Booked for a Hanging Read online

  BOOKED FOR A HANGING

  Book Six of the Dan Rhodes Mysteries

  By Bill Crider

  Digital edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Bill Crider

  Cover images courtesy of:

  Nicolas Raymond (Texas flag image)

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  Visit our online store

  Subscribe to our Newsletter

  Visit our DIGITAL and AUDIO book blogs for updates and news.

  Connect with us on Facebook.

  Join our group at Goodreads.

  Meet the Author

  BILL CRIDER is the author of more than fifty published novels and numerous short stories. He won the Anthony Award for best first mystery novel in 1987 for Too Late to Die and was nominated for the Shamus Award for best first private-eye novel for Dead on the Island. He won the Golden Duck award for “best juvenile science fiction novel” for Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror. He and his wife, Judy, won the best short story Anthony in 2002 for their story “Chocolate Moose.” His story “Cranked” from Damn Near Dead (Busted Flush Press) was nominated for the Edgar award for best short story.

  Check out his homepage at: http:// www.billcrider.com or take a look at his peculiar blog at http://billcrider.blogspot.com

  Book List

  Novels:

  The Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery Series

  Too Late to Die

  Shotgun Saturday Night

  Cursed to Death

  Death on the Move

  Evil at the Root

  Booked for a Hanging

  Murder Most Fowl

  Winning Can Be Murder

  Death by Accident

  A Ghost of a Chance

  A Romantic Way to Die

  Red, White, and Blue Murder

  “The Empty Manger,” (novella in the collection entitled Murder, Mayhem, and Mistletoe.)

  A Mammoth Murder

  Murder Among the O.W.L.S.

  Of All Sad Words

  Murder in Four Parts

  Murder in the Air

  The Wild Hog Murders

  The Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen

  Compound Murder

  The Carl Burns Mystery Series

  One Dead Dean

  Dying Voices

  …A Dangerous Thing

  Dead Soldiers

  The Truman Smith Mystery Series

  Dead on the Island

  Gator Kill

  When Old Men Die

  The Prairie Chicken Kill

  Murder Takes a Break

  The Sally Good Mystery Series

  Murder Is An Art

  A Knife in the Back

  A Bond with Death

  The Stanley Waters Mystery Series (Willard Scott, Co-Author)

  Murder under Blue Skies

  Murder in the Mist

  Stand-Alone Mystery and Suspense Novels

  Blood Marks

  The Texas Capitol Murders

  Houston Homicide (with Clyde Wilson)

  House-Name Spy Fiction

  The Coyote Connection (a Nick Carter book, in collaboration with Jack Davis)

  Western Novels

  Ryan Rides Back

  Galveston Gunman

  A Time for Hanging

  Medicine Show

  Outrage at Blanco

  Texas Vigilante

  As Colby Jackson:

  Dead Man’s Revenge

  Gabby Darbins and the Slide-Rock Bolter

  Horror Novels (all published under the pseudonym “Jack MacLane”)

  Keepers of the Beast

  Goodnight, Moom

  Blood Dreams

  Rest in Peace

  Just before Dark

  Books for Young Readers

  A Vampire Named Fred

  Muttketeer

  Mike Gonzo and the Sewer Monster

  Mike Gonzo and the Almost Invisible Man

  Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror

  Short Story Collections:

  The Nighttime is the Right Time

  BOOKED FOR A HANGING

  Chapter 1

  Sheriff Dan Rhodes stared at the computer monitor.

  The monitor stared back.

  Well, maybe it didn’t stare back, but it seemed to Rhodes that the machine was looking at him. It had one big eye, like the Purple People Eater from the old song, and it reminded Rhodes of the rumors that used to circulate through his grade school classes about the speaker at the front of the room. The principal made the daily announcements over the speaker system, but everyone said that the speaker worked both ways and that the principal could listen in on the classroom if he wanted to.

  Rhodes had always believed that story, and he wondered who might be watching him through the monitor. Then he shook his head. He knew he was being silly. Still…

  “It’s great, ain’t it?” Hack Jensen said.

  Hack, tall and lean, with a pencil-thin moustache that was mostly gray, was the dispatcher for the Blacklin County Sheriff’s Department, a man well past the usual retirement age, who relished the fact that he at long last had the computer that he had been insisting was a necessity for several years.

  “Too bad it took that million-dollar lawsuit for us to get one of these things,” Hack went on when Rhodes did not respond to his question.

  Hack, Rhodes, and Lawton, the jailor, along with the county, had been sued for a million dollars by one of the jail’s former inmates. The jail had passed its inspection, however, and an architectural firm had certified that it was structurally sound. The county commissioners had decided that a few things did need improvement, nevertheless, and the computer was one of the first fruits of the new funds that had been allotted to the sheriff’s department.

  “I guess it’s all right,” Rhodes said at last, not absolutely sure how he felt about the computer. He liked technology in general, but the department had gotten along for years without a computer. He still wasn’t certain they really needed one.

  There it was, though, sitting on a new pre-fab computer desk that had been set up beside the old desk Hack had been using for his radio and telephone. There was a keyboard, a monitor, a printer, and a rectangular box that Rhodes supposed held all the chips and disks and whatever else it was that a computer needed to function.

  “All right?” Hack said. “Is that all you got to say? Why in about a minute this thing can tell us all kinds of stuff that would’ve taken us a week to get the old way.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Lawton said, coming in from the cellblock.

  Lawton was Lou Costello to Hack’s Bud Abbott. He was short and chubby, with a smooth, cherubic face that belied his years.

  “Stuff we need to know,” Hack said. He pointed to the monitor. “Look here. We can tap into NCIC and get—”

  “Wait a minute,” Rhodes said. “NCIC. What’s that?”

  Hack snorted with disgust. He had watched every minute of the installation of the computer and had studied the manuals diligently. The county had paid for a consultant to come in and demonstrate its operation, but Hack was the only one who had sat in on the sessions. He prided himself on knowing the lingo.

  “If you’d listened to that little guy who came and explained ever’thing to us, you’d know about NCIC,” H
ack said.

  Rhodes didn’t say anything. He’d had other things to do. He’d just gotten married, for one thing, and he’d gone to Mexico on his honeymoon. For another, he didn’t have the luxury of being in the office all the time, like Hack did.

  “NCIC means National Crime Information Center,” Hack said. “All you got to do is give the name and date of birth, and you get a complete criminal history. Arrests, outstandin’ warrants, all that stuff. And then there’s TCIC—”

  “TCIC?” Lawton said.

  Hack looked at him with contempt. “Texas Crime Information Center. Gives you just the stuff from this state. You know what state we’re in, don’t you?”

  “Course I do,” Lawton said. “I just don’t see how that little machine knows all that.”

  “It’s not just this machine,” Rhodes said. He knew that much. “We’re hooked into Austin some way. There’s a bigger machine there.”

  “Through the phone lines,” Hack said. “We’re hooked in through the phone lines.”

  “Is that all it does?” Lawton said. He wasn’t impressed, or if he was, he wasn’t going to admit it.

  Hack shook his head sadly. “No, that’s not all,” he said. “We can get to the Department of Public Safety, too. If I type in a license plate number, I can find out who owns a car, or if it’s stolen, or who’s got the lien on it. I can find out how old the plates are—”

  “Who’d want to know that?” Lawton said.

  “I don’t know. It’s just one of the things you can find out. Used to, if we wanted to know who owned a car with a certain number, we had to go to the courthouse and—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lawton said. “Go through the records, all that.”

  “Yeah. So you can see what a help it’ll be.”

  “I guess so,” Lawton said. “If it works.”

  That was one thing that had been worrying Rhodes. The old methods had been slow, but they were dependable.

  “It works,” Hack said. “Watch this.”

  He typed in Lawton’s full name.

  “When were you born?” he said.

  “It ain’t none of your business,” Lawton said.

  “You might as well tell me. I can look it up anyway.”

  “Can’t find it on that machine, huh?”

  “Sure I can. But this machine’ll give me ever’body with your same name unless I can narrow it down first. Now go ahead and tell me.”

  Lawton stalled for a minute, then gave in. “November fifth, nineteen and twenty.”

  Hack typed it in.

  They waited, watching the monitor. Then the information appeared on the screen, just as it appeared on Lawton’s driver’s license: height, weight, color of hair and eyes, address, license number, category of license, and the expiration date.

  “No outstandin’ warrants,” Hack said. “Looks like you ain’t got much of a record. Not countin’ that speedin’ ticket you got back in the fall. Huh. I don’t remember you tellin’ us about any speedin’ ticket.”

  “Lemme see that,” Lawton said, leaning in closer to the screen. “I’ll be damn’. I’d forgot that myself. Highway Patrol got me for doin’ forty-five in a thirty-five zone. I tried to talk ’im out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.” He continued to stare at the screen. “I guess that thing’s smarter than I thought.”

  “It ain’t smart,” Hack said. “It’s the one who operates it that has to be smart.”

  Lawton turned his gaze to Hack. “And that means you, I guess.”

  “You guess right.”

  Rhodes headed off the argument. “I’m looking forward to seeing how it works when we really need it. You’re right, Hack. It could be a real help.”

  Hack didn’t try to hide the look of smug satisfaction on his face. “That’s what I been tellin’ you,” he said.

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “I know.”

  Hack might have gone on at length about how he had been trying for just about forever to get a computer for the department, but they were interrupted by the opening of the jail door.

  The raw and gusty wind came out of the March night and ripped the door out of the grip of the man who stood there watching them and slammed it back against the wall with a loud crash. Papers rustled on desks all over the room.

  The man turned hurriedly and grabbed the edge of the door, pushing it closed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right,” Rhodes said. “We’re used to it.”

  They were. The pneumatic closer had worn out quite a while before and had not yet been fixed or replaced. The wind had been tearing the door from the grasp of about every third person who entered the jail for the past two days. The use of paperweights was becoming a habit.

  “It’s just that I’m a little nervous,” the man said.

  Rhodes thought the man looked nervous, all right. He was slightly built, about five feet, two inches tall, with mild blue eyes and drooping lids that made him look just the least bit sleepy, as if he’d just been woken from a nap, though his eyes darted alertly around the office. He had fine brown hair that the wind had distributed over his head like straw.

  “Just have a seat over by my desk,” Rhodes said, indicating the chair. “Then you can tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Rhodes wondered who the man was. Blacklin County was small, but he didn’t know everyone in it, not by a long shot. Still, he’d have bet this man was from somewhere else. It was his clothes, mostly. He wore an expensive suit and shoes that looked even costlier. About the highest-priced shoes you could buy in Clearview, which was where the jail was located and the biggest town in the county, were Florsheims. And while they could cost you up over a hundred dollars, a hundred dollars still wouldn’t get you into the same neighborhood with the shoes the little man was wearing.

  “I can tell you without sitting down,” the man said, running a hand through his hair and trying to get it back in place. “What’s bothering me is ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Rhodes said.

  Hack and Lawton, who had been feigning interest in the computer, dropped all pretense at not listening. Hack turned his chair to face the stranger, and Lawton braced his ample rear end against Hack’s computer desk. Hack gave him an elbow, and he moved silently to the radio desk.

  The man laughed unconvincingly. “I know it sounds strange.” He looked over at the chair Rhodes had indicated. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should sit down.”

  He moved over to the chair and sat. His feet reached the floor, but just barely. Rhodes sat at his desk and looked at him, waiting.

  “My name is Hal Brame,” the man said.

  He reached into his suit and drew out a leather card case, removed a card and handed it to Rhodes, who knew for sure now that he wasn’t dealing with a local. He couldn’t think of anyone in the entire county who carried business cards, much less a card case.

  Rhodes looked at the card and ran his thumb idly over the engraving. Then he got his half-moon reading glasses out of his shirt pocket so that he could read it.

  HAL BRAME

  Dealer in Fine Books

  Used and Rare

  There was a Houston address, and the telephone number in the lower right-hand corner had the Houston area code, 713.

  “Well, Mr. Brame,” Rhodes said, putting the card on his cluttered desk and slipping the glasses back into his pocket, “what’s this about ghosts?”

  The man gave his unconvincing laugh again. “I know it sounds crazy. But the effect of those old buildings at night is startling, to say the least. I’m not usually frightened so easily, but—”

  “Wait a minute,” Rhodes said. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning. What old buildings are you talking about?”

  Brame sighed. “I’m sorry. My mind just isn’t working properly. I’m usually a very well organized person. Give me a moment, please.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out very slowly.

  Hack nudged Lawton and gave
him a significant look, but neither of them said anything. Rhodes waited patiently until Brame had composed himself.

  After a minute Brame opened his eyes. “I deal in rare books, as you can see,” he said. “I drove up to a little town called Obert after I closed my shop today to meet with Simon Graham. He owns the college there.”

  Rhodes knew about Graham. Several years before, he had bought an abandoned college campus in Obert. The campus was not large, consisting of the main building, a dormitory, a gymnasium, and several houses where faculty and administrators had lived. None of the buildings had been used in more than twenty-five years, but the college had a long history. It had been established as a church school not long after the Civil War, and though the buildings had changed hands several times, it had continued to operate under the guidance of one denomination or another until around 1960. After that, the campus had slowly deteriorated over the years.

  Simon Graham had bought the place with the intention of restoring the buildings and making them into some kind of tourist attraction, research institute, and historical site. The main building, which was the only building remaining from the original campus, was to become a museum, and the dormitory was to be a bed-and-breakfast inn. It would have been quite a benefit to the community of Obert, had Graham’s plans come to fruition, but so far they had not.

  “Simon and I are in the same business, more or less,” Brame said. “Rare books. Of course, he operates on a much larger scale than I do, as you probably know.”

  Rhodes knew, but only vaguely. There were rumors that Graham had somehow become enormously wealthy by dealing in books, something that Rhodes found hard to understand.

  “He called to tell me that he had a first edition of Tamerlane and Other Poems for sale,” Brame said. He held up his right hand, palm outward as if to ward off a protest from his listeners. “I know. I know. You don’t believe it. And I didn’t either. Copies are so seldom available, and then only at auction. But one never knows. It was something I simply had to check out, so I drove up.”