Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen (16 page)

*   *   *

Yancey greeted Rhodes at the door, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as usual. The late hour might have had something to do with it. Rhodes took a quick bath and went into the bedroom, where Ivy was reading
Terrorist Terror.

She put someone's business card in the book to mark her place, closed the book, and put it on the nightstand by the bed.

“What you need is a sidekick,” she said. “Somebody who knows martial arts. Like Wade Winslow.”

“Who?”

“In the book,” Ivy said. “Wade Winslow. He's Sage Barton's new sidekick. He knows something called Chen Shuan. He studied with somebody named Professor Lansdale in East Texas.”

“A sidekick like that would come in handy, all right,” Rhodes said, thinking about his recent encounter at the Environmental Reclamation Center. “This morning, somebody told me what I needed was more angst. Some kind of secret sorrow, like a dead sweetheart.”

“You have a live sweetheart,” Ivy said. “Want me to prove it?”

Rhodes realized he wasn't so tired, after all.

*   *   *

“Is ‘turkey bacon' an oxymoron?” Rhodes asked Ivy the next morning while he was eating breakfast.

Ivy was putting food in Sam's bowl while the cat pretended not to be interested. She looked up and said, “You mean like ‘artificial grass'?”

“That's it,” Rhodes said. He held up the piece of bacon he'd been eating. “What do you think?”

Ivy walked over to the table, and Sam waited until she was well away from him before he'd deign to eat.

“You think the bacon tastes funny?” Ivy asked.

Rhodes shook his head. “No. I just wondered if you could call something ‘bacon' if it wasn't associated with a pig.”

“Considering your adventures with pigs,” Ivy said, “I'd think you'd be glad this bacon came from a turkey.”

Rhodes grinned. He'd had more than his share of adventures with pigs, all right, though they weren't really pigs, not exactly.

“They were wild hogs,” he said, “and they're overrunning the county. Before long they'll be taking over the town. You just wait.”

“Maybe we should go into business for ourselves,” Ivy said. “We could sell wild hog bacon. It might be a big hit.”

“Anything to get rid of the feral hogs,” Rhodes said, and that ended the discussion, though Rhodes still thought he was right about the oxymoron.

*   *   *

After breakfast, Rhodes skipped his usual visit with Speedo, but he got Ivy's assurance that she'd see to Speedo's needs and let Yancey out for a romp. Sam didn't care one way or another what Rhodes did.

As soon as he left the house, Rhodes went to Ballinger's Funeral Home. The building had once been a mansion owned by one of the richest families in town, and Clyde Ballinger lived in back in a much smaller building that had been the servants' quarters. He was an early riser, and Rhodes knew he'd be up and about.

Ballinger answered Rhodes's knock and told him to come in. Rhodes entered what once had been a small living room but was now Ballinger's unofficial office. There was something different about it, and it took Rhodes a second or two to realize what it was. The desk, usually covered with old paperback books with trashy covers, was almost bare.

“You quit reading?” Rhodes asked.

Ballinger grinned. He might have been a mortician, but he was always cheerful. “Nope. Got me this.” He picked up a rectangular leather-covered object that looked like a notebook of some kind and flipped it open. “It's an e-reader.”

“A what?”

“An e-reader,” Ballinger said. “It's kind of like a computer, but for reading. You can put thousands of books on this one reader.”

Rhodes had heard of e-readers, but he'd never seen one. It didn't seem much like a book to him.

“Let me show you,” Ballinger said. He switched the machine on and handed it to Rhodes. “Take a look.”

Rhodes looked. The screen showed what appeared to be a table of contents.

“Those are the books on the reader,” Ballinger said. “I have about ten so far, but I'll have more.”

Rhodes looked at some of the titles.
The Desperado, Renegade Cop, The Cheaters, To Kiss or Kill, Dig My Grave Deep.
They sounded like Ballinger's kind of material, all right.

Except for one of them.

“
Terrorist Terror
?” Rhodes asked.

Ballinger gave him a grin. “You know me. I can't resist a story about a crime-busting sheriff who just happens to be based on a person I know. Just got it downloaded today.”

“I'm nothing at all like Sage Barton.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“It even has pictures of the covers,” Ballinger said, changing the subject.

“I thought you liked finding things at garage sales,” Rhodes said.

“Can't do that much anymore, what with the Internet. People snap up anything they think they can sell on eBay, and that doesn't leave a lot for me. Sad thing is, I've read most of those on the reader before. I just thought it'd be fun to have them.”

“Anything by your favorite writer?”

“Who do you mean?”

“You know. The one who writes about the Eighty-seventh Precinct.”

“Ed McBain,” Ballinger said. “Nothing on there by him yet. He's dead, you know. No more books about Carella and Hawes and Meyer Meyer. It's a shame.”

Rhodes handed the reader back to Ballinger, who shut it off and set it on the desk.

“Speaking of a shame,” Rhodes said, “what about the autopsy reports on Lynn Ashton and Jeff Tyler?”

“Dr. White left those for you,” Ballinger said. He opened a drawer, took out a couple of folders, and passed them to Rhodes. “Have a seat and look them over.”

Rhodes did. He didn't find anything he hadn't already known or suspected. Lynn Ashton had been killed by a blow to the head that had driven splinters of her skull into her brain. Tyler had been shot with two .38 caliber bullets. It was the bullet in the head that had killed him.

“Carella and the gang at the eight-seven would have this one wrapped up by now,” Ballinger said when Rhodes closed the second folder.

“It's only been twenty-four hours,” Rhodes said.

“Well, maybe they wouldn't have,” Ballinger said. “They'd have some suspects, though.”

“I have suspects,” Rhodes said.

“Randy Lawless, right?”

Rhodes's face must have shown his surprise.

“You didn't know?” Ballinger asked.

“No,” Rhodes said. “I didn't.”

“I thought everybody in town knew about those two.”

“Nobody's mentioned them to me.”

“Then let me be the first.”

Randy Lawless was an attorney, the best at criminal defense in the county if reputation meant anything. He and Rhodes had a more or less friendly relationship, though they were occasional adversaries in court. He was also a married man, like most of the others that Lynn Ashton had been seeing, at least the ones Rhodes knew about.

“Details?” Rhodes asked.

Ballinger shook his head. “Not a one. I heard it from somebody a few weeks ago. I'm usually the last one in town to hear things like that, so I figured it wasn't much of a secret.”

“Maybe it wasn't a secret,” Rhodes said, “but I didn't know about it.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Yes,” Rhodes said. “Now I do.”

*   *   *

Rhodes left Ballinger's office, and before he could start the county car, Hack called him on the radio.

“That reporter's here,” Hack said. “She wants to know all about Jeff Tyler.”

“I'm officially promoting you to the office of spokesperson for the Blacklin County Sheriff's Department,” Rhodes said. “Tell her what she wants to know.”

“I don't know anything,” Hack said.

“Tell her that.”

“She's not gonna like it. She wants to talk to you.”

“She'll have to find me first,” Rhodes said.

Chapter 16

Rhodes had intended to go to see Randy Lawless next, but Lawless didn't open his office until nine, and it was still only eight thirty. That was all right. Rhodes had another idea he wanted to try out first, so he drove out to Seepy Benton's house.

Benton wasn't a morning person, but lately he'd started to get up early enough to go out for a walk before going to the college to teach. He lived out on one of the county roads not far from the school, and Rhodes thought he could get there in plenty of time to have a chat with him.

Sure enough, just as Rhodes drove up, Benton and Bruce were starting on their constitutional. Bruce started barking as soon as Rhodes pulled into the driveway. He was a fierce-looking animal, a leopard dog, colored like a calico cat, descendant of mastiffs, and he could be as fierce as he looked if the mood was on him. It had been on him all too often when he was living in a pen at the trailer owned by the Eccles cousins. However, since he'd been living with Seepy Benton, he'd calmed down considerably. Benton had been good for him.

Rhodes got out of the car and said, “Hey, Bruce.”

Bruce stopped barking and walked over to Rhodes, who held out his hand for the dog to sniff. Satisfied after a couple of quick whiffs, Bruce started to wag his tail.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Benton said as Bruce walked back over to him. “You must need my help or you wouldn't be out here so early in the day.”

“Maybe I just wanted to see Bruce, your faithful animal companion.”

“A look at Bruce is worth the trip, but I don't think that's why you came.”

“You're right,” Rhodes said. He might as well admit it. “I do need your help. That is, if you have time. When's your first class?”

“It's Friday,” Benton said, “so no class until ten. I can spare an hour or so to engage in fighting crime for the county.”

“Just as long as you don't start trying to engage in punishment.”

“Crime … punishment,” Benton said. “Is that a literary joke? If it is, you'll have to explain it to me. Remember, I'm a math teacher.”

“Never mind,” Rhodes said.

“I won't,” Benton said. “Anyway, I'm a skilled martial artist. I can deal out punishment with the best of them. Want a demonstration?”

He struck what Rhodes assumed was a martial arts pose, maybe something from
The Karate Kid.
Bruce gave him a skeptical look. Rhodes thought that Bruce was a pretty smart dog.

“What I had in mind won't require martial arts,” Rhodes said, “although Ivy did say last night that I needed a sidekick who was good at them.”

Benton relaxed his pose. “I'm more the hero type than the sidekick type, but I might be able to adjust.”

Rhodes looked at Bruce. Bruce remained skeptical.

“Right,” Rhodes said. “Anyway, I'm not in the market for a sidekick or martial artist. What I need is somebody skilled in conducting a search.”

“I can do that, too. We learned about it in the Citizens' Academy. Bruce didn't attend, but he can help.” At the sound of his name, Bruce thumped his tail on the ground. “He can sniff things out even better than I can.”

“You can take him along, then,” Rhodes said.

“Good. Before we go searching, though, you might want to tell us what we're looking for.”

“A cell phone,” Rhodes said.

The idea had come to Rhodes when he woke up that morning. Frankie might believe the phone could be traced, and even if he didn't believe it, he might prefer getting rid of it to having it found on him if he was caught.

“You saw where the man ran from the building last night, didn't you?” Rhodes asked Benton.

“Sure. I would've followed him, but—”

“—he was cutting across lawns. I know. Did you see him throw anything away while he was running?”

“I couldn't tell. The moonlight wasn't bright enough for me to see details.”

Rhodes wasn't too concerned that Benton hadn't seen anything. That didn't mean Frankie hadn't gotten rid of the phone. If he had, Rhodes hoped he'd done it soon after leaving the warehouse. The whole block next to the building was bare except for weeds and junk that people had dumped there. If the phone was there, Benton might get lucky and find it.

“What I'd like for you to do is find a cell phone that Frankie might have thrown away last night.”

“Who's Frankie?”

Rhodes explained, and Benton said, “Why would he throw away a cell phone?”

Rhodes explained that, too.

“If it's there,” Benton said, “Bruce and I can find it. Right, Bruce?”

Bruce thumped his tail on the ground.

“See?” Benton asked. “Bruce understands everything I say. He believes we can do it.”

“I can tell,” Rhodes said.

“What kind of phone is it?” Benton asked.

“I don't know,” Rhodes said. “Does it matter?”

“I wouldn't want to bring in the wrong one.”

Rhodes wondered how many cell phones Benton thought he was going to find. He said, “Bring in as many as you can.”

“Right,” Benton said. “You can count on us, Sheriff. Seepy Benton and Bruce are on the case. And if you need a martial arts sidekick anytime at all, just give me a call.”

“Sure thing.” Rhodes was sorry he'd mentioned the sidekick.

“Come on, Bruce,” Benton said. “Let's get the Seepymobile on the road.”

Rhodes watched them go. It occurred to him that Benton already had a sidekick. Maybe Yancey would like a career in crime-busting. No. It would never work. Sam the cat would be jealous.

Rhodes got in his car and went to see Randy Lawless.

*   *   *

Lawless's offices were in a large white building that dominated Clearview's downtown, mainly because it was the only one in the area that wasn't about to collapse. Rhodes sometimes called the building the Lawj Mahal. In front of it was a wide asphalt parking lot. Only one car was parked there now, and that was Lawless's black Infiniti. Rhodes pulled in beside it and got out, feeling a little shabby driving the county's Dodge.