Can Ghosts Commit Murder?

     Sheriff Dan Rhodes has learned to put up with a lot from the folks of Blacklin County, Texas; not to mention the barrage of teasing and gossip he gets from his dispatcher, Hack, and his jailer, Lawton. Rhodes handles everything with a cool head and a good bit of compassion. Although, Rhodes is not what you would imagine when you think of a Texas sheriff. He doesn't wear a cowboy hat or boots; there isn't a six shooter strapped to his hip. In fact, he prefers the Kel-Tec he keeps in his ankle holster.
   Rhodes is a very logical and methodical investigator, so when Hack calls him in the middle of the night to back up Deputy Ruth Grady who is on a "shots fired" call at the local haunted house, Rhodes doesn't give it a second thought. After sloshing through the rain to the back of the house, he and Ruth find Neil Foshee, local meth dealer, face-down in one of the rooms. A cursory search doesn't turn up much else. The suspect list includes Neil's former girlfriend, Vicki, who happens to be friends with Rhodes's wife. There is also the nephew of Clearview's mayor, as well as Neil's partners in crime, his cousins Earl and Louie.
     Complicating his investigation is the fact that the house is said to be haunted. The former owner--a  man named Moore who also taught at the local high school--died in the house of a heart attack nearly forty years ago. (The house has remained empty since the owner's death; with only local drug dealers and vandals daring to venture inside.) By all accounts Moore was a bully of a teacher and he would use a BB gun to kill any animals that came onto his property.  Rhodes doesn't believe in ghosts, but his "friend" Seepy Benton, the community college math professor who fancies himself an unofficial investigator for the sheriff's department, does. Though Rhodes himself has had some creepy feelings of being watched while visiting the house, Rhodes is still a skeptic.
    Many folks--Hack and Lawton included--believe that the ghost has something to do with Neil's death. After the scene of Neil's death has been cleared, Benton wants Sheriff Rhodes to let them investigate the house. Knowing he won't have any peace until he lets the professor look around, Rhodes takes Benton and his partner through the house and they find a skeleton in a closet in the attic--a room Rhodes neglected to clear the night of the murder. Whoever the woman was--Benton can tell from the shape of the pelvic bones--Rhodes can see from the skull fracture that she must have been murdered or at least fallen and hit her head on something hard. But then, how did she get into the closet in the attic where she was found?
     On top of these two bodies, Rhodes has to deal with copper thieves, a runaway bull, a county commissioner who wants to arm the sheriff's department for WWIII, and the rest of the characters that occupy Blacklin County. What is a small town sheriff to do?

Who Killed the Professor?

Compound Murder is the latest Dan Rhodes Mystery by Bill Crider; and I have to tell you it was such a pleasant and easy read, that I finished it in just a couple of hours. Small town Texas sheriff, Dan Rhodes, just wishes the local Dr. Pepper manufacturer would go back to using real cane sugar in their formula, so that he could enjoy his daily caffeine. While musing over his boycott of the beverage, and staring at the Mr. Pibb bottle in front of him, the phone rings. Police dispatcher, Hack, tells him that the local beauty shop has been burgled and the thief made off with the hair! When sheriff Rhodes arrives, he finds that someone has broken in through the bathroom window and stolen all of the wigs and hair extensions made of natural hair--a pretty expensive bounty. Just as he is telling the owner to leave everything as it is and to cancel all of his appointments for the morning, Hack calls Rhodes again and tells him to get over to the local community college; there's a dead body. Math professor Seepy Benton, a graduate of the Citizens' Sheriff's Academy, is trying to keep all of the students and faculty away from the crime scene, but he's having little luck. The sheriff helps herd the students and professors inside and takes a look at the body, but before he can get into any real police work, a car peels out of the parking lot and Rhodes give chase, leaving Seepy to guard the area. A high speed chase ensues that winds up with the suspect's car smashed into a tree with its trunk wide open and Rhodes' windshield cracked and sagging. Turns out, the driver is 19 year-old Ike Terrell, son of the local doomsday prepper, Able Terrell. Rhodes finds the missing hair in the open trunk of Ike's car. The Terrells are thought to be gun-toting, survivalists that have fenced themselves inside the family property. Ike is unwilling to talk, so Rhodes has no choice, but to book him. This is all just the first couple of chapters. Sheriff Rhodes also has to deal with copper thieves, wrestle a pot-bellied pig, calm trigger-happy deputies, all the while trying to find out who murdered English professor Earl Wellington. By all accounts, Wellington was not liked. He was a picky when it came to his students attendance and work and he lacked the social skills necessary to make friends. Rhodes' investigation is fraught with red herrings and the diversions of small-town America and peppered with the humor and frailty of the human condition. I can't reveal anymore without giving away the story, so you'll just have to give it a go!