Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 08 - Winning Can Be Murder (15 page)

Tabor had to wait for a few seconds after the noise died down before he got control of himself.

“You’re such a great bunch of guys,” he said.  “You deserve this, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you and the coaches letting me share it with you.”

“You’re one of us, Jer’!” someone yelled, and the cheering started again.

“Naw,” Tabor said when things were calm again.  “I was good, but I was never as good as you guys!”

More cheers.  It was almost as good as a brush-arbor revival meeting, Rhodes thought.  He wondered why Tabor wasn’t more successful at selling used cars.  If he could get to his customers the way he was getting to the Catamounts, the whole town of Clearview would be driving around in cars with little chrome “Del-Ray Chevrolet” signs stuck to the trunk.

“Now,” Tabor said, his voice lowering, “there’s something else you have to think about.  Coach Meredith.”

He paused, but there weren’t any cheers this time.  Just dead silence in the room.  Rhodes could hear the click of the thermostat just before the heat came on.  Warm air poured out of the ceiling vents.

“We all remember Coach Meredith,” Tabor said.  “And we always will.  We’ll remember what a great guy he was, what a fine gentleman.  We’ll remember how much he taught us about the game.  How much he taught us about sportsmanship and character.”

Rhodes thought that last was a pretty peculiar remark, considering that Meredith had recently tried to punch out the head coach, but the team didn’t seem to think so.  They sat quiet and still, waiting for Tabor to continue.

“But we can’t let his death stop us.  We’ve got to go on.  That’s the way he’d want it, and all of you know it.  He wouldn’t want us to quit on him now.  He’d want us to go out there and play our very best.  He’d want us to go right on to that state championship game, and he’d want us to win it!  And that’s all I’m really talking about here.  I want us to win this week and to go on winning until we get to that big game.  And I want us to win that one for Coach Meredith!”

While Rhodes was trying to figure out just exactly when Tabor had lapsed into the first person, the room erupted in cheering.  The team members jumped out of their chairs, pounding each other on their backs, giving high fives, and elbowing each other out of the way for the chance to shake Tabor’s hand.

Tabor couldn’t have done it any better if Meredith had been the Gipper, and Rhodes noticed that Bob Deedham had a satisfied smile on his face.  He wondered if Deedham had helped Tabor with the speech.

The players were still milling around the room and around Tabor when Jasper Knowles finally noticed Rhodes.  He made his way through the team and came over to the sheriff.

“I sure hate for you to have to talk to the boys now,” he said.  “They’re feelin’ too good to have you question them about Brady.”

“I don’t think I’ll bother them, then,” Rhodes said.  What with the new murder, he wasn’t sure he needed to.

“I sure appreciate that, Sheriff,” Knowles said.  He looked back at the celebration.  “I didn’t mean for Jerry to bring up Brady, though.  I don’t think it’s right to use a man like that after he’s dead.”

“I know,” Rhodes said.  “I heard you tell Deedham yesterday.”

“Bob’s that way, though.  He’d use his own grandmother if it’d get him another win.  Maybe that’s what coachin’s all about, but I never felt that way, myself.  Anyway, you don’t want to hear about that.  Have you found out anything new about the murder?”

Rhodes told him about Hayes Ford.

“Lord knows, that’s awful!  Who did it?”

“I don’t know yet.  But I suspect it’s tied to Brady some way or another.”

Knowles looked over at Kenner and Deedham, who were now talking to Jerry Tabor.

“You don’t think any of us had anything to do with it, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Rhodes said.  “When I do, I’ll let you know.  Right now, I just want to talk to Roy Kenner for a minute.”

“Roy?  He didn’t know Hayes Ford.”

“Maybe not.  But I have to talk to him anyway.”

“There’s a room right over there, then,” Knowles said.  “You want me to send him over?”

“You might as well,” Rhodes said.

Chapter Thirteen

“A
nd you don’t think Roy Kenner had an affair with Terry?” Ruth Grady asked Rhodes.

Rhodes told her he didn’t think so.  They were in his office in the courthouse, the one he rarely used.  It provided a lot more privacy than the jail, however, especially on Sunday, when no one else was in the building, and Rhodes didn’t want to be interrupted.  To make up for missing lunch, he was drinking a Dr Pepper and eating some peanut butter and crackers that he’d gotten from a vending machine.

“Roy admitted that he actually went out with her a time or two,” Rhodes said.  “Which is more than Brady Meredith ever did, if we can trust his wife.  But Roy says that’s all it amounted to.  He just took her dancing.”

“At The County Line?”

“Roy’s not that dumb.”  Rhodes took a drink of Dr Pepper.  “He took her all the way to the next county.  He didn’t want to run into anyone he knew.  Like Brady.”

“So where does that leave us?” Ruth asked.

Rhodes honestly didn’t know.  “Here’s what I thought at first.  There were three reasons why someone might have killed Brady Meredith.  One was jealousy; Bob Deedham qualified.  I’m not so sure he still doesn’t.

“The second one was money.  Maybe he was supposed to have shaved some points in the game.  Ford would have paid him off for that, but Knowles overruled him.  So Ford either killed him or had him killed.  I have to admit that one wasn’t too likely, since Ford doesn’t seem like the type to kill anybody.  He might have it done, though.”

“By somebody like Rapper,” Ruth said.

“That’s right.  Or Rapper could have been involved in the third plot I worked out, the one where Brady was feeding steroids to the team.  But that doesn’t seem very likely now.  Brady didn’t like drugs in any form.”

Rhodes ate his last cracker and threw the crinkly plastic wrapper in the trash can.

“That still left me with a couple of theories, though.  Jasper Knowles and Brady had been having trouble all year, but after I talked to Jasper, I ruled him out.  He didn’t seem especially upset with Brady.  He wasn’t as upset as his wife was.”

“And now that Ford is dead, we have a whole new ball game,” Ruth said.

“That’s right.  Now we have to fit him into it for sure.  Do you have any ideas?”

Ruth hesitated.  “Do they have to be new ideas?”

“The old ones are fine,” Rhodes said.  “IF they can fit the new situation.”

“OK.  How about this:  Brady wasn’t feeding steroids to anyone.  Someone else was, and Brady found out.  That’s why he was killed.”

“That might fit Rapper back into things,” Rhodes said.  “And it might even fit with another idea that I didn’t mention, that one of the team got a little hyped up on drugs and killed his coach.  I didn’t ever like that one very much, but it’s still possible.  It doesn’t explain Ford, though.”

“So maybe it all goes back to the gambling.  Have you got any way to find out more about that?”

“I can talk to Clyde Ballinger, but he wasn’t much help the first time.  It might be a good idea to talk to some of the other Catamount Club members.”

“How about this idea,” Ruth said.  “Brady Meredith needed to give up gambling, or maybe pay off his bets with Ford.  One way to do that would be to blackmail some of Ford’s other clients.  That might help explain the missing records.”

“Brady killed Ford and stole the records, then someone else killed Brady?”

“Why not?”

“Because Ford was killed about twenty-four hours after Brady.”

“All right, try this.  The client killed Brady to stop the blackmail, then killed Ford to get the records and make sure no one tried it again.”

“What kind of customer would pay blackmail?” Rhodes asked.  “Ford wasn’t a big-timer.  He didn’t take any bets for over a thousand dollars or so.”

“Someone who had a lot to lose would pay.  Is there anyone like that around town?  What about in the Catamount Club?”

Rhodes couldn’t think of anyone, but it wouldn’t hurt to look into that angle.

“You take Gerald Bonny and Ron Tandy,” he said.  “I’ll talk to the others.”

“Oh, fine.  Give me the lawyer.”

“Gerald’s easy to talk to, and he’s made a lot of money lawyering.  Tandy’s been selling real estate for years.  They’re the ones most likely to have the money, and maybe even something to lose.  I’m not sure how much good it would do either of them if people knew they were betting on high school games.”

Ruth got up.  “Well, we’ll see.  Shall I go by the jail after I’m done?”

“That’s a good idea.  Don’t take any calls from Hack before you’re finished, either.  Tell him to get Buddy instead.”

“All right.  Before I go, tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?” Rhodes asked.

“Is there anyone mixed up in all this that you suspect more than the others?”

“Bob Deedham,” Rhodes said.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like him much.”  Rhodes had to laugh at himself.  “That’s not a very good reason, is it?”

“It’s about as good as anything else we’ve got,” Ruth said.

After she was gone, Rhodes drank the last of his Dr Pepper and telephoned Clyde Ballinger.  Ballinger didn’t want to come to the court house, but Rhodes reminded him that it was much more private than anywhere else they could talk.

“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” Ballinger said.

“We’ll talk about that when you get here.”

“Damn,” Ballinger said.  “OK.  I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Rhodes said.

B
allinger wasn’t happy when he arrived.

“I know what this is about,” he said.  “And I told you that I didn’t do any betting with Hayes Ford, and I didn’t kill him, either.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Rhodes told him.

“Well, it’s a good thing.  Because I didn’t.”

“You didn’t happen to bring a report from Dr. White did you?” Rhodes asked.

Ballinger’s anger left him all at once.  He reached in his coat pocket.

“I did.”  He put the report on Rhodes’ desk.  “I thought you might need it.”

Rhodes glanced through the report.  As he’d suspected, Ford had been shot with a .32, just like Meredith.  He’d get a comparison made between the bullets, but he thought he already knew what the final report would tell him.  He also learned that Ford had been dead about eight hours and had just brushed his teeth before he was killed.

“Two murders,” Rhodes said.  “You can see why I might need a little information.”

“I can see, all right.”  Ballinger sat down across from Rhodes.  “But I just don’t have any.”

“Maybe you know more than you think.  You said that nobody in the Catamount Club ever bet very much.  Are you sure about that?”

“I’m not sure, but if anyone did, it was kept pretty quiet.”

“What would the reason for that be?”

“You mean why keep it quiet?  You know that as well as I do.  This is a small town, and it’s all right if there’s one gambler around.  But respectable people don’t gamble.  They get in football pools, like I said, and they might play the lotto when there’s a big prize, but they don’t bet real money.  That’s for crooks.”

“So if people found out that someone like Gerald Bonny had lost a few thousand dollars to Hayes Ford, they might just take their law business to someone else.”

“Probably.  You don’t want some loser gambler drawing up your will.”

“Or selling you a house?”

“No.  But Gerald and Ron didn’t kill anybody.”

“How do you know?”

Ballinger started to answer, then stopped to think about it.  “Well, maybe they would.  But I don’t
think
they would.  I guess that’s why you’re the sheriff and I’m just the undertaker.”

Rhodes hadn’t heard anyone use the word
undertaker
in years, even before people had become politically correct.

“I thought you were a funeral director,” he said.

“All right, funeral director.  That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know,” Rhodes said.  “What do you think about Jerry and Tom and Jimmy?”

“I think they’re about as likely to be killers as I am.  And I’m not likely.”

“I feel pretty much the same way,” Rhodes admitted.  “I was hoping that you’d come in and tell me that you’d thought it over and that you know about some big money changing hands.”

Ballinger shrugged.  “If I could help you, I would.  But I don’t know a thing.”

Rhodes tapped the report on the desk.  “Thanks for bringing this over to me.  If you think of anybody who might have had it in for Hayes Ford, give me a call.”

“You find somebody who’s lost a lot of money to him, then you’ll have the killer,” Ballinger said.  “Not somebody who’s lost just once.  Somebody who’s lost consistently.”

There was something in that idea, and Rhodes thought about it after Ballinger had gone.  Somebody who was partners with Brady Meredith, say, might have a reason to kill both Meredith and Ford, Meredith for not having shaved the points, and Ford for getting a little too eager to collect.

Rhodes spent the rest of the afternoon turning it over in his mind, but he didn’t come up with anything.  There were so many ways of putting the puzzle together that he couldn’t make it fit into any reasonable shape.

There were even a few pieces that he couldn’t fit in at all with his gambling theories, and one of them was Rapper.  Nellie had already bonded out, so Rhodes couldn’t question him, and Rapper was nowhere to be found.

Maybe his presence in Blacklin County at this particular time was just an accident, but Rhodes didn’t think so.  He didn’t think it was any more of a coincidence than anything else that was happening.  He just couldn’t fit it into the puzzle.

The courthouse was always quiet, though sounds echoed off its marble floors and walls.  But on Sundays it was like a tomb, cold and dark.  Rhodes thought he might be better off if he went somewhere else to think.

As he walked to his car, he regretted not having talked to the football team.  If there was any truth at all in the rumors about steroids, the team was where he’d most likely find the answers.  Well, he didn’t need Jasper Knowles’ permission to talk to anyone.  After all, he was the sheriff.  He could go by and talk to some of the players at home, and he might as well start with Jay Kelton, the one who’d made the out-of-bounds tackle.