The Wild Hog Murders (25 page)

He didn’t really feel like playing around, but he knew it was best to humor them. So he said, “Did anything happen tonight? Anything I need to hear about, I mean.”

“Could be,” Lawton said.

He might have said more, but Hack silenced him with a look.

“Wasn’t anything that happened,” Hack said. “Just got a phone call, that’s all.”

“A phone call,” Rhodes said.

“Yep.” Hack looked at Lawton. “Phone call.”

“Somebody need help?” Rhodes asked.

“In a manner of speakin’,” Lawton said.

“No such thing,” Hack said. “Friendly call, that’s what it was.”

“Who called?” Rhodes asked, hoping to cut things short.

“Sheriff McDade.”

McDade was sheriff of the neighboring county. Rhodes wondered what he’d be calling about. He also wondered how long it would take him to get the answer from Hack and Lawton.

“Look,” Rhodes said, “it’s late, and I want to go home. Why don’t you just tell me what McDade called about.”

“Steak,” Lawton said.

Rhodes thought about the stolen rib eyes. “Did our steak thief get out and get to his county?”

“Not those steaks,” Hack said, and then Rhodes remembered something else.

A couple of weeks ago, one of McDade’s deputies had arrested a burglary suspect, and in the course of the interrogation that followed, the deputy had discovered that the man had also committed a series of similar burglaries in Blacklin County. Rhodes had remarked at the time that he ought to buy the deputy a steak dinner, and Hack had relayed the information to McDade. It had been a joke, and Rhodes had thought that would be the end of it. Maybe he’d been wrong.

“Did McDade say his deputy was coming here so I could buy him a steak?” Rhodes asked. “I guess I could take him to the Round-Up.”

The Round-Up was a specialty restaurant, but not in the way that Max’s Place was. The Round-Up served nothing but beef. If you insisted, you could get vegetables, potatoes being the most popular, but you didn’t dare ask for chicken.

“Him?”
Lawton asked, and Hack wheeled his chair around.

Lawton looked up at the ceiling and whistled something that might have been a tune. If it was, Rhodes didn’t recognize it.

“That was sexist of me,” Rhodes said. “I apologize.”

“Sex ain’t got nothin’ to do with it,” Hack said.

“What does, then?”

“Numbers,” Hack said.

Rhodes thought of Seepy Benton. Numbers were his life. Rhodes, on the other hand, would rather not do any calculating he wasn’t required to do.

“What numbers?” he asked.

“Eight,” Hack said.

Rhodes was lost now. He had no idea how they’d arrived at the number eight. He felt as if he’d stumbled into some bizarre episode of
Sesame Street
.

“Eight,” Rhodes said.

“Eight,” Hack said. “Or maybe nine. McDade’s not a hundred percent sure.”

“Of what?”

“Of whether it’s eight or nine.”

Rhodes was convinced that if he fired both Hack and Lawton at that very instant, nobody would blame him. No arbitration board would ask him to reinstate them, no jury in the world would side with them if they took the matter to court.

Rhodes, however, chose forbearance. It wasn’t an easy choice, but he made it.

“Eight or nine what?” Rhodes asked.

“Steaks,” Lawton said, earning himself a hard look from Hack.

“Nobody can eat that many steaks,” Rhodes said.

“It’s not one person,” Hack said, relenting. “It’s eight.”

“Or nine,” Lawton said.

“Or nine,” Hack said.

Rhodes thought he was catching on at last. “McDade says I owe him eight or nine steaks.”

“Not him,” Hack said. “See, it wasn’t him that cracked that burglary case.”

“I know that,” Rhodes said.

“He’s gettin’ testy,” Lawton said. “I told you when he didn’t find out who killed those fellas in the woods he’d get testy.”

“I’m the one who told
you
that,” Hack said.

Lawton looked stubborn. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Hack said. “I can’t remember.”

“It was me. You said—”

“Never mind who said what,” Rhodes said, “and I’m not testy. I just want to know what’s going on here.”

“You’re gettin’ testy,” Lawton said. “That’s what’s goin’ on.”

Rhodes looked from Hack to Lawton and then back at Hack.

“Tell me about the eight steaks,” he said. “Or nine,” he added before Hack could get it out.

Hack grinned. “That’s what I been tryin’ to do. The thing is that it wasn’t just one person that broke that burglary case. It was eight or nine of ’em workin’ together. So McDade figures you need to treat all of ’em to a big steak dinner. Seems like the fair thing.”

“Fair to McDade, maybe,” Rhodes said. “Not to my pocketbook. If he calls back, you can tell him I changed my mind, but I’ll give everybody involved a stick of gum.”

“You sure you can afford it?”

“Not on what the county pays me,” Rhodes said. “I’ll dig into my savings for it.”

With that, he sat down at his desk and checked to see what kind of information Ruth had left for him. It wasn’t much. Arvid Fowler had no criminal record of any kind, unless you counted his overcharge on the repair of Rhodes’s air conditioner, but Ruth didn’t mention that. Winston, as far as Ruth could determine, had lived all his life within a twenty-mile radius of Clearview and had never been out of the state. He hardly ever left the county, and while he’d gotten a couple of speeding tickets, that was the extent of his criminal past.

Some of Rhodes’s suspects had been eliminated but not all of them. He had a few ideas, but he’d have to do some more digging to find out if he was on the right track. He preferred to let Ruth do the computer research, but since she wasn’t there, he’d give it a try.

He turned to the computer, but before he could get logged on, the phone rang. Hack answered, talked into the receiver for a minute, than turned to Rhodes.

“You want to pick up line one?” he asked. “It’s Commissioner Burns.”

Rhodes was tempted to say that no, he didn’t want to pick up line one, but Lawton would just have said he was being testy. So he picked up.

“Sheriff,” Burns said, “I called you at home, but your wife said you were working. I suppose that’s commendable.”

“I’d have to agree,” Rhodes said.

“I’m sure you would. Anyway, I’m glad I caught you. I’m not calling to check on your work habits, though. I wanted to let you know that I’ll be a guest tomorrow on Milton Munday’s program.”

It wasn’t a good sign that Burns thought Rhodes needed a warning.

“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Rhodes said.

“I know I didn’t, but I thought you might want to hear what I have to say.”

Rhodes wasn’t enthusiastic. “I’ll try to remember to tune in.”

“We’ll be talking about the hog problem.”

“I see,” Rhodes said, though he didn’t see at all.

“And my solutions to it.”

Rhodes began to catch on. “Bow hunters.”

“That’s right. I think it’s something that would work.”

So they were back to that again. “Did you ask the Chandlers what they thought about it?”

“No. I checked. They’re not registered to vote.”

Nobody could say that Burns wasn’t a practical man.

“Did you talk to anybody else? Any of the other commissioners?”

“I did, and I talked to the county judge, too.”

The county judge presided over the commissioners’ meetings. Rhodes had been friends with the previous judge, but he’d retired and been replaced in the last election by Gene Brent, a retired attorney who’d specialized in wills and financial planning. Rhodes hadn’t worked with him enough to know him very well yet.

“Did you happen to mention that you thought my deputies would make good hunting guides?”

“I told you already,” Burns said. “It just makes sense to use them. Gives the whole thing the air of authority. Lets the farmers and ranchers know the county government cares about them and the losses those hogs are causing.”

What Burns cared about was the votes, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to say so.

“What did Brent say about that idea?” Rhodes asked.

“It’s something we’ll be talking more about.”

It was something Rhodes would be talking to Brent about, too.

“It might not be a good idea to go into anything like that on the air before you’ve cleared it with the judge,” Rhodes said. “And then there’s the overtime pay.”

Burns brushed that off. “We’ll work that problem out. Munday thinks the story will make good radio. It might influence people to think about it in the right way.”

Or the wrong way, depending on your point of view, Rhodes thought. He told Burns he’d listen to the show and hung up.

“Sounds like you and Mikey don’t agree on everything,” Hack said.

“We never do,” Rhodes told him. “Every now and then he tells me something helpful.”

“That’s good,” Lawton said. “The commissioners ought to support their local sheriff.”

“I didn’t say he supported me. Just that he was helpful. I don’t think he intends to be. It just works out that way now and then.”

“You oughta go along with him on that hog thing,” Hack said. “Get rid of one more hog a day, and you’d do some good even if you never can get all of ’em.”

“You think I want Buddy out there guiding hunters?”

“Well, maybe not. He has better things to do.”

“We all do,” Rhodes said.

“Maybe if you’d bought that M-16 when Burns wanted you to, you could go out and hunt ’em yourself,” Lawton said. “That’s what Sage Barton would do. Wipe out a whole herd in about five seconds.”

Rhodes didn’t want to talk about Sage Barton.

“I’m going home now. It’s past my bedtime.”

“You gonna leave the computer on?” Hack asked.

“I’ve heard that’s okay,” Rhodes said.

“Some say it ain’t.”

Rhodes turned off the computer and made his escape.

*   *   *

“I’m glad to see you aren’t muddy or bloody for a change,” Ivy said when Rhodes got home.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf,” Rhodes said. “No more mud and blood.”

Yancey yipped his approval of the new leaf. Rhodes reached down to pat him, but Yancey took off at a run.

“Where’s he going?” Rhodes asked.

“The kitchen,” Ivy said. “He’s found out that sometimes Sam’s so asleep that he can sneak up on him.”

Rhodes thought that might be interesting. “What happens when he sneaks up on him?”

“Sam wakes up.”

“And then?”

“And then Yancey runs away. He thinks it’s a game.”

Rhodes heard a sharp yip from the kitchen, and Yancey came streaking back. He skidded on the floor as he turned the corner, and then he fled into another room to hide.

“How long has that been going on?” Rhodes asked.

“Most of the afternoon. They both seem to enjoy it.”

“It takes so little to make them happy,” Rhodes said.

“Right. They remind me of someone I know.”

“You know what would make me happy?”

“I can think of a thing or two that might work.”

“Why don’t we find out, then,” Rhodes said.

“Follow me,” Ivy said, and Rhodes did.

Chapter 24

Milton Munday was really laying it on.

“Do you really think the town of Clearview is in danger of being overrun by wild hogs?” he asked.

Mikey Burns really did. “I think it’s entirely possible. They’re moving closer to town all the time, and they’re getting bolder, causing more and more damage. The next thing you know, they’ll be rooting up flower beds along the streets at night.”

“And who knows what might come after that,” Munday said, making Rhodes think of some old black-and-white horror movie of the kind they used to show on late-night TV, a town terrorized by giant feral hogs with tusks two feet long and hooves shod with iron. Rhodes hoped nobody else thought like that. Things were bad enough already.

“They’ve caused two deaths that we know about,” Munday said. “A man named Baty died first, and then a famous bounty hunter named Hoss Rapinski.”

Fugitive recovery agent,
Rhodes thought, and the hogs didn’t kill either one of them, not that Munday would let a little thing like the facts bother him.

Neither would Burns. “That’s absolutely right, Milton, and who knows what they’ll do when they get to town. Our citizens would be endangered. If we only had some plan in place to stop them, it would be different.”

“Folks,” Munday said, “our guest today is County Commissioner Mikey Burns, and he has a plan to stop the devastation that’s tearing our county apart. What’s the plan, sir?”