Murder Among the OWLS (18 page)

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Authors: Bill Crider

BOOK: Murder Among the OWLS
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GID SHERMAN SAT IN FRONT OF HIS TRAILER ON A METAL LAWN chair, smoking a cigarette. It was a fine morning, Rhodes thought. The front that had brought the rain was past, leaving only a few clouds. It was about seventy degrees and the humidity was low. No wind to speak of. The smoke from Sherman's cigarette hovered around his head for a while and then just disappeared rather than being blown away.
“Mornin', Sheriff,” Sherman said when Rhodes got out of the county car. “You'll excuse me if I don't get up. I got a bad case of the dropsy and the heart disease this morning.”
Rhodes looked concerned, and Sherman grinned.
“Nothing to worry about. Just means I drop down on my butt and don't have the heart to get up. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“You could answer a few questions. If you have the heart for it.”
“I think I can handle a question or two. Sorry I can't offer you
a chair. This one's all I got. You could borrow one from Thorpe's shed, though, if you were of a mind to.”
Rhodes said that he'd stand. “I don't want to sit down and find out I've caught that disease from you.”
“I don't know that it's contagious. Anyway, what can I tell you?”
“How long have you known Leo Thorpe?”
Sherman finished his smoke and field-stripped it before he answered. “Just since I've been living here in this lovely mobile-home park.”
Sherman's trailer was as old as Thorpe's, but it was in much better condition.
“How long would that be?”
“Let me see.” Sherman thought it over. “It's been about five years now.”
“I guess you and Thorpe never got along.”
Sherman squinted up at Rhodes. “We got along. I just didn't like him.”
“Did he know you were the one who'd called about his poker games?”
“I never told him, if that's what you mean.”
“So he didn't know.”
“He might've guessed.”
“You never mentioned how you knew about them.”
“Hell,” Sherman said. “He asked me if I wanted to play. I always told him I did, and then I'd call you. It could just as well have been anybody else.”
“He didn't invite you to play at the Royal Rack?”
“Nope. I heard about that game you busted up there. Who'd think Thorpe could buy a place like that?”
“He didn't have much money?”
Sherman waved a hand in the general direction of Thorpe's trailer. “If you had money, would you be living in a place like that?”
“Maybe he spent the money on the pool hall. So he couldn't afford to move out.”
“Where'd he get the money, then, all of a sudden the way he did?”
Rhodes didn't have an answer for that. “You didn't say why Thorpe never invited you to the games at the pool hall.”
“Okay, maybe he did know it was me who turned him in. I couldn't say.”
Sherman wasn't looking at Rhodes now. Rhodes thought he was lying.
“You might as well tell me about it,” Rhodes said.
Sherman gave an involuntary twitch, and his head turned slowly back to Rhodes. “I don't want you to get the wrong idea.”
Rhodes said he'd try not to.
“I had a talk with his cousin about him,” Sherman said.
“Mrs. Harris?”
“Yeah, her. She seemed nice enough. I thought maybe she'd help me out.”
“With what?”
“With Thorpe. He was making threats to me. He knew I'd turned him in. It couldn't have been anybody else. He knew the others didn't do it.”
“Did you call Mrs. Harris, or did you go by to see her?”
“I went by. I didn't kill her, though. I haven't been to see her in a good while.”
“You liked her, didn't you.”
“Yeah, but she liked the Colonel, and he liked her. I couldn't try to cut him out.”
People tended to think that nobody over fifty or sixty could have a serious romance. Rhodes had long ago learned better. Certain passions might not have burned as hotly, but that didn't mean there was no fire at all. There was, in fact, often more than enough fire to bring about murder.
“You're sure you haven't seen her lately?” Rhodes said.
“That's what I told you.”
“All right. I have one other question. Who should I talk to about Thorpe's liking for the ladies?”
“You could try Miz Gomez. She lives over there.”
Sherman pointed to a trailer with a neat yard and a small flower bed.
“Is she home?”
“I'd say so. Her husband works at the lumberyard, and she cleans houses. But she usually doesn't go out until afternoon.”
“I'll have a talk with her, then. If you think of anything else I might need to know, give me a call.”
Sherman said he would and got out a cigarette. He lit it, and Rhodes walked over to the Gomez trailer.
His knock on the door was answered by a short woman with black eyes and black hair streaked with gray.
“Mrs. Gomez?” Rhodes said.
“Yes. Can I help you?”
Rhodes explained that he was asking questions about Leo Thorpe and that he hoped she might be able to help him.
“I did not like him,” she said with only a trace of an accent.
“Why not?”
“He was not a nice man. He made, I think, bad remarks. I am not a young woman, and even if I were, he should not say such things to me.”
Rhodes asked her to be a little more specific.
“He was very flattering. He told me how nice I looked, how pretty my hair was. How I was graceful when I walked.”
In other words, Rhodes thought, nothing insulting. Flattering, in fact, as Mrs. Gomez had said. It might work with some women, but not her.
“Did he ever make advances?” Rhodes said.
“Oh, no. He was most careful. It may be that he knew Carlos, my husband, would not like it if he became insulting. Carlos is a quiet man, but he is big. Strong.”
Rhodes thanked her for her help and went back to his car. Sherman was still sitting in his lawn chair. He didn't wave good-bye when Rhodes drove away.
 
Jennifer Loam was waiting for Rhodes when he arrived at the jail.
“I told her you were in Canada,” Hack said. “For some reason or other she didn't believe me.”
Hack sounded out of sorts, and Rhodes wondered if he'd actually expected the reporter to believe him. For that matter, Rhodes wondered if Hack had really told her that.
“We need to talk, Sheriff,” she said.
“Sure. I have a report to write about what happened with Leo Thorpe last night, and I'll tell you about it while I work.”
“This isn't about Thorpe.”
Rhodes was a little surprised. He'd thought she was there to
find out about the events of the previous evening. “It's not about Thorpe?”
“No, and I don't want to talk about it here.”
No wonder Hack had been upset, Rhodes thought. He looked over at the dispatcher, who was looking at his computer monitor as if he had no idea that a conversation was going on behind his back. Rhodes knew he was listening, though.
“Why not here?” Rhodes said.
“Never mind that. Are you going to talk to me or not?”
Rhodes knew whatever she had to say must be important. Not to mention too sensitive to mention in front of Hack. That was unusual because Jennifer knew Hack, and she knew that he could be trusted not to pass on anything he heard in the office.
“Well?” she said.
“All right. Where do you want to go?”
“I'll meet you in the courthouse.”
Rhodes said he'd be there, and she walked out. Hack said, “Must be a mighty big secret. You gonna tell me what it is?”
“I'll think about it.”
Rhodes could hear Hack muttering as he left the jail.
 
Jennifer was waiting at the door of Rhodes's courthouse office when he got there. He unlocked the door, and they went inside. Rhodes went behind his desk and told Jennifer to have a seat. She did, but she didn't relax. She sat on the edge of the chair and tapped the tip of one shoe on the floor. She didn't get out her recorder or even a notebook.
“You must have uncovered something big,” Rhodes said. “Have you solved my case for me?”
“I'm not sure. I just know this is important.”
There was a long pause. The tapping continued, but more slowly than before.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I'm thinking it over.”
Rhodes thought about the report that he had to write. “If you're not going to tell me, we're wasting a lot of time.”
“I know. It's just that I'm not sure if this is something I should tell you, even if it does have a bearing on your murder case.”
“It's pretty simple. If it has a bearing, you should tell me.”
“I know that. I'm just having to work up to it. I'm usually more straightforward than this.”
Rhodes didn't say anything in response. He'd just let her get to it in her own time. Or not.
Jennifer looked down at her foot. The toe stopped tapping, and she looked up at Rhodes. “It's about Colonel Brant. Except that's not his name.”
“Not his name? You mean he's living under an alias?”
“No. I didn't mean it that way. His name is Brant, all right, but he's no colonel. He was in the army, but he wasn't promoted but once. He got to be corporal, and that was as high as he went.”
Rhodes found it hard to believe. Everybody knew Brant was a colonel. “Are you sure about that?”
Jennifer nodded. “Of course I'm sure. I'd never say something like that if I weren't.”
“How did you find out?”
“Doing my job.” Jennifer looked embarrassed, and Rhodes could have sworn that she blushed. He wasn't used to seeing people blush. It seemed to have gone out of style. “It's something I should have done a long time ago.”
She hadn't been in Clearview for a long time, so Rhodes asked what she meant.
“I did a story on him, remember?”
Rhodes said that he did. “We talked about it with him.”
“Yes. I should have done some research at the time I wrote that story, but I made a rookie mistake.”
“You were a rookie,” Rhodes said, remembering that the story she'd done on Brant had been printed not long after she'd come to Clearview. “You were entitled.”
“I was no rookie. This might be my first paying job, but I was a reporter for the college paper at Sam Houston State. A good one.”
Rhodes nodded.
“The
Houstonian,
” she added in case Rhodes hadn't heard of the paper. “We were taught all about the importance of research, but everybody told me, ‘Go interview Colonel Brant. He's a veteran, and he has some good stories.' So I did, and I didn't even think about checking his credentials.”
The toe started to tap again.
“You checked them recently, though.”
“Yesterday. I thought I should know something about the people involved in the murder, especially someone who's caused a little trouble. I checked Brant's military records and found out that he did serve in Korea, and he even did some of the things he says he did, but there's no record that he ever held a higher rank than corporal.”
That made Brant a liar, if it was true, which of course made Rhodes wonder what else the self-styled colonel might have lied about.
“You can see why I didn't want to talk about this in front of anyone, can't you?” Jennifer said.
“I think so.”
She put a hand on her knee as if to stop the toe-tapping by applying pressure. It worked.
“Because if I'm wrong,” she said, “it would be terrible to start a rumor like that. Even if I'm right, I'm not sure anybody needs to know that Brant's a fraud. He's not really hurting anybody by exaggerating his accomplishments. Look at that man who was Elvis Presley's manager.”
“Colonel Tom Parker,” Rhodes said.
“That's him. He wasn't even from this country. That didn't stop him from calling himself a colonel, though, and nobody seemed to mind.”

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