Free Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl by Bill Crider Page B

him. It didn’t matter. Later, he might have to talk to them again about that, but for now he’d found out what he’d come to learn.
    He thanked the twins, and they went back into the other room. Mrs. Appleby came out.
    “Did they help you any?” she asked.
    “They did,” Rhodes said.  “I appreciate it.”
    “They’re good boys,” Mrs. Appleby said, as if she were trying to convince herself as much as Rhodes. “Are you sure you can’t stay and have a piece of that chicken? There’s a drumstick left, for sure.”
    Rhodes could almost taste the batter on the drumstick, but he said, “I wish I could, but I’ve got to go home. My wife’s expecting me.”
    Mrs. Appleby smiled. She’d met Ivy. “You tell her I said hello.”
    “I’ll do that,” Rhodes said.
     

Chapter Six
     
    I t had taken a while for Ivy to get used to Rhodes’ being away from home so much at night, and Rhodes knew that she didn’t like it. She’d begun to accept it as a part of his job that he could do nothing about, however.
    When he got in from Obert, she had supper waiting for him. It wasn’t fried chicken. It was a sandwich of sliced turkey breast on whole wheat bread. Rhodes would have preferred baloney, but he didn’t say so.
     He looked in the refrigerator for something to drink. He was hoping for Dr Pepper, but he knew there wouldn’t be any. There was skim milk and grape juice.
    He chose the milk.
    Ivy sat at the table with him while he ate. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
    “About what?”
    “You know. About Lige Ward. Do you want to know what I think happened?”
    Rhodes was agreeable. “Sure. You mean you already know who killed him?”
    “What if Press Yardley and Mrs. Ward were having an affair? Did you think about that?”
    Rhodes took a drink of milk. It was cold, but it didn’t have much taste. He set the glass back on the table.
    “It never entered my mind,” he said.
    “I don’t know why not. Mrs. Ward’s not that old, and I can imagine what it was like around that house. Lige was really bitter about having to close his store, and he probably took it out on her. She might’ve wanted to talk to someone about it, and Press Yardley was right there. Sometimes a sympathetic listener can become more than just a listener.”
    Rhodes took a bite of the sandwich, which had a little more taste to it than the milk. It would’ve been even better with a few spoonfuls of Miracle Whip on it, but Ivy thought that Miracle Whip had too much fat in it. Rhodes had tried the new nonfat Miracle Whip, and he hated it. So now he was eating his sandwiches with mustard. He didn’t much like mustard, but without it the turkey tasted a little like typing paper.
    “Press Yardley doesn’t strike me as the sympathetic type,” Rhodes said after he finished chewing.
    “You can’t ever tell,” Ivy said. “You probably don’t seem like the sympathetic type to some people, but I know better.”
    “So Press Yardley got to know Rayjean Ward and then killed Lige for love?”
    Ivy grinned. “Either that, or he caught him stealing his emus.”
    On the whole, Rhodes liked the second theory a lot better.
    The telephone rang just as Rhodes was finishing the sandwich. It was Hack.
    “Dr. White’s all done. He’s still at Ballinger’s if you want to talk to him.”
    “Call him back,” Rhodes said. “Tell him I’m on the way. Tell him I’ll meet him in Ballinger’s office.”
     
    I vy turned down the chance to go to Ballinger’s with Rhodes, not that he blamed her. Whatever he found out, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
    Dr. White was sitting in Ballinger’s office, and when Rhodes walked in, the funeral director was regaling White with an account of autopsies he’d read about in mystery novels.
    “It seems to me that every single time a cop goes to a morgue, there’s some guy in there eating a sandwich. Did you ever do anything like that, Doc?  Eat a sandwich while an autopsy was going on?”
    “I’m usually