Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 09 - Death by Accident Read Online Free PDF

from the ceiling fixture.
    “Fresh paint,” Rhodes said.  “Electricity in the office.  A new roof.  It all looks good.”
    “It is good,” Brother Alton said.  “Except for the roof.”
    “What’s wrong with the roof?”
    “It is a sham and a fraud.  It mocks the Lord.”
    Rhodes wasn’t sure how a roof could mock the Lord, but Brother Alton was glad to enlighten him.
    “It leaks,” the preacher said.  “In ten places.”
    “That’s not good,” Rhodes agreed.
    “It’s a crime,” Brother Alton said.  “And I want the culprit arrested at once.”
    Rhodes was confused.  “I thought you called about the Indian dancers.”
    Brother Alton sighed the sigh of a man who had to confront so much evil that it was hard to know where to begin describing it.
    “I did call about that,” he said.  “But since that time I’ve had a conversation with Mr. Randall Overton.  The dancers are an evil that is not yet present in our community, and we can stop them later.  Right now we have to deal with the devil that lives among us.  I have his address right here.”
    Brother Alton rummaged through the papers that covered his newly varnished desk and finally located a page that looked as if it had been torn from a legal pad.  He pulled the page from under a large leather-covered Bible and handed it to Rhodes.
    “I want to charge Mr. Overton with fraud,” Brother Alton said.
    Rhodes looked at the paper.  “What fraud would that be?”
    “He promised to fix our roof,” Brother Alton said.  “Fool that I am, I believed him.  I even paid him in advance.”
    “Big mistake,” Rhodes said.
    “Amen,” Brother Alton responded.  “Oh, he did put shingles on the roof, but they don’t do any good at all.  In fact, they made things even worse than they were before he put them on.  Now, if it so much as drizzles, water pours into the sanctuary.  It can be very distracting to a congregation when water is streaming over them during the sermon.”
    “Might keep them awake,” Rhodes said.
    Brother Alton stared at him with no trace of a smile.
    “Just a little joke,” Rhodes said.  “Not a very good one, I guess.”
    Another joke suddenly occurred to him, something about baptism, but he repressed it.  He didn’t think Brother Alton would appreciate that one, either.
    Confirming Rhodes’s suspicion, Brother Alton said, “The work of the Lord is nothing to joke about.”
    “I know,” Rhodes said.  “And I apologize.  But I’m afraid you can’t have Overton arrested for fraud.”
    “I have a contract,” Brother Alton said.  He opened a desk drawer and began to dig around in it.  “It’s right in here somewhere.”
    “It won’t matter,” Rhodes said.  “Why did you suddenly decide that having Overton arrested was so urgent?”
    “Because of what he said when I spoke to him just now.  He said that he’d done all he could, that he’d spent all the money we paid him on materials for the job, and that he wasn’t going to do anything more, no matter how much the roof leaked.  When I asked to see the receipts for materials, he actually laughed at me.  Then he hung up.”
    “He’s a crook, all right,” Rhodes said.  “Or a con man.  But you can’t get him for fraud.  Now deceptive business practices, that’s something else again.  You might get him on that.  It’s not a felony, though.”
    “I want that man in jail and out of circulation.  He’s a menace to the community.”
    “I agree with you, but probably the best you can hope for is to get a judgment against him for the money.”
    “God will provide a judgment for him if the law of man can’t.”
    “I wasn’t talking about that kind of judgment,” Rhodes said.
    “I know.  But the kind of judgment you’re talking about is a joke.  He’ll never pay it.  He’ll laugh about it.”
    Brother Alton was probably right, Rhodes thought.  It was too bad there was no good way to get a con man like Overton off the