Murder in the Air Read online

  “Why would he do that?”

  “You tell us,” Ruth said. She stood just behind Rhodes’s chair. “Don’t you know?”

  Qualls shook his head. “I have no idea. I’ve never met the man.”

  “He knows you, though,” Rhodes said.

  “That’s not surprising,” Qualls said. “I’ve become a fairly well-known citizen since I moved to Blacklin County. I didn’t want it that way. It’s just something that happened, thanks to Lester Hamilton and his chickens.”

  “That’s how your name came into the conversation,” Rhodes said. “Lawless and I were talking about Hamilton and those chickens.”

  “Did someone hire Lawless to file suit against Hamilton? I’d be more than happy to be a party to something along those lines.”

  “Nothing like that. We were discussing Hamilton’s will.”

  “His will?” Qualls squirmed a bit in his chair. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “You’re saying you don’t know?” Ruth said.

  Qualls looked up at her. “I’m saying I have no idea what you’re talking about. This whole conversation is like something out of Samuel Beckett.”

  “Who’s he?” Rhodes said.

  “A writer. Never mind. You wouldn’t know him.”

  Rhodes was pretty sure he’d just been insulted, but he didn’t care. He might not know much about literature, but he figured Qualls didn’t know much about law enforcement, either.

  “You haven’t talked to Randy Lawless lately?” Ruth said.

  “No. As I said, I don’t even know the man.”

  “How about Lester Hamilton? Have you heard anything from him?”

  Qualls made a noise that was a cross between a snort and a laugh. “When he was alive, Lester Hamilton wouldn’t give me the time of day, and the only times I spoke to him are well in the past. He stopped taking my calls long ago, and we didn’t meet each other in the course of the day.” Qualls paused and looked at Rhodes. “Is this conversation going somewhere, or are you just trying to drive me crazy?”

  Rhodes wondered if he’d been hanging around Hack and Lawton too long. He’d let the interview get well off track.

  “I asked you here for a reason,” Rhodes said. “I wanted to talk to you about Lester Hamilton’s will.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “You’re his heir,” Rhodes said. “Once the will is probated, you’re going to be a chicken baron.”

  It was as if someone had struck Qualls in the back of the head with a rubber hose. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out. He gulped a couple of times, jittered around in the chair, then started coughing.

  Rhodes thought Qualls might be strangling, but Qualls held up a hand to let them know that he was all right. When he stopped coughing, he gasped for breath. His face and nose were an unhealthy red.

  “Are you okay?” Ruth asked. “Maybe you need a Heimlich.”

  “I’m fine,” Qualls gasped, pushing back from the table. “Or I will be in a minute. You shouldn’t surprise me like that. Of course, I know you’re only trying to get a reaction from me.”

  “We got one,” Rhodes said, “but we weren’t trying. What I told you is the truth.”

  Qualls took in a deep breath, and Rhodes was afraid he’d start coughing again. Instead, Qualls held his breath and pounded on the table a couple of times with his fist.

  Rhodes turned and looked at Ruth, who shrugged. Rhodes looked back at Qualls and waited.

  “Could I have some water?” Qualls asked. His voice was a rasp. “Or a soft drink?”

  “I’ll get some water,” Ruth said and left the room.

  Qualls leaned back in his chair, not looking at Rhodes or anything in particular as far as Rhodes could tell. Rhodes didn’t say anything. He just sat and waited.

  Ruth was back in less than a minute with a plastic bottle of water that she handed to Qualls. Rhodes knew she kept water in her desk and in her county car.

  “The county will pay you back for that,” he said.

  Ruth waved him off, and they watched Qualls drink. He took several swallows and lowered the level of the bottle by about half. He set the bottle on the table and leaned forward.

  “As you might have gathered,” he said, “your news took me by surprise.”

  Either that, or he was an even better actor than Rhodes had first thought.

  “I had no idea that I was named in Lester Hamilton’s will,” Qualls went on. “I can’t quite get used to the idea.”

  “It might take some time,” Ruth said, “but you’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s more than I can take in. Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “He must have had a good sense of humor,” Rhodes said.

  “Not that I ever noticed,” Qualls said. His face grew thoughtful. “I can see now what you’ve been thinking. Because I’m now the owner of the farm, or will be eventually, you consider me a suspect in Lester’s murder.”

  “You have to admit it’s a powerful motive, any way you look at it,” Rhodes said. “If you keep running the farm the way Lester did, you’ll make a lot of money. If you want to close it down, you can. You won’t have to wear your mask anymore.”

  Qualls gave Rhodes an accusatory look. “You said I wasn’t a suspect when I came in. You lied to me.”

  “Now just a minute,” Ruth said. “I didn’t hear the sheriff say anything like that.”

  “I see. So that’s how it works. It’s my word against his. And yours.”

  “And the tape recorder’s,” Rhodes said.

  Qualls stiffened. “I wasn’t aware this conversation was being recorded. It’s not legal to record someone without permission, is it?”

  “It is,” Rhodes said. “Trust me.”

  “You tricked me.”

  “First it’s lies, then it’s trickery,” Ruth said. “That’s how we operate.”

  “We didn’t trick anybody,” Rhodes said. “We might have sprung a surprise on you, but we didn’t trick you.”

  “Very well. You have your opinion, and I have mine. Have I been charged with anything?”

  “No,” Rhodes said. “Not yet.”

  “Then I’m leaving.” Qualls stood up. “I hope you realize I won’t be voting for you in the election.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Rhodes said. “I need all the help I can get.”

  “Not from me,” Qualls said as he left the room.

  “That went well,” Ruth said when Qualls was gone.

  “About as well as could be expected,” Rhodes said. “We might have learned something, though.”

  “What?”

  Rhodes was about to answer when Hack came in and said, “Gillis hasn’t showed up.”

  “Did you give him a call?” Rhodes asked.

  “I gave him two. No answer either time.”

  “He could be on the way to town,” Ruth said.

  “Could be. All I know is, he ain’t here.”

  “I’ll go check on him,” Rhodes said. “Ruth can stay here in case he shows up. You let me know if he does.”

  “Like I don’t know my job,” Hack said.

  “He’s kind of old,” Ruth said.

  Hack looked at her.

  “No offense. I just meant that something might have happened to him. He could have taken a fall, or—”

  “You’re not helpin’ yourself any,” Hack said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll check on him,” Rhodes said. “He could have decided not to come in because he has something to hide.”

  “Be careful, then,” Hack said. He was still looking at Ruth. “Some of us old guys can still give plenty of trouble when we want to.”

  “Then again, some of you are just softhearted pushovers,” Ruth said.

  “Don’t you believe it,” Hack told her.

  20

  Rhodes didn’t stop at Garrett’s for a Dr Pepper and a candy bar. He considered it, but he had a bad f
eeling about Hal Gillis. Rhodes didn’t know the man well, but he believed he’d have come to the jail if he’d been able. Or if he’d had nothing to hide. Rhodes wondered if Ivy had been right all along.

  Gillis lived next door to Calvin Terrall, if you could consider living a quarter mile away as being next door. Rhodes thought of it that way because no other houses stood between where Gillis lived and the Terrall property.

  Calvin and Margie Terrall sat in their chairs at the roadside stand. Rhodes waved to them as he passed by. They watched him drive by, but they didn’t wave back. Rhodes figured that was another couple of votes he couldn’t count on.

  Hal Gillis had lived in Mount Industry all his life. The house where he lived was the one his parents had owned, which was more common in Blacklin County than outsiders might think. Gillis had gone to school in Clearview. After graduation, he’d worked various jobs, clerking in grocery stores, pumping gas, doing a little carpentry work, whatever came to hand, but he hadn’t really had to do anything if he didn’t want to. His father had owned mineral rights on some land in another county, and the land had a couple of producing oil wells on it. The family had always had enough money to get by on without anyone having to worry about a job.

  Gillis had stopped working and started fishing when he was around fifty, and that’s what he’d done ever since, when he wasn’t working on his old two-story house. He was handy with tools, and he’d kept the place in good shape. He painted every ten years or so whether it was necessary or not, and he made sure the roof was tight, the trees were trimmed, and the grass around the house was mowed. It was a pleasant place if you could disregard the pungent smell of the chicken farm, though right now the smell wasn’t as bad as it often was. The morning breeze had been from the south, but the wind had switched around to the north. It was cool, bordering on cold, and it carried the smell away.

  Tall pecan trees stood around the house, and its wide veranda ran around three sides of it. A porch swing hung from the ceiling, and a couple of old lawn chairs stood beside it. They hadn’t been used much lately, Rhodes figured. Nobody in Mount Industry sat outside much since the chicken farm had moved in. Not counting the Terralls, of course. They had to watch over their business.

  Gillis’s beat-up old Chrysler sat in the side yard in front of a big detached garage that wasn’t in such good shape as the house. Gillis didn’t put much time into maintaining it. The garage doors were closed.

  Rhodes parked the county car in the dirt driveway behind the Chrysler and got out. The fog was gone with the wind, but heavy clouds covered the sky and darkened the day. The wind rattled the dead pecan leaves and sent a couple of pecans hurtling down. They thumped off the roof of the veranda and fell to the grass near where Rhodes stood. The house was quiet.

  Rhodes walked up the wide front steps to the veranda and crossed it. A brass knocker shaped like a chili pepper hung on the frame by the screen door. It had been cleaned recently, and Rhodes used it to give three hard taps. He didn’t hear anything from inside, so he tapped again, even harder.

  No answer.

  Rhodes walked around the veranda, first to the left and then to the right, looking in the windows. The lacy curtains, which must have been musty relics left behind by Gillis’s parents, were pulled back and tied. Rhodes saw nothing unusual, just the old-fashioned furniture that looked as if it had been there since Gillis was born, if not before.

  The veranda didn’t extend all around the house, so Rhodes had to go back down the steps and walk around to the back. The backyard had an old well-house in it, but Rhodes didn’t think Gillis used the water for anything, even if there was still any water in the well. With all the dry weather they’d had in the last few years, the water table had dropped dramatically.

  The back steps were concrete and went up to a screen door that opened onto a long screened porch. The screen door wasn’t latched, but Rhodes didn’t open it. At the moment he didn’t think he had probable cause to go in the house. Gillis might be there, sick or hurt, or he might not. Rhodes wanted to look around a bit more before he went inside.

  The first place Rhodes checked was Gillis’s old car. Nothing unusual there, just a couple of fishing rods and a tackle box in the backseat. Gillis always kept them there so he wouldn’t have to load the car when he left to go fishing and so he’d have them if he happened to pass a place that looked as if it might be good for a few casts.

  Rhodes walked on past the garage. Gillis had a big stock tank on the property, and he often fished there when he wasn’t fishing somewhere else. The tank dam was lined with willow trees. He might have gone down there this morning before the interview and forgotten about the time.

  Rhodes didn’t see anyone on the dam, but Gillis could have been hidden by the willows. Rhodes called out, but he got no answer. He decided he’d walk to the dam and see if Gillis was there.

  It wasn’t much of a walk, about a quarter of a mile, and it didn’t take Rhodes long to find Gillis when he got there. The old man lay at the lower end of the tank. There were no trees there. Gillis lay facedown, his head in the water and his legs on the land. There wasn’t much doubt that he was dead. The wind blew across the water and moved the body gently.

  Rhodes went around the dam to where the body lay. Gillis hadn’t died of natural causes. He hadn’t fallen into the green water and been unable to save himself. Someone had hit him in the back of the head and let him drop into the water. Rhodes could see blood on Gillis’s thin hair.

  A fishing rod lay on the ground beside the body. The monofilament line extended into the water. Gillis must have known whoever had hit him. He hadn’t been distracted from his fishing, and it wouldn’t have been possible for anyone to sneak up on him, not unless Gillis was totally deaf. Rhodes didn’t think that was the case.

  Rhodes crouched down beside the body. He tried to stay detached, but he felt a rush of sadness for the old man who’d never done anything to anyone as far as Rhodes knew. Now he was dead, and for no good reason. Rhodes was sure of that.

  He stood up and looked out over the water. The breeze riffled the top, and something splashed over in the shallows. After a few seconds, he walked back to the county car and called Hack.

  “Send Ruth out here to Gillis’s place,” he said.

  “The old man givin’ you trouble?” Hack asked.

  “He’s not going to give any trouble again,” Rhodes told him. “Not to anybody.”

  Ruth and Rhodes didn’t find any clues. The ground was hard, and there were no tracks. Gillis’s killer hadn’t stood near the edge of the water where the earth was soft.

  “Nobody came to the house in a car,” Rhodes said. “Not unless he managed to do it without leaving tracks.”

  He’d examined the area as soon as he’d called Hack. He’d found no sign that any car other than the Charger had been there. Though it was possible that Rhodes had obscured any tracks in the dirt driveway when he arrived, he didn’t think so.

  “Sort of like the situation at the rock pit,” Ruth said. “You think somebody’s flying in, killing people, and flying away?”

  “Not too likely,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think anybody has a jet backpack yet.”

  “Have you looked inside the house?” Ruth asked.

  “No, but I will. Call for the ambulance and the JP. You wait here for them, and I’ll give the place the once-over.”

  “What do you think you’ll find?”

  “Nothing,” Rhodes said, but he was wrong.

  * * *

  Rhodes entered the back porch through the screen door on the back. Like the rest of the house, it was clean and neat. Because the screen was no protection from the weather, Gillis didn’t store anything there other than some of his fishing equipment that water couldn’t damage: long cane poles lying on the floor, fishing rods leaning against the wall, a couple of black plastic tackle boxes beside them.

  The door from the porch opened into the kitchen. Nothing of interest there, either.

  Rhodes had
a choice of two doors from the kitchen. One went into a dining room, and the other went into a hallway. Rhodes took the one into the hall, where he found something he hadn’t expected: a bow and a quiver of arrows.

  Rhodes didn’t know much about bows, but he was surprised to find one here. He’d thought for sure that Qualls was Robin Hood. He looked at the bow, but he didn’t know a thing about archery. He didn’t know what kind of bow it was or what kind of arrows were in the quiver. He knew what kind Robin Hood used, and if these were the same, Ruth would be able to tell.

  Rhodes went through the rest of the house but found nothing else that would tie Gillis to Robin Hood, and there was nothing of a suspicious nature. Gillis had been a lifelong bachelor, and he hadn’t accumulated many worldly goods. He had a fine fifty-two-inch television set, a bookshelf with a lot of old hardback books, most of them about fishing, and a nice collection of antique fishing lures. A pair of good binoculars. That was about it. Gillis didn’t even own a computer.

  The second story of the house was almost bare. It was clean, and Gillis had a couple of chairs up there, but nothing else. He’d apparently confined his activities to the bottom floor.

  Thunder rattled the windowpanes, loose in their frames after so many years. Gillis would have taken care of that if he’d lived, Rhodes thought.

  Lightning brightened the interior of the house for a second. Rhodes stood in the middle of the living room, hoping he might see something that would help him figure out why someone would kill Hal Gillis. He didn’t.

  By the time Rhodes was finished going through the house, the JP had declared Gillis officially dead. The ambulance had come and picked up the body. Ruth met Rhodes in the kitchen.

  “Just in time,” she said as rain began to patter down on the roof.

  Rhodes told her about the bow and arrows. “You want to have a look?”

  She nodded and followed him into the hallway. Taking one arrow from the quiver, she gave it a look and said, “Wrong brand.” She looked at the others and held up one of them. “But this one’s right.”

  She went through the entire quiver, nodding now and then.