Survivors Will Be Shot Again by Bill Crider Page A

rocking chair, leaving the sofa to Rhodes. He sat on it, and the cushions sagged down even more.
    â€œIs it about Melvin?” Joyce asked. She pushed her hair back. Her face was browned and wrinkled. “I haven’t see him since yesterday.”
    â€œYes, it’s about Melvin,” Rhodes said. He’d never found a good way to tell someone about the death of a family member or a loved one, so he just did it the best way he knew how, which was straight out. “I hate to have to give you this news. Melvin’s dead.”
    Rhodes never knew what to expect when he said those words. Sometimes people started to cry. Sometimes they said nothing. Sometimes they tried to hit him. And sometimes they denied it. That’s what Joyce did.
    â€œThat can’t be,” she said. “He was just fine yesterday. Healthy as a horse. He’s not dead. Not Melvin. You must be wrong about that.”
    â€œI wish I was,” Rhodes said, “but I’m not. Melvin’s dead. Somebody shot him.”
    â€œMelvin? Shot?” Joyce started to rock back and forth, slowly, her hands gripping the low arms of the chair. “Who’d shoot Melvin, Sheriff?”
    â€œI don’t know who shot him. He was in Billy Bacon’s barn. Do you know what he was doing there?”
    â€œHe doesn’t always tell me where he’s going. Sometimes he’s gone a day or two, but he always comes back.” Joyce’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair, and her knuckles whitened. She started to rock faster. “He’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. He always comes back.”
    â€œNot this time. Do you have another vehicle besides the one parked outside?”
    â€œNo. That’s the only one. What difference does that make?”
    â€œMelvin had to get to the barn somehow or the other. Did he walk?”
    â€œHe never tells me where he’s going or how he’s going to get there. Sometimes somebody picks him up and they go drinking. Sometimes they pick him up here and sometimes they don’t. He might walk to Walter Barnes’s house. Maybe he’s with Walter right now.”
    â€œHe’s not with Walter. Do you have somebody you can stay with tonight?”
    â€œMy sister. She lives in Clearview. Ellen Smalls. Why?”
    Rhodes knew the Smalls family. Will and Ellen lived not too far from the Dairy Queen.
    â€œYou get some things together, and I’ll take you to your sister’s,” he said. “You should pack a bag. You might want to stay a couple of days.”
    â€œMelvin might come back and wonder where I am.”
    â€œMelvin won’t be back. You get out a suit for him, or whatever you’d like to have him dressed in. You can see him tomorrow.”
    Joyce stood up. So did Rhodes. She looked a little shaky, so he took her elbow to steady her.
    â€œI’m fine,” she said. “It’s just that Melvin … he’s always come back before.”
    â€œWhere does he go?” Rhodes asked, dropping his hand.
    â€œI told you. Off with friends. He doesn’t tell me much. I need to get his suit. He hasn’t worn it in years. I don’t know if it’ll fit.”
    â€œI’m sure it will fit,” Rhodes said, not adding that if it didn’t, it could be adjusted so it would look as if it did.
    â€œI’ll be right back,” Joyce said.
    She went out of the room, and Rhodes sat back down. A couple of magazines lay on the coffee table, but they were as dusty as the lampshades. The TV remote was beside them, and it wasn’t dusty. Rhodes left it where it was and watched Jeopardy! in silence. The professorial type in the bow tie won the final round just as Joyce came back into the room. She had a man’s black suit draped over her left arm and an old-fashioned hard-bodied suitcase in her right hand.
    Rhodes stood and took the suitcase. Joyce picked up the remote and turned off the TV set. Setting