Murder Among the OWLS by Bill Crider

Author:Bill Crider
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

THE CLEARVIEW LIBRARY WAS AN IMPRESSIVE WHITE STONE building built with money donated by a Houston philanthropist. Neither the city nor the county would have been able to afford such a place, and most readers in Clearview were quite pleased to have it in their town.

Rhodes remembered an earlier building that had been almost as nice, but the shifting clay soil of Blacklin County had caused the foundation to crack during a prolonged drought. The walls had soon cracked like the foundation, and the new building had been constructed to take its place. Rhodes hoped it was going to prove sturdier than the old one had been.

Being warm in winter and cool in summer, the library was almost as popular with the Browns as the hospital, but because it didn’t offer free food or television, they had to content themselves with the computers. The library had instituted a policy limiting its patrons to thirty minutes of computer use, unless no one was waiting. The policy had worked out well enough. The Browns were happy with thirty minutes. They’d just get back in line for another turn. Rhodes had no idea what they used the computers for, and he thought that was no doubt just as well.

Rhodes saw a couple of the Browns tapping away on the keyboards when he entered the library that afternoon. He was uncomfortably full, having taken advantage of the Round-Up’s lunch special. The baked potato had not been appreciably smaller than an official NFL football. Rhodes didn’t plan to mention to Ivy that he’d eaten it, which he had. Most of it, anyway. And he certainly hadn’t tried to remove the beef.

The OWLS were in one of the library’s meeting rooms. On his way there, Rhodes passed the circulation desk and waved to Karen Sandstrom, someone else who had been involved in the case of the mammoth bones. One thing about being sheriff in a small county, Rhodes thought, was that you never stopped running into people you’d met in your line of work. That wasn’t always a good thing, though in this case it was.

As Thelma Rice had said, the OWLS weren’t as noisy as the Red Hats. There weren’t as many of them, for one thing, though several still wore the same outfits they’d had on in the Round-Up.

Thelma got up and crossed the room to meet Rhodes at the door. “We’re really pleased that you’re here, Sheriff. Come on in.”

Rhodes allowed himself to be led to a table in the front of the room. A small lectern sat on the table, and when Thelma stood behind it, no one in the room could see her.

Rhodes was a little disappointed at the near silence. He had hoped that Thelma would have to whistle again. He thought about asking her to teach him how to whistle like that but rejected the idea as hopeless. Some people just weren’t musically talented, and he was one of them.

Thelma shoved the lectern aside. The sound of it scraping on the table was enough to bring complete silence to the room.

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