Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen (10 page)

“He's fine,” Benton said. “He eats a lot, though. I hope I get a raise this year. Otherwise I'm not sure I can afford him.” He stopped and looked at Rhodes. “You changed the subject, you know.”

“And here I thought I was being smooth,” Rhodes said.

“That'll be the day. Anyway, I have my own case to work on if you don't need my help with Lynn's murder.”

That didn't sound good. “What case?”

“It's one that Ruth's been working on,” Benton said. “Here at the college.”

Rhodes knew the one. “The car batteries.”

“That's it,” Benton said.

Car battery thefts weren't a big problem in Blacklin County, but there had been several of them lately, all at night, and a couple of them had been at the college. Recyclers paid anywhere from two to twenty dollars for a battery, depending on the size.

Someone had stolen a few catalytic converters, too. That was a trickier proposition, but since the converters contained metals like palladium, rhodium, and platinum, they could be sold for around seventy-five dollars. Usually they were taken from SUVs because it was easier to get underneath them.

In fact, the battery and converter thefts had been the reason for one of Rhodes's previous visits to the reclamation center. He suspected that the stolen batteries ended up there or in some other recycling facility in a different county. There were plenty of other, similar, thefts, too. Copper was still a big-ticket item, and copper wire was best kept locked away. Aluminum continued to sell well, too.

Recycling centers were supposed to get full identification from anyone who sold those things. Some places even required a fingerprint. Rhodes suspected that the center in Clearview might be a little lax when it came to making the checks, but so far he hadn't been able to prove anything.

“Ruth doesn't need your help,” Rhodes told Benton.

“I know that. I'm just asking around to find out if anybody remembers seeing someone lurking around after dark here. The batteries only go missing at night.”

“Any results?”

“Not yet.” Benton looked disappointed. “I guess if they'd seen anything, they'd have reported it.”

Rhodes stood up. “If you hear something, you tell Ruth or call me. Don't do anything stupid.”

“Me?” Benton said. “Stupid? I'm probably the brightest person in the whole town. The whole county.”

“Right,” Rhodes said, “but that doesn't mean you don't do stupid things now and then. Before you think, I mean. You'd never do anything stupid if you thought it over first.”

Benton wasn't entirely mollified, but he said, “I'm sorry I didn't have anything that would help you with Lynn's murder. I hope you find out who killed her.”

“I will.”

“Right,” Benton said. “You always get your man.”

“Or woman,” Rhodes said, “as the case may be.”

*   *   *

Rhodes sat in the county car and looked at the parking lot. Only a few other cars were there at this time of the afternoon, though when the evening classes began, the lot would fill up again. Some of the cars would be parked in places where the lighting wasn't so good, and those cars would be most vulnerable to battery thieves. If people locked their cars, they could make the thefts difficult, but in Blacklin County a lot of people didn't bother with locking.

Rhodes thought about the two men he'd chased that morning. They weren't living well, but they had enough money to buy a few things while they looked for jobs. A couple of batteries or a few pounds of copper would help out with expenses. It might be a good idea to watch the Environmental Reclamation Center for a few days to see what developed.

There were a couple of problems with that idea. One was that Rhodes didn't have enough deputies to do stakeouts. He could have Buddy or Ruth drive by the place, as he was having Duke do with the old hotel, but they had other places to be, too. They had a big county to cover, and they couldn't devote a day or an evening to one place.

Another problem was that the two men didn't seem to have any means of transportation other than their feet. It would be hard to get the heavy batteries from one place to another without a car or truck, but maybe they had a friend with a vehicle.

Rhodes started his car. He still hadn't talked to Abby Tustin or Jeff Tyler, and he wanted to see both of them before he looked over Lynn Ashton's house and went home for the day.

*   *   *

The downtown was as quiet in the late afternoon as it had been in the early morning. Jeff Tyler's building was a block off the main street, but he often stayed open until well after six o'clock, maybe hoping he'd get a customer or two on the way home from work.

Rhodes doubted that Tyler ever got a sale by staying open, but he didn't have far to go to get home. He'd remodeled the back of the store and lived there. What had once been storage for pipes and fittings was now a two-bedroom apartment.

Rhodes parked in front and got out of the car. His was the only car in sight. The vacant building next to the old hardware store had once held an auto-parts dealership. The windows still showed part of the painted signs that had announced its name. Next door to it had been a bank that was now the office of the Clearview Chamber of Commerce. It wasn't open.

A block to Rhodes's left was the Beauty Shack, its parking lot vacant. Rhodes could see the crime-scene tape that wrapped the building.

Outside Tyler's antique store was an old metal lawn chair. The red paint on the metal had faded and in some places was entirely gone. Tyler sometimes sat there in the afternoons and drank lemonade.

Rhodes went into the store through the open double doors, the same ones that had been there from the building's beginnings. The old floor was made of wooden beams, solid and strong enough to hold up just about anything. The pressed tin ceiling was the original, but everything else was changed.

Once the store had held just about everything a person could need in the hardware line, and way beyond it. Tools, pipes, fishing equipment, pocketknives, camping gear, guns, cooking utensils, appliances, nails, nuts, bolts, and even a kitchen sink or two. The thing Rhodes recalled best, however, was the saddlery in the back of the store near where the apartment was now located. He could remember the smell of the leather, and the time his father had picked him up and seated him on one of the saddles before he was old enough to climb up himself.

All that was gone now, of course. Tyler's antiques didn't smell of leather at all. The store was divided into sections of booths that held the consignment goods, with Tyler's own things in front. There were booths with glassware, clothes, records (though Rhodes didn't see any record players), VHS tapes, old magazines and books, furniture, jewelry, and just about anything else a person could want. Or not want.

A big old overstuffed chair sat near the center of the profusion of things. A reading lamp and an end table stood beside it. Jeff Tyler could sometimes be found in the chair, reading or listening to the old radio that sat on the end table. The lamp was on, the radio wasn't, and Tyler wasn't there.

Rhodes figured Tyler was in his apartment, maybe starting to cook supper, so he looked around for a couple of minutes, waiting for him to return. Tyler didn't show up, so Rhodes went on back to the apartment, wending his way through shelves holding bottle collections and CDs and old metal signs.

The side door of the building was open and looked out on a building that had once been the local Ford dealership. Now it was a church of some kind.

The door to the apartment was open. Rhodes tapped on the frame. He could see that no one was in the living room, and when he didn't get a response to his knock, he called Tyler's name. Not getting an answer, he went inside. The kitchen/dining area was behind the living room, and that door was open, too. Rhodes went through it.

He found Tyler immediately, lying in front of the stove. There wasn't much blood on the floor around him, but there was more than enough. Rhodes saw a bullet hole in Tyler's head, and the front of Tyler's shirt was bloody where another bullet had hit him.

Rhodes's stomach felt suddenly hollowed out. He squatted down and felt for a pulse in Tyler's neck. He felt only the still-warm skin, not that he'd had much hope of anything else. Tyler was dead.

Rhodes stood up and went outside to get on the radio and have Hack make the calls that had to be made.

Chapter 10

After the body was gone, Rhodes and Ruth Grady were alone in the building. The only evidence that anything had happened there was the blood on the floor of the kitchen.

“What do you think?” Ruth asked.

During the time the body was being removed and put into the ambulance, Rhodes had considered what might have happened. He had a theory, but he wasn't too happy with it.

“I think somebody drove here and parked in the alley in back,” he said. “Or maybe somebody just walked here. Then whoever it was came in through the side door. Tyler was in the kitchen, and the killer went in there. Tyler knew him, probably. Or her. No sign of any struggle. Then Tyler got shot.”

“Nobody heard the shot?”

“There's nobody within a quarter mile of here, and the shots were inside the building.”

“He hadn't been dead long before you found him.”

“No. I wish I'd come by sooner, but I went to talk to … someone else first.”

“You didn't know.” Ruth looked around the kitchen. “This one's different, isn't it.”

“Premeditated,” Rhodes said. “I think Lynn was killed in a robbery or an argument, but whoever killed Tyler came here with intent and a gun.”

“I'll work the scene,” Ruth said, “but it doesn't look promising.”

“I have to tell Lonnie,” Rhodes said.

“I'm glad I have to work the scene,” Ruth said.

“Be sure to check the alley in back.”

“I will,” Ruth said.

“See if there's a record of the consignors. You'll need to talk to them.”

“Right.”

“If you can find a record of the sales he's made today, that might help, too. Especially the last one of the day.”

“I'll look for all that,” Ruth said.

Rhodes looked around. The place seemed empty, even though it was full of things. Somehow the death and absence of Tyler had sucked the life out of the building.

“I'll go tell Lonnie,” he said.

*   *   *

Rhodes and Lonnie sat in the same places they'd occupied that morning. Rhodes had expected Lonnie to take the news hard, but Lonnie surprised him. Oh, he teared up and sniffled a little, but he seemed in much better control of himself than he'd been when Rhodes had seen him earlier that day.

“I have to ask you some questions,” Rhodes said after he'd delivered the news.

“That's all right. I understand.”

“Did you talk to Jeff today?”

“Yes. I called him and told him about Lynn.”

“Did it upset him?”

“Of course,” Lonnie said, as if surprised that Rhodes would even bother to ask such a thing.

“I mean,” Rhodes said, “did he seem to know anything about it? Did he say anything that might have implied that he did?”

“He didn't know anything about it,” Lonnie said, but there was something in his voice that got Rhodes's attention.

“Was Jeff worried about anything? Did he have enemies?”

“Jeff? Why would he have any enemies? He hardly knew anybody besides me.”

“Somebody killed him,” Rhodes pointed out.

Lonnie sniffled. “I know. I know. I just can't understand it.”

“What about the people who had things on consignment with him?”

“He hardly ever saw them. He just collected the money and gave it to them when they came in. There was never any problem with any of them.” Lonnie looked around. “Do you think it was a hate crime?”

Rhodes hadn't considered that, but he didn't think it was likely.

“You told me he didn't have any enemies,” Rhodes said.

“Well, he didn't. You can ask anybody.”

Again there was something a little off in Lonnie's tone. Rhodes couldn't quite figure out what it was.

“Someone will have to tell his mother,” Lonnie said. “She lives in Odessa. His father's dead.”

“Do you know how to reach her?” Rhodes asked.

Lonnie did, and he got up to find the number. When he did, he wrote it down and gave it to Rhodes.

“She didn't know he was gay,” Lonnie said. “You won't tell her?”

“That's not my job.”

“She'll want him to be buried there.”

Rhodes didn't know what to say to that.

“I have to go,” Lonnie said. “I have to be there.”

Rhodes didn't know what to say to that, either. He didn't want to tell Lonnie not to leave town because he was a suspect in a murder case, but Lonnie might get the idea to just keep on going when he got to Odessa. He might not stop until he got to California, and it would be hard to find him there if he didn't want to be found.

“I'll come back,” Lonnie said. “I promise.”

“It's not as if you're under arrest,” Rhodes told him.

“I know you must suspect me. First Lynn, now Jeff, the two people in town I cared about more than anybody else. When someone's murdered, you always look for the close relatives or the … the lovers.”

Rhodes thought Lonnie might break down then, but he pulled himself together.

“Isn't that true?” Lonnie asked, his voice shaky. “I know it's that way on TV.”

“It's that way because it's true,” Rhodes said. “Most people are killed by someone they know.”

“I didn't do it,” Lonnie said. “I'd never kill Jeff. Or Lynn.”

Rhodes wasn't too sure about that. He couldn't get over the sense that something wasn't quite right. He didn't have any evidence other than his feeling, but he asked Lonnie something else.