Ghost of a Chance (7 page)

Faye Knape lived in an old frame house near the downtown area. It was late afternoon when Rhodes arrived. It would have been near sundown if there had been any sun. The thick clouds made it seem almost like night, and the tall pecan trees in the yard made things even darker. There was a light shining through the front windows, however, and Rhodes could see cats sitting in some of them. Rhodes did a quick count and came up with three. He knew there were probably more than that, though not many more. Maybe six or eight altogether, though Rhodes wasn’t sure how many cats Mrs. Knape had. He didn’t know whether even Mrs. Knape was sure.

Mrs. Knape’s husband had died of colon cancer some years before, and she’d transferred all her affection to her cats. Her love for the animals was well-known in Clearview. She had all colors: white, black, black and white, gray, orange, and calico. Rhodes, who was slightly allergic to cats, hoped he’d be able to keep himself from sneezing while he was in the house, but he knew it was a vain hope.

He stepped up on the porch and knocked on the door. At the first hollow tap, all the cats disappeared from the windows as if they’d never been there.

After a few seconds Rhodes could hear someone inside. The porch light came on, and Mrs. Knape peered out at him through one of the small glass panes set in the upper part of the door. When she saw Rhodes, she threw a dead-bolt, snapped a lock, and opened the door.

“Good evening, Sheriff,” she said. “I suppose you’re here about Ty Berry.”

She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as Rhodes. Even taller if you took into account her masses of amazingly black hair. The hair color would have been even more amazing had it been real, which it wasn’t. Mrs. Knape was well over sixty, and she’d been dyeing her hair for years. She did it herself, and she used Clairol Nice ‘n Easy, according to Ivy, who’d seen her buying it at Wal-Mart.

Rhodes wasn’t at all shocked to hear Mrs. Knape knew about Ty Berry, since everyone else did.

“That’s why I’m here,” he said.

“Well, you might as well come inside. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Rhodes wondered just how much that would be as she ushered him into a hallway, where his rubber-soled shoes made squeaking noises on the hardwood floor. After only a few steps, they turned right, into the living room. It was an old-fashioned room that fit perfectly with the house’s exterior. It held a black upright piano, a Duncan Phyfe coffee table, an overstuffed sofa, and an armchair to match. The armchair had an antimacassar on the back. On the end table by the chair there was a thick black Bible, beside which sat a box of tissues and a heavy cut-glass vase filled with dried wildflowers. The room’s wallpaper had a busy floral pattern.

Rhodes could smell the sharp ammoniac odor of cat boxes. He couldn’t smell the cats themselves, and he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see the boxes, either, and he assumed they were in another part of the house.

“Where are the cats?” he asked, and then he sneezed.

“Bless you,” Mrs. Knape said. “Help yourself to a tissue.”

“Thanks,” Rhodes said, plucking one from the box.

“The boys don’t like strangers,” Mrs. Knape told him. “They’ve all gone into hiding. They’re probably all under my bed or in one of the closets.”

“They’re shy?” Rhodes said.

“Oh, yes. They’re very shy until they get to know you. Have a seat.”

Rhodes sat in the armchair. It wasn’t that he disliked cats, but he was just as glad that the “boys” wouldn’t be sitting in on the conversation. He thought he could detect an itchiness beginning in the corner of his left eye, which was probably already turning red.

Mrs. Knape sat on the sofa. “Now,” she said. “About Ty Berry.”

“What about him?” Rhodes asked, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Rubbing would only make things worse, as he knew from experience.

Mrs. Knape leaned forward confidentially. “I’m sure he was behind the whole thing.”

Rhodes wasn’t sure exactly what whole thing she was talking about. So he took a wild guess.

“Do you mean you think he killed himself?”

“Of course. That would be just like him. After he’d taken everything he could from the cemeteries, what else could he do? He knew you’d catch up to him sooner or later, so he took the only way out that was left to him. The poor man.”

She said the last words without the least trace of sympathy as far as Rhodes could tell. Or irony, for that matter.
She seemed so satisfied with her version of events that Rhodes almost hated to spoil her evening for her. But he figured he had to. It was his job.

First he had to sneeze, however. When he was finished with that, he said, “Ty Berry didn’t kill himself.”

“How do you know that?”

“There was no weapon near his body. Or anywhere else around.”

“Well, of course there wouldn’t be a weapon. He probably disposed of it.”

“Before or after he killed himself?”

Mrs. Knape sat up straight, her spine stiff as an ironing board.

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Sheriff.”

Rhodes apologized. He didn’t generally resort to sarcasm. He told himself that it was the itching in his eyes that made him do it.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Knape said, “he was a clever man. I’m sure he could have found a way to get rid of the weapon.”

Rhodes decided he wouldn’t argue. He knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Let’s say he did commit suicide,” Rhodes said. “How can we prove that he was stealing the things from the cemeteries?”

“Oh, that,” Mrs. Knape said with a small, satisfied smile. “Why, that’s the easy part.”

9

W
HAT FAYE KNAPE PURPORTED TO KNOW WAS THAT TY
Berry had been, as she put it, “in cahoots with” an antique dealer named Richard Rascoe. The two of them were using Rascoe’s store to “fence the goods.”

Rhodes thought she might have been watching a few too many old cop movies on television, though he didn’t say so. Instead he told her that though the name sounded vaguely familiar, he didn’t think he’d ever met Richard Rascoe.

“That’s because you’re not an antique collector,” Mrs. Knape said.

Rhodes said that she was right about that. He didn’t have much time for hobbies, though he did like to watch old movies when he had the time. Which wasn’t often.

“If you collected antiques,” she told him, “you’d know all about Richard Rascoe. He has a store in Thurston, and he’s been written up in the newspaper.”

Rhodes sneezed, wiped his nose with a tissue, and remembered
then where he’d heard Rascoe’s name. It had been several months earlier. Ivy had told him about the new store that was opening down in Thurston, a little town in the southern part of the county.

There was even less left of Thurston than there was of Clearview, and some of the local citizens had gotten the idea that one way to bring some business back to town might be to fix up some of the old buildings and rent them out, dirt cheap, as antique stores. A lot of small Texas towns on or near highways had made similar efforts, and some of those efforts had actually paid off. Rhodes wondered why Clearview didn’t try something like that before the rest of the downtown buildings collapsed.

While Rhodes hadn’t noticed any special growth boom in Thurston the last time he’d been through there, the refurbished buildings did look good, and there were at least two or three cars parked along the street, maybe in front of Rascoe’s store, though Rhodes hadn’t paid it any special attention.

“So you think this Rascoe and Ty Berry were engaged in the illegal sale of cemetery artifacts,” Rhodes said.

“That’s right,” Mrs. Knape said. “There’s not any doubt about it. I saw some of the goods right there in Mr. Rascoe’s store.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Rhodes asked, just before he sneezed again.

“Bless you. I was going to call. But I wanted to go back one more time and have another look just to make sure.”

“And you haven’t gone yet?”

“No. I was planning to go tomorrow. But I’m sure I’m right. There’s really no question about it.”

It didn’t seem likely to Rhodes that anyone would be
stupid enough to display items from local cemeteries in a store that was practically sitting by the highway.

“How did you identify the items?” he asked.

“Oh, it was easy. There’s an angel there from the Kennedy Cemetery. I knew it immediately.”

“How?”

“Why, Kennedy’s my maiden name. My father and mother are both buried in the Kennedy Cemetery. I visit their graves at least once a week, and I’ve seen everything in the cemetery many times.”

She sounded convincing. Rhodes thought it would be a good idea to have a talk with Rascoe, though he still believed it was stupid to be displaying something stolen from a cemetery not more than fifteen miles away. Rascoe must have known someone would recognize it. He said as much to Mrs. Knape.

“I’m sure he knew,” she said. “But he didn’t really intend for anyone to see the angel. It was in a back room that had a little sign saying ‘Employees Only’ on the door.”

Rhodes couldn’t resist asking why she’d gone through the door.

She wasn’t the least abashed by his question. “Those little back rooms are where dealers always keep some of their best things, the kind of things they’re saving for their big-city clients who drive from Dallas or Houston. Naturally I wasn’t going to let a little thing like a sign keep me from looking in that room.”

Rhodes said he wasn’t aware that she was a collector.

“I collect china and glassware,” she said. “I have some wonderful R. S. Prussia pieces in the dining room. I’d be glad to show you if you’d like to see them.”

Rhodes said that he might like to see them some other
time and asked if she would be willing to identify the angel.

“Of course. We can’t let Ty Berry and Richard Rascoe get away with their little scam any longer.”

“There’s just one more thing,” Rhodes said. “Assuming that the angel is from the Kennedy Cemetery, you haven’t told me how I’m supposed to prove that Rascoe got it from Ty Berry.”

Mrs. Knape looked shocked that Rhodes could make such a ridiculous statement.

“Where else would he have gotten it?” she asked, as if that settled the matter for good and all.

“From whoever took it. I don’t see any proof that it was Berry.”

“Well,” Mrs. Knape said. “I never. Being called a liar is very insulting, Sheriff.”

“I didn’t say you were a liar. I just said that there was nothing to connect Berry to the angel.”

“Well, I’m sure there is. Since he’s the one who stole it, there’s no question that the proof is there. You’re the sheriff, so it’s up to you to find the connection.”

“If there is one,” Rhodes said.

Mrs. Knape’s face was getting red. “There is one. I know there is. And you’d better find it. I have a lot of friends in this county, Sheriff, and we’ll remember this at the next election.”

There it was, Rhodes thought, everyone’s favorite threat: do what we want, or we’ll vote you out of office. Unfortunately, what people wanted didn’t always fit the facts. He was willing to believe that Rascoe had the angel in his store, but he didn’t think Berry had anything to do with its being there. Berry had been entirely too vehement about protection for the cemeteries to have participated in any
looting. And he certainly hadn’t killed himself, not unless someone had taken the pistol away.

Rhodes thought about that for a second. It was actually possible, if not likely, that something like that could have happened. Berry could have shot himself at the edge of the grave, dropped the pistol, and fallen in. Someone could have picked up the gun and removed it from the scene.

But Rhodes had never heard of a suicide shooting himself in the middle of the forehead. Again, it was possible. But it was unlikely in the extreme, no matter what Mrs. Knape might like to think.

“I’ll do what I can,” he told her. “But I can’t promise things will work out the way you want them to.”

“It’s not that I want them to work out any certain way,” she said. “That’s just the way they are.”

“We’ll see,” Rhodes said.

He stood up, and Mrs. Knape walked him to the door. As soon as he was outside, he started rubbing his eyes.

10