Murder Comes by Mail (23 page)

“I didn’t say that, exactly. The firm has had clients who scared me to look at them and others who did look like that proverbial guy next door until you knew what they’d done. Not that a defense attorney asks for confessions. It’s usually better not to hear that ‘I did it’ line.”

“I keep telling you, Sheridan. You’re in the wrong line of work.”

“Yours is better?”

“At least I’m trying to put murderers away. Not get them off.”

“Everybody is entitled to his or her day in court, and that usually means an attorney there with him. Some of the cases you bleed over. Others you don’t cry when you lose.”

“What’s your obnoxious client done?”

“You know I can’t talk cases, Michael. Attorney-client confidentiality. But the firm’s into more civilized crime now. Corporate intrigue. The junior, very junior, partners handle the run-of-the-mill criminal cases for our clients. Embezzlement, reckless homicide, that sort of thing. If one of our clients were to be involved in a high-profile murder case, and we do definitely hope that never happens, the senior partners would no doubt farm it out to a firm with more resources in criminal cases.” Alex laughed a little. “However, sometimes I think I liked the everyday thieves and murderers better than these bigwigs. You didn’t have to promise to keep them out of jail. They were ready to plea-bargain just to knock a few years off their sentences.”

“Like I keep telling you, you should come to Hidden Springs and research deeds.”

“Now there’s some high-pressure work.” This time Alex’s laugh was more relaxed. Then she was serious again. “Look, Michael, I don’t know how I can help you with any of this, but if you think of a way, let me know.”

“Just be careful.”

“I’ll double-check my locks and not make appointments with strangers and look at anyone who mentions anything to do with you or Hidden Springs with wary suspicion.”

He wasn’t sure that would be enough. “You could hire a bodyguard for a couple of weeks. Write it off as a business expense. To keep away that obnoxious client.”

“You looking for a job?” She had a smile in her voice.

“Come to Hidden Springs and I’ll work for free.”

“I’m thinking you’ve got enough people to guard down there already.” She paused a moment, as though considering her next words. “Did you warn Karen?”

“She’s on her way to visit her sister in South Carolina and Betty Jean’s at her parents’, probably sleeping with her finger on the emergency call button on her phone. I’m headed back to spend the night at Aunt Lindy’s.”

“You think Malinda could be in danger?” She sounded surprised.

“Who knows? But better safe than sorry. I tried to get her to go visit a friend in Boston, but she refused. Said she could take care of herself.”

“Against a serial killer?” Now she sounded incredulous.

“You know Aunt Lindy. She loaded Dad’s old pistol. I didn’t even know she still had it. When I left a while ago to come get Jasper, she had it on the lamp table beside her.”

“Then pity the poor man who attempts to bother her. You don’t really think this Jackson will go after her, do you?” Worry took over in Alex’s voice.

“No.” Michael went back in the living room, but instead of sitting down, he paced back and forth in front of his couch. A couple of floorboards creaked under his weight and Jasper raised his head off his paws to give him a puzzled look.

“All of a sudden, you’re scaring me, Michael. You don’t sound sure enough.”

Michael stood still and breathed out a tired sigh. “I’m not sure of anything, Alex. Just stay safe.”

That was all he wanted. For everybody to be safe. Michael put the phone back on the base and stared up at the ceiling while a silent prayer rose up inside him.
Lord, please don’t let anybody else die.

Michael picked up his bag, flicked off the lights, and locked up. He had to pick Jasper’s front paws up and place them on the backseat of the car, then shove him inside. The dog didn’t like riding in the backseat of the patrol car. All the way to town, he panted so much, the seat was sure to be slimy with dog slobber.

Jasper didn’t get any happier when Michael fastened his yard chain to a back porch post. As soon as Michael went inside, the dog set up a howl.

Aunt Lindy came down the hall from her bedroom with Grimalkin trailing after her. No sign of the gun. She looked smaller and more vulnerable in her nightclothes without her glasses propped on her nose. Michael didn’t ask if the gun was in her robe pocket because he wasn’t sure which scared him the most—that she didn’t have it with her or that she did.

“Good gracious, Michael. Can’t you make that dog hush? Reece Sheridan will call the police on me.”

“I am the police,” Michael reminded her.

Aunt Lindy didn’t smile. “Then give yourself a citation and bring Dog in the house or whatever it takes to make him stop howling.”

“You sure Grimalkin won’t have a heart attack?”

“Could be you should worry more about Dog than Grimalkin. I’ll see that she stays in my bedroom until you get that animal inside to your room. After that, Dog is on his own.” She picked up the cat and headed back toward her bedroom.

“Good night, Aunt Lindy.”

“Good night, Michael. I’m not sure any of this is one bit necessary.” She didn’t slam the bedroom door behind her, but she did close it very firmly.

Michael felt sort of like a teenager again as he brought Jasper through the kitchen door and poked around in the cabinet to find an old pan to use for the dog’s water dish. Jasper circled the room, sniffing everything. “Best be good, buddy. She has a gun and says she knows how to use it.”

When he turned around from filling the pan at the sink, Jasper had his nose pressed against the closed door that led to the front of house. He was standing stiff with his hackles raised. Michael put his hand on his head. “Easy, boy. The cat’s not in there and you couldn’t chase her if she was.”

Jasper made a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl.

Michael opened the door and the dog made a beeline for the staircase and up it without hesitation. “Huh, guess you want to sniff out my room.” Michael followed him up the stairs with his bag and the pan, trying not to slosh the water out on the stairs.

The dog streaked past Michael’s bedroom toward a door that led up to the attic. The growl turned into barks that bounced off the walls in the hallway.

“Quiet, Jasper.” Michael set the water down and went after the dog to grab his collar. Jasper’s bark turned back into a low growl. Michael ran his hand along the dog’s back, smoothing down his raised hair. “The cat’s not up here, and if you keep barking, Aunt Lindy will kick us both out. We’ll have to sleep on the porch.”

The dog’s growl softened into an anxious whine as he looked from the door up at Michael.

“What’s the matter with you? No cats up there. Nothing but mice and old books.” Michael took hold of the dog’s collar again and turned him back down the hall. Once inside the bedroom with the door shut, Jasper made a thorough sniffing inspection all around the room. That seemed to satisfy him as he plopped down on the rug at the foot of the bed with a whiffling sigh of contentment. Grimalkin had obviously not been in this room.

Michael didn’t turn on a light as he undressed. Enough light from the street outside slipped in around the curtains to keep darkness at bay. In bed, Michael stared up at the familiar cracks in the ceiling and listened to the old house settle into a midnight silence.

The sounds ought to be as comforting as an old lullaby, but he couldn’t fall asleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the photos of the two dead girls popped them back open. Both girls were dead through no fault of their own but because a monster had decided to stalk him.

And now Alex said the monster was planting evidence on him. But why? No one would ever believe he could kill those girls. No one. Then he remembered how Whitt’s eyes narrowed on him when he asked Michael about the earring. Still, he’d never once asked Michael where he was on Friday night. That didn’t mean the question wouldn’t come up the next time he saw Whitt.

Michael’s legs felt so jerky he wanted to get up and pace the room, but he lay still. The old floorboards would creak if he got up, and that might wake Aunt Lindy again. Something he did not want to do. Besides, he needed to sleep. A man couldn’t think straight without enough sleep, and he needed to think straight.

He slowly blanked out any thought of the murders by pulling up facts about the War Between the States. Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865. Michael ran through the battles in between. Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg. His ancestors had fought in each of those places, and with sleep eluding him in this house where they once lived, it seemed only appropriate to let his mind drift to their stories.

Three Hidden Springs Keanes fought for the Union Army, two for the South. Two of the men, cousins, came back to Hidden Springs to finish out their lives as partners in the dry goods business in spite of fighting on opposite sides in the war. Neither ever married. Then there was Uncle Wilbur, whose body lived through the war but whose spirit died at Gettysburg. He never married either.

The fact was, many of his Keane ancestors hadn’t seemed too keen on marrying. Every generation had more than its share of bachelors and spinsters until finally the duty of carrying on the Keane name in Hidden Springs was up to Michael. While he was hardly adverse to the idea of a couple of little Keanes underfoot, first he needed a wife. That’s where things got complicated, if not impossible, since he was desperately in love with a woman who would laugh at the idea of settling down in Hidden Springs even if he ever did gather up nerve enough to ask her straight out and risk her saying no. Hearing her no would be too final.

He pushed aside worry about asking her the big question. Right now, he just wanted her to be safe so that maybe someday she would have that chance to say no or maybe have a change of heart about small towns.

With his eyes shut, he started to count Civil War statistics again, but this time the facts weren’t mere cold numbers. Instead dead soldiers rose up off the fields of battle to march through his mind while the monster lurked behind them, taunting Michael.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the dark air pressing down on him. At the foot of the bed Jasper breathed in and out, unbothered now. He didn’t have murderers haunting his thoughts.

Hand it over to the Lord,
Aunt Lindy’s voice whispered through his mind. She’d told him that many times after the auto accident when he was a teen. At times then, he had wrestled with the question of why a loving, all-powerful God would allow his parents to die when he needed them so very much. When he put that question to Aunt Lindy, she told him all questions couldn’t be answered, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t pray for wisdom and help. In both bright sunlit times and dark valley times.

The words of his mother’s favorite psalm slipped through Michael’s mind now, almost like a caress.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
But the words slowed and stopped when he got to
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou are with me.
The psalm didn’t promise nothing bad would happen in the walk through life. The Bible said every good and perfect gift came from God, but Scripture was plain that evil was in the world and needed to be overcome. Evil was happening with these murders. An evil that Michael, with the Lord’s help, was determined to stop.

Michael gave up trying to shut it all away. Instead he pulled up that day on the bridge to concentrate on every detail. He brought up the image of Jackson teetering on the edge, his shirttail half out of rumpled pants that sagged below his potbelly. His thin hair stuck up in crazy angles and his face was stiff with fear. Greasy dirt showed under his thumbnails, as if he’d had to change a tire or work on his engine on the way to the bridge.

Try as he might, Michael could not see the man on the bridge posing Hope and Kim Barbour so meticulously and then printing photos of them to deliver to Michael. The man surely wouldn’t chance going to a self-help photo printer where somebody might look over his shoulder and see the photos. It seemed only reasonable to assume he had his own computer and printer, even if he did look like a man so down on his luck he might not have a roof over his head.

The questions chased around in Michael’s head until he finally slipped into a fitful sleep where he dreamed about Jackson. The man was laughing as he climbed over the railing on the bridge. Michael ran toward the jumper, but it was like making his way through deep mud. Slowly. Slowly. Even as he went toward him, he wasn’t sure if he was going to save him or push him. When, at last, Michael made it to the railing, the man grabbed him and pulled him out into the air. They fell together. Jackson laughed as the river rushed up toward them.

Michael jerked awake before he hit the water.

24

Michael followed Aunt Lindy to school the next morning where she planned to begin getting her classroom ready for the coming school year. He wanted to take her, but she refused to ride in the patrol car with Jasper panting in the backseat. She disappeared inside the school without once looking back at him. He didn’t know if she refused to acknowledge his presence because the reason he was there frightened her or if she merely thought his worries foolish.

Aunt Lindy didn’t own up to fearing anything except being in water over her head, but a serial killer on the loose was enough to scare anyone. He hadn’t told her Alex’s bizarre idea that the killer was trying to lay the blame on Michael. The idea was so crazy Michael couldn’t summon up the words to talk about it.

Michael beat Betty Jean to the office. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He eyed the phone. Maybe he should call to see if she’d left for work, but he didn’t want to get her parents in a panic. Instead he was aware of every minute passing as he found the filters and measured out the coffee. The water was still gurgling through the coffeemaker when he heard her footsteps out in the hallway.