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“Sorry about that. They’re just part of the job for me.”
He shook his head. “Cryin’ shame tuh waste talent like that. Anyway, ah’ll set up sum targets fur yuh.”
Normally, Rhodes handed out paper targets for shooters to tack up themselves, but if he wasn’t too busy, he always insisted on doing it for her. Greta got the shotgun and the rifle out of her vehicle. She walked around to the back of the building toward the firing range, as Rhodes returned from the end of the range—a narrow alley cut into the woods for two hundred yards. Oth
er targets stood at twenty and fifty yards. Rhodes sometimes joked that by the second time she’d come to his range, he had cut several targets out of cardboard in the shape of bunny rabbits and chicks. He laughingly said it was more appropriate for a woman. She didn’t care about targets’ shapes, and it became part of her persona with the local shooters. At first, the regulars treated her a little derisively, then with more respect when they saw she could shoot as well as or better than most of them.
It only took her three minutes to fire all her rounds: the shotgun at twenty-yard targets, part of the Glock at twenty yards and the rest at fifty, then the AR-15 at two hundred yards.
Rhodes retrieved the targets, while she cleaned and reloaded the three weapons.
“A cryin’ shame, ah tell yuh,” he said, holding out first the fifty-yard pistol target. All the holes appeared within a foot of the center. The two-hundred-yard AR-15 target had a similar spread.
“A cryin’ shame,” he repeated. “Ah’d marry yuh myself if my current squeeze wouldn’t cut muh balls off.”
“In every life a little rain must fall,” she joshed back, reloaded, then holstered her Glock. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Maybe you can help. How many .357 Magnums are there around Tillamook County?”
He took on a warier look than his previous amiable expression. “Well, now, there’s no way ah can tell how many people got ’em at home.”
“No, but you must have some idea how popular they are from those who come here to shoot.”
“Not as many as befor’. Them foreign guns, like yurs, got to be mo’ popular. ’Specially ’cause they’ze lighter and don’t kick as much. Most that come here with ’em have had ’em for long times, or they think the extra power somehow makes ’em mo’ manly.”
“Has anybody come here with a .357 Magnum and used dumdum bullets?”
Rhodes’s eyes narrowed more, and he leaned back slightly. “They’ze illegal.”
“We all know they’re illegal, Rick. I’m just asking if you know anybody who uses them.”
“Now, Greta girl, you know ah can’t be pointin’ fingers at anybody. The boys come her’ to be boys and shoot.”
“I’m not interested in any illegal ammunition, Rick. It’s related to a much more serious case, and there might be a link related to dumdums. I’d be mighty appreciative of any help I can get. Nobody knows when they can use appreciative friends.”
Rhodes considered her carefully, running through his mind whether he’d heard correctly that Deputy Greta Havorsford would owe him a favor. Who knew when such a favor would come in handy?
“Well, now . . . ah can’t really say ah know any such person. Ah can’t be havin’ anybody usin’ frangible ammunition. Messes up mah range.”
“Frangible?”
“Yuh know . . . frangible. Breaks up on impact. ’Stead of goin’ right through someone and leavin’ a nice clean hole, a dumdum bullet breaks into pieces—really messin’ up the target. In mah case, they’d tear up the range too much. Can’t have that.
“’Course, all kinds come here. Why, ah remember a case some time back when ah had to tell one uh duh boys to not come ’gain. What was ’is name now? . . . oh yeah . . . Joe Snyder. Ah thinks he lives somewhere ’round here, ah think ’round the Kiwanda neighborhood.”
Near me! Greta thought. That’s convenient. And I note that Rhodes didn’t actually say this Snyder used dumdums, just that he had asked him not to come again—for some unstated reason.
“I don’t suppose you have an address.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. Perhaps I’ll look up this Joe Snyder.”
“Y’all do that. No need tuh mention me. We didn’t get ’long all that well.”
“Mention you? Why would I mention you? Thanks again for the range time, Rick. I’ll owe you one you can call in someday. Oh . . . before I go, I need you to sign my log book that I was here for practice.”
“Wont me tuh just put mah X?” Rhodes smiled. Despite this accent, which seemed to come and go with the mood and circumstance, she knew he was a “good old boy” who could discuss national and world affairs with many a professor.
“No. I think your regular signature is best.”
