The Homefront Murders — D.R. Meredith

WHO STASHED THE BODY IN THE COURTHOUSE BASEMENT?
The folks in Crawford County, Texas, are silent as death about the dramatic discovery of the remains of a G.I. who was murdered in World War II. Sheriff Charles Matthews, feeling more an outsider than ever, is buffaloed, but among the victim's now elderly contemporaries, strange things start to happen. Mad Dog Treadwell locks himself inside his house. The town librarian is caught cutting the pictures out of county history books. Old Judge Dodd's widow takes to wearing mourning clothes, even though the judge has been dead for more than twenty years. Even Miss Poole, the Sheriff's tart-tongued dispatcher, is definitely not her usual feisty self.
It's like pulling teeth to get these apparently blameless senior citizens to talk--and to help Sheriff Matthews lure a killer out of the woodwork....
"Meredith has developed into a fresh, snappy voice of crime fiction."
--New York Newsday