A Romantic Way to Die (3 page)

It was a cool fall evening, and Rhodes could see the first stars beginning to appear through the bare branches of the pecan trees whose leaves covered the ground. Rhodes wasn’t fond of raking leaves, and they didn’t seem to bother Speedo, whose real name was Mr. Earl and who bounded around the yard with Yancey yipping and nipping along behind.

Rhodes filled Speedo’s bowl with Old Roy dog food and stood for a minute, enjoying the evening and the dogs. Then he called Yancey and went back inside, looking forward to a quiet evening at home.

Supper was chili, made with extra lean beef, which Rhodes insisted on eating with beans, a habit that would have disgusted any chili purists who caught him at it. Rhodes didn’t care. He liked beans in his chili, and he didn’t think any chili purists were likely to happen by.

While they ate, he and Ivy discussed the writers’ conference. Yancey had finally settled down and gone to sleep so that it was quiet enough for talking.

“I wouldn’t mind going to that conference, myself,” Ivy said. “Except that I’m not a writer.”

“What will they be doing?” Rhodes asked, having no idea of what went on at a writers’ conference.

“They’ll talk about writing,” Ivy said. “Vernell has some really well-known people on the program.”

“And people come to listen to them?”

“Lots of people,” Ivy said. “Vernell filled every spot she had. She could have sold more places, but there just wasn’t room.”

Rhodes crumbled some crackers into his chili and said that he didn’t know so many people wanted to be romance writers.

“You’d be surprised,” Ivy said. “I’ll bet there are twenty women in Clearview with manuscripts stuck away somewhere. Maybe more than that. Everybody wants to write a book.”

“I don’t,” Rhodes said.

“You’re the exception, then.”

“You mean you want to write one?”

Ivy shook her head and laughed. “No, not me. I’m an exception, too. I just like reading them.”

“But you said you wouldn’t mind going to the conference.”

“That’s because I’d like to meet the writers. Marian Willoughby will be there, and Serena Thayer. Belinda Marshall, too.”

Rhodes spooned chili into his mouth and said nothing. He’d never read a book by any of the women Ivy had mentioned. He’d read Vernell’s book only because she lived in Clearview and was a friend of Ivy’s.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like to read. It was just that he rarely had time, and when he did have a spare moment, he was happier watching a bad old movie than reading a book.

“And Terry Don Coslin will be there, too,” Rhodes said. “Don’t forget Terry Don.”

“I’m not interested in him at all,” Ivy said.

“I don’t blame you. Not when you have a guy like me around the house.”

“Right.”

“So you’re only interested in the writers.”

“Of course. I think writers must be fascinating people.”

“Probably not much different from anyone else,” Rhodes said.

“I’d think they have better imaginations.”

“Speaking of imagination,” Rhodes said, “somebody in this town sure has one.”

He told her about the “contest.” When he was done, he asked if she could think of anyone who might have a grudge against Vernell. Or against the radio station, for that matter.

“I’d think nearly everyone in town would have a grudge against that station,” Ivy said. “The music they play is pretty bad.”

Rhodes had to agree. About a year previously, KVUE had switched to the “Young Country” format, which meant that no song over five minutes old was ever played, and no performer over the age of thirty got any airtime. That meant that no performer Rhodes had ever heard of got played, except the Dixie Chicks. There was nothing wrong with the Dixie Chicks.

“I can’t go after everyone in town,” Rhodes said. “That’s too many suspects. What about people with a grudge against Vernell?”

“I can’t think of anyone, except maybe Henrietta Bayam.”

Henrietta had been one of those who called to complain, but that didn’t mean anything. She might have called to avert suspicion.

“What about Henrietta?” Rhodes asked.

“There was quite a bit of gossip about her and Vernell. Are you sure you haven’t heard?”

Rhodes pushed away his empty chili bowl.

“I’m sure,” he said.

Ivy took a sip of water and set her glass back on the table.

“Henrietta told a few people that Vernell stole the idea for
Wild Texas Wind
from her.”

“How could she do that?” Rhodes asked.

“They were in a writers’ group, and—”

“Hold it. What’s a writers’ group?”

“People get together and read chapters of their books to each other. That way they get feedback and criticism.”

Rhodes couldn’t imagine people sitting around and reading chapters of unsold books to each other, so he found it hard to believe that there was a writers’ group in Clearview. Ivy assured him that there was.

“In fact,” she said, “there are two. One for romance writers and one for mystery writers. Your friend Clyde Ballinger is in that one.”

Rhodes knew that Ballinger had an excessive fondness for old paperbacks with titles like
Bargain in Blood and A Touch of Death
and
The Jugger,
but he’d had no idea that Ballinger aspired to write a book like the ones he read.

“I told you,” Ivy said. “Everyone wants to write a book. The people who aren’t writing romance novels are writing mysteries.”

“It must pay awfully well,” Rhodes said.

“I don’t have any idea.”

“It doesn’t matter. So Henrietta must’ve thought Vernell stole her idea from something that she read at one of those group meetings.”

“That’s it,” Ivy said. “I don’t think Henrietta has spoken to Vernell since the book was published.”

“I wonder if Henrietta’s going to the writers’ conference,” Rhodes said.

Ivy didn’t know. “You could call her and ask if you really want to know.”

Rhodes didn’t want to call Henrietta. He thought it was silly to have made the prank calls, but he wasn’t really interested in finding out who’d done it. What harm could a few calls do?

“You couldn’t call Henrietta, anyway,” Ivy said. “I just remembered. She wouldn’t be at home if she went to the conference. The programs started tonight, and everyone’s staying out there at the college.”

“Why not just come back to town after the meetings and sleep in your own bed?” Rhodes asked.

“That way you’d miss out on all the association with the writers.”

“Oh,” Rhodes said.

He decided to forget about the prank calls.

“Are there any good movies on tonight?” he asked.

“If you’ll help me clean up the dishes,” Ivy said, “I’ll tell you.”

It turned out that there was a good movie on, one of Rhodes’s favorite westerns,
The Comancheros,
and he finished helping Ivy just in time for them to get in on the beginning. After John Wayne had ridden off into the sunset, with Stuart Whitman and Ina Balin waving good-bye, Rhodes and Ivy went to bed.

“Just think,” Ivy said as she lay back on her pillow. “All those women out there in Obert have to settle for sleeping in the same building with Terry Don Coslin, but I have you.”

“I’m glad you appreciate me,” Rhodes said.

Ivy grinned. “You bet I do,” she said.

Rhodes dreamed that he was a rugged frontiersman who wore fringed leather pants but no shirt. His pecs were hard as oak, and his flat, ridged stomach was equally hard. He was racing along astride a straining stallion, in hot pursuit of a woman whose long hair streamed out behind her as she galloped ahead of him. She looked a little like Ina Balin would have looked in
The Comancheros
if she’d taken her hair down.

He was just about to catch her when the telephone woke him.

“You better get out to Obert quick,” Hack said when Rhodes managed to answer. “We got big trouble.”

“How big?” Rhodes asked.

“Henrietta Bayam’s dead. And there’s a naked woman runnin’ around loose.”

“I’m already on the way,” Rhodes said.

4

T
HE COLLEGE CAMPUS AT OBERT SAT ON THE TOP OF OBERT’S hill. The hill was the highest point between Houston and Dallas, which was why Obert had at one time been considered as a possible location of the Texas state capital. Austin had won out, however, and Obert had sunk into an extended period of obscurity, its only claim to fame being the small private college, which had been founded shortly after the Civil War and had struggled along under the management of one denomination or other for nearly a hundred years before closing its doors forever in the early 1960s.

The campus had decayed steadily for a long time after that, until it had been bought by a rare-book dealer named Simon Graham, who planned to restore it and use it as a place to hold conferences and meetings. Graham’s plans had been brought to a sudden halt by his murder, and it seemed that the campus would continue its decline. But then Tom Chatterton, a wealthy antiques dealer from Dallas, had bought it and finished the restoration work.

The old main building was the only original building left on the site, but other buildings had been added over the years of the college’s life. These included a dormitory, a gymnasium, and a home that had been the president’s residence. Graham had managed to restore only the latter building before his murder, but Chatterton had seen the project through to the end. The main building, the dormitory, and the gym had been set to rights at considerable expense, and the campus was now open for business for the first time in nearly forty years.

Vernell’s conference was just the first of many that Chatterton hoped to host on his rejuvenated property, and he was in charge of all the arrangements. Vernell had worked closely with him, and it was really his conference as much as it was hers.

Things hadn’t gotten off to a rousing start, Rhodes thought as he drove around the wide curve that led through the heart of Obert (a post office, a combination barbershop/feedstore, and several deserted buildings) to the old campus.

As best as Rhodes could understand the story from Hack, whom Rhodes had called again once he got dressed, there had been a noisy fight in one of the dormitory rooms after the conference had shut down for the night. The door to the room was closed when people got there, and it was quiet inside. No one had wanted to open the door, but someone finally had, and they found Henrietta lying on the floor.

“I’d barely got the phone hung up from that one,” Hack told Rhodes, “when it rang again. I didn’t even have time to call you.”

“What was the second call?” Rhodes asked.

“That was the one about the naked woman. It was Miz Appleby that called. You remember her?”

Rhodes was acquainted with all the Applebys, including the abusive husband, Cy, who was now a resident at one of the state’s penitentiary units, thanks to Rhodes. Rhodes thought that Cy’s imprisonment had done his family a world of good. Besides his wife, there was a daughter, Twyla Faye, and twin sons, Claude and Clyde.

“I remember Mrs. Appleby,” Rhodes said. “Why did she call?”

“Well, she’s the one who saw the naked woman. Miz Appleby was gettin’ a breath of air when she saw something in her yard. It was pretty dark, but Miz Appleby said there was enough of a moon for her to tell it was a woman runnin’ by, not wearin’ a stitch.”

Rhodes pulled up in front of the dormitory, a long, one-story wooden structure that sat to one side of the old main building, which was silhouetted against the night sky like the castle in a black-and-white Frankenstein movie.

All the lights were on in the dormitory, and when Rhodes got out of the county car, a man came out of the dorm to meet him. The man was short, bald, and had a neatly trimmed white beard. He was wearing a khaki shirt and khaki cargo pants. Rhodes had never seen him in person, but he’d seen his picture in the Clearview newspaper.

“I’m Tom Chatterton,” the man said, extending his hand. “No relation to the English poet.”

Rhodes wasn’t sure what that meant. English poets hadn’t been his strong point in school. He shook hands and introduced himself.

“Everyone’s a little distracted in there,” Chatterton said with a glance over his shoulder.

Sudden death had a way of distracting people, Rhodes thought.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t really know. There’s a woman in one of the rooms, and she’s dead. I do know that much. I don’t know what happened to her.”

Rhodes thought about the naked woman that Mrs. Appleby had seen.

“What about everyone else?” he asked. “All present and accounted for?”

“I believe so,” Chatterton said. He seemed a little distracted himself. “Why don’t you come inside and see what you can find out.”

“I need to see the body first,” Rhodes said. “Is there a back door?”

“Yes,” Chatterton said, and led the way around the side of the dormitory.

The grass was damp, and Rhodes could feel the chilly dew clinging to the bottom of his pants legs as they brushed against his socks. The yellow light from the dormitory windows threw yellow rectangles across the dark ground.

The back door was locked, but Chatterton had a key.

“Is this door always locked?” Rhodes asked.

“Yes, but it’s easily opened from the inside in case of fire,” Chatterton said, as if Rhodes might be there on a routine fire safety inspection.

They went inside into a narrow hallway. Henrietta’s room was the last one at the end of the hall.

“Right here,” Chatterton said, pushing open the door.

The room was small, with two single beds, not much more than cots, really, and a little dresser with a mirror hanging above it. The mirror was slightly askew, and one drawer of the dresser was open about a quarter of an inch. The door to a tiny closet stood open, and Rhodes could see clothes hanging inside.

He looked over at the window screen. It was crooked, as if it had been opened and carelessly shut.

Henrietta Bayam was lying on the floor. Her head was near the dresser, and her neck was turned at an odd angle. There was a small pool of blood under her head. Rhodes stepped into the room and bent down over Henrietta. There was no question in his mind that she was dead, but he felt for a pulse nevertheless. There was none, of course. Henrietta’s flesh felt only slightly cool to his touch.