A Romantic Way to Die (2 page)

2

A
FTER A TOO-LONG WAIT IN LINE, RHODES PAID FOR HIS BOOK (glad to get the Wal-Mart discount), left the store, and drove to the Blacklin County Jail, which resembled something left over from the nineteenth century with its red, rough, weathered stone walls and barred windows. But it looked much older than it actually was. It had been built in the 1920s, rather than the 1820s, but even at that it was one of the older jails currently in use in the state. Many other counties had built spanking-new “law enforcement centers” that were chock-full of all sorts of helpful new gadgets the Blacklin County commissioners had decided that their law officers didn’t really need at the present time. They pointed out happily that the jail had passed its last inspection by the state, and that was good enough for them.

It was good enough for Rhodes, too, since he didn’t have much faith in gadgets. The prisoners hadn’t suffered any particular deprivation that he was aware of, not unless you counted the fact that they didn’t have satellite TV or that they’d recently been terrorized by a ghost. But the ghost was gone now, unofficially exorcized by Rhodes, and things were pretty much back to normal, or what passed for normal in the Blacklin County Jail.

Rhodes went inside, and Hack Jensen, the dispatcher, looked up. Then he looked over at Lawton, the jailer, who was dusting off Rhodes’s desk. Lawton stopped dusting and watched Hack expectantly, which Rhodes knew was a bad sign. Something was going on, and if things went the way they usually did, it would take him a lot longer than it should have to get the whole story out of the two of them. They got an unseemly pleasure out of making him extract the information from them bit by bit, and the longer they could drag out the process, the better they liked it.

“Glad you could make it in today, Sheriff,” Hack said.

The dispatcher was tall and thin and wore a narrow moustache that was nearly completely gray. He reminded Rhodes of Bud Abbott, whom Rhodes had seen only in the old black-and-white movies in which he teamed up with Lou Costello, to whom, by a pleasant coincidence, Lawton bore a chubby resemblance. The significance of the resemblance wasn’t lost on Rhodes, who sometimes thought that Hack and Lawton would have made a great team if vaudeville hadn’t died.

“Yeah, Sheriff,” Lawton said, grinning. “Glad to see you.”

Rhodes went over to his desk, and Lawton moved away so Rhodes could sit down.

“What’s been going on?” Rhodes said, more to set things in motion than in any expectation of an actual answer. “No more ghosts, I hope.”

Hack looked thoughtful. “Could be a ghost, I guess. What do you think, Lawton?”

Lawton shook his head. “Nope. Couldn’t be a ghost. Ghosts can’t use telephones.” He scratched his head. “Or can they?”

Hack looked chagrined, and Rhodes knew why. Lawton had made a rookie mistake and, without intending to, had revealed that the problem, whatever it was, involved telephones. Hack had probably been counting on keeping that information back for at least another five minutes.

Rhodes pressed his advantage and took what he hoped was a logical guess.

“Have there been any prank calls I should know about?”

Hack gave Lawton a look that could have peeled three coats of varnish off an oak armoire.

Lawton hung his head.

“Dang,” he said.

Rhodes didn’t smile. It wouldn’t do to have them thinking he felt as if he’d won. They’d both sulk all day if that happened.

“I thought I’d heard something about that,” he said, giving them an out to save their pride.

“Who told you?” Lawton asked, relieved to be off the hook. “It was Pearl Taylor, I’ll bet. Where’d you see her?”

“I’ve been out at the Wal-Mart,” Rhodes said. “Checking out the size of the crowd at the book signing.”

That was more or less true, and Rhodes was hoping that Lawton wouldn’t notice he hadn’t mentioned seeing Pearl Taylor or anyone else.

“That Pearl,” Lawton said. “I guess she had to go out there and see Terry Don Coslin, just like nearly ever’body in town.”

“Ever‘body but us,” Hack said. “We didn’t get to go, not even when there’s a big celebrity in town. Somebody has to stay here and see to the jail and the prisoners and be sure the calls get answered. That’s the way it always is. We work hard and keep the county goin’, but we never seem to get in on the excitement.”

“Boy, you got that right,” Lawton said. “I guess the last time we got in on anything was the ghost, and that was because he was right here in the jail. If it was something we had to go out and see, we’d just be left out like we always are.”

Rhodes knew that he had to cut them off. If they got started on that theme, they could go on for hours.

“About those phone calls,” he said.

“Who else was out there at Wal-Mart?” Hack asked. “What did they have to say?”

Rhodes wasn’t going to get caught that easily.

“I’d rather hear what the callers told you,” he said. “You know how it is when you’re in a crowd. Sometimes people talk just to let everyone else hear them, and it’s hard to get a straight story.”

“Yeah,” Lawton said. “Pearl Taylor’s like that. There never was a woman liked to talk as much as she does. I thought Hack wasn’t ever gonna get her off the line.”

“She wasn’t the prank caller, though,” Rhodes said, pretty sure that he was safe in saying so. Pearl liked to talk, all right, but she wasn’t widely known for her sense of humor.

“Nope,” Hack said. “She was the one got the call. And she wasn’t the only one.” He checked his computer log. “We’ve already had three other calls about that contest.”

Rhodes almost made the mistake of asking what contest Hack was talking about, but he caught himself in time. Instead he asked who else had called.

“Rose Gentry, Martha Rutherford, and Henrietta Bayam,” Hack said. “They all got calls saying they’d won.”

“’Course they’d already called the radio station,” Lawton said. “That’s why they called here.”

Hack glared at him. It was Hack’s job to tell the story. Lawton was just supposed to help him string Rhodes along. And now Lawton had made another mistake and revealed that the radio station was somehow involved.

“K-Vue?” Rhodes asked, using the station’s nickname, which was based on the station’s way of pronouncing the call letters KVUE.

“You know of any other radio stations in town?” Hack asked. “Or the county, for that matter?”

Rhodes admitted he didn’t know of any.

“Wait a second,” Lawton said, looking suspicious. “Didn’t Pearl tell you about the radio station?”

Rhodes shook his head. “I don’t think she said a thing about it.”

“Well, she should’ve,” Hack said. “She wanted to blame the station at first. So did the others. It sounded like a real contest to all of ’em.”

Rhodes was beginning to get the picture.

“Pearl didn’t tell me what she was supposed to have won,” he said.

“She was prob’ly too excited at seein’ Terry Don in person,” Hack said. “That was what the contest was all about, more or less.”

Rhodes thought he had just about all the pieces to the puzzle now.

“Somebody who was supposed to be from the radio station called Pearl and those others to tell them they’d won a date with Terry Don Coslin,” he said.

“Yeah,” Hack said. “And those women were pretty upset when they found out it wasn’t the truth, let me tell you.”

“They would’ve known there wasn’t any contest if they’d listened to the radio,” Lawton said. “There hasn’t been a word about it on the air.”

Rhodes looked at the little TV set on Hack’s desk. It was tuned in to
The Young and the Restless.
The sound was turned off, but Rhodes could see a man wearing a moustache and a serious expression. He was deep in conversation with a blond woman.

“We listen to the radio now and then,” Lawton said defensively. “Which you’d know if you stayed around here more. It’s about the only way to get any news in this place, since we don’t ever get to go out. Not that there’s been a good reporter at that station since Red Rogers got killed.”

“I sort of miss old Red,” Hack said. “Even if he was a bee in the sheriff’s bonnet.”

“Let’s get back to the contest,” Rhodes said. “Did any of those women recognize the voice of the person who called them?”

“Nope,” Hack said. “They couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Just said it was a nice voice, kinda soft, but not too soft. Kinda low, but not too low. When they called the K-Vue, they got the word that nobody from there had called them. That’s when they called here.”

“Sounds to me like somebody tryin’ to make trouble for Vernell and that writers’ conference she’s havin’,” Lawton said. “Why anybody’d want to do that beats me. It’s good publicity for the whole county. There was even somethin’ about it on the news out of Dallas last night.”

Rhodes hadn’t seen the news, but he knew that Vernell’s conference had been getting a lot of attention. She’d managed to get several fairly well known writers of historical romances to take part, and she’d also landed Jeanne Arnot, a New York agent who’d sold so many books, including Vernell’s, to so many different publishers that she was called the “Queen of Love.” And of course there was the star attraction: Terry Don Coslin.

“Somebody’s got it in for Vernell, that’s for sure,” Hack said. “Or maybe for the radio station. Find out who it is, and you’ll find out who’s been makin’ those calls.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rhodes said, though he really didn’t think there was any way to find out who the caller had been. “Don’t any of those women have caller ID?”

“Blocked,” Hack said.

“What about that call-back deal? Star six-nine.”

“Blocked that, too.”

“It figures,” Rhodes said.

As soon as someone came up with something that might be helpful to law enforcement, someone else found out a way around it. In his more pessimistic moments, Rhodes suspected that it was all part of a conspiracy by the phone company. First they sold you the caller ID. Then they sold people a way to block it. Then they found a way to keep your phone from accepting blocked calls and sold you that. Next they’d be advertising a way to get blocked calls through whatever was keeping them out. And then … he didn’t even want to think about it. Besides, there wasn’t just a single phone company now. There were lots of phone companies. So there couldn’t be any conspiracy.

“What’s Deputy Grady working on?” he asked, to change the subject.

“She’s down in Thurston,” Hack said. “Somebody broke into an antique store down there last night. I don’t think they took any antiques, but there was some money in the cash register. They got that.”

“Kids, most likely,” Lawton said. “Didn’t know what an antique was.”

“Any vandalism?” Rhodes asked.

“Not to speak of,” Hack told him. “Not unless you count the broken window.”

“I don’t think I will,” Rhodes said. “Count it, I mean.”

“If Pearl Taylor calls back, can I tell her you’re on the case?”

“You do that,” Rhodes said.

But he didn’t really have any intention of doing anything. Prank callers were almost impossible to catch, and it all seemed harmless enough. It was irritating to the women who had been called, but it wasn’t exactly a major crime. Instead of worrying about it, he sat at his desk, put on his glasses, and got busy with his paperwork.

3

T
HE REST OF THE DAY WAS FULL OF THE USUAL KINDS OF things that a sheriff’s office in a small county had to deal with. Nothing exciting, but time-consuming nevertheless: cows wandering loose on county roads and posing a danger to the traffic, drivers running into ditches or into the loose cattle or through someone’s fence, neighbors getting into loud arguments over pets or property lines, a possibly rabid possum terrorizing homeowners just outside of town, calls saying that someone had been shooting at mailboxes and road signs out near the Milsby community.

Rhodes didn’t have to deal with any of those things himself. Ruth Grady or Buddy Reynolds responded to the calls and calmed the callers, tried to find the owners of the livestock, put a stop to the arguments, and trapped the possum, which was to be held for observation by Dr. Slick, one of the local vets. The possum didn’t look rabid to Rhodes, but then he didn’t know much about that kind of thing, and it was always a good idea to be careful.

When he got home that evening, Ivy was already there. The first thing she said when he walked through the door was, “Did you get my book?”

Rhodes brought his hand from behind his back and showed her the book.

“Signed by Terry Don Coslin himself,” he said. “Get away, Yancey.”

Yancey was Rhodes’s Pomeranian, and his one talent was barking. That, and circling around Rhodes’s ankles trying to take a nip at them.

“He’s just excited to see you,” Ivy said.

Yancey continued barking, circling, and nipping. Rhodes sighed and handed the book to Ivy, who opened it to see what Terry Don and Vernell had written.

“Did you read this inscription?” Ivy asked.

Rhodes hadn’t. He hadn’t even thought about reading it. He nudged Yancey aside with one foot and moved to look over Ivy’s shoulder.

Vernell had written “To Ivy with all best wishes” above her signature.

Terry Don had written “To Ivy, the woman with the nice name.”

“Wasn’t that sweet?” Ivy said.

Rhodes said he guessed it was.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” Ivy asked. “Because he’s not a threat to you.”

“Are you sure? He’s got muscles you wouldn’t believe.”

Ivy closed the book and looked at the cover.

“I believe,” she said.

Rhodes nudged Yancey away with his foot. Yancey kept yapping.

“I think I’d better feed Speedo,” Rhodes said. “Give you a little time alone with Terry Don.”

Ivy hit him in the shoulder, but she didn’t try to stop him. He went out into the back yard to get Speedo’s dish. Yancey bounded out the door behind him. Besides barking and nipping at Rhodes, Yancey liked barking and running around with Speedo, who was at least partially a border collie and considerably larger than Yancey, who pretended not to notice the difference. Or maybe he really didn’t notice, Rhodes thought. Brain power wasn’t one of Yancey’s assets.