Bill Crider: Shotgun Saturday Night

“I don’t believe it,” Ballinger said. “I bet some guy has been hacking up bodies, and Ramsey was disposing of them for him. I bet his conscience got the better of him and he came to you. But he just couldn’t bring himself to tell the whole story. And then, when the hacker found out what Ramsey had done, he killed him. I bet that’s just the way it was!”

Rhodes sighed and changed the subject. “Why aren’t you assisting in the autopsy?” he asked.

“I don’t do that sort of thing much these days,” Ballinger said. “Always glad to allow the use of the facilities, though. Afraid you won’t learn much from this one.”

“I’m just hoping for an estimated time of death,”

Rhodes said. “Have you seen Deputy Grady today?”

“She’s in there doing her job. I haven’t bothered her.”

“I think I’ll just walk on over and have a word with her. See you later, Clyde.”

“Sure, Sheriff. As soon as I get in touch with Mrs. Ramsey and arrange for the funeral, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” Rhodes said. He wasn’t sure that he’d learn anything by attending Bert Ramsey’s funeral, but he wasn’t going to take a chance by missing it. He left Ballinger’s office and walked over to the back room of the funeral home where Ruth Grady was working.

Clearview didn’t have a morgue, but the back room of Ballinger’s was close enough. It was quite cold; there was no danger of putrefaction. Ballinger had kept bodies in there for days, when necessary.

Ruth was just finishing her job. There was a neat stack of fingerprint cards on a small table, but all the various limbs had been replaced in their boxes. Rhodes wasn’t sure just how much good the prints would do. He could eventually send them through the necessary channels, but he couldn’t do it over the telephone, or whatever the big-city boys did. Besides, he was hoping to clear up the whole mess when he got in touch with the Adamses.

Ruth looked up when he walked in. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said, seemingly cheerful in spite of the grisly nature of her assigned job. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Well, it was easy enough to get fingerprints and even footprints. That part’s OK. The bad news is that there aren’t any other prints. Not on the boxes, not on the plastic, not on the tape. Whoever did this was wearing gloves.”

“Surgical gloves, I’d bet,” Rhodes said. “Did you find any more of those tags?”

“Sure did.” She reached down to the table and picked up a stack of the yellow tags from beside the fingerprint forms. “I went ahead and wrote the names from the tags on a piece of paper and stuck it on the limbs.”

“Good job,” Rhodes said. “I’ll take this stuff back to the jail, and you can go out on patrol for a while. I’m going to give this Adams guy a call and see if he can tell us what’s going on.”

“Anything new on the disposal?” Ruth asked.

“No,” Rhodes said. “I’m sure I can get in touch with the state Health Department tomorrow and clear things up. That is, if all these things are legitimate.”

“I hope so. If there’s not a law against dumping something like this, there certainly ought to be.”

“Remember,” Rhodes said, “these boxes were on private property. That makes a difference.”

“Hack told me about Bert Ramsey,” Ruth said. “Any connection there?”

Rhodes concealed his surprise. It was hard for him to believe that Hack had told Ruth anything that he didn’t have to tell her. Maybe he was softening. “Not as far as I know,” he said. “There could be, but for now we’re going to treat this business as a separate incident. If we find a connection, then we’ll see.”

“Does that mean you have a suspect?”

“Not exactly,” Rhodes said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t say I have much of anything yet. You managed to find yourself any informants?

Ruth nodded slowly. “Maybe,” she said. “One, anyway.”

In a small county, informants-Rhodes had never liked to call them snitches-were just as important as they were in New York. Or Isola. Wherever. It was true that much of the gossip of the county could be heard through Hack or Lawton, who seemed to pick it up from the air, but there was nevertheless an underside of society whose comings and goings weren’t part of the common talk. The more informants a deputy had, the better his (or her, Rhodes reminded himself) chances of picking up a piece of talk, a hint, a word or two, that just might prove to be the key to whatever case he was working at the time. Or even to a case that had almost been forgotten.

Rhodes didn’t ask who Ruth’s informant was. Each deputy cultivated his own sources, and each kept them private. Rhodes had a few sources of his own. Instead, he said, “See what you can find out about motorcycles.”

“Motorcycles?”

“Yeah. Motorcycles. I’d like to know who’s riding them these days.”

Ruth looked puzzled, but she said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“If you hear anything, let me know,” Rhodes said. He gathered up the cards and went back to his car. Ruth Grady was not far behind.

When Rhodes arrived at the jail, the air conditioner was making a peculiar clanking noise.

“Compressor goin’ out,” Hack said gloomily. “I bet it goes out any minute, and we’ll never get anybody in here to fix it on a Sunday. It’ll be a hunnerd and twenty degrees in here by dark.”

“Maybe it’ll wait until Monday,” Rhodes said. He looked over at the radio desk where the remains of a German chocolate cake rested on a paper plate. “What’s that?” he asked.

“That’s a cake,” Hack said.

“I’m a keenly observant lawman,” Rhodes said. “I can see it’s a cake. Where did it come from?”

“Need to improve your interrogation techniques a little, though, don’t you,” Hack said, laughing. “Ru-the new deputy brought it by.”

All right , thought Rhodes. Hack’s not getting soft; he’s just getting softened . But he didn’t comment. “Anything new?” he asked.

“Not except for Bert Ramsey. The drunks’ve all gone home with their wives and lawyers. Last one left about an hour ago. Pretty quiet around here now.”

“And that’s it? Nothing going on at all?” If there was, Hack would tell him, but it sometimes seemed to take forever.

“That’s it.” Hack paused. “Except for the heart attack,” he said finally.

“Heart attack?” Rhodes asked. “What heart attack?”

“Prisoner,” Hack said. “Prisoner had a heart attack.”

Rhodes controlled himself. “Oh,” he said. “I thought maybe you or Lawton had had one.”

“Not us,” Lawton said, as he came through the doorway leading to the cell block. He was carrying a broom. “Me and Hack, why I guess we’re healthy as a pair of mules.”

“Healthier,” Hack said. “I can’t even remember the last time either one of us two had a cold, much less had to take a day off. I think it was in ‘81. Or maybe it was ‘82. I remember it was in October, though, I’m pretty sure of that. . ”

“The prisoner,” Rhodes said.

“Oh, yeah,” Hack said. “Public Safety patrol car brought her in around midnight. Pretty little thing.”

“What was the charge?” Rhodes asked.

“Speeding,” Lawton said. “They lost her when she got that little Porsche of hers up over a hunnerd and thirty-five.”

“Lost her?”

“Yeah, but they found her.”

“Found her?”

Hack shook his head as if Rhodes were being especially dense. “She got a little scared about driving so fast, so she slowed down and turned in on one of the old oil field roads close to town. Must’ve waited in there till she thought the DPS was long gone and then came rollin’ out. So they caught her.”