Between the Living and the Dead (26 page)

Rhodes considered Ace Gable and Vicki Patton. They were as unlikely to have killed Neil as Wade. Although he could assign them motive easily enough, it wasn't a strong motive, hardly worth killing a man for.

Then Rhodes thought about Earl Foshee, who'd implicated his own brother. He'd pretended to be reluctant to do it, but maybe that had been his plan all along. Get Neil and Louie out of the way, and Earl would be the drug lord. Not that it was any great position in Blacklin County, but Earl might not look at it that way.

Rhodes was afraid he'd underestimated both the Foshees. He'd have to stop by the hospital and see how Earl was doing. Have a little talk with him. See if he'd confess. It was worth a try.

*   *   *

“Gone?” Rhodes said. He was in Earl Foshee's hospital room, talking to Sue Thornton, the nurse who'd met him in the hallway when he'd gone looking for someone to explain why the room was empty. “I thought he had a severe concussion.”

“He wasn't discharged,” Sue said. She was tall and thin, and her hair was clipped close to her head. “He slipped out. I came in to check on him about ten minutes ago, and he was gone. So are his clothes. I let Dr. Reese know. I'm sure he's had someone call your office by now.”

Not putting a guard on Earl had been a big mistake. Rhodes had been wrong about him. He was shrewd, and he might be a killer. The commissioners weren't going to be happy, and neither was the mayor.

Rhodes thanked the nurse and left the hospital building. He looked around the parking lot. There was no way to know if Earl had stolen a car, but it was a possibility.

It was also possible that Earl hadn't stolen a car, so Rhodes looked around for escape routes that a man on foot might have taken. Nothing looked promising. Rhodes got into the county car and got Hack on the radio.

“I know all about it,” Hack said before Rhodes could tell him anything. “Dr. Reese called and said Earl's gone AWOL. You know the commissioners are gonna jump on you about not puttin' a guard on the door, don't you?”

“I hope they do,” Rhodes said. “I'll jump on them about not having enough deputies to do the jobs this county requires. Get Buddy to go out to that house where Louie and Earl were staying. I'm going to look around here in town.”

“You think Earl's gonna stay around? I bet he's halfway to Mexico by now.”

“Not if he's on foot. Even if he stole a car, he'll need some things from home. You get Buddy out there.”

“I sent him as soon as the doctor called,” Hack said. “I'm always ahead of the curve.”

“Did you tell Buddy not to shoot him?”

“I didn't figger that was my job.”

Rhodes hoped Buddy would show a little restraint. It wasn't a case of bringing Earl in dead or alive.

“Let me know if Buddy needs help,” Rhodes said, and signed off.

The sun had dropped down behind a cloud bank, but Rhodes didn't feel much cooler. If Earl was on foot, he was going to be going slow, not just because it was hot but because of the concussion. Which way would he have gone?

The Clearview City Park was across the street from the hospital, and it didn't offer much shelter. The hospital itself took up a couple of blocks, so if Earl had gone back north toward town along the sidewalk, he'd have been easy to spot when Rhodes drove up. The road south didn't have anything to recommend it. It was open all the way. Would somebody pick up Earl if he was hitchhiking? Not likely. That left the west side of the hospital. There were houses on that side, and yards with trees. Earl could make his way to the railroad tracks and walk along beside them to the highway, but it would still be tricky for him to get out of town. He'd have to get a ride somehow.

Rhodes got in the county car and drove down toward the tracks. He didn't spot Earl sneaking through any of the yards he passed, but someone or something was moving along in the shadow between a couple of boxcars and an old brick building that a wholesaler used for storage. Rhodes turned off the street and drove beside the tracks until he came to the boxcars. He stopped the car and got out.

Earl would have heard him drive up, if indeed it had been Earl that he'd seen. Rhodes still wasn't sure. He walked along the side of the boxcars opposite the side the man he'd seen had been on. When he reached the end, he bent over and looked underneath the cars. He didn't see any sign of Earl or anyone else.

He went around the end of the cars and looked at the vacant lot behind the brick building. The lot wasn't really vacant. It had plenty of weeds on it, many of them several feet tall, and there were some signs of a structure that had once stood there. Rhodes couldn't remember what it had been. It had been gone a long time. Across the street from the lot were some old vacant buildings. Rhodes didn't think Earl had managed to get that far. He was probably hunkered down in the weeds.

That is, if the person Rhodes had seen was Earl. It might have been just someone who happened to be walking along the tracks. However, Rhodes didn't think that someone out for a stroll would simply disappear into a weedy lot.

Glancing along the edge of the lot, Rhodes noticed a spot where some of the weeds were mashed down. He walked over. Sure enough, someone or something had made a path through the weeds. Rhodes got out the Kel-Tec and followed the path, wading through weeds that reached up to his armpits.

He came to a spot where a concrete foundation of some kind still remained. It was cracked and broken, and the trail ended at the edge of it. Several large concrete blocks lay around, all of them almost hidden from sight by the high weeds.

“You here, Earl?” Rhodes asked.

He didn't get an answer, but he hadn't expected one. A car drove past on the street but didn't slow down to see what the sheriff was doing standing up to his armpits in weeds. Probably too busy texting or talking on his cell phone to notice that there was anybody around.

“Last chance, Earl,” Rhodes said. “Show yourself and I'll get you back to the hospital, where you can get the kind of medical care you need. That concussion is too dangerous for you to take any chances.”

The weeds on the other side of the little foundation began to shake. Rhodes couldn't feel any breeze, and he didn't think there was a snake big enough to make the weeds wave like that. He walked across the concrete and followed the movement. The weeds ended at a narrow driveway that led to the back of the brick building. The movement stopped.

Rhodes stopped, too.

Earl, and it was bound to be Earl, had a couple of choices. He could try to get across the driveway and into some more weeds, or he could give himself up. Neither choice was a good one, and Earl hadn't been very bright to put himself in such a situation. Rhodes hadn't underestimated Earl's intelligence after all.

He had, however, underestimated Earl's desperation. Instead of taking one of the two options Rhodes believed he had, Earl jumped straight up and charged headlong at Rhodes, windmilling his arms with the weeds whipping all around him.

Rhodes didn't want to shoot Earl. He didn't even want to hit him with his fist, because of the concussion, but he had to stop him somehow.

The weeds slowed Earl down enough so that Rhodes had a second to get ready for him. He waited until Earl was nearly on him, then simply dropped down into the weeds on his left. Earl went right on by.

Rhodes got up as Earl was coming to a stop, walked up behind him, and said, “Stand right there, Earl. I don't want to shoot you, but I will if you don't settle down.”

“You wouldn't shoot me in the back,” Earl said.

“Sure I would. Not in the head, maybe, but in the leg. Down around the knee joint would be a good place, I think. I'm so close I can't miss.”

“I'd sue the county if you do.”

“You might even win. Want to put it to the test?”

“You really think I might win?”

“No,” Rhodes said. “I don't. You'd be able to predict when it was going to rain, though, by the pains in your knee when the weather starts to change. You think it's worth it?”

Earl's shoulders slumped. “I guess not.”

“Good answer. Now put your hands on top of your head and we'll walk to the car. When we get there, I can slip the cuffs on.”

“You don't have to do that. I won't give you any trouble.”

“You might find this hard to believe, Earl, but I don't trust you.”

Earl sighed and put his hands on his head. “Did you get Louie?”

“I did,” Rhodes said. “He's in the jail already. Got him a nice, comfortable cell. Not as comfortable as the hospital room you had, but better than that shack at Merritt's Lake where he was holed up.”

“Used to be some good fish in that lake,” Earl said. “I caught me a big bass there when I was a kid.”

“You're not a kid anymore,” Rhodes said. “Let's go to the car.”

They started walking through the weeds. Earl said, “Louie's gonna be really mad at me. I shouldn't have ratted him out.”

“I don't think he'll mind,” Rhodes said. “He's not the one who killed Neil.”

“Who is, then?”

“You are,” Rhodes said.

 

Chapter 20

Earl protested his innocence all the way back to the jail, which was only to be expected. He was so vehement, however, that Rhodes almost believed him.

“Why would I do it?” Earl whined. “I never wanted to get in trouble with the law, much less kill anybody. I didn't want to be a meth cooker. I just wanted to be left alone. It was Louie and Neil that got me into this mess to start with. Neil said it would be easy. Good money, not much work, that's what he said. He didn't say about how dangerous it was and how we could get blown up. He didn't say about how the law would be after us all the time and put us in jail.”

Earl was like a lot of criminals and all-around lowlifes Rhodes had encountered. Nothing was ever their fault. They'd always been lured by bad companions into committing crimes, or they'd been too drunk to know what they were doing, or their teachers or parents had mistreated them. It was always something.

“That must be why you shot him,” Rhodes said. “Because he got you into the drug business and got you arrested.”

“I didn't shoot him. I told you that already. I wasn't even there when he got shot. Louie was there. Don't you remember what I said?”

“I remember, all right. You ratted Louie out and claimed he was the one who shot Neil. Louie says that's not so. He says you were the shooter.”

Earl kicked the back of the seat, jarring Rhodes a little.

“That damn Louie!” Earl said. “He's trying to put the blame on me so he won't be the one going to trial for killing Neil. He's the one did it!”

“Don't kick the seat again,” Rhodes said.

“I didn't mean to,” Earl said, lowering his voice. If he was trying to sound contrite, he didn't quite succeed. “You got me all stirred up.”

Rhodes didn't have anything to say to that. He'd started thinking again, and he wondered why Louie hadn't turned on Earl. It would seem natural for him to do it, but he hadn't even bothered to suggest that Earl might be the killer. Why hadn't he done that? Could it be because he didn't think Earl was guilty?

There was still the problem with the gun, too. Earl wasn't any more likely to use a .38 than Louie was. Even if he had used a .38, where was it?

Rhodes would have to worry about those things later. Right now he needed to stop by the hospital and see what Dr. Reese had to say about Earl.

*   *   *

Dr. Reese cleared Earl for a stay at the jail.

“We're too crowded to have someone in a bed if he doesn't need to be here,” the doctor told Rhodes after examining Earl. “If he's feeling well enough to run away and if he didn't suffer any ill effects from crawling around in that weed patch you caught him in, then he might as well be resting in a bed in the jail as in one of ours.”

“You're sure he'll be all right?” Rhodes asked.

“I'm never certain about something like that. He should be, though, if he doesn't bang his head on something.”

“I'll be careful with him,” Rhodes said.

“You do that,” Reese said. “Now take him out of here.”

“I'll be glad to,” Rhodes said.

*   *   *

Rhodes got Earl stashed in a cell with a minimum of fuss from Hack, but he knew Hack was merely waiting for a good opportunity to get a few words in. When Lawton returned from the cellblock, Hack got started.

“How many people you goin' to arrest for killin' Neil Foshee?” he asked.

“As many as I have to,” Rhodes said, “but so far I haven't arrested anybody for that particular crime.”

That was true. Louie and Earl were in jail for a different reason, though they could be charged with the killing at any time if it became necessary.

“Maybe you ain't charged anybody,” Hack said, “but you got two men in jail back there you think might've done it, and you went after that Clement kid, too.”

“Narrowin' the field,” Lawton said. “That's the way to go about it. Cast a wide net. Arrest enough of 'em, and sooner or later you're bound to land on the right one.”

“I guess that's it,” Hack said. “He's arrested just about ever'body that's ever been close to that Moore house except the mouse.”

“What mouse?” Lawton asked.

“You know. That one he ran across the first night. Like to've executed him right there on the spot, is what Ruth told me.”

Rhodes didn't think Ruth had told him any such thing, but he wished she hadn't mentioned the mouse at all. Hack was never going to forget about it. It was a good thing Hack didn't know about the rat. No telling what he'd make of that.

“Executed him without a trial?” Lawton asked. “Is that legal?”

“Is for a mouse,” Hack said. “People do it all the time. They got what they call humane traps now, but people still use the other kind.”