Rust on the Razor: A Tom and Scott Mystery by Mark Richard Zubro

Author:Mark Richard Zubro [Zubro, Mark Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery; Thriller & Suspense
Amazon: B00699SCRO
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 1997-06-14T14:00:00+00:00

In the hallway after the interview I said, “I’m sorry about getting annoyed with her and letting it show, but I’m tired of being the stepped-on pansy in this town.”

“They aren’t used to an uppity queer,” Violet said. “They’ll survive. Richardson’s office is downstairs—let’s try him before we leave.”

His room was not as large, but in most other respects it was identical to Clara’s, except his pictures were of battleships, aircraft carriers, and submarines.

Richardson wore a charcoal-gray suit and smoked a pipe. He did not ask our permission if he could light up. He pulled a pouch out of his top left drawer, inserted the tobacco into his pipe, tamped it down, lit it, and blew smoke rings in our direction. It actually smelled pretty good, sort of a cherry flavor.

“Working on getting you arrested,” he said.

“Working on finding out who really killed him,” I said.

Violet said, “Wainwright, we need help.”

He turned to her. “I don’t see why you’re helping him, Violet. It’s all around town about you driving up here with him this afternoon. Somebody thought they might have seen you two together last night.”

“Wainwright,” she asked, “aren’t you interested in finding out who killed the sheriff?”

“I don’t want both of these jobs,” Wainwright said. “I’d prefer to be coroner of Brinard County. I’m not interested in this sheriff business, and I don’t want to investigate. Want to just get done with my job and get in as much fishing as I can.”

“You’re going to convict me because you’re too lazy?”

“You don’t like honesty?”

“What did your family quarrel about with the sheriff’s?” Violet asked.

“Who told you that?”

“Clara.”

“Should have kept her mouth shut.”

None of us spoke as Wainwright puffed on his pipe for several moments. Finally he said, “That quarrel can’t have anything to do with why the sheriff died.”

“What was it?” Violet asked.

“Peter’s daddy and I served in the same outfit in World War II, and we saw action together in Africa and Italy. He accused me of being a coward in the war and tried to get people here to believe it. His daddy was an ignorant blowhard, but some people will believe anything. I never had a quarrel with Peter, but his daddy was unforgiving. I suppose it didn’t help that I bought as much land around his property as I could. When Peter inherited his land, I tried to buy it from him. He never was much of a farmer. Practically drove himself and all his kin to bankruptcy. He may have had reason to kill me, but I had no reason to kill him. My family started with more money, and I made the family richer. Peter was almost broke when he became sheriff. He got elected because he was a sports hero in high school. Course, it could have been worse. What if Scott Carpenter had stayed in town? He was such a hero, he could have gotten himself elected anything—and look where we’d be. A homosexual sheriff.”

“Is the autopsy report on the sheriff in yet?” I asked.

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