Killing Time Read online

  “Do you remember what time you called?”

  “Sure. Right before the last bowl game came on at—what? Eight o’clock, maybe? It’s been twenty years. But it was before the bowl game.”

  “He’s thinking about new plays for spring training; then four hours later he hangs himself?” What had happened in those four hours, to cause that drastic a change?

  “Some people are good at hiding their feelings, I guess. He was divorced, unhappy; it happens.”

  “I heard he and his ex-wife were trying to patch things up.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too, but things must not have been working out. I remember she came to his funeral, cried her eyes out. Pissed me off. Sorry, ma’am. If she cared that much about him, looks like she could have given the poor bastard some hope—sorry, ma’am.”

  First Troy, now Max Browning. Why was everyone apologizing to her? Nikita wondered. She shifted restlessly, but a quick glance from Knox told her he’d explain later. She wondered when he’d started reading her mind—and when she’d started reading his.

  “Anyway”—Max shook his head—“hell of a way to start out a new year.”

  “Did you ever ask anyone else what the other things were that were put into the time capsule?”

  “Had more important stories to cover. Coach’s suicide put it right out of my mind.”

  “Did Coach Easley have any kin around here that you remember?” Knox leaned back, his entire attitude saying that he wasn’t in any hurry, had nothing urgent to do. Nikita had to lean back, too, or the sagging couch would have pitched her into his lap.

  “Don’t think so. They moved here from Cincinnati when he was hired.”

  “Were you good friends with him?”

  “Good enough, I thought. If I needed a story, he’d always make time to sit down and talk to me. We weren’t drinking buddies, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Did he have a drinking buddy? Did he have a drinking problem?”

  “He’d have an occasional beer, as I remember. Not a heavy drinker at all.”

  “What about friends?”

  “Well, let’s see. He was closest to the principal . . . What was his name?”

  “Dale Chantrell.”

  “That’s right. Dale Chantrell. Haven’t thought of him in a coon’s age. He moved on to a school near Louisville. He and his wife, Arah Jean—if you ever saw her, you’d know why I remember her name and not his—were good friends with Howard and Lynn. Lynn was Howard’s ex-wife.”

  Mrs. Browning entered the cramped little office then with a silver platter laden with an insulated carafe of coffee, three cups and saucers, a little pitcher of cream, and a choice of sweeteners—one of which was real sugar. She set the platter on a stack of papers on Max’s desk. “Howard and Dale were good friends,” she said serenely. “Lynn hated Arah Jean’s guts.”

  “Thank you,” Knox said, meaning the coffee. “Why did Mrs. Easley hate Mrs. Chantrell?”

  “Like Max said, if you ever saw Arah Jean, you’d understand. She was one of those good-looking women who can’t help but flaunt it. Everything she wore was just a shade too tight, or too short, or too low-cut. Too much lipstick, too much mascara. That kind of woman.”

  “Had plenty to flaunt, too,” Max said, and his wife smacked him on the arm. “Well, she did!”

  “I never said she didn’t. I smacked you because, while I don’t expect you to go blind whenever a good-looking woman shoves a set of 38D knockers under your nose, I do expect you to act like you have,” Mrs. Browning said with considerable asperity.

  Max grinned at his wife, clearly pleased she could still work up some jealousy on his account.

  “Thirty-eight-D, huh?” asked Knox.

  Because it seemed the thing to do, Nikita smacked his arm. Hard.

  “That’ll teach you,” Max chortled, laughing at Knox’s surprised expression. Mrs. Browning was smiling as she left.

  “I’m just glad it was my arm and not my jaw,” Knox said. “Do you think there was anything”—he rocked his right hand back and forth—“going on between Coach Easley and Arah Jean?”

  “Naw, she was like that with everything in britches. Nothing personal. I doubt Arah Jean cheated; she was too smart for that. And Lynn wasn’t the type of woman to put up with something like that going on right under her nose; she’d have taken a horse whip to both of them. They were polite to each other because Howard and Dale were such good friends, but polite is all they were.”

  “Do you know where Lynn lives now?”

  “Can’t say as I do. Haven’t seen or heard of her since the funeral. Now, if you could find Dale Chantrell, he might could tell you. Or maybe Edie Proctor.”

  “Edie Proctor,” Knox said. “She was school superintendent back then.”

  “That’s right. She’s the one who hired Howard for the job. The board of education should still have his application somewhere, though if it’s like all those other old paper records, they’re boxed up in a basement somewhere. His application would probably list next of kin, but that would be Lynn, and you already know that.” Max paused. “So. You gonna tell me why you’re so interested in Howard Easley, after all these years?”

  “It’s part of our investigation into Taylor Allen’s murder,” Knox said smoothly. “I can’t go into details; you know that. It’s just a thread I’m pulling on.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Max. “In other words, you’re not saying. Okay, I understand. But when you figure out what’s going on, I get the story. You better not call anyone else.”

  “It’s a deal. By the way, do you know if Howard had any hobbies?”

  “He was a football coach; he didn’t have time for hobbies.”

  “Model airplanes,” said Mrs. Browning as she breezed past the open door.

  Knox turned to look at her. “Model airplanes?”

  “That’s right,” Max answered, “I remember now. He built them in his garage. He built little motors for them, and radio-signal controls. Damndest thing you ever saw, back then. He’d get out in the field behind his house and fly those little airplanes. Crashed a few of them, too. What spare time he had, he was always fiddling with those things. He and some buddy he went to college with had this ongoing thing, to see what all they could come up with.”

  “What happened to his stuff when he died? Did Lynn get it?”

  “Now, that I don’t remember. The house stood empty for a while; then someone moved into it, lived there for a couple of years. It was empty off and on for about ten years; then finally it got in such bad shape no one would live there. It’s about fallen in now, yard all grown up around it. You can barely tell there’s a house there, the trees and bushes are so thick around it.”

  “Do you remember the address?”

  “Not exactly. It was out on Beeson Road, past Turner Crossroads. About four miles down, on the left.”

  As they walked down the sidewalk toward the car, Nikita said, “Do we talk to Edie Proctor next?”

  “I’m afraid so. She’s here in town, so we might as well. Then we’ll hunt up where Coach Easley lived. I know the general location; we’ll just have to look for the place.”

  “You think something might still be there?”

  “Probably not, but you never know. People leave all sorts of crap behind in a house when they move.”

  “Whoever packed up his things should have cleaned out the house.”

  “We won’t know until we look. There might be an attic space, or a partial basement.”

  And Knox wouldn’t rest until he’d checked it out. Even when logic told him there wouldn’t be anything left, he still had to see for himself.

  Mrs. Edie Proctor was reluctant to open the door to them, even when Knox showed her his badge. She scowled at them through a latched screen door. “How do I know that badge is real?”

  “You can call the sheriff’s department and ask,” he said without any hint of impatience.

  “Humph,” she said, staying where she was. From