Murder Among the OWLS (19 page)

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Authors: Bill Crider

BOOK: Murder Among the OWLS
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She had a point, Rhodes supposed, but then Colonel Parker had never been mixed up in a murder. Not that Rhodes knew about, anyway.
“People have a right to know the truth,” he said.
“I know that, but Colonel Brant seems like such a nice man that I hate to hurt him.”
Rhodes thought that might be a commendable attitude in most people, but he wasn't sure it was a virtue in a journalist who was supposed to be devoted to objectivity and truth. On the other hand, Brant's impersonation might not qualify as news.
Rhodes stood up. “I appreciate your telling me about this. I'll have a talk with Brant about it and see if there's any connection with what happened to Mrs. Harris.”
Jennifer stood up as well. “I'm going with you.”
“I don't think that would be a good idea.”
“I wouldn't expect you to. I'm going anyway. I want to know why he lied. Maybe what he has to say will help me decide what to do.”
Rhodes could have prevented her, but he didn't think Brant was dangerous. On the other hand, Brant might not be so willing to talk if a reporter was present. He started to tell Jennifer that, but he didn't get the chance.
“I'm going,” she said, as if that settled it.
Rhodes supposed that it did.
THE LAWN AT BRANT'S HOUSE WAS JUST AS NEAT AS THE ONE AT Helen Harris's. The grass along the front sidewalk was trimmed so precisely that Brant might have used a ruler to check his work. The white paint on the wooden sections of the house looked as fresh as if it had been applied within the last month. For all Rhodes knew that might have been the case.
He parked the county car at the curb and waited until Jennifer pulled up behind him. They both got out and started up the walk, with Rhodes in the lead.
“You'd better let me do the talking,” Rhodes said.
“Gladly,” Jennifer said. “I'll just be the demure girl reporter, sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap.”
Rhodes grinned. “You're going to have trouble acting the part.”
“I'll do my best.”
Rhodes didn't believe her for a second.
Brant answered the doorbell and seemed taken aback to see the sheriff and a reporter standing there. Rhodes didn't blame him.
“This is a surprise,” Brant said. “I've behaved myself all day, so I hope you're not here to arrest me.”
“No,” Rhodes said. “That's not it. Can we go inside?”
Brant nodded and led them to his den, a paneled room right out of the 1970s, which was probably when the house had been built. There were bookshelves on one wall, but there were books on only one shelf. The others held what Rhodes thought must be paperweights, all neatly in line. He walked over and picked one up. It was made of bright red glass with floral designs embedded in it.
“Millefiori,” Brant said when Rhodes asked. “It means ‘a thousand flowers.' It's a very old glass-blowing technique. It's been around since the Renaissance, although paperweights themselves are a relatively new invention. That one comes from England. I collect them.”
Rhodes said he could see that. “They must be expensive.”
“Some of them are. Now and then I get lucky and find one at a flea market that's not too costly.”
Rhodes put the paperweight down. The shelf was entirely free of dust.
“You probably didn't come here to talk about my collection.” Brant looked at Jennifer. “It would make a nice article for the paper, but I'd rather you not write about it. If the wrong person read about it, I might get robbed. Not that you wouldn't track him down, Sheriff, but it would be inconvenient for both of us.”
“Yes,” Rhodes said. “It would.”
 
 
“Well, then. Have a seat.”
“Maybe we'd better just stand,” Rhodes said, looking at an old couch that appeared much too soft to suit him.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It's not ominous,” Jennifer said. “We just want to ask you something about your background.”
So much for the demure girl reporter with folded hands, Rhodes thought.
Rhodes heard a dog bark outside. “Your dalmatian?”
“Yes. He's been with me about ten years. A fine dog. He's not really a full-blood dalmatian, but that's all to the good. He's not as sensitive as they are. You don't want to know about my dog, though.”
“No,” Jennifer said. “It's a little more serious than that.”
“Then maybe I'd better sit down, even if you don't.” Brant moved to a platform rocker and dropped into it in a way that made Rhodes think about Gid Sherman's condition, although Brant retained his military bearing.
“You know what the question is?” Jennifer said.
“Judging from your disapproving looks, I think I might.”
“You're not a real colonel, are you?” Jennifer said.
Brant looked uncomfortable. “That depends on what you mean by
real
.”
“I'd hoped we wouldn't get into definitions. They're usually just a way of evading the subject.”
“Why don't you just tell us straight out,” Rhodes said.
Brant slumped just a little. “That's not as easy as you think.”
“Try it,” Rhodes said.
“I haven't committed any crimes. I've never impersonated an
officer, at least not when I was in the service. Not now, either, not really.”
He was still evading, but Rhodes thought he'd eventually get to the point.
Jennifer wasn't quite so patient. “Yes, you really did. You let people think you held a rank you didn't earn.”
“It wasn't my fault.”
Rhodes had heard that excuse so many times in his career that it was all he could do not to sigh.
Brant must have sensed. Rhodes's skepticism. “I don't mean that I'm not to blame. It all started a long time ago, not long after I first moved here. I came to work at the cotton mill, if you remember it.”
Rhodes did, but he was sure Jennifer didn't. The mill was still there, though it no longer made cotton ducking and canvas. It had been closed for years, but it had recently reopened. Rhodes wasn't sure exactly what went on there now, but he could remember that when he was a small child, the mill whistle could be heard all over town.
“I was the last manager before the place closed down,” Brant went on. “Some of the employees, most of them, thought I was a true autocrat, and they took to calling me
colonel
. The title sort of stuck, and then someone from the paper interviewed me one Veterans Day. I don't remember who it was, even, but I do know he called me
Colonel Brant
. I should have corrected him, but it never occurred to me to do it. I never even thought about it. So when the article came out in the paper, there I was with a promotion I'd never earned and certainly never asked for.”
“You could have said something then,” Jennifer told him. “You
could have written a letter to the paper or asked the reporter to print a correction.”
“I should have. I knew it then, and I know it now. I didn't, though.”
He didn't offer any excuses, and Rhodes thought that he'd probably liked the idea of being thought of as a colonel.
“You earned medals,” Jennifer said. “You got a Purple Heart.”
“I did, indeed. I still have the scar to prove I earned it honorably. I nearly died, in fact, and by the time I recovered, the war was over. I like to think I'd have become a colonel in reality if I hadn't been wounded. I might have stayed in the service, too. As it was, I was discharged from the service at about the same time I was discharged from the hospital.”
Rhodes didn't know what to think of the story. He supposed it was true, but he was beginning to wonder about Brant's veracity.
“I never meant to deceive people,” Brant said. “I never meant to hurt anyone. It seemed harmless enough to let people use the title if they wanted to.”
That, at least, seemed true enough to Rhodes. Brant had never used the title himself. He'd just failed to discourage others from using it.
Jennifer seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “I'm not going to print anything in the paper about this. I just hope that the next time the editor calls you about an interview, you'll refuse.”
“I will. I've caused enough trouble already. I don't want to cause any more.”
Brant wasn't talking about the trouble with Truck Gadney and Leo Thorpe, and Rhodes wondered about those two. Brant had goaded both of them into fights, and he'd come close to getting killed both times. Rhodes didn't know much about psychology,
but he wondered if Brant's reasons for provoking the two men hadn't come from something more than just a desire to avenge the murder of Mrs. Harris.
Or maybe the impulse was something left over from the days when Brant had been in charge of the mill. If he'd been a dictator, and Rhodes had no reason to doubt it, he'd have been in complete control. He could be one of those people who always had to be in control of events, and his provocation of Truck and Thorpe would have been his attempt to bring them to some kind of vigilante justice.
Except that Brant hadn't been armed in either case, and both the other men had been. It was possible that Brant wouldn't have expected that, but surely he hadn't thought his accusations would cause the men to go to Rhodes and confess. There was something else about Brant's accusations that Rhodes couldn't quite put his finger on, but it would come to him sooner or later. He hoped.
A the moment it was all too complicated for Rhodes, but he knew that more was going on with Brant than anybody could see on the surface.
Brant and Jennifer were talking, but Rhodes heard only the buzz, not the words, because he was wondering what Brant might have done if Mrs. Harris had somehow found out that he wasn't a colonel. And if she'd confronted him with his imposture. Judging from the way he'd gone after Truck and Thorpe, he might have reacted violently.
Why face up to Truck and Thorpe, then? To prove to Rhodes that he couldn't possibly have killed Mrs. Harris because of his high regard for her?
While Rhodes was thinking it over, the conversation began to register with him again.
“I'm not ashamed of what I did or didn't do about the rank,” Brant said, “but it wouldn't happen again the way it did, not if I could do it over.”
“Nobody gets do-overs,” Jennifer told him. “It doesn't work like that.”
Brant said he knew it didn't and that Jennifer could interview him again on the next Veterans Day. “I'll come clean about it. I'll say I made a mistake and that I just let it go on and on.”
Jennifer told him that there wasn't any real need for that, but she'd think it over.
“What's your opinion, Sheriff?” Brant said. “Should I apologize to the community?”
“It might not be a bad idea. Sometimes people are quick to forgive things.”
“And sometimes they're not,” Jennifer said, as if she knew what she was talking about.
“That's a discussion for another time,” Rhodes said. “I think we'd better leave now and let Mr. Brant think things over.”
If Brant noticed the omission of his title, he didn't show any sign of it. He stood up and apologized for any trouble he'd caused Jennifer and Rhodes.
“You didn't cause any trouble for us,” Rhodes said. “You might have caused it for yourself.”
“I'm afraid you're right,” Brant said.
Rhodes left it at that, but he figured he wasn't through with Brant. Not yet.
RHODES KNEW THAT IF HE WENT BACK TO THE JAIL, HACK WOULD try to find out what Jennifer had told him. Rhodes wasn't ready to face that interrogation yet, so to put off the inevitable he decided to do some more investigating.
First, however, he got on the radio to Hack and asked if there'd been a report from the hospital about Leo Thorpe's condition.
“Sure has. You can bet he's not fakin' this time. You don't have to worry about him gettin' away, either. He might not ever be leavin' at all. They didn't come right out and say it, but Thorpe's about as likely to die as to live. Even if he lives, he might not wake up. That bullet did some real damage. His brain's swelled up.”
That didn't sound good. Rhodes wanted Thorpe alive even if he was guilty.
“You through with Miz Loam?” Hack said, getting to the subject he had a personal interest in.
“Yes. I'm going to talk to somebody else now.”
“You gonna tell me who, or is that another big secret? We're supposed to kind of keep up with you. Part of the job.”
“It's no secret. I'll be at Thelma Rice's place.”
“I'm glad you trust me enough to let me in on things like that.”
Rhodes didn't bother to answer. He signed off and drove to Thelma Rice's house, located on a quiet street in an old neighborhood not too far from the cemetery where Helen Harris would soon be buried.
Thelma didn't have on her red hat or purple dress. She was sitting on a stool in her front yard, working in a flower bed, digging out early weeds. She'd pull them up and toss them into a galvanized bucket by her side, and she was so intent on her work that she didn't hear Rhodes park at the curb, get out of the car, and walk up to her.
She was talking to herself as she yanked out the weeds.
“One more of you sorry suckers gone,” Rhodes heard her say as his shadow fell across her. She jerked a little in surprise, then looked up at him from beneath the brim of the blue-and-white sunbonnet she wore.
“You ought not to sneak up on innocent women in their yards, Sheriff. You might scare them to death. You wouldn't want that on your conscience.”
“I wasn't trying to scare you. I just didn't want to interrupt.”
She took off the cotton work gloves she was wearing and hung them on the side of the bucket. “You must think I'm crazy, talking to the weeds.”
Rhodes grinned. “They probably listen better than some people I know.”
“You and I must know some of the same people.” Thelma stood
up. She wasn't much taller than she'd been while sitting down. “I need a drink.”
In Clearview, that comment didn't mean the same thing as it might have in a bigger city. It just meant that Thelma was thirsty. She walked to the end of the flower bed near the driveway where a bright yellow hose lay coiled on the ground. She turned the handle of a faucet that protruded from the wall of the house, then picked up the end of the hose. When the water flowed from it, she put it up to her mouth and drank.
“Not very elegant,” she said when she'd finished. She offered the hose to Rhodes. “You need a drink?”
“No, thanks. What I need is to talk to you a little more.”
“About Helen?”
“Yes. I don't seem to be getting anywhere with finding out who killed her, and I need to know more.”
“Can't help you there. I told you all I know already.”
“I'm not asking for facts this time. I'll settle for gossip. It might even be preferable.”
Thelma walked back to her stool and sat down. She took her gloves off the bucket and put them back on, pulling them tight and stretching her fingers.
“A lot of people prefer gossip to the truth,” she said. “It's a lot more fun, but it can also get people in a lot of trouble. Most of the time, they don't deserve it.”
She started to pull the weeds again, but this time she did it in silence.
“You sound like someone who knows the effects.”
“I've never married, Sheriff. I inherited a little money from my grandparents, so I've never had to work.”
Rhodes remembered that she'd had a job for a while as a secretary
at the elementary school, but that had been quite a few years ago.
“I tried working,” she said when he mentioned it. “I found out that a single woman with no interest in marriage, or even in dating, was in a precarious position.” She threw a handful of weeds into the bucket. If she'd been throwing a baseball, the Houston Astros might have considered giving her a tryout. “People talk about her. They don't really want her working around their children. Do you know what I'm saying?”
Rhodes said that he thought he got the idea.
“You might get the idea, but you don't know how devastating it can be. It was all untrue, of course. Gossip usually is. I'm as straight-arrow as anybody in this town, but I quit the school job anyway. The truth of the matter is that men simply never interested me except as friends or someone to talk to. I never even considered the idea of marriage. I like reading, sewing, and taking care of myself. I don't have any interest in taking on a ‘life partner' of either sex. I'm happy right where I am, doing what I like to do.” She pulled some weeds and threw them in the bucket. “Even if it's just doing this.”
Rhodes said there was nothing wrong with that.
“There certainly isn't, but not everyone sees it that way. Or they didn't when I was young. They had to make more of it than it was. Now that I'm older, though, I'm not considered much of a risk. Old people aren't supposed to be interested in sex, you know.”
Rhodes knew. He'd been thinking along those lines not too long ago, himself. He remembered Francine Oates and her romance novel. Even Francine, lady that she considered herself, needed some romance in her life.
“I've aged a little,” Thelma went on, “and people don't mind associating with me, maybe because they don't think I'm dangerous anymore. It could be that they've forgotten the gossip, too. I've managed to make quite a few friends in the Red Hats and the OWLS.”
“Or maybe they're a little more enlightened now.”
“I wouldn't bet on it. Anyway, I don't like talking about people. I know how hurtful that can be.”
Rhodes was beginning to get the idea. “That means you're not going to tell me anything.”
“You catch on quick, Sheriff.”
Rhodes didn't think so. It had taken him longer than it should have, and even though he'd caught on, he wasn't going to give up.
“Wasn't Helen Harris your friend?”
Thelma pulled a few more weeds and put them in the bucket before she looked up at Rhodes again. “Now, that's not fair.”
Rhodes could look innocent when it served his purposes. “Just asking.”
“I'm sure. You know that Helen was my friend, and I'd like to help. If I can do it without being hurtful. What do you want to know about? Specifically.”
“Leonard Thorpe. I've heard he's a romantic kind of guy, but I can't seem to locate anybody he's romanced.”
Not counting Mrs. Gomez,
Rhodes thought, and she truly didn't count because Thorpe had gotten nowhere with her.
“Do you mean recently? Or just any old time?”
Rhodes hadn't given it any thought. “Any old time will do.”
“I did hear a few things about him years ago, when I worked at the school. He cut a wide swath there, so they said.”
“Any names?”
“I can't remember any, to tell the truth. That was a long time ago.” She paused to reflect. “Well, maybe one name, but I hate to say.”
“It could help me find out who killed Mrs. Harris. You never know.”
“It's nothing but gossip. Nothing factual about it. You remember when Lily Gadney was teaching at the elementary school?”
Rhodes said that he didn't.
“She was younger than most everybody there. You know how this school system is. The pay is the state minimum. Either you leave after a year or two for a better job, or you stay forever for whatever reason you might have. That means a lot of young teachers coming in every year as the others leave. Lily was one of them, and Leo tried to move in on her.”
“He was a good bit older, though.”
Thelma made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort of derision. “When did that ever make a difference to a man?”
She had a point. Rhodes said, “Did he put the moves on anybody else?”
“Several, or so I heard, but I'm not sure of the names. You could find out who was teaching there then. Helen could tell you, I'm sure, if only she were alive. Leonard's behavior was humiliating to her. I remember that much.”
Rhodes spent five more minutes trying to get Thelma to remember something more, but Thelma insisted she'd told him all she knew. “And more. I don't really know about Lily. It's gossip, but that's what you said you wanted.”
It wasn't that he wanted it so much, Rhodes thought, as that he didn't have anything else.
“You say you like living alone?” Rhodes said.
“Yes. It suits me. I've always been very self-sufficient.”
“Have you ever thought about a pet? I know a nice housebroken cat that needs a good home.”
Thelma stopped pulling weeds. She smiled under the brim of the bonnet. “I like cats. I've had two living with me for years. Frankie and Johnny. Like the song. They never come outside.” She went back to her weeding. “I couldn't possibly take in another one. They'd hate that. They're very spoiled.”
Well,
Rhodes thought,
at least I tried
.
He left Thelma working in the flower bed and started back to the jail.
 
On the way he pulled off into the drive-through lane at McDonald's and got a Quarter Pounder with cheese. He told himself that he needed some nourishment and that he'd eat a light supper to make up for his indulgence.
While he sat in his car and ate the burger, he thought about the connection between Lily Gadney and Leo Thorpe and wondered what it meant, if anything. The connection to Helen Harris was tenuous at best, other than that Thorpe's antics had humiliated her. That was something Rhodes needed to know more about. After he finished the burger, he put all the paper and cardboard into the bag it had come in and put everything into the big trash can in the McDonald's parking lot.
If he went back to the jail, he'd have to talk to Hack, and he still wasn't ready for that. He thought it might be a good idea to have another talk with Alton Brant.
 
 
Brant wasn't happy to see Rhodes again, but he was polite, inviting him in and offering him a seat in the den. “That is, if you don't mind sitting this time. I wouldn't want to force anything on you.”
Rhodes sat on the couch, which was just as uncomfortable as he'd thought it would be.
“I hate to bother you again.”
“Right,” Brant said.
“I wouldn't have come back if I hadn't heard a few things I hoped you could help me with. You really seemed to have it in for Leonard Thorpe, and it started before he got after you with that chain saw.”
“I've already told you that.”
Rhodes looked over at the heavy glass paperweights. Put one of those things in a sock, he thought, and you could hit a person in the head with it and cause a lot more damage than you could with a wooden stool.
“I don't think you did tell me,” Rhodes said, looking back at Brant. “It doesn't matter. I want to know what the problem was between you and Thorpe.”
“It wasn't just me who had a problem. It was Helen.”
“It was mainly you, though, wasn't it.”
It wasn't a question, and Brant didn't bother with a denial. “Thorpe seemed to have it in for me. I don't know why. He goaded me and tried to make my life miserable.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He didn't want me going out with Helen. He hated the idea of it. I don't know why. I asked him about it, but he wouldn't even talk rationally. He took every opportunity to cuss me out and tell
me what he thought of me, though. None of it was flattering, believe me.”
“You went over to his trailer now and then to get cussed out.”
“I was just trying to be friendly. I'd go by to see how he was doing, mainly because Helen asked me to check on him. They didn't get along all that well, but she felt responsible for him, in a way. All I ever got out of it was a good cussing. It was almost as if he was trying to force me to do something to him, get into a fight or insult him. Up until lately, I was able to overlook things like that. Now I seem to get mad about nearly anything. I think it could be some kind of chemical imbalance. The ‘grumpy old man syndrome, ' I guess. I'm not getting any younger. I'll ask the doctor at my next checkup.”

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