Murder Among the OWLS

by Bill Crider

  She had been involved in several of the county’s recent cases, not because Rhodes had invited her to be involved but because of her tenacity. Rhodes suppressed a sigh. He figured she’d involve herself this time, too, regardless of what he did or said. Assuming there was anything to be involved in, that is.

  “We’re not going to have any problems,” he said. “I’d never offend the press.”

  Someone muffled a snort of laughter. Rhodes was pretty sure it was Hack, but the dispatcher had a perfectly straight face when Rhodes looked in his direction.

  Jennifer grinned and said she was glad to hear that the sheriff planned on being cooperative with her as the Herald’s representative. “So when is the autopsy?”

  “How did you know there’d be one?”

  “An accident in the home, nobody present, a woman dies. Seems to me something like that would call for an autopsy.”

  “Maybe you should run for sheriff next election,” Hack said. “You know the job already.”

  Jennifer gave him a skeptical look, raising one eyebrow. Rhodes had always admired that skill.

  “Are you joking?” she said.

  “Not a bit of it,” Hack said with a straight face. “The sheriff needs some competition.”

  “I’ve had plenty in the past,” Rhodes reminded him. “I don’t need any more.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” Jennifer turned off the recorder. “I don’t have any political ambitions. Just remember to let me know if Mrs. Harris’s death turns out to be something more than an accident.”

  Rhodes thought she’d find out anyway. With her sources, she might find out before he did. But he told her he’d let her know. She thanked him and left.

  “Now,” Rhodes said to Ruth, “you can tell me what else you found out at Mrs. Harris’s house.”

  “Nothing,” Ruth said. “I didn’t even know the will was missing until I got back here. I dusted for prints in the kitchen, and of course I found some. Some on the back gate, too. They probably all belong to Mrs. Harris, though.”

  “You can’t be sure.”

  “No. I’ll have a closer look later. I’m pretty sure there’s more than one set. Right now I need to copy these lists for you.”

  “The rest are all there?”

  Ruth flipped through the folders. “They’re all there. Red Hats, OWLS, Rusty Nuggets. Names and phone numbers of all the members.”

  “Let me have the copies when you’re finished,” Rhodes said. “Then you can take the originals back to the house. And notify the next of kin. There’s a brother in Montana. Hack, see if you can locate a phone number for him. Buddy, you can tell Leonard Thorpe. He’s her cousin. Lives at the Tranquility Park.”

  “Right. Are you going to talk to all the people on these lists?”

  “No. You’re going to talk to some of them.”

  “Who gets the Red Hats?” Hack said.

  “We’ll flip for it,” Rhodes told him.

  The Clearview city dump, or sanitary landfill as it was called by the more sensitive sorts, wasn’t one of the most attractive places in Blacklin County, but it was among the most scenic. More than once Rhodes had even seen seagulls flying around, scavenging for food, an unusual sight so far from the Gulf Coast.

  There were no seagulls in sight when he stepped out of the county car that afternoon, however, and he didn’t blame them for staying away. The odor was overpowering, and Rhodes imagined that he could see a haze of stink hovering over the dump site, which was a big hole in the ground, surrounded by trash of all descriptions. A big part of the stink seemed to be coming from the carcass of a large animal that Rhodes couldn’t identify, partly because he was too far away to have a good look at it and partly because of its advanced decomposition.

  The growl of a bulldozer came from behind a mound of trash, and Rhodes saw the pile start to move. A swarm of black flies rose from the carcass and hovered over it like a storm cloud.

  After the pile of garbage and trash was pushed into the hole, it would all be covered over, except for the flies, who would no doubt fly away and find some other delicate morsel to feed on. The smell wouldn’t be so bad for a while, not until more mounds of trash and garbage had accumulated.

  A battered, old black Ford pickup sat not far from where the bulldozer worked, and a man wearing a crumpled straw cowboy hat was picking through some of the trash. Rhodes wondered what he was looking for.

  Rhodes hadn’t come to the sanitary landfill for pleasure. He’d come to visit Billy Joe Byron, who lived there. Well, not there, exactly, but close by in a little, unpainted shotgun house with a dirt yard decorated by things Billy Joe had picked up at the dump: toilet bowls, a couple of broken deck chairs, a piece of a granite countertop, and a couple of lawn flamingos. A bottle tree made of a coatrack stood near the front door, and the red, blue, and green bottles caught the sun and threw it in patches on the bare wood of the house. A weathered picture of some poker-playing dogs was nailed to the wall.

  Rhodes breathed through his mouth and walked up to the front door. It was shortly after noon, and he hoped that Billy Joe would be home.

  The screen door hung askew in its frame, and Rhodes thought it might fall to the ground when he knocked. It didn’t, but a screw came out and fell by his feet. He picked it up and was about to try screwing it back in when Billy Joe came to the door.

  “Hey, Billy Joe,” Rhodes said.

  Billy Joe looked at him for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “Hey … Sheriff.”

  No one knew how old Billy Joe was. He’d been around Clearview for as long as Rhodes could remember, but the only real sign of his age was the gray hair at his temples and in the day-old stubble on his face.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” Rhodes said.

  “ … what?”

  “Questions,” Rhodes said, knowing that he’d be lucky to get much information from Billy Joe, who wasn’t the world’s best communicator.

  “O … kay.”

  Rhodes knew he wouldn’t be invited inside. The idea would simply never occur to Billy Joe, which was fine with Rhodes. He didn’t think he wanted to see what was in there.

  “Where have you been today, Billy Joe?”

  “Been … here.”

  Rhodes took a deep breath, trying not to smell too much. “Have you been anywhere else?”

  “ … yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Been … to town.”

  Billy Joe went to town just about every day. He spent his time walking all over, and he could be seen on the streets or in the alleys smoking a cigarette and looking as if he might know a secret that no one else had figured out. He checked people’s trash for things he might like, such as an old picture of some poker-playing dogs, and he took whatever he wanted. He never took anything that wasn’t put out in the alleys, however, and he never intentionally caused any trouble. Billy Joe lived alone, got a small amount of some kind of government assistance money, and cared for himself in a minimal way. The house he lived in wasn’t really his, and it was on city property, but no one minded as long as he didn’t bother anyone.

  “Where in town?”

  “All … over.”

  Rhodes didn’t think it would do any good to ask about street names. He was sure that Billy Joe had no idea about things like that. He just wandered around without ever seeming to have any goal in mind.

  “You know where my house is?”

  Billy Joe nodded and felt his shirt pocket. Discovering that he had a package of cigarettes there, he took them out and tapped one out. He stuck it in his mouth and dug in the pocket of his jeans until he found a butane lighter. He lit the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “Were you close to my house today?”

  “ … maybe.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Harris?”

  Billy Joe nodded. “ … nice … lady.”

  “Were you at her house today?”

  Billy Joe smiled, showing a few yellow teeth with lots of
gaps between them. He exhaled smoke and nodded. As Rhodes knew, this was the way most conversations with Billy Joe went. He said only a couple of words at a time, and sometimes no words at all, using just a nod or a shake of the head to get his meaning across.

  “Did anything happen while you were there?”

  Billy Joe nodded again and went inside his house. Rhodes waited, since he hadn’t been asked to follow. He looked at the poker-playing dogs, who seemed to be having much more fun than Rhodes was. Maybe that was because they couldn’t smell the dump. Rhodes wondered if they were playing Texas Hold ’Em, which seemed to be the latest fad. Which reminded Rhodes of Leonard Thorpe, who had more than once been in trouble for illegal gambling. He’d set up some poker tournaments in his trailer, planning to turn a profit on them. An anonymous tipster always turned him in, and Rhodes had raided three of the proposed tournaments.

  When Billy Joe came back, he was holding an old electric fan. Rhodes asked what it was, and Billy Joe explained in his roundabout way that he’d found it outside Mrs. Harris’s back fence. She’d put it out to be picked up by the trash truck, but Billy Joe had found it first.

  Rhodes had no idea what Billy Joe would do with a fan, since his house didn’t even have electricity, but Billy Joe seemed quite happy with his find. No matter how many different ways Rhodes approached the topic of Mrs. Harris, however, Billy Joe couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him anything more about what he’d seen in the neighborhood.

  After a few fruitless minutes, Rhodes gave up and told Billy Joe that it had been a pleasure to talk with him.

  “Me … too,” Billy Joe said, which Rhodes interpreted to mean that Billy Joe had enjoyed the conversation, no matter how tortured it had been. Probably not too many people took the time to have a conversation with Billy Joe. It was too frustrating for them.

  Rhodes walked back to the county car. The smell of the dump was out of his nostrils, and he was thinking about lunch when the radio crackled.

  “You anywhere near the trailer park?” Hack said.

  “Close enough. Why?”

  “You’d better get over there.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Some fella runnin’ around with a chain saw.”

  Rhodes had already turned the car in the direction of the mobile-home park. “Is his name Leatherface?”

  “Nope, but he’s actin’ like it was, chasin’ some other fella around the park and sayin’ he’s gonna cut him up in pieces and wrap the parts up for sale.”

  “Call Ruth for backup,” Rhodes said.

  “She’s already on the way. You’re the backup. Watch out for your hands and feet.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” Rhodes said. “If it’s not Leatherface, who is it?”

  “Leonard Thorpe,” Hack said.

  Chapter 7

  THE ENTRANCE TO THE TRANQUILITY MOBILE HOME PARK HAD A white brick wall on each side, with flowers planted in front. The brick had recently been cleaned and dazzled in the sunlight.

  At the front of the park, the trailers were all new. They had awnings over the doors, with little lawns and flower beds in front. A couple of them even had small fishponds with fountains in them, and several had aboveground pools in the back. But the farther from the entrance Rhodes drove, the more run-down the trailers became.

  At the very back of the park were the trailers that had been there from the park’s opening, at least thirty years earlier. Some had sides streaked with rust. Others had green and black mildew growing on them. The skirts around many of them were either only partially intact or gone completely. One or two of the trailers had been kept up well, and their small yards and flower beds were the equal of any in the front of the park, but mostly the lawns were scraggly and weedy, more dirt than grass.

  Rhodes saw Ruth’s county car parked near one of the oldest trailers in the place. Thorpe’s trailer. Rhodes stopped behind the county car.

  A small crowd had gathered in front of the car, surrounding Ruth. People were talking loud, and some of them were laughing. A couple of dogs barked and frisked around the edges of the group.

  When Rhodes got out of his car, he could hear the roar of a gas-powered chain saw above the babble, but he couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. He walked over to join Ruth, who pointed at a small wooded area in back of the mobile-home park. The trees were close together, and vines of wild grapes hung from some of the limbs.

  Though he could still hear the saw, Rhodes didn’t see either the saw or the man wielding it.

  “They’re back in the trees,” someone said in Rhodes’s ear. “They’ll show up in a minute.”

  “Who?” Rhodes said to Ruth.

  “I’m not sure,” she told him.

  “It’s that Thorpe fella,” said the voice in Rhodes’s ear.

  Rhodes turned to see who was talking to him. The man must have been around seventy. He was tall, skinny, and his cheeks were as pink as if he’d just shaved, which might have been the case. Rhodes smelled Aqua Velva.

  “You sure?” Rhodes said.

  “Sure I’m sure.” The man pointed. “I live in that trailer right over there.”

  Rhodes wasn’t sure what that was supposed to tell him.

  “Next door to Thorpe,” the man said. “Name’s Sherman, Gid Sherman.”

  He offered his hand. Rhodes shook it, thinking that the man’s voice sounded familiar. He might well be the anonymous caller who had turned Thorpe in for gambling.

  While Rhodes was thinking this over, someone yelled, “Here they come!”

  A man ran from the cover of the trees. He was old, but he was moving along at a pretty good clip. Rhodes didn’t blame him, since Thorpe was right behind with the chain saw, which was getting louder now that it was closer.

  “Shoot him, Sheriff!” someone called out. “He’s gaining!”

  Ruth turned to Rhodes. “Want me to shoot him?”

  “I don’t think he’s gaining, but keep your gun handy,” Rhodes said. “Isn’t that Alton Brant he’s chasing?”

  It was, and the Korean War vet was high-stepping it when he passed the little crowd. He was flat of stomach and clear of eye, and he didn’t even seem to be breathing hard.

  Thorpe wasn’t much younger than Brant. He wore cutoff jeans and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt. Rhodes didn’t think Thorpe owned a motorcycle, but it was the thought that counted. Thorpe was still muscular enough to fill out the shirt in the right way, with a flat stomach and wide chest. The T-shirt was soaked with sweat from Thorpe’s exertions, and his face was red, but he was a handsome man, not movie-star handsome, but rugged. Iron-gray hair showed on the sides of his head not covered by the Houston Astros cap he wore.

  When Brant went past, Rhodes moved out from the crowd and stood in Thorpe’s path. Thorpe saw him and came to a shambling stop. His mouth was open, and he took deep, gasping breaths.

  “What’s the trouble?” Rhodes had to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of the saw.

  It took Thorpe a few seconds to catch his breath. When he did, he said, “Get out of my way, Sheriff.”

  Rhodes didn’t move. Thorpe revved the chain saw and made a feint at him. Rhodes smelled gas and hot oil.

  “Assault with a deadly weapon,” Rhodes said. “You don’t need that on your record.”

  “You can’t fool me, Sheriff.” Thorpe revved the saw again. “It’s too late to keep that off my record.”

  Rhodes wondered if he should tell Ruth to shoot him, but the crowd was milling around, and some of them were already behind Thorpe. No good would come from firing a pistol in a situation like that.

  Thorpe jumped forward, thrusting the saw at Rhodes. Rhodes jumped backward, watching the spinning chain and remembering for some reason a cartoon he’d once seen where a character was sliced in half.

  The crowd moved back, too, sucking in a collective breath. Rhodes figured they were having a great day. Nothing like a good chain-saw fight to break the monotony.

  He thought of the cartoon a
gain. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be nearly as bloodless as the cartoon character had been if he was split in half, and he wouldn’t go back together quite so easily, either.

  Thorpe raised the saw into the air, and Rhodes thought maybe he was going to give up. Thorpe fooled him, however. He rushed forward.

  Rhodes made a clumsy move backward and turned his ankle. He fell to the ground and looked up to see the saw swinging down at him. He rolled away, but the saw took a little of his shirt and scraped some skin off his back before hitting the ground and throwing chunks of dirt into the air all around.

  Thorpe lost his balance and almost lost his grip on the saw, but he managed to keep his feet as Rhodes rolled over again and grabbed the bumper of Ruth’s county car to pull himself up.

  He heard Ruth yell for Thorpe to freeze, but he held up his hand. He didn’t want anybody to get killed, not even Thorpe, not if it could be prevented.

  The crowd had moved a good distance away now. Rhodes didn’t blame them. When there’s a man with a chain saw and a deputy with a pistol, the sensible thing to do is get away.

  “Listen, Thorpe,” Rhodes said. “You’re already in enough trouble as it is. Put down the saw and don’t make things any worse.”

  “I’ve assaulted an officer,” Thorpe said. “How could it get any worse?”

  “You could kill me.”

  “I might have to do that unless you’ll let me leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “Let me go after Brant. He’s the one I want. After I take care of him, I’ll let you arrest me. I’m not gonna hurt anybody else.”

  “You’re not going to hurt him, either.”

  “I am, by God. I’ll take care of him one piece at a time. You can’t stop me.”

  Ruth had assumed the shooting stance, feet spread slightly, both hands gripping her pistol. If Rhodes nodded, she’d shoot. Most likely she’d wound Thorpe, but there was always the chance that she might kill him, and then they’d have a dead body on their hands. Or she might miss and hit one of the bystanders. That would lead to no end of report writing. Thorpe wasn’t worth it, although for the moment, Rhodes didn’t see any other way to handle him.