Too Late to Die

  TOO LATE TO DIE

  Book One of the Dan Rhodes Mystery Series

  Bill Crider

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Bill Crider

  Cover images courtesy of:

  Gary Dee per the CC Attribution 2.0

  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.

  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

  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

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  The Online Store

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  CONTENTS

  TOO LATE TO DIE

  A Preview of SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT

  A Preview of DEAD ON THE ISLAND

  A Preview of ONE DEAD DEAN

  TOO LATE TO DIE

  FOR MY PARENTS

  AND OF COURSE FOR JUDY, ANGELA, AND ALLEN

  Chapter 1

  It was another damn election year, and if there was one thing that Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew for sure it was that Hod Barrett wasn’t going to vote for him this time either.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that Barrett could just be ignored. As sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas, Rhodes was obliged to listen to Barrett’s complaints and even try to help him out when his little grocery store got robbed, which seemed to be about every two or three weeks here lately.

  “It’s just some damn kids, Sheriff Rhodes,” Barrett said, jamming his big, blocky fists deep down in his pockets. He was about as tall as an anvil sitting on an oak stump, and just as solid. Thin, bristly red hair stuck straight up all over his head, and his face was almost as red as his hair. “They don’t never take nothing but a few cartons of smokes and some beers. Maybe a Moon Pie or two. Looks like you could catch a bunch of damn kids, or at least give us folks here in Thurston a reg’lar patrol.”

  Thurston, according to the green and white City Limit sign not a quarter of a mile from Barrett’s store, had a population of 408. It was seven miles from Clearview, the county seat. Rhodes considered these facts for a second or two. “Well, Hod,” Rhodes said, “if you could persuade the commissioners to hire me five or six more deputies, I’m sure we could have one of them spend lots of time around here. As it stands right now, though, the best I can do is send one through every now and then. Johnny Sherman was by here last night, if he followed his route.”

  Hod shoved his hands even further down in his jeans, not quite hard enough to cause the brass rivets to pop off the stitching at the top. “That Johnny Sherman couldn’t find his butt with both hands,” he said.

  “Now, Hod,”‘ Rhodes said patiently, “you know that’s not so, but if you don’t like the way we’re doing things over at the county seat, maybe you and some of the folks here in Thurston could get together and hire yourselves a town marshal.”

  Hod made a face and looked like he was about to strangle. “It’s the sheriff’s responsibility to protect us and our property!” he said in a choked voice. “We pay your salary with our taxes. You’re elected by the people of this county, and you’re supposed to protect us from damn thieving kids!”

  The two men were standing on the cracked gray sidewalk in front of Hod’s store, shaded by a heavy wooden awning. Rhodes looked through the screen doors of the store with their faded Rainbow Bread stencils. He could see some of the old men on the red loafer’s bench by the soft drink cooler lean forward and perk up their ears. One of them spit a stream of snuff into a Styrofoam cup he held in his left hand. Any minute now, they would get up the nerve to walk outside and join in the conversation. Rhodes didn’t want to make a campaign speech, so he changed the subject.

  “Tell you what, Hod,” he said. “Let’s us go take a look at where the break-in was.”

  The appearance of positive action calmed Barrett slightly, and he led th
e sheriff around to the back of the store. The grass in the alleyway was mowed short; even that around the building was trimmed. Barrett often boasted to his friends that he bought his wife the best lawn mower available.

  On the ground by the red brick wall of the store lay an old evaporative cooler that had been set up on a wooden stand. The remains of the stand were scattered around. Whoever had broken into the store had simply knocked, or kicked, the stand from under the cooler, which had then fallen to the ground, pulled by its own weight. That had left a rectangular hole in the wall about three feet up, easy enough to crawl through even if you were just a kid.

  “Last time they broke out my restroom window and then kicked the door to the storeroom open,” Barrett said, disgusted.

  “Maybe somebody just finds this place too easy to break into,” Rhodes suggested mildly.

  “Now just a damn minute, Sheriff,” Barrett protested, bringing his hands out of his pockets for the first time and waving them in the air like catchers’ mitts. “You got no call . . .”

  Whatever he had been about to say, was interrupted by the sound of a car humming up the gravel road that ran beside the store. They turned to look just as the driver threw on his brakes and brought the automobile to a sliding, fishtailing stop. White dust settled over them, pushed by the car’s momentum and a slight westerly breeze. Then Bill Tomkins catapulted himself out of the driver’s seat, yelling, “Sheriff Rhodes, Sheriff Rhodes, you gotta come quick! Elmer Clinton’s done killed his wife!”

  Two minutes later Rhodes pulled up in Elmer Clinton’s yard, scattering about thirty bantam hens and one scrawny rooster in all directions. The white frame house looked peaceful enough, shaded by a couple of big chinaberry trees, but the front door was standing open behind the screen. Rhodes got out of his car and started up on the porch. He had his right foot on the second of the two cement steps when Bill Tomkins and a load of the loafers from Barrett’s store drove up.

  “Don’t anyone get out of that car,” Rhodes yelled as he stepped up on the porch. “I’ll put every damn one of you in jail.”

  Bill Tomkins turned off his engine, but nobody in the car moved. Rhodes opened the screen and went on in the house.

  It was cool and dim inside, but not so dim that Rhodes had any trouble spotting Jeanne Clinton. She was lying in the small living room about seven or eight feet from the front door. The room looked as if a storm had blown through it. A platform rocker, its cushions printed with early American designs, was overturned, and a heavy glass lamp had been shattered against the wall. An end table lay on its side, and magazines were scattered around the room. A Redbook and a Cosmopolitan lay by the end table. Beside Jeanne Clinton’s body there was a copy of TV Guide with J. R. Ewing smiling evilly from its cover. The throw rugs that had covered the hardwood floor were wadded together as if someone had skidded on them.

  Rhodes walked over to the body, touching nothing. There was some blood, but not much. Jeanne Clinton’s face had been pretty, but now it was bruised and cut. Her slim neck was twisted at an odd angle; Rhodes was no doctor, but he thought it was probably broken. Though there had obviously been quite a struggle, there seemed to be no other marks on the body. Jeanne had been wearing shorts and a halter, showing off her spectacular figure, and her smooth arms and legs were unmarked except for some slight discolorations on the upper left arm, where someone might have squeezed it tightly.

  Rhodes looked around the rest of the house but saw nothing else that was disturbed—no open drawers or signs of robbery. He went back outside to deal with the crowd of curiosity seekers.

  Bill Tomkins and his friends had gotten up enough nerve to get out of the car, but they hadn’t moved away from it. They were leaning against its side, and Bill was telling them about finding the body.

  Rhodes figured that as long as Bill was telling the story, he might as well tell it officially. “Come on up here on the porch, Bill,” Rhodes called.

  Tomkins, a storklike man with weathered skin and a prominent Adam’s apple, reluctantly separated himself from his cronies and shuffled over to the house. He and Rhodes settled themselves on the edge of the porch.

  “How’d you come to find her, Bill?” Rhodes asked.

  Tomkins gestured toward the dirt road that ran in front of the house. “I live just up the road,” he said. His voice had a slight wheeze in it, because Bill smoked a lot. “Nearly every day I have to go get something or other at Hod’s store, like biscuits or milk maybe, and when I passed by here today I saw that the front door was open. So I just thought I’d stop by, you know, like a neighbor, and say hello to Elmer. That’s when I found her.” His voice trailed off.

  “Bill,” Rhodes said quietly, “Elmer’s car’s gone. You can see the ruts right over there by that chinaberry tree where he parks it.” The sheriff pointed over to their left where there were a couple of ruts and a patch of oil in the dirt between them. Two chickens were scratching in the ruts, and shriveled yellow berries with their stems still clinging to them lay in the oil. “You make it a habit to stop by and say hello to old Elmer when he’s not at home, do you?”

  The day was already warm, though it was still early, but Tomkins was sweating more than seemed natural. “No, Sheriff,” he wheezed. “Course not, but, uh . . . I, well . . .”

  Rhodes let him dangle for a second. Then he spoke. “You trying to tell me that Elmer might have had a reason to kill his wife? He’s not here, but you said he did it, remember? Did you say that because you think he might’ve wanted to?”

  Tomkins’s head wobbled on his thin neck as he gave a negative shake. Then he appeared to change his mind. “Hell, I’ll tell you. You’d find out quick enough anyways. Elmer works at the cable plant in Clearview, the twelve to eight shift. He usually don’t get home till around nine-thirty or ten, eats breakfast at some cafe—supper to him I guess—’fore he comes home. Sometimes I stop by and talk to Jeanne on my way to the store. Just talk, that’s all. She was a nice, friendly girl. But I ain’t never been here ‘cept in the broad daylight. Not like some other folks.”

  “What other folks you got in mind, Bill?” Rhodes asked.

  “I wasn’t thinkin’ of anyone in particular.” Tomkins looked out at the men standing by his car. They hadn’t moved, and they were watching the two men on the porch like a hawk watches a rabbit.

  “You might as well tell me, Bill. This is a murder case we have here, and I know you wouldn’t want to stand in the way of justice being done. Besides, like you say, I’ll find out soon enough anyhow.”

  “I don’t like to talk about my neighbors,” Tomkins said, though not as reluctantly as he might have if he really meant it. “But there’s Hod Barrett for one.”

  Rhodes thought about that for a while. Then he sent Tomkins and his friends on their way. As sheriff of Blacklin County, he had to perform the on-scene investigation.

  Rhodes got his evidence kit and his old Polaroid camera out of the trunk of the county car. County funds did not suffice to make him a well-equipped investigator, but he knew what to do with what he had: photographs of the body, fingernail scrapings, fingerprints, if any, all the little details. He wouldn’t vacuum the room or the body like they would in some big-city police department, but he would be careful.

  Rhodes didn’t mind taking the time, but he wasn’t convinced that anything he found would be of help. He was a man who believed in his instincts. He liked to talk to people, listen to their stories, size them up. If they had anything to hide, he could usually find it out. But physical evidence didn’t hurt anything when it was available.

  He found nothing significant. Oddly, there was not even anything under Jeanne’s fingernails, as if she hadn’t fought back, hadn’t even scratched her assailant.

  Rhodes thought about that for a while, too. Then he went into the kitchen to the telephone and called the justice of the peace and an ambulance.

  After Jeanne Clinton was pronounced dead at the scene, her body was taken away in the ambulance. It would go to Dallas
for the autopsy, and Rhodes knew that it would be several days before he got the results. Rhodes was in no particular hurry. It seemed pretty certain that Jeanne hadn’t been raped, since the clothes were still on the body, and it appeared equally sure that she had died of a broken neck. Finding out who did it was all that mattered now, and to find that out he would have to find out who would have a reason to want her dead, either that or who would be mad enough to kill her in a quick and violent fit of temper and rage. Or maybe there was more to it than that. Not exactly the kind of case Rhodes needed in a reelection year.

  Elmer Clinton still hadn’t arrived home. Rhodes left Joe Tufts, the JP, there to give Clinton the news. Tufts and Clinton had gone to high school together. Rhodes started back to Clearview by way of one of the county roads. It was still early in the day, and the sheriff wanted to do some thinking before he talked to Hod Barrett again.

  Rhodes had just crossed the plank bridge over Sand Creek when he spotted something lying in the bar ditch in a patch of tall Johnson grass. He pulled the car as far off the narrow road as he could and got out to take a look at what at first glance appeared to be a pile of discarded clothing. When he slammed the car door, the pile jumped up and started running.

  It was Billy Joe Byron. On an ordinary day, Billy Joe would never have run from the sheriff, and Rhodes wouldn’t have chased him, but this wasn’t an ordinary day.

  “Dammit, Billy Joe,” Rhodes yelled. “Slow down. If I get a cut on me from this Johnson grass, I’m going to kick your butt.”

  Billy Joe paid no attention to Rhodes’s threat. If Rhodes’s quarry hadn’t hung his pants leg trying to climb over a barbed-wire fence by the ditch, the sheriff might never have caught him. When Rhodes put his hand on Billy Joe’s shoulder, Billy Joe fell backwards into the weeds and grassburrs, tearing his pants leg from the knee to the cuff. He lay in the grass going “Uhh-uhh-uhh-uhh.” There was dried blood on the front of his clothes.