Murder Comes by Mail

by A. H. Gabhart

  The town was quiet except for the roar of lawn mowers chewing up grass. On Court Street, a few kids kicked around a ball. At the elementary school some high school boys were shooting basketballs in spite of the heat curling up from the blacktop court.

  Nothing was out of order. Michael knew every car he passed and every face he saw on the street.

  He tried to empty his mind of thoughts of a monster stalking his town and think about the situation logically. Jackson or whoever was driving Jackson’s car had to have gotten to Hidden Springs some way. No buses delivered people to Hidden Springs. A hitchhiker or walker drew a lot of attention out on the interstate, and a stranger on foot in Hidden Springs was rare enough that, often as not, a shopkeeper would call the police just in case the person was up to no good.

  So it was probable the man had driven to Hidden Springs or someone had brought him. Psychos were loners. They didn’t work in pairs. So what could explain Rebecca Ann saying the man who gave her the pictures didn’t look like Jackson’s picture?

  Who but Jackson would even know his car was here in Hidden Springs or have a key? Of course, a car could be hotwired easily enough. And Jackson could have intentionally disguised himself with the hat, beard, and mirror glasses. The winter gloves might have simply been to be sure none of his fingerprints were on the envelope.

  Betty Jean radioed him that Detective Whitt was in town and headed to the Leland house.

  “Okay, I’m on my way back over there,” Michael told her.

  “You didn’t spot him—?”

  Michael cut off her question. “Remember the town has ears.”

  “Yeah, okay, but did you?”

  “No such luck. But track down Buck and bring him up to date. He could be patrolling out at the interstate.”

  “Sure thing, Michael. Then I’m locking up. I’ve got Bunco tonight at my house, and dust is an inch thick on my lamp tables. Plus, the girls will be disappointed if I don’t bake my lemon squares.”

  “The sheriff come in?”

  “I tried to get hold of him, but they’ve taken Grandma Potter to the hospital in Eagleton. He’s probably over there. I called, but she wasn’t in a room yet. I could page him, but what good would that do except get his blood pressure up. I’ll call him and fill him in later.”

  “All right. Just be sure to get Buck before you leave.” Michael clicked off the radio. Buck probably wouldn’t turn up anything, but at least he’d be on the lookout.

  At the Leland house, Michael introduced everybody, then leaned back against the doorjamb while the others gathered around the round glass-top kitchen table. Rebecca Ann stared through the glass at her feet as she went through her story again.

  Whitt let her tell it all and then asked his questions. Did she know exactly what time it was? Had she ever seen the man before? Was anybody else around who might have seen the man talking to her?

  Chekowski took notes, and when Rebecca Ann told Whitt the man didn’t much look like the one in the paper, Chekowski looked up and suggested a police artist. Whitt ignored her. Instead he fastened his eyes on Hank. “I think you can rest easy that your daughter is in no danger, Mr. Leland.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” Barbara Leland spoke up, a tremble evident in her voice. “She’s not your daughter. We’re not staying here to take that chance.”

  Whitt leveled his eyes on her. “Ma’am, if the man intended to hurt your daughter, he could have done so today. He simply used her as a messenger.”

  Barbara didn’t shy away from Whitt’s stare. “We’re going. Tonight. To my parents’ house in Georgia.”

  “Whatever you think best, ma’am. All of you going?” Whitt looked at Hank.

  “I’ve got a paper to put out,” Hank said.

  “Nothing stops the news.” Whitt’s lips turned up into something resembling a smile as he reached into his shirt pocket to pull out a business card. He handed it across the table to Barbara. “If your daughter remembers anything else, give me a call.”

  “Don’t you think she should talk to your police artist first? Before they leave.” Michael spoke up for the first time. Chekowski kept her eyes on her notebook.

  Whitt narrowed his eyes on Michael. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Deputy, since we already know what the perpetrator looks like. We have photos on hand.”

  Michael clamped his lips together and kept quiet, but Hank didn’t let it go. “But, Detective, she’s not positive it was the same guy.”

  “Mr. Leland, your daughter’s description clearly indicates the perp had disguised his appearance. A sketch of a disguise is next to useless.” Whitt chopped his hand through the air as though to close the matter. He settled his eyes on Rebecca Ann, who looked close to tears. His voice softened. “Rebecca, you’ve been a big help, but we don’t have any more questions now. If you think of anything else, you tell your mama and she’ll call me, okay?”

  She nodded.

  Whitt smiled at her, as human as Michael had seen him look. “And don’t you worry. We’re not going to let anybody hurt you.”

  Whitt and Chekowski followed Michael back to the courthouse to check out the pictures he’d left there. All the offices had long since closed, and Whitt shifted from one foot to the other impatiently while Michael unlocked the back door to the courthouse and then the sheriff’s office.

  Beside him, Chekowski was taking in the silent building with an expression near to wonder. “Doesn’t anybody break the law down here after hours?” she asked.

  “We have a dispatcher over in the police chief’s office. Something happens, she knows where to find us.” Michael pushed open the door to the sheriff’s office and flicked on the lights. “We don’t have a lot of crime down here during or after hours.”

  “Lucky you,” Chekowski said.

  “Sounds boring,” Whitt said.

  “Yeah.” Michael pointed out the envelope still on his desk where Hank had thrown it.

  Whitt was all business again. “Who opened it?”

  “Rebecca Ann. Then she showed her mother and father.”

  “Did you look at them?” Whitt pulled a pair of plastic gloves out of his pocket and slid them on before picking up the envelope.

  “I slid one out enough to see what it was. I didn’t touch them.” Michael didn’t like Whitt’s attitude, but he couldn’t do a lot about it. No doubt he would like it even less after he showed him the earring in his pocket.

  “Is there a letter?” Whitt asked.

  “I don’t know. I told you I didn’t take the pictures out of the envelope.”

  Whitt dumped the envelope on the desk and spread out the pictures. Different girl, but shots eerily similar to the first set. One showed the young reporter, alive, looking intense but not frightened, and then the one Michael had seen earlier where she looked terrified. In the posed shots of the girl after she was dead, her head and hands were positioned exactly the same as Hope’s. But there was no sign of a bullet hole in Kim Barbour’s head.

  “Same weapon?” Michael asked.

  Whitt kept his eyes on the pictures without answering. Chekowski, for once not totally tuned in to Whitt, spoke up. “Same type. They’ll have to do the lab work before we know if it was the same gun. Of course, this shot was different. The fatal wound appeared to be under the ribs and up through the heart. At least it was quick.” The woman suddenly became aware of Whitt’s eyes on her. Color pinked her cheeks as she dropped her eyes to her feet. “Sorry, sir.”

  Whitt sighed and looked back down at the pictures. “A little different MO but same killer. Widely dissimilar victims. Barbour wasn’t nameless. Far from it. And she wasn’t found in a church.”

  “The radio said her body was found in her car in front of the television station,” Michael said.

  “Only a fool believes everything on the news.” Whitt didn’t bother to let Michael know what, if any, part of the news could be believed. He scooted around the pictures. “Here’s the letter.”

  Michael want
ed to move close enough to read the killer’s words, but he stayed where he was on the far side of the desk. Best watch from a distance and do his best to not blow up at Whitt.

  He could almost hear Aunt Lindy’s voice in his head giving him reasons to tamp down his anger. A man who can’t control his temper is at the mercy of his emotions. Angry people lose arguments nine times out of ten. Seeing red keeps a person from thinking clearly. He believed all that was right, but the red haze kept growing around Whitt’s head anyway.

  Whitt looked up and locked eyes with Michael. “The letter’s to you, Deputy.” Slowly he turned the page around and pushed it across the desk. Michael moved closer to read it. Chekowski stepped up beside him and took a picture of the letter.

  SHE THOUGHT YOU WERE A HERO AND THAT SO WOULD I. I WONDER WHAT SHE WOULD THINK NOW IF SHE HADN’T HAD TO DIE. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET, MR. HERO? YOU SHOULD HAVE LET MY NIGHTMARE END. THEN HOPE AND KIM WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO LIVE THEIRS. WHO’S DREAMING NEXT?

  The all-capital letters were plain block, extra-dark font. Michael stared at the letter until the words seemed to lift up off the page and attack his eyes. The last sentence struck terror in his heart. Who would be next?

  “He didn’t waste any time between victims.” At last Michael looked up from the letter.

  “He’s a go-getter for sure.” Whitt leaned back in Michael’s desk chair and surveyed the office. His eyes landed on the coffeemaker. “Any chance for some coffee?”

  “Sure.” Michael measured out the coffee and wondered how he was going to bring up the earring.

  He’d waited too long. It was going to strike Whitt as odd. It struck Michael as odd. So odd that he thought about just letting the earring stay in his pocket. Whitt was already looking at him as if the nightmare was his fault, that he’d set things in motion just by being country bumpkin enough to keep the poor schmuck from jumping. Hero of the day. Monster of the decade. More like lifetime.

  The coffee machine gurgled. What was it Hank had said? That the poor Joe on the bridge hadn’t looked like monster material. But then how many psycho killers had Hank actually met? About as many as Michael.

  Behind him, Chekowski read her notes of Rebecca Ann’s story out loud to Whitt. Michael listened with half an ear while he rummaged around in the cabinet under the coffeepot for Styrofoam cups. Betty Jean kept them hidden because she said if the cups were in plain sight, every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town would be lining up for free coffee. She had no intention of stealing Cindy’s business at the Grill.

  He finally found five or six of the cups stuck in behind Betty Jean’s stash of tissue boxes.

  Michael asked about sugar or creamer and sat their coffee in front of them. He didn’t waste any more time wondering about the earring in his pocket. Every fact in an investigation could prove helpful in catching the perpetrator, and he wanted to catch this man. Besides, he had no reason to feel like a kid who’d just put a dent in the fender of his dad’s new truck and was afraid to drive it home.

  Michael pulled the plastic bag holding the earring out of his pocket and placed it on his desk in front of Whitt.

  Chekowski spoke first. “Victim one’s other earring.”

  19

  “What’s going on here, Keane?” Whitt frowned up at Michael. “You lift this from the crime scene yesterday?”

  The red exploded in front of Michael. He put both hands flat on the desk—his desk—and stared at Whitt. “It’s time we got a few things straight, Detective Whitt. I may be a small-town deputy but that doesn’t make me dumb.”

  “Being a deputy doesn’t.” Whitt leaned forward in the chair and locked eyes with Michael. “Tampering with evidence does.”

  Chekowski circled them. “I think everybody needs to calm down.”

  Michael kept his eyes on Whitt. “I don’t tamper with evidence. I bag it and label it and give it to the officer in charge. Now do you want to know where I found it or do you want to keep on trying to prove who’s got the biggest nightstick?”

  Whitt rose up out of the chair until his face was inches from Michael’s. “No contest there, Deputy. You keep messing with me and you won’t even have a nightstick.”

  “All right, guys, get a grip.” Chekowski put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and pushed him back. “While you’re yelling at each other, this psycho could be zeroing in on victim three.”

  Michael slowly straightened up and took a deep breath. Chekowski was right. Nothing could be accomplished by butting heads with Whitt. What he needed to remember were the killer’s words. Who’s dreaming next? The guy had been to Hidden Springs. Was he picking out a victim here? Thank God, not Rebecca Ann.

  “Sorry, Detective. I got out of line,” Michael said.

  “You got that right. It happens again, I’ll slap you behind bars so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  “Aaron,” Chekowski started, but after a swift look from Whitt, she didn’t say anything else.

  Michael tried counting to ten, but only made it to five. “On what charges? Last I heard it wasn’t against the law to stop a suicide.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s obstructing justice and concealing evidence.” Whitt sat back down in Michael’s chair, leaned back, and put his long fingers together in a tent shape as he stared at Michael, almost as if he were waiting, even hoping, for another outburst.

  But the anger drained out of Michael. He was exhausted, and all he wanted to do was get this man out of his chair, out of his office, and out of his life. He kept his voice level. “No evidence has been concealed. At least by me. I called you, left a message, and didn’t get a return call. So there it is in front of you now. I found it in the bottom of my washing machine this morning and put it in that bag. I would have shipped it over to you, but then things went haywire around here.”

  “Your washing machine?” Whitt motioned to Chekowski to pull out her notebook. “You want to explain to us how that could have happened?”

  “The only way it could have happened. Jackson must have come into my house and planted it in a pile of dirty clothes in the middle of my bedroom floor.” Michael sat down in the chair Hank had collapsed into earlier and waited for the next question.

  “Break and entry?” Chekowski asked.

  “Doors weren’t locked.” Michael glanced over at her. She had pulled Betty Jean’s chair out away from the desk and was scribbling in her notebook propped on her knee.

  “You always leave your doors unlocked, Deputy?” Whitt asked.

  “I live out on the lake. It’s a very remote spot. Nobody comes down that way unless they’re coming to see me, and I have an open-door policy for my friends who fish there. There’s never been any need to lock the doors before.”

  “What a place,” Chekowski muttered over her notes.

  Whitt stuck to business. “Nothing missing? Out of place?”

  “No. My dog was acting funny when I got home last night, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Acting funny? What do you mean?”

  “Growling, hackles up, barking at shadows. The way he does if there’s a coyote or fox around.”

  “Or a stranger?” Whitt asked.

  “Or a stranger,” Michael said.

  “So what time was this? Eight? Nine last night?”

  “Three-forty-five a.m. when I went inside and checked my messages.”

  Whitt raised his eyebrows a little. “Sort of late for a working day, wasn’t it, Deputy?”

  “I met a friend in Wayland, West Virginia, last night for dinner.”

  “Wayland? That has to be three hours or more from here, right?”

  “About four if you drive the speed limit.”

  “And did you drive the speed limit?” Whitt settled back in the chair, making it squeak.

  “Not always.”

  “Anybody know you went? That is, besides this friend you met?”

  “Betty Jean Atkins. She works in the office here.”

  Whitt leaned forward to prop his el
bows on the desk. “Okay, now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You find out this miscreant you so heroically kept from jumping just murdered a poor innocent child of a girl and you take off for a town a few hundred miles away. Not your typical law officer response to crime.”

  “The murder wasn’t my case.” Michael met Whitt’s stare straight on. “I had been told expressly not to get involved in any way with the investigation by the detective in charge.”

  “Okay, you made your point.” Whitt picked a pen up off the desk and leaned back again. He twirled the pen through his fingers. “So you go home. It’s almost 4:00 a.m. Your dog’s nervous. How about you? You nervous?”

  “I thought it might be more than a coyote, but when I went inside and nothing was out of order except my sink was dripping, then I decided my imagination was running away with me.”

  “Your sink was dripping?” Chekowski looked up from her notes.

  “Right. That’s how I can usually tell if somebody’s been there fishing. They come in and wash their hands and don’t know they need to give the sink tap an extra shove to keep it from dripping.”

  “Any of your friends say they were there yesterday?” Whitt asked.

  “I haven’t had a chance to find that out. I’ll check around tomorrow.”

  “So nothing messed with except your sink,” Whitt went on. “So what did you do then?”

  “Checked my phone messages and went to bed.”

  “Any messages?”

  “Yes. One about a date I’d forgotten. Two from my friend saying she wasn’t sure she would be able to meet me in Wayland, and one from that Dr. Colson who treated Jackson at the hospital, and one hang-up.”

  The doctor’s name got Whitt’s attention. “Why was Colson calling you?”

  “When I called him back today, he said something about wanting to help the law enforcement agencies as much as he could. I told him to call you, but he claimed you didn’t seem interested in his theories.”

  “Is that right? What kind of theories?” Whitt asked.

  “Something about how Jackson wasn’t following any typical patterns with his choice of victims.”