Rapper laughed, let go of the bars, and went back to sit on the cot, giving Rhodes a little satisfaction, but not much. Rhodes didn’t like the laugh. It was entirely too confident.
“There’s only one little problem with that idea, Sheriff,” Rapper said.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll never find the gun.” Rapper put his arms behind his head, lifted his feet up on the cot, and lay back.
“I’ll find it,” Rhodes said.
“It won’t be easy,” Rapper said to the ceiling.
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Rhodes said. “I said I’d find it.”
“How’ll you prove it’s mine?” Rapper asked, still looking up.
Rhodes paused. He didn’t know.
“Anybody ever see me with a gun?” Rapper said, pressing it. “Did you? Except for your own pistol, of course.”
“Fingerprints,” Rhodes said, but he wasn’t confident.
“What if I wiped it clean?” Rapper said. “Or better yet, what if I didn’t kill Ramsey?”
Now it was Rhodes who was gripping the bars, looking in at Rapper. “If you didn’t, who did?”
“How do I know? I’m not the sheriff.” Rapper sat up. “Look, you’ve caught me and roughed me up, and I’m not complaining. I may even be guilty of a couple of things. Or maybe I’m not. But I’m not going to be set up for some stupid charge like murder. Think about it. Why would I kill Ramsey? The guy was a gold mine for me. We were raking it in. That is, we were if what you think is true. So why do I kill him? Answer that one.” Rapper put his hands behind his head and lay back down.
Rhodes stood looking at him through the bars for a minute, then went out into the office. He sat in his chair that no longer squeaked and waited for Cox and Malvin.
Chapter 19
Cox and Malvin had even less luck than Rhodes. Rapper refused to talk to them.
“There’s no way we can really tie him to the stuff,”
Cox said. Malvin nodded in agreement. “We all know what he was doing in the county,” Cox went on. “The Greer woman had to get in touch with him and let him know that she was suspicious of Cullens. Otherwise, I don’t think he would have come around until time for a harvest. Apparently, though, Rapper is willing to let her take the fall for Cullens and trust that she won’t implicate him. He may just walk out of this.”
“He might,” Rhodes said. “It’s pretty obvious that we can get him on some assault charge, along with the others, but that might be the extent of things.”
“They have a pretty clever operation going,” Malvin said. “They find these little counties and they grow just a little patch of dope, not enough to call attention to themselves. Then they cut it and sell it somewhere else, never where they grow it. Rapper is just part of the whole operation, not the brains.”
“He’s pretty smart,” Rhodes said.
“True enough,” Cox said. “Smarter that we are, maybe.”
At that minute, the jail door opened and a man walked in. He was dressed in a conservative blue suit with faint chalk-colored stripes in it, a suit that made the suits worn by Cox and Malvin look like something they’d picked up at a local discount store. He wore lots of gold-rings on both hands, and a thick gold watch. He was young, maybe thirty-two, with a smooth, unlined face. His hair had been carefully styled, and though it was not long, it was cut full and carefully layered. “I’m Wayne Gault,” he said. “I believe you have my clients, Mr. Rapper and Mr. Nelson, in custody here.” His rich baritone was carefully modulated, but Rhodes could tell that he could make it boom if he wanted to.
“Show him,” Rhodes said to Lawton, who was sitting by Hack at the radio table.
Lawton got up and led Wayne Gault to the cells.
Cox and Malvin looked depressed. “At least we cut off the supply,” Malvin said. “A lawyer like that, we don’t have much chance of anything else. Looks like Los Muertos can afford the best.”
“We’ll get some indictments when all this comes to the grand jury,” Rhodes said.
“Sure,” Cox said. “But what do you think will happen when-or if-you get to court? How much can we really prove?”
“We can get them on the assault,” Rhodes said. He knew it wasn’t much. It certainly wasn’t enough.
“And the Greer woman,” Malvin said. “Don’t forget her.”
“I’m glad to get her,” Cox said. “Damn her. If Buster had just gotten a little more information.”
“Let’s not speak ill of the dead,” Malvin said.
“Damn,” Cox said.
Rapper and Nellie were out on bail by early afternoon. Wyneva was clearly to be the scapegoat. She didn’t even seem to mind it very much. Jayse and his buddy in the hospital would be free as soon as the doctor released them. Rhodes doubted that he would ever see any of the four again. They had made their bail and they would gladly forfeit it, just as long as they never had to come back to Blacklin County again. He had told Malvin and Cox that the assault charges would stick, but they would stick only if they could get the men in court. Rhodes figured that they would disappear in Houston or Dallas, or maybe even out of the state. It was a depressing thought.
It was equally depressing that Rapper had proved smarter than Rhodes thought he was. He had easily pointed out the flaws in Rhodes’s own thinking. Rhodes wondered why he had even considered Rapper guilty of shooting Bert Ramsey in the first place.
Sitting at home in his chair, Rhodes was going over the whole thing one more time. He had left the jail after Rapper’s lawyer had posted the bail. He had called Cox and Malvin first, then gotten into his pickup and left. He’d fed Speedo and eaten a sandwich, thinking he would watch the movie and think. The movie was Hell’s Angels on Wheels. Rhodes turned it off.
He thought about all the things that had bothered him from the beginning. The first thing was Bert Ramsey’s finding the boxes of amputated limbs. That was just coincidence. Had to be, and Rhodes was glad that at least that part of things had been brought to a more or less satisfactory ending. The contents of the boxes had been safely buried and could do no harm now, if they ever could have.
Anyone with normal curiosity would have opened those boxes, and Bert Ramsey was normal. When he saw what they contained, he decided to report them rather than take a chance on stirring up even bigger trouble. After all, they weren’t found on his land, and there would be no call for Rhodes to do any searching there. Bert was clean on that one, and he’d probably figured that he could only get into more trouble by failing to report what he’d found if it turned out later than an axe-murderer was on the loose.
So did Dr. Rawlings kill Bert to retaliate for his finding what Dr. Rawlings was trying to dispose of quietly? That was too ridiculous for real consideration.
Were the murders of Cullens and Ramsey even connected? They had to be, somehow, Rhodes thought. But maybe not in the way he’d first imagined.
Rhodes prided himself on his ability to read people, to keep asking questions until he discovered the motives that led to crimes. He didn’t have all the latest equipment, but he was persistent. This time, he’d been on the wrong track. Rapper had been there, and Rapper was convenient; so Rhodes had elected him as the most likely suspect. There was nothing particularly wrong with that, except that Rapper hadn’t done it, and Rhodes had been led astray by concentrating on him.
Annoyed with himself, Rhodes clicked the movie back on, but at the first sight of a motorcycle he switched it off again.
Then a new thought occurred to him, one that he would never have considered earlier. There was something in the story that Wyneva had told, though. Suppose that Buster Cullens had tried to question Ramsey. Cullens was certainly overeager-even Wyneva had spotted his questions as being too obvious. Maybe he had seen that she was catching on and had decided to try his luck with Ramsey. Then the two had gotten into an argument, and Cullens had shot Ramsey.