Free Survivors Will Be Shot Again by Bill Crider

about it.
    â€œIs it legal?”
    â€œBound to be. I figger it’ll work, too. Seepy’s a professional.”
    â€œA professional what?”
    â€œGhost hunter. You know that.”
    Rhodes took off his glasses, closed his eyes, and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “What do imaginary naked people have to do with ghosts?”
    â€œNot a thing,” Hack said.
    Rhodes put his glasses back on and leaned back in his chair. “Hack, just tell the story.”
    â€œYou’re mighty impatient lately.”
    â€œI have a murder investigation to work on. That makes me impatient. Tell the story.”
    â€œAll right, if you’re gonna be that way about it. See, Seepy got the idea from an ad he saw for some ghost repellent. He thought it might be something he could offer his customers.”
    â€œHe’s not working the ghost-hunting job right now,” Rhodes said.
    â€œNope, but he’s always thinking. You know how he is. That mind of his is workin’ all the time.”
    Rhodes knew. “Does ghost repellent work?”
    â€œDon’t matter if it does or not, according to Seepy. As long as somebody believes in it, that’s as good as if it works.”
    Rhodes was beginning to catch on. Seepy had solved a similar problem once before. “So Seepy made some kind of repellent?”
    â€œNudist repellent,” Hack said. “Got him a big spray bottle at Walmart’s and printed up a label. Ruth showed it to me. Looks real professional, like it’s the real thing. She’s gonna spray some of the stuff around all the windows at Oscar’s house and leave the bottle with him. She figgers that’ll solve the problem.”
    â€œWhat’s in the bottle? Water?”
    â€œWater that Seepy fixed up with some colorin’ and odor. Smells pretty good.”
    Rhodes thought it might work. It would depend on Oscar. He turned his chair back to the computer and said, “I need to get this report done.”
    â€œYou do that,” Hack said. “Don’t mind me. It’s not like I’m doin’ anything important. I’m just takin’ up space around here.”
    When Rhodes was finished with the report, he called Ivy and asked if she wanted to go out to dinner. She said yes, and he told her that he’d pick her up when he was done with interviewing someone.
    â€œWho?” Ivy asked.
    â€œBilly Bacon and his wife. I’ll tell you about it later. Where do you want to eat?”
    Ivy preferred healthy food at home, and Rhodes had even been persuaded to try turkey bologna. It wasn’t his favorite thing. The good news was that when they ate out, Ivy was happy to eat things that she didn’t often serve at home.
    â€œWe haven’t been to the Jolly Tamale for a while,” she said. “Does that sound good?”
    It sounded great, but Rhodes tried not to be let his enthusiasm show too much, even though visions of chiles rellenos danced in his head.
    â€œIt’ll do,” he said.
    After he’d hung up, he asked Hack if he wanted some Mexican food.
    â€œYou gonna bring it to me?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œIt’ll still be hot when you get here with it?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œGuess that’d be nice, but I don’t want it. Lawton’s gonna bring me a cheeseburger. I like a good cheeseburger ’bout as well as anything.”
    â€œDon’t say I didn’t offer.”
    â€œBe better if you’d keep me in the loop.”
    â€œI’ll try to remember that,” Rhodes said. “Call Mika and have her come in tomorrow. She can check the cell phone to see if she can find anything useful.”
    Mika Blackfield did the forensics work for the department. She’d come to Clearview with her husband, who was a pharmacist at Walmart. When she’d applied for a job with the sheriff’s department and told Rhodes that she had a