A Mammoth Murder by Bill Crider Read Free Book Online Page A

that when we were married, much less afterward. When he walked out the door, it was as if our marriage had never taken place.” Her face clouded. “It was that way for most of the time we were married, in fact. Larry spent more time with that friend of his than he ever did with me.”

    â€œYou mean Bud Turley?”
    â€œThat’s the one. Those two were closer than Larry and I ever were.”
    â€œWhat about that UFO?” Rhodes asked.
    â€œThat happened before we were married, if you want to believe it happened at all. I always thought he just made it up to make Bud Turley jealous. The story changed every time he told it. It was something to tell in a bar, for a drink.”
    â€œWhat about enemies, people who might have wanted Larry dead? You know anybody like that?”
    â€œNot a one. I’ve been telling you, Sheriff, I haven’t talked to him in ten years. I wish I could help you, but I just can’t.”
    She sounded convincing, and Rhodes supposed that he believed her. He hadn’t expected anything, really, but he’d had to try. He thanked her and left the library, being careful not to make any noise. He didn’t want anybody to have to shush him.
    He looked at his watch when he got outside. He still had forty-five minutes until Tom Vance was supposed to show up at the jail to have a look at the tooth, so he could either talk to Colley’s other ex-wife or visit Dr. White and see if he’d completed the autopsy on Larry Colley.
    He decided on Dr. White. One ex-wife was enough for one morning.

7
    CLYDE BALLINGER WAS IN HIS OFFICE IN BACK OF THE FUNERAL home when Rhodes arrived. He was reading an old paperback, which was not unusual. His desk was covered with them, and he read them at every opportunity. The one he held up for Rhodes to see was called The Green Wound.
    â€œThey don’t write ‘em like this anymore,” Ballinger said. “And nobody would buy ’em if they did.”
    â€œWhy not?” Rhodes asked.
    â€œBecause people don’t have any taste. They want four hundred pages of serial killers, car chases, and explosions.”
    â€œYou must be thinking about the movies,” Rhodes said. “They’re all long and loud. Sometimes when I see one of the new ones, I feel like I’ve been on a carnival ride.”
    Ballinger put a piece of paper between the pages to mark his place and laid the book on his desk with all the others. “Did you
ever consider the fact that it might be you and me who’re out of step?” he said.
    â€œYou mean that books and movies are actually a lot better now and we’re wrong to think the old ones are better?”
    Ballinger nodded. “Hard to believe, isn’t it. What it means is that we’ve become old farts.”
    â€œIt’s barely possible that we could be right. There’s always a chance of that.”
    â€œTwo chances,” Ballinger said. “Slim and none.”
    â€œAnd we’re not that old,” Rhodes said. “Middle-aged at most.”
    â€œYeah, if you’re planning to live to be a hundred. In my business I see a whole lot of dead people, but I don’t see many that age. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen one that age in years.”
    â€œSpeaking of your business,” Rhodes said.
    â€œDr. White finished the autopsy, if that’s what you mean. He wrote it all up, and he’s probably delivered it to your office by now. It won’t tell you anything you didn’t already know, though.”
    Rhodes had been afraid of that. The language would be a little fancier, but what it would add up to was the fact that someone had hit Larry Colley in the back of the head with the traditional blunt instrument and killed him. Well, it wasn’t as bleak as that. White would know whether Colley had died in the clearing or been brought there.
    â€œWhat about the clothes?” Rhodes said.
    â€œWe can go get