No, she had no idea who would want to kill him, her voice sad again. Jay had been a nice guy, quick with a joke and a smile and always ready to admire a new picture of her kids or grandkids. He remembered their names too. He had a good head for details. He practically lived on the road, but he seemed to like it. Said it gave him a chance to make friends all over.
She didn’t think their company had any clients in Hidden Springs, but she would be glad to email Michael a list of the companies they did business with in the Eagleton area. She could probably come up with most of the places Jay had stopped last week, but Jay kept his own schedule. So she might miss some. When Michael said he didn’t find an appointment book in the car, Lisa Williams said Jay used a phone app for that. He wasn’t the greatest with paperwork, but he got the job done. That was good enough for his bosses. Jay was one of their best technicians.
Of course she’d be more than willing to answer any other questions Michael might have later on. She took down his number in case she thought of something that might be of help. It was bad enough when somebody was killed in a car wreck or something like that, Lisa Williams said, but to think about somebody you know being murdered, well, that was just too hard to believe.
Michael set Betty Jean to tracking down an address for the daughter before he called Chief Sibley to tell him they had an ID.
“I’ll let Paul know when he gets to feeling better. I talked to Caroline awhile ago,” the chief said. “She says Paul’s suffering something awful. Thinks it might be food poisoning, and if he doesn’t get better soon, she’s going to make him go to the emergency room over in Eagleton.”
Michael made some all-purpose sympathetic noises and tried not to be glad Paul was sick. But the truth was, he hadn’t looked forward to playing follow the leader in this investigation with Paul Osgood, the leader. Aunt Lindy was right. The man couldn’t catch a Peeping Tom.
After he told the chief goodbye, Michael stared at the phone and wondered if he should try Buck Garrett’s cell number again. Surely Buck wasn’t sick too, but sick or not, he wasn’t bothering to check in.
Michael didn’t like the feeling he was withholding information from Buck about the investigation. Besides, he wanted to hear what Buck had to say about it all. Nobody ever wondered if Buck knew what he was doing. He was every inch a law officer and good at his job.
Buck’s eyes had taken on a special gleam the day before when they were talking about the murder. It was almost as if Buck considered the homicide some kind of challenge to see which man found the answer first. Michael smiled. Buck wouldn’t be happy when he found out Michael—better yet, Lester Stucker—had come up with the first real breakthrough.
Michael’s smile widened. Since Buck wasn’t answering his cell, he’d send Lester out to the cluster of motels, gas stations, and restaurants around the interstate exit to see if he could find him. Lester had a few hours before his crossing guard duty that afternoon. Buck wouldn’t be happy to be chased down by Lester, but it would serve him right for not keeping in contact.
At her desk, Betty Jean scrolled through pages on her computer. She was a wizard at tracking down information and had a way of finding out more than he even knew to ask.
He looked over her shoulder. “How long before you have something?”
She frowned up at him. “This kind of thing takes time. You can’t expect to find what you need without having to search a little. Now quit watching over my shoulder. You know I hate that.”
“Right.” Michael nodded. “Then I’ll be at Joe’s. I’m going to get a haircut.”
“Didn’t you just get a haircut last Monday?” Before he could answer, a new screen flipped up on her computer and she waved Michael out the door.
When he passed the judge’s office, Judge Campbell hurried out to walk with him toward the front door. “Alvin tells me you got a name on the poor soul who was shot out front yesterday,” the judge boomed. If anybody in the courthouse hadn’t heard the news, they knew it now.
“Thanks to Lester. He spotted his car in the parking lot.”
“Was there anything in the car?” the judge asked as they went outside. “I mean anything that might help you figure out who shot the man.”
“Nothing so far, Judge. But we’re bound to come across some kind of lead sooner or later. Hidden Springs is a little town. Somebody will have seen something.” Michael tried to sound confident. “We’ll catch whoever did it.”
“I have no doubt at all you’ll have the perpetrator in jail in no time flat.” Judge Campbell clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course, if this was the big city, we’d just think it was a street mugging that got out of hand. Could be this Rayburn fellow, that was his name, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Jay Rayburn.” There was no reason to keep that a secret.
“Well, then it could be this Rayburn fellow was even trying to rob somebody else when he got shot. He could have been asking for it.”
“Then where’s the person who shot him?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know. They might have run away. Scared maybe. It could have happened that way. Bad things don’t just happen in the big towns, you know.”
Michael shook his head a little. “I don’t think that’s what happened, Judge. Rayburn had a regular job as a printer technician and salesman. I don’t think he’d have been trying to rob anybody here in Hidden Springs.”
“Sometimes people aren’t what they seem.” The judge’s voice dropped to an almost normal volume. That only happened when he was the most serious. “He was here for some reason.”
“That’s true. We just don’t know what that reason was.”
When they reached the Main Street sidewalk, the judge put his hand on Michael’s arm. “Come on up to the Grill with me and grab a sandwich. My treat.”
“Thanks anyway, Judge, but I’m going to see if Joe is busy. Thought I’d get a trim.”
“I don’t think he’s there.” The judge glanced across the street at Joe’s Barbershop and then looked at Michael. “Besides, your hair looks fine. Plenty short.”
“Oh, you know how it is. I’ve got a big date coming up and I want to look nice.” Michael ran his hand through his hair.
“With that sweet little Karen Allison, I guess.” The judge was smiling again. “When are the two of you going to quit this pussyfooting around and tie the knot?”
Michael smiled back at him. “I don’t think we’re ready for that.”
“What are you waiting for? Lightning to strike?” The judge chuckled. “That’s the way it always was with Malinda. There was a time, you know, when I had my cap set for her. But she said she had to have fireworks and I guess I never got her fuse lit.”
“Really?” The idea of a long-ago romance between the judge and Aunt Lindy was something Michael had never considered.
The judge’s smile stayed firmly in place. “I expect it’s just as well. I’m not so sure Malinda would have made a very good politician’s wife. Too ready to speak her mind.”
“She does say what she thinks. But here in Hidden Springs, everybody might have voted for you because they would be afraid to go against her.”
“That could be.” The judge laughed easily. “But between you and me, and I wouldn’t want this to get out yet, there’s a good chance the party is going to ask me to run for state representative next term. You know Representative O’Neal is retiring.”
“Well, that’s great, Judge. You’ve got my vote.”
The judge slapped Michael on the back. “I appreciate that, Mike, but remember mum’s the word. And it might not be a good idea to mention what I said about Malinda to her either. Things with me and Malinda never really got much past the ‘wondering if it might be a good idea’ stage, if you know what I mean. And what with her and June being such good friends, we wouldn’t want to muddy the waters at this late date, now would we?”
“Not me.” Michael barely kept from smiling. He couldn’t imagine the judge’s wife being jealous of Aunt Lindy, but if
the judge wanted to believe that might be possible, then he wouldn’t spoil his fun.
The judge clapped him on the back again and went on up the street. Michael headed toward Joe’s shop. The judge was right. Joe wasn’t there. The blinds were shut, and a note was stuck to the door.
“Gone to visit my sister.”
The note bothered Michael. Joe didn’t often take a day off, and when he did, everybody in town knew all the details of where he was going and how long he’d be gone days before he left. But Joe hadn’t said a thing about going out of town yesterday when Michael had been in his shop.
Michael went into Reece Sheridan’s office beside the barbershop. From the way unopened mail was piled on the secretary’s desk, it looked as if Janelle’s little boy must still be sick. Michael went on back to Reece’s office, where the lawyer was dozing in his chair with Two Bits curled in his lap. Michael rapped lightly on the door facing.
Reece opened his eyes, almost as though he’d just had them closed in deep thought rather than being asleep. “Michael, I’m afraid you caught me napping.” He grinned sheepishly. “I miss Janelle out front. She wears those clickety high heels that always wake me up before she gets back to my office to tell me somebody’s here.”
Michael laughed. “Guess I should have stomped a little coming down the hall. I was coming over to get a haircut, but I see Joe’s closed shop and left you holding the cat.”
Reece stroked the sleeping cat lightly. “Joe’s gone to see his sister, Elizabeth. The one down in Tennessee.”
“Sort of a sudden trip, wasn’t it? I mean, for Joe.”
“She’s been sick, and he said he got word she was some worse. Said he had to go check on her. Asked me to watch Two Bits for a few days. Joe told me to just leave him in the barbershop, but I didn’t want the poor thing to get lonesome over there all by himself. So I brought him over here for the day.”
“He looks content enough.”
“Just like me, eh?” Reece laughed a little. Folks in Hidden Springs had been bringing their problems to Reece Sheridan for more than forty years, and in all that time, Michael doubted he’d made even one enemy. The worst anybody could say about him was that he kept his best fishing spots secret.
“You said it. Not me.”
Reece’s laugh settled in the deep creases around his eyes to let his smile linger on his face. “Alex would say too content. Did I tell you she’s coming down for a visit this week?”
Alex Sheridan was Reece’s niece. Until she went away to college, she’d spent at least a month every summer in Hidden Springs at Reece’s house across the street from Michael. On those long summer days, the two of them had been practically inseparable, solemnly vowing one day to be friends forever and the next day vowing with considerably more heat to never speak to one another again.
After the wreck, Alex had written him every day even before he came out of the coma because she thought somebody needed to keep him up on the important things happening in the world. Not just the headlines but more obscure news about endangered panda bears, what color fingernail polish was all the rage, how the rain forest was disappearing, and which songs were number one. Old-fashioned handwritten letters. They were still at Aunt Lindy’s house somewhere.
“Is Alex keeping things under control up in Washington, DC?” Michael asked.
“She says she’s giving it her best shot.” Reece shook his head. “Don’t tell her I said this, but I think all the politicking is getting to her. I told her to chuck it all and move down here. I’d hang out a new shingle. Sheridan and Sheridan.”
Michael laughed. “She’d have us whipped into shape in less than ten minutes. Then what would she do?”
Michael didn’t say what he really thought. That Alex would never be happy in a small town like Hidden Springs. But then again, maybe people had said the same about him a couple of years back, and look at him now. Just about as content as Reece Sheridan.
“Sometimes things aren’t all that quiet here in Hidden Springs.” The smile leaked off Reece’s face.
“I guess that’s true enough this week,” Michael admitted reluctantly.
Reece looked up at him from under bushy white eyebrows. “You think your little friend Karen would mind if you took Alex out one night while she’s here? You know, just to show her a good time. I’m not much for the nightlife anymore, and I don’t want Alex to get too bored.”
“Sure. Karen can go with us.”
“Well, that’s an idea.” Reece tried to sound enthusiastic, but he couldn’t entirely hide a flicker of disappointment. Michael did his best not to smile at the thought of Reece matchmaking for him and Alex. He remembered Alex the last time he saw her. That was before he left Columbus to come back to Hidden Springs.
She told Michael in no uncertain terms he could do better than walk a beat as a police officer. It wasn’t too late for him to study law himself. Then he could be a district attorney if he wanted to protect society. Her blue-gray eyes had flashed as she’d lectured him on his lack of ambition. After she was talked out, he simply smiled at her and told her she was going to be one fine trial lawyer. She surrendered the argument with the comment that she supposed he could work up through the ranks to police commissioner somewhere.
Michael’s smile slipped out. There wasn’t much to work up to in Hidden Springs. He was in for sore ears when he saw Alex. Maybe he really would take Karen along for a buffer.
Michael shook the thought of Alex away. He’d worry about that battle when she got to town. Right now he had other things to worry about.
“Did Joe tell you when he’d be back?” Michael asked.
“Said it’d be according to how his sister was doing.”
“Did he seem particularly worried about anything when he talked to you?”
“Other than his sister?” Reece frowned a little as he thought about Michael’s question, then shook his head. “Not that I noticed.”
“Did he say anything about the man getting shot yesterday? I thought maybe he might be upset about that.”
“I’d say we’re all upset about that. Somebody getting murdered right across the street from you can bother a man’s sleep for a while. But I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary about Joe, if that’s what you mean. Why do you ask?” Slowly, as they talked, the lawyer’s eyes had become thoughtful.
“I don’t know. He just didn’t seem to be his usual self yesterday when I talked to him. I wondered if maybe he’d told you what was bothering him. Everybody else in Hidden Springs does.”
“I guess I do have good ears. Not a bad thing for a lawyer.” Reece was quiet a minute as though replaying his conversation with Joe over in his head. “But no, Joe just talked about Two Bits and his sister. I can’t recall him saying anything about the murder.”
As Michael walked up the street toward the Grill, he decided maybe that was the oddest thing of all. That Joe hadn’t said anything about the murder. If so, he was the only person in Hidden Springs who wasn’t talking about it.
The more Michael thought about it, the more his uneasiness grew. Joe knew something. Something he didn’t want to tell. Maybe Joe had known Jay Rayburn. The next thought was too unbelievable, but Michael let it surface in his mind anyway. Maybe Joe had shot the man.
Michael shook his head. No way could he picture the barber even holding a handgun, much less firing it at someone. Besides, what reason could Joe have for shooting Jay Rayburn? Then again, what reason did anyone have for shooting Jay Rayburn? Michael didn’t know, but he couldn’t believe the mild-mannered barber was a murderer. He didn’t care what people said about how you could never know everything about a person no matter how long you’d known them.
Michael caught sight of his face in one of the store windows and almost laughed. It was ridiculous to think that Joe Jamison had shot someone and left the body on the courthouse steps. If Joe had shot the man, he’d have come straight into the courthouse to turn himself in and hand over the gun. He wouldn’t have scurried b
ack across the street, fed his cat, and started cutting hair as though nothing had happened.
Joe wasn’t the murderer. While Michael was certain of that, the fact was, Rayburn was dead. Somebody had shot him, and it could be that whatever had happened wasn’t going to make any more sense than some of the impossible ideas people in town were coming up with.
Michael wished he could pick the theory he liked best. If he could, he’d go with Duke Benson’s. Duke stayed drunk more than sober, and yesterday he’d been well on his way to his favorite condition when he’d poked his finger into Michael’s chest for emphasis and claimed aliens had done it. He’d seen it happen, and he’d be glad to testify.
12
The Hidden Springs Grill had been frozen in time for decades. The same dark green counter with matching stools where Michael’s mother and father might have sipped sodas on their first date stretched down one side of the Grill. Booths the same green huddled against the other wall while tables covered with green checkered cloths filled the middle. It wasn’t a pretty green, but folks who came there to eat were more worried about what pie was on special than what color the counter and tables were.
By the time Michael went through the door, the lunch crowd was clearing out. He only had to stop twice to let someone tell him who might have killed the John Doe on the courthouse steps yesterday morning. He didn’t bother telling them the John Doe had a name now. He just acted like he was taking mental notes before he escaped to a back booth, where he hoped to eat in peace.
There was little chance of that. Michael had hardly settled in the booth before Hank Leland got off his stool at the counter and carried his coffee over.
Murder at the Courthouse Page 8