Bill Crider: Too Late to Die

Ralph Claymore was Rhodes’s opponent in the May election, less than a month away. He was ten years younger and, Rhodes was convinced, much better-looking than the present sheriff. He had wavy black hair with no gray in it, and he could wear tight-fitting western shirts without revealing the slightest bulge in the area of his belly. He wore western hats like he was born in them, and boots, and big silver belt buckles. Rhodes didn’t like boots because they hurt his toes. He didn’t have any silver buckles, and he knew that in a western hat he looked like a cat turd under a collard leaf. And now he had a murder on his hands. He might not look like a sheriff, but he was damn sure going to have to act like one.

“Yeah,” Rhodes said. “Claymore’s going to love this, all right, but if we get it cleared up in time, I’ll be a shoo-in.”

“That’s, true,” Johnny said. “We’d better get on it.”

“It’ll have to wait for a minute or two,” Rhodes said. “First you’d better tell me about those two guys from the Paragon.”

“Not much to tell, really. I drove by there on the way in, and they were scuffling in the parking lot. I tried to stop them, and they got a little rough.”

Rhodes looked Sherman over. His knuckles were scabbed over, and his face had a few superficial cuts on it. He’d been walking pretty carefully when he came in. “What time was all this?

“Toward the end of the shift. Must have been about six-thirty. Pretty near sunup.”

“‘They must have been pretty feisty for so early in the morning. That Paragon is livelier than I thought it was. Anyway, their story is that you’re the one that started things. They say they’re going to sue. Claymore would like that almost as much as the murder.”

“Bullshit, they’re going to sue.” Johnny’s size 16 neck began to get red. “I didn’t lay a hand on them until they jumped me.”

“That might be true,” Rhodes said, “but if they sue, the case will still be up in the air until well after the election.”

“I could resign,” Johnny said.

“Well, let’s don’t jump the gun. Maybe we ought to talk to them about what happened.”

Johnny slapped his right fist into his left palm. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said. He got out of his chair, wincing a little.

They walked up to the block. The two men were in number four, right next to Billy Joe, and when Rhodes and Sherman got there Billy Joe started jabbering and backing up in his cell. He was all the way in the corner looking for a hole.

“What’s the matter with you, Billy Joe?” Rhodes asked him, but he couldn’t answer, or wouldn’t. Rhodes turned to the men in the other cell.

“Is this the man you fellas want to sue?” Rhodes asked, pointing a thumb at Johnny Sherman.

“Damn right,” said one of the men. He was about Rhodes’s height, five-nine or — ten, with very black hair shot through with gray streaks. He had a scraggly gray and black goatee, and he was wearing a red and white cap with an armadillo on it. “We’re gonna sue him and the whole damn county.”

His friend, smaller but very tough-looking, something like James Cagney in White Heat , echoed him. “We’re gonna get you all, the whole rotten bunch. Our civil rights’ve been violated. You can’t get away with beating up on honest citizens. “

Rhodes looked at Johnny Sherman’s cut face. “Looks like we weren’t the only ones doing the beating. You two aren’t marked up any worse than my deputy here.”

“Hell,” said the one with the cap. “We never laid a hand on him. We was just trying to get in our car and get home before our wives got to worrying too much about us, and this sonuvabitch jumped us. I’ll probably have to get divorced now, by god, and that’s his fault too!”

Rhodes put his hand on Johnny Sherman’s arm; he could feel the younger man’s muscles tense through the cloth. He hoped that Johnny wouldn’t reach out and grab one of the men by his shirtfront and try to jerk him through the bars.

“It’ll all come out in court, boys,” Rhodes said. “Assaulting an officer is a pretty serious thing.”

“Assaulting is what he did to us, not what we did to him,” said the Cagney look-alike. “And we’ll prove it, too!”

“Goddamn liars!” Johnny burst out. “Just give me a few minutes with ‘em, Sheriff, and we’ll see. .”

Rhodes gently pressured Johnny’s arm and pushed him back from the cell. “Don’t worry about these two, Johnny,” he said. “You go on home now and get some rest. We’ll take care of this later. I’ve got to go back over to Thurston and talk to Elmer Clinton and Hod Barrett.”

“Goddamn liars,” Johnny muttered again as he and Rhodes walked back toward the stairs.

Billy Joe Byron huddled in the corner of his cell and whimpered.

Elmer Clinton was sitting in his living room drinking a Coors Light when Rhodes arrived. Rhodes had stopped for lunch at Sally’s Truck Stop, but it appeared from the number of empty aluminum cans scattered around the room that Elmer was sticking to a liquid diet. He’d done nothing to clear up the mess, and there were still spots of blood on the floor. He didn’t even get up when Rhodes tapped at the door facing. “Come on in, Sheriff,” he said, taking another sip of his Coors.

Rhodes opened the screen and stepped in, giving Elmer a quick once-over. Clinton was a stout man, only about five-six or so, but heavy, with massive arms and legs. His dirty-blond hair was thinning on top, and his close-set eyes reminded Rhodes of Lloyd Bridges.

“How’re you making it, Elmer?” Rhodes asked.

Clinton took a long pull at his beer can, tossed it aside, and popped open another. “I’m makin’ it, Sheriff,” he said, his words only slightly slurred. “That’s about all. That’s about all.” He took a drink from the fresh can.

“I hate to have to ask you these things, Elmer,” Rhodes said, “but it’s what has to be done. You have any ideas about this? Know any reason why someone might want to kill Jeanne? Any enemies? Any big fusses with anyone here in town?”

Elmer looked at the floor. “There was nothing, not a thing,” he said. “Everyone loved Jeanne. Why, that girl wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less cause trouble amongst the folks here in town.” He shot a quick glance in Rhodes’s direction. “I know you might’ve heard things about how she was a little wild, all that stuff that got out after she won that wet T-shirt contest at the Paragon that time, but that was a long time ago. She’s not like that”-he shook his head angrily-”I mean, she wasn’t like that anymore. She was just tryin’ to be a good wife to me. Lord knows, I loved that girl, Sheriff.”

Rhodes was sometimes uncomfortable in the presence of what he took to be sentimentality, especially sentimentality that had a suspiciously false note in it. This was one of those times, and he wondered just what Elmer was trying to hide. He’d come in determined to spare Elmer’s feelings, but now he decided to give a jab or two in tender areas and see what happened.

“What time do you leave for work every night, Elmer?” Rhodes asked.

“Usually about fifteen or twenty till twelve,” Clinton said. “It don’t take very long to get there, and the roads are clear by that time of the night. No traffic at all.”

“Was Jeanne in the habit of walking around the house in shorts and a halter at that time of night, even after you’d left?”

Clinton rolled the Coors can between his palms. “I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff,” he said. “It’s pretty hot for April, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“That’s not it exactly, Elmer,” Rhodes said, looking at Clinton’s face, trying to watch his eyes instead of the silver and black can that he was rolling slowly between his palms. “I mean that you’d already gone. I mean that maybe she was dressed up for somebody else.”