Of All Sad Words by Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 15 - Of All Sad Words

Author:Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 15 - Of All Sad Words [Crider, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781410406262
Amazon: 1410406261
Goodreads: 1589139
Publisher: WORLDWIDE
Published: 2007-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

After leaving the funeral home, Rhodes drove by the fire station, a brand-new building located across the street from the old fire station. Some of the old-timers remembered a third fire station, which had been located a couple of blocks down the street, but that building, like so many others in Clearview’s downtown, was long gone, whether having been demolished or having crumbled on its own, Rhodes didn’t know.

Chief Parker was sitting on a bench in front of the station, as if he’d been waiting for the sheriff to come by. Rhodes drove into a spot at the side of the building. He got out of the car and joined Parker on the bench, but not before admiring the big red engines in the bays.

“You ever think about being a fireman when you were a kid?” Parker asked when Rhodes sat down.

“All the time. I used to listen for the sirens and beg my daddy to take me to see the fires, but it wasn’t the fires I cared about. It was the engines. What about you?”

“Never thought about it,” Parker said. “I wanted to be Mr. October, hitting home runs in the World Series, not investigating explosions in manufactured homes.”

“But here you are.”

“Yeah. I like doing this job, too. Now that I’m here, I don’t think I’d want to be doing anything else, even hitting those home runs. I trained a long time for this.”

“You have plenty to do with this drought.”

“More than enough,” Parker said. “We’ve already been out on a call this morning. Nothing serious.”

“Did you get to look over what’s left of the Crawford place?”

“I went out there. I heard about Terry Crawford, too. I don’t think I can help you with him, since he wasn’t killed in the explosion.”

“I know how Terry died. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened to his house.”

“I’m sure it was a propane explosion,” Parker said. “I even have the part of the pipe linkage that might have been responsible. That leaves us with a lot of other questions, though.”

“What questions?” Rhodes asked.

“Why didn’t anybody smell the gas? Propane has ethyl mercaptan in it so people will have warning, just like natural gas.”

“Nobody was there to smell it,” Rhodes said. “Larry was at Wal-Mart buying groceries, and Terry must have been outside.”

“For how long? The gas must have built up in the house.”

Rhodes didn’t know how long. “I guess he was outside for a good while, then.”

“Okay, if he was outside, what caused the explosion? Gas doesn’t just combust by itself. There has to be a flame or something to ignite it. If there wasn’t a flame, there had to have been a spark or something.”

Rhodes didn’t have an answer for that, either. He said he’d have to ask Larry Crawford.

“He’s planning a lawsuit,” Rhodes said. “How will what you found affect that?”

“Could be some carelessness on Larry’s part, or Terry’s. The manufacturer will say so. It’ll come down to who has the best lawyers.”

“Larry has Randy Lawless.”

“He’s the best from around here, for sure.

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