Free Murder Among the OWLS by Bill Crider

the chain saw was?”
    Brant indicated a small metal toolshed next to Thorpe’s trailer. The door was open, and Rhodes could see a rake and a hoe leaning against the back wall. A couple of aluminum chairs with green webbing were folded up and leaning on the hoe and rake.
    â€œThe chain saw was in there,” Brant said. “I don’t think it would be a good place to keep a gun.”
    Rhodes wondered why Thorpe would need a chain saw at all. Maybe he used it to cut wood in the winter, but there was no fireplace in the trailer.
    â€œYou’re lucky he didn’t cut off your arms,” Rhodes said.
    â€œSo are you. Thanks for stepping in.”
    â€œJust doing my job. Why did you think he might have killed Mrs. Harris?”
    â€œShe was about to come into money,” Brant said. “Gas money. There were going to be gas wells drilled on her property, and they’d have made her wealthy.”

    Rhodes wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but he didn’t ask. He just let Brant keep on talking.
    â€œThorpe bothered Helen a lot. He needed money all the time, and some of the ways he tried to make it weren’t legal. But I guess you know that.”
    â€œThe poker games,” Rhodes said.
    â€œYes, and a few other things that Helen talked him out of. Well, I say she talked him out of them, but it was more the money she gave him that did it.”
    Rhodes thought they were getting off the track, even if he wasn’t sure what the track was.
    â€œIf she was giving him money, why would he kill her?” he said.
    â€œThat wasn’t the reason. He wanted more than she was giving him, and killing her would have been a way to get it. He would have inherited the mineral rights to her property.”
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    â€œI witnessed her will,” Brant said.

Chapter 8
    THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED AND TOOK THORPE AWAY. HE’D REGAINED consciousness, but he wasn’t doing any talking. He probably didn’t feel like it.
    Rhodes took the chain saw off the hood of Ruth’s car and put it in the toolshed. Ruth followed the ambulance to the hospital in the county car with the intention of taking Thorpe to jail if nothing was wrong with him. If he was seriously concussed, she’d stay to watch his room until she was relieved. She would also question him when he was feeling up to it, if he ever was.
    That left Rhodes to finish with Brant and to do any further investigation into Helen Harris’s death for a while. Rhodes suggested to Brant that they go to the courthouse to finish their discussion.
    â€œWe’ll have more privacy there,” Rhodes said.
    He could almost feel the stares of the people in the trailers, although he couldn’t see anybody at the windows.

    Brant agreed that privacy might be a good idea. Rhodes didn’t want to go to the jail because he was afraid that Jennifer Loam might come looking for him there, and he didn’t want her to find him talking to Brant.
    â€œI’ll meet you there in half an hour,” Rhodes said, thinking that he needed to get on another shirt. It didn’t look good for the sheriff to be walking around in a torn shirt with a bare, scraped back.
    Â 
    At home Rhodes looked for Yancey and found him under the bed. The cat was in the kitchen, lying near the refrigerator.
    â€œHe hasn’t hurt you has he?” Rhodes asked the dog.
    Yancey didn’t answer, and he didn’t come out from under the bed. Rhodes wondered if the cat might not be useful. It had the ability to keep Yancey quiet for unprecedented lengths of time.
    Rhodes left Yancey and went back to the kitchen. He took off the ripped shirt and hid it in the bottom of the kitchen trash can under a couple of plastic wrappers where he hoped Ivy wouldn’t find it. He didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.
    The cat watched him through slitted eyes, and Rhodes figured it would tattle on him if it could