Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 20 - Compound Murder by Bill Crider

far as I know,” Rhodes said. “Except die.”
    “He died?” Sewell didn’t seem surprised, or maybe he just didn’t care. “What happened? Heart attack? He was a smoker, you know. They’re prone to heart attacks.”
    “I don’t know the cause of death yet,” Rhodes said, which if it wasn’t exactly the truth was as much of it as Sewell needed to know. “I’d like to get a key to his apartment. Maybe I’ll find a clue.”
    “Just a minute,” Sewell said.
    He closed the door, but he was back in a few seconds with a key, which he handed to Rhodes.
    “Here it is. Apartment 212. You bring it back when you’re through up there.”
    Rhodes said he would and left Sewell standing there, staring at his back.
    *   *   *
    The first bad news that Rhodes got was that Wellington had a cat. Rhodes knew it even before he entered the apartment because he started to sneeze.
    The cat greeted him just inside the door. It was small, probably not more than eight pounds, if that. It was black and white, a tuxedo cat. Rhodes thought about his responsibilities as sheriff. The cat wasn’t included in them. It was Alton Boyd’s job, but Boyd was probably still out herding cows, or off on some other mission.
    It wasn’t just the cat that had made Rhodes sneeze. The apartment smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Wellington hadn’t bothered to go outside to smoke when he was at home.
    The cat looked up at Rhodes and meowed.
    “I’m sorry about your human friend,” Rhodes said, “but I can’t take you with me. I already have a cat at home, not to mention a couple of dogs. You and the dogs wouldn’t get along.”
    “Meow,” said the cat.
    “I know the smell is irritating,” Rhodes said. “It bothers me, too, but you should be used to it by now.”
    “Meow,” said the cat.
    Rhodes knew what would happen if he took the cat to the city’s animal shelter and nobody adopted it. He didn’t like to think about that. Surely somebody would adopt it, though. It was a good-looking cat, glossy coat, sparkly eyes, tail sticking straight up. Wellington had taken good care of it, except for making it live with secondhand smoke, and it was friendly, not in the least intimidated by Rhodes.
    Rhodes went through the small living area and into the kitchen with the cat right behind him. The cat’s food bowl was empty, but it had plenty of water. The kitchen door opened onto a little balcony. Rhodes stepped out on the balcony and took a look. A hibachi sat against the wall. That was all. There wasn’t even a chair. Rhodes closed the door. The cat sat a few feet away watching him.
    “No clues out there,” Rhodes said.
    “Meow,” the cat said.
    Rhodes sneezed.
    Rhodes and the cat went back to the living area. It held an old couch, a scarred coffee table, and a chair that must have come from a thrift store. A makeshift bookcase of concrete blocks and unvarnished pine boards held a lot of books in the Sage Barton vein, along with several by someone called Joe Lansdale. Rhodes wondered if he was any relation to the professor with whom Benton claimed to have studied martial arts. Not that it mattered. At any rate, Wellington’s reading tastes weren’t exactly highbrow, as far as Rhodes could tell. He must have needed a break from the writers in the books Rhodes had seen on the shelves in his office at the college, as Benton had suggested.
    A small flat-screen TV and DVD player sat on a table near the bookshelf. A few DVD cases lay beside it. Special-effects-heavy thrillers. Nothing that would have interested Rhodes, whose tastes ran more to old and bizarre movies like The Alligator People or I Married a Monster from Outer Space.
    Rhodes went into the bedroom with the cat right at his heels. The cat’s litter box was in the bathroom just off the bedroom. There was barely enough room for it. Rhodes checked out the medicine cabinet. Aspirin, mouthwash, toothpaste, razor and blades, shaving cream. A tube of antiseptic cream.