Survivors Will Be Shot Again (21 page)

And what about Will Smalls? He was the main person Rhodes wanted to talk to again. He was next on the list.

When Rhodes finished cleaning the pistol and thinking things over, he realized that once again he'd missed lunch. He pulled one end of the garbage bag over the newspapers and paper towels left on the table and bagged everything up. He took the bag out to the trash bin and tossed it in.

Speedo, the border collie who lived in the Styrofoam igloo in the backyard, was lying in the shade of a pecan tree. He came over to Rhodes for a head rub and looked around as if he thought something was missing.

“Yancey's in the house,” Rhodes said. “I don't have time to play.”

Speedo gave him a reproachful look and went back to lie down in his shady spot. Rhodes went back inside and washed up before taking a look into the refrigerator.

What he saw there didn't encourage him. Ivy had been on a healthy-eating kick for a long time now, and while Rhodes couldn't really tell much difference between turkey bologna and what he considered the real thing, the thought of it put him off. There wasn't much else to be had, however, so he made a sandwich with the turkey bologna on 100 percent whole wheat bread, adding light mayo and reduced-fat cheese. It was better than nothing, but not by much. If he'd had a Dr Pepper, that would have improved things, but he hadn't given in on that principle yet.

He cleaned up the kitchen and decided that there was plenty of time left in the day to drive back to the southeast side of the county and talk to Will Smalls again. If someone had come back to the house to snoop around, maybe Smalls had seen him. Or shot him, for that matter. It would be a good idea to find out if either of those things had happened. It might be a good idea to talk to Gene Gunnison again, too, while he was in the neighborhood.

It was time to start fitting some of those puzzle pieces into their correct places.

 

Chapter 17

Gus-Gus and Jackie were glad to see Rhodes again. Will Smalls was not. The dogs ran out from under the porch and came to greet Rhodes with wagging tails and toothy dog grins. Rhodes rubbed their heads while Will sat on the porch in a metal folding chair and glowered.

“I don't see why you came back here, Sheriff,” Will said by way of greeting. “Not unless you brought a warrant with you.”

“Don't bother to get up,” Rhodes said, even though Will had made no move to do so. “I won't take up much of your time, and I don't have a warrant.”

Gus-Gus and Jackie saw that Rhodes wasn't going to play with them, so they went back under the porch where it was shady. Rhodes stood in the yard while he talked to Will.

“If you don't have a warrant, you're just wasting your time,” Will said.

“Maybe not. You know Riley Farmer?”

“Yeah, I know him. He's Melvin's buddy. Why?”

“Somebody killed him,” Rhodes said.

Will leaned forward in the chair. “The hell you say.”

Genuine surprise or just good acting? Rhodes liked to think he could tell the difference, but this time he wasn't sure.

“Just like Melvin,” Rhodes said. “You know anything about growing marijuana?”

“Sheriff, I don't know what you're talking about or what you're getting at. Marijuana? Somebody's killed Riley? Sounds like you have yourself a real crime wave to handle, but it's got nothing to do with me.”

It was hot in the late afternoon, but Will seemed to be sweating from something besides the heat.

“I wish I was sure of that,” Rhodes said. “You've already lied to me once.”

“Dammit, Sheriff, you can accuse me of a lot of things, but you better not call me a liar.”

“I just did,” Rhodes said. “You might call it ‘misspeaking.'You told me that Joyce wanted you to stay here and keep an eye on things, but that wasn't the truth.”

“The hell you say.”

“You sure do like that expression.”

Will stood up. “I'm getting real tired of you, Sheriff. You aren't near as funny as you think you are.”

“People tell me that all the time,” Rhodes said.

“Well, they're damn sure right. You better leave now. I don't have anything else to say to you.”

“You don't want to tell me why you were lying to me?”

“I wasn't lying. Joyce told me to come out here. You can ask her.”

“I will,” Rhodes said, but he knew that as soon as he got out of sight, Will would call her so they could get their stories straight.

“Joyce said you had a key to the house,” Will said. “You might's well give it to me.”

Rhodes knew he wasn't going to have a use for the key, not the way Will was talking, so he fished it out of his pocket and handed it over.

“Riley Farmer went off with somebody in a pickup a couple of days ago,” Rhodes said, after he'd given Will the key. “It looked like yours.”

It turned out that Will did have something else to say after all. “Give it up, Sheriff. I haven't seen Riley Farmer in a long time, and there's a lot of pickups in this county that look a lot like mine.”

Rhodes hadn't thought he'd be able to get Will to break down and confess with such a transparent gambit, but it didn't hurt to try. It was time to change the subject.

“Anybody come snooping around the place while you've been on guard?” Rhodes asked.

Will sat back down. “Not that it's any of your business, but no. It's been real quiet, and I'd like it to stay that way. You go on now. I'm tired of talking to you.”

Rhodes was tired of talking to Will, too, and he didn't have any more questions at the moment, so he just said, “Thanks for your hospitality,” and left.

Gus-Gus and Jackie came running out from under the porch to see him off. It was nice to know that he still had at least two friends.

*   *   *

Gene Gunnison wasn't sitting on the porch when Rhodes drove up to his house. He was nowhere in sight. He was around somewhere, Rhodes knew, since his pickup was still sitting where it had been earlier. The boat had been removed from the bed and wasn't in sight. Maybe Gunnison had dragged the boat down to the creek and gone fishing. Rhodes walked to the pickup and looked around. There was a worn track down to the woods, and there was a little boat trailer beside the barn. It would be easy for someone Gunnison's size to get the boat on the trailer and pull it down to the creek, but it didn't seem likely that he'd take the trouble to pull the trailer back up to the barn. It didn't seem likely that he'd go fishing, for that matter.

“Sheriff?” Gunnison called from the front porch. Rhodes hadn't heard a door open or close. Gunnison was the quiet type. “What're you doing back here? I thought I told you I wasn't too sociable.”

It seemed like hardly anybody was ever glad to see the sheriff.

“I thought of a few more questions,” Rhodes said, and he walked back to the front of the house. By the time he got there, Gunnison was sitting in his chair with his booted foot on the upturned bucket.

“Must be nice to have a job like yours,” Gunnison said. “Driving around all day, pestering people and asking them questions.”

“It's not bad,” Rhodes said, “but it might be too sociable for you.”

“Ha ha.”

Rhodes had found yet another person who didn't think he was funny. Come to think of it, those people far outnumbered the ones who appreciated his little jokes by a few hundred to one. He wasn't even sure there was one. Sometimes Ivy laughed, but she might have been doing it just to make him feel better.

“I was wondering if you knew Riley Farmer,” Rhodes said.

“Don't know that I do. Why?”

“He's had a little bad luck,” Rhodes said.

Gunnison raised his foot about an inch off the bucket. “Haven't we all.”

“Riley's a little bit worse off than you,” Rhodes said. “He's dead.”

Gunnison lowered his foot. “That's too bad. You want to tell me why I should care?”

“Seems to me that whoever killed Riley might've killed Melvin. Melvin was your neighbor, so I thought you might've noticed some things going on around here. There's been a good bit of stealing, so that ties in with it, too, maybe. It's getting downright dangerous down here in this part of the county.”

“I'm not worried,” Gunnison said. “Nobody's gonna bother me.”

“Somebody bothered Riley Farmer. Met him outside his house and took him off and killed him.”

“Thing is,” Gunnison said after a few seconds passed in silence, “I didn't know Farmer very well. Just knew him to say hey to if I saw him, which was mighty damn seldom. It's too bad he's dead, but it's not like we were buddies or anything. Me and Melvin weren't, either. I don't know who killed 'em or why, but I won't miss 'em. I just want to be left alone.”

Some jays were cutting up down in the woods, but that was the only sound Rhodes heard. They were too far from the highway to hear the cars that passed, and if there were any cattle nearby, they were keeping quiet.

“Seems like you're pretty much alone, all right,” Rhodes said.

“Yep, and that's the way I like it. Hint, hint.”

“I take it you're bored with this conversation,” Rhodes said.

“You got that right.”

“In that case, I guess I'll be going.”

“Don't hurry back,” Gunnison said.

*   *   *

Rhodes had a lot to think about as he drove back to Clearview. He called Hack to let him know he was going off duty, and Hack didn't even question him about the body at Terry Allison's place. Rhodes figured that Buddy had come in and kept Hack in the loop.

It was just about time for supper, so Rhodes stopped at his house to see if Ivy had started to cook anything. She hadn't, because she was out in the front yard sweeping off the sidewalk.

“Working hard?” Rhodes asked.

“No. Just doing a little tidying up,” Ivy said.

“That can be hard work,” Rhodes said. “Why don't we go out to dinner again.”

To his surprise Ivy said that sounded like a good idea, so he decided to push his luck.

“How about going to the Round-Up?” he asked.

Ivy thought it over. “Well, all right. I suppose we can find something healthy on the menu there.”

Rhodes thought she was wrong about that, but he didn't say a discouraging word.

“You go out and play with Speedo,” Ivy said. “I'll get ready. It won't take a minute.”

She took the broom into the garage, and Rhodes went inside, figuring it would be more than a minute but not much. Ivy wasn't one to dawdle. Yancey was in the kitchen, and he hopped around and yipped to show how thrilled he was to see Rhodes. It was as if Rhodes had been away for years instead of a few hours. Rhodes knew that what really had Yancey excited wasn't that Rhodes had come home. It was that Yancey knew he'd get to go out into the backyard and torment Speedo for a while.

“That's right,” Rhodes said. “I came in to get you. Are you ready to go out?”

Yancey's yipping increased in volume.

“I thought so. Come on.”

As soon as Rhodes opened the screen door, Yancey shot past him, down the steps, and out into the yard, looking for the squeaky toy that the dogs played with. Speedo didn't have a chance. He was lying under the pecan tree, and he got up as quickly as he could, but Yancey had the advantage of knowing where the toy was. He ran to it and scooped it up before Speedo could get started.

Rhodes sat down on the top step and watched the dogs. Yancey was so small that he had trouble running in the grass, which Rhodes had to admit should have been cut a few days earlier. Speedo was much bigger and faster than Yancey, but he didn't catch up to the smaller dog too soon. It was as if he were considering his strategy or letting Yancey have his fun while he could.

Yancey tired out quickly and dropped the squeaky toy, which was a well-chewed yellow duck. Rhodes had two or three spares in the house, and it would soon be time to break out another one.

Yancey stood guard over the duck, panting a little as Speedo came up to snatch the toy away. When they played this game, sometimes he got it, and sometimes he didn't. This time he did, and he took off at a lope, running around the yard so fast that Yancey couldn't keep up, not that Yancey really tried. He was mainly interested in waiting until Speedo dropped the duck so he could swoop in and grab it.

Speedo pulled a dirty trick, however. He ran over and dropped the duck at the foot of the steps for Rhodes to pick up and throw to him. Rhodes picked it up and threw it as high and as straight up as he could.

“Jump ball!” he said.

The dogs both timed it pretty well and jumped together. Speedo was so big that he knocked Yancey a yard or so away and grabbed the ball in the air. Yancey rolled over and attacked.

Ivy came out the back door. “Sometimes I think you have more fun with that toy than those dogs do.”

Rhodes stood up. “I probably do. Come on, Yancey. Time to go inside.”

Speedo dropped the duck and trotted back to his favorite spot. Yancey did something that he'd never done before. He snatched up the duck and headed for the back steps at his top speed. Rhodes grinned and opened the door as Yancey bounded up the steps and into the house. Speedo took no notice, but Yancey didn't seem to care.

“He thinks he put one over on Speedo,” Rhodes said.

“Speedo let him,” Ivy said. “Sometimes it's easier that way.”

Rhodes thought there might be some hidden meaning there, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He said, “This isn't official business, so let's go in the Edsel. I haven't driven it lately, and I need to be sure the battery's okay.”

“That's fine with me,” Ivy said.

Rhodes had come by the Edsel at the same time he'd come by Yancey in the investigation of a murder case. It was kind of a package deal. The old car had been well maintained, and Rhodes liked to drive it now and then to be sure it stayed in working order. It was considered by a lot of people to have been one of the auto industry's biggest failures, but Rhodes liked it for its peculiarities, like the fish-mouth grille and the push-button automatic transmission with the buttons in the center of the steering wheel.