Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 08 - Winning Can Be Murder Read Free Page B

the gate.  Some of the more agile ones, like Jerry Tabor, who had abandoned the painted woman, went right over the fence.
    Even the pile-up near the Garton bench broke apart, with players rolling wildly right and left to escape the on-coming ambulance.  The driver threw on the brakes, but the tires skidded in the grass and the vehicle narrowly missed Rhodes, who hadn’t moved, before it careened into the Greyhound benches and sent one of them flying onto the track.
    The ambulance came to a stop then and Lawton, the Blacklin County jailer, got out.  He looked a little bit like Lou Costello to Rhodes, though he was at least seventy years old.
    “Damn driver was at the concession stand, I guess,” Lawton said.  “I had to drive this thing myself.  Like not to’ve got it stopped.”
    “So I noticed,” Rhodes said.  “Thank goodness you didn’t kill anybody.”
    Lawton was outraged.  “Kill anybody?  What’re you talkin’ about?  Of course I didn’t kill anybody.  What I did was save a bunch of lives, and you oughta consider yourself lucky that I was here at the game.  What’d you have done if I hadn’t turned on that si-reen?  Got your head knocked off, is what.  But don’t thank me.  After all, I’m just a worthless old man who’s tryin’ to do the best for ever’body.  I’m just — “
    Rhodes held up a hand to stop him.  “Thanks, Lawton.  I didn’t mean to criticize.  You did just fine.”
    “You don’t really mean that.  You’re just tryin’ to calm me down so I don’t have a heart attack.  Wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?  The worthless old man who saves your life has a heart attack and dies right on the spot.  That wouldn’t look good in the papers, now would it?”
    Lawton usually got into that kind of dispute with Hack Jensen, the dispatcher, but since Hack wasn’t around, Rhodes was an acceptable substitute.  The sheriff didn’t mind.  Lawton had a point, in a way.
    “I said you did fine, and I meant it.  Now let’s see if we can get this mob straightened out and start the game again.”
    Lawton shook his head.  “ ’Bout time you thought of that.  Wonder how many of these boys the refs’ll kick out?”
    Rhodes didn’t have an answer for that one.  The referees did, but only after a consultation that must have lasted at least fifteen minutes.
    They walked practically to the goalpost and huddled together with Rhodes and Ruth Grady standing guard to keep players and coaches at bay.  Lawton tagged along, too.  Rhodes didn’t try to stop him.
    What the referees eventually decided was to eject two of the Garton Greyhounds who in their judgment were the first two to leave the bench and attack the Clearview tackler.  The Catamounts were not penalized, the officials having concluded that the runner was in bounds when he was hit.
    As soon as he heard the decision, the Garton head coach turned purple and hopped up and down like a kid on a pogo stick as an official tried to calm him down.
    “What do you think his blood pressure is right now?” Ruth Grady asked.
    “I’d guess about two hunnerd over a hunnerd and fifty,” Lawton said.  “I expect there’s a stethoscope in that ambulance if you want to check it.”  He put the accent on the last syllable of ambulance .
    The ambulance driver had come out onto the field and retrieved his vehicle, returning it to its usual spot behind the goalposts.  He hadn’t said a word to Lawton about commandeering it.
    “I’m not much of a nurse,” Ruth said.  “What about you, Sheriff?”
    Rhodes wasn’t much of a nurse, either, but he thought that the Garton coach might be an interesting study for some medical student.  He hadn’t cooled off a bit, and he continued to scream at the referee and bounce around the field. 
    Rhodes walked over, and between the two of them, he and the ref got the coach back to the bench, where his players and assistants had confined themselves to muttering vague