Murder Among the OWLS (13 page)

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Authors: Bill Crider

BOOK: Murder Among the OWLS
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THE CLEARVIEW LIBRARY WAS AN IMPRESSIVE WHITE STONE building built with money donated by a Houston philanthropist. Neither the city nor the county would have been able to afford such a place, and most readers in Clearview were quite pleased to have it in their town.
Rhodes remembered an earlier building that had been almost as nice, but the shifting clay soil of Blacklin County had caused the foundation to crack during a prolonged drought. The walls had soon cracked like the foundation, and the new building had been constructed to take its place. Rhodes hoped it was going to prove sturdier than the old one had been.
Being warm in winter and cool in summer, the library was almost as popular with the Browns as the hospital, but because it didn't offer free food or television, they had to content themselves with the computers. The library had instituted a policy limiting its
patrons to thirty minutes of computer use, unless no one was waiting. The policy had worked out well enough. The Browns were happy with thirty minutes. They'd just get back in line for another turn. Rhodes had no idea what they used the computers for, and he thought that was no doubt just as well.
Rhodes saw a couple of the Browns tapping away on the keyboards when he entered the library that afternoon. He was uncomfortably full, having taken advantage of the Round-Up's lunch special. The baked potato had not been appreciably smaller than an official NFL football. Rhodes didn't plan to mention to Ivy that he'd eaten it, which he had. Most of it, anyway. And he certainly hadn't tried to remove the beef.
The OWLS were in one of the library's meeting rooms. On his way there, Rhodes passed the circulation desk and waved to Karen Sandstrom, someone else who had been involved in the case of the mammoth bones. One thing about being sheriff in a small county, Rhodes thought, was that you never stopped running into people you'd met in your line of work. That wasn't always a good thing, though in this case it was.
As Thelma Rice had said, the OWLS weren't as noisy as the Red Hats. There weren't as many of them, for one thing, though several still wore the same outfits they'd had on in the Round-Up.
Thelma got up and crossed the room to meet Rhodes at the door. “We're really pleased that you're here, Sheriff. Come on in.”
Rhodes allowed himself to be led to a table in the front of the room. A small lectern sat on the table, and when Thelma stood behind it, no one in the room could see her.
Rhodes was a little disappointed at the near silence. He had hoped that Thelma would have to whistle again. He thought about
asking her to teach him how to whistle like that but rejected the idea as hopeless. Some people just weren't musically talented, and he was one of them.
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.

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