Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl (6 page)

“Dangerous?”  Rhodes said. He knew that some people in Ballinger’s business were fearful of contracting blood-transmitted diseases. Maybe White was, too. “Is he afraid of getting AIDS?”

“It’s not that,” Ballinger said. “He’s afraid of going to jail.”

“Jail?  Why would he be worried about that?”

“Don’t you keep up with things?” Ballinger asked. “Didn’t you read about that doctor out in West Texas that got into all that trouble?”

“Oh,” Rhodes said.

He’d read some of the stories, all right. He didn’t remember the exact situations, but he thought that the doctor had been a county medical examiner or something along that line; he’d also been very careless in some of his decisions and with some of the bodies he’d worked on. There had been numerous lawsuits and exhumations, and some judge was making noises about freeing every prisoner convicted on evidence obtained from the doctor’s autopsies. Rhodes thought he even remembered something about a head getting lost.

“I’ll talk to Dr. White,” Rhodes said. “This has to be done fast.”

“Won’t work,” Ballinger said. “He won’t do it.”

“He’ll do it,” Rhodes said. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

Ballinger didn’t ask what that might be, and the thought of it didn’t seem to cheer him up any.

“Is there something else?” Rhodes asked him.

“Yeah,” Ballinger said. “There is.”

He picked up the book and held it so that Rhodes could see the title. It was
The Mugger
.

“You see the author’s name?” Ballinger asked.

Rhodes saw the name, but he had to look for a second to find it. It was in yellow letters in the lower left corner of the cover. It was the name of one of Ballinger’s favorite writers.

“Ed McBain,” Rhodes said.

“That’s right. And that’s what’s bothering me.”

“The name?” There were times when Rhodes wasn’t sure that he knew exactly what was going on, and this was one of them.

“Not the name,” Ballinger said. “You know it’s not his real name, don’t you?”

Rhodes was getting more and more lost. “Whose real name?”

“Ed McBain’s. His real name is Evan Hunter, except that’s not it, either.”

“It’s not?”

“No, and Richard Marsten’s not his real name, either.”

Rhodes just sat there, wondering how they’d gotten onto this subject in the first place.

“I don’t know what his real name is,” Ballinger said. “It doesn’t matter, anyhow. Those other names are just pen names that he uses. Like Ed McBain.”  Ballinger dropped the book to the desk. “Can you copyright a name?”

Rhodes didn’t know.

“Well, you should be able to. He used Ed McBain first, and now everybody else is using it. He ought to be able to sue.”

Rhodes thought he was beginning to catch on. “Someone else is using the name Ed McBain?”

“Not the Ed part. Just the McBain. It was
The Simpsons
that did it first.”

“Who’re the Simpsons?”

“It’s not a who. It’s a what, a cartoon TV show; it’s pretty funny, most of the time. Anyway, they did this parody of Arnold Schwartzenegger movies and called it
McBain
. I thought that was OK, but the other day I saw this new movie on video tape. It was called
McBain
, so I rented it. Pitiful, just pitiful. Christoper Walken. You know who he is?”

Rhodes was on safe ground now. He knew movie actors. “He was in
The Deer Hunter
.”

“Yeah, if you say so. And now he’s McBain. I’ll tell you, the real McBain should be able to sue.”

“We’re talking about
Ed
McBain now?”

“That’s right,” Ballinger said. “Or whatever his real name is. He should be able to sue. All those other people are capitalizing on his name.”

“I’d like to help him out, but it’s not in my jurisdiction,” Rhodes said, hoping to bring the conversation to an end. “Can I use your telephone?  I need to call Dr. White.”

R
hodes was able to persuade White that no one was going to sue him, and he didn’t mention Ballinger’s idea for a lawsuit against the people who were using the name
McBain
.

He didn’t make the doctor any special offers; instead he told him what a great job he’d always done for the county and how much he was appreciated. He mentioned the fact that if White didn’t do the job, the body would have to be sent to a forensics lab and days would elapse before Rhodes got any results. After a few minutes of that sort of thing, White agreed to come into town and perform the autopsy.

After the phone call, Rhodes asked Ballinger about Lige Ward’s personal property.

“There’s not much,” Ballinger said. “Just the clothes, and I didn’t go through them. You want to do that?”

Rhodes said that he did. Ruth would already have vacuumed the clothing for hair and fiber evidence, which Rhodes didn’t think would be admitted as evidence, considering where the body had been found, but there might be something in the pockets.

Rhodes and Ballinger walked over to the main building. In a small, white-walled room in the rear, there was a table that held Lige Ward’s clothing—overalls, shirt, shoes, underwear, Astros cap. It wasn’t much, as Ballinger had said.

Rhodes took his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket, put them on, and started going through the clothes. The heels of the shoes were filthy and scuffed, and there was dirt on the back of the pants and shirt. Rhodes thought that Ward had been shot and then dragged to the portable outhouse. He’d have to remember to ask the doctor about that later. He scraped some of the dirt into an evidence bag before going through the rest of the clothes.

There was nothing in the shirt pocket, nothing in the hat or shoes. There was a billfold in the back pocket of the jeans. It contained twenty-three dollars, a driver’s license, a social security card, and a Visa card.

In the deep side pockets of the overalls, Rhodes found sixty-eight cents in change, an Old Timer pocket knife, and some car keys. Where was Ward’s pickup, he wondered? That was something that had to be looked into.

There was one other thing in the pockets. It was an up-curved metal spike about two inches long.

Rhodes held it up and looked at it.

“A gaff,” Ballinger said. “Like they use on fighting roosters. There’s an old paperback book about rooster fighting. It’s called
Cockfighter
, by a guy named Charles Willeford. He wrote a lot of stuff for the paperbacks. I’ve got one called
High Priest of California
, and I think —”

“Never mind that,” Rhodes said. He didn’t want to get into another discussion of paperback writers. “The question is, how did this gaff get in Lige’s pocket?”

Ballinger studied the wicked-looking piece of steel. “I’d say, just guessing now, that he put it there.”

“I know he put it there. Or somebody did. But I wonder why. It’s not the kind of thing a man just carries around.”

Then Rhodes remembered what Lawton had said about Lige Ward. Chickens. Maybe he hadn’t meant chickens. Maybe he’d meant roosters. Or fighting cocks.

“There’s not any cockfighting around here, is there?” Ballinger asked.

“There shouldn’t be,” Rhodes told him. “It’s illegal.”

Ballinger nodded, then said, “From what I hear, that doesn’t bother some people.”

Rhodes took off his reading glasses and put them back in his shirt pocket. “What people?”

“Nobody in particular,” Ballinger said. “But there’s been cockfighting in Texas just about forever, whether it’s legal or not. I guess you know there’s people right here in Blacklin County that raise fighting cocks.”

“There’s nothing illegal about raising them,” Rhodes said. “Just fighting them.”

Ballinger stared reflectively at the ceiling of the white room. “I read about a case down around Houston not long ago. The Texas Rangers raided a big cockfight, arrested nearly a hundred people. One of ’em was interviewed by the paper. Said getting arrested didn’t bother him, that he’d just pay his fine and go home and that there’d be another fight somewhere the next weekend.”

“He was probably right,” Rhodes admitted. “It’s hard to control. The cockfighters even publish a magazine, but they don’t advertise the fights in it, not the ones in Texas.”

“What about other states?  It’s legal in some places, isn’t it?  How about Mexico?”

“It’s not legal in Mexico,” Rhodes said. “But there’s a lot of it that goes on there, and in Texas too, down on the border. It’s legal in
New
Mexico, though. They’ve written their cruelty to animals statutes to be sure cockfighting’s specifically excluded.”

“But it’s not legal in Texas.”

“Not in Texas,” Rhodes agreed. “There’s not supposed to be any of that here.”

“Except that thing you’re holding in your hand’s a gaff for a fighting cock.”

“Right. Except for that.”

Ballinger was looking down at the floor now. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

The floor was as white and clean as the rest of the room, but there was something reddish brown lying near Ballinger’s right foot.

“It must’ve come from Lige’s clothes,” Ballinger said. “Whatever it is.”

Rhodes bent down and started to pick it up. It drifted away from him and he had to reach again. That time he got it.

“It’s a feather,” he said, straightening up.

“What kind of feather?” Ballinger asked.

Rhodes couldn’t answer that, but he would have bet on one of two things:  it came from either an emu or a fighting cock.

I
t was about five o’clock when Rhodes arrived at the jail. There was still plenty of daylight left, and he would go back to Obert to talk to Nard King later. Right now, he wanted to talk to Lawton.

The jailer wasn’t in the office when Rhodes entered. Hack was there, however, and so was his friend, Mrs. McGee. In spite of the heat, she was, as usual, wearing a sweater and a knitted cap that was pulled down over her ears.

“How are you, Mrs. McGee?” Rhodes asked.

“I’m just fine, thank you, Sheriff,” she said.

She and Hack were watching a small television set that was sitting in the middle of Hack’s desk.

“What’s that?” Rhodes asked, indicating the set.

“Mega Watchman,” Hack said. “Miz McGee brought it over here so I could watch TV. Pretty good picture, don’t you think?”

The picture was so small that Rhodes could hardly see it from across the room. He walked over closer to the desk.

“‘Course we can’t get anything but the close-by stations,” Hack said. “None of that cable stuff. But that’s better than nothin’.”

While Hack hadn’t been wanting a television set for as long as he’d been wanting a computer, he’d said more than once that it would be nice to have one. The set was tuned in to a Texas Rangers game.

“The prisoners are going to complain more than ever now,” Rhodes said. There was no television in the cells.

“Too bad,” Hack said. He plainly didn’t care. He was just interested in watching the game.

Rhodes supposed there was nothing wrong with having a TV set in the office, as long as it didn’t interfere with the work. He didn’t watch much himself, unless there was an old movie on.

“Better take a break,” he told Hack. “I want you to put out an APB on Lige Ward’s pickup. I didn’t see it at his house. You can use that computer of yours to find out the make and model and license number.”

Hack liked nothing better than a chance to use the computer. “I’ve already checked the serial number of that pistol you tagged and bagged. It’s supposed to belong to some fella in Wichita Falls, but you can bet he sold it to somebody who sold it to somebody else who sold it to somebody else.”

“Give him a call anyway,” Rhodes said.

“Sure thing. But right now I got to look up that pickup truck.” Hack turned from the game and started tapping away.

“Where’s Lawton?” Rhodes asked before Hack got too involved.

Hack looked up from the monitor. “He’s up in the cellblock with those three fellas Ruth brought in. They’re gripin’ because it’s takin’ the bondsman too long to get here.”

“I’d better talk to them before he does,” Rhodes said. Lawton could wait, not that Rhodes expected to get much out of the three men.

And he didn’t. All three denied ownership of the pistol, and Rhodes was sure there wouldn’t be any help from the man in Wichita Falls. The pistol could easily have been bought at a flea market somewhere. Ferrin claimed that they had found it.

“What about the cartridges?” Rhodes asked him. “Did you find those, too?”

“Bought ’em at Wal-Mart,” Ferrin said.

It seemed easy enough for him to remember that, but the other two remembered it as well. It had been a big production for them to decide which one was sober enough to go into the store and make the purchase.

“Where did you find the pistol?” Rhodes asked.

Ferrin couldn’t remember, nor could the other two, or so they said. Rhodes thought that they might even be telling the truth, since they hadn’t had any time together to get their stories straight, unless they’d managed to do it in the back of the car when Ruth was bringing them in. Rhodes didn’t think that was the case.

There was one thing that Kyle Foster and Mike Galloway agreed on however, and that was who found the pistol. Both of them were sure it was Ferrin.

“I know because he was the one doin’ most of the shootin’,” Foster said. “If I’d’ve found it, I’d be the one who got to shoot it.”

Rhodes questioned each of the three men separately in different cells, and the story that he pieced together was that they’d started drinking on Saturday night at the Palm Club and had continued on well into Sunday morning. They’d gone to Ferrin’s house after the Palm Club closed down.

Ferrin left the other two there and went out to buy beer. He’d come back with a lot of it, a case or two or three, and they drank some more. Then they slept for a couple of hours. When they woke up, they started drinking again.

After a while, they decided that it was a pretty day and that they should get out and enjoy the sunshine. They’d driven around in Ferrin’s pickup, still drinking, for an unspecified length of time—none of them could remember how long—before they ran across the portable toilet and decided to have some fun with it. Somewhere in there, Ferrin, or someone, had found the pistol, but everyone was vague about that part.