Dead, to Begin with (Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries, 24) - Hardcover

Crider, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250078539 ISBN 13: 9781250078537

Verlag: MINOTAUR, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Sheriff Dan Rhodes is back again in Bill Crider's thrilling Dead, to Begin With.

"Readers will cheer Rhodes along as he sorts through a tangle of old secrets and personal relationships en route to the satisfying solution." Publishers Weekly

In Clearview, Texas, a wealthy recluse has joined the community and is leading the restoration of an old opera house. When he falls to his death, Sheriff Dan Rhodes suspects that he’s been murdered, but there doesn’t seem to be a motive. Who would want to kill someone who’s helping the town and hasn’t been around long enough to make any enemies?

The Sheriff’s suspicion proves to be true, however, and he begins to look for motives buried in the past, meanwhile having to deal with people fighting over baseball cards at a yard sale, writers who want to talk to him about his sex life, and the Clearview Ghost Hunters, headed up by Seepy Benton, who believes that the old theater is haunted. Clearview might be a small town, but there’s no shortage of excitement.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

BILL CRIDER is the Anthony Award-winning author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries (Red, White, and Blue Murder) and the Professor Sally Good Mysteries (A Knife in the Back). His short story "Cranked", which appeared in Damn Near Dead, was a finalist for an Edgar Award. Crider served for many years as chair of the Division of English and Fine Arts at Alvin Community College. He lives in Texas.

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Dead, to Begin With

A Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery

By Bill Crider

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2017 Bill Crider
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-07853-7

CHAPTER 1

Sheriff Dan Rhodes was at his desk going over some arrest reports when the phone rang.

Hack Jensen, the dispatcher, answered the call. For a few seconds he listened. Then he said, "You sure about where she's headed?" Rhodes put down the report he'd been reading, something about a burglary at a house on one of the county roads.

"I'll tell the sheriff," Hack said. "He's right here. Don't worry, Harvey. He'll stop her."

Hack ended the call and turned to Rhodes. "Elaine Tunstall's off her meds again."

"Uh-oh," Rhodes said, taking off his reading glasses and putting them in his pocket.

"Harvey said he thought she'd been takin' 'em, but she's good about pretendin'. She musta got to feelin' so good that she figgered she didn't need 'em. You know how it goes."

Rhodes knew how it went. "I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling the meds aren't the problem Harvey called about."

"Nope. What he called about is a bad haircut."

"I had one of those once," Lawton, the jailer, said as he walked in from the cellblock. "Wanted to stay in bed for a week but had to work instead. Wore a ball cap all day for a while."

"I remember that," Hack said. "That was a good while ago. Back when you had hair."

"I got hair. More hair than some I could name."

"You talkin' about me or the sheriff? 'Cause he's the one got the thin spot in back. I still got all my own hair. Mostly."

Rhodes knew what they were doing. He'd thought for years it was a conspiracy to drive him crazy, but he'd decided it wasn't, not really. They dragged everything out simply because they couldn't help themselves. Or because they thought of themselves as the Abbott and Costello of Blacklin County, Texas, a duo to whom they bore a physical resemblance.

Or it might have been a conspiracy.

"Let's get back to Harvey," Rhodes said.

"He's been breakin' up an old sidewalk in front of his house," Hack said. "It's got all whomper-jawed, and he's gonna pour a new one and level it."

Rhodes hated to give them the satisfaction of asking what was going on, but if he didn't, he'd never find out. "What does a whomper-jawed sidewalk have to do with a bad haircut?"

"I kinda wondered the same thing," Lawton said.

"Harvey's been usin' a sledgehammer to break up the concrete," Hack said, as if that explained everything.

"I still don't get it," Lawton said. For once he was as out of the loop as Rhodes was in one of these conversations.

"Well," Hack said, "Elaine's left the house, and she picked up the sledgehammer when she got in the pickup to come to Clearview."

The Tunstalls lived in Wesley, a small town about ten miles from Clearview, which was the county seat and the home of the sheriff's department.

"What size hammer is it?" Lawton asked.

"Not a great big one. Eight-pounder, Harvey said."

"I still don't get it," Lawton said.

Rhodes didn't get it, either, but he wasn't going to admit it.

"She got a bad haircut at the Beauty Shack," Hack said.

Rhodes got it then. "She's going to get revenge for the bad haircut. With the sledgehammer."

"That's what Harvey thinks," Hack said. "He says the haircut's fine, and Elaine would know that if she was on her meds, which she ain't. You better get on over to the Beauty Shack before she does. You're just wastin' time sitting there."

Rhodes stood up and pulled on the insulated jacket that had been hanging on his chair. The jacket had the sheriff's department logo on the back, a brown shield outlined in gold with a gold star in the middle. Above the star were the words BLACKLIN COUNTY, and below it SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT.

"You'd better hope Elaine Tunstall doesn't get there before I do," Rhodes told Hack.

Hack wasn't bothered by the implications of Rhodes's comment. "Harvey tried to stop her," he said, "but she come at him with the sledge. He was gonna call Lonnie and warn him, though. Lonnie'll have the place locked up. He'll keep ever'body inside."

"He won't keep the cars in the parking lot inside," Rhodes said on his way out the door.

"I didn't think of that," Hack said, "but Elaine ain't mad at the cars. Just the haircut."

Hack might have added something to that, but the door closed behind Rhodes, who wasn't listening anyway. He was too busy worrying about what Elaine might do with that sledgehammer.

Luckily nothing in the town of Clearview was far from anything else. The heater in the Tahoe wouldn't even have time to heat up before Rhodes got to the Beauty Shack, which was too bad because a norther had come in overnight and dropped the temperature into the low forties.

The interior of the Tahoe wasn't much warmer than the outside, but at least Rhodes was out of the wind. He started the vehicle and headed for the Beauty Shack. When he got there, he saw Lonnie Wallace and his partner, Eric Stewart, standing outside in the parking lot.

Lonnie was the owner of the establishment. He was togged out, as usual, in pressed jeans and high-heeled cowboy boots. Although boots were practically required footwear for Texas sheriffs, Rhodes had never been able to wear them comfortably, and he wondered how Lonnie managed to stand up nearly all day every day in them. Lonnie also wore a Western-cut leather jacket and a Western hat that Rhodes thought would blow off in the wind if Lonnie wasn't careful. Rhodes didn't wear a hat, either. On windy days like this one, he wished he did.

Eric Stewart was taller than Lonnie, and he wasn't wearing boots. He had on jeans, though, and running shoes. Rhodes thought his feet were probably cold. The wind would go right through the mesh tops of the shoes. Instead of a cowboy hat Eric had on a knit watch cap pulled down over his ears and a puffy gray thermal jacket. Eric managed the combination art gallery and antique store that Lonnie owned. It was only a couple of blocks away, so Eric had probably walked to the beauty shop to help Lonnie out in the current emergency.

Rhodes got out of the Tahoe, and the north wind had found every crevice in his clothing by the time his feet touched the ground. It blew his hair in several directions, no doubt making the thin spot look even thinner. As much as Rhodes disliked hats, he disliked billed caps even more, but lately he'd started taking one with him in case of emergencies. He reached back into the Tahoe and got the cap, which was lying on the passenger seat. It had the sheriff's department logo on the front, and Rhodes felt very official when he put it on and pulled it down tight.

"Glad to see you, Sheriff," Lonnie said when Rhodes got the cap on and closed the Tahoe door. "Harvey told me he'd called you, so I guess you know what's going on."

"I've heard," Rhodes said. "That must've been some haircut Elaine got."

"It was fine," Lonnie said. "Just what she asked for."

"There's just no pleasing some people," Eric said.

The watch cap was pulled down low on his forehead, almost touching his eyebrows. It also covered his ears, and Rhodes, whose ears were already beginning to feel like two blocks of ice attached to the side of his head, wondered about getting a knit cap. He'd never considered it before, but the idea was suddenly quite appealing. Maybe he could order one with the department logo on it.

"How do you plan to handle things, Sheriff?" Lonnie asked.

"I'll talk to her, try to calm her down, try to keep her in the car."

"Sounds good,"...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MINOTAUR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250078539
• ISBN 13: 9781250078537
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar