“You see,” Rapper said calmly, “I don’t like for people to lie to me. People are always lying to me and about me. I don’t like that. Do I, Nellie?”
“No,” Nellie said, sounding a little surprised at being addressed. “You don’t like that, Rapper. I don’t know why people are always doing that. It just gets them in trouble.”
The funny part was, Rhodes thought, Rapper didn’t look crazy. He looked like a short, pudgy little man, like he might be a schoolteacher or a salesman. The meanness was in his eyes, and Rhodes couldn’t see them in the dark.
“Well, enough of this stalling around,” Rapper said. “It’s time to get down to business, so to speak. I think I’ll let you hear about it from Wyneva. Tell them why you killed their friend Buster.”
Wyneva stepped near Rhodes, but not too near. “He killed Bert,” she said. “He never really loved me, and he had to get back at the only man who did.”
Rhodes didn’t know what was going through Buddy’s mind during all of this, but his own thoughts were racing a mile a minute. He was trying to put all the facts together, just on the off chance he ever got to tell a jury about them.
“I don’t understand it,” Rhodes said, honestly enough. He wasn’t stalling. He really couldn’t figure it out.
“Tell him,” Rapper said. “We have time.”
“OK,” Wyneva said. “I guess it won’t hurt.” She paused to organize her thoughts and then began. “I was living with Bert Ramsey for a while. That was Rapper’s idea. He’d heard from somebody that Bert had been a member of Los Muertos, and he thought he could maybe con Bert into growing a little weed for us, Bert having a little piece of land and all. So he sent me to get to know him and see what was what. Me and Bert, we just sort of hit it off, you know? It wasn’t like I was doing a job or anything. We really got along.”
She stopped, maybe thinking about Bert. Rhodes thought he could see where the story was going now, but he wasn’t going to rush it. He wasn’t looking forward to whatever was coming up after it was all told. Nellie had tied them awfully tight, though, and Rhodes was beginning to lose the feeling in his hands. Maybe it would be better if they just went ahead and got it over with.
“Then I met Buster,” Wyneva said. “He was cute, cuter than Bert, but Bert was already making money for us. I wasn’t going to leave him. Besides, like I said, me and Bert really had something going for us.
“But Buster just wouldn’t quit. He knew how to talk, and he knew how to treat a woman. He just kept on. So maybe I gave in a little. I don’t know. That’s when he started with the questions.”
“Wyneva may look dumb, but she’s not,” Rapper said.
“Yeah,” Wyneva said. “I’m not dumb. Guys think that, but I’m not. I knew right off where he was headed, but he fooled me a little bit. I wasn’t sure if he was a single or if there was someone in it with him. I mean, I thought he might just be planning to rip Bert off or something, but there could’ve been more to it than that. Those damn narcs are all around these days.”
Rhodes thought about Cox and Malvin again, and he wondered how much Rapper knew.
“We weren’t worried about you local boys,” Wyneva said. Rhodes was just as glad he couldn’t see her face in the darkness. He could feel her contempt, and that was enough. He’d been fooled like a ten-year-old by Bert Ramsey and Rapper. They could have gone on growing dope in Blacklin County forever, and he’d never have known if Bert hadn’t been killed.
“You fellas were fat and lazy,” Wyneva said. “All Bert had to do was clear off a little land and go into business. Nobody would suspect him, and it was pretty easy to persuade him, really.”
“Easy for Wyneva,” Rapper said. “With a little persuasion from me and the boys. The money didn’t hurt, either.”
“We had it all going our way until that Buster Cullens showed up,” Wyneva said. “So I went along with him to find out what he knew. He was close-mouthed, I’ll give him that. There was no way I was going to find out anything from him.”
“That day I saw you. . ” Rhodes started.
“I thought you’d blown it all that day,” Wyneva said. “And then when you said that Bert was dead, that did it. I really liked Bert.”
“You didn’t kill him, then?”
“Bert? Me?” Wyneva’s voice rose sharply.
“Let’s drop it,” Rapper said. Bert’s death was obviously a subject that he didn’t want to discuss. “Finish up about Cullens,” he said.
“I caught him off guard,” Wyneva said. “I hit him with the axe handle, and then I tied him up. Just about like you two are tied now. And I just worked him over.”
Her voice was cold and level, and it scared Rhodes more than Rapper’s. Rapper was crazy, but Wyneva had an icy control that was truly frightening.
“He told me lots of things,” Wyneva said.
Rhodes could imagine. He thought about an axe handle smacking into his ribs or the side of his head. It wasn’t an experience he looked forward to.
“He said he loved me, but I knew that for a lie,” Wyneva said. “That was at first. He got more truthful as things went on. He was a freelancer, all right, heard a rumor and tried to cash in. Too bad for him.”
“So you killed him,” Rhodes said, thinking that Cox and Malvin would be proud of Cullens if anybody got to tell them about him. He really didn’t expect that he’d be the one.
“I didn’t really kill him,” Wyneva said. “You might say he just killed himself. He could have told me what I needed to know anytime.”
“Why kill him, then?” Rhodes asked. “Why not weeks ago? Or ever?”
“Because of Bert!” The rising voice again.
“But Cullens didn’t have anything to do with Bert’s death,” Rhodes said. “That’s not possible. He-”
“Shut up,” Rapper said. “That’s enough talking. I’m tired of you, Sheriff. Really tired. I looked around Ramsey’s tool shed, but I couldn’t find an axe handle. I think a hoe handle will do nicely, though. Get it, Nellie.”
Nellie moved toward the door.
“Wait a minute,” Rhodes said. “Wyneva. .”
Rapper slapped him across the face again.
Rhodes wasn’t quite sure exactly what happened next because his head wasn’t clear. Buddy, however, had been waiting for his chance, and since Nellie was almost out of the room and Rapper and Wyneva had their attention focused on Rhodes, he took it.
Buddy lurched out of his sitting position, lowered his head, and butted Rapper.
Rhodes, leaning precariously in his chair, let himself fall the rest of the way. When he hit the floor he rolled toward Wyneva, knocking her off balance.
Wyneva fell, and Rhodes tried to get to his feet. He couldn’t make it, so he kept on rolling, hoping that Buddy was all right, that Rapper had dropped the pistol, that Nellie hadn’t gotten the handle yet.
There was a lot of thrashing around in the middle of the floor. Rapper was yelling, but Rhodes couldn’t make out the words. He hit the wall, and using it to brace himself got to his feet.
He could see the outlines of bodies in the middle of the room, but he couldn’t tell who was doing what to whom.
The one he thought was Wyneva was bent over on hands and knees. The rest was a squirming mass made up of Buddy, Rapper, and Nellie. All of them were snorting and gasping. Buddy must have been holding his own, even with his hands and feet tied.
Rhodes didn’t know what to do. He could hop into the kitchen and try to get untied, or he could throw himself into the middle of the melee. He didn’t see much future in either course, but the latter idea seemed like something out of Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Cops, lacking only a few pies in the face. He started hopping toward the kitchen, keeping his shoulder near the wall.
It didn’t take long. He backed up to the counter and, with his back to the drawers, pulled them all out, feeling for knives with his nearly numb fingers. He found them where he should have begun, in the drawer nearest the sink, and managed to get his hands on the handle of a reasonably-sized knife with a slick plastic handle.