Murder Among the OWLS Read online

  Thelma shoved the lectern aside. The sound of it scraping on the table was enough to bring complete silence to the room. Looking out over the women sitting at the tables in front of her, Thelma said, “Good afternoon, OWLS.”

  The women smiled and said, “Good afternoon, Thelma,” in polite voices.

  Rhodes saw Francine Oates sitting at a table near the back of the room. She didn’t look as happy as the others. She was no doubt getting tired of seeing Rhodes.

  Lily Gadney was there, too. She was a large woman, but nowhere nearly as big as Truck. Her face was round and smiling, most of the time, but she wasn’t smiling now.

  “We have a very special literary guest today,” Thelma said, grabbing Rhodes’s attention.

  He looked around to see if Vernell Lindsey was in the room. She was the only literary person in Clearview as far as he knew, but she was nowhere around. In fact, Thelma was looking at Rhodes.

  “It’s our very own handsome, crime-busting sheriff, Mr. Dan Rhodes,” Thelma said.

  Rhodes wondered if it was legal for the sheriff to shoot his own wife for telling tales. He was an officer of the law, after all. Surely the jury would see things his way, especially after he explained the circumstances.

  “That’s right,” Thelma continued. “I’ve heard that our own county sheriff is going to be the star of a novel that you can be sure we’ll put on our reading list as soon as it’s available.”

  Thelma clapped her hands. The other OWLS looked a little baffled, but they all applauded dutifully.

  When the applause died down, which didn’t take long, Thelma explained about Claudia and Jan and the book they’d written. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Hollywood bought the movie rights and Sheriff Rhodes became a big movie star?”

  Everyone oohed and aahed about that for a couple of seconds. Thelma waited until it was quiet again. “Sheriff Rhodes isn’t here today to tell us about his literary debut, though. He’s here to grill us about a crime. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be in the next book!”

  She clapped again, and the applause was more enthusiastic than previously. Rhodes wished he’d sent Ruth Grady to do this job, but he’d called Hack and asked him to have her talk to Alton Brant to see if he had any idea what Mrs. Harris had found while out hunting with the metal-detecting club.

  Rhodes also wished Ivy weren’t such a blabbermouth, though he admitted to himself that he hadn’t asked her to keep the book a secret.

  Thelma moved aside and motioned for Rhodes to step behind the table. He did, and he pulled the lectern in front of him. He didn’t have any notes to put on it, but he felt an obscure need for some kind of protection.

  “Tell us about the book, Sheriff,” a woman seated at the front table said. Pearl Long, Rhodes thought. She taught English at Clearview High.

  “I don’t know anything about the book,” Rhodes said. “I think maybe the whole thing’s a practical joke. I came here to ask about Helen Harris.”

  He saw Pearl’s look of disappointment, but it didn’t bother him. He wasn’t about to talk about the book, and he didn’t know anything about it, anyway. He didn’t like the idea of addressing the OWLS formally. He was pretty sure Steve Carella and the boys of the eight-seven wouldn’t approve. Rhodes didn’t think it was entirely his fault, however. It hadn’t been his intention, but the OWLS seemed to expect it. He’d wanted to interview individuals, the way he’d done with Thelma at the Round-Up. He’d have to try for the same kind of arrangement.

  “I’ve already talked to some of you,” Rhodes said, looking at Francine, who gave him a halfhearted smile. “Now I want to have a conversation with some of the rest of you. Especially anybody who knew Mrs. Harris well. There are a couple things I’d like to clear up before we close our investigation.”

  “Was she murdered, Sheriff?” Pearl Long said, with not quite as much interest as she’d shown in the book.

  Rhodes didn’t see any reason to keep things a secret now. Jennifer Loam would be publishing the story in the paper within a day or two.

  “Yes,” Rhodes said. “It looks that way. Maybe some of you can help me catch whoever did it.”

  A little titter of excitement rippled through the room. Several women raised their hands and said that they’d be glad to help.

  Lily Gadney wasn’t one of them.

  “Why didn’t you want to talk to me?” Rhodes asked Lily Gadney.

  They were alone in the head librarian’s office. Rhodes had already talked to the women who’d volunteered, but they hadn’t been much help, even though they’d all known about the argument between Lily and Helen. They didn’t have anything to add to what Rhodes had found out from Thelma.

  Lily’s lips made a thin line across her round face. She shook her head but said nothing.

  Rhodes waited a couple of seconds to give her a chance to speak. When she didn’t, he said, “I hear that you and Mrs. Harris had quite a quarrel during the last meeting.”

  After another pause, Lily said, “Maybe. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  She clutched a large purse with a yellow-and-orange butterfly on the side. She looked away from Rhodes and squirmed in the chair. It wasn’t easy. Because of her size, she didn’t have much squirming room.

  “It might not mean a thing,” Rhodes said. “What I’m interested in is what Mrs. Harris found at the Tumlinson place.”

  Lily drew herself up straight. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  “That’s what the quarrel was about, though, right?”

  “What if it was?”

  “If it was, then you must know what she found,” Rhodes said, knowing that wasn’t the case but wanting to draw her out.

  Lily was insulted. “Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just trying fo find out something that might help me solve a crime.”

  “I’m not involved in any crime, and neither is Truck.”

  Rhodes wondered why she’d mentioned her husband, who hadn’t been a part of the questioning at all. It seemed worth pursuing, so he said, “I’m not so sure of that.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve!”

  “Sometimes that’s what it takes when people are hiding things from me.”

  “I’m not hiding anything. I know you talked to Truck this morning. He told me.”

  “It’s a funny thing, but he didn’t mention that you and Mrs. Harris had had a falling-out.”

  “He didn’t think it was important.”

  That could have been true, but Rhodes didn’t believe it. “Everything’s important in a case like this.”

  “Maybe to you. But the rest of us just want to stay out of it.”

  “You can’t. You’re involved because you knew Mrs. Harris and because you had a confrontation with her.”

  Lily looked away. “Does that mean I’m a suspect?”

  “It means I think you know something you’re not telling me.”

  “Are you going to arrest me?” Lily’s voice quivered just the least bit, and her chin trembled. “I haven’t done anything.”

  That was true, but it was becoming clear to Rhodes that there was more to what had happened between her and Mrs. Harris than she was letting on.

  “Nobody’s going to arrest you,” Rhodes said. “Yet. But it might come to that if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  “I’ve been telling you the truth,” Lily said in a tone that was totally lacking in conviction.

  “Not the whole truth. We both know that. I think it’s time that you did.”

  Tears gathered in the corners of Lily’s eyes, and she dug around in her purse until she found a tissue. After she blotted her eyes, she put the tissue back in the purse and clasped her hands around it.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

  “It wasn’t me,” she said. “It was Truck.”

  Rhodes hadn’t been expecting a confession, which was just as well, because he didn’t get one.

  “He went
over there,” Lily said. “To Helen’s house, I mean. To talk to her, that’s all. Just talk. She said some mean things to me, and he didn’t like that. She wouldn’t tell what she found, and he didn’t like that, either. So he went over there.”

  Rhodes knew that the OWLS met only once a month, so it didn’t seem likely that Truck had waited all this time to pay a visit to Mrs. Harris. He had, however.

  “I tried to talk him out of it,” Lily said. “I told him that it didn’t matter, so he didn’t do anything at first. The more he thought about it, though, the madder he got.”

  Rhodes stopped her at that point. He wanted to know more about the argument that had started it all.

  “I’m sorry that happened. It was my fault. I told Helen that some of the Rusty Nuggets didn’t think much of the way she’d behaved, and she told me it was none of my business, which it wasn’t, since I’m not even in the club. Truck got mad about it, though, which is the only reason I mentioned it. She got really mad about it, and some of the ladies were upset by our little tiff.”

  “Francine Oates was,” Rhodes said.

  He’d talked to Francine just before bringing Lily in, but she’d claimed that she’d forgotten all about the quarrel. “Now that you bring it up again, it was upsetting to see such bad behavior in the library,” she’d told him. “Ladies shouldn’t behave any such way.”

  “She wasn’t the only one,” Lily said. “I don’t blame them. I should never have acted like that. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Maybe it was because Truck was so angry.”

  “Oh, he was. He thought Helen was ruining the club. I guess some of that rubbed off on me.”

  “You said he was so upset that eventually he went to see Helen. Just exactly when was that?”

  “It wasn’t yesterday, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Lily paused. “Or even the day before.”

  Rhodes looked around the librarian’s office. Shelves were on three walls, and all of them held books. Most of the books had pieces of paper stuck in them. Rhodes didn’t think anybody would be reading that many books all at once, and he wondered what the pieces of paper were for.

  “I’d like to know just which day he went,” Rhodes said.

  Lily looked down at her clasped hands. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll bet you can remember if you think about it for a second.”

  Lily looked up. “I can try.”

  Rhodes thought she knew very well when Truck had paid the visit, but he gave Lily a few seconds to gather her thoughts. Then he said, “Well?”

  “It must have been on Tuesday.”

  Mrs. Harris hadn’t been dead then, so it was a safe thing to say.

  “What happened when he went to see her?” Rhodes asked.

  “Nothing. She wouldn’t talk about it. That made Truck even madder, but he didn’t do anything about it. I know he didn’t.”

  “Did he tell you he didn’t?”

  “Yes. He said Helen wouldn’t talk to him, so he got mad and left. That’s what he’d do. Truck’s got a temper, but he doesn’t like to hurt people.”

  That wasn’t precisely the way Rhodes remembered things. He’d heard that when Truck was playing football, he’d much rather run over the opposing players than run around them. Rhodes thought he was going to have to talk to Truck again.

  “You’re sure you don’t know what Mrs. Harris found?” Rhodes said.

  “I’m positive. Truck didn’t know, either.”

  Rhodes believed her, at least for her part. He still wasn’t convinced about Truck.

  “Does anybody else know that Truck went by to see Mrs. Harris?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t tell anybody, but I can’t speak for Truck.”

  Rhodes thought that Truck had kept it a secret, too. Burl would have mentioned it if he’d known.

  “Can I go now?” Lily said. “I’ve told you all I know. You won’t do anything to Truck, will you?”

  Rhodes didn’t make her any promises.

  Truck’s Trucks was located on the highway coming into Clearview from the south. Truck had opened it after he’d flunked out of college during his senior year. The way Rhodes had heard the story, Truck might have been an excellent college fullback if he’d just gone to class occasionally and tried to do well on the playing field. Instead he’d barely managed to stay eligible, never seemed to learn the playbook, and spent the majority of his time having fun, if you considered drinking and drugging fun. Truck had, and it had cost him any chance he might have had of making football a career beyond college.

  So he’d come home, straightened out, and started selling used cars and trucks. The name of his car lot was written on a full-size plywood cutout of a pickup nailed up about twelve feet above the ground between a couple of poles. The paint on the plywood was so faded that the words could hardly be read, but that didn’t matter, either. Everyone in Clearview knew where Truck’s Trucks was.

  It started to rain again just as Rhodes drove into the place and parked. Not a heavy rain, just a thin drizzle that turned the sky a dull shade of gray.

  Everywhere Rhodes looked there were old cars and pickups, some of them in great condition, some of them missing wheels and windshields and in such dire need of repair that Rhodes was sure they’d never leave the lot. Truck must have been cannibalizing them for parts.

  Truck’s office was in a little shack that looked almost as bad as the one Billy Joe Byron lived in, the major difference being that it had electricity.

  The car lot wasn’t paved, and there were holes all over it, all of them filled with water from the rain. The ground was slick, muddy, and treacherous. The drizzle didn’t help things. Rhodes tried not to slip and fall as he went toward the office. He was almost there when he heard the gunshot.

  Chapter 17

  THE SOUND CAME FROM SOMEWHERE NEAR THE BACK OF THE CAR lot. Rhodes went to the county car and called Hack.

  “Send me some backup to Truck’s Trucks,” he said when the dispatcher came on.

  “You started another fight?”

  “I guess so. Shots fired.”

  “I’m sendin’ Ruth.”

  Rhodes told him that was fine, then started down the muddy, rutted track that served as a road through the cars and pickups that Truck had accumulated over the years.

  The farther from the front of the lot that Rhodes went, the older and more decrepit the automobiles became, until the place resembled a junkyard more than a car lot.

  It started to rain a little harder, and Rhodes stopped to wipe the water off his face, looking around to see if he could spot the source of the shot. He bent down, pulled up his pants leg, and removed his pistol from the ankle holster. He’d switched to the holster a while back, and he still wasn’t sure he liked it.

  When he straightened, he heard another shot and broke into a trot. His shoes slipped on the muddy track, but he managed to keep his balance.

  Near the back of the lot, he saw a man crouching down behind the rusted hulk of an old Buick, one of the really big, long ones from the 1970s. Rhodes stopped and looked for some cover of his own, moving off the track and standing beside what was left of a Plymouth Duster. He could easily see over the roof because the wheels and axles had been removed at some point. The window glass was also missing, and, as Rhodes saw when he glanced inside, so were the seats. The headliner was gone as well. The Duster was nothing more than a skeleton.

  The crouching man stood up, and Rhodes could tell from his size that he couldn’t be anyone but Truck. As Rhodes watched, he fired another shot. The bullet whined off the top of a car near the back fence.

  The fence itself was quite a piece of work, easily ten feet tall and made of rusting sheet metal that was now slick and wet with rain. It went around three-quarters of the lot, and nobody was going to climb it. If anybody was back there, he was going to have to come by Truck to get out, and whoever tried that was likely to get shot.

  Rhodes wasn’t interested in seeing Truck shoot anybody, ho
wever.

  “Truck,” he called. “This is Sheriff Rhodes. What’s going on here.”

  Truck turned around as if to be sure that Rhodes was really the one doing the talking. He must have been satisfied that it was because he said, “There’s a son of a bitch back there that wants to kill me, that’s what.”

  It didn’t look that way to Rhodes, who pointed out that Truck was the one doing the shooting.

  “Hell, yes. I keep this gun in the office in case any robbers come by. Good thing I had it, too.”

  Truck turned back around and fired off another shot. This one spanged into the fence and went right on through.

  “That’s reckless endangerment. You don’t know what’s back there, Truck. You might kill somebody if you don’t stop shooting right now.”

  This time Truck didn’t look back. “I’m gonna kill me somebody, all right. Alton Brant.”

  Rhodes had heard enough. “I’m putting you under arrest, Truck. Put the pistol down on the ground, clasp your hands on your head, and come here.”

  By way of an answer, Truck turned and fired a shot at Rhodes. The bullet whipped through the skeleton of the Duster and broke out a side window in an old Dodge Dart behind Rhodes, who thought that Truck’s temper probably wasn’t anywhere near as mild as Lily had implied.

  “The charges against you are piling up, Truck, and they’re getting a lot worse. You’d better put down the pistol like I told you.”

  “You want to make me?”

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  “You and what army?”

  “Well, all I have is my deputy,” Rhodes said as Ruth Grady walked up to stand beside him. “But that’s two against one.”

  “Damn,” Truck said. “That’s not fair.”

  “What’s all the shooting about?” Ruth asked Rhodes.

  Rhodes told her that he wasn’t sure. “Truck said something about Alton Brant trying to kill him. Did you talk to Alton today?”