Dead, to Begin With, page 8
Rhodes shifted in the chair. He still hadn’t found a comfortable position. “That was thoughtful of him.”
“Yes, it was. Except that there’s a condition or two.”
Here it comes, Rhodes thought. “What were the conditions?”
“Simple enough. The first play must be performed as scheduled, and it must be based on the ideas that Jake gave to Dr. Harris. You did know that Dr. Harris was writing a play, a version of a Dickens story, for the first performances at the theater?”
“I didn’t know that Jake had given Dr. Harris his ideas for the play. Are those all the conditions?”
“No, there’s another one. It’s about you.”
“Me?” Rhodes couldn’t think of any reason Marley would make him a part of the conditions of the restoration of the theater. “Why me?”
Bradley patted his toupee again, shifting it slightly. “The reason isn’t in the will, and Jake didn’t tell me. The will just states that as a condition of the money being provided for upkeep and so on, you have to be at the first performance of the play.”
Rhodes would have been at the performance anyway, since Ivy was involved in the theater’s restoration, but why would Jake want to be so sure of it? What if there were complications?
“That’s more than a year from now,” Rhodes said. “Something could happen to me before then.”
“You’re a young man. You’re in good health. What could happen to you?”
Rhodes wished the young part were true. “I have a dangerous job. I could have an accident. I could get sick.”
“You seem good at surviving in your job, but I agree about accidents. They do happen, maybe even to Jake, and as far as a person’s good health, one day isn’t a guarantee of good health the next day. Jake did make allowance for all that, however. If for some reason you can’t attend, he wants the current sheriff, whoever it is, to be there.”
“Jake was of sound mind, I guess,” Rhodes said.
“Very much so, and he wasn’t nearly as curmudgeonly as people claimed. He wasn’t what I would describe as jovial, but he was quite good-natured when we talked these things over. He laughed about them, but he wouldn’t explain them. He just told me how he wanted the will to be written, and he expected me to follow through. So I did. He approved it and signed it, and now I have to see that the provisions are carried out.”
Bradley was the second person to remark on Jake’s near-joviality. Rhodes reminded himself to ask Ivy about that at dinner, assuming they ever got to have dinner.
“He must have had his reasons for those conditions.”
“I’m sure he did,” Bradley said, “but he didn’t confide to me what they were. However, we haven’t covered everything yet.”
“There’s more?”
“Just one more thing. The play has to be presented with the cast list that Jake has provided in the will. He may have given Dr. Harris a copy already, but I can make one if he hasn’t.”
Rhodes started to speak, but Bradley held up his hand. “I realize that the same things apply to the cast as to you. Someone could have an accident or severe illness. Jake didn’t make any provisions for those things. He didn’t seem worried about them.”
Rhodes started to speak again, and once more Bradley held up his hand. “I know what you’re thinking. We need to get to the heart of the matter.”
Rhodes was ready to do that. “You’re right. That’s just what I was thinking. So what’s the heart of the matter?”
“When a man comes to me and asks me to write his will with such specific provisions and then dies an accidental death only a few weeks later, I ask myself if there’s any connection. Wouldn’t you do the same?”
Rhodes had already asked himself about the accidental nature of Jake’s death, though he hadn’t mentioned that to Bradley. “I sent word for Dr. White to perform an autopsy, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean,” Bradley said. “I’m not usually of a suspicious nature, no more than most attorneys, anyway, but this time something just doesn’t seem right.”
Rhodes thought about his own hunch. “I know what you mean. Having the autopsy is a good idea.”
Bradley used both hands on his toupee this time. He got it into place, and it didn’t look quite so bad.
“Exactly,” he said.
“I’d like to have a list of those cast members,” Rhodes said. “Just in case I need it later.”
He didn’t mention what he might need the list for, and Bradley didn’t ask. He opened the middle drawer of his desk and removed an ordinary white postal envelope. He closed the drawer and slid the envelope across the glass-topped desk. Rhodes stood up and got the envelope.
“There you go,” Bradley said. “Just in case you need it.”
“Thanks,” Rhodes said.
“You going to open it?”
“Why don’t you just tell me who’s on the list.”
“I’ll let you see that for yourself. Except for one of them. I’ll tell you that one. Jake was going to play himself.”
“Himself?”
“How long has it been since you read A Christmas Carol, Sheriff?”
Rhodes didn’t have to think about it. “I never read it. I’ve seen a couple of the movie versions.”
“Then you should remember something about the characters. The ghosts, for example.”
Ghosts. Rhodes wished that topic would quit coming up. “I remember them. Christmases Past, Present, and Future.”
“There’s another one,” Bradley said. “The first one. People do forget him sometimes. Marley’s ghost.”
Rhodes remembered then. “Jacob Marley.”
“That’s right, and that’s Jake’s legal name. Maybe his parents had a sense of humor, or maybe they’d never read Dickens. I never asked. At any rate, Jake didn’t make mention of who should take his place if he couldn’t be in the play. Maybe he planned to be there, one way or another.”
“There’s only one way he could have been there,” Rhodes said, “and that’s not going to happen now.”
“Maybe he’ll be there anyway,” Bradley said. “It would look good on the program. ‘The ghost of Jacob Marley will be played by the ghost of Jacob Marley.’ The play would be sold out every night.”
“Not going to happen,” Rhodes said.
Bradley smiled and leaned back in his chair. “You never can tell,” he said.
Chapter 9
Bradley West had given Rhodes several things to think about as he drove home, and the matter of the will was just one of them. He wasn’t going to be more than five or ten minutes later than he’d told Ivy, so he didn’t hurry.
The will was the most important thing Bradley had talked about, but another interesting point was Bradley’s comment about Jake’s joviality. Bradley was the second person that day to mention it, and while Jake might have been jovial around Aubrey Hamilton because he was interested in dating her, that wouldn’t have been the case with Bradley. Aubrey had denied that Marley was interested in her anyway.
Rhodes didn’t think that making a will was a time for happy conversations in most cases, yet Jake had impressed Bradley with his cheerfulness. What had happened to change Jake’s personality? Had he always been Mr. Jolly, sitting alone in his house and cracking jokes to the wallpaper? Rhodes didn’t believe that. Something had been going on. A man doesn’t give up years of solitude and become a traveling ray of sunshine overnight. There had to be a reason for the difference in Jake’s attitude.
It wasn’t just a matter of a man making his will and being happy about it, either. It was the strange provisions of the will that mattered. Or did they? Rhodes didn’t know why he was so suspicious about the cause of Jake’s death. Other than one small bump on the head, there was nothing to indicate what Jennifer Loam had called foul play. The fact that Jake hadn’t included a replacement for himself in the cast of characters in case of his death showed that he expected to be there, didn’t it, Bradley’s silly comment about his ghost notwithstanding?
Rhodes thought about Seepy Benton. Seepy would say the ghosts in the theater had communicated some message to Rhodes, one he was too dense to figure out, so that all he was left with was a hunch. Seepy would also be certain that Marley’s ghost would be there for the performances, whether it manifested itself or not.
Since Rhodes didn’t believe in ghosts, he could safely disregard that idea. What he needed was some fried catfish. He’d worry about Jake Marley and his nonexistent ghost some other time.
* * *
Ivy wasn’t upset that Rhodes was a little bit late. “I never expect you to show up on time,” she said. “Something always seems to come up. What was it this time?”
Rhodes was a little surprised she hadn’t asked him sooner. Maybe she’d been waiting for him to apologize for being late, which he’d just done. Or maybe it was because on the drive to Max’s Place, she’d wanted to know all about Jake Marley’s death, and after filling her in on that, there hadn’t been time for him to tell her where he’d been.
The air in Max’s was thick with the smell of fried fish, and there was quite a crowd of diners. Rhodes wasn’t the only one in Clearview who liked a good fried meal. He and Ivy found a table not too far from the buffet, which was Rhodes’s preferred seating. He wanted to be able to get a refill plate without having to walk too far. The place was noisy with the chatter of the other customers, the clatter of silverware, and the folk music on the sound system, but Rhodes and Ivy could still talk to each other without having to yell. The noise gave them privacy in a way, since nobody at the other tables was likely to overhear them.
“I was at Bradley West’s office,” Rhodes said. “He was telling me about Jake Marley’s will.”
Ivy wanted to know all about that, too, so he told her in between bites of catfish and french fries and hush puppies.
“I like the part about Marley’s ghost playing Marley’s ghost,” Ivy said when he was finished with his account.
“Don’t start,” Rhodes said, looking at his nearly bare plate. “I’m going back for seconds. Do you want anything?”
He knew he didn’t have to ask. Ivy had stuck strictly to the salad bar, and she was still working on what she’d gathered up on her first trip.
“I’m fine,” she said, and Rhodes went to get a clean plate and some more fish and french fries.
When he got back to the table, he asked Ivy how she and Jake Marley had gotten along.
“Just fine. He’s worked well with all of us on the restoration committee.”
“He wasn’t sullen or withdrawn?”
“Not a bit. I’d expected him to be a little odd because of all the stories I’d heard about him, but he’s been just like everybody else. He gets upset about things now and then, but he’s never rude or snappish. Most of the time he seems happy enough.” Ivy paused. “I’m talking about him in the present tense. It’s hard to believe he’s dead. Anyway, he was fine. Upbeat, mostly.”
“I guess all the stories about him were wrong,” Rhodes said.
“If they were, why didn’t he associate with people?” Ivy asked. “He was always in that house of his, year after year. No friends, no interaction with the town, nothing.” She looked around the restaurant, at the people talking and eating, at the salad bar, at the loaded buffet table. “He never came out to a place like this to have a meal. Maybe he got something from the drive-through at the Dairy Queen or McDonald’s, or maybe he just ate little frozen dinners that he bought at the grocery store late at night. The stories weren’t wrong.”
“Or maybe he had a secret life,” Rhodes said. “Some of those stories had him sneaking off to bigger towns for fun.”
“He didn’t seem like the type,” Ivy said, “but it’s possible, I guess. You can never really know anybody, especially somebody who goes out of his way to keep his life a secret.”
Rhodes ate his last hush puppy. “Until now. He didn’t seem to be keeping it secret anymore.”
Ivy pushed her salad plate away. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. He was more outgoing, but that didn’t mean he talked about himself. He talked about the theater and how he hoped the restoration would be good for the town. Things like that. Never himself, though.”
“Did he ever take an interest in anybody in particular?” Rhodes asked.
“Who do you mean?”
“Aubrey Hamilton. I wondered if he might have thought of asking her out.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about his love life, and I certainly wouldn’t ask him. It didn’t seem to me that he had that kind of interest in anybody, though. Why did you ask that?”
“He called her to come to the theater today, and I wondered why. I thought maybe they were an item.”
“If they were, I didn’t know it,” Ivy said, “and nobody mentioned it at the Beauty Shack when I was there.”
The Beauty Shack was a local center of information exchange, which was Ivy’s preferred term for gossip. If Jake had been dating Aubrey, word would have reached the Beauty Shack by now, although maybe that simply hadn’t been one of the topics discussed when Ivy was present.
Rhodes looked at his empty plate. He didn’t really need a third trip to the buffet, although he wouldn’t have minded another piece of fish and a few more hush puppies. He exercised his willpower instead and pushed his plate away, too. After all, he needed to leave room for some cobbler, preferably with a scoop of ice cream on top.
“Do you want cobbler?” he asked Ivy.
“I’ll just take a bite of yours,” she said, and Rhodes went off to serve himself some cobbler and ice cream. He’d be sure to get enough for Ivy to have a bite.
When he returned to the table, he discovered that Ivy had company. Seepy Benton and Harry Harris had joined her.
“The cobbler looks good,” Seepy said. “Apple?”
“Yes,” Rhodes said, looking at the large amount of cobbler and ice cream he’d managed to get into his bowl. “Ivy’s sharing it with me. Are you here for dinner?”
“We are,” Seepy said, “and Ivy invited us to join you. We’ll just go to the buffet and come right back.”
Rhodes started to say, “Take your time,” but he refrained. He gave what he hoped was a noncommittal grunt instead and set his cobbler on the table. When Seepy and Harry stood up and headed to the buffet, Rhodes sat down.
“I had to ask them,” Ivy said. “I could tell they wanted to sit with us.”
“It’s all right,” Rhodes said. “I have some questions for them anyway, and Seepy will want to tell us all about his ghost hunting in the old theater.”
“How much of that cobbler were you counting on me to eat?” Ivy asked, eyeing his bowl.
“As much as you want,” Rhodes said, knowing that he was safe enough. One bite, two at most, would be all Ivy would take.
One was all she took, but it was a big bite by her standards. Rhodes didn’t mind. There was still plenty left, and he was well into it when Harris and Seepy returned and sat down. Before they could start on their fried fish, Rhodes asked if they’d found any ghosts.
“We went back this afternoon,” Seepy said. “The theater is full of them.”
In what was becoming his standard routine, Rhodes said, “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“They’re there, all right,” Harry said, “although they haven’t communicated with us yet.”
Suspicions confirmed. “Then how do you know they’re there?”
“We got several more convincing readings on the EMF meter,” Seepy said. “If no other ghosts are there, Marley’s must be. He’d have a good reason for hanging around. He’d want to see the way the work turned out.”
Rhodes took a bite of the cobbler and ice cream. He wanted to finish it before the ice cream melted.
“I hope the theater restoration will continue,” Harry said.
“You don’t have to worry about the restoration,” Rhodes said. He told Harry and Seepy what Bradley West had said about Jake’s will, including the odd provisions.
“Did he tell you who the cast members were?” Harry asked.
“No,” Rhodes said, “but he gave me a list of the names. I haven’t had time to give them much thought.”
“You’re a busy man, all right,” Seepy said. “The video of you disarming that man at the yard sale today was like something right out of a cop movie.”
Rhodes had known the video would be on Jennifer’s Web site, but he hadn’t watched it. He didn’t plan to, either.
Ivy looked at Rhodes. “You didn’t tell me you’d disarmed anybody.”
“It was great,” Seepy said, and he launched into an exaggerated description of the episode with Ted Hensley, beginning with Jennifer’s headline: SHERIFF PUTS NINJA MOVE ON ARMED MAN.
Rhodes didn’t listen. He busied himself with his cobbler and ice cream. He’d just about finished when Seepy stopped talking.
Harry spoke up again. “You know, Sheriff, A Christmas Carol has ghosts in it.”
“I know,” Rhodes said. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and gave a regretful look at the empty cobbler bowl. “One of them is named Jacob Marley.”
“Very good.” Harris seemed a bit surprised at Rhodes’s literary aptitude, and Rhodes wasn’t going to tell him that he’d been reminded of the ghost in the play only that afternoon.
“I’m sorry Jake’s dead,” Harry continued. “Not just because it’s such a loss to the community but because there was a lot I wanted to ask him before I wrote the play.”
“For instance?”
“Well, for one thing, I wondered if he was aware of the resemblance between himself and the Jacob Marley.”
“I didn’t know there was one,” Rhodes said. “Aside from the name, I mean.”
“Well,” Harry said, “I don’t want to sound too much like an English teacher…”
