Dead, to Begin With, page 21
In the lobby, he felt sure he could smell popcorn again. Funny how the imagination could play tricks on a person. The power of suggestion. Most ghosts were probably a result of the same thing. What you expect is what you get. Rhodes didn’t expect to encounter any ghosts.
It was colder inside the theater than it had been outside, and the ghost light threw some odd shadows around the empty stage. Rhodes walked down to the front row and sat in the same seat he’d taken when he’d first talked to Aubrey Hamilton about Jake’s fall. He thought about the theater’s locked back door, and he looked up at the grid where the boards had broken. Pieces of the boards still lay on the stage, and Rhodes remembered how he’d felt as he dangled from one of the boards before he’d managed to get back on top of the grid. He was glad the board he’d had hold of hadn’t broken, and he wondered what Jake had thought just as he fell. Or did he even have time to think?
Rhodes considered what Seepy had said about Jake’s ghost trying to kill him by causing the boards to break. That was ridiculous, of course. The boards had just been rotten. Why would Jake want to kill him, anyway? He was trying to find Jake’s killer. Jake’s ghost should have appreciated that.
Seepy would probably say that Jake didn’t want his killer to be found, but that didn’t make any sense.
Or maybe it did. As Ivy had pointed out, Jake might’ve let the killer into the theater by opening the back door. If the killer was one of his sister’s old childhood friends, would Jake want to protect him? Or her? That didn’t make any sense. Jake had been out for revenge, and he was about to get it. That’s why he’d been so happy lately.
Or so Rhodes had thought. What if he was wrong about Jake’s motives for restoring the theater and presenting the play? That was always a possibility. Rhodes started rearranging everything he’d learned or guessed at so far, but even with the new scenario in mind, nothing fit together.
Rhodes stood up. Thinking things over had just confused him. Talking to Al Graham might clarify a few things, though, so Rhodes would give it a try.
As Rhodes started up the aisle, the ghost light moved and shadows flickered over the walls.
“Just the wind and nothing more,” Rhodes said, and although there was no wind in the theater, he made himself believe it.
Chapter 23
When Rhodes walked through the wide door into A+ Auto Repair, Al Graham was bent over under the hood of a car. Rhodes had no idea what he might be doing, but he supposed he was replacing a part that the computer had told him was defective.
Graham appeared to be too busy to acknowledge Rhodes’s presence, so Rhodes looked around for Graham’s son. He didn’t see him. He was either taking the day off or had gone after a part for the car his father was working on.
Having nothing better to do, Rhodes walked around the garage, looking at the grimy concrete floor with its years of accumulated grease and dirt embedded in it. Rhodes didn’t know how long Al had been in the building, but it was easily more than forty years.
Rhodes glanced at a chain hoist that hung from an iron beam and at an area of tools and parts that was separated from the garage by chicken-wire fencing that Rhodes was sure provided no protection from theft. It was more decorative than secure. Rhodes wondered if the chain hoist had been used anytime within the last few years. He doubted that anybody pulled an engine anymore. He wondered if that could even be done with the way cars were built now. A large electric heater with a fan inside a housing sat at the end of the garage opposite the door, but while it was a bit cool in the garage, the heater wasn’t turned on.
“What do you want?” Al Graham asked from behind Rhodes.
Rhodes hadn’t heard Al walk up. His rubber-soled shoes didn’t make any sound on the concrete.
“Not much,” Rhodes said, turning around. “Just wanted to talk a little about Gwen Marley.”
Al held an adjustable wrench, the kind mechanics called a knuckle-buster, in his right hand. He lowered the knuckle-buster to his side and looked at Rhodes. “I’ve said all I have to say about that.”
“That’s fine. Let’s talk about you instead. You must have liked cars even when you were young since you decided to make a living by working on them.”
“It was something I was good at. Back then, anybody could work on a car. Lots of guys had old cars that were easy to fix when something went wrong with them. Change the spark plugs, put on a new muffler, put in a new thermostat. Start off small and work up to something harder, like putting on a new radiator. It wasn’t like work. It was fun.”
“You didn’t work on Gwen’s car, I guess.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You mentioned something about how it might not have been in good repair.”
“Yeah, well, if it wasn’t, I didn’t know it. I didn’t work on other people’s cars then. Just mine.”
“You drove yours pretty fast,” Rhodes said. “Too fast sometimes.”
Al raised the knuckle-buster and tapped the business end of it into his left palm. “You’ve been checking up on me.”
“A little bit.”
“I don’t like that,” Al said. “That’s stuff that happened when I was a kid. Means nothing now.”
“It might’ve meant something to Gwen.”
“I don’t like what you’re implying, Sheriff.” Al tapped the wrench against his palm again. “I have work to do, and I think you might as well leave now.”
“I’d like to talk to you some more about the night that Gwen died before I go.”
“I don’t care what you’d like. This is my place of business, and you need to get out of it.”
Rhodes knew Al didn’t want to talk, but he needed answers. “You say you and your friends didn’t see Gwen the night she died. I don’t think that’s true. I think—”
Rhodes didn’t get to say what he thought because Al swung the wrench at his head. Rhodes didn’t have the fastest reaction time in the world, but Al was older and even slower. Rhodes dodged out of the way. The wrench missed his head, but it did hit his upper arm, not very hard but hard enough to sting.
Rhodes backed away and bumped into the chicken wire of the cage he’d seen earlier. Al came after him and swung the wrench again.
Rhodes moved more quickly this time, since he was expecting Al to be aggressive. The wrench missed Rhodes completely and went right through the flimsy wire, proving him right about how insecure the cage was, not that it mattered to him at the moment.
Al pulled the wrench out of the wire. “You get out of here, Sheriff. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Rhodes didn’t think that was true. He moved away from Al, but Al came right on after him. Rhodes was near the chain hoist, and he wondered how smoothly it would slide down the beam. Pretty smoothly, it if had been maintained. Al’s garage was greasy but neat, and even if he didn’t use the hoist, he must have kept it in good working order. As Rhodes passed the hoist, he grabbed the load chain, turned, and slung the hoist toward Al.
The hoist slid smoothly on the beam, and the chains smacked into Al before he could jump out of the way. He wasn’t hurt, but he was momentarily stunned. More important, he dropped the wrench.
Rhodes pushed Al out of the way and picked up the wrench as Al staggered aside. For a second Rhodes was afraid that Al would fall, but he was able to maintain his balance. When he came to a stop, he stood quietly.
“I’m sorry for coming after you, Sheriff,” he said. He had a hangdog look. “I guess I got a little upset that you wouldn’t leave me alone. I didn’t mean to act like that. Are you gonna arrest me?”
Rhodes thought it over. “Maybe not. What I want are some answers. If I got those, I wouldn’t need to arrest you.”
Al shook his head. “You’re asking for something I can’t give you.”
“I don’t see why not,” Rhodes said. “I’m here, you’re here, and we’re talking. Just tell me what I need to know.”
“Let’s go in my office,” Al said. “I need to sit down.”
Rhodes wouldn’t mind sitting down himself. He followed Al into the office, but first he put the wrench on the floor beside the car Al had been working on.
Al sat behind his desk, which was just as cluttered as it had been the previous day, and Rhodes took a seat in a well-worn wooden chair. He stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles, and waited for Al to start the conversation.
Al looked around the little room for a few seconds, avoiding Rhodes’s eyes. “I know what you think,” he said after a while.
Rhodes grinned. “You read minds?”
“No,” Al said, “but I’ve been talking to a few people. You know who I mean.”
“You’d better tell me, just so I’m sure. I’m not like you. I don’t read minds.”
“Okay, but you do know who I mean. It’s Ed Hopkins, Ron Gleason, and Glenda Tallent.”
“I thought you folks weren’t talking to each other. That’s what everyone’s told me.”
“We don’t talk, usually, but we don’t usually have the sheriff coming around and asking us questions, either. We figured we needed to talk it over.”
“Who got the talking started? That might be important.”
“It was Ed who called us. He thinks you have some kind of idea that one of us killed Jake and that maybe it was because of what happened to Gwen. You’ve been asking all of us about that night.”
“I just ask questions,” Rhodes said. “I don’t have a lot of ideas.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s not what Ed thinks. He’s worried about how all of us are supposed to be in that play Jake wanted to do. He says it’s all about the past and the future.”
“The present, too,” Rhodes said.
Al grimaced. “I don’t read a lot, but I think I saw a movie of it once. Anyway, it might seem to you like Jake was trying to say that one of us was the killer. That’s just not the truth.”
“Then what is the truth?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not mine to tell. I guess you could say it’s all of ours.”
Rhodes started to stand up. “Then I guess I’ll have to put you in jail.”
“Sit down, Sheriff. Let’s talk about this.”
Rhodes sat back down. “I don’t know what more there is to say.”
Al pushed aside some papers, braced his forearms on the desk, and leaned forward with an earnest look on his face. “Maybe we can work something out.”
“Like what?” Rhodes asked.
“Like maybe getting you to leave us all alone. We didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Gwen. It’s just like we’ve all told you.”
Rhodes didn’t believe that any more than he’d believed that Al didn’t want to hurt him.
“That’s not true,” he said. “You told me you’re protecting a secret, and now you’re saying you’ve told me everything I need to know. One of those things isn’t true.”
“You don’t get it,” Al said, sighing and leaning back in his chair.
Rhodes stood up. “Come on. I’m taking you to jail and filing assault charges.”
Al gave Rhodes a stubborn look and didn’t move. “I can’t go to jail. I got to fix that car out there.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you swung the wrench. Let’s go.”
“Wait a second, Sheriff. I need to think about this. Just give me a minute.”
“A minute’s all you get,” Rhodes said. He didn’t sit back down.
Al sat silently. After a little less than a minute, he said, “I need to call everybody. Make some arrangements to see if we can talk to you about this.”
“By ‘everybody’ you mean Ed and Ron and Glenda.”
“Yeah. You might as well sit down and listen. I mean, if you want to talk to us about it.”
“Will I get any more from all of you than I know so far?”
“Maybe,” Al said. “I can’t make any promises for the whole bunch, but I’ll try to get them to keep me out of jail.”
Rhodes sat back down, and Al pulled the old-fashioned dial phone closer to him.
“Bet you don’t see many of these,” Al said.
“I have one in the courthouse,” Rhodes said, “and I saw one earlier today in Aubrey Hamilton’s office.”
Al looked disappointed.
“Those have pushbuttons, though,” Rhodes said, “not a dial.”
Al brightened a little and started to dial. Rhodes listened to the clicks as the dial rotated. It was a sound that had been quite familiar at one time, but now it was just a part of history.
Al was able to get all three of his friends on the first try, and while Rhodes listened in, he explained the situation to them. He left out the part about the wrench, saying only that he was in trouble and that Rhodes was about to arrest him. He assured each person he called that he hadn’t told Rhodes anything, and only Glenda Tallent seemed skeptical.
“He’s sitting right here, listening,” Al said. “You want to ask him for yourself?”
Glenda must not have wanted to, because Al didn’t hand the phone to Rhodes. He continued his spiel instead. The gist of it was that he thought it was time for the four of them to get together and talk to Rhodes, who needed to be convinced that they hadn’t all been lying to him.
Glenda must have had quite a bit to say about that, because Al listened for a while, looked at Rhodes, shrugged, and listened some more.
“Look, Glenda,” he said after she was done with him, “either I’m going to have to tell him or we’re all going to have to tell him. I think it would be better if we all did, but if I have to, I will. I don’t want to go to jail.”
Glenda started in again. Al looked shocked.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” he said when she paused. “Who do you think—”
Glenda cut him off and talked some more. Finally Al said, “All right. I think he’ll go for that. You call Ed and Ron and set it up. Ed’s office is the biggest. We can meet there. How about half an hour?”
Glenda must have agreed, because Al said, “Okay,” and hung up.
“What is it that I’ll go for?” Rhodes asked, although he had a pretty good idea.
“A meeting,” Al said. “Me and Glenda and Ron and Ed, in Ed’s office. We’ll talk to you together. Would that be okay?”
“Yes,” Rhodes said. “That would be okay. Now tell me what you hadn’t thought of before.”
“Glenda asked me, what if one of us was guilty.”
“Of what?”
“Of killing Jake.”
“It’s about time one of you thought of that,” Rhodes said.
* * *
As it turned out, Ed had a small meeting room in the back of his office, and it was just about the right size for five people. It was furnished with a wooden table and six chairs, so they could’ve squeezed in one more person if it had been necessary.
Rhodes had stayed with Al until it was time to drive to Ed’s office, and Al hadn’t said much. He did ask if it would be all right if he went out and closed the big door so that nobody would bother his shop while he was gone, and Rhodes let him do that.
“Son’s taking a few days off,” Al said when he came back into the office. “His mother-in-law up in Abilene’s sick, and he took his wife up there.”
That was all he had to offer until it was time to go, when he asked if he could drive to Ed’s place in his own pickup.
Rhodes could understand the request. Hardly anybody ever wanted to ride with the law if they didn’t have to. Someone might see them and get the wrong idea. Or the right idea. He said it would be all right for Al to take his own pickup as long as he promised to behave. Al promised, and Rhodes followed him to the real estate office.
When everyone was there in the little meeting room, Rhodes stood at the head of the table and waited until they were all seated. They settled in and looked at him expectantly.
“Well?” he said.
Nobody responded.
“Who’s the spokesperson?” he asked.
The four people at the table looked at each other, and Rhodes looked them over while they were at it. Glenda Tallent was dressed almost as spiffily as she’d been when getting ready for church. Ed Hopkins had on a suit and tie, and his balding head had a little shine in the fluorescent lights. Al was a bit grimy. Ron Gleason was relaxed and comfortable in jeans and a flannel shirt.
“Well?” Rhodes asked.
“Al called the meeting,” Glenda said. “Let him do the talking.”
Al glanced around the table. Ron nodded. Ed said, “Go ahead. Maybe it’s time this was out in the open. It’s not going to hurt us now.”
“All right,” Al said. “I’ll start.”
Rhodes sat down to hear what he had to say.
“You’re right about one thing, Sheriff,” Al began. “We all saw something the night Gwen was killed. We were pretty close friends, and we’d been to a movie that night. Not all of us together, but we met up there and sat together.”
Rhodes knew where they had to have been, and maybe it fit in with Jake’s death.
“At the opera house,” he said, just to make it clear.
“That’s right,” Al said. “It was the last week the theater was going to be open, so we all wanted to go one last time. I don’t remember what the movie was.”
“Something with Jerry Lewis,” Ron said. “I liked those Jerry Lewis movies. Hardly ever missed one.”
“Could’ve been Jerry Lewis,” Al said. “Doesn’t matter. After the movie we all went out to the Dairy King. You remember the Dairy King, Sheriff?”
Rhodes didn’t, but the others did.
“Sort of like the Dairy Queen, only with a better jukebox,” Glenda said.
“I’m not so sure about the jukebox part,” Ed said.
“Does the jukebox have anything to do with the wreck?” Rhodes asked.
“No, it doesn’t,” Glenda said. “I’m just giving you some details.”
