A Romantic Way to Die (6 page)

When he got into the trees, he had to be careful. Running through a woods in the dark could be hazardous to a person’s physical well-being, even if the person was carrying a flashlight, mainly because it was impossible to shine the light on the ground to see what was in front of you and to shine it on the tree limbs that reached out to grab you from all sides at the same time.

Rhodes elected to shine the light on the ground, which turned out to be a mistake. A limb that he didn’t see caught him just under the eye, popped his head backward, and brought him to a sudden stop.

“Hold it right there, you sorry window-peeping son of a bitch,” a man yelled, though not at Rhodes, who was standing in the dark woods rubbing his eye and wondering what had happened to the flashlight.

“If you even look like you’re gonna move, I’ll fill you full of number twelve buckshot,” the man yelled.

Rhodes looked down at his feet. The flashlight was there, sending a strong yellow beam through the wet leaves. Rhodes picked it up and shined it off to his left. He didn’t see any more treacherous-looking limbs, so he started walking toward where he’d heard the voice. The barking that Rhodes had heard earlier was louder.

A shotgun blasted. Rhodes ducked instinctively, though the shot passed well over him. Leaves and sticks pattered down on his head.

“Who’s that comin’ through there?” the voice yelled. “You better stop right where you are. That shot was just a warnin’. Don’t think I’m scared of two of you! I got three more shells in this here gun, and I’m loaded for bear!”

“Just hold your fire,” Rhodes said. “I’m the sheriff.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s right. You’re the sheriff, and I’m the Lone Ranger. You just stay right where you are. I’ve got your friend here in my sights, and if you show up yourself, I’ll let him have it.”

“Do that, and you’ll be spending your time in the county jail while you wait for a free ride to prison,” Rhodes said. “I’m fixing to come out of the trees, so you just hold your fire.”

“Be damned if I do. There’s not gonna be any more window-peeping around here. Just gonna be two dead window-peepers.”

“I don’t think so,” said a voice from the darkness behind the man with the shotgun.

Rhodes recognized the voice. Ruth Grady had arrived on the scene.

“Just lay the shotgun on the ground, sir,” Ruth said.

“Damn,” the voice said. “You know how to use that pistol, little lady?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” Ruth said. “Now lay the shotgun down and back away from it. Slowly.”

“Damn. I guess that really is the sheriff out there in those trees, then, and not some window-peeper. Am I right?”

“That you, Sheriff?” Ruth called.

“It’s me,” Rhodes said. He rubbed his eye. “What’s left of me.”

“Damn,” the voice said. “All right. I’m puttin’ it down. But don’t you let that window-peeper get away.”

“Don’t you worry about that, sir,” Ruth said. “I’ll take good care of him.”

Rhodes walked out of the trees and shined the flashlight on the scene. There was a house not too far away, and in its big back yard Ruth Grady stood, holding her pistol in a two-handed grip and pointing at a skinny man wearing overalls and no shirt. He was somewhere in his sixties, Rhodes guessed, and he was backing away from the shotgun which he’d laid at his feet as Ruth had told him to do.

And not too far from where Rhodes emerged from the trees was Terry Don Coslin, who looked as if he wished he’d never agreed to pay a visit to his old home county.

Terry Don didn’t sound sorry to be back in Blacklin County. He looked up at the dark sky and said, “You live in a city long enough, you forget how many stars there are up there.”

“You should come back more often,” Rhodes said.

Terry Don brought his gaze back to earth and turned to look at Rhodes.

“Maybe so. Didn’t I sign a book for you at the Wal-Mart this afternoon?”

“You did,” Rhodes said. “But we’re a long way from there now.”

“You damn sure are,” said the man in the overalls. “You’re on my property, is where you are, and I’d be within my rights if I shot the whole damn lot of you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Rhodes told him. “A law officer in pursuit of his duty”—he looked at Ruth “—or
her
duty can enter your property legally. It’s not like you have any fences up, except that one over there around your dog pen. You think you could get that dog to stop barking?”

“Keep it down, Grover!” the man yelled, and the dog stopped barking.

“Thanks,” Rhodes said, who really did appreciate it. His head was throbbing from being hit by the tree limb.

“You’re not welcome. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m damn well gonna build me a good strong fence around this whole place. It’s been like a damn parade through here tonight. People tramping all over the damn place, and peepin’ in my window besides. If you’re really the sheriff, and I guess you are, you might as well arrest that son of a bitch over there and take him away.”

“And the complaint would be?”

“Window-peepin’,” the man said. “Haven’t you been listenin’ to a damn word I’ve said?”

“I’ve been listening. Now I’m going to pick up your shotgun, Mr.—” Rhodes stopped, then continued. “I don’t think you’ve introduced yourself.”

“Billy Quentin is my name. And this is my property you’re on. You say it’s legal for you to be here, and maybe it is, for you. But it’s not for that damn window-peeper.”

Rhodes picked up the shotgun, and Ruth Grady relaxed her stance.

“I think you can put the sidearm away,” Rhodes told her. “Mr. Quentin isn’t going to hurt anybody.”

“Not unless it’s a window-peeper,” Quentin said.

“I think he means you,” Rhodes said to Coslin. “What are you doing out here?”

“I wasn’t window-peeping,” Terry Don said. “I was just taking a walk. I went back to the president’s house, but Chatterton was fussing around and talking so much that I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep. Besides, I was upset about what had happened to Henrietta. So I thought I’d go outside and walk around, get a look at all those stars up there. I was going to stay pretty much on the college campus, but I must’ve gotten lost.”

“Damn right you did,” Quentin said. “You’re on my property now. Damn window-peeper.”

“I wasn’t peeping in any windows,” Terry Don said evenly. “I didn’t even get close to your house.”

“Bullcorn. You’re the one that came by peepin’ on me a couple of hours ago, and you’re the one I caught out here this time. Don’t tell me you’re not a window-peeper.”

Terry Don didn’t look like a window-peeper to Rhodes, but then he’d known killers who looked like they might just have been elected president of a Sunday school class.

“You say someone was out here earlier?” Rhodes said to Quentin.

“Damn right there was. And that’s him.”

“How do you know? Did you see him up close?”

Quentin passed a hand under an overall strap and scratched his armpit.

“Well,” he said, “not exactly.”

“How exactly?” Rhodes asked.

Quentin hemmed and hawed and finally said, “There was damn sure somebody on my property. Grover was barkin’ his head off. But whoever it was, he was gone before I got out here with my shotgun.”

“So you didn’t actually see anybody.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Because it might even have been a woman who was running around down here earlier, not a man. Are you sure you didn’t see anybody?”

“It wasn’t any woman,” Quentin said. “It was that window-peeper. I caught up with him this time, and there he is. You oughta arrest him instead of standin’ around here wastin’ my time.”

Rhodes wasn’t going to arrest anyone, not just yet, not until he’d figured out what was going on. He told Terry Don to get on up the hill.

“I’ll be talking to you tomorrow,” he said. “I hope you’ll be sticking around the conference.”

“That’s what I’m getting paid for,” Terry Don said.

“All right, then. You can go on back up there.”

Terry Don turned and started back up the hill.

“You can’t just let him go like that,” Quentin protested.

“Yes I can,” Rhodes said. “I’m the sheriff.”

“Till the next election, you are. Then I’ll by God vote you out.”

Rhodes wished he had a dime for every time he’d heard that one, or a variation of it. But he didn’t say so. Instead he commended Quentin for his willingness to take part in the democratic process.

“Bullcorn,” Quentin said.

“That’s what some people think,” Rhodes conceded. “But I’m not one of them.”

Then he ejected the shells from the shotgun and handed it to Quentin.

“You’re gonna be sorry about this mess, Sheriff,” Quentin said.

“I probably will,” Rhodes said. “Are you through with that crime scene, Deputy Grady?”

“Not yet,” Ruth said. “But when I heard shooting, I thought I’d better get down here and check it out. Looks like it was a good thing I came.”

“Lucky for that damn window-peeper,” Quentin said.

“Lucky for you, too,” Rhodes told him. To Ruth he said, “I’ll meet you up there at the college in a little while. Right now I have to return a flashlight.”

They left Quentin standing there with his shotgun. Rhodes hadn’t gone far before Grover started barking again.

Rhodes heard Quentin say, “Oh, shut up, Grover,” and smiled in spite of himself.

8

“I
’D GUESS SHE FELL AND HIT HER HEAD ON THE CORNER OF the dresser,” Ruth Grady said.

She and Rhodes were standing in the room where Henrietta had died. The body had been removed, but there was still a stain on the floor where Henrietta’s head had lain.

The dormitory was quiet. Rhodes wondered just how many of the writers were asleep. Henrietta’s death must have disturbed a few of them, though they hadn’t really shown it.

“You think it was an accident, then?” Rhodes said.

“Not hardly. See that window screen over there?”

Rhodes nodded. He’d noticed it earlier.

“Somebody pushed it open and went out that way,” Ruth said. “There are signs on the outside, too.”

“Footprints?”

“We’re not that lucky. The grass is mashed down. That’s about all.” Ruth looked around the room. “Did you know she was naked under that robe?”

“I didn’t check,” Rhodes said. “Does it mean anything?”

“Maybe not. Maybe she was just getting ready for bed. But what if she and the somebody who went out that window were getting ready to make a little whoopie?”

“Terry Don?” Rhodes said.

“Or Chatterton.”

“He says he was working out in the parlor, getting things in order.”

“He says.”

“Right. I’ll make sure.”

“And there’s another possibility, too,” Ruth said.

“There is?”

“You don’t have to play innocent with me, Sheriff. You know as well as I do that there might have been another woman in here.”

“I don’t know about that. There would’ve been gossip about Henrietta if that were the case.”

“You don’t hear everything,” Ruth said.

“True. What about you?”

“I hadn’t heard anything about that. But it’s still a possibility.”

“I didn’t know about Henrietta’s feud with Vernell, either,” Rhodes said. “What about you?”

“I heard that story,” Ruth said. “And that brings up a question. Where was Vernell when this happened?”

“In her room.”

“She says.”

“So does Carrie Logan,” Rhodes said. “Her roomie.”

“Oh. Well, maybe Vernell didn’t do it, then. But I wouldn’t rule her out.”

“I won’t. What do you think happened here?”

Ruth took some Polaroid pictures from her shirt pocket.

“Look,” she said, handing one of them to Rhodes. “See the way she was lying?”

Rhodes took the photo and looked at it. It showed him what he’d already seen previously when he’d looked into the room with Chatterton.

“There’s a little blood under her head there,” he said. “The stain’s still on the floor.”

“I think she fell and hit her head on the corner of the dresser,” Ruth said. “And that’s what killed her. I guess Dr. White will let us know for sure.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t an accident.”

“That’s right. Someone was with her, and I think there was a struggle. See how the bed’s messed up?”

“Well, you said she was making whoopie,” Rhodes pointed out.

“That would mess up the covers, all right, but not exactly like they are now.”

Rhodes was tempted to ask Ruth how she knew, but he didn’t want her to think he was prying into her sex life. Besides, he thought she was right.

“You think someone came in and surprised her on the bed with someone else?”

“No. Someone might have come in, but it wasn’t a surprise. I’m sure Henrietta would have locked the door. And if she didn’t, whoever was in here with her would have.”

Rhodes thought that was right, too. He certainly would have locked the door if he’d been in that room with Henrietta.

“What about fingerprints?” Rhodes asked.

“I’ll check for them before I leave,” Ruth said. “But do you think they’ll really do us any good?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Rhodes thought the “not” was more likely. Even if there were prints, they probably wouldn’t be on file anywhere. And he didn’t think it was going to be easy getting everyone at the conference to volunteer to be printed. If it came down to it, however, he’d just have to coerce them.

“Anything else you can tell by looking around?”

“You can see the way the throw rug’s messed up,” Ruth said. “Another sign of a struggle. But that’s about it. If we’re lucky, Dr. White can tell us more.”

Rhodes knew it was going to take more than luck. It always did. He was convinced that someone attending the conference had been lying to him from the beginning because he didn’t think Henrietta had been killed by some outsider just passing by. The trick would be to find out who the liar was.

Rhodes was sure it wouldn’t be easy. After all, he was dealing with a group of women who were liars by profession, or who wanted to be. That was undoubtedly going to complicate things.

And then there was that naked woman the Applebys had seen running around. Rhodes figured that the woman had been the one who had disturbed Quentin the first time. Too bad he hadn’t gotten a look at her.