Between the Living and the Dead (12 page)

Rhodes got out of the car. There was no sidewalk, but a smooth path had been worn through the grass to the porch. Rhodes stopped at the step and looked at the man in the recliner. He appeared to be about seventy. He wore a pair of faded overalls and some raggedy canvas shoes with the soles about to peel off at the front. The gaps made the shoes look like they had little mouths.

The man's face was deeply creased, and he hadn't shaved in a while. The unshaved look was apparently popular among youngsters, if Rhodes was to judge by what he saw on TV. On an older man, it just seemed careless. To Rhodes, it seemed careless on younger ones, too, but he'd never been in the loop when it came to fashions.

A blue Texas Rangers baseball cap with a red
T
on the front sat on the man's head. The cap wasn't made of tinfoil, but some kind of foil stuck out around the bottom edges, indicating that the cap was lined with it.

“Brad Turner?” Rhodes said.

“That's me,” the man said. He made no effort to get out of his chair. “Who're you?”

“Sheriff Dan Rhodes.”

“That deputy sent you, I bet. I told him all I know. I don't have anything else to say.”

The rickety wooden chair beside the recliner looked as if it might fall over on its own, but Rhodes was willing to give it a try if Turner would let him.

“I'm just here to clarify what you told the deputy,” Rhodes said. “Mind if I sit down in that empty chair? It's a hot day, and I could use some shade.”

Turner didn't appear to like the idea, but he said, “Okay, come ahead.”

Rhodes stepped up on the porch. The old boards creaked, and Rhodes thought that maybe he shouldn't have had that burger for lunch. He eased himself down on the chair. It squealed but didn't collapse, and Rhodes relaxed.

When Rhodes was settled, Turner said, “You talk to your deputy?”

“I did. He said you saw somebody around the Moore house last night.”

“We'll get around to that in a minute,” Turner said. He touched the baseball cap. “The deputy tell you about my cap?”

Rhodes didn't see any need to lie about it. “He mentioned it.”

“I could tell he was eyein' it. He prob'ly thinks I'm crazy. Worried about the gover'ment spies and such.”

“He didn't say anything about that.”

“He was thinkin' it, I bet. Hell, I know better'n to think this cap could keep the gover'ment's eyes off me. The gover'ment's spying on ever'body they can, sure, but they do it with cell phones and computers. I don't have either one of those things, so they can peep on 'em all they want to for all I care. You wanna know why I have this foil in my hat?”

Rhodes didn't know what the right answer to that would be, so he went with “Only if you want to tell me.”

“Don't mind tellin' you. Be easier to show you, though.” Turner got out of his chair and went out into his overgrown yard. The soles of his shoes flopped as he walked. “Come on over here.”

Rhodes got up carefully and joined Turner in the yard. Turner pointed over the roof of his house in the direction of the cemetery. “See that?”

Rhodes saw some fluffy clouds, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what Turner meant.

“Cell phone tower,” Turner said, and Rhodes saw it then, or the tip of it. It was quite a distance away. “RF waves.”

Rhodes must have looked puzzled, because Turner added, “Radio frequency waves. I decided I'd rather stuff some foil in my cap than get the brain cancer. Be better if I could cover my whole head, but that's not gonna happen. Too damn hot. So the cap'll have to do. Let's go back up on the porch.”

When they were seated again, Turner pulled a grimy handkerchief from a pocket of his overalls, took off his cap, and wiped his balding head.

“Damn foil is scratchy and makes me sweat,” he said. “Better'n the brain cancer, though.”

“Bound to be,” Rhodes said.

Turner put the handkerchief away and put the cap back on his head, and Rhodes noticed a worn wedding band on his finger.

“I got some more foil in the house,” Turner said. “You want some?”

“No, thanks,” Rhodes said. “I'm not going to be here long.”

“Your choice. It wasn't always like this around here. Back when I moved in, there weren't such things as cell phone towers. A man was a lot safer in those days.”

“What about your wife?” Rhodes asked. “Is she worried about the cell phone tower, too?”

“Betty Jane,” Turner said. “That's my wife. Or was. She left me a long time ago. Run off with some fella to live in Arkansas.”

“I'm sorry,” Rhodes said.

“No need to be. I've got over it. You want to hear about the Moore house?”

“I'd like that.”

“Lots of funny things go on there at night. I don't have a TV, so I sit out here on the porch a lot.”

Rhodes wasn't surprised that Turner didn't have a TV set. No telling what kind of radiation one of those things gave off.

“Can't sleep too well, either,” Turner said, “what with all the radio frequency waves around here, so I'm out on this porch late sometimes. See all kinds of things. Like down at that Moore house.”

“What kinds of things?” Rhodes asked.

“Lights, mostly. Cars driving around. That kind of thing.”

“See any people?” Rhodes asked, glad that Turner was so talkative. All it took was a little encouragement.

“Not so I could recognize 'em, but I seen a few.”

“What about last night?”

“Saw some cars,” Turner said. “Heard some noises, might have been gunshots. Didn't think anything of it. I hear things from other people's TVs all the time. Thought that's what it was till the county car showed up with their lights goin'.”

“That was me,” Rhodes said. “And one of the deputies.”

“Couldn't see who it was. Didn't think much about it, really, till that deputy showed up this mornin' and said somebody'd been killed. I thought back about some of the cars that drove by here when he said that, and I remembered that one of 'em belonged to the mayor.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty dang sure. It was a big Alexis, one of those SUVs. You know anybody else around here who drives an Alexis like that?”

Clifford Clement owned a black Lexus SUV that he was careful to keep polished to a high shine. Rhodes could think of a couple of other people who owned a Lexus, but not an SUV.

“Mayor Clement's not the only one,” Rhodes said.

“Maybe not, but I think his is the one I saw. Don't know what he'd be doin' out around here at night.”

“You just saw the car, not who was in it?”

“That's right, but it was the mayor's car. He thinks he's a big dog, drivin' that Alexis. Movin' fast, too.”

Rhodes wasn't convinced. “What makes you so sure it was the mayor's car since it's not the only one in the county?”

“Don't really know. Somethin' about it, though. It was his, all right.”

Pretty flimsy, but maybe Turner had some other information. “See any other cars?”

“There was a pickup that roared outa the backyard,” Turner said. “This was all after the shots was fired, if it was shots I heard.”

“What kind of pickup?” Rhodes asked.

“Can't say. I didn't get much of a look at it.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope.” When he said it, his eyes shifted. He hadn't been looking at Rhodes. The whole time he'd talked, he'd been looking straight ahead. Now his eyes slid off to the right. “You gonna arrest the mayor?”

“Not just yet,” Rhodes said. “I have to have more to go on than what you saw.”

“The big dogs always get off,” Turner said. “Never spend a minute in the calaboose. Somebody like that, somebody people like, no matter what he does, he gets off scot-free. A nobody like me, he'd be in prison for the rest of his life.”

“We don't even know that it was the mayor you saw.” Rhodes stood up. “I'll check it out and see what he has to say.”

“You should,” Turner said. “That Moore place is haunted. You know that?”

“So I've been told,” Rhodes said.

“You believe in ghosts?”

Rhodes didn't want Turner to stop talking, so he said, “I keep an open mind.”

Turner took off his cap and wiped his head again. “I think they come back to haunt us. Don't do no good to run from 'em. They can find you wherever you are. You take that Moore fella. You prob'ly don't remember him, but he was one mean dude. Shot stray dogs with a pellet gun.”

“I heard about that,” Rhodes said.

“His own dog ate on him after he died.”

Rhodes didn't bother to correct Turner. He didn't think it would do any good.

“Man like that,” Turner said, “man that would shoot a dog, he'd do about anything. Don't guess he was any great loss.”

“I doubt that he'd agree,” Rhodes said.

“You might could ask his ghost about that. I think he's the one making the lights shine down there. Been doin' it for all these years. Mean fellas, they can't rest easy, even if their dyin' was their own fault.”

“A heart attack's not necessarily anybody's fault,” Rhodes said.

“Brought it on himself by meanness,” Turner said. He stood up. “I got to go in now. Time for my nap.”

Rhodes stood up, too, and thanked Turner for his help.

“You arrest that mayor,” Turner said. “If there was any shootin', he was in on it. You can count on that.”

“We'll see,” Rhodes said.

 

Chapter 10

Rhodes drove back to the jail. He had a lot of questions about Brad Turner, not to mention the mayor and Ace Gable, but Rhodes knew where to get the answers, or some of them. He didn't need computers to keep up with people in Clearview. He had Hack, who in spite of his complaints that nobody ever told him anything managed to keep up with most of what was going on in town, even though he seldom left his desk. He didn't even have to quiz Rhodes about the murder. He'd already caught up on almost everything.

And then there was Lawton. Whatever Hack didn't know about Clearview, Lawton probably did. All Rhodes had to do was ask. It might take a while to get the answers from them, but eventually the answers would come.

“You gonna enter the bull ridin' at the rodeo this year?” Hack asked when Rhodes walked through the door.

“You been visiting a Web site on county time?” Rhodes asked, sitting at his desk.

“It's part of the job,” Hack said. “If people'd just keep me in the loop, I wouldn't have to look. Almost didn't get to find out anything today, since that Web site's been down most of the time. It's back up now, though. You looked just like Sage Barton when you tangled with that bull.”

“Let's don't start that Sage Barton stuff,” Rhodes said. “Is there anything I need to know about?”

“Heard from the hospital. Earl Foshee's still unconscious. He'll be okay, but it might take him a while to come around.”

Rhodes hoped Earl would be all right. He might be a drug dealer, but he didn't deserve to spend his life in a coma. Nobody deserved that. Besides, Rhodes wanted to question him about what had happened at the Moore house.

“Anything else?” Rhodes asked.

Lawton came in from the cellblock about then, but Hack pretended not to notice him.

“Might be one thing,” Hack said. “We got a call from Miz Hovey. You know Miz Hovey?”

“Elberta Hovey,” Rhodes said. “Lives on the south side of town.”

“That's her,” Lawton said.

Hack shot him a look. “I'm the one took the call.”

“I know it,” Lawton said. “I was just lettin' the sheriff know he had the right woman in mind.”

“I'm glad I have the right woman in mind,” Rhodes said. He knew he was going to have to put up with a certain amount of Hack's and Lawton's contrariness before he could ask them the questions he had, so he might as well get it out of the way. “What happened?”

“You know much about Miz Hovey?” Hack asked. “What her house is like, what her income is, stuff like that?”

Rhodes didn't know where this was going, but he seldom did when Hack and Lawton got started on him. There was no hurrying them.

“She's not rich,” he said. “Her husband died about ten years ago. She probably lives on Social Security.”

“Prob'ly so,” Lawton said, earning another look from Hack.

Rhodes just waited, and after a second or two Hack turned back to him and said, “So you don't think she's got nine million dollars around the house?”

Rhodes had heard stories about people who didn't trust banks and who kept large sums of money under mattresses, in mason jars buried in the backyard, or in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. In spite of all the stories, however, Rhodes had never known of an actual occurrence of that sort of thing, and Mrs. Hovey didn't seem a likely candidate to be the first person of his acquaintance who'd hidden money around the house, especially such a huge sum. Even nine hundred dollars would be a stretch for someone in her financial situation. Nine million was an impossibility unless her deceased husband had owned the biggest life insurance policy in Blacklin County.

“I don't think she'd have more than ninety dollars lying around,” Rhodes said. “Why?”

“Because she called and said her brother had robbed her,” Hack said.

“Got away with the whole nine million,” Lawton said.

Hack sighed.

“Well, he did,” Lawton said. “Nine million bucks. That's a lot.”

“It is,” Rhodes said, before Hack could jump on Lawton. “It's even more than I make every year. Did we have the brother arrested for stealing all the money?”

“You want the story or not?” Hack asked.

Rhodes grinned. “I thought I had the story. Mrs. Hovey. Nine million dollars. Brother stole it.”