Rhodes was glad to see that his own instincts weren’t too far out of line with Hack’s. “I feel exactly the same way,” he said, “but the same we better hang on to Billy Joe for
a few days. I don’t believe any lawyer is going to come around worrying about his civil rights, and it’s barely possible that he’s guilty. I wish he’d talk to us, but if he won’t I’ll just keep looking for answers somewhere else.”
“Fine with me,” said Hack. “Another thing. Buddy came in and told me to let you know that as far as he can establish there’s no connection a’tall between Terry Wayne and Ralph Claymore.”
Rhodes shook his head. “OK, but tell him to keep on looking. Something funny’s going on there.”
“Right,” Hack said, picking up a slip of paper from in front of his radio. “Now there’s a few other things I need to ask you about.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Ella Conner.”
Rhodes groaned. “The ducks?”
“You guessed it,” Hack said, smiling. Ella Conner started calling every spring, as regular as the change of season, about her neighbor’s ducks, which she felt were illegally harvesting her garden spot.
“Did you send anybody around?” Rhodes asked.
“Sent Buddy. He run the ducks back home. Ella wanted him to shoot one or two of them for what Buddy says she called an ‘object lesson.’”
“Lord, I hope Buddy had more sense than to do something like that.”
“He did, but if I was you I wouldn’t be countin’ on Ella’s vote this time around. Old Man Evans’s either, come to that. He was pretty mad about Buddy chasin’ his ducks.” At the thought of the deputy pursuing the criminal ducks, Hack laughed aloud.
Rhodes tried to manage a smile, but he wasn’t able. It was almost too much. Murder wasn’t bad enough. Now he’d lost two votes because of ducks in Ella Conner’s garden spot.
“Then there’s this guy upstairs,” Hack said.
“What guy upstairs?”
“The Polish refugee,” Hack said, clearly enjoying himself.
“You’re kidding,” Rhodes said. He was actually surprised. This was a new one on him.
“Not kidding a bit,” Hack said. “Picked him up out on 77, walking the median stripe. What do they drink over there in Poland? Besides water, I mean?”
“Vodka, these days,” Rhodes told him.
“Yeah. Well, this guy must have drunk about ten bottles of the stuff. “
“Can he speak English?”
“Some. Enough to say he’s a Polish refugee. Why, you goin’ to question him?”
“I thought I might,” Rhodes said.
“Wouldn’t do you no good right now,” Hack said. “He’s snorin’ so loud, you couldn’t hear what he said.”
“We’ll check him out later then,” Rhodes said. He changed the subject. “Tell me, Hack. What do you know about Bill Tomkins?”
Hack thought for a second or two. “He’s the fella found Jeanne Clinton’s body, right?”
“Right. You know much about him?”
“Not a lot, and that’s the truth. I don’t know too many folks over in Thurston. I hear he don’t work for a livin’, though. Supposed to have some kind of a disability pension from the government.”
Rhodes thought about Tomkins and his breathing problem. Maybe that was the reason for the pension.
“Ever hear anything about him and Jeanne?”
“Not a thing, and from all I’ve heard lately that Jeanne was a mighty nice girl. Maybe a little wild when she was younger, but not a bit of it anymore. Marryin’ old Elmer seems to have calmed her down a whole lot. Anything about her and Bill Tomkins, well, I expect you’d have to ask around over in Thurston for something like that.”
“That’s what I plan to be doing,” Rhodes said. But that will have to wait until tomorrow, he thought. He already had his evening planned; even a good sheriff couldn’t devote his whole life to the job.
He didn’t mention his meeting with Ivy Daniels to Hack. Hack might interpret it as a date instead of as a meeting with an informant.
That evening, Kathy was careful not to make any remarks about her father’s plans. She was privately of the mind that it was time he started having a little social life, but that wasn’t the kind of thing he would like to have her say.
Rhodes bathed and dressed in a sport shirt and slacks. It felt strange not to have on his badge and twill uniform. It felt even stranger not to have his.38 caliber Police Special hanging on his belt. He didn’t particularly like to carry it, but people expected it of him, so he did. Now, without it, he felt slightly unbalanced, as if he might tip over backwards and fall.
“I understand that Jeoff’s is a pretty fancy place,” he said to Kathy, who was sitting in the kitchen at the round oak table with a stack of ruled papers in front of her.
Kathy put down her red pen, moved the papers aside, and looked at her father. “‘Fancy for Clearview, maybe,” she said. “That’s about all you can say for it. But the food’s not bad.”
“You can get wine there,” Rhodes said, half questioningly.
“Yes, but you have to be a member of their private ‘club.’ That just means that you pay the waitress a five-dollar fee, and she gives you a card with your name and membership number on it. Then you can order wine anytime you go for a year.”
“I don’t know very much about ordering wine.”
“Just ask for the house wine. It’s not bad, and you can get it by the glass instead of by the bottle.”
“You’ve been there, I take it.” Rhodes was not really surprised.
“Sure. Where else is there to go if you want a good meal and a pleasant atmosphere?” Kathy picked up her pen and started looking over the top paper. “It’s very popular.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m just not used to this sort of thing,” Rhodes said ruefully. “I’m too old to be taking a strange woman out to dinner.” He glanced down at his stomach and was dismayed that he couldn’t quite see his belt buckle. “I don’t know why I didn’t just go by her house and see what she wanted to say. Sometimes I just talk before I think about what I’m getting myself into.”
Kathy stood up and kissed her father on the cheek. “Don’t be silly. It’ll do you good to get away from your problems and have a nice dinner with an attractive woman.”
Rhodes had to laugh. “It almost seems as if you’ll be glad to get rid of me. You sound like you want me out of the house.”
“That’s not it at all. Just enjoy yourself and don’t worry so much.”
“I’ll try,” Rhodes said, not making any promises.
Jeoff’s was on a side street just off a main thoroughfare. It was actually a remodeled private home, with tables in the various rooms. There was a green, tree-shaded yard, which was crossed by a sidewalk. To obtain entrance, customers had to ring the doorbell, which was answered by a young waitress dressed as if she might be about to set off for school. It was all a little too cute for Rhodes’s taste, but Ivy Daniels seemed to like it.
“Look at all the plants,” she said as Rhodes held her chair for her. “They’ve really done a nice job with them.”
It was true. The room in which they had been seated looked to Rhodes like a miniature jungle. The walls were hung with baskets of green plants, and not a corner was bare of something growing. In fact, the room was so small that there was room only for the one table and all the plants. Rhodes liked the privacy, but he wasn’t overly fond of the plants.
“They’re all right,” he said. “It’s the skylight that does it.” In remodeling the house, the restaurant owners had installed a sizeable skylight in each of the dining rooms.
Rhodes walked around the table to his own seat, brushing a Boston fern with his leg. The waitress came in, and he paid her five dollars to join the ‘club.’
“What wine can I get you?” the waitress asked, after Rhodes had slipped his new identification card into his billfold.
“What are the house wines?” Rhodes asked, feeling sophisticated.
“We have a white wine and a rosé,” the waitress said. “Which would you prefer, Ivy?” Rhodes asked. They had decided on first names while driving over.