Of All Sad Words (7 page)

After Ruth left, Rhodes walked around over the area where the black truck had driven to see if he could find a clue. He didn’t really think the license plate would have fallen off, though it would have cheered him up if it had. He just hoped he’d find something that would help him identify the truck.

He didn’t. He just got hotter and sweatier.

After awhile, he gave up and went to the county car. He drove down to the edge of the woods and loaded the whiskey in the trunk, doing his best not to smear any fingerprints that might be on the jars.

When he left the property, he chained the gate and put the padlock on the chain. If the driver of the black truck was after the whiskey or the still, he’d have to cut the fence to get back onto the place. That wouldn’t be a difficult job, and for that matter, he could just drive right through the gate with that brush guard on the front of the truck. Well, Rhodes thought, at least the gate, or even the fence, would slow him down some. Somehow, it wasn’t a very satisfying thought. The fire department had bolt cutters for chains, and the driver of the pickup could have them, too.

It was getting on toward evening, and Rhodes still hadn’t talked to Melanie Muller. He figured it might be a good idea to do that before he went back to the jail, so he drove by her house when he got to town.

Actually, she didn’t live in a house. She lived in what people liked to call “a manufactured home,” which, as far as Rhodes could see, was like a mobile home that you couldn’t run a set of wheels under and drive off the property. It was on the edge of town, on the road to Milsby, a little town that no longer existed in any meaningful sense. Mrs. Wilkie lived out that way, too.

The house had no garage, but a late-model tan Chevrolet sat on a short gravel driveway. Rhodes parked behind the Chevy, got out, and went to the door. To get to it, he had to climb a set of wooden steps that had been bought ready-made and shoved in front of the manufactured home. On either side of the steps were neat flower beds with a couple of rosebushes in each, but no roses were blooming.

His knock was answered by a short blond woman wearing a man’s work shirt and jeans. She had on a pair of half glasses, like the ones Rhodes used for reading, and she took them off and put them in her shirt pocket.

“Yeah?” she said.

“I’m Sheriff Dan Rhodes. I wanted to talk to you about the Web site you’re doing for our department.”

“I was just about to have supper.”

Rhodes wasn’t going to let her off that easily.

“Sorry to interrupt. I won’t keep you long.”

“Well, all right. Come on in. I was just going to have chili from a can anyway.”

That didn’t sound bad to Rhodes, who hadn’t had chili in a good while, from a can or otherwise. Ivy was trying to get him to eat healthy food, which was hard to get used to after years of baloney sandwiches. Healthy food just wasn’t as satisfying somehow. Rhodes cheated now and then, but when he did, he didn’t mention it to Ivy.

“With beans?” he asked.

Muller looked at him quizzically. “No, without. Why?”

“I like it with beans.”

“Real chili fans don’t eat beans, not with chili.”

“I know. It’s a personal failing.”

“That figures. Well, don’t just stand there. Come on inside.”

Muller moved back from the door and Rhodes went into a small living area with a couch, TV set, a low coffee table, and an easy chair. The coffee table was covered with computer magazines. A couple lay on the floor under it, and a couple more were in the easy chair.

Glancing through the doorway on the opposite side of the room, Rhodes saw a dining table and a refrigerator. On his right, another door opened into an office with a couple of computer desks, each holding a computer with a screen saver flickering. On the wall there was a big poster of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Alvin was in the middle, wearing a red baseball cap and a red sweater with a big yellow A on it. Simon and Theodore stood on either side of him. Rhodes didn’t know which was which. One of them was taller and wore glasses, but that was no help.

“Did you come here to talk or just to admire the artwork?” Muller said.

Rhodes turned to her. “I was wondering which one was Simon. I can never keep the chipmunks straight.”

“Simon’s the one with the glasses.”

“Thanks. Maybe I can remember that.”

Muller gave him a skeptical look, as if to say she doubted it. Rhodes thought she might ask him to sit down, but she didn’t.

“Get on with it,” she said.

Rhodes was beginning to see what Burns had meant when he’d said she was “difficult.”

“Mikey Burns wanted me to stop by and see what kind of progress you’re making on the Web site,” he said.

She looked him over, as if seeing him for the first time.

“You couldn’t have cleaned up first?”

Her gaze made Rhodes acutely conscious of the fact that he’d recently been rolling around in leaves and dirt and that he could probably use a good bath. He was beginning to wish he’d skipped the visit.

“I didn’t want to wait,” he said. “Mr. Burns wants a report tomorrow.”

“He couldn’t have called me?”

Rhodes recalled his high school English class again. His teacher was always asking questions that he didn’t have answers for. So he did what he’d done in high school. He made something up.

“He thought a personal visit would be better.”

“Then why didn’t he come by himself?”

“The Web site’s not for him or the precinct, just the sheriff’s department. He thought I’d be a better representative than he would.”

This time, Muller didn’t ask a question. She just looked at Rhodes in a way that let him know the department would have been better off sending someone considerably spiffier.

“What can I tell him?” Rhodes said.

“You can tell him that it takes time to create a professional Web site. You can tell him that I’m working on it. You can tell him that he should come by himself if he wants answers to his questions.”

She stopped. Rhodes waited. She kept quiet.

“Fine,” he said after a couple of seconds. “But what about a date when it might be ready? Can I give him a date?”

“He wouldn’t know what a date was if it bit him in the butt,” Muller said. “Are you through now?”

Rhodes supposed that he was. He thanked her for her time and drove to the jail.

Chapter 8

WHEN RHODES PARKED IN FRONT OF THE JAIL, THE FIRST THING he saw was the black Infiniti. He wondered what Randy Lawless would be doing there, and he supposed there was only one way to find out. He got out of the big Ford and went inside.

“Good evening, Sheriff,” Lawless said when Rhodes came through the door. “You’re looking sharp tonight.”

Rhodes wasn’t fond of sarcasm. “So are you,” he said, but in Lawless’s case, it was true.

Lawless sat in one of the visitors’ chairs, looking cool, calm, and relaxed. He wore a dark blue suit with a clean white shirt and a striped tie that probably cost more than Rhodes’s whole outfit. For that matter, he probably spent more on aftershave every year than Rhodes spent on clothing.

“Mr. Lawless is here to talk to you about his client,” Hack said, grinning.

“What client would that be?” Rhodes asked.

Hack probably hoped that Lawless wouldn’t say. That way Rhodes would be forced to draw the information out of Hack, a process that could take a long time.

Lawless wasn’t in on the joke, however, and said, “Larry Crawford.”

Hack’s grin was replaced by a look of disappointment.

Rhodes crossed the room to his desk and sat down. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Why does Larry need a lawyer? Has he been engaging in any criminal activity? Maybe he’d like to come in and make a full confession.”

“No criminal activity,” Lawless said. “And not a confession. That’s not why I’m here.”

Hack jumped in before Lawless could go any further. “He’s here about the lawsuit Larry’s going to file.”

Rhodes was feeling lost, which he knew was exactly what Hack wanted. He said, “Lawsuit?”

“That’s right,” Lawless said. “He’s going to file more than one, I think, and we’d like to cooperate with you and Chief Parker in the investigations you’ll be doing on the explosion that destroyed Larry’s home.”

Rhodes understood exactly what Lawless was saying. More than that, he understood exactly what Lawless
meant,
which was that he’d want Rhodes and Parker to hand over the results of their investigations to him to use in his lawsuits, whatever those were. But there was more to it than that.

“You can get a police report,” Rhodes said. “Just like anybody else.”

“Of course,” Lawless said, smiling, and Rhodes knew he wasn’t going to say any more.

Rhodes looked at Hack, but the old dispatcher didn’t have anything to add this time. They both knew that Lawless hoped Rhodes would do all his work for him, or most of it. Then the lawyer could pay a few dollars for the police report, get his investigations done for next to nothing, and charge his client big bucks.

The only catch that Rhodes could see was that Crawford, as far as Rhodes knew, didn’t have big bucks. While natural-gas wells were being drilled all over the county, no gas had been found in the vicinity of Crawford’s property. And while the sales of the Crawfords’ homemade hooch might have been brisk, they almost certainly hadn’t made Crawford rich.

“Who’s paying you?” Rhodes asked. “I know Crawford can’t afford your rates.”

“I’m taking his case on a contingency basis,” Lawless said.

The conversation was getting as bad as one with Hack and Lawton. Rhodes still wasn’t clear about just what the lawsuit was all about. He said, “What case?”

Hack jumped in again. “Wrongful death.”

“Ah,” Rhodes said.

Now he knew what was going on. As Lawless might put it, he “should have known” sooner. He wondered, however, if Lawless knew what had happened to Terry Crawford. It didn’t seem likely, since Hack wasn’t the type to give out information freely, if at all, and even Hack didn’t know about the still. However, you never could tell what someone like Lawless might have been able to find out somehow or other.

“Crawford will be suing the manufacturer of the propane unit,” Lawless said. “If that’s what caused the explosion today, that is. And possibly the installers. Maybe the propane distributors, too, and the people who built the house, as well.”

It made sense to Rhodes, or it would have if he’d been a lawyer. Why leave anybody out? Manufacturers of propane tanks were supposed to make certain that their tanks and pipes were safe and didn’t leak. The people who installed the systems were to be sure of the same things. The distributor, or whoever provided the propane, was responsible for the odorant that gave the ordinarily odorless gas a distinctive smell so leaks could be detected before there was an accident, like an explosion.

“Are you representing Crawford in anything else?” Rhodes asked.

Lawless shifted in his chair. He looked a little less relaxed. “For instance?”

Hack perked up.

“I was just curious,” Rhodes said. “No charges have been filed or anything like that. When did Larry come to you about this lawsuit of his?”

Lawless didn’t answer for a couple of seconds. “That might be confidential.”

“I said that no charges have been filed. It’s just that I went looking for your client this afternoon and couldn’t find him.”

“What did you want with him?”

“I wanted to tell him that his brother was dead.”

“Oh,” Lawless said, relaxing again. “He already knows that.”

Rhodes looked at Hack, who shook his head.

“So what you’re implying,” Rhodes said, looking back at Lawless, “is that Larry believes his brother was killed in an explosion at their mobile home and that the explosion was caused by a faulty propane tank.”

“Not exactly,” Lawless said. “But that’s close enough for now. You have any problems with that?”

Hack grinned broadly. Rhodes knew how much it pleased him to have key information that another person didn’t.

“Why don’t you tell him, Hack,” Rhodes said.

“Well now, I don’t think it’s my place,” Hack said.

“Tell me what?” Lawless said.

Rhodes crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “About Terry Crawford.”

“What about Terry?”

“He’s dead,” Hack said, playing his favorite game. Rhodes was almost ashamed for helping him, but not ashamed enough to stop.

Lawless nodded. “We’ve established that.”

“Nope,” Hack said. “You’re overlookin’ one little thing.”

“What?”

“The body.”

“Oh, of course. Larry told me that the body hadn’t been found yet. He’s sure it will be once the fire department does a full investigation. Terry was in the mobile home when Larry left.”

“He ain’t there now,” Hack said.

That got Lawless’s attention. “He’s not?”

“Nope. He’s here in town.”

“In town?” Lawless was clearly puzzled. “I thought you said he was dead. Are you telling me he’s alive?”

Rhodes smiled. He didn’t like it when Hack played this game with him, but he enjoyed seeing Lawless squirm a little. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Yes and no,” Hack said. “Yes, he’s in town, and no, he’s not alive.”

Lawless had never gotten flustered in court, or if he had, Rhodes hadn’t heard about it. He was, however, getting a little flustered now.

“So the fire department’s already found the body?”

“Nope,” Hack said.

As Rhodes knew all too well, Hack could have gone on like that for hours. It was too bad that Lawton wasn’t there to enjoy it and help out.

“Dammmit,” Lawless said, moving to the edge of the chair and leaning forward. “Can’t you ever just say what you mean?”

Rhodes thought that was a fine comment for a lawyer to make, and he flashed back yet again to his high school English class, remembering what his teacher had said about irony.

“I always say what I mean,” Hack said. “That’s what I’ve been doing’.”

Rhodes decided that he’d better interrupt before things got any worse.

“What Hack’s telling you in his own roundabout way,” Rhodes said, “is that Terry’s dead all right, but he didn’t die in the explosion of the mobile home.”