The Deader the Better by G. M. Ford

that. What with her just losing her
husband and it being the holiday season and all.”
    If he was looking for somebody to feel sorry for him, he’d
fallen in with the wrong crowd. “Served her with what?” I asked.
    “Eviction,” he said. “Had thirty days to pack up and
vacate.”
    “On what grounds?” Rebecca demanded.
    “Taxes,” he said. “Something to do with it being a
homestead.”
    I walked over to the car carcass and looked into the black hole
that had once been the hatchback. “To tell you the truth,” Hand
said, “I been kinda worried about the Springer family myself.”
    I felt Rebecca stiffen. “Why’s that?” I asked. He wiped his
forehead with his sleeve. “About a week later, I sent two of my
deputies out to remind her—Bobby and Roy, three weeks to go now—and
they found the place all shot up and the family gone. They said it
didn’t seem like anyone was present when the shooting happened.
Naturally I hustled out there myself.” Naturally.
    Sitting on top of the rim that used to hold the spare tire was the
galvanized top of a five-gallon gas can. The part with the flip-up
handle and the screw-off top.
    “No sign of any injury to anyone—”
    I interrupted him. “What kind of progress have you made at
finding out who it was shot the place up?”
    He bristled. Didn’t like being questioned about his work.
Probably couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. Rebecca
had finished her circumnavigation of the car and was back at my side.
Hand folded his arms across his chest.
    “Mr.…er…a…”
    I helped him. “Waterman.”
    “Mr. Waterman…I don’t know how much you know about hunting
and outdoorsy activities”—I tried to look rugged—“but we’re
right in the middle of deer season around here. At any given moment,
I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of people walking around in the
woods with rifles and, as if that isn’t bad enough, it just so
happens that bunches of those people with rifles have absolutely no
use whatsoever for the late Mr. J.D. Springer.”
    I wanted to hear what he’d say. “Why was that?” I asked. He
ran it by me pretty much the way I’d heard it before. I only
stopped him once, and that was early on. He was talking about how
pissed off everybody was when Mr. Bendixon sold the property to an
outsider. “Of course, feelings just magnified when it turned out
he’d cheated the old man.”
    “Whoa,” I said. “Cheated the old man how?”
    “On the price,” he said. “You can look it up down at the
clerk’s office. It’s a matter of public record. Springer paid one
hundred thousand dollars for thirty-five acres. The figures are right
there in black and white.”
    Rebecca piped in. “So?”
    “So…a year ago the county offered him the better part of
three.” He waved a hand. “Two hundred ninety-something anyway.
That’s also a matter of public record.” I opened my mouth to
speak, but he beat me to it. “I’ve been told that half a dozen
private parties offered him even more than that over the past couple
of years. Check with the realtors, they’ll tell you.”
    “How is J.D. supposed to have pulled that off?”
    “Nobody knows for certain,” he said. “Most folks think he
caught the old man when he wasn’t rational and got him to sign the
papers. Old guy was eighty-two or so. Drank like a fish. Down
to Freddy’s Timbertopper every day at nine. Back home at six.
Regular as clockwork.” The sheriff shook his head. “I kept
telling myself that the first time he drove off the road or hit
something, I was going to have to tell him to either quit drinking or
quit driving. Kept my fingers crossed, I did.”
    “Your point is?” from Rebecca.
    He sighed. She sighed back at him. Bigger. I was hoping they’d
keep at it and maybe we could have a Bugs and Daffy moment. But it
wasn’t to be.
    “My point…is that it didn’t take a genius fly fisherman to
figure out that if you showed up at old Ben’s place ’long