Ghost of a Chance (23 page)

And there wasn’t going to be any way to prove what he’d done. There wasn’t going to be enough left to give even the best arson investigator a clue, and Blacklin County didn’t have an arson investigator of any kind if you didn’t count Rhodes.

Rhodes saw Ruth Grady drive into the yard. She got out of the car and ran toward him. He could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He pointed to his ear and shook his head.

When she got closer, she mouthed some words very slowly. It appeared to Rhodes that she was saying, “Are you all right?”

He hoped so. He didn’t think the hearing loss would last long, and he didn’t seem to have any other terrible aches and pains beyond what seemed to be some minor muscle strains in his back and shoulders. He twisted his body to
the left and right to see if everything was working. It was.

“What happened to the cars?” he asked.

He couldn’t even hear his own voice. He knew he was saying the words, but they didn’t seem to be coming out.

Ruth shrugged, which Rhodes took to mean that as soon as the house exploded, she’d left the cars and come back to see about him. That meant that everyone had gotten away. It didn’t really matter. Both Ruth and Rhodes had seen the Packers and Nard King, and they could pick them up at any time, just as long as they stayed in the county.

Rhodes looked over Ruth’s shoulder at the house, or what was left of it. It was burning like tinder.

Ruth took out a notepad, flipped it open, and wrote, “Can you drive?” on a blank page with a ballpoint pen.

Rhodes nodded, but he wasn’t ready to go yet. He wanted to see if Rapper and Nellie had left anything in the chicken house. He told Ruth what he was going to do, and she followed him.

The old chicken house smelled of must and dust and mold and ancient chicken droppings, but there was nothing inside it. Rapper and Nellie traveled light, and any possessions they hadn’t kept on the bikes were gone in the flames that had destroyed the house.

“Let’s go back to town,” Rhodes said.

By the time they got back to the jail, Rhodes’s hearing was starting to return. It would probably be days before he could hear normally, but at least he should be able to get along.

When he went inside, Hack said something, but Rhodes didn’t quite get it. Ruth went over to Hack and explained the situation.

“That’s why he looks like he’s been shot out of a cannon, then,” Hack said.

He must have said it loudly, since Rhodes could make out nearly all the words. Rhodes was watching him, too, which helped.

“Ivy’s not gonna like it that you’ve been takin’ chances again,” Hack said.

Rhodes didn’t need Hack to tell him that. He’d have to get cleaned up before he saw Ivy, and when he told her about what had happened, he’d have to make it sound as if there had been no danger involved.

“Did ever’body get away?” Hack asked. “Rapper and all?”

Rhodes nodded.

“Figgers,” Hack said. “Pretty smart of Rapper, though, blowin’ up the house like that. You gotta admire a man who plans ahead.”

Rhodes didn’t see anything admirable about it.

“Prob’ly saw you comin’, too,” Hack said. “Soon’s he did, he lit the fuse. Gotta hand it to him.”

Rhodes thought about it. He’d been wrong when he believed his sudden appearance with his siren howling and light bar flashing had emptied the house. It hadn’t been that at all. Rapper had spotted Ruth when she drove by, set up his explosion, and told everyone to clear out. It was every man for himself, as far as Rapper was concerned, and there would be no tuition refund at Rapper U.

Rhodes wished things had worked out differently, but he had to move on. So he asked Hack what he and Buddy had found out.

“Found out about what?” Hack asked. “We found out a couple of things.”

Rhodes didn’t really feel like waiting for Hack to get to the point in his usual roundabout way.

“Just tell me something,” he said.

“I’ll start with the cats, then,” Hack said.

Rhodes had forgotten about the cats, and he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know about them. But there was no stopping Hack now.

“Those cats of Miz Knape’s were mighty lonesome,” Hack said. “I guess she must’ve given them a lot of attention. They came out and rubbed up against our legs, purrin’ so hard they were practically vibratin’. They need somebody to take care of them.”

He stopped talking and gave Rhodes a pointed look.

“I have two dogs,” Rhodes said, as if that would let him off the hook.

“Don’t matter,” Hack said. “Cats and dogs can get along just fine if they want to, and these’d want to. You can’t just leave ’em in that house all by themselves.”

“I’m allergic to cats,” Rhodes said. “They make me sneeze, and they don’t like me. They didn’t purr when I was there. They hid from me.”

“They’d get used to you,” Hack said.

“Not me. They just plain didn’t like me, either that or they were scared of me.”

“Somebody’s gotta take care of ’em,” Hack said.

Rhodes looked at Ruth.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I love cats, but they make me break out in a rash.”

Then she blushed. Rhodes didn’t think he’d ever seen her blush before.

“Boyfriend,” Hack said.

Ruth turned to him and said something that Rhodes couldn’t hear. Then she turned back.

“Hack’s right. I’ve been going with somebody, and he doesn’t like cats at all.”

Rhodes could understand why some people didn’t like cats, even though he was fond of them himself. In fact, he liked them a lot. He just couldn’t stand being around them.

“Those cats’d like you if you gave ’em a chance,” Hack told Rhodes. “They need somebody.”

“I can’t take those cats,” Rhodes said. “It’s impossible.”

“Dr. White could give you something for that allergy,” Hack said.

“No,” Rhodes said. “I don’t like taking things that I don’t really need.”

“You’d need it if you had the cats,” Hack said.

“Forget it,” Rhodes told him.

“If you say so. Those cats’re sure in pitiful shape with Miz Knape dead and gone, though.”

“What about her family?” Rhodes asked, feeling desperate.

“Hadn’t thought about that,” Hack said. “She has a son and a daughter. Somebody’s gonna have to call them.”

“I can’t talk on the phone,” Rhodes said, pointing to his ear. “Call Clyde Ballinger and let him do it. I’m sure one of them will want the cats.”

“Maybe,” Hack said. “Maybe not.”

Rhodes chose not to think about the “maybe not” possibility. There was no way he was taking the cats.

“What about the members of those historical societies?” he asked. “You said you found out something important about them.”

“You can prob’ly figger it out for yourself,” Hack said, and he handed Rhodes two sheets of paper.

Rhodes looked them over. One was headed “Sons and Daughters of Texas Membership Roll.” The other said that it contained the names of “Members in Good Standing, Clearview Historical Society.”

Rhodes read down both lists, then handed the papers back to Hack.

“Interestin’ stuff, huh?” Hack said. “You see what it is we found out?”

Rhodes nodded. Everyone knew that the two associations were rivals and that their rivalry was heated. Rhodes wouldn’t have thought that anyone would want to belong to both groups.

But someone did.

Melva Keeler.

31

R
HODES KNEW IT WAS TIME TO TALK TO MELVA KEELER
again, but he also wanted Ruth to check up on Cathy Miller’s whereabouts on the night Berry had died. She would have had plenty of time to kill him and drive back to Austin before anyone even knew he was dead.

“Do you really think she killed him?” Ruth asked when Rhodes told her what he wanted her to do.

Rhodes heard her, though not very well, and now he could also hear a painful ringing in his head. It no longer sounded like a train.

“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “It’s something we have to check on.”

“What about those Packers?” Hack asked. “I’ll bet they’re the ones that killed him. He was out there waitin’ for somebody to show up, and sure enough, somebody did. But he made the mistake of tryin’ to deal with them himself instead of givin’ us a call like he should have done. Bang. He’s dead. Those Packers would just as soon kill a fella as
look at him. Rather kill him, prob’ly. They’re mean right down to the bone, those Packers.”

“The Packers are mean, all right,” Rhodes said, “but you wouldn’t catch them using a .22. They’d just as soon use a peashooter. They’re into nine-millimeter automatics and assault rifles. And if they’d been the ones to kill Berry, they wouldn’t have left the cemetery empty-handed. They’d have taken what they came for.”

“They might’ve been scared,” Hack said.

“Maybe, but they would have torn the place up with their truck. Whoever killed Ty was parked on the road and didn’t leave tracks.”

“What about Rapper and that friend of his, Nellie? They’re killers if there ever was a pair of ’em.”

“You’re probably right,” Rhodes said. “But why would they want to kill Ty?”

“You’re the sheriff. You’re supposed to figger it out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Rhodes said.

Driving to Melva Keeler’s house, Rhodes thought about everything that had happened and all that he knew or had guessed. It certainly seemed possible that Faye knew about Ty Berry’s interest in the buildings that she owned and that she, and her husband before her, had so seriously neglected over the course of the years.

If Ty had threatened to reveal her ownership to the members of the Historical Society, Faye might well have felt desperate enough to kill him. And the pistol Rhodes had found in her desk could be the one that did the job. In fact, he suspected that it was, though proving it was a different matter and would likely be impossible.

Ty wouldn’t have felt threatened by Faye, and if she had met him in the cemetery, she could easily have gotten close enough to shoot him. Rhodes would have been willing to bet that Faye hadn’t been an expert with a pistol. Even if she had been, the derringer wouldn’t have been accurate at a range of more than a few feet.

As much satisfaction as it would have given Rhodes to blame the Packers or Rapper for Ty’s death, Faye was a much more likely suspect.

But Rhodes wondered about the pistol and where it could have come from. Faye’s husband had owned guns, true, but she’d sold them and claimed to know nothing about how to use them. She must have been lying, at least in part. She could have sold all but one of her husband’s guns and kept that one back for personal protection. Lots of single women, at least in Texas, kept a gun in the house.

The idea of keeping a pistol around for personal protection would explain why the pistol had been in her desk instead of in the gun cabinet, though Rhodes didn’t really understand why the cabinet was still there. Why hadn’t Faye gotten rid of it when she sold the guns?

And, even more to the point, who had killed Faye? Rhodes had originally thought Vernell Lindsey had the best motive. Faye had tried to shift suspicion onto her for Ty’s death, after all, and Vernell hadn’t been the least bit happy about that. She’d been seen arguing with Faye on the afternoon of her death, and she’d been alone inside the house with her. Things didn’t look good for Vernell.

But they didn’t look all that good for Melva Keeler, either. Why hadn’t she mentioned that she was a member of the Historical Society when she’d talked to Rhodes earlier?
And why hadn’t she said anything about being a member of Berry’s group?

Rhodes, of course, hadn’t asked her, but it seemed pretty strange to him that she hadn’t mentioned the coincidence of both presidents being murdered. Rhodes had to admit that it hadn’t occurred to him, but it had to Clyde Ballinger, who wasn’t affiliated with either group. Surely it must have occurred to Melva.

And maybe it had. Maybe she’d decided to unify the two groups by eliminating the leaders and taking over as president of both clubs. Or if Faye had killed Ty, maybe Melva had seen her opportunity and gotten Faye out of the way, planning to blame the murder on Vernell after she’d seen the two of them having their argument.

The more Rhodes thought about that possibility, the better he liked it. It was too bad that cut-glass vases didn’t take fingerprints. That would have made proving his theory a whole lot easier.

Melva Keeler had changed out of her black dress into a pair of baggy black pants and a blue blouse with teddy bears on it. She was wearing the fuzzy slippers, and she didn’t seem surprised to see Rhodes.

After Rhodes apologized for his appearance, she invited him in, and they sat in the living room to talk.

“I thought you’d be back,” she told Rhodes.

“What made you think that?” Rhodes asked, looking around the room, interested to see that Melva had a bookcase full of paperbacks, all of which appeared to be romance novels.

“I knew you’d have some more questions for me,” she
said. “I’ve thought of several more things about Faye that you probably need to know.”

Rhodes’s hearing had improved. “For example?” he asked.

Melva shifted in her chair. “Yesterday wasn’t the first time that she and Vernell Lindsey had a falling out.”