Read Online Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl by Bill Crider - Free Book Online Page A

“Looks like a feather to me.”
    Rhodes was surrounded by comedians. “I figured that out for myself. I was hoping you could tell me what kind of feather it was.”
    “It’s not a chicken feather,” Slick said. “I can tell you that much. I’ve seen plenty of chicken feathers, and this isn’t one.”
    Rhodes waited.
    “I’d guess it’s an emu feather,” Slick went on. “Until a year or so ago, I’d never seen one of those, and I still don’t see too many. Had an emu in the clinic the other day, though. Dog got after it. Anyway, this looks like an emu feather to me. I could examine it more carefully if it’s important.”
    Rhodes was willing to bet that Slick was right, but he said, “If you wouldn’t mind. I’d better make absolutely sure.”
    “I’ll give your office a call tomorrow,” Slick said.
    Rhodes thanked him and left. For the time being, he’d work on the assumption that an emu feather had been among Lige Ward’s effects. It seemed likely enough, even though the feather had been on the floor when Rhodes found it.
     
    R hodes drove out to Obert again as the sun began to sink behind a bank of dark clouds that lined the horizon, outlining the clouds with orange and turning the western half of the sky an orangey pink.
    Rhodes wasn’t in any mood to enjoy the sunset, however. He was thinking about Lige Ward. Ward had caused Rhodes a little trouble now and then, but not until he’d been forced to close his hardware store. He’d been a decent man, and now he was dead. Murdered, most likely. Someone had killed him, and Rhodes was going to find out who and why. He was confident of that, though things had already gotten very complicated.
    For one thing, there were three drunks who might or might not be implicated in Lige’s death, but who were surely involved with stealing the outhouse that he’d been found in.
    For another thing, somebody had stolen two of Press Yardley’s emus.
    And it seemed at least likely that there was cockfighting going on in Blacklin County.
    Besides that, there was Nard King to deal with. Though Rhodes had no idea how he fit into the picture yet, he was sure there was bound to be a connection. Yardley had already mentioned one possibility.
    Add to all that the fact that Ivy had, at least half in seriousness, suggested the idea that Rayjean Ward had killed her own husband.
    About the only thing that hadn’t been suggested, in fact, was that Hal Keene, the Wal-Mart manager, had killed Lige, and someone would surely think of that possibility before too long. It wouldn’t have surprised Rhodes to hear that someone had already thought of it.
    Rhodes hoped that he could get everything sorted out before something else happened, but that wasn’t the way things usually worked out. Things usually got uglier than anyone would expect them to where murder was concerned, but maybe this time could be an exception.
    Rhodes hoped that would be the case, but he didn’t really believe that it would.
     
    N ard King didn’t have an impressive house. It was just a little wood-frame building that needed paint, but there would soon be a much bigger one nearby. The foundation was already poured, and the frame was up.
    The pens he was building for his emus were also going to be well made, certainly the equal of any that Rhodes had seen. They were roofed with tin to provide shade, and a sizeable barn had been started behind them.
    There were no members of the construction crews present late on a Sunday afternoon, and there were only a few emus in the pens. Rhodes counted four. He wondered if someone living so near to Press Yardley would actually have stolen two of Yardley’s birds. It would have taken a lot of nerve, that much was sure, but unless the birds were marked in some way that Rhodes didn’t know about, he didn’t see how Yardley could prove that they were his.
    Rhodes parked in the front yard, got out of his car and stood looking around. Just forty-five or fifty yards back of