A Romantic Way to Die (9 page)

Vernell looked thoughtful. “There was a rumor that there’s more to Serena and Terry Don than just a physical attraction. Someone said that she wanted him to acknowledge that they were having an affair and then appear on her book covers exclusively.”

“What would be the purpose in that?” Rhodes asked.

“It’s very romantic, don’t you think?”

Rhodes wasn’t sure. Probably it was like Chatterton had said: men didn’t know anything about romance.

“And besides,” Vernell continued, “it would drive the other writers completely crazy if it worked. Serena’s sales would double. Maybe triple. Everyone would hate her even more than they do now.”

“They hate her?” Rhodes said.

“Envy her is more like it. She’s very attractive, she sells lots of books, and every one she writes sells better than the last one. She’s going to be big.”

“But not if Henrietta’s book is published. People would see another side of her.”

“Everyone in the business already sees that side,” Vernell said. “And I hope you don’t think Serena killed Henrietta because of that manuscript. That’s crazy. And I certainly hope you don’t think I killed her. I know we weren’t very good friends, but—”

“She thought you stole her idea,” Rhodes said. “If you did, that would be a motive.”

Vernell gave Rhodes an exasperated look.

“I never stole anything from anyone. Henrietta’s book was terrible. Ask anyone who’s read part of the manuscript and see what they tell you. She was just looking for someone to blame for her failure. Writers are like that.”

Rhodes didn’t know what Vernell was talking about, so she enlightened him.

“When a manuscript doesn’t sell, it’s never the writer’s fault,” Vernell said. “It’s always the editor’s fault, or the agent’s fault. Or in Henrietta’s case, my fault. People just don’t like to admit that they might not have the talent to write a publishable book.”

“So you were just a convenient target for her frustrations,” Rhodes said. “There was nothing personal in it.”

“That’s it. Besides, I was in my room when she was killed. You heard what Carrie said.”

“I heard,” Rhodes said.

“Good. Now can I go to the meeting? I’ve probably missed half of it already.”

She turned toward the door, and Rhodes said, “Speaking of something personal, maybe you heard about the contest the radio station was supposed to be running.”

Vernell was reaching out for the door, but she dropped her hand and turned back to Rhodes.

“I heard about it,” she said.

“Who told you?” Rhodes asked.

Vernell hesitated and dropped her eyes. Rhodes could tell she didn’t want to answer the question.

“It would be easy for me to find out,” he said.

Vernell looked up at him.

“All right, if you must know. Henrietta told me. That was a mean and spiteful trick, but she thought it was funny.”

“The people she called didn’t.”

“No, but that just goes to show how stupid Henrietta was. From what I hear, the people she called got mad at the K-Vue, not at me.”

“And it didn’t bother you in the least, I guess,” Rhodes said.

Vernell stared at him defiantly.

“No, it didn’t. Like I said, it was just a stupid practical joke, and it didn’t work. Now can I go to the meeting?”

Rhodes told her to go ahead. He had plenty to think about, and he wanted to get back to town and talk to Ruth Grady about her crime-scene investigation. And if Dr. White had done an autopsy on Henrietta, Rhodes wanted to know the results.

He was about halfway to his car when he saw Chatterton leave the president’s house and head for the dormitory, which was only a few yards away. For some reason Rhodes wondered about Chatterton’s story of the previous evening. He’d claimed that he’d been in the dormitory, but no one had backed him up. Rhodes would have called Vernell back to ask her if she’d seen him, but she’d already disappeared inside the main building.

Rhodes decided he’d ask Vernell another time. If he went into the meeting and tried to get her out, she’d probably cause a riot. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

But Chatterton was a different story. Rhodes drove around to the dorm and went inside, where Chatterton was looking around the lounge area.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’d be back this evening,” Rhodes said. “I have some more questions for everyone.”

“I’ll let them know,” Chatterton said. “There won’t be another session tonight, but we’ll all be having dinner together at seven.”

“I’ll be by around eight, then,” Rhodes said. “I hope you have a vegetarian meal this time.”

“Don’t worry,” Chatterton said. “I thought that Ms. Thayer was going to get violent last night. I had to call the Round-Up several times this morning to make sure that things would be all right at lunch.”

“And were they?”

“Yes, thank goodness. It wasn’t easy, though.”

Rhodes was sure it hadn’t been. Potatoes were the only vegetable the Round-Up served with any regularity.

“I hope there wasn’t any problem with breakfast,” he said.

“I managed to drive to Clearview and get some fruit,” Chatterton said. “I didn’t want a repeat of last evening.”

“I don’t blame you,” Rhodes said.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about the murder. I certainly wouldn’t want that, but I wouldn’t want another scene like the one Ms. Thayer caused, either. Not that there’s any comparison.”

“She must have quite a temper,” Rhodes said.

“That’s putting it mildly. Some of the women know her, and they weren’t too disturbed. But some of the others were shocked. For that matter, so was I.”

Nothing people did surprised Rhodes much anymore, but he didn’t tell Chatterton that. He didn’t want to seem cynical. So he just said, “I’ll see you later,” and left.

12

W
HEN RHODES GOT BACK TO THE JAIL, RUTH WAS THERE, TALKING to Hack about Miz McGee, the woman he’d been dating for a while. Though Hack didn’t look it, he was in his seventies. But he was still quite the ladies’ man, at least to hear him tell it.

“Last night we rented this video called
The Talented Mr. Ripley
,” he was saying when Rhodes walked in. “You ever hear of it?”

Ruth said that she had. Rhodes hadn’t, but then he wasn’t exactly up-to-date when it came to movies. The kind he liked were the ones that used to be shown on late-night television shows sponsored by insurance companies that sold auto insurance to people even if their driving records were terrible, lawyers who appealed to accident victims or people who had workman’s comp cases, and used-car dealers who would extend credit to mass murderers.

“It was kind of an interestin’ movie,” Hack said. “It happened in Italy, and it had some skinny blond woman in it. And there was a guy who was killin’ people off one right after the other. If those Italian cops were half as smart as our sheriff, they’d have arrested that guy before the movie was half over, but they were sort of slow. Come to think of it, so was the movie. Miz McGee went to sleep sometime in the first hour or so. I lasted the whole thing, though. I believe in gettin’ my money’s worth when I rent a video, even if it kills me.”

“Speaking of killing people,” Rhodes said, “what about that autopsy report?”

“Dr. White sent it over,” Ruth said. “I put it on your desk. Things happened pretty much the way we figured. Henrietta was killed when she fell and hit her head on the sharp corner of that dresser.”

“And had there been a fight?”

“Yes. There were marks on Henrietta’s wrists where someone had held her.”

“Fingernail scrapings?” Rhodes asked.

“No. Whoever was struggling with her got hold of her wrists before getting scratched.”

“Too bad,” Rhodes said, though he wasn’t surprised. No one at the conference had had any visible scratches. “Did you find anything in the room that might help us?”

“There were plenty of fingerprints,” Ruth said. “They were all over the place, but I’d be willing to bet they all belong to Henrietta or Lorene Winslow. There were some smudges on the window screen, but nothing that would help.”

“How many criminals you ever hear of that got caught by fingerprints?” Hack asked.

“None,” Ruth said. “But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any.”

“Hah,” Hack said, and smiled a superior smile.

“So we’re going to have to do it the hard way,” Rhodes said.

“Don’t we always?” Ruth said.

“At least this time nobody’s shooting at us,” Rhodes said, recalling a recent case that had found him and Ruth at a cemetery being fired on with automatic weapons.

“Not yet, anyway,” Hack said.

“I don’t think any of those romance writers are carrying machine pistols,” Rhodes told him.

“Some of ’em might surprise you.”

Rhodes agreed that anything was possible and asked if anything had happened during the day.

“Nothin’ you need to worry about,” Hack said. “Just the usual stuff.”

“Good,” Rhodes said. “I’m going home, and then I’ll be going back to Obert around eight.”

He was almost to the door when the telephone rang. He had a feeling that he might be needed, so he stopped where he was while Hack answered.

Hack listened for a minute and said, “Lord a’mercy. Was it Henrietta’s finger?”

Rhodes turned back. He knew now he wouldn’t be going home for a while.

“Whose finger was it, then?” Hack asked.

Rhodes looked at Ruth, who shrugged.

“Lord a‘mercy,” Hack said again. “Poor old Larry. But I guess the good news is that he doesn’t know about it, him bein’ dead. The sheriff’s right here. I’ll tell him to get over there.”

Hack hung up, and Rhodes said, “What’s the problem?”

“Larry Tietz died the other day,” Hack said.

“I heard about it,” Rhodes said. “Heart attack, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what they say. Right there in the middle of a Lion’s Club luncheon. Keeled over in his mashed potatoes. Which would’ve been a big disappointment to him if he’d known about it, since—”

“You said something about a finger,” Rhodes said, to get things back on track.

“Yeah. He cut it off.”

“Larry Tietz cut off his finger?” Ruth said. “But he’s dead.”

“
He
didn’t cut it off. Somebody else did. He was tryin’ to smoke it.”

“Smoke it?” Rhodes said. “Don’t tell me we have a cannibal on the loose.”

“He’s not on the loose,” Hack said. “Clyde caught him.”

Clyde Ballinger was the director of Ballinger’s Funeral Home, and Rhodes had dealt with him many times in the past.

“And he’s not a cannibal,” Hack went on.

“So he didn’t eat the finger?” Ruth said.

“He wasn’t ever going to eat it,” Hack told her. “He wasn’t smokin’ it like you’d smoke a ham. He was smokin’ it like you’d smoke a cigar.”

“I don’t believe this,” Ruth said. “You’re trying to pull some kind of a joke on me.”

“Not me,” Hack said. “If anybody’s jokin’, it’s Clyde Ballinger, and you can ask him all about it. Or you can, Sheriff. He asked for you.”

“I’m going, too,” Ruth said.

“Better hurry,” Hack said. “Clyde was talking with his cell phone in one hand and his gun in the other.”

“Come on,” Rhodes told Ruth, but she was already at the door.

Ballinger’s Funeral Home had once been one of the largest private homes in Clearview, with spacious grounds that included a swimming pool and tennis courts. The pool and courts were gone, and no one was living in the old house. All the people who spent the night there these days were dead. Ballinger had his offices in the brick servants’ quarters out back, and his own home was next door.

Rhodes stopped in the back drive, and he and Ruth got out of the car. It was dusk, and all the lights on the grounds were on, as well as all those inside the funeral home.

“I’m in here,” Ballinger called from the back entrance to the building.

Ruth and Rhodes walked over to see Ballinger standing just inside the door. He was gripping a .38 pistol in both hands, pointing it through the open door of the embalming room.

“Come on in,” Ballinger said, stepping into the embalming room so the officers could enter through the back door.

When they went inside, Rhodes looked into the embalming room. Somehow the place always bothered him, with its faint chemical smell and its easily cleaned porcelain and stainless steel glittering under the lights.

But what he noticed this time was the man who cowered in one corner. There was something on the floor in front of him, something that Rhodes was pretty sure was Larry Tietz’s finger.

Ballinger stood off to one side, pointing his pistol at the man on the floor.

“I guess you’re licensed to carry that thing,” Rhodes said.

“Sure am,” Ballinger told him. “Took the course and everything. Glad I did, too.”

“You can put it up now,” Rhodes said, and Ballinger stuck the .38 in the waistband of his pants.

“Is that Larry Tietz’s finger?” Ruth said.

“It is,” Ballinger said. “That young fella there cut it off. What’s the penalty for mutilating a corpse?”

Rhodes said he wasn’t sure. “But we don’t have to worry about that. The judge will know.”

The man on the floor looked up at them. He needed a haircut, and his clothes were dirty.

“Hack said he was trying to smoke the finger,” Rhodes said. “Why?”

“Ask him,” Ballinger said.

Rhodes did.

“It’s not my fault,” the man said. He nodded at Ballinger. “It’s his.”

“How’s that?” Rhodes asked.

“The son of a bitch locked up his embalming fluid, that’s how.”

Rhodes looked at Ballinger.

“Well, he’s right about that,” Ballinger said. “I lock it up, all right. Because of people like him. I don’t know how these rumors get started.”

“What rumors?” Ruth asked.

“The ones about how smoking cigarettes soaked in embalming fluid can get you high,” Ballinger said. “I had some calls from around the state. Some acquaintances told me they’d had some break-ins, so I started locking the fluid up in a closet. That’s why he couldn’t get at it.”

“It doesn’t explain the finger, though,” Ruth said.

“Sure it does. He couldn’t smoke a cigarette soaked in the stuff, so he decided that he’d try smoking a finger. I guess he thought there’d be plenty in there.”