Murder Among the OWLS

by Bill Crider

  Ruth saw him come through the door and said, “It’s the sheriff.”

  The sudden quiet surprised Rhodes, and all faces turned to him.

  “What’s going on?” he said, and everyone began to talk at once again.

  Rhodes held up a hand. It took a little longer this time, but the babble subsided.

  “This is a hospital,” Rhodes said. “There are sick people here. It’s a place where you’re supposed to be quiet. I don’t want to hear any more noise. Understand?”

  Heads nodded.

  “Deputy Grady, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll do that, Sheriff,” one of the Pink Ladies said, stepping forward. “It’s … these people.”

  The Browns mumbled among themselves. They were an oddly assorted crew, Rhodes thought, some tall, some short, some fat, some skinny as broom handles. Some were well-groomed, while others looked as if they’d last had a good bath during the early years of the Clinton administration. But all of them had the distinguishing marks of the Brown clan, big noses and big ears that stuck out from the sides of their heads.

  “Quiet,” Rhodes said, and the mumbling stopped. He asked the Pink Lady her name.

  “Ella Long.” She pointed to her name tag, but Rhodes was too far away to read it. “I’ve volunteered here for two years. We’ve had trouble with … these people before.”

  “The Browns,” Rhodes said.

  “That’s right, and this was the last straw.”

  “What happened?”

  “They came in here and ate all the doughnuts. They drank all the coffee. It’s not the first time.”

  Rhodes looked at Cal Brown, the oldest member of the family in the room. “Didn’t I explain to you a while back that this room and the refreshments were for people who had family in the hospital?”

  Cal was one of the skinny Browns, and his nose was more beaky than large. He wore a dirty, white, short-billed cap, a garish aloha shirt with red, green, and yellow flowers, jeans, and battered Nikes.

  “I know what you told us,” he said. “We got family in the hospital.”

  Rhodes looked past him at the receptionist. “Is that right?”

  The receptionist threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. Rhodes assumed that was a yes.

  “Who?” Rhodes said.

  “My nephew Rodney,” Cal said. “He’s in the ER. Cut off his finger with a band saw, and they’re sewin’ it back on him right now. We packed it in ice and all, just the way you’re s’posed to do, and we got him here quick’s we could. While we’re waitin’ for him to get fixed up, we thought it would be all right if we helped ourselves to the goodies, like you said we could, bein’ as how we got family here.”

  “It was like a plague of locusts,” Ella Long said. “You can’t imagine.”

  Rhodes could imagine. “The thing of it is,” he said to Cal, “you and yours ate and drank all there was. Nobody else will get anything now. You know that’s not right.”

  “We’re here on family business. We got a loved one in the ER. You said that’s what the goodies was for. So we partook of ’em.”

  “I understand that. But you partook so much that there’s nothing left for anybody else. That’s not right.”

  “You never said anything about that before.”

  He’s got me there, Rhodes thought. “I’m saying it now.”

  “Don’t seem right to deny us. We got a family member in the ER, and he ain’t even got his finger sewed back on yet.”

  “I sympathize with Rodney. But I think the best thing to do is for one or two of you to stay here and the rest of you to go on home. You don’t all have to wait for him. There’s nothing left to partake of, anyway.”

  There was a little more mumbling and grumbling. One of the youngsters punched another in the upper arm and got punched back. Two of the women separated them and shushed them, and when things were calm again, Cal sent most of the bunch home after a little more conversation with Rhodes convinced him that the snacks and coffee wouldn’t be replenished. Cal and his wife, Agnes, he said, would stay and wait for Rodney.

  Ella Long wasn’t entirely happy with that solution, but she seemed at least somewhat mollified by the promised absence of the majority of the Browns.

  After things had been sorted out and Cal and Agnes were sitting on the chairs watching Oprah on the TV, Ruth and Rhodes had a chance to talk. They went outside, and Ruth explained what had happened to Thorpe.

  “It was all my fault,” she said. “I got distracted.”

  “The Browns,” Rhodes said.

  Ruth nodded. “I thought Thorpe was still out of it. He didn’t seem to wake up the whole way here, according to the EMT I talked to, and he was still unconscious when they put him in a room, or so I thought. I guess he faked us out. I was sitting in the hall by his door, but when the ruckus with the Browns started, that Pink Lady you talked to, Ella Long, came running and asked me to help. I thought it would be all right, so I did. Thorpe took advantage of the all the confusion. I went to check on him, and he was gone. By the time I got back here, things had just gotten worse, so I had the receptionist call Hack. I’m sorry about Thorpe.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Rhodes told her. “I’d have done the same thing.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better. I left the prisoner. I should have guessed he might be faking it, but I didn’t think he could fool the trained personnel. Anyway, I should at least have looked in on him before I left the door. I didn’t, though. I just got out of the chair and came right to the lobby.” Ruth shook her head. “It wouldn’t bother me so much if I’d been able to get the situation under control, but I couldn’t even do that.”

  “It’s not easy to get the Browns to cooperate.”

  “Not for me. They shut right up when you came in.”

  Rhodes grinned. “Cal and I go back a long way. He used to pick fights with me when we were in grade school.”

  “Who won?”

  “They shut up right when I came in.”

  Ruth looked at him for a second as if wondering why he was repeating her own words. Then she got it and smiled. “So you were a tough kid?”

  “Not so much, but I was tougher than Cal. Anyway, we need to find Thorpe. He can’t have gotten far if they’d put him in a hospital gown.”

  “His clothes were in the little closet in the room. He changed back into them.”

  “That might make it tougher. We need to get started.”

  “I asked the receptionist to send Buddy out looking while you were coming here.”

  Rhodes didn’t think there were too many places Thorpe could go. “Did you suggest where to look?”

  “I thought the mobile-home park would be the best place to start.”

  That was as good an idea as any. Thorpe might head for home because there was no place else for him to go. His old pickup was there, and if he wanted to leave town, it was likely that he’d need it.

  “Let’s see where Buddy is,” Rhodes said, and they went to the county car to use the radio.

  Buddy was prowling the streets and alleys between the hospital and the mobile-home park, and Rhodes told him to check out the Royal Rack.

  “I’ll drive out to his trailer and wait for him to show up,” Rhodes said. “Ruth will take over on the streets. If he’s not at the pool hall, you can help her look.”

  “I’m really sorry about this, Sheriff,” Ruth said.

  Rhodes told her not to worry. “It’s not like Thorpe was a hardened criminal. According to Hack and Lawton, he’s a respectable businessman, the new owner of the Royal Rack. He was just upset and lost his temper.”

  Ruth didn’t sound convinced. “It takes quite a temper to make a man want to cut people up with a chainsaw, not to mention to assault the county sheriff.”

  Rhodes didn’t have misgivings about any of that. What bothered him was that Thorpe might somehow be involved in the death of Helen Harris. He didn’t tell Ruth what he was thinking because he didn’t
want her to feel any worse than she did already and because he was confident that they’d have Thorpe back in custody in short order.

  Rhodes had been wrong when he thought he’d solved the hospital’s problem with the Browns back in the winter.

  As it turned out, he was wrong about Thorpe, too.

  Chapter 11

  RHODES PARKED IN FRONT OF THORPE’S TRAILER, PREPARED TO wait as long as it took. Either Buddy or Ruth would find Thorpe, or he’d show up here. It was as simple as that.

  Or it would have been if Thorpe had showed up. Rhodes had been sitting for about five minutes when the tall man who smelled like Aqua Velva came out of a double-wide farther up the white-graveled trailer-park “street” and walked down to Rhodes’s car.

  “Nice day,” the man said when he got there.

  “Not for sitting in a car,” Rhodes said.

  “You could get out. Thorpe’s got him a couple of lawn chairs in that little toolshed of his.”

  Rhodes remembered the chairs. He got out of the car while the man went to fetch them.

  “Gid Sherman’s the name,” the man said when he returned with the chairs.

  He handed one chair to Rhodes, who unfolded it and sat down. Sherman put his own chair nearby. It was getting on to the end of the afternoon, and the mild spring weather was just right for sitting. A bank of dark clouds was building up back to the north, which might mean they’d be in for a rainstorm later in the afternoon or early evening.

  “You mind if I smoke?” Sherman said.

  Rhodes said he didn’t, although he thought the smell of the smoke would spoil the mood. But if it would make Sherman more comfortable and more likely to talk, it would be worth it.

  Sherman lit a cigarette. After a few puffs, he said, “I guess you’ve figured out who I am.”

  “I think so. I’ve talked to you on the phone.”

  “That’s right. I called you about Thorpe’s little games of chance.”

  “You didn’t give your name.”

  “Nope. Didn’t think you needed it for what you had to do.”

  “You also didn’t say why you wanted the games stopped.”

  “Nope. Didn’t think you needed to know that either.”

  “Care to tell me now?”

  Sherman blew a smoke ring. It hovered in the still air for a couple of seconds, then a breeze whipped by from somewhere to break it apart.

  Sherman looked back at the clouds, then turned to Rhodes. “Looks like we’re in for some rain.”

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t like Thorpe. That’s about the size of it, I guess. He doesn’t like me a whole lot, either.”

  “So you keep an eye on him.”

  “Not much of one. I just heard about those poker deals from somebody and figured I’d put a stop to ’em out of meanness more than anything else.”

  Rhodes thought there was more to it than that. If that was the case, Sherman would get around to it eventually. They sat in silence while Sherman finished his cigarette. When he was done, he fieldstripped it and stuck the remnants in his pocket.

  “You were in the service?” Rhodes said.

  “Yep. United States army. I was in Korea, just like Colonel Brant.”

  “Did you know him then?”

  “Nope. Him and me wouldn’t’ve been associatin’. I was just a lowly PFC, not in his class. And anyway, I never served with his unit.”

  “But you know him now.”

  “Yep. We’ve talked a time or two when he’s been over here to see Thorpe.”

  “He visits Thorpe?”

  “Comes around right often,” Sherman said. “Course he don’t stay long, just as long as it takes to cuss him out.”

  “Why would he be doing that?”

  “He don’t like Thorpe, which is why I don’t like Thorpe. A man like the lieutenant can tell a bad un, and Thorpe’s a bad un.” Sherman got out another cigarette and lit up. “That’s why I’ve been callin’ about him. I got no use for somebody who’d give the lieutenant a hard time.”

  Rhodes wondered why Thorpe would be giving Brant a hard time. He had an idea, but he’d have to ask Brant about it.

  “You waitin’ for Thorpe?” Sherman said. “I thought he was in the hospital.”

  “He got away.”

  “That’s a shame. I wouldn’t figure on him coming back here, though. He’ll go to ground somewhere.”

  “You have any idea where?”

  Sherman puffed his cigarette, smiled. “Not a one.”

  The radio on the county car crackled, and Rhodes excused himself to answer the call.

  It was Buddy, who said that he was having a problem at the Royal Rack. “You want to come help me out?”

  “Let me check on something.” Rhodes went to ask Sherman for a favor.

  “Sure,” Sherman said. “I’ll watch the place. If Thorpe shows up, I’ll call the jail.”

  Rhodes thanked him and told Buddy he’d be at the Royal Rack in a few minutes.

  “Good,” Buddy said. “I think I might have to shoot somebody if you don’t come on.”

  “I’ll have to make a stop on the way. Can you control your itchy trigger finger?”

  “I’ll try,” Buddy said.

  The Royal Rack was a concrete-block building that had been painted white when it was built, but that had been a long time ago. Now the bottom blocks were heavily coated with dirt kicked up by rain, and the sides of the building were more of a reddish brown than white.

  The place’s slogan was painted on the front wall twice, on each side of the door: FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY. Rhodes could remember when the lettering had been bright red, but it had faded now to something almost pink. On one side some clever wag had used spray paint to change Whole to WhoRe. Someone must have caught him before he could do the other side, or perhaps he’d run out of either paint or inspiration.

  Two county cars were in the parking lot, Buddy’s and Ruth’s. Rhodes was feeling a little tired of bailing his deputies out of bad situations. That was unfair, though, he thought. It had happened twice in one day, but when was the last time it had happened? He couldn’t remember, which meant that it wasn’t what he could call a common occurrence.

  He looked around the parking lot as he walked to the door. Lots of pickups, a couple of older Camaros, a few vans. No SUVs, no family sedans, no luxury cars.

  In the north the clouds were getting heavier and darker. As Rhodes looked, the edges were lit up by lightning.

  Rhodes went through the door of the Royal Rack. The place was well lighted, or at least the tables were well lighted by the fluorescent bulbs in the fixtures hanging above them. Get away from the tables, however, and the lighting was considerably dimmer.

  “Over here, Sheriff,” Buddy said.

  He was standing off to one side with his back against the wall. A couple of the pool tables were occupied by people who appeared to be completely oblivious of Buddy’s presence and who, if they knew that Rhodes had come in, didn’t care.

  “Ten ball in the side,” somebody said, and Rhodes heard the thunk of the cue and the click of the balls.

  “What’s happening, Buddy?” Rhodes said, walking over to the deputy.

  “There’s a back room that they won’t let me check.”

  Rhodes looked over the pool hall. It was a sizable place, probably sixty feet across the front and seventy-five feet deep. At the back where the lighting was the dimmest was the office and another room. Both doors were closed.

  People stood along the walls, watching Rhodes and Buddy. Some of them were drinking soft drinks in cans or eating candy that they’d bought from the vending machines nearby. Some were even drinking water in plastic bottles from the same machines. No beer was sold in the Royal Rack because it was, after all, a place for the whole family.

  A few people continued to shoot pool, playing rotation or nine-ball. Rhodes heard the sound of a cue ball being struck, followed by the click of its contact with another ball
.

  As far as Rhodes could tell, however, no families were present. There were a couple of women, but they didn’t look like anyone’s mother. They wore tight shorts and T-shirts that were equally tight. Possibly tighter. The men wore jeans and work shoes, some of which looked as if they had steel toes. Not something you’d want to be kicked with, Rhodes thought. Both the women and nearly all the men wore some kind of cap. The younger ones had the bills turned to the back, a practice that made absolutely no sense to Rhodes. Ivy had once told him that maybe turning the bill that way kept the sun off the wearer’s neck.

  “No more rednecks,” she’d said.

  Rhodes didn’t buy it, but he supposed it didn’t make much difference if he did or not.

  “Who won’t let you in the room back there?” he asked Buddy.

  “That fella by the door.”

  That fella was a hefty man that Rhodes had met a time or two on other visits to the Royal Rack. Named Wayne York, he claimed to be the manager.

  “You think Thorpe might be in there?” Rhodes said.

  “Could be.”

  “There’s a back door,” Rhodes said. “Is Ruth out there?”

  “Yes. I called her and asked her to cover it, just in case. I didn’t want anybody sneaking out.”

  “I guess we’d better talk to Mr. York, then.”

  “I already talked to him. Like I said, he’s not letting anybody into that room.”

  “I think he might change his mind now. Come on.”

  They walked toward the rear of the room, past the pool tables and the vending machines, and Rhodes could almost feel the eyes watching them. He wondered if anybody was hoping a fight would break out. That was a silly thought. Probably everybody was.

  Wayne York leaned against the wall by the door with his arms crossed over his chest, showing off muscles Rhodes thought must have been developed by a lot of long hours of working with some kind of weights or a resistance machine. York didn’t wear a cap, and his black hair was short and spiky. It glistened as if it had been coated with some kind of oil. He had a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth.

  “We need to have a look in this room,” Rhodes said, indicating the door.