Murder Among the OWLS

by Bill Crider

  “How ’bout Lillie Langtry? She’d be more from your era, I guess.”

  Rhodes had had enough of the witty repartee, so he told them he was going to see Francine Oates.

  “She gonna tell you who the killer is?” Hack said.

  “Somebody better,” Lawton said. “I can tell he’s gettin’ frustrated over this.”

  “How?” Hack said. “He’s not gettin’ touchy yet.”

  “Just by the way he looks. He’ll be gettin’ touchy by tomorrow.”

  Rhodes grinned. “You two know me too well.”

  “We spend too much time together,” Lawton said. “Me and Hack need to get out more.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Hack said. “I get out plenty.”

  “I’m going out right now,” Rhodes said before they could get started again. “I’ll be at Mrs. Oates’s house if anybody needs me.”

  “We’ll be sure and get in touch,” Hack said.

  Rhodes drove by his own house first to check on Speedo, Yancey, and the cat. They were all fine, especially the cat, which was still in the kitchen. It was grooming itself when Rhodes came in, and it didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence or that of Yancey, who acted as happy to see Rhodes as if he’d been gone for years instead of just a few hours.

  “You should play with the cat,” Rhodes told Yancey. “Maybe he’d enjoy getting a little exercise. Chase him a little. Bark at him.”

  The cat kept right on grooming, and Yancey didn’t seem interested in getting involved with him, so Rhodes left them there and went outside to play ball with Speedo for a few minutes. The collie enjoyed running after the ball and bringing it back for Rhodes to throw again. Sometimes the dog liked to hold on to the ball and make Rhodes take it away from him, but today wasn’t one of those days.

  Rhodes didn’t have to concentrate on the ball, so he tried to clarify his thoughts about Helen Harris’s death. After ten minutes he hadn’t come to any conclusions, but Speedo had gotten tired of playing and gone to lie in the shade of a pecan tree with his ball between his paws.

  “We’ll play again,” Rhodes said, and Speedo thumped the ground with his tail to show his pleasure. Rhodes wished that humans were so easy to read.

  Francine Oates answered the door still dressed as she’d been at the funeral, and with his first look at her Rhodes knew what had been bothering him after the service. Everything that had been twisting around in his mind sorted itself out and rearranged itself into an understandable pattern. He didn’t have all the answers yet, but he hoped that Francine would provide them for him.

  “Would you like a Dr Pepper, Sheriff?”

  Rhodes declined, and Francine suggested that they sit in the living room. It was a little formal for Rhodes’s taste, and he doubted that it was used more than once or twice a year. It was almost as neat as if Helen Harris had straightened it. The chair that Rhodes sat in had a rounded back and a slick seat cover. He hoped he wouldn’t slide off.

  “You said you had a question for me,” Rhodes said when he was sure he was stable. “Why don’t you go ahead and ask it.”

  “I hope you won’t consider it unseemly. In view of the circumstances.”

  Rhodes said he wouldn’t pass judgment. By now he even thought he knew what the question would be.

  “You see, I’ve been wondering about Helen’s will,” Francine said.

  “So have I. It’s missing.”

  “I know. We know there was one, however. Alton Brant and I witnessed it. We even know what it said.”

  Rhodes knew where she was going, so he just waited.

  “I was wondering, if two witnesses testified to the will’s contents, would it be valid?”

  Rhodes told her that he had no idea. “It’s not something that’s ever come up. You’d have to ask a lawyer about that. Otherwise Mrs. Harris’s brother up in Montana will inherit.”

  “They didn’t get along. It doesn’t seem fair that he’d get her land and those wells. He hasn’t visited her in years. Leo Thorpe lives right here in town, and he and Helen saw each other all the time.”

  “That wouldn’t matter. The brother’s next of kin, and if there’s no will, he’d inherit.”

  “I just don’t think that’s right.”

  “You could check with a lawyer about the witnesses testifying to what was in the will. It would be a lot easier if the will happened to turn up. But it won’t, will it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you took it.”

  “I … what did you say?”

  “You took the will. I don’t know why, but I’m sure you did.” Rhodes looked at her ring finger. “You took it when you got the wedding band.”

  Francine’s hands fluttered. She clasped them together and stuck them between her legs, hiding the ring. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. You weren’t wearing a wedding band when I talked to you the other day, but now you are. Putting it on was a mistake, but maybe you thought no one would notice. You took it off the bookshelf in Mrs. Harris’s house. You made another mistake, too.”

  “I … another mistake?”

  “The first time I talked to you, you told me that you witnessed the will but didn’t look at it. Now you say you remember it well enough to testify to what it said, and you implied that Leo Thorpe’s the heir.”

  “I … just remembered.”

  “You’ve been wearing a lot of long-sleeved outfits lately, even though it’s warm. I’d like to have a look at your arms.”

  Francine recoiled. “Well, I never!”

  “The cat scratched you. You don’t like cats, and he doesn’t like you. You’re the one who let him out. You tried to grab him to keep him inside, but he scratched you and got away. He must have done a pretty good job on you, since you’re still covered up.”

  “You can’t … I didn’t.”

  “You’re the woman Thorpe dumped Lily Gadney for all those years ago.” It was all becoming clear to Rhodes now. “You worked at the elementary school, and Thorpe seems to have cut a swath there. It embarrassed Mrs. Harris then, and it must have embarrassed her even more now for Thorpe to be making a fool of you. And her. My guess is that you and Thorpe met a time or two at the Tumlinson place recently, and you lost the wedding ring there. No wonder Mrs. Harris was so delighted to find it, and no wonder she wouldn’t tell anybody what she’d found. She must have suspected that you and Thorpe were fooling around, and now she had the proof.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “She put it out in plain sight to torment you,” Rhodes said, “but you got it back when you killed her.”

  He expected Francine to deny the last statement, and she didn’t disappoint him.

  “You’re completely wrong about that. Helen had an accident. You told me so.”

  “That’s what I was supposed to believe. Did you set it up, or was she changing the bulb when you came in?”

  “You don’t know I was there.”

  Rhodes leaned back in the chair. It wasn’t conducive to that, so he straightened and slid a little forward on the seat.

  “Do you ever watch CSI?”

  “I … what does that have to do with anything?”

  “If you watch, you know all about modern police methods. You know that the cat will still have traces of your blood on his claws and in his fur. We’ll get a sample and prove it.”

  Actually Rhodes had no idea if that was possible. What with the cat’s habit of grooming itself, all traces of blood might well be gone by this time, but it sounded convincing. Besides, it was nice to think the cat might be good for something.

  “We’ll check your car for soil samples, too, and prove you went to the Tumlinson place. It was you who took Thorpe his clothes and pistol, wasn’t it? Thorpe’s neighbor saw you at the trailer, and he’ll be able to identify your car.” That wasn’t true at all, but Rhodes didn’t mind exaggerating a little more if it would persuade Francine to tell him the trut
h. “Your fingerprints are on the stool legs, too. You can’t get out of it.”

  Francine looked at him. Her face was crumpling. It was sad to see, but Rhodes had to go on.

  “You must have been pretty upset with Helen. She had your ring, and she was taunting you with it. I don’t blame you for getting upset with her, but you shouldn’t have hit her. And you shouldn’t have hit her so hard. Assault is bad enough. Murder’s a lot worse.”

  “She wasn’t taunting me,” Francine said. “Not with words. She just put the ring on that shelf and called my attention to it. ‘Look what I found, Francine. I wonder who’d be silly enough to lose a wedding ring out in the country at some sleazy rendezvous.’” Francine removed her hands from between her legs. She looked at the ring and then at Rhodes. “What Leo and I had wasn’t sleazy at all. You can see that I had to do something, can’t you?”

  “Sure. She went too far, and the stool was right there. You didn’t know what you were doing.” He paused. “I need to tell you a few things before you go on.” He gave her the standard Miranda warning. “Now you can tell me how it happened.”

  “It was the will.”

  Rhodes had wondered when they’d get around to that. It was the one thing he hadn’t figured out. He wanted to know about the will.

  “You took it.”

  “Yes, I took it.”

  That’s what he couldn’t figure out, since Thorpe was the heir. He asked her why.

  “Because she’d changed it.”

  That explained a lot, Rhodes thought, and he asked her what the change was.

  “Helen made an entirely new will naming Alton Brant the heir. She called me to ask me to witness the change, just rubbing it in. That was so typical of her. She had no idea of manners.”

  “You went over and witnessed the will? What about a second witness?”

  “She didn’t have one. She didn’t want Alton to know about the change.”

  She shouldn’t have let Francine know, either. Rhodes thought the will might have been more a part of the motive than the ring.

  “So instead of witnessing the will, you took it.”

  “That’s right. Helen said she’d destroyed the old one, but I couldn’t allow her to make Alton the heir. Leo deserved that money. He’d just started a new business that was going to be a big success, but he needed the money he’d inherit, just in case it didn’t work out.”

  “Lily Gadney was his backer at the Royal Rack. She’d cut you out.”

  Francine gave a sad, tired smile. “How little you know. He was just using Lily, as he had before. I was always the one he cared about.”

  Rhodes didn’t believe that Thorpe had ever cared about anybody except himself. He’d used women all his life, Lily, Francine, Helen. Probably others that Rhodes didn’t know about.

  “Was it Leo’s idea for you to get the new will?”

  “He didn’t know about it. She called me there to witness it that morning.”

  “When you hit her.”

  “Yes, all right, I hit her. The ring, the will, she shouldn’t have treated me that way. It wasn’t ladylike at all.”

  Rhodes wanted to ask her if sneaking around with someone like Thorpe was ladylike, but he didn’t think she’d get the point. Something else occurred to him.

  “You’re the one who sent Brant after Truck Gadney, aren’t you. I should have thought of that. Somebody had to tell him, and you were there in the library when I was asking Lily about her and Truck’s quarrel with Mrs. Harris. You thought that you could sic Brant on Truck and distract me from you and Leo. Is that right?”

  “I called him. I was afraid he’d tell you, but I suppose he didn’t.”

  “I didn’t think to ask him. My mistake.”

  “Will I have to go to jail?”

  “Yes. You will.”

  “For a long time?”

  “That’ll be up to the judge and jury.”

  “She taunted me. Helen. She made me do it. It wasn’t my fault.”

  It was always good to start working on the case for the defense, Rhodes thought.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  Francine stood up. “She made me do it. I would never have hit her otherwise. You see?”

  “What I see doesn’t matter. I just make the arrests.”

  “I’ll be out soon. I know a very good lawyer.”

  Rhodes had a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Randy Lawless?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  Chapter 29

  “I FEEL SORRY FOR FRANCINE,” IVY SAID THAT EVENING WHEN she and Rhodes were eating their meal of three-bean vegetarian chili, which Rhodes was glad wasn’t as bad as it sounded. “I feel sorry for all of them.”

  By all of them she must have meant the women involved with Thorpe in one way or another, Rhodes thought.

  “Look on the bright side,” Rhodes said. “Francine will have plenty of time to finish writing that romance novel of hers while she’s serving her sentence.”

  “It was really Leo’s fault,” Ivy said, ignoring Rhodes’s comment. “And he’s not even going to jail.”

  Thorpe was still in the hospital, still in a coma.

  “He’s not exactly living large.” Rhodes took a mouthful of the chili. “Not like us.”

  Ivy didn’t smile.

  “I love the chili.” Rhodes took another bite to prove it. “You know that.”

  “What about Sam? Do you love him?”

  Rhodes looked over at the cat. It had one leg stretched out and was licking it.

  “Do I have to love him? Can’t I just tolerate him?”

  “Well, all right. That will do if you promise to stop trying to give him away.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to make any promises he couldn’t keep. He said, “I haven’t sneezed in a while.”

  “I told you that was psychological.”

  Rhodes was reserving judgment on that.

  “After all,” Ivy said, “he helped you solve the case. All that DNA evidence on his claws and fur.”

  “I don’t know if it’s there. It’s probably not. We’re not going to look for it now. We don’t need it. That was just a way to convince Francine to tell me the truth.”

  “You’d never even have found Helen’s body if it hadn’t been for Sam. Someone else would have come along and spoiled the crime scene. You might never have known about the murder.”

  “It’s a possibility. A small one.”

  “Come on. Sam’s a hero. You just don’t want to admit it.”

  The cat had stopped licking and was looking at Rhodes as if waiting for him to comment.

  “Say it,” Ivy said. “Say his name.”

  Rhodes opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “You can do it. It’s an easy name. Sam. Give it a try.”

  “Sam.”

  Ivy smiled at Rhodes. “See? I knew you could do it. Aren’t you glad he’s here? We needed a cat.”

  “We didn’t need a cat. We have dogs.”

  Both dogs had come to Rhodes by way of cases he’d worked on. He was beginning to feel as if he might be running an animal shelter. He might have to arrest himself for not having a license.

  “And now we have a cat,” Ivy said. “Sam.”

  Rhodes was saved from further discussion of the cat when the phone rang. Ivy answered it, listened, laughed, then called to Rhodes.

  “It’s Jan. She wants to talk to you about the book.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to talk about the book any more than he wanted to talk about the cat.

  “She and Claudia had a call from their editor. The editor feels the book is lacking something.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Maybe not. It can easily be fixed. That’s what Jan wants to talk to you about.”

  Rhodes stood up. “What’s it lacking?”

  Ivy laughed again. “A cat. It lacks a cat.”

  Rhodes looked over at Sam, who dragged a paw along the side of his
nose, brushing his whiskers.

  Rhodes sneezed.

  ALSO BY BILL CRIDER

  SHERIFF DAN RHODES MYSTERIES

  A Mammoth Murder

  Red, White, and Blue Murder

  A Romantic Way to Die

  A Ghost of a Chance

  Death by Accident

  Winning Can Be Murder

  Murder Most Fowl

  Booked for a Hanging

  Evil at the Root

  Death on the Move

  Cursed to Death

  Shotgun Saturday Night

  Too Late to Die

  PROFESSOR SALLY GOOD MYSTERIES

  A Bond with Death

  Murder Is an Art

  A Knife in the Back

  PROFESSOR CARL BURNS MYSTERIES

  A Dangerous Thing

  Dying Voices

  One Dead Dean

  Dead Soldiers

  OTHERS

  The Texas Capitol Murders

  Blood Marks

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  MURDER AMONG THE OWLS. Copyright © 2007 by Bill Crider. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  eISBN 9781466823808

  First eBook Edition : June 2012

  Crider, Bill, 1941–

  Murder among the OWLS : a Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery / Bill Crider—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-34809-0

  ISBN-10: 0-312-34809-6

  1. Rhodes, Dan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Sheriffs—Fiction. 3. Texas—Fiction. I. Title.