Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen (12 page)

“Were there many of them?”

“Hardly any. She wasn't home a lot in the evenings. When I said a few visitors, that's what I meant. A few. At least, that I saw. I'm not one of those nosy old ladies who sit on the porch and watch the neighborhood comings and goings.”

“I never thought you were,” Rhodes said.

He was beginning to believe that Lynn's reputation had been exaggerated and that for reasons of her own she might have encouraged that. Maybe she liked having people talk about her. Some people were like that.

Rhodes stood up. “Thanks for your help, Ms. Fischer. I appreciate it. If you think of anything else, call the department.”

“Does that Hack Jensen still work there?” she asked.

“He does.”

“You tell him I said hello.”

“I'll do that,” Rhodes said. “I'll let myself out. Don't get up and disturb Clementine.”

Nora rubbed the cat. “You were impatient, but you were thoughtful, too, Danny. I'm glad you haven't changed.”

Rhodes wasn't sure whether he should thank her for that observation, but he did.

“I'll be next door having a look at Lynn's house,” he said. “Don't call the department when you see the lights come on.”

“I probably won't even notice,” Nora said.

Chapter 11

If this had been the old days that Nora Fischer had talked about, Rhodes could have gotten into Lynn Ashton's house easily enough because the doors wouldn't have been locked. Of course, that was then and this was now, and as Rhodes had already discovered earlier that day, he needed a key to get inside. He hoped that Lynn had been the kind of person who hid a key outside in case she locked herself out and that if she was that kind of person she had hidden the key in a place that would be easy for him to find.

He tried the garage first, but like the house, it was closed and locked. A key hidden inside it would do him no good. Rhodes looked around. The house had a small concrete entranceway with a flower bed on each side. There were no flowers, but there were a couple of rosebushes, one with red roses and one with yellow ones. A big rock lay beside the one with the yellow roses. It was the rock that Rhodes thought was his best bet.

It was easy to see that it was a real rock, not some hollowed-out fake. Rhodes picked it up and saw nothing under it but sandy dirt. He set the rock aside and pushed his fingers into the dirt. They encountered something hard, and he dug around until he'd uncovered a brown plastic box. He opened the box and found a key. He tried it in the front door. It fit, and so he opened the door, flipped a light switch on the wall just inside it, and went in.

The floor plan wasn't much different from Nora's, a small living room, a kitchen/den/eating area, two bedrooms, a bath and a half.

Rhodes figured that anything interesting would be in Lynn's bedroom, so he went there first. He always felt like an intruder when he searched a room, and even more like one when he searched someone's bedroom. It made no difference that the former occupant was dead and had no privacy left.

Rhodes didn't know what he expected to find, but it would've been nice if he'd run across a photo of Lynn with someone special. Or a diary, or a phone message from someone threatening to kill her.

He didn't find any of those things. The only photos he saw were of a younger Lynn and her parents. A book lay on a nightstand beside the bed, but it was a romance novel, not a diary. The drawers of the dresser held sweaters and underwear but nothing unusual. The jewelry box was full of costume jewelry. The closet held clothes, naturally enough, and shoes. Lots of shoes. Nothing unusual about that. The medicine cabinet of the adjoining bathroom was almost empty, and the strongest drug it held was aspirin.

Rhodes went into another bedroom, one that served as Lynn's computer room. He saw a desktop with a computer tower, monitor, scanner, and printer. The computer and monitor were turned off.

He could think of a few things that might be on the computer's hard drive, but that was something he'd get Ruth to check. It was clear that he wasn't going to find any obvious clues just lying around.

It was time for him to go home.

*   *   *

As soon as he stepped up onto his porch, Rhodes heard the scrabbling of doggie toenails on the floor as Yancey, the little Pomeranian, ran to greet him. Rhodes opened the door, and Yancey went into a veritable frenzy of joy.

“If everybody were as glad to see me as you are,” Rhodes said, “life would be sweet.”

He went on to the kitchen, with Yancey capering around his feet. Ivy stood at the stove, holding a lid in her hand and looking into a pot of something that smelled a little like chili.

Sam, the black cat, was in his favorite place in front of the refrigerator. He raised his head and gave Rhodes a slow once-over with his yellow eyes before settling back down to sleep. Rhodes resisted the urge to sneeze.

Ivy put the lid back on the pot, turned to Rhodes, and said, “Late again.”

“Yancey's glad to see me, though,” Rhodes said.

Ivy smiled. “So am I. Are you hungry?”

“Sure. What's cooking.”

“Chili,” Ivy said.

Rhodes knew that technically she was telling the truth, but only technically. He was pretty sure that whatever might be in the pot, it wasn't chili. It might look like chili, it might smell like chili, and it might even taste a little bit like chili, but it wasn't really chili. That was because Ivy was currently watching his diet and was on a vegetarian kick.

The alleged chili would have beans in it, three or four kinds, probably, and tomatoes and corn, but there wouldn't be any meat. The contents might include something that resembled meat, but it wouldn't be the real thing. It would be something that Ivy had once told him was called “textured vegetable protein,” which to Rhodes meant soy. He was glad he'd had the cheeseburger for lunch, not that he was going to mention that to Ivy.

“Did we get any mail today?” Rhodes asked.

“You mean, did we get a book in the mail today?” Ivy asked back.

“You're reading my mind.”

“I'm not reading your mind. I'm sure you've already seen a copy of
Terrorist Terror
at the jail. Am I right?”

“You're right.”

“I get to read it first.”

“That's fine,” Rhodes said. “I can wait.”

“Good,” Ivy said. “Because I can't. I want to see what your alter ego is up to now.”

“He's not my alter ego.”

“So you say. You can go out and see Speedo if you want to. The chili will keep.”

Rhodes went on outside. Yancey went with him. The heat of the day had drifted away with sundown, and it was almost pleasant. Rhodes sat on the top step of the little porch while Yancey bounded on into the dark yard to harass Speedo, a border collie Rhodes had acquired on a case a few years ago.

Speedo was considerably bigger than Yancey, but the smaller dog either didn't know or didn't care. After barking at Speedo, Yancey grabbed up a chew toy and ran away with it. That was enough to rouse Speedo, who went after him. It always cheered Rhodes up to watch them, but he couldn't help thinking about the two murders.

Ivy came out and sat on the porch beside him, and he went through it with her. When he'd finished, she said, “So who do you think is the killer?”

“I wish I knew,” Rhodes said. He watched as Speedo ran right over Yancey, who bounced back up without relinquishing his grip on the chew toy. “It could've been anybody I talked to, or somebody else entirely. What I need is a motive. That would be a big help.”

“Mikey Burns and Clifford Clement have motives.”

“I know, but I'm not sure how strong they are. Clement has an alibi. Mikey does, too, but not much of one.”

“What about Lonnie?”

“I didn't even ask about his alibi, but considering that Jeff Tyler's dead now, I should have.”

“You think Lonnie's capable of murder?”

“Just about anybody is,” Rhodes said, “in the right circumstances.”

“What about those two men you chased?”

Ivy grinned when she said it. Rhodes thought she'd enjoyed that part of the story entirely too much.

“They could have done it, but if they did, why would they hang around? They could have been miles away before the body was discovered.”

“Maybe they didn't think you'd look in that old building.”

“Unlikely,” Rhodes said.

“But possible,” Ivy said.

“Jeff's the real problem,” Rhodes said. “I don't see how his death ties in. The method was different, too.”

“You'll figure it out,” Ivy said.

“That's what I keep telling myself, and everybody else. I don't know that anybody believes it.”

“I do,” Ivy said.

The dogs came running up to Rhodes. The chew toy had disappeared. Rhodes patted Speedo, and Ivy said, “Be sure to wash your hands before we eat.”

“When will that be?”

“Right now,” Ivy said before going inside with Yancey close behind her.

Rhodes got up and looked at Speedo. “Do you think you need a bath or anything?”

Speedo thwacked his tail on the dry grass.

“That's what I thought,” Rhodes said, and he went into the house to wash his hands and eat the supposed chili.

*   *   *

The chili wasn't bad, Rhodes had to admit. He was even enjoying it, along with some saltine crackers, when the telephone rang.

Ivy answered it. She stopped talking after she said hello, listened for a second, then handed the phone to Rhodes.

“I'm in hot pursuit,” Benton said. “Battery thieves. Headed for the overpass in an old green Chevrolet pickup. No time to explain.”

Benton hung up. Rhodes handed the phone to Ivy.

“Emergency?” she said.

“Of the Seepy Benton kind,” Rhodes said, pushing back his chair. “Give Hack a call and let him know what's going on.”

“I will,” Ivy said. “Be careful.”

“I always am,” Rhodes said.

Ivy looked at him and laughed.

“Well, nearly always,” he said, heading out the door.

*   *   *

Rhodes turned on the siren and light bar as soon as he got out of his driveway. It was dark, and he didn't want to run into anybody or have anybody run into him, not that there'd be much traffic to worry about on the residential streets, or even downtown if they went there.

He was about as far from the overpass as Benton was, but maybe he could get there first. It depended on how fast the pickup was going, and that might depend on whether the driver knew that Seepy Benton was in hot pursuit.

Nowhere in Clearview was very far from anywhere else, and Rhodes arrived at the eastern foot of the overpass in about a minute, which was just in time to see the green pickup make a sharp, tire-squealing turn onto the street that led downtown and right on past the Beauty Shack. Benton's Saturn was right behind it, and it rocked on its shocks as it made the turn. Rhodes fell in line, light bar flashing, siren wailing.

They whipped past the deserted downtown, past Jeff Tyler's building, past the Beauty Shack.

Duke Pearson must have been nearby on his patrol, checking on the old hotel. Rhodes heard another siren and looked down the side street to his left to see Pearson's county car barreling toward him.

The pickup turned right and headed toward the reclamation center with a noisy parade following it, all the vehicles bouncing from side to side, from pothole to pothole.

The pickup sped up the incline to the railroad track and sailed for several yards before landing with a bounce. The bounce was so hard that a couple of tires blew out with sounds like gunshots. Or perhaps the tires had hit some metal detritus from the reclamation center. The result was the same. Pieces of rubber flew in all directions, and the truck spun around a couple of times before slamming into a Dumpster.

One of the pieces of rubber
thwanged
off the hood of Benton's car and wafted on over the top like some black night bird coasting on an air current.

The doors on the pickup sprang open, and three men jumped out and ran away. One of them looked a little like the one who'd hit Rhodes with the bucket, but Rhodes was too far away to be sure. They ran to the warehouse, but the doors were closed and chained. That didn't stop them. One of the men reached out, grabbed the edge of a piece of sheet metal, and pulled. The other two men helped, and they pulled the metal aside far enough for them to slip into the warehouse.

Seepy Benton had slowed down at the incline, as had Rhodes and Pearson, so they avoided a pileup. Benton went past the accident and stopped. Rhodes and Pearson stopped as well.

Benton got out of his Saturn. He stood in a pool of light from a mercury-vapor lamp high above the street. Red and blue flashes from the light bars strobed over him. He looked like some kind of lumpy distortion of John Travolta from the disco era as he pointed toward the cotton warehouse.

“They went thataway,” he said as Rhodes and Pearson reached him.

Pearson looked at Rhodes. “Did he really say what I think he did?”

“Yes, he really did,” Rhodes said. “Duke Pearson, meet Seepy Benton, master of the cliché.”

The two men didn't shake hands because Pearson was already elsewhere, looking at the back of the pickup.

“No plates,” he said. He walked around to look at the windshield. “No inspection sticker, either.”

Rhodes thought the truck was a model from sometime in the seventies, and it was barely roadworthy. It was probably used around a farm and not taken off the property often. Maybe only at night and seldom even then.

Benton hadn't finished confessing. “I said ‘Stop where you are' earlier,” he said. “They were trying to steal the battery out of my car.”

Well, that explained the hot pursuit and maybe why the pickup was on the streets. Rhodes still had several questions he wanted to ask, but they could wait.