“We’re fine, Lester,” Rhodes said. “How’s the meat today?”
“Nice an’ lean, Mist’ Rhodes,” Lester said. “Hard to find a nice lean brisket these days, but I do it.”
“We’ll both have a plate with beans, then,” Rhodes said. “And I’ll have a Dr. Pepper.”
“Me, too,” Ivy said. “I’m picking up your bad habits.”
“Man ain’t got no bad habits,” Lester said. He went back into the kitchen to slice the meat. He had a one-man operation and intended to keep it that way.
“What’s new?” Ivy said.
Rhodes told her about the conversation with Dr. Rawlings and about Bert Ramsey. It sometimes surprised him how easily he could talk to her.
“Bert Ramsey built the fence around my back yard,” Ivy said. “About five years ago. He seemed like a nice, hardworking sort of a man. Why would anybody kill him?”
Rhodes told her about the Los Muertos tattoo, and about Ramsey’s mother hearing the motorcycles. He went on to tell her about Buster Cullens and Wyneva.
“And you don’t think there’s any connection between Bert’s murder and those boxes he found?”
“There doesn’t seem to be,” Rhodes said. “No one involved in that had any reason to kill Bert. As far as I know, nothing illegal has been done. Adams and Rawlings seemed pretty cooperative.”
“Then all you have there is a mess.”
“Right. Somehow, some way, we’ve got to get those things taken care of.”
They talked quietly, unaware of the other occupants of the room, all of whom were concentrating on their food. The only real sounds were the clicking of silverware against the heavy china plates that Lester provided.
Then Lester arrived with their food. The meat was cooked just the way Rhodes liked it, slowly, all day, over a hickory fire. Lester had not yet given in to the latest fad, that of cooking his barbecue over mesquite wood.
But it was the sauce that Rhodes liked best, and the sauce was Lester’s greatest secret. Not too thick, not too thin, it was a dark, reddish-black in color, spiced just right by whatever secret ingredients Lester cooked into it. It had a bite, but not too much of one. It was slightly sweet, but tantalizingly so. Rhodes loved to dip his bread in it and eat it, with hardly a guilty thought of his waistline. Ivy didn’t mind. She liked it, too. When they finished, their plates were gleaming white.
“Lester won’t even have to wash those if he doesn’t want to,” Rhodes said, though he knew Lester would. The county health inspector had told Rhodes that Lester had the cleanest kitchen in the territory.
Rhodes paid Lester, who had an ancient cash register on a table near the door. A collector would have paid a premium price for that cash register, Rhodes thought.
It was only seven-thirty when they stepped outside, which meant that there was plenty of daylight left. “I thought I’d ride out to Mrs. Ramsey’s,” Rhodes said. “I’ve got to find out about that tattoo. You want to come along?”
“Sure,” Ivy said. “I never pass up a chance to see how the law operates.” She took his arm and they walked to the car.
Mrs. Ramsey’s house, like Bert’s, looked well kept. Rhodes suspected that Bert was probably responsible, since Mrs. Ramsey hardly looked the type to favor yard work. The house had been recently painted, and the screens of the neat screened-in porch on the front looked almost new. There were no tears in them anywhere. Mrs. Ramsey’s old Ford sat beside the house in the dirt driveway.
“You don’t have to go in,” Rhodes said as he stopped the car. It always made him a little uncomfortable to interrogate women, for some reason. Not that he wasn’t good at it. It was just a feeling that he got, and he wasn’t sure how Ivy would feel about the situation.
“Don’t be silly,” Ivy said. “I’m not going to sit out here in this hot car. Besides, I might be able to help. The poor woman must feel terrible about what’s happened.”
“Thanks,” Rhodes said. He was glad that Ivy would be coming in. Just having her there might make things easier. They got out of the car and walked to the porch. Rhodes rapped with his knuckles on the wooden frame of the screen door, causing it to rattle loosely.
They heard Mrs. Ramsey’s voice from inside. “Comin’.”
Rhodes watched through the screen as she came into view from the front room. Her step was heavy, and he almost expected to hear the floorboards groan under her weight. She lifted the hook latch from the screen and held it open. “Y’all come on in,” she said.
Mrs. Ramsey’s living room was not as neat as her son’s. A yellow Afghan on the back of the couch was in disarray, and the plant on the television set obviously hadn’t been watered in far too long. The straight-backed wooden chairs were old and worn. The television set, however, was nearly brand new.
Mrs. Ramsey saw Rhodes looking at the television.
“Bert bought me that,” she said. “He bought me lots of things.” She looked around, as if trying to see what else her son had bought her. Then she looked back at Rhodes.
“Mrs. Ramsey, this is Ivy Daniel,” Rhodes said. “She’s a friend of mine.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “Y’all have a seat.”
Rhodes and Ivy sat in the wooden chairs. Mrs. Ramsey sank to the couch. The room was dim and cool.
Rhodes was aware of an efficient window-unit air conditioner purring quietly, and he thought of Hack and Lawton down at the jail.
“I know this is a bad time, Mrs. Ramsey,” Rhodes began, “but I have to ask you a few questions.” He paused and looked at Mrs. Ramsey, who sat solidly and quietly on the couch.
The silence stretched out. Rhodes looked at Ivy, who shrugged. Rhodes decided to go ahead.
“Mrs. Ramsey, I always thought that Bert was in the Army before he came back here to work, but what you said last night about the motorcycles made me wonder. Was Bert ever a member of one of those motorcycle gangs?”
Mrs. Ramsey didn’t move. Rhodes waited. Finally, she said, “I heard motorsickles last night. Buster Cullens has a motorsickle.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. “I’ve seen it. But what I’m asking about is Bert, not Buster Cullens.”
“Bert was livin’ in sin with that Wyneva before Buster Cullens come up here. Bert was a good boy, before he got mixed up with them motorsickles.”
“That’s what I’d like to know about,” Rhodes said. “The motorcycles.”
“That was a long time ago,” Mrs. Ramsey said.
“How long?” Ivy asked. Rhodes was surprised, but he didn’t say anything. He figured Ivy knew what she was doing.
Mrs. Ramsey’s eyes had a sad, faraway look. “It was right after he got out of high school,” she said. “His pa had died the year before, and Bert took it pretty good. We lived right in this house, here. I’ve got a picture of Bert in his graduation gown. He was standing right by that chair you’re sittin’ in. It was that summer he got mixed up with a bad crowd, drinkin’, ridin’ them motor-sickles. It wasn’t that he did anything real wrong. That was later, with that Wyneva.”
“He had a tattoo,” Rhodes said.
“He got that tattoo that summer,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “He said he was one of the dead, now. I didn’t know what he meant, but I thought maybe his daddy dyin’ affected him more than he let on. But he got over it, finally, come back here, settled down, and made somethin’ of himself. But that Wyneva was the ruination of him. And then them motorsickles come back. . ”
“When?” Ivy asked. “When did the motorcycles come back?”
“Two years ago,” Mrs. Ramsey said.
Rhodes looked at her, surprised. He wasn’t able to keep tabs on every single thing in Blacklin County, but he didn’t think that a gang of motorcyclists like Los Muertos could hide out there for two years without him hearing a thing about it. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“About that,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “It was after he took up with that Wyneva, but a good while before they started in to livin’ in sin.”
“Did you ever see them?” Rhodes asked.