The Wild Hog Murders (13 page)

“Now why don’t I believe that?” Rhodes asked.

“’Cause you’re a hard man to convince,” Lance said. “Ain’t that the truth, Hugh.”

Hugh nodded. “You got that right, Lance.”

Hugh took a swallow of his beer, draining the bottle. He put the bottle on the ground and got another one out of the cooler. After he twisted off the cap, he took a drink.

“Boy, that’s good for what ails you. You sure you don’t want one, Sheriff?”

“I’m sure, and I’m tired of fooling with you two. You know something about what happened in those woods the other night, and I want to know what it is.”

“You callin’ us liars?” Hugh asked.

“I guess I am,” Rhodes said.

“That hurts my feelings,” Lance said.

“Mine, too,” Hugh said.

The cousins stood up and laid their poles down on the bank, leaving the corks in the water. Hugh drank some beer. Lance just looked at Rhodes.

“Two against one,” Lance said, “and we got beer bottles. Not good odds, Sheriff.”

“Unless he’s got a gun,” Hugh said. “You got a gun, Sheriff?”

“I have a gun,” Rhodes said, and he did.

The problem with that was that the little Kel-Tec .32 automatic was in an ankle holster, and there was no way Rhodes could get to it before the Eccles boys got to him. Not that it mattered. Rhodes didn’t intend to shoot them anyway.

“I don’t see no gun,” Hugh said.

“I don’t think he’s got one,” Lance said. “Let’s get him, Hugh.”

“You’d better think about the last time you tried me,” Rhodes said. “If I remember rightly, the two of you wound up in jail.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, “but that was then, and this is now. We got you at a disadvantage.”

“You’ve had too many beers,” Rhodes said. “It’s impaired your judgment.”

“Hah,” Lance said. “We ain’t impaired.”

He took a step toward Rhodes. So did Hugh. Both men switched their grips on their beers so that they held the bottles by their narrow necks.

Rhodes stood his ground, looking from one cousin to the other. He didn’t look at their hands or their feet. Hands and feet could fool you, and Rhodes knew their eyes were the key to whatever they’d do.

“You might not get off as easy this time,” Rhodes said. “Randy Lawless won’t want to help you.”

“He’s a lawyer,” Hugh said. “He’ll help whoever pays him.”

He took another step. So did Lance, who flicked a look at his cousin.

That was the cue for Rhodes to move. He didn’t back up. He stepped forward and kicked Hugh in the chest.

Hugh yelled, dropped his beer bottle, and staggered backward. Rhodes’s momentum almost carried him past Lance, but he was able to grab hold of Lance’s shirt and steady himself.

Lance was no longer interested in Rhodes. He turned his head to look at Hugh, who stumbled off the bank and splashed on his back in the water.

Rhodes kept his hold on Lance’s shirt, planted his feet, and slung Lance after his cousin.

Lance’s arms windmilled, and he lurched into the tank, landing practically on top of Hugh.

Rhodes walked down to the edge of the water.

“You’re scaring the fish,” he said.

Lance rolled off Hugh and stood up. His cap had come off, and water streamed from his red hair. Hugh lay where he was, coughing and spluttering, his head occasionally sinking under the water. His cap had stayed on.

“Hugh can’t swim,” Lance said.

“The water can’t be more than a foot deep there,” Rhodes said.

“He don’t know that,” Lance said. “He’s panicking. You better help him.”

“You do it,” Rhodes said.

“I ain’t the one put him there,” Lance said.

He stepped out onto the bank, grabbing hold of a small bush to help his balance.

Hugh continued to splutter and sink and rise and splutter.

Lance watched, his wet clothing sticking to him.

“Gonna drown if you don’t get him out,” he said.

Rhodes was beginning to think Lance was right, and it was clear that he had no intention of helping his cousin. Rhodes leaned down.

“Take my hand,” he said to Hugh. “I’ll help you up.”

Almost as soon as he said it, Rhodes knew he’d made a rookie mistake. He knew it even before he felt Lance’s shoe make contact with his rear end, and he thought about it as the kick launched him out over the water.

Or, more accurately, over Hugh, who hadn’t been in any danger of drowning at all and who was waiting for Rhodes with open arms.

Rhodes barely had time to think about what he was going to do, but he knew he couldn’t let Hugh wrap him up in a bear hug. Hugh might not drown him, but whatever happened wouldn’t be pleasant. So Rhodes doubled his arm and speared Hugh’s chest as he struck him.

The combination of the elbow punch and Rhodes’s weight was enough to drive Hugh under the surface again, and this time he wasn’t faking when he sucked in water and rolled like a big catfish.

Rhodes didn’t want to think about big catfish. He’d had a close encounter with one of those, too, and it had been a scary experience. He pushed himself away from Hugh, but he’d made another rookie blunder. He’d forgotten about Lance, who landed on his back like a bag of sand and pushed him under the water and down into the slick mud beneath.

Lance straddled Rhodes and held him under, and he made his own mistake. He’d tried to get hold of Rhodes’s arms, but he’d missed them. He should have pushed Rhodes’s head in the mud. That would have ended things quickly.

Since his head was free, Rhodes raised his torso from the mud and broke the surface. He took a deep breath, threw both arms up and back, and grabbed hold of Lance’s shirt. Then he lunged forward and pulled.

Lance came down under the water on top of Rhodes. Rhodes kept him there, hoping that he could hold his breath longer than Lance could.

He could. In only seconds, Lance was thrashing around as if he might be drowning. Rhodes thought it would serve him right if he did drown, but the county couldn’t afford all the lawsuits. So Rhodes let him go.

Lance untangled himself and shoved away from Rhodes. He tried to stand up, but Rhodes grabbed his legs and pulled him back down.

“You leave Lance alone,” Hugh said, snatching a handful of Rhodes’s thinning hair and dragging him backward.

Rhodes took hold of Hugh’s arm and jerked him forward. Hugh let go of Rhodes’s hair and landed facedown in the water beside his cousin.

Rhodes stood up. Water poured off him, and he was covered with mud and algae.

If some Hollywood director ever cast a remake of
Creature from the Black Lagoon,
Rhodes knew he’d be a natural for the title role, and he wouldn’t even need a rubber costume.

Hugh and Lance pummeled the water and each other as they tried to get some air. Rhodes knew they’d have things sorted out after a while, so he pulled his feet out of the mud and stepped out onto the bank.

It took a minute or so, but Lance and Hugh finally managed to stop roiling the water. They caught hold of each other and stood up with some mutual assistance. They didn’t look any better than Rhodes did, but that was small comfort.

Rhodes peeled some of the algae off his shirt. He tossed it in the water and said, “Come on out now, one at a time. You first, Hugh.”

“I don’t want to,” Hugh said.

“Me, neither,” Lance said.

Rhodes flicked some more algae into the water. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said.

“Do what?” Hugh asked.

Rhodes didn’t answer. He leaned down and pulled up his right pants leg. The little .32 was still there in the holster. Rhodes unstrapped it and took it out.

“That thing’s mighty small,” Lance said.

“Mine’s bigger than yours,” Rhodes said.

“I ain’t even got one.”

“My point exactly.”

Hugh wasn’t impressed. “Prob’ly won’t even shoot after the soakin’ it got.”

Rhodes thought Hugh could be right. On the other hand, he could be wrong. Only one way to find out. Rhodes picked up one of the empty beer bottles and tossed it into the water.

“You couldn’t hit that even if that little gun would shoot,” Lance said.

Rhodes made sure the pistol barrel was free of mud. It was, so he aimed at the bottle and pulled the trigger. The pistol cracked, and the bottle shattered. The pieces sank under the water.

Lance and Hugh looked at the spot where the bottle had been. Then they looked at Rhodes.

“You’re scaring the fish,” Hugh said.

Chapter 13

“Land sakes alive,” Hack said when Lance and Hugh entered the jail, followed by Rhodes. That was pretty strong language from Hack, who liked to pretend he was never surprised by anything that happened around the place.

“Looks like Davy Jones’s boys from one of them pirate movies,” Lawton said. “I forget which one, though.”

“Never mind the movie references,” Rhodes said. “I need to book these two and get them in a cell.”

“What you need to get them is a shower,” Hack said.

“That, too, but it can wait until they’re booked.”

“What’re you gonna charge ’em with?” Lawton asked. “Criminal mud-slingin’?”

Rhodes didn’t answer. He booked the cousins and let Lawton take over while he went home for a shower of his own.

Yancey didn’t recognize him. He ran and hid under the bed as soon as Rhodes came through the door. Rhodes thought that was a good place for him.

Rhodes went into the bathroom, stripped off his wet, muddy clothes, cleaned up his shoes, and took a hot shower. When he was clean and dry, he dressed in fresh clothes and a dry pair of shoes. He clipped his badge on his belt and took the dirty clothes to the washer. He set the soaked shoes out on the porch, where he hoped Ivy wouldn’t notice them. It was just as well Ivy wasn’t home. She would have laughed too much.

While the clothes washed, Rhodes cleaned the .32. Then he had a sandwich made with the cold remains of the meatless meat loaf. He put some low-fat Miracle Whip on one slice of the bread. The sandwich wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a cheeseburger, but it was better than nothing.

When he’d eaten the sandwich, Rhodes put the clothes in the dryer and thought about the Eccles cousins. Whatever they’d seen, they didn’t want to talk about it, and they were willing to go to jail instead. Part of the problem, Rhodes was sure, was their natural antipathy to the law and its representatives, especially Rhodes. The cousins had a healthy lack of respect for authority, but that wasn’t all of it, and he was going to find out the rest.

By the time the clothes had dried, Yancey had come out from under the bed. He jumped up and down and yipped with excitement to show Rhodes how glad he was that Rhodes hadn’t turned out to be some mud-covered stranger intent on slaughtering small, helpless dogs.

Rhodes patted him and told him to go pester Sam, who had slept the whole time. Yancey either didn’t hear or didn’t choose to obey.

“I have work to do,” Rhodes said. “You behave while I’m gone.”

Yancey yipped in reply, and Rhodes took the clothes out of the dryer and put them away, with Yancey’s assistance. After that was done, he left to return to the jail. When he got there, Lawton told him that the Eccles cousins were cleaned up and sharing a cell.

Lawton sounded a bit sullen, and then Rhodes noticed that both Hack and Lawton were pouting as if they were the ones who’d been arrested. It dawned on Rhodes that he hadn’t asked them about their interview with the television reporter.

“By the way,” Rhodes said, “I just wanted to tell the two of you that I know you did the department proud this morning when you answered that TV fella’s questions. What channel was he from, anyhow?”

The two men brightened considerably.

“It was one of the Dallas channels,” Hack said. “Hoss was pretty well known up there. They wanted to hear all about how he was killed.”

“We didn’t know anything,” Lawton said, “but that never stopped us before.”

Truer words were never spoken, Rhodes thought.

“Funny thing, though,” Hack said. “They left before Lawton and I even finished tellin’ ’em all we didn’t know.”

Rhodes wondered how long it had taken the reporter to get frustrated with the way the two men answered his questions. He’d have to be an exceptionally patient man to last more than ten minutes.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you on the news tonight,” Rhodes said. “I hope the commissioners are watching. They love it when the county looks good on TV.”

“They’ll be plenty happy, then,” Lawton said.

“Now, then,” Hack said. “We’ve told you about the TV fellas. You gonna tell us what happened with Lance and Hugh?”

Rhodes knew the dispatcher’s curiosity must have been driving him crazy.

“Maybe,” Rhodes said.

“Maybe?” Hack asked.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a straight answer about what’s been going on while I’ve been out serving the good people of the county. I’m talking about crime, not TV reporters.”