“OK, Sheriff,” Hack said.
Rhodes got through to Charles Adams without any trouble. As Adams talked, Rhodes could hear a television set in the background, with an announcer doing a play-by-play of an NFL exhibition game. When he told Adams what the problem was, the Houston man began to sputter.
“Damn,” Adams said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“That’s just about the way I feel, too,” Rhodes told him, trying to get comfortable in his squeaky chair. “You don’t think you could enlighten us any, do you?”
Adams hesitated, and Rhodes could hear the TV announcer clearly. Danny White of the Cowboys had just been sacked for a ten-yard loss by a Miami linebacker.
Finally, Adams spoke. “You got a brother-in-law, Sheriff?” he asked.
“No,” Rhodes answered. “I surely don’t.”
“Well, I do,” Adams said. “He’s a doctor, an M.D. Works out of a little hospital not far from here up the interstate. We got to talking the other day, and I told him I was clearing some land, having the brush burned. He was real interested. Seems he was having this little disposal problem. . ”
“I think I’m beginning to get the picture,” Rhodes said. “Can you give me his name and number? I think I need to give him a call.”
“Sure, I guess so. He. . he’s not in any trouble is he?” Adams hesitated. “Hell,” he said, “I guess he must be in trouble or the sheriff wouldn’t be calling. I mean big trouble. He isn’t in big trouble, is he?”
“I’m not sure, to tell the truth,” Rhodes said. “That’s one of the reasons I need to talk to him.”
“Well, all right,” Adams said. He gave Rhodes the telephone number. “His name’s Rawlings. Dr. Malcolm Rawlings.”
Rhodes thanked Adams for his time and hung up. Just as he put the phone down, the air conditioner began to clank louder and faster.
“It’s goin’ out, I know it’s goin’ out,” Hack said, shaking his head gloomily.
“Try to think positively,” Rhodes said. “It might last through the night if you don’t think too many negative thoughts.”
“Sometimes I worry about you, Sheriff,” Hack said. “I really do.”
“I do, too,” Rhodes said. “What about the DPS?”
“Not a thing,” Hack said. “No motorsickles around, least not in a bunch. Not that the DPS knows about, anyway.”
That information didn’t really mean too much, Rhodes thought. There were plenty of places in Blacklin County where hundreds of people could hide if they were of a mind to.
“Ask Buddy and Bob when they come in,” he said. “I’ve got to make another call, if I can hear anything over that racket.”
“It’s goin’ out,” Hack said.
Rhodes turned to the telephone.
Dr. Malcolm Rawlings was in, apparently watching the same game his brother-in-law had been tuned in to.
Rhodes wasn’t quite sure, because the air conditioner was making so much noise that he had difficulty hearing the background noise. He could hear Rawlings just fine, however. The man’s voice boomed out when he answered the telephone. When Rhodes told him who he was and what he wanted, however, Rawlings got considerably quieter.
“Well, ah, you see, Sheriff, there’s been a little problem here, and. . well. . ah. .”
“Let’s put it this way,” Rhodes said. “Just answer yes or no. Did you put those boxes in that brush pile?”
“Well, now, Sheriff, there’s a word you lawmen use. . I think it’s ‘extenuating.’ Yes,” Rawlings said, sounding relieved, “that’s it. ‘Extenuating circumstances.’ That’s what we have here, Sheriff, a plain case of extenuating circumstances.”
“Yes or no?” Rhodes said.
“Well, yes, I did put the boxes there, but there are extenuating circumstances,” Rawlings said. Rhodes thought of Raymond Burr playing Perry Mason.
“Just exactly what are the circumstances?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, as you may know, Sheriff, we usually burn amputated limbs.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. He was getting a little tired of Rawlings’s runaround. “But not in fields.”
“Of course not,” Rawlings said. He chuckled to show that he understood Rhodes’s irony. “But I’ve been doing some work with tissue samples. That’s why I had the limbs in the first place, you see. I certainly didn’t do all those amputations in the little hospital here. We’re just not equipped. And in fact, that’s the real problem. A lack of proper facilities. The furnace is just too small, frankly. It just wouldn’t handle the job.”
“So you decided to dump the remains,” Rhodes said.
“Well, I, ah, wouldn’t say ‘dump.’ I just wanted to dispose of them in an accepted and sanitary manner. They would have been burned, you know.”
“There’s just a little complication,” Rhodes said. “The man who found those boxes is dead. Someone killed him last night.”
There was a lengthy silence. Rhodes listened to the clanking of the air conditioner and snatches of the football game. Finally, Rawlings spoke again. “Do you think that this, ah, incident will get into the news media? I have a. . a professional standing.”
Rhodes thought of the Blacklin County news media.
He thought of Clyde Ballinger. “It might,” he said. “But that’s beside the point. Right now, you’re connected with a murder case, and that’s more important than your ‘professional standing.’ Besides, there’s the matter of proper disposal. I’ll be talking to the state Health Department tomorrow about that problem.”
“I see.”
“No, Doctor, I don’t think you really do,” Rhodes said. He was trying not to lose his temper, but it wasn’t easy. “I want you up here in my office tomorrow morning. I want a strict accounting of every single limb in those boxes. I want you to be able to prove where every one of them came from. And while you’re at it, you might be giving a little thought to exactly where you were on Saturday night.”
Rawlings sucked in his breath. “Are you accusing me. .?”
“Not at all,” Rhodes said. “But I want you here in the morning at ten o’clock.”
“But my patients!” Rawlings protested.
“Get someone to cover for you, or cancel your appointments,” Rhodes said. “It’s either that, or I get the Houston police to pick you up.”
“I suppose I’ll have to be there, then,” Rawlings said reluctantly. He didn’t sound happy.
“Fine,” Rhodes said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock.” He put the telephone down before Rawlings had time to reply. “Some people are more interested in covering their own backsides than in helping the law,” he told Hack.
“What do you mean ‘some people’?” Hack said. “You mean everybody.”
Rhodes grinned. “You’re right,” he said.
The telephone rang, and Rhodes picked it up. It was Dr. White, calling from Ballinger’s. “I can’t tell you much, Sheriff,” he said. “Not much to tell, really. Bert Ramsey died from a shotgun blast to the chest, fired at close range. I’d say not more than four or five feet. Double-ought buckshot. About ten P.M., depending on when he ate supper, which was steak and beans, mainly.”
“That’s it, huh?” Rhodes asked.
“Not exactly,” White said. “There’s one other little thing that might be of interest to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Ramsey had a tattoo,” White said.
“I think he was in the Army,” Rhodes said. “I guess lots of guys get tattoos in the Army.”
“Not this kind,” White told him. “I think I’ve seen a picture of one like it in the newspapers. It’s a skeleton, riding a motorcycle.”
“I’ve seen that, too,” Rhodes said. “Los Muertos.”
“That’s what I thought,” White said. “They’ve been in the news a lot lately.”
“That’s a fact,” Rhodes said. “Thanks, Doctor.”
“Anytime,” White said. They hung up.
“What’s that about Los Muertos?” Lawton asked.
“Bert Ramsey had one of their tattoos,” Rhodes said.
No one said anything for a minute. They listened to the clanking and clattering of the air conditioner. Rhodes leaned back in his chair, causing it to squeak its high-pitched squeak.