Murder in the Air Read online

  Of course, Lester didn’t live in Mount Industry. He’d inherited his land there from his grandfather, and he’d lived there for years while he tried a little farming and a little cattle raising, none of which paid off for him.

  As soon as the chicken farm became a reality, he moved away. He lived now just outside Clearview on the opposite side of town in a big new house that he’d built with what just about everyone in Mount Industry considered to be his ill-gotten gains.

  There was more to the problem than just the smell and Lester’s being an absentee landlord, however. A lot of the nearby residents complained that the chicken houses posed a serious health hazard, and some people were irate because they believed Hamilton had destroyed not just the air quality but their entire reason for living in Mount Industry. They’d escaped the smells and pollution of the city, and now they were suffering from something just as bad, if not worse.

  So as a result of his thousands of chickens and their by-product, Lester had many enemies. His chickens were the talk of the county, but the fact that he had broken no laws made it impossible for anyone to do anything about them other than to complain.

  Ten or twelve people, not quite the entire population of Mount Industry, but most of it, had written scalding letters to the Clearview Herald about the problem. Rhodes averaged a couple of calls of complaint every week, usually from the same people, who nearly always wound up yelling at him as if everything were his fault when he explained for the second or third time that there was nothing he could do. It was a good thing he was running for office unopposed this year. Otherwise, Lester’s chickens might have been the issue that defeated him, though Rhodes didn’t know what anyone could have done about them, short of getting rid of their owner.

  Maybe someone else had come up with the same idea, Rhodes thought as he drove along the gravel road that passed by the land where the rock pit was located. It was mid-October, and the trees that grew along each side of the road had begun to lose their leaves, but on most days the weather was still warm enough for short sleeves.

  Rhodes spotted a mailbox ahead on his right. It sat on a tilt atop a rusty pipe and indicated the spot where Rhodes had to turn off the road and enter Murdock’s property. There was a gap in the fence but no gate. A sign on the fence instructed people who wanted to fish in the rock pit to put a five-dollar bill in the mailbox. It was a fairly new sign, and Rhodes remembered that the last time he’d fished there, he’d had to pay only a dollar.

  Rhodes drove through the gate and down the hard-packed dirt road that led to the rock pit. The county car, a new Dodge Charger, handled well, but Rhodes was having a little trouble getting used to it. He felt like he should be driving in a NASCAR race.

  In the past, the county had always bought Ford Crown Victorias, but the commissioners, like those in a lot of other counties around the state, had decided to switch to Chargers. Rhodes wasn’t against change, but he was used to the Fords.

  He couldn’t see the rock pit from the road because it was surrounded by willow trees, most of which hadn’t been there the last time Rhodes had visited.

  A battered Chrysler dating from sometime during the Carter administration sat near the willows. It had once been black, but the paint had faded badly. The right front fender had been replaced with a red one after some long-ago collision, and the red was faded even more than the black. About half of one big round bull’s-eye taillight was missing, and the vacant space was covered by opaque red tape.

  Sitting on the trunk of the Chrysler, smoking a cigarette, was Hal Gillis, a well-known local character. He was a short, wiry man, eighty-five if he was a day and an erratic driver at best. People knew to steer well away from his old car when they sighted it on the road, and Hal was on the road frequently. He liked to fish, and he traveled all over the county in search of the place where the fish were biting best. He must have thought that today that place was the rock pit.

  Another car was half hidden in the willows near where Gillis had parked. It was black and shiny, and Rhodes saw the stylized chrome L encircled on the trunk. Lester Hamilton was the only man in Clearview who drove a Lexus. He must not have wanted anyone to know he was there, which was logical if he’d been doing some noodling.

  Noodling was a type of fishing that was illegal in Texas, though it was considered quite a sport in the neighboring state of Oklahoma.

  Rhodes didn’t know if he approved of noodling or not. It was dangerous, that was for sure, and while Rhodes enjoyed casting a lure for the wily bass if he ever got the chance, which he seldom did anymore, he didn’t much like the idea of having a big flathead catfish clamp onto his hand while he was partially or fully submerged.

  That was what noodling was all about. Flatheads liked to live quietly in holes in the bank, in underwater brush piles, or concealed in a pile of submerged rocks. A noodler would locate a fish and stick his hand in front of it in hopes that it would take the bait. If it did, it would usually hold on for a long time. The noodler would try to pull it out of its hiding place and get it up onto the bank, which was easy enough if the fish was a small one. If it wasn’t, then getting it onto the bank could become a problem. If the fish was in deep water, if the noodler got hurt, if the noodler got hung in brush, or if the fish was an especially big one, things could even get dangerous.

  Rhodes had heard of flathead cats that weighed over a hundred pounds, though nobody in Blacklin County had ever caught one anywhere nearly that big, not as far as he knew. A man who got hold of a fish that size would have a heck of a time dragging it out of a deep hole, a hollow log, or a rock pile.

  Rhodes parked his car and walked over to Hal Gillis.

  “Hey, Sheriff,” Gillis said.

  He slid off the car and pinched off the end of his cigarette. He put the butt into the bib pocket of the faded blue overalls he wore and walked over to Rhodes. He put out a skinny hand. Rhodes shook it.

  “Hack tell you I called?” Gillis asked.

  Rhodes nodded. “He said you’d found a body in the rock pit. He said you think it’s Lester Hamilton. What makes you think so?”

  Gillis took off his grimy red Texas Rangers baseball cap and ran a hand through his thin white hair. He put the cap back on and said, “I looked at his driver’s license.”

  “Where’d you find that?”

  “In his britches,” Hal said. “I’ll show you.”

  He turned and led Rhodes through a gap in the willows to the edge of the rock pit.

  “There,” Hal said, pointing to a neat pile of clothes that lay folded on a nearby rock. “Billfold was in the pants pocket. ’Course those clothes there might not belong to whoever’s floatin’ in the water over there, but I figger the odds are good they do. Found the billfold in the clothes and took a look. Then I called Hack on my cell phone.”

  Gillis didn’t look like a man who’d be acquainted with the latest technology, but Rhodes had long ago decided that everyone in Blacklin County had a cell phone.

  “I didn’t call an ambulance or anything,” Hal said. “I figured you’d be the one to do that.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Rhodes said.

  He’d call the justice of the peace and the ambulance after he looked things over.

  “You want me to go on home now?” Gillis asked. He seemed eager to get away. “ ’Cause I will if you say so.”

  “I have a few questions first,” Rhodes said.

  Gillis didn’t look too happy about that, and Rhodes remembered another drowning he’d handled, one that had appeared to be an accident until he’d done a little investigating. Then it had turned out to be something else entirely.

  “You don’t think I killed Les, do you?” Gillis asked.

  “That’s what I want to find out,” Rhodes said.

  3

  Murdock’s rock pit had been there longer than Rhodes could remember. He doubted that anyone in the county, even Hal Gillis, remembered why rock had once been quarried from it or what the rock had been used for.

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p; After the pit was abandoned, it had eventually filled up with rainwater, and someone, maybe Murdock, who had been dead for years now, had stocked it with catfish and bass. It had been Murdock’s idea to charge people to fish there, taking the money on the honor system, and whoever now owned the land had followed his lead.

  Rhodes didn’t know who the current owner was. The land had been in the Murdock family for so long that nobody ever called it anything but Murdock’s place, and the rock pit was Murdock’s, too.

  Hal Gillis said he’d been fishing there off and on for twenty or thirty years.

  “That’s what I was plannin’ to do today. Put my five dollars in and everything. Looky there.” Gillis pointed to a willow tree. A long cane pole leaned against it, and a gray metal minnow bucket sat close by. “Got me some of them big shiners, thought I’d catch a couple of bass, or maybe even one of those big cats that hide in the rocks. Take ’em home, clean ’em, and cook ’em up for supper. Could be Les Hamilton had the same idea. I’ll bet he don’t eat chicken. Anyway, he was in the water when I got here. I didn’t touch him. See? My clothes are dry as a bone.”

  That was true, but Gillis could have taken off his clothes before he got in the water.

  “Besides,” Gillis said, “I’m too little to do anything to Les. He was twice my size. You better have a look at him.”

  Rhodes hadn’t caught a glimpse of the body yet. The rock pit was roughly circular, the bank about ten feet above the water. The willows shaded the eastern side at the moment, but before long the sun would be overhead and the shade would be gone.

  “It’s right over here,” Gillis said.

  He walked along the edge of the bank for about five yards. There was hardly room for him because of the willow branches. Rhodes followed him, making sure he got each foot planted before taking a step. He didn’t want to fall in the water.

  “Here he is,” Gillis said, coming to a stop.

  Below him a large chunk of white stone poked out from the bank. Sticking out from beneath the stone was about half of someone’s torso. Black bathing suit, white legs, black and white athletic shoes on the feet.

  “Sure enough looks like an accident to me,” Gillis said. He pulled a package of cigarettes from his overalls. “You care if I smoke?”

  Rhodes said he didn’t care, and Gillis lit up.

  “Probably was an accident,” Gillis said after taking a puff. “Sure are a lot of people who don’t like Hamilton, though, and I guess I’m one of ’em. But that don’t mean I killed him.”

  Rhodes looked down at the body. A slight breeze riffled the water and moved the leaves of the willows. The sun sparkled off the ripples. The body didn’t move at all.

  “You want to know what I think?” Gillis asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “I think it was water moccasins killed him. I heard once about a fella got into a whole big nest of ’em right in this very spot, back when the swimming pools were still pretty much in one piece and people used to come out for a dip. Had a hundred bites on him when they fished him out, and he was swole up like a poisoned dog.”

  Rhodes had heard the same story any number of times, including the last time there’d been a drowning, but the location of the supposed incident was always different, depending on who was telling it. Sometimes the snake-bitten man was in a creek somewhere, but other times he might be in one of the county’s big lakes or the river that fed them.

  Nobody who told the story had ever witnessed the bitten body firsthand. They’d always heard about it from someone who saw it, though, or so they said.

  Rhodes wondered if an M-16 would be effective against a big nest of water moccasins. He supposed it would if there weren’t more than nine hundred and fifty of them.

  “Might’ve been a snappin’ turtle, though,” Gillis said, exhaling smoke. “There’s an old mossy-back living in this rock pit. I’ve seen him four or five times. Probably moved in when it started filling up. Sixty years ago. Seventy, maybe. Big as a washtub. Looks downright prehistoric. He got hold of a man’s hand, he could bite it right off.”

  “Whatever got Hamilton,” Rhodes said, “it’s too bad.”

  “Not ever’body would agree with that,” Gillis said. “You gonna take a better look at him?”

  Rhodes looked at the dark green water. The willow-lined bank was steep, and the only way to get to the water was to climb down the rocky sides. The remains of what might have been Lester Hamilton weren’t going anywhere.

  “I’ll wait for my deputy to get here,” Rhodes said.

  He’d called Ruth Grady on his way to the rock pit. She’d work the scene with him.

  “Let’s go back to the cars,” Rhodes said.

  When they got back, Gillis was finished with his cigarette, and he disposed of it the same way he’d done the first one.

  “What’re you lookin’ for?” he asked Rhodes, who had walked out to the rutted road that led to the pit.

  Rhodes didn’t answer until he’d walked back to the cars.

  “You find anything?” Gillis asked.

  It was what Rhodes hadn’t found that interested him. The grass was crushed where Hamilton had driven his car off the road, and Gillis and Rhodes had left clear paths as well. There was no other path to be seen, which meant that no other cars had been there. It was looking like an accident investigation for sure.

  Unless, of course, Gillis had killed Hamilton. Or unless Hamilton had been in the water a day or so.

  “How long had you been here when you called?” Rhodes asked.

  Gillis gave it a little thought. “ ’Bout fifteen minutes. Long enough to get my pole and minnow bucket out of the car and walk to the bank.”

  “How long before you saw the body?”

  “Not long. I was lookin’ for a good place to fish, and I’ve caught a couple of big ones by that rock before. I checked it out, and there old Les was.”

  Rhodes wasn’t a hundred percent sure the body was Hamilton, but there was nothing to be gained by saying so.

  “Nobody else was around?”

  “Not a soul. That’s what I like about comin’ here. There’s hardly ever anybody to bother me.”

  “Makes it a good place for noodling,” Rhodes said.

  “Sure enough. Les liked to do that, I hear. All those rocks make a lot of good places for catfish to hide, and there’s more rocks under the water where you can’t see ’em. Les would be able to find ’em, though.”

  “He could’ve gotten hold of a big catfish,” Rhodes said.

  “Sure could. They’re in here, like I said. I hooked one once, a couple of years back. Must’ve weighed fifty pounds or more. Broke my pole and carried off my line. Take a mighty big fish to do that.”

  If the story was true, and Rhodes wasn’t sure he believed it, a fish that big could have grabbed onto Hamilton’s hand and held him under the rock long enough to drown him. It wouldn’t have taken long. Hamilton was no athlete. He couldn’t have held his breath for much more than a minute, if that long.

  Rhodes saw a white Dodge Charger turn into the gate from the county road.

  “Here comes my deputy,” he said.

  Ruth Grady stopped her car beside the one Rhodes had driven and got out. She was short and a little stout. Her dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail that she’d pulled through the back of her baseball cap with the badge on the front. She was the best deputy Rhodes had, and she did most of the crime-scene and lab work for the county.

  “Howdy, Deputy,” Gillis said when she joined them. “I’m Hal Gillis.”

  Ruth shook hands and said she was glad to meet him, and Rhodes filled her in on the situation.

  “Accident?” she asked, looking at Gillis.

  “Looks like it to me,” he said. “ ’Course, I wasn’t here when it happened. I just found the body.” He paused. “Am I gonna get arrested?”

  “Not now,” Rhodes told him. “You can go on home.”

  “Let me get my pole and minnow bucket,” Gillis said.

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sp; He left Rhodes and Ruth standing by his old Chrysler.

  “You think he had anything to do with this?” Ruth asked, keeping her voice low.

  “I don’t know. Doesn’t seem likely, but I want to keep an open mind.”

  Rhodes didn’t know why he felt so uneasy about the situation, but he did. The whole thing just seemed wrong to him, though he couldn’t explain why, not even to himself.

  “Probably just an accident,” Ruth said.

  Rhodes wanted to agree with her, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Gillis could, however, and did.

  “That’s what I told him,” the old fisherman said, emerging from the willows with his bucket and pole. “Just an accident. Any way you look at it, though, there’s one thing for certain and sure.”

  Rhodes had a sinking feeling he knew what was coming. Even a man like Hamilton, who was so widely despised, deserved a little dignity in death, but it didn’t appear that he was going to have it. Being found dead in the water wearing only swimming trunks and athletic shoes was bad enough without the jokes.

  “What’s so certain?” Ruth asked.

  Gillis didn’t answer at first. He opened the back door of his Chrysler and set the minnow bucket on the floor. He closed the door and slid his fishing pole through the open back window.

  “Well?” Ruth said.

  Gillis turned to her. “No Les, no more,” he said.

  Rhodes sighed.

  4

  Rhodes had been looking for Hamilton a couple of days before the call from Hack came in. Nobody Rhodes talked to would admit to knowing where Hamilton was, and nobody would admit to having seen him recently, not even his employees who looked after the chicken houses at the factory farm.

  It wasn’t surprising that no one would talk to Rhodes, especially not Hamilton. Rhodes had called Hamilton about a complaint. He’d been doing that a lot lately, and Hamilton had stopped taking his calls. As Hack had said, “That’s what caller ID is for.”