That wouldn’t wash, though. Where was the gun? That’s what I should have been thinking more about all along, Rhodes realized. The gun. There was no gun in the run-down house where Cullens had lived, and there was no gun in Ramsey’s house, either. Whoever had done the shooting had taken the gun with him. No gun had ever turned up anywhere around Rapper and his crew, but they could have gotten rid of it easily enough. Still. .
Rhodes got up and walked outside to the back yard. Speedo, in the shade of the tree, lifted his head and looked up. Rhodes sat on the back step, and the dog trotted over and sat down. Rhodes reached out and scratched its head. “Looks like you’re getting pretty used to things around here,” Rhodes said. Speedo thwacked his tail on the grass.
“It’s all got to do with motorcycles and dope, some way or another,” Rhodes said. Speedo lay down. Dope and motorcycles didn’t interest him.
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “Take it easy. Leave all the thinking to me.” There were times when he wished he could live a dog’s life, all right, and this was another one of them, but he couldn’t. So he sat there on the steps and ran everything back through his mind, just as if he were watching a familiar movie.
And eventually he came up with the answer.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but that didn’t matter. It was the answer that fit, the only answer that really could have fit. Well, no one had ever said that life had to be perfect.
Rhodes stood up. A lot of time had passed as he sat on the step, and he was stiff. His rear end hurt, and his back was tired. He stretched upward, lifting his arms. Speedo watched but didn’t move. He wasn’t a dog given to overexertion.
“You never know, do you?” he said to Speedo. Speedo didn’t say a word.
Rhodes went inside and called Ivy.
“I really don’t like it,” Ivy said as they sat in her living room. “I know you have a dangerous job, but getting tied up in chairs, getting run over by motorcycles, getting into fistfights. . it’s just too much.”
Rhodes could tell that she was really annoyed. He’d debated with himself about whether to tell her about last night’s events, but he’d decided that honesty was really the best policy in this case. After all, they were going to be married. She had to know what she was getting into. “Well,” he said, “I wasn’t actually run over by the motorcycle.”
Ivy looked at him. “It doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same thing. You’re lucky you’re not in the hospital again.”
She was referring to another recent case, after which Rhodes had wound up in even worse condition than he was in now. It wasn’t a case that he particularly liked to remember. “But I’m not in the hospital,” he said.
“And whose fault is that? You’ve been hit with axe handles, too, and it’s a wonder that Rapper didn’t shoot you. I just don’t know how you can keep on dealing with that kind of person.”
“It’s part of the job,” Rhodes said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. But that’s not all of it.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s worse,” he said, and then he told her.
“Well,” she said when he was finished.
“I told you,” he said.
“You were right,” she said. “It’s worse. Are you sure, though?”
“I’m sure. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure.”
“If you can’t prove it, what are you going to do?”
“Get a confession, I expect,” Rhodes said.
“Just like that?” Ivy asked.
“Probably not,” Rhodes said. “But I think it’ll come pretty easy. I thought you might like to be there.”
“Me?”
“You felt sorry for her before,” he said.
“And I still do. Even more now, if you’re right. Are you sure you’re right?”
“As sure as I ever am about anything,” he said.
“All right,” Ivy said. “I’ll go.”
Rhodes had one of the county cars back now, and they drove out to Eller’s Prairie in it. He parked in front of Mrs. Ramsey’s house, just as the sun was going down. They got out and Rhodes knocked. Mrs. Ramsey’s voice called for them to come in.
Mrs. Ramsey was sitting in her living room with the TV set on. She had the sound turned very low, and she didn’t seem to be watching it. It was just on to keep her company. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said as they walked in. “Mrs. Daniel.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Ramsey,” Rhodes said. Ivy didn’t speak. Rhodes had told her on the drive out that she didn’t need to play a part in the proceedings. He just wanted her there for moral support. He wasn’t looking forward to what he had to do, but it was his job. Her being there would make it a little easier for him, he thought, and maybe for Mrs. Ramsey.
Mrs. Ramsey sat in her chair, not making any move to get up. She looked dull and listless. “What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I think you know that,” Rhodes said. “Do you mind if we sit down?”
Mrs. Ramsey made an idle gesture with her thick wrist as if to indicate the other chairs, but she didn’t say anything. Rhodes sat where he could look into her face, and Ivy sat nearby.
“I need to talk to you about Bert,” Rhodes said. Mrs. Ramsey shook her head but still said nothing. “You knew about what he was doing, didn’t you?”
Rhodes asked.
Mrs. Ramsey nodded. Rhodes waited. “It was that woman that ruined him,” Mrs. Ramsey finally said.
“He was a good man,” Ivy said. “He put in some flower beds for me once. He really had a skill for working like that.”
Mrs. Ramsey didn’t look at her. She seemed to be staring inward more than looking at anything in the room around her. “He surely did,” she said. “He was a fine boy. It was that woman.”
“She’s the one, all right,” Rhodes said. “If it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have gotten into growing that dope. I know that. How did you find it out?”
“It was the money,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “All that money. He bought things for me. I knew he wasn’t earnin’ that kind of money from puttin’ in flower beds. It had to be somethin’ else. He finally told me what it was.”
Now that she had started, Mrs. Ramsey didn’t need much coaching. “You knew Los Muertos was mixed up in it,” Rhodes said.
“Those motorsickles,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “He got away from that a long time ago, and that woman brought it all back.”
“The night Bert was mu-the night he died, you didn’t really hear anything, did you?” Rhodes asked.
“Naw, I never did. That Buster Cullens, he was one of ‘em, though, and he had a motorsickle. They were around, somewhere. It was all their fault, them and that woman. They ought to all be in the pen.”
Rhodes agreed, and he hated to tell her that they weren’t in jail, except for Wyneva, and that they weren’t likely to be. The one in jail would be Mrs. Ramsey. It was pretty much as he’d thought, so far. All the little things that Mrs. Ramsey had said pointed that way. It was Wyneva and Rapper and the rest that she wanted to punish. They were really to blame for Bert’s death, she thought, and Rhodes had to admit that she had a point. They hadn’t pulled the trigger, though.
“Do you have a shotgun, Mrs. Ramsey?” he asked.
“My husband’s old Remington automatic is in the gun cabinet,” she said.
“I expect you carried it with you when you went down to talk to Bert last Saturday night, didn’t you? In case you met any of his friends along the way?”
“I guess I did,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “I guess that’s right.”
“What happened then?” Rhodes asked, though he thought he knew. Mrs. Ramsey had expressed her feelings about dope pretty clearly, already.
Mrs. Ramsey sighed. “I told Bert that he’d have to give up doin’ what he was doin’. I told him that it was the Devil’s work that he was into, and that he’d lost the woman, and that it was time to stop.”