“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Claymore. “I’m sure he couldn’t help you. Ralph and I never miss The A-Team on Tuesday nights.”
“Well, thanks anyway, Mrs. Claymore,” Rhodes said, hanging up the phone. Claymore wasn’t necessarily in the clear, but he’d been home the early part of Tuesday night.
Rhodes got in his car, called up Buddy on the radio, and asked him to meet him at Ferguson’s Feed Store.
Claude Ferguson was a cousin of Claire’s, and he and Rhodes had been friends for years. He didn’t mind at all if the sheriff used the back of his feed store for a meeting place if he wanted to discuss something that he didn’t want to talk about at the jail. There was a small parking lot behind the store that no one ever used, and any conversations held in the rear part of the cavernous building were easily kept private.
Rhodes liked the place. It was an old tin building, with its wooden floor set up on concrete blocks. In many places the tin sides were gapped, and there were double-wide doors on all sides, all of which contributed to the free circulation of air. There was a wall between the small front section of the store and the back area so that the front could be heated and cooled. The wall had a large door in it, but the door was always closed unless someone was loading feed through it.
Rhodes pulled into the parking lot, got out, and stepped through the back door. He was greeted with the distinctive smell of feed stores everywhere, a combination of ground corn, wheat shorts, horse and mule feed mixed with molasses, laying mash, pig starter, and who knew what else. There was a strong ammonium tinge from the fertilizer, and just a whiff of Diazanon as well. It was a smell that Rhodes didn’t mind at all.
He walked between rows of paper and burlap feed sacks stacked as high as his head, and even higher. When he came to a stack of shelled corn that was about waist high, he sat on the top sack to wait for Buddy.
Buddy wasn’t long in appearing. He came in and sat across from Rhodes on a red, white, and blue sack of hen scratch.
Buddy didn’t look much like a deputy sheriff. Rhodes had never quite been able to decide just exactly what Buddy did look like. He was tall and thin, and he could never get a uniform shirt (or any other shirt) that quite fit. The sleeves were always too short, or if they were long enough, the shoulder seams hung over his shoulders. His head didn’t match his body. It was far too big for his thin neck, and it always seemed in a precarious state of balance.
His appearance didn’t affect his work, however. Buddy was good at his job.
“Had any time to look into that Terry Wayne business?” Rhodes asked when Buddy had settled himself.
“Sure have, Sheriff,” Buddy said. His voice was a nasal tenor. “I talked to the man himself.”
“And?”
“And I think you better talk to him, Sheriff,” Buddy said seriously, his big head bobbing up and down. “I b’lieve that old boy really thinks he has a case.”
Rhodes sighed and leaned back against the stack of corn sacks at his back. “You don’t think he’s bluffing?”
“I didn’t say what I thought. I said what he thinks. If you get what I mean.” Buddy pulled up a thin knee and locked his hands around it.
“I’m not sure that I do,” Rhodes said. “Does he have a case, or doesn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” Buddy said stubbornly. “I just know he thinks he has a case. He’s getting himself a lawyer and everything.”
Rhodes groaned. “What about that business with Claymore?”
“Well, I think you could say that it was mostly Wayne’s idea.”
“It’s that ‘mostly’ part that I’m interested in,” Rhodes said. “You don’t have to be diplomatic about it.” Rhodes suspected that Buddy was watching his words because if Claymore were elected and Rhodes were out of a job, Buddy would still be a deputy. The county wasn’t exactly on the spoils system.
“What I mean is, I think he went to Claymore with the idea. It wasn’t something that Claymore knew about in advance. I could tell that much. If the fight was staged, Claymore didn’t know a thing about it, but I guess he didn’t mind using it.”
Rhodes had just about reached the same conclusion after his talk with Claymore, and it didn’t make him happy. “OK, Buddy, thanks. You can get back on your run,” he said.
But Buddy didn’t get up. It was plain that he had something more to say, but that he wasn’t quite sure how to say it. Finally he got it out. “Sheriff, how much do you know about Johnny Sherman?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he rushed on. “I mean, I know he goes out with your daughter and all, and you wouldn’t of hired him if he hadn’t been a good man for the job, but this Wayne fella really seems to think he can get the department on this. I mean, he’s convinced that he and his pal were whipped up on by Johnny for no reason at all.”
Despite the sinking feeling in his stomach, Rhodes tried to be optimistic. “Look at it this way, Buddy. Nobody we ever arrested was guilty of a thing to hear him tell it, was he? Can you ever remember arresting a guilty party in your whole career?”
“No, Sheriff, not when you put it like that. But this Wayne ain’t like that. He sounds mighty damn truthful to me. I’m afraid that with a good lawyer, he can really cause some trouble.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see about that,” Rhodes said. “You can be sure of one thing. If Johnny did anything wrong, I’ll find out about it.” He stood up, clapped Buddy on the shoulder, and walked out to his car.
When he got back to the jail, Rhodes let Hack catch him up on the latest happenings. “That Polish fella’s wife came and got him this morning,” Hack said.
“His wife?” Rhodes said. “And I thought you said he wasn’t Polish.”
“Wasn’t,” Hack said. “He was just as American as you and me.”
“Then why was he speaking Polish?” Rhodes felt vaguely that he was playing his part in one of Hack’s Abbott and Costello routines.
“Wasn’t. Told you that already. He was drunk, but he was trying to make us think he was Polish, so he was just gabblin’ away.”
Rhodes hated to ask why, but he knew it was expected, so he did.
“Because he was trying to get away from his wife. I think he hoped we might ship him to Poland or something,” Hack said. Then he laughed. “After a look at that wife of his, I didn’t blame him. Things might not be too good in Poland, but that fella had a lot to contend with at home. I guess any place’d be better, to him.”
Rhodes grinned. At least there was one less problem for him to deal with. “Billy Joe started talking yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Hack said. “I think he misses the Polish fella.”
Rhodes went out and up to the cells. Billy Joe didn’t appear too happy to see him, but at least he didn’t cower and babble. He just sat quietly on his bunk and looked at Rhodes. Lawton wasn’t around, so Rhodes walked over and rattled the door of Billy Joe’s cell. It was safely locked.
“I’d give a lot to know how you got out of that cell, Billy Joe,” Rhodes said. He waited for a minute, but there was no answer. Billy Joe continued to sit quietly, hardly seeming to breathe.
“Give a lot to know just what happened over in Thurston the other night, too,” Rhodes went on. “Seems like you’d have a mighty interesting story to tell.”
Billy Joe still said nothing.
“That blood, now, that blood on your shirt surely makes things look bad for you,” Rhodes said. “It wasn’t your blood, Billy Joe. It looks to me like it was Jeanne Clinton’s blood, and she’s sure enough dead. I don’t guess word’s got out in town yet that we’ve got you here, or there might be a lot of folks wanting to know if you were the guilty party. They could cause a lot of trouble, Billy Joe.”