Free Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 09 - Death by Accident by Bill Crider Page B

Ruth said.
    Rhodes nodded.  “The only unusual thing is that she left him.  Usually abused women stay around way too long.”
    “Don’t see why somebody’d hire a man who abused his sister,” Hack said.
    Ruth had asked about that.  “He says that Yeldell was a good worker and that they kept things strictly business between them.  As long as Yeldell wasn’t anywhere near his sister, Bull didn’t worry about him.”
    “He didn’t mind him gettin’ close to other women?” Hack asked.
    “He didn’t think that was any of his business,” Ruth said.
    Hack’s head wagged.  “Hard to account for the way some men think.”
    “Apparently he was keeping his act clean,” Rhodes said.  “We haven’t had any complaints of that kind about him, and he’s been going around with quite a few women if what Ruth heard earlier is the truth.”
    “Bull says it’s true.  Yeldell got around, all right.  Sometimes men don’t try anything like that on a woman until they’ve developed a really close relationship.  Don’t ask me why.”
    Rhodes didn’t know either, but he knew she was right.
    “Did he know anything about what Yeldell did last night?”
    “He says Pep liked to go out to the County Line and have a few beers.  If Pep didn’t have a date, he could always meet someone out there.”
    There was nothing new in any of that.  In view of the autopsy report, Rhodes wasn’t sure that it was worth his while to investigate Yeldell’s death any farther.  But he still had that itch between his shoulder blades, that little intuition that kept telling him something was wrong.  Maybe he’d go out to the County Line and ask a few questions.
    “What about cars coming in for body work?” Rhodes asked.  “Has Bull seen anything suspicious?”
    “Like a Jeep Cherokee?” Ruth asked.
    “Like that, or like a car that’s dented on the front end from an unreported accident.”
    “I asked about that.  But he says he hasn’t seen a thing like that.  Just the usual stuff.”
    “Figgers,” Hack said.  “I’m tellin’ you, that Cherokee’s over there in Russia right now.  Prob’ly loaded with Levi’s when they shipped it, too.”
    “You never can tell,” Rhodes said.
     
    R hodes didn’t get home in time to feed the dog or eat supper.  He did manage a phone call, but that was it.  Ivy said she’d take care of the dog and keep his supper warm. 
    “What’s it going to be?” he asked.
    “Vegetable soup.  With cornbread.”
    “Low fat cornbread, I guess,” Rhodes said.
    “As low as cornbread gets.  We have to make up for that bacon cheeseburger.  Not to mention the Blizzard.”
    “I might be late,” Rhodes said.
    “It won’t be the first time, will it?”
    There was no reproach in the words, for which Rhodes was grateful.
    “No,” he said.  “And it won’t be the last.”
    “I knew what I was getting into when I married a man of action,” Ivy told him.  “So I don’t mind.  Much.  Just be sure I get my share of the action.”
    “I promise.”
    “I’ll hold you to it.”
    “I hope so,” he said.
     
    O ne reason Rhodes didn’t get home was that Hack got a call from a stranded motorist out on the highway about halfway to Thurston.  The motorist said that he’d had a flat and was changing his tire when someone stopped on the shoulder of the road behind him.  The motorist thought it was a Good Samaritan, stopping to help out.
    “Only he didn’t help,” Hack reported straightforwardly.  He had to be straightforward, since Rhodes had been listening to one side of the conversation.  “He just grabbed up the guy’s spare, which was a practically new Michelin radial lyin’ there on the ground.  He threw it in the back of his truck, got in, and took off.”
    “Did you get a description?” Rhodes asked.
    “For a wonder,” Hack said.  “The guy that called is pretty bright.  He says it was a red Isuzu, and he even got the license number.”
    “Run it,” Rhodes