Ghost of a Chance (4 page)

“I’ll take care of that part,” Rhodes said.

“What about the McCoy funeral?” Ballinger wanted to know. “Can we go ahead with it?”

Rhodes didn’t think there was anything in the grave that would help him, and there was no trace of any other evidence that he could see. There was no .22 casing lying on the fake grass, no footprints except for those left by Berry as he fell, no sign that anyone had been there at all.

“Sure,” Rhodes said. “Go ahead.”

“All right. If you say so. I hope Miz McCoy isn’t too upset by all this.”

That wasn’t Rhodes’s problem, and he was sure Ballinger was capable of dealing with it. Then something else occurred to him, something he should have thought of earlier.

“I wonder where Berry’s truck is,” he said.

“I didn’t think about that,” Ballinger said. “He had to get here somehow, though. Maybe he rode with somebody. Or maybe he walked.”

“I’ll have a look around,” Rhodes said. “You can go on and take care of Mrs. McCoy. And thanks for giving me a call about this.”

“Just doing my duty as a citizen.”

Ballinger raised his umbrella and stepped out from under the tent. He got into his Cadillac and followed the black hearse as it drove away through the rain.

4

R
HODES DIDN’T OWN A STETSON, BUT HE DID HAVE AN
old fishing hat that he kept in the trunk of the county car in case of emergency. The rain hadn’t slacked off at all, and that was enough of an emergency for Rhodes. He opened the trunk and rummaged under a set of jumper cables. After a second, he dragged out the crumpled hat and jammed it firmly down on his head.

He looked back down the hill, but no mysterious figures slunk out of the trees.

Maybe I was just imagining things
, he thought, though it had certainly seemed he’d seen something down there.

Whatever it had been, he didn’t have time to wonder about it now. He sloshed off through the rain to have a look around the cemetery, which he’d always found an interesting place. He could see why Ty Berry didn’t want anything to happen to it.

Or anything more. Off to Rhodes’s right there was a mildew-streaked pedestal on which a marble angel had
once stood. The angel was no longer there, and it hadn’t flown away by itself. It had received a little help from whoever was looting the county’s graveyards.

Rhodes brushed rain off his forehead. Farther up the road there was a semicircle of Greek columns that indicated the area where the members of the Pooley family were buried. The family had made its money during the oil years, but there were no Pooleys left in Clearview now, not counting those who were under the ground. The ones who were still alive had all moved to Dallas and Houston, where they lived in big houses, drove big cars, and hardly ever returned to the place where the family fortune had been made.

Rhodes figured he’d be hearing from some of them the next time they were in town, however, since within the last few months someone had stolen a couple of urns and a concrete bench from the Pooley tract.

Rhodes turned right and walked toward the place where the caretaker’s house had once stood. It had been replaced years ago by a concrete-block storage building that held groundskeeping equipment and supplies: mowers, weed whackers, tree trimmers, fertilizer, weed killer, hoses.

Rhodes looked around as he passed the tombstones. Some of them were mottled and worn, with dates from the previous century, and there was quite a group from 1918–1919; the flu epidemic hadn’t spared even small towns in Texas.

Some of the newer stones had artistic touches that hadn’t been thought of in those days. On one of them was a picture of bluebonnets. On another was a picture of a man fishing from a bass boat.

Rhodes wouldn’t mind having one like that for himself, except that it wouldn’t represent him very accurately these
days. As much as he liked fishing, he hardly ever got to go.

When he reached the storage building, he walked around behind it where a blue Ford pickup was parked. Rhodes had thought it might be there. There was nowhere else in the cemetery to conceal a vehicle.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about the truck, but Rhodes was sure it belonged to Ty Berry. He’d seen Berry driving it often enough.

Rhodes looked carefully at the ground all around the truck. He found an old rusty bottle cap, a bent nail that was even rustier, and nothing else.

There was nothing in the rear of the truck, either, except a thick rubber mat to keep the paint from getting scratched when something was being hauled back there. Rhodes lifted the mat. There was no killer lurking under it, so he dropped it back down.

Rhodes looked through the window into the cab of the pickup. Berry had been a neat man, and the interior of the pickup was very clean. There was a litter bag hanging from a knob on the dash, and there were a couple pieces of paper in it. Rhodes couldn’t see what they were.

He tried the door. It was unlocked, and Rhodes let himself in, though he almost hated to open the door and get water all over the interior, possibly messing up the crime scene. He felt even worse about getting inside with his muddy shoes, but he was tired of being in the rain. His hat was already soaked, and his socks were squishing when he walked.

So he got in the truck. The rain popped against the roof like number two buckshot, and Rhodes took the papers out of the litter bag, holding them carefully by the edges. He’d
never solved a case with the help of fingerprints, but there was always a first time.

One of the pieces of paper was a grocery list. The words were written in small, neat, precise cursive script, the kind of handwriting that Rhodes had always admired but had never been able to master. The list included black pepper, ground beef, onions, potatoes, hamburger buns.

Rhodes almost smiled. Berry was a man after his own heart, or at least after his own appetite. Appetite was one thing Berry wouldn’t have to be worrying about anymore.

Rhodes dropped the list back in the litter bag and removed the other paper. It was written in the same neat hand and said, “
A.D
. 11.”

Rhodes didn’t know what that meant. Maybe it referred to some important historical event in the year
A.D
. 11. Rhodes tried to think of what the event could have been. Had the Romans taken over in Egypt about that time? He wasn’t sure. He could recognize Greek columns easily enough, but when he’d been in school, he’d always done better in American history than in the history of the world.

He dropped the paper back in the litter bag and looked around the rest of the pickup’s interior. There was nothing of interest in sight, so Rhodes opened the glove compartment.

There were no gloves inside it. The compartment held a road map of the United States, a map of Texas, and a map of Blacklin County with all the private cemeteries marked in red ink. Berry, or someone, had inked in the names.

There was also another list. It had most likely been printed out on a computer. It was dated the previous day, and it had on it all the items that had been stolen from the various cemeteries around the county. Rhodes would have
one of his deputies check to see if there was anything new missing from the Clearview cemetery. If there was, that might mean that whoever had been doing the looting might be responsible for Berry’s death.

Rhodes put the maps and the list back where he’d found them and got out of the pickup, leaving the litter bag inside. He didn’t have much to show for his search. He could have one of the deputies do a more thorough job after the rain stopped, if it ever did, but he didn’t have much hope that she’d turn up anything more.

He left the keys under the floor mat, got out of the pickup, and squished back to the county car. When he was inside, he radioed Hack and said, “I’m going to look around here a little more, and then I’m going home to put on some dry clothes.”

“What about Ty Berry?” Hack asked. “You gonna call his cousin in Austin?”

Rhodes should have realized that Hack would already know about Berry. It was impossible to keep anything a secret in a small town. And he should also have known that Hack would know who Berry’s relatives were. Hack knew more about most people in Blacklin County than they knew themselves.

“I’ll call,” Rhodes said. “Get his number, and I’ll come by after I’ve changed.”

“It’s a her,” Hack said. “He’s got an uncle somewhere, too.”

“The cousin can make that call,” Rhodes said.

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

Rhodes knew that Hack wanted the whole story in order to keep ahead of Lawton. Both men liked to be the first with details. But the sheriff wasn’t going to broadcast anything
on the radio. There were too many people who had nothing better to do than listen in on their scanners.

“I’ll tell you when I get there,” Rhodes said. “Have there been any other calls?”

“Nothin’ important. Some goats got out on the road down close to Thurston, and somebody hit one of ’em. Nobody’s hurt, though. Except the goat. Ruth Grady’s down there.”

Ruth was one of the deputies. She could handle just about any situation that came up. A dead goat and a dented car wouldn’t be a problem.

“What about the ghost?” he asked.

“Nobody’s seen him lately,” Hack said. “Looks like he’d turn up today if he ever did, the weather we’re havin’. It’s not good for much of anything ’cept maybe ghosts.”

“Maybe he’s gone for good.”

“Maybe.” Hack didn’t sound convinced. “You gonna get back here pretty soon?”

“Give me an hour,” Rhodes said.

5

R
HODES DROVE OUT OF THE CEMETERY AND DOWN THE
street to the highway. He turned right and headed for the railroad overpass, but just before he got there, he turned off on a one-lane gravel road that ran down beside the overpass and then turned to parallel the railroad tracks. There were soft spots in the road where the gravel had been washed away, and Rhodes had to be careful not to let the car slide off into the ditch.

When he came to a spot near where he’d seen the figures running out of the trees, he stopped the car. There was no place to pull off the road, but he didn’t think he had to worry about traffic. Hardly anyone ever used the road, and it wasn’t likely that anyone was going to try driving on it in the rain.

Rhodes put on his soggy hat and got out of the car. He’d have to cross the ditch to get to the trees, and the ditch was half full of water. As wet as he was already, he might as
well just walk through it, but he didn’t want to do that. So he decided to jump it.

Once, a long time ago, jumping across a couple feet of running water wouldn’t have been worth a second thought. These days, however, it was a different story. One of the things Rhodes didn’t like about getting older was the discovery that doing things he’d once taken for granted had become a good bit more difficult. And it wasn’t his fault; it wasn’t as if he’d asked for his body to deteriorate.

Thinking about it didn’t help anything, so he took a couple of halfhearted running steps and jumped the ditch. The good news was that he made it. The bad news was that the landing jarred his knees so hard that he stumbled forward for several feet and nearly fell flat on his face. His pulse raced, and he had to wave his arms to maintain his balance. When he got his momentum under control, he stood still for a minute to let his heartbeat get back to normal. He hoped no one had been watching.

After a while, he walked up to the trees. The ground was muddier than it had been up on the hill in the cemetery, and now and then his shoes made little sucking noises as he picked up his feet.

When he got into the trees, Rhodes listened to the sound of the rain crackling on the dead leaves. He didn’t hear anything else for a few seconds, and then he heard a faraway train whistle as an engine came to a crossing. The whistle grew louder with each crossing the train passed, and before long the cars began passing by. Rhodes watched them go, listening to the familiar clickety-clack of the wheels on the tracks.

There had once been a depot in Clearview, and trains
had made regular stops there, though that had been before Rhodes’s time. There were no stops now, of course, and the depot had been razed when Rhodes was just a boy.