Murder Among the OWLS (15 page)

Authors: Bill Crider

BOOK: Murder Among the OWLS

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“I wish I did, and I wish I didn't let my temper get the best of me.”

“You don't think things through,” Rhodes said. “First Thorpe and now Truck. Truck wouldn't kill anybody over something dug up on a metal-detecting trip.”

“He sure acts like someone who would.”

“So do you.”

“I don't mind confrontations, if that's what you mean. Some people avoid them, but I'm not like that.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“That's what Helen used to tell me. She didn't like confrontations. She was more the sly type when it came to getting back at people.”

This was another side of Mrs. Harris that Rhodes hadn't heard about. “She liked to get back at people?”

“Doesn't everybody?”

Rhodes nodded. “Not everybody. Too many, though. That's one reason I'll always have a job.”

“Did you ever find Thorpe?”

“No. Buddy's been looking for him all day. We don't know where he's gotten to.”

“And you don't have any ideas?”

“No,” Rhodes repeated, but it wasn't true. He thought he might know where Thorpe had gone, and he planned to have a look as soon as he got a chance, but he certainly didn't want Brant getting in the way. Or doing something even worse.

“Are you going to charge me with anything?” Brant said.

“No. As far as I can tell, you were obnoxious, but there's no law against that.”

“Truck might have other ideas.”

“If he says you threatened him, we might have to file on you. Otherwise, you're free to go. The next time you get after somebody, though, I'm going to lock you up for a month.”

“Thanks. I'll be careful not to let my temper get the best of me.”

Brant got up and walked out of the little office, leaving Rhodes behind to wonder how he was going to lock the place up for the night.

Chapter 18

RHODES WENT BY THE JAIL BEFORE GOING HOME TO BATHE AND change. It was late afternoon, and the rain had finally stopped for good. Off in the west the sun was going down behind the black clouds, edging them with orange and red. In the distance a train was passing through town, and Rhodes heard the whistle when it came to a crossing.

“Jennifer Loam didn't believe you were in Canada,” Hack said when Rhodes entered the jail. He looked the sheriff over. “Neither do I. You look like you've been to some place really muddy. The Amazon jungle, maybe. I bet the inside of the car looks bad, too.”

The county didn't like it when Rhodes or his deputies made a mess of the cars. Rhodes wondered if Ruth had filed her report on the chain-saw damages.

“You should see the other fella,” Rhodes said.

Hack grinned. “I saw him, all right. He don't look much worse than you do. We got him locked up, and he's not happy about it.”

“He didn't make bond?”

“Didn't even try. He says he belongs in jail. His wife came by, madder'n a wet hen. If I was him, I'd stay in jail, too.”

Rhodes thought it was a good idea, himself. He asked if Buddy had found Leo Thorpe.

“Nope, not a sign of him, not hide nor hair. Buddy says he's just dropped off the edge of the world.”

“We'll find him. Sooner or later. Have there been any calls I should know about?”

“Just one that might interest you. From some fella named Sherman.” Hack looked through his call log. “Gid Sherman. He says somebody's been at Thorpe's trailer.”

“Who?”

“He didn't know. Said he wanted to talk to you about it. You want to call him?”

Rhodes was wet, muddy, and tired. He wanted a bath and a hot supper. But he wanted to talk to Sherman, and he preferred face-to-face visits to phone calls. He could pay Sherman a visit on the way home.

“Call him and let him know I'm on the way to see him,” Rhodes said.

“You look like somebody drug you through a mudhole.” Sherman stood in the doorway of his trailer, looking out at Rhodes, who felt even worse than he looked. All around him in the mobile-home park, lights were on behind the windows, and he knew that the people inside the trailers were warm and dry, eating dinner and
watching television, little realizing that the crime-busting sheriff was still on the job. They'd never even think about that when it came time to vote in the next election.

“I'd ask you to come in, but I just cleaned the place up today. No offense.”

Rhodes told Sherman that none was taken. “You told the dispatcher that you saw somebody at Thorpe's trailer.”

“Yep. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Thorpe, though.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Couldn't tell. It was raining too hard. I would've gone out and looked, but I didn't want to get wet.” Sherman gave Rhodes an up-and-down look. “Getting wet doesn't seem to bother you much, though.”

“Just doing my job. What else can you tell me about whoever was over there?”

“Not much. He went in and didn't stay long. Left in some kind of old car.”

“How old?”

“Couldn't say.”

The old car made Rhodes think of Truck and the car lot, but he knew Truck couldn't have been there. He was too busy chasing Alton Brant with intent to kill. Or at least to hurt badly.

“How big was the person you saw?”

“Like I said, it was raining, and it was dark, too. My eyes ain't what they used to be. Best I can tell you is that it was just some normal-sized fella. Could've been a woman, far as that goes. He was wearing rain gear. Or she was. Couldn't say one way or the other.”

“Did Thorpe ever have women visit him?”

“Now that you mention it, he was quite a hand with the ladies
for an old fella. Me, I don't mess around with the ladies anymore. Maybe I oughta try some of that Viagra.”

Rhodes thought that was a little more information than he'd asked for.

Sherman shook his head regretfully. “Anyway, Thorpe was different from me. Either that or he had a prescription. He had him a woman somewhere or other. I know that cousin of his didn't like it.”

“Mrs. Harris.”

“Yeah, that's the one. She came out here with Colonel Brant a time or two and I heard 'em arguing about it.”

“I don't guess you heard any names mentioned.”

“Not a one. Don't even know for sure that's what all the fuss was about, but it sounded like it was.”

“Did any women ever visit him here?”

“If they did, I didn't see 'em. He liked the ladies, though. You could ask around the park. People know that about him because he liked to talk. Never named any names that I know of. He was a gentleman that way. You can bet that's the only way he was.”

Rhodes talked to Sherman for another couple of minutes without finding out anything else useful, so he thanked him for the call and drove home.

On the way he thought things over, trying to sort out all he'd heard and to see what he was overlooking. Experience had taught him that he always overlooked something that didn't seem significant at the time he heard it or saw it but that later turned out to be important. This time, however, he couldn't think of a thing.

“You're scaring Sam,” Ivy said.

Rhodes looked over at the cat, who didn't look scared at all. He lay near the refrigerator, so relaxed that he looked boneless.

“I don't think so.”

“Well, you're scaring me. Are you going to tell me about it, or are you going to clean up first?”

“I need to feed Speedo.”

“I've already done it. Yancey, too.”

Rhodes glanced around the kitchen, but Yancey was nowhere in sight.

“He's in the bedroom,” Ivy said. “Under the bed. He and Sam had a falling-out.”

Rhodes glanced over at the cat, which twitched its tail and didn't appear to be the least sorrowful or guilty. “The cat doesn't seem to be any the worse for wear. What about Yancey?”

“His feelings are hurt, but other than that, he's fine.”

“I've been trying to find the cat a home,” Rhodes said. “I can't find anybody who wants him.”

“We want him. Just look at him. You can see how much he likes it here.”

Rhodes could see it all right. He couldn't understand why the cat had adopted them, but then there were lots of things about cats that he didn't understand.

“You need to get out of those clothes,” Ivy said.

“Would it lead to anything if I did?”

“Not unless you're a lot cleaner under them than I think you are.”

“I can take a bath.”

“Now there's a fine idea. You do that, and I'll get dinner ready.

I'll warm the meat loaf in the oven, and we'll have mashed potatoes with it.”

That sounded fine to Rhodes, and he went off to bathe.

The warmed-up meat loaf was excellent, and while they were eating, Yancey came out of hiding. He peered around the kitchen from the safety of the hall. Rhodes expected him to flee when he caught sight of the cat, but he walked over to it and sniffed its nose.

“See?” Ivy said. “They're still friends. Even friends fall out sometimes.”

Rhodes thought about all the friends who'd fallen out in the last couple of days: Thorpe and Brant, Truck and Brant, Helen Harris and someone as yet unknown. Most of them weren't really friends, more like acquaintances, and they weren't getting along anywhere nearly as well as the cat and Yancey.

Alton Brant seemed to be the instigator of a lot of the trouble, which bothered Rhodes a bit. Brant had even at one point said that he had trouble controlling his emotions, and he'd lost his temper with both Truck Gadney and Leo Thorpe. Rhodes wondered if Brant had ever lost his temper with Helen Harris, and what he might have done if it had happened. Would he have picked up a stool and hit her with it?

He mentioned the idea to Ivy.

“He might have,” she said, “but I don't think so. He seems like such an upright person.”

Rhodes had known a great many upright people who'd done things a lot worse than hitting someone with a stool. Sometimes
they didn't even intend any harm, or so they said after the fact. Rhodes had a hard time believing them.

He thought about Billy Joe Bryon, who had once upon a time done what he might have thought was a good thing and a harmless one, but it had turned out to be exactly the wrong thing and all too harmful. Could it have happened again? Rhodes didn't think so, but it wasn't out of the question.

Leo Thorpe was another problem. He had the best motive of anyone to kill Helen Harris since he was her heir. Or he was supposed to be, according to Brant. Now, however, there was no will to prove it, and no Leo Thorpe.

The missing will bothered Rhodes. If Thorpe had killed Mrs. Harris, he wouldn't have taken the will. He'd have wanted it found. So where was the will?

“You're not eating,” Ivy said, giving him a pointed look.

“I'm thinking,” Rhodes told her, applying himself to the meat loaf again.

When they'd finished eating, he helped Ivy clean off the table. Then he said, “I have to go out for a while.”

Early in their marriage, Ivy hadn't wanted him to go out in the evenings, but she'd grown used to it, and she seemed to understand that his job required him to keep irregular hours and to put himself at risk now and then.

“Where?” she said.

“Looking for Leo Thorpe.”

“Couldn't you look for him in the morning?”

“I could. But I don't want to wait. If he's hiding where I think he is, he might leave if I wait too long. I don't want him to get away again.”

“If he's not where you think he is, you'll just be wasting your time.”

“I do that a lot. It's part of the job.”

“What if you do find him? Is he dangerous?”

“He doesn't have his chain saw,” Rhodes said. “So he's probably harmless.”

“Chain saw?”

“Never mind. Just a joke.”

Ivy didn't look as if she believed him. “You could send one of the deputies.”

“I know, but this is something I want to do myself.”