The Wild Hog Murders (18 page)

He turned and got into his pickup. When he started it, Rhodes stepped aside. The headlights brightened the road. Then Garver drove past, and all Rhodes could do was let him leave.

Rhodes thought about following him, but he didn’t think Garver planned to run. He might be wrong, but he’d play it that way and see what happened. Whatever Garver did, things didn’t look good for him.

Rhodes smiled. He was still thinking of the man as Garver, but that wasn’t his name. Rhodes wondered what his name really was.

He had a feeling he’d find out soon enough.

Chapter 17

Rhodes knew he should resist, but he couldn’t help himself. The next morning he turned on the little radio/CD player combo that sat on the kitchen counter and tuned in Milton Munday. A commercial was playing. Naturally.

“What is that?” Ivy asked when she came into the kitchen.

Rhodes often wondered how she managed to look so good even before she put her makeup on.

“It’s a commercial for Big Jolly’s hamburgers,” he said.

“You know that’s not what I meant. Are you listening to Milton Munday?”

Rhodes admitted that he was. “I thought I’d see what he’s saying about me today.”

“It’s not always about you,” Ivy said.

“Maybe not, but I’ll bet you a dollar that it is this time.”

“It’s a bet.”

They stood by the counter and waited through another commercial, this one for Walker’s Feed and Seed. Then Munday was on the air.

“Yes, folks,” he said in his rich, mellow voice, “it’s true. This town, our fair city, is being terrorized by violent bikers. I’ve already told you about last night’s vicious attack on some of your friends and fellow citizens, and now I’d like to ask you a question. What do you think our sheriff will do about it? The phone lines are open. Call in and let us hear from you.”

“You win,” Ivy said. “Too bad I don’t have a dollar.”

“I’ll stay right here until you get one out of your purse,” Rhodes said.

He was only half-listening to Munday now, but the broadcaster’s voice sounded a bit odd to him. It was almost as if Munday were scared of the bikers.

“I don’t think I have a dollar in my purse, either,” Ivy said. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

Rhodes was suspicious of Ivy’s deals. Somehow he never came out the winner.

“What kind of deal?” he said.

“I’ll fix you sausage and eggs for breakfast.”

Sausage and eggs?
Rhodes hadn’t even known there was any sausage in the house.

“That sounds fair,” he said.

“Good. I haven’t cooked breakfast in a while,” Ivy said. “It’ll be a treat for both of us.”

“Is it spicy sausage?” Rhodes asked, hoping the answer would be yes.

“It’s spicy, all right. I made it myself.”

Uh-oh.
“You made it yourself?”

“It’s a special recipe.”

Rhodes didn’t think Ivy had the equipment to make sausage, no matter how special the recipe was.

“What kind of recipe?” he asked.

“It’s vegetarian sausage. It’s good. You’ll like it.”

Rhodes looked over at Sam, lying by the refrigerator. The cat opened its eyes as if it felt Rhodes’s gaze. It yawned.

“How do you know it’s good?” Rhodes asked.

“I just know. You go out and visit Speedo.” Ivy switched off the radio. “I’m tired of listening to that.”

Rhodes was tired of it, too. He hadn’t paid any attention to the man who called in to say he didn’t think Rhodes could handle the bikers, much less solve the murders that Munday said “held the town in the grip of terror, wondering who would be the next to die.” Well, not much attention. He wondered if Munday had mentioned the Eccleses. If he hadn’t, they’d be sadly disappointed. The biker gang, all two of them, would be a better topic for discussion, Rhodes figured.

He headed for the back door while Ivy got out the frying pan. Yancey heard him and came bounding out from wherever he’d been hiding and zipped out into the yard as soon as the door was opened wide enough for him to squeeze through.

It was cold but not frosty cold. Speedo came out of his Styrofoam igloo, shook off some of the straw bedding that clung to him, and charged Yancey. As usual the dogs seemed invigorated by the cool weather. Rhodes stood on the steps and watched them take turns chasing each other around the yard.

Brown leaves from the pecan trees lay all around on the grass, but Rhodes didn’t plan to rake them. They’d make good fertilizer when they rotted, and until then they’d protect the lawn from the cold. Or so Rhodes told himself.

After a while, Rhodes whistled up Yancey, and the two of them went back inside. Speedo went back into his igloo for a nap.

Rhodes smelled the sausage. He had to admit it smelled good, though not a whole lot like real sausage. He got out a plate and utensils, then poured a glass of water while Ivy scrambled the eggs. When she served them up with the sausage, he put some picante sauce on them and dug in.

“Not bad,” he said after he’d tried the sausage.

“I knew you’d like it,” Ivy said, laying a couple of pieces of toast on his plate.

“You didn’t fix any for yourself,” Rhodes said.

“I need to get dressed. You go ahead and eat.”

Rhodes didn’t need any further encouragement. He started to ask Ivy to turn the radio on before she went out of the kitchen, but he decided not to. Why subject himself to the aggravation?

Yancey lay under the chair where Rhodes sat and eyed Sam. Sam slept curled into a black ball and didn’t move. Rhodes could hardly tell he was breathing.

After he’d finished eating, Rhodes rinsed off the plate and put it into the dishwasher along with his glass, knife, and fork.

“That’s my housework for the day,” he told Yancey, but by then, like Sam, the dog was asleep.

*   *   *

When Rhodes entered the jail, Hack and Lawton were ready for him.

“You hear Milton Munday’s show today?” Hack asked.

“About two minutes of it,” Rhodes said. “He’s worried about motorcycle gangs. Did he mention our customers?”

“Lance and Hugh? Not a word. I guess he forgot ’em.”

“He’s really worried about those bikers. You’d think they came here to get him, almost.”

Rhodes wondered why Munday would be worried. Surely he didn’t know Rapper and Nellie. Or maybe he did. It occurred to Rhodes that he didn’t know much about Munday. When it came right down to it, he didn’t know
anything
about Munday.

“Lance and Hugh were a little upset when I told ’em Munday didn’t mention them,” Lawton said.

“Isn’t he still on the air?” Rhodes asked.

“Yeah,” Hack said, “but he’s all about the bikers today. You’d think the Hell’s Angels were in town. I told you it’d be like this.”

“You did,” Rhodes said. “I give you all the credit. Did Duke turn up anything on Rapper?”

“Nope. Buddy’s on it today, though.”

Before Rhodes could respond to that, Ruth Grady came in, and Rhodes asked her about the report on Garver.

“No mistakes,” she said. “Edward Alvin Garver is our man. Or isn’t our man.”

Rhodes hadn’t mentioned any of this to Hack or Lawton, and they were immediately curious.

“What’s all that about?” Hack asked.

Ruth explained it.

“Well, he’s a good plumber, whoever he is,” Hack said. “I know that for sure and certain. He fixed Miz McGee’s sink faucet when it went bad on her, and he didn’t overcharge her for it, either.”

Rhodes didn’t think that information was relevant. He and Ruth sat down and went over the report again.

The real Edwin Alvin Garver had been born in Arkansas thirty-five years previously. He’d died not long afterward, never having left the hospital, and was buried just outside Fayetteville.

“What do you think?” Rhodes asked.

“That our plumber friend, no pun intended, got hold of this Ed Garver’s birth certificate,” Ruth said. “After he had that, he got the rest of the identification he needed and ditched his own identity. He started his life over again.”

“Too easy to get a birth certificate in Arkansas,” Hack said. “They oughta toughen up.”

“It doesn’t take much doing to get a birth certificate in Texas, either,” Rhodes said. “All you need is a valid driver’s license and a valid credit card. Those can be arranged without a birth certificate if you know the right people.”

“Or the wrong ones,” Lawton said.

“Right or wrong, why would a man do something like that?” Hack asked.

“Lots of reasons,” Ruth said. “Too many to count.”

“Garver claimed he came here from Galveston to get away from all the damage Hurricane Ike did,” Rhodes said. “I wonder if that’s true.”

“It makes a good story,” Ruth said, “but my guess is he’s from Arkansas.”

“So was Baty,” Rhodes said. “That’s where some of the bank robberies were.”

“You think we ought to talk to Garver?” Ruth asked.

“If he’ll talk.” Rhodes told her about his previous conversation with Garver. “He might not even be in town anymore.”

“You can arrest him now,” Ruth said. “Identity theft’s a crime, and we have enough right here to justify holding him.”

“Let’s go see if we can find him, then,” Rhodes said.

*   *   *

Garver had bought a nice little house when he moved to Clearview, and now Rhodes wondered where his money had come from, plumbing or bank robbery.

The house was in one of the newer additions to the town, out on the north side, not too far from the high school. The grass was brown, but so was everyone’s in Clearview at that time of year. It had been trimmed and edged around the walk and driveway. Did killers take good care of their lawns? Rhodes had never thought about it before. Garver’s pickup wasn’t in the driveway, but it might be in the garage, which was closed.

Rhodes parked at the curb. Ruth parked behind him, and they both got out.

“Probably at work,” Rhodes said.

“If he hasn’t skipped the county,” Ruth said.

They went up the walk, and Rhodes rang the bell. Nobody answered, not that Rhodes had expected anyone.

“You go ahead and do your patrol,” he told Ruth. “I’ll go by Allison’s Plumbing Company and see if Garver’s there.”

Ruth left, and Rhodes stood looking at the house for a while, thinking about Garver. Maybe this was all some kind of mix-up, and Garver would be in the clear. Rhodes hoped that was all there was to it and that today Garver would be willing to talk.

He doubted that would be the case, however.

*   *   *

Allison’s Plumbing Company had been around ever since Rhodes was a boy. Trey Allison’s father, George Allison Jr., had owned it then, and still had an interest in it, though he was now too old to do much work and seldom showed up even to look things over. George Allison III, whom everybody called Trey, was fully in charge.

Trey was little, short, and wiry, the better to crawl around in tunnels under houses or to move around in attics, Rhodes thought. He had curly gray hair that he covered with a black-and-white-striped engineer’s cap, as if he were about to board a train and take off for a rail trip to the West.

“Hey, Sheriff,” he said when Rhodes walked into the shop. “Am I under arrest?”

Allison sat on a wooden stool behind a high wooden counter covered with all kinds of couplings and fittings and short lengths of pipe. Behind Allison was a wall of shelves with more of the same kinds of things. Rhodes supposed everything there was useful for something, but he didn’t have any idea what that something might be.

“Not you,” Rhodes said. “I’m looking for Ed Garver.”

Allison jumped down off the stool. Rhodes could see only his head and the engineer’s cap as Allison walked around the counter.

“What’s Ed been up to?” Allison asked when he was in front of the counter. He seemed nervous. “I hope it’s nothing serious, because he’s on a job that’s pretty complicated.”

“What kind of job is that?” Rhodes asked.

“Stopped-up pipe.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Usually it’s not,” Allison said, “but this pipe’s stopped up because it collapsed. It’s that old clay pipe they used a long time ago, so there’s no telling what problems might crop up later on if it’s left there. We’re replacing all the pipes under the house and in the yard, all the way to the street. Lot of digging and tunneling.”

“I hope you have somebody who can finish it if Ed’s not available. Did he show up for work today?”

Rhodes half-expected the answer to be no, but Allison said, “Sure. He’s always here. Never been late, never missed a day of work. Best man I have on the payroll. I hope he’s not in any real trouble.”

“I just want to talk to him,” Rhodes said, wondering why Allison was overselling Garver. “For now.”

Allison took off his engineer’s cap, twisted it up, and stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans. “Look, Sheriff, whatever you think he did, I’ll bet he didn’t do it. He’s steady, and he’s reliable. I’d sure hate to lose him.”