood.
Gun smoke wafted all around them, and the sharp smell of it overwhelmed the shop’s other odors.
Rhodes looked down at Hamilton. “If Crawford gets away, I’m going to come back and shoot you again.”
“Crawford’s not going anywhere,” Ruth Grady said.
Rhodes’s ears were ringing from the shots, and her voice sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.
Rhodes turned and saw Crawford come back in, with Ruth behind him.
“I didn’t think you were here,” Rhodes said.
“I haven’t been here long. I’m always too far away when Hack calls me. Anyway, I’m here now. I parked in the back just in case somebody tried to sneak out that way. Sure enough, somebody did.”
“What if I’d been shot?” Rhodes said.
Ruth grinned. “I’d still have Crawford.”
HAMILTON AND CRAWFORD WERE SAFELY LOCKED AWAY, THE TABC was coming for the stills, and Rhodes’s head was fine. The bruise on his chest was still colorful, but his shoulder didn’t hurt. With all that, he felt better about things in general.
Or course he could depend on Hack to change that.
“Mikey Burns still wants to talk to you about that car you wrecked,” Hack said while Rhodes was working on his reports.
Rhodes took off his reading glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“I didn’t wreck the car.”
“You know that, and I know that, but Mikey Burns is a different story. Besides, you ain’t got Rapper and Nellie in a cell for him.” Hack paused. “You’ll get ’em sooner or later, though.”
“Right,” Rhodes said.
No matter what he said, however, he didn’t think it was likely that Rapper and Nellie would be in a cell, either. They’d gone to ground wherever it was that they were hiding out, and they’d stay there until the next time they turned up in Blacklin County like a pair of bad pennies.
That reminded Rhodes of something, and he reached into his pocket. He pulled out the Indian Head penny he’d been carrying around and turned it over in his fingers. He didn’t know if it had brought him any luck or not, but if he kept it in his pocket, he’d lose it sooner or later. He didn’t want to do that, so he opened the middle drawer of the desk and dropped the penny in. It clinked against a pen.
“What’s that?” Hack asked.
“Lucky penny.”
“Wish I had one.”
The telephone rang, and Hack answered. He talked for a while, then covered the receiver with his hand and turned to Rhodes.
“You might want to put that penny back in your pocket.”
“Why?” Rhodes said.
“’Cause Mikey Burns says he and Judge Parry are in the judge’s office and they want to talk to you.”
“Tell them I’m on the way,” Rhodes said.
The judge’s secretary waved Rhodes into Parry’s office without a word. Rhodes didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one, but he didn’t much care.
Parry sat behind his desk. He wore another of his expensive suits, as opposed to Burns, who had on another aloha shirt, this one with coconut trees, waves, and surfboards. Burns had a half smile on his face, as if he was looking forward to what was about to happen.
“Good afternoon,” Rhodes said.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” Parry said.
Burns just nodded.
“Take a chair, Sheriff,” Parry said. “The commissioner has a few things he’d like to discuss.”
Rhodes sat down and said, “I have a few things to discuss with you, too. First of all, the sheriff’s department Web site’s up and running. You might want to have a look at it when you get a chance.” Parry had a computer on his desk, and Rhodes motioned to it. “In fact, now would be as good a time as any, if your computer’s on.”
“Why not?” Parry said, turning to the computer.
Rhodes told Parry the URL. The judge clicked on his Web browser and typed in the URL.
“That’s a nice job, Sheriff,” Parry said when the Web site came up. “I’ve been wondering when it would get done.”
“I didn’t do it,” Rhodes said. “Melanie Muller did, along with a little help from one of the members of the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy. You know him, in fact. C. P. Benton.”
“The math teacher?”
“That’s right. ‘The wild-eyed radical.’”
“How much did he charge?”
“Nothing at all. He donated his time because he’s a public-spirited citizen.”
Burns got up and walked over to look at the computer monitor. Parry continued to click on the Web site pages, but Burns made no comment on them. Rhodes wasn’t surprised. Since there was nothing he could criticize, Burns wouldn’t say anything at all.
“Benton’s also helping out with some other things,” Rhodes told Parry.
“Not legal or criminal matters, I hope,” the judge said.
“No, just looking out for some people who otherwise might not be able to get help. Hallie Owens, for one.”
“What kind of troubles does she have?”
“Imaginary animals,” Rhodes said. When Parry looked puzzled, Rhodes added, “She’s lonesome. Calls the department about animals in her house even when there aren’t any.”
“We don’t need that kind of thing,” Burns said, looking up from the monitor. “You should be solving real crimes, not looking for animals that don’t exist.”
“Benton’s solved the animal problem,” Rhodes said. “At least for now.”
“Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought,” Parry said.
“He’s a little strange,” Rhodes said, “but he’s all right.”
“I’ll bet he still causes trouble about the appraisal caps.”
“I couldn’t say about that,” Rhodes said.
“The Web site is all right,” Burns said, getting back to the primary topic. “It looks like I hired the right person to work on it.”
Rhodes had known Burns would take the credit, but that was fine. Burns had hired Muller, after all, and the fact that she’d have finished long ago if he hadn’t treated her shabbily didn’t need to be mentioned.
“What worries me is the murders we’ve had,” Burns said. “I don’t like to think we have a killer running around loose. What have you done about that, Sheriff?”
“I’ve made an arrest,” Rhodes said. “Larry Crawford and Jamey Hamilton are both locked up in the jail right now.”
“What?” Burns said. “Crawford killed his own brother? Are you sure?”
Rhodes didn’t want to say anything that might prejudice the judge.
“Let’s just say that they’re alleged to have committed certain crimes.”
“How did you catch them?”
“Good police work,” Rhodes said.
Burns went back to his chair. He didn’t look nearly as pleased as he had when Rhodes had come in.
“Do they have a lawyer?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “Crawford hired Randy Lawless to work on his wrongful death suit, which I don’t think will fly now. Maybe Lawless will stick with him.”
“Maybe,” Burns said, looking a little happier.
Rhodes didn’t really think Lawless would stick. There wouldn’t be any payoff, and Crawford couldn’t afford Lawless’s fees. It would be ironic if Lawless was chosen as Crawford’s court-appointed attorney, but that wasn’t anything that would be proper to discuss.
“Did you get any help from your academy students on the case?” Parry asked.
“Only in the usual way of things,” Rhodes told him, not seeing the need to mention he’d asked Benton to look at Kergan’s computer. “Benton lives out near the Crawfords’ place, and he might be a witness.”
Rhodes thought it was time to change the subject, so he said, “Max Schwartz has been helping out, too. He built a flying saucer repeller for Dave Ellendorf.”
Parry laughed. Even Burns had to smile. Everybody knew about Ellendorf’s problems with the flying saucers.
“So what you’re telling me is that there aren’t any vigilantes on the loose in Blacklin County,” Parry said, “and the academy was a good idea after all.”
Rhodes smiled. “It might have been,” he said.
SHERIFF DAN RHODES MYSTERIES
Murder Among the O.W.L.S.
A Mammoth Murder
Red, White, and Blue Murder
A Romantic Way to Die
A Ghost of a Chance
Death by Accident
Winning Can Be Murder
Murder Most Fowl
Booked for a Hanging
Evil at the Root
Death on the Move
Cursed to Death
Shotgun Saturday Night
Too Late to Die
PROFESSOR SALLY GOOD MYSTERIES
Dead Soldiers
A Bond with Death
Murder Is an Art
A Knife in the Back
PROFESSOR CARL BURNS MYSTERIES
A Dangerous Thing
Dying Voices
One Dead Dean
OTHERS
The Texas Capitol Murders
Blood Marks
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
OF ALL SAD WORDS. Copyright © 2008 by Bill Crider. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
eISBN 9781466823815
First eBook Edition : June 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crider, Bill, 1941 −
Of all sad words: a Dan Rhodes mystery / Bill Crider.—1st ed. p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34810-6
ISBN-10: 0-312-34810-X
1. Rhodes, Dan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Sheriffs—Fiction.
3. Texas—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.R497036 2008
813’.54—dc22
2007039993
First Edition: February 2008