Free The Wild Hog Murders by Bill Crider Page A

might think I don’t know,” Hugh said, “but that’s from the Bible.”
    Benton looked surprised. “That’s right. Psalm 145.”
    “Here’s something else from the Bible,” Lance said. “An eye for an eye. I don’t know what book it’s from, but I know what it means.”
    “Well?” Benton asked.
    “It means those damn hogs are tearin’ up the country, ruinin’ the crops, ruinin’ the land. So we got a right to take retribution on ’em.”
    Benton looked quite happy. Rhodes could tell he was about to launch into a lengthy lesson from the Talmud to prove Lance wrong, so he thought he’d better put a stop to it. Lance and Hugh weren’t the kind to be persuaded by rabbinical reasoning, or at least Rhodes didn’t think they were.
    “We didn’t come here to talk about killing hogs,” he said. “This is about something else entirely.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Hugh said. “We’re not talking. Right, Lance?”
    “That’s right,” Lance said.
    The two men turned and went back into the trailer. The door on a double-wide isn’t made for slamming, but they did a pretty good job of it, nevertheless.
    “I wasn’t much help, was I,” Benton said.
    “I think it was the psalm that did it,” Rhodes said.
    “Too much?”
    “Yes. It’s just as well you didn’t get around to quoting Deuteronomy.”
    “Sometimes I get carried away.”
    It didn’t take long for that to happen, either, Rhodes thought. He said, “It’s okay. Maybe they’ll give you another chance to use those incredible powers of persuasion of yours. I’ll see if they’ll come back out.”
    He left Benton standing by the county car and mounted the little concrete steps in front of the trailer door. There was no doorbell, so he rapped on the door with his knuckles. No reply came from inside, but Rhodes thought he heard something. He strained his ears and caught the faint strains of George Jones singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” The Eccles boys had good taste. Rhodes knocked again, louder this time.
    “They’re going out the back door,” Benton yelled.
    Rhodes turned to him. “What?”
    “The back door. I heard the back door.”
    Rhodes heard something, too. He jumped off the porch and ran along the front of the trailer. Benton was a little ahead of him.
    “Go back to the car,” Rhodes said, but Benton either didn’t hear or didn’t care to obey. They turned the corner at the end of the trailer, ran a few more steps, turned the back corner, and stopped. There was nobody there.
    That was when Rhodes heard the front door. Tricked by two men who probably hadn’t even graduated from high school, Rhodes thought as he turned to run back the other way.
    He heard the rumble of the Mack’s engine, and by the time he got to the front yard, the big tractor rig was turning toward the dirt road that led up the hill to the double-wide.
    Rhodes sprinted for the county car. Benton panted along behind him. Rhodes didn’t intend to wait for him. When he reached the car, he opened the door and jumped in, turning the key in the ignition before the door closed. He pulled on his seat belt and put the car in gear just as Benton opened his own door. Rhodes started to pull away, but Benton dragged himself inside and allowed the car’s momentum to slam the door shut.
    The Mack was running wide open down the hill. It turned the corner at the gate leaning dangerously to the side and took off on the county road, throwing up clods of dirt as it went.
    Benton bounced around in the front seat of the Dodge as he struggled with his seat belt. When he finally got it fastened, he was still jostled quite a bit. His hat had slipped down on his forehead, hiding his eyes.
    Rhodes was also jostled by the rough road. He struggled to keep the car under control.
    “Where are they going?” Benton asked.
    Rhodes didn’t answer, mainly because he didn’t know. He got the radio mic and called Hack. When the dispatcher came on, Rhodes told him the