Bill Crider - Too Late to Die

There was a pause.

“Well,” Rhodes said, “sometimes it’s best just to come right out and say what’s on your mind.”

“That’s true, but since I called earlier, I’ve thought it over. It’s not something I’d like to discuss on the phone. “

What do you know? thought Rhodes. Maybe she does want a date after all. But he didn’t say it. “If that’s the case, maybe we could get together after you get off work,” he said, and stopped. He found himself almost embarrassed. It had been quite a while since he had talked to a woman about meeting him after work. In fact, he’d never done it. The idea of the date began to grow in his mind, and he found himself feeling more and more like an adolescent. He glanced down to make sure that he wasn’t digging his toe into the rug. Why should a simple conversation with Ivy Daniels affect him this way?

He ended the awkward silence by saying, somewhat to his surprise, “I could pick you up about seven. We could have dinner.”

“‘Why that’s a very nice idea, Sheriff,” Ivy Daniels said brightly. It was clear that she was a little surprised herself.

“Don’t dress up,” Rhodes said quickly. “I mean, don’t. .”

“I understand, Sheriff. A man in your position wouldn’t have time for anything fancy. “

“Uh, it’s not that. It’s, well, never mind. We’ll go to Jeoff’s. Is that all right?”

“That would be very nice. I’ll see you at seven, then.”

“Yes, seven,” Rhodes repeated and hung up the phone. He wondered what he might be getting himself into.

At the jail that afternoon, Hack had the report on the bloodstains on Billy Joe Byron’s shirt. “Type A,” he said. “Same type as Jeanne Clinton.”

“And Billy Joe?” Rhodes asked.

“Plain old type O, is what our records show.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Rhodes said. He sat down in a rickety desk chair. There might be all kinds of good reasons why Billy Joe had type A blood on his shirt, or there might not. Could Billy Joe be a murderer? To Rhodes it just didn’t seem possible. Billy Joe might peep in a window, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

“What do you think, Hack?” he asked.

“I ain’t the sheriff,” Hack said. “I don’t get paid enough to do any thinkin’.”

“Pretend you’re getting a bonus this year.”

“In that case, I might think that it just don’t seem possible that a harmless sort of a fella like Billy Joe could murder somebody like Jeanne Clinton. Seems like if somebody like her told him to go away and leave her alone, he’d just go away and not say another word.”

Rhodes was glad to see that his own instincts weren’t too far out of line with Hack’s. “I feel exactly the same way,” he said, “but the same we better hang on to Billy Joe for

a few days. I don’t believe any lawyer is going to come around worrying about his civil rights, and it’s barely possible that he’s guilty. I wish he’d talk to us, but if he won’t I’ll just keep looking for answers somewhere else.”

“Fine with me,” said Hack. “Another thing. Buddy came in and told me to let you know that as far as he can establish there’s no connection a’tall between Terry Wayne and Ralph Claymore.”

Rhodes shook his head. “OK, but tell him to keep on looking. Something funny’s going on there.”

“Right,” Hack said, picking up a slip of paper from in front of his radio. “Now there’s a few other things I need to ask you about.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Ella Conner.”

Rhodes groaned. “The ducks?”

“You guessed it,” Hack said, smiling. Ella Conner started calling every spring, as regular as the change of season, about her neighbor’s ducks, which she felt were illegally harvesting her garden spot.

“Did you send anybody around?” Rhodes asked.

“Sent Buddy. He run the ducks back home. Ella wanted him to shoot one or two of them for what Buddy says she called an ‘object lesson.’”

“Lord, I hope Buddy had more sense than to do something like that.”

“He did, but if I was you I wouldn’t be countin’ on Ella’s vote this time around. Old Man Evans’s either, come to that. He was pretty mad about Buddy chasin’ his ducks.” At the thought of the deputy pursuing the criminal ducks, Hack laughed aloud.

Rhodes tried to manage a smile, but he wasn’t able. It was almost too much. Murder wasn’t bad enough. Now he’d lost two votes because of ducks in Ella Conner’s garden spot.

“Then there’s this guy upstairs,” Hack said.

“What guy upstairs?”

“The Polish refugee,” Hack said, clearly enjoying himself.

“You’re kidding,” Rhodes said. He was actually surprised. This was a new one on him.

“Not kidding a bit,” Hack said. “Picked him up out on 77, walking the median stripe. What do they drink over there in Poland? Besides water, I mean?”

“Vodka, these days,” Rhodes told him.

“Yeah. Well, this guy must have drunk about ten bottles of the stuff. “

“Can he speak English?”

“Some. Enough to say he’s a Polish refugee. Why, you goin’ to question him?”

“I thought I might,” Rhodes said.

“Wouldn’t do you no good right now,” Hack said. “He’s snorin’ so loud, you couldn’t hear what he said.”

“We’ll check him out later then,” Rhodes said. He changed the subject. “Tell me, Hack. What do you know about Bill Tomkins?”

Hack thought for a second or two. “He’s the fella found Jeanne Clinton’s body, right?”

“Right. You know much about him?”

“Not a lot, and that’s the truth. I don’t know too many folks over in Thurston. I hear he don’t work for a livin’, though. Supposed to have some kind of a disability pension from the government.”

Rhodes thought about Tomkins and his breathing problem. Maybe that was the reason for the pension.

“Ever hear anything about him and Jeanne?”

“Not a thing, and from all I’ve heard lately that Jeanne was a mighty nice girl. Maybe a little wild when she was younger, but not a bit of it anymore. Marryin’ old Elmer seems to have calmed her down a whole lot. Anything about her and Bill Tomkins, well, I expect you’d have to ask around over in Thurston for something like that.”

“That’s what I plan to be doing,” Rhodes said. But that will have to wait until tomorrow , he thought. He already had his evening planned; even a good sheriff couldn’t devote his whole life to the job.

He didn’t mention his meeting with Ivy Daniels to Hack. Hack might interpret it as a date instead of as a meeting with an informant.

That evening, Kathy was careful not to make any remarks about her father’s plans. She was privately of the mind that it was time he started having a little social life, but that wasn’t the kind of thing he would like to have her say.

Rhodes bathed and dressed in a sport shirt and slacks. It felt strange not to have on his badge and twill uniform. It felt even stranger not to have his.38 caliber Police Special hanging on his belt. He didn’t particularly like to carry it, but people expected it of him, so he did. Now, without it, he felt slightly unbalanced, as if he might tip over backwards and fall.

“I understand that Jeoff’s is a pretty fancy place,” he said to Kathy, who was sitting in the kitchen at the round oak table with a stack of ruled papers in front of her.

Kathy put down her red pen, moved the papers aside, and looked at her father. “‘Fancy for Clearview, maybe,” she said. “That’s about all you can say for it. But the food’s not bad.”

“You can get wine there,” Rhodes said, half questioningly.

“Yes, but you have to be a member of their private ‘club.’ That just means that you pay the waitress a five-dollar fee, and she gives you a card with your name and membership number on it. Then you can order wine anytime you go for a year.”