Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 08 - Winning Can Be Murder (13 page)

And Deedham had said that there was no relationship between Brady and Terry Deedham that he knew of.  Of course she was an attractive woman, and there were bound to be rumors, but Deedham wasn’t the kind of man who put any stock in talk like that.

Or so he said.

“He was nervous the whole time,” Ruth told Rhodes.  “He couldn’t sit still.  He’d get up and pace, and then he’d sit down for a minute.  But he couldn’t stay in the chair.”

“Did he give any reason for being so jittery?” Rhodes asked.

“He said it was next week’s game.  He needed to be getting ready for it instead of talking to me.  He said something about Springville’s quarterback passing for three hundred yards last night and that he might be vulnerable to a blitz.  He didn’t seem concerned at all about Brady Meredith being dead, except how it might affect the game with Springville.  That’s pretty suspicious if you ask me.”

It seemed suspicious to Rhodes, too.  It seemed to him that anyone would be more concerned about the murder of a colleague than a football game.  Even in Texas.

“Did you ask him what he did after the game last night?”

“He claims that he worked at the field house until after one o’clock.  He always stays to look at the game films after the other coaches have gone home.  They all look at them together on Saturday morning, but Deedham watches them first.  He’s obsessed with football, all right.”

Rhodes wondered if Deedham’s obsession grew out of his relationship with his wife or
vice-versa
.

“Anyone who can verify that he was there?”

“The managers were getting the gear stowed, he said, but they left before midnight.”

So Deedham didn’t have an alibi for most of the evening.  Rhodes wasn’t surprised.

“I don’t suppose he mentioned where his wife was while he was at the field house.”

“No,” Ruth said.  “I didn’t ask him that.”

“How about after he got home?  Can she give us a time if we ask?”

“She was asleep when he got there.  That’s what he claims, at least.  I got the impression that he didn’t really know where she was.”

Rhodes suspected that she had been at The County Line.  He might be able to find out.

“Did you notice whether he smoked?” he asked.

“He didn’t light up when I was there, but there was an ashtray on the coffee table.”

Maybe Deedham didn’t smoke, Rhodes thought.  But he wasn’t the only member of the household.  Maybe Terry Deedham was the smoker.  And maybe she even smoked Marlboros.

“Were there any butts in the ashtray?” he asked.

“No.  It was clean.”

Too bad.  Rhodes was definitely going to have to pay a visit to Terry Deedham.  But not tonight.  He’d talk to her tomorrow unless she was in church when he went by.  Somehow he didn’t think she would be.  From all he’d heard, she wasn’t the church-going kind.

R
hodes was getting dressed the next morning when the doorbell rang.  His visitor was Jack Parry, the county judge, who, by virtue of his office presided over the Commissioner’s Court.  He was, in effect, Rhodes’ boss, though he usually didn’t act like it.

“It’s a fine day, isn’t it,” Parry said as he stood in the doorway.

He was a stout, bald man who was always smiling.  He had worn a beard for years, but he had shaved it off before the last election.  Now that the election was safely over and he was established in office, he had let it grow out again.  It made him look older, but looking older wasn’t a bad thing in his case.  He was wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, and a striped tie.  And as usual he was smoking a big cigar.

“It’s a fine day, all right,” Rhodes said.  “Just about perfect.”

The clouds and rain of the previous day had disappeared completely, leaving the sky a pale, empty blue.  The pecan trees in Rhodes’ yard cast sharp black shadows on the sidewalk and yard.

“Why don’t we talk outside, Dan?” Parry said.  “I don’t want to smell up your house with this cigar.”

Rhodes didn’t mind the smell.  It seemed to him much more pleasant that the smell of cigarettes, but Ivy might object.

“All right,” Rhodes said, stepping out on the porch.  “What brings you by today?”

“I was just on my way to church, Dan, when I thought about stopping by to say hello.”

Rhodes didn’t believe that for a second.  Parry had never stopped by to say hello before, and as far as Rhodes knew he went to church every week.  It wouldn’t do to accuse the judge of lying, however, so Rhodes went along with him.

“That was thoughtful of you, Judge.  I’ll tell Ivy you came by.”

“How is Ivy these days?” Parry asked.  “You two happy?  I’d like to think I tied the knot right.”

Parry had married Rhodes and Ivy in the courthouse.  Rhodes hadn’t wanted any bigger ceremony than was absolutely necessary.

“You did a good job,” Rhodes said, wondering when Parry would get to the point.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Parry took a puff of his cigar and blew smoke out toward Rhodes’ lawn.  He looked down at his suit and brushed the front of it.  There weren’t any ashes on the suit that Rhodes could see.

“About this Brady Meredith thing, Dan,” Parry said.

Rhodes should have known.  Parry was a big football fan.  What else would have brought him by?

“What do you want to know?” Rhodes asked.

“Well, you know that I don’t like to tell you how to do your job.  I’ve never meddled in any of your cases before, have I?”

“No,” Rhodes said.  “You haven’t.”

“And I hate to start now.”  Parry leaned out over the porch railing and tapped on his cigar.  “But this is serious.”

“Most murders are,” Rhodes said.

Parry nodded.  “Of course.  But this one is a little different from most.  This one involves the football team.  You know that we have a good chance to get to the state finals this year, don’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“That would mean a lot to this town, Dan.  We don’t have much to be proud of these days, if you’ve noticed.  Lots of stores downtown are closed; most of the place is just vacant buildings.  Hardly any cotton farms left in the whole county.  There’s the power plant down the highway, but that’s about it for industry.  We need something to put some spirit back in this place, and the football team’s doing that.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I’m sure you have.  People are talking about it everywhere.  Did you read Goober’s article about the game in the newspaper yesterday?”

Rhodes had read it after getting home.  It was full of praise for Clearview’s “outstanding defensive play,” “quality linebacking corps,” “formidable offensive line,” and “strong-armed quarterback.”  It was almost as if Vance typed it on a cliché machine.

“Wonderful stuff,” Parry said, puffing his cigar.  “The town needs stories like that.  But not stories like that other one.”

Rhodes knew which one Parry meant — the one about Brady Meredith’s murder.

“A real downer,” Parry said.  “I’m afraid it might affect the morale of the team.”

Rhodes didn’t see how that could be avoided.  Getting a group of teenagers to play together as a team required a delicate psychological touch, and the stability that Jasper Knowles and his assistants had achieved during the season was certain to be affected by Brady’s death.

“But if you could bring this to a quick conclusion,” Parry said, “then the team might get straightened out in time for the game next Saturday.  How are things going so far?”

“It’s only been a day.  I’m doing what I can.”

Parry brushed at his suit front again.  “That’s not quite good enough, Dan.  I’m talking about clues.  Suspects.  Things like that.  We need to put out one of those bulletins that says something like ‘Sheriff Rhodes expects an arrest at any minute.’ ”

“We could do that,” Rhodes said.  “But it wouldn’t be the truth.”

“Surely you have some ideas.”

“I do.  But nothing solid yet.  There are a lot of people involved, and several of them might have had motives to kill Meredith.  In fact, I’m going to talk to the team later on today.  Maybe one of them did it.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t say something like that!  You don’t really believe that, do you?”

So far, Rhodes hadn’t turned up any evidence of steroid use by the team that might account for violent behavior by one of the players off the field, but there could be other motives he wasn’t yet aware of.  However, he didn’t want to go into that with Parry.

“The truth is that I don’t know what to believe right now,” he said.  “This could take a little time, Jack.  You’ll just have to trust me to do it right.”

Parry puffed his cigar for a few seconds, then said, “I guess you’re right, Dan.  I shouldn’t have tried to get mixed up in this in the first place.  It’s just that this football team means so much to everybody.”

Rhodes wondered what Parry would say if he told him about the possibility that Meredith had been gambling on the team’s games and that the games might have to be forfeited.  He probably wouldn’t say anything.  He’d just have a heart attack and die right there on Rhodes’ front porch.

So Rhodes didn’t tell him.  They talked for a few minutes with Rhodes continuing to assure Parry that everything would work out sooner or later, and then the judge left to go to church.

R
hodes figured that Hayes Ford would be a late riser, so he went to visit the Deedhams first.

Bob Deedham was already at the field house, going over the films again, according to his wife, Terry, who was at home.  She came to the door in a purple housecoat and invited Rhodes in for a cup of coffee.

Rhodes didn’t drink coffee in the normal course of things, but he decided to make an exception in this case.  It didn’t taste any better than he remembered.  Besides that, it was hot and it burned his tongue.  He would have much preferred a Dr Pepper.

“You don’t mind if I smoke, I hope?” Terry Deedham said.

They were sitting in the kitchen at a square wooden table with four yellow plastic place mats on it.  There was a little basket of artificial yellow flowers in the middle of the table.  The bright morning sun streamed in through a window over the stainless steel sink.

“I don’t mind,” Rhodes said.  “It’s your house.”

Terry pulled a package of cigarettes and a lighter from a pocket in her robe.  Marlboros.  She lit one and exhaled a long, thin stream of smoke.

“Bob doesn’t like for me to smoke in the house,” she said.  “But I tell him it’s my house, too.”

She had masses of tousled blonde hair, big blue eyes, and thin white hands.  She was quite pretty even though she wasn’t wearing any make-up, but Rhodes could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth and coarse-looking dark areas under her eyes.

“Your husband is really involved with the football team, isn’t he,” Rhodes said.

Terry grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth that made her face look more interesting.

“Tell me about it.  I haven’t seen him for more than five minutes at a time since a month before the season started.”

“You don’t like football much yourself?” Rhodes said.

Terry put her cigarette on the saucer by her coffee cup and looked at Rhodes.

“Let me tell you something, Sheriff.  I used to like football a whole lot.  I was a cheerleader in high school.  I was the homecoming queen.  I never dated anyone but football players in high school or college.  I watched football games on TV, college games and the pros, too.

“But all that was before I married Bob.  I knew he liked football, but I didn’t know how much.  He eats it and sleeps it.  He never thinks about anything else.  When
he
watches a game on TV, he tapes it so he can go over the crucial plays later on and analyze the way they worked.  Around here, it’s football twelve months of the year.  That can get pretty old after a while.  Everybody needs a break now and then.”

She picked up her cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew out a plume of smoke.

“So now you know about me and Bob and football.  But I bet that’s not why you came here.”

“Not exactly,” Rhodes said.

He tried another sip of coffee.  It was cooler, but it didn’t taste any better.  He set the cup down, clinking it against the saucer.  He didn’t think he’d try it again.  Enough was enough.

“It’s about me and Brady, isn’t it?” Terry said.

“That’s right,” Rhodes said.  “Do you want to tell me about you two?”

Terry crushed her cigarette in the saucer and lit another one.

“There’s not much to tell.  I liked Brady, but he didn’t like me.”  She smiled reflectively.  “That’s not really true.  He
liked
me, but he liked that mousy little wife of his more, if you can believe that.  Are you married, Sheriff?”

Rhodes said that he was.

She nodded.  “It figures.  The cute ones always are.”

“So are you,” Rhodes pointed out.

“True.  But in my case it hardly matters.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m not a football.  If I were, maybe Bob would pay more attention to me.”

“How would he feel if someone else paid a little attention to you?”

“You mean Brady?  I doubt that Bob would even notice, no matter who it was.”

“He noticed, all right.  He saw the two of you at The County Line.”

“What?  Bob was spying on me?  You don’t mean that!”

Rhodes told her about his chat with Zach, the bartender.

Terry lit her third cigarette.  There was a gray haze hanging around the ceiling fixture above the table.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any Dr Pepper, would you?” Rhodes said.  He tapped his still-full coffee cup.  “I’m not really much of a coffee drinker.”

“I’ll see.”  Terry got up and looked in the refrigerator.  “Sorry.  Just an old bottle of Pepsi.  Will that do?”

“That’s all right,” Rhodes said.  He already had one of the Marlboro butts in his pocket.  “I don’t need anything.”

“Zach is sure it was Bob he saw?” Terry asked when she sat back down.

“He’s sure.  But come to think of it, he didn’t actually say that Bob saw you and Brady.  He just said that you two were on the dance floor and that Bob was in the bar.”