The Wild Hog Murders (9 page)

“They might not be exactly civilized,” Benton said, “and they don’t always treat animals the way they should, but they’re not murderers.”

“I don’t think so, either, but I’m pretty sure they were hunting hogs last night around where the murder happened. They might have seen something that could help me find the killer.”

“So you need me to use my incredible powers of persuasion to get them to talk,” Benton said. “I can do that.”

“Good,” Rhodes said. “Let’s go see them.”

“Just let me get my hat,” Benton said.

*   *   *

The Eccles cousins lived on up the county road from Benton, off on a little hill. Their double-wide trailer sat on top of the hill, and their two big Chevy Silverados, one red, one black, sat out in front. Not far away was the big Mack tractor rig that the cousins used for hauling. It was painted red and had a sleeper cab in back. The words
ECCLES TRUCKING
were written on the doors in italic script with silver paint outlined in black.

“Very classy logo,” Benton said, when he and Rhodes got out of the county car. “I wonder if they came up with the design all by themselves.”

“They probably told Herman Johnson to do whatever he wanted to,” Rhodes said. Johnson was a local sign painter with an artistic bent.

“I could do better,” Benton said.

The door of the double-wide opened, and Lance and Hugh came outside. They were tall and wide, and they both wore Houston Astros baseball caps over their red hair, which was long enough to stick out all around the bottoms of the caps. They had broad, freckled faces and smiling eyes, but their mouths weren’t smiling, and they didn’t look happy to see their visitors.

“I told your deputy to tell you we didn’t have nothin’ to say to you,” Hugh said. Rhodes knew it was Hugh because of the gap between his front teeth. Lance’s teeth didn’t have a gap. “You can just turn on around and go back to town.”

“That’s no way to talk to an officer of the law,” Benton said.

“Hey, Seepy,” Hugh said. “What you doin’ with the sheriff?”

“Helping out,” Benton said. “He tells me you’ve been hunting hogs.”

“That’s right,” Lance said. “Nothin’ wrong with that, is there?”

“Not legally speaking,” Benton said. “Morally, it’s a different story.”

“Morally?” Lance asked, as if he’d never heard the word before.

“The Lord’s tender mercies are over all his works,” Benton said, “and that includes hogs.”

“You might think I don’t know,” Hugh said, “but that’s from the Bible.”

Benton looked surprised. “That’s right. Psalm 145.”

“Here’s something else from the Bible,” Lance said. “An eye for an eye. I don’t know what book it’s from, but I know what it means.”

“Well?” Benton asked.

“It means those damn hogs are tearin’ up the country, ruinin’ the crops, ruinin’ the land. So we got a right to take retribution on ’em.”

Benton looked quite happy. Rhodes could tell he was about to launch into a lengthy lesson from the Talmud to prove Lance wrong, so he thought he’d better put a stop to it. Lance and Hugh weren’t the kind to be persuaded by rabbinical reasoning, or at least Rhodes didn’t think they were.

“We didn’t come here to talk about killing hogs,” he said. “This is about something else entirely.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hugh said. “We’re not talking. Right, Lance?”

“That’s right,” Lance said.

The two men turned and went back into the trailer. The door on a double-wide isn’t made for slamming, but they did a pretty good job of it, nevertheless.

“I wasn’t much help, was I,” Benton said.

“I think it was the psalm that did it,” Rhodes said.

“Too much?”

“Yes. It’s just as well you didn’t get around to quoting Deuteronomy.”

“Sometimes I get carried away.”

It didn’t take long for that to happen, either, Rhodes thought. He said, “It’s okay. Maybe they’ll give you another chance to use those incredible powers of persuasion of yours. I’ll see if they’ll come back out.”

He left Benton standing by the county car and mounted the little concrete steps in front of the trailer door. There was no doorbell, so he rapped on the door with his knuckles. No reply came from inside, but Rhodes thought he heard something. He strained his ears and caught the faint strains of George Jones singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” The Eccles boys had good taste. Rhodes knocked again, louder this time.

“They’re going out the back door,” Benton yelled.

Rhodes turned to him. “What?”

“The back door. I heard the back door.”

Rhodes heard something, too. He jumped off the porch and ran along the front of the trailer. Benton was a little ahead of him.

“Go back to the car,” Rhodes said, but Benton either didn’t hear or didn’t care to obey. They turned the corner at the end of the trailer, ran a few more steps, turned the back corner, and stopped. There was nobody there.

That was when Rhodes heard the front door.
Tricked by two men who probably hadn’t even graduated from high school,
Rhodes thought as he turned to run back the other way.

He heard the rumble of the Mack’s engine, and by the time he got to the front yard, the big tractor rig was turning toward the dirt road that led up the hill to the double-wide.

Rhodes sprinted for the county car. Benton panted along behind him. Rhodes didn’t intend to wait for him. When he reached the car, he opened the door and jumped in, turning the key in the ignition before the door closed. He pulled on his seat belt and put the car in gear just as Benton opened his own door. Rhodes started to pull away, but Benton dragged himself inside and allowed the car’s momentum to slam the door shut.

The Mack was running wide open down the hill. It turned the corner at the gate leaning dangerously to the side and took off on the county road, throwing up clods of dirt as it went.

Benton bounced around in the front seat of the Dodge as he struggled with his seat belt. When he finally got it fastened, he was still jostled quite a bit. His hat had slipped down on his forehead, hiding his eyes.

Rhodes was also jostled by the rough road. He struggled to keep the car under control.

“Where are they going?” Benton asked.

Rhodes didn’t answer, mainly because he didn’t know. He got the radio mic and called Hack. When the dispatcher came on, Rhodes told him the situation.

“What’s that county road number?” Hack asked.

Rhodes told him.

“Duke’s out that way, not far from Obert,” Hack said. “I’ll see if I can get you some backup.”

Rhodes hooked the mic and concentrated on his driving. He didn’t think Duke, the county’s newest deputy, would be of much help. The county roads wound around all over the place, one joining another at odd junctions. The Eccles cousins would know them all, Rhodes was sure, and Duke wouldn’t know them nearly as well. Rhodes had lived in the county all his life, but even he didn’t know all of them.

“You ought to be able to catch a big truck like that,” Benton said.

Rhodes hit a bump, and the county car went briefly airborne.

“Or not,” Benton said.

“I appreciate your confidence in my driving,” Rhodes said as he fought the wheel.

The Mack barreled across a bridge that spanned Pittman Creek and thundered up a hill.

The county car was gaining on them, but the driver turned the truck sharply where there was no real road, just a barbed-wire gate leading into a pasture. The truck tore the wire from its moorings and headed off across the open country, bouncing wildly.

Rhodes didn’t even try to follow. He stopped the car and watched.

“Those two are crazy,” Benton said.

“Not as crazy as I’d be if I tried to follow them,” Rhodes said. “I’ve already got a new dent in this car. I can’t chance tearing up the suspension.”

“Do you have any idea where they’re going?”

“Nope,” Rhodes said. “Once they get over the hill they can go a lot of different directions.”

“So you’re going to let them get away?”

“I hate to disillusion you,” Rhodes said, “but that’s about the size of it.”

Benton took off his hat and tried to push it into something resembling its proper shape.

“I can live with that,” he said.

*   *   *

Rhodes dropped Benton off at his house and went back to the jail. Nothing unusual was going on around the county, aside from the fleeing cousins.

“Just couple of loose cows,” Hack said when Rhodes asked. “Boyd’s after ’em. Broken water main shootin’ a geyser in the air over at the Kelly place on Pine Street. I called the water department ’bout that. Couple of neighbors arguin’ about some trash in the yard. One claims the other put it there. Ruth’s on that one.”

“Any response to that bulletin you put out last night?” Rhodes asked.

“About the man leavin’ the scene of a murder? Not a thing. No reports of any hitchhikers. Nobody called to say they saw him. He’s the invisible man.”

Not so invisible, Rhodes thought. It would be easy enough to walk back to town from the Leverett place and not be seen after dark.

“I expect ever’body out that way’s got their doors locked up tight,” Hack said. “No use, though. That fella’s long gone, like you said.”

“Maybe. The Eccles boys know something about it, though.”

“You gonna tell me?”

Rhodes could have drawn it out, but he didn’t bother. He told Hack what had happened.

“That’s just like those two,” Hack said, “but it might not be what you think it is.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They might not want to talk because of somethin’ else that happened. You know. The Chandlers.”

“You think the Chandlers might have mixed it up with the hunters?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hack said. “You could ask ’em.”

“I already have. They denied it.”

“Too bad you can’t ask Lance and Hugh. They might have a different story, if they’d tell it.”

“They’ll tell it,” Rhodes said. “Eventually. Did you get anything more on those bank robberies Baty supposedly planned?”

“Ruth did. She said to tell you there’s not any good descriptions of the man who pulled those jobs. Just a big man with a stockin’ pulled down over his face. Had on a hoodie when he went in the bank, so nobody could get a good look at him, anyway.”

The man in the car with Baty had been big, though that didn’t prove anything. It suggested a few ideas, though.

“You heard anything else about our friend Hoss Rapinski?” Rhodes asked.

“Why would I?”

“He said he was sticking around. Said he wanted to catch himself a killer.”

“He’s a show-off, all right,” Hack said. “He’d love to prove he was smarter than you.”

Rhodes gave him a look.

“Not that he’d have a chance of doin’ it,” Hack said.

“He might if I don’t find out some things pretty quickly.”

“How you gonna do it?”

“I’m going to hunt some hogs,” Rhodes said.

Chapter 9

“You must be crazy,” Ivy said.

“Probably,” Rhodes said, and Yancey yipped in agreement.

“You’ll get killed,” Ivy said, and Yancey yipped again, as if he was excited at the prospect.

“I don’t think so,” Rhodes said.

They were in the kitchen, eating dinner, which tonight consisted of some kind of casserole made with cabbage, macaroni, and lots of black pepper. It was good, but Rhodes was glad he’d eaten the hamburger for lunch.

“I know you don’t think so,” Ivy said, “but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. All those men with guns, and the hogs are dangerous, too.”

“We probably won’t even see any hogs.”

“That’s another thing,” Ivy said. “Who is this
we
? Do you even know any of them?”

After talking to Hack, Rhodes had set out to find the names of some of the men who’d been in the group with the Eccles cousins the previous night. It had taken him the rest of the afternoon, but he’d found out that one of the men was Arvid Fowler, an electrician and air-conditioner repairman. According to Fowler, he occasionally joined the Eccles cousins on a hunt. He’d been with them at the Leverett place, all right, but he claimed that he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He told Rhodes he didn’t have any idea why the Eccleses would have run away when Rhodes tried to talk to them.

“I know Arvid Fowler,” Rhodes told Ivy. “So do you. He fixed the air conditioner for us a couple of years ago.”

“Overcharged us, too,” Ivy said. “You can’t trust a man like that.”

“It was on a Sunday,” Rhodes pointed out. “He told us he’d have to charge more to come out on a Sunday.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have. It was an emergency.”

“Not for him.”

“You’re trying to get me off the subject, aren’t you,” Ivy said.