Bill Crider: Too Late to Die

The old couple was replaced by a boy who looked like he might possibly be in the first grade. The guitar he carried was a cheap black Stella that almost hid him from the audience. Rhodes didn’t catch his name; it sounded like “Tinker.” Whatever his name was, the little boy knew three chords and sang “Sea of Heartbreak” in an alarming monotone that was just enough off key to set Rhodes’s teeth on edge. Nevertheless, he got quite a round of applause.

“Ain’t he cute?” Jerry Bob Tyler yelled over the crowd noise. “He’s gonna be a real star someday, you mark my words.” He raised his hands over his head and applauded loudly, the Milsby audience joining in with renewed fervor. “Now then,” Jerry Bob said when things had quieted. “It’s time to get to a real important part of this evening’s business. The big cake auction!” He waved his right hand to indicate the area behind him.

A few yards behind the podium, on the back wall, panels began to slide up. Where there had once been a serving table for the Milsby students there was now a counter loaded with cakes of all kinds: chocolate, angel food, coconut, pineapple upside-down, devil’s food, sheath, three-layer, and several kinds that Rhodes didn’t even try to identify.

Jerry Bob walked back to the cakes and picked up one of the angel food concoctions. “This here one’s light as a feather, folks, handmade right from scratch if I know anything about cakes, and I’m an old cake eater from way back. What’m I bid on this little beauty?”

“Five dollars,” called out the young senator-type, and the bidding was on.

When it was all over, Rhodes was the possessor of a devil’s food cake for which he’d paid thirty-five dollars. He had no real idea what had made him bid on a devil’s food cake, and he sincerely hoped that it wasn’t Mrs. Wilkie’s. She might expect him to drop by her house to cut it.

Then the speeches began. About the only one that held any interest for Rhodes, except for his own and Claymore’s, was Ivy Daniels’s. Women didn’t usually run for the position of justice of the peace, and her opponent had made any number of subtle references to the fact that the JP was often called upon to leave the house at night, to be present at the scenes of sometimes gruesome accidents or even murders, and to perform other tasks that just weren’t fit for a lady. Ivy didn’t hesitate to counterattack. She felt that women were just as strong as men, and maybe stronger, she told the audience. She’d like to see any of the brave men she knew carry a baby for nine months and then deliver it. Then she’d know just how brave they really were.

Rhodes thought it was a good point, but most of the applause when Ivy sat down was merely polite, nothing more. Ralph Claymore, when his turn came, looked more than ready. He’d already removed his hat, in deference to whatever old-fashioned ladies were still living-and there weren’t many, because it was now quite common to see men who fancied themselves to be cowboys eating in any restaurant in Clearview while wearing a hat or a cap-but he still looked just like a sheriff should look. He was tall and slim, and his Levi’s Saddleman jeans fit him to double-knit perfection. His tapered western shirt had just the right amount of color in it, and his belt buckle tonight was a huge brass armadillo. He stood behind the podium as if he owned the building.

When he spoke, his voice was deep and pleasing. “I know that most of you people here know Dan Rhodes, my opponent in the sheriff’s race,” he began. “Well, I know him too, and like most of you I think he’s done a fine job while he’s been our sheriff. Not many fellows could have done half as well as he has. Why, I’d bet that violent crimes, crimes against persons, aren’t up in our county by more than ten or twelve percent.”

Nine point eight six percent , thought Rhodes, not counting Jeanne Clinton. Here it comes .

But it didn’t come.

“Yep, Sheriff Rhodes has done real well. And the only reason that I’m here tonight is that I think I can do a little better. I’d like to see us have a new jail, for one thing. Not one that is a country club like those Federal pens you read about, not one of those. Just a jail that doesn’t have rats in it, and one that lets an accused man live like a man and not some kind of animal. I don’t mean to treat the prisoners better than I’d treat some of you, but imagine what it might be like if your son or even your daughter got arrested for speeding and had maybe had a little too much to drink and had to spend a night in that jail we’ve got now. . ”

Claymore went on, his voice deep and confident, his tone reassuring, while Rhodes’s mind raced ahead unbelievingly.

What was going on here? Claymore had a valid spot to attack him-the first murder in the county in nearly two years. But he wasn’t saying a thing about it. Instead he was talking about things over which Rhodes had no real control. It was true that the sheriff could use his influence, whatever that might be, and it usually wasn’t much, with the county commissioners; but that was all. The sheriff couldn’t build the jail. He could staff it, see that it was run right and according to all the State and Federal rules that were laid down. He could treat the prisoners fairly. He could see that they were fed properly and got the required exercise. Rhodes had always done this.

“. . And that’s why I’m asking for your vote in the Democratic Primary on May 4,” Claymore concluded. He smiled and dipped his head slightly to the applause.

Rhodes walked to the podium for his turn in a sort of daze. He had no idea what was going on here. True, there weren’t many votes represented by this crowd, but a reporter from the Clearview Herald was in the audience. Claymore could have counted on a fair summary of whatever he said being in the next day’s paper, and he said nothing that Rhodes wasn’t going to refute easily.

Still thinking, Rhodes started to talk. “Friends, Ralph Claymore may think that he can do a better job than I can, but I sure don’t.” He said it positively but with a smile, and got a polite laugh in reply. “For one thing, the sheriff in this county doesn’t have as much control over the building of a jail as you might think, or Mr. Claymore would have you believe. All that’s up to your commissioners, and I think you’ll find that they’ll be reasonable about it.” They had to be , he thought, considering what that judge had said .

“For my part,” he went on, “I’ve always done my best to see that anybody who gets arrested in Blacklin County gets the fairest treatment possible. I don’t think that any of you people here tonight have to worry about what might happen to any member of your family who got arrested on some minor charge, or even a major charge for that matter, because. .”

Rhodes came to a stop then because he suddenly realized what was happening. He realized it even before he saw the little James Cagney look-alike getting up from where he’d been sitting inconspicuously in the back of the audience. Claymore had set him up.

Which meant that Claymore was both smarter and sneakier than Rhodes had given him credit for. Those two men had gotten out of jail only slightly earlier that day, and already Claymore had found them and gotten their stories.

It might not have happened that way, though, Rhodes realized. It was possible that the men, or maybe only the one now getting up, had gone to Claymore. Maybe instead of filing a suit against the county, which they were almost certain to lose, they had decided to work with Claymore for a small payment out of his campaign funds. Either way, Rhodes knew that he was in for it.

The man had by now gotten to his feet and pushed to the front of the sparse crowd. “Sheriff, I’d like to ask you a little question,” he said.