Murder Comes by Mail

by A. H. Gabhart

  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.

  “Don’t say a word!” She glared at him as she came in the door and slammed the fresh-off-the-press Gazette down on her desk. “This has been, without question, the worst morning of my entire life.”

  Betty Jean, who prided herself on looking as good as she could, as she liked to say, had fallen short of her target this day. Wisps of curls she usually pulled down over her forehead and sprayed into place until a tornado wouldn’t budge them were sticking out at odd angles. On top of that, something wasn’t quite right about her makeup, although Michael didn’t know exactly what.

  He wisely chose not to comment on her appearance. “Your mother insist you eat her bacon and eggs?”

  “Country ham and biscuits. My diet is wrecked. My hair is a disaster and my nerves are shot.” She poured coffee in the Florida mug she’d bought on her vacation last year. She stared at the seashells on the cup. “I think I’ll go to Hawaii.”

  “I think you should. Sounds like fun.”

  “Tomorrow.” She stared over at him, as though daring him to say anything against that.

  “I’m thinking Alaska myself.”

  “Good. Maybe all of us should pack up and leave. Close down Hidden Springs for a couple of weeks.” She took a sip of coffee and finally noticed Jasper peeking out from under Michael’s desk. “There’s a dog under your desk.”

  “At least you haven’t lost your perceptive powers.” Michael touched Jasper’s head. The dog looked toward Betty Jean and wagged his tail a bit uncertainly as he inched closer to Michael’s leg.

  “Jasper, I presume.” Betty Jean sounded a little calmer. “Does he have a reason to be here?”

  “He’s under house arrest for disturbing the peace in Aunt Lindy’s neighborhood.” The dog had walked around stiff-legged all morning at the house, even though Aunt Lindy shut Grimalkin up in her bedroom.

  “I’d suggest him being long gone before Uncle Al comes in.”

  “Is he coming in?”

  “You’d have to ask him that. Grandma Potter is better, but he may decide to go fishing.” Betty Jean sipped her coffee, then added, “In Florida. And he hasn’t even seen the last bunch of pictures.” She picked up the Gazette and laid it back down. “I can’t stand to look at any more pictures.”

  “Hank have a story about the pictures?”

  “He published the picture of Hope, smiling, happy, alive, and the publicity shot of the reporter.” She held up the front page for Michael to see. Then she turned the paper around to stare at it. “Poor little thing. I want to cry every time I look at that sweet young thing’s picture. She’s not much more than a baby. Did they find out who she was?”

  “I don’t know. Whitt isn’t likely to share any information with me.”

  “What a jerk!”

  “No argument from me there.” Michael pointed to the paper. “Hank mention Rebecca Ann getting the pictures?”

  “Nope. I guess the public’s need to know doesn’t include them needing to know his daughter was accosted by a serial killer.”

  “She wasn’t exactly accosted. Just used as a messenger.” Michael peeked over Betty’s Jean’s shoulder as he passed behind her desk to fill his coffee cup. “I don’t blame Hank for not mentioning Rebecca Ann. No need putting the child in danger.”

  “She’d already be dead if this psycho wanted her dead.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I’m always right.” Betty Jean’s words were clipped, short. The phone rang. She scowled at it a couple of seconds, then pushed away from her desk. “You answer it. I’m going to the grill for some chocolate-covered doughnuts.”

  The chocolate must have helped, because when she came back a little less than an hour later, she brought Michael a cinnamon twist and Jasper a steak bone. “I took it off Judge Routt�
�s plate. Cindy says he has steak every morning for breakfast. Rare. Blood running down into his eggs. Enough to gag a maggot.”

  “Thanks for the word picture.” Michael dropped his doughnut back down on the napkin, but Jasper’s appetite wasn’t bothered as he settled down to gnaw the bone. “You didn’t forget the yearbook, did you? Need to send Eagleton a picture.”

  “Got it.” She pulled the book out of the tote bag she carried her sneakers in to and from work every day, just in case she found time to walk around the block a couple of times. Michael had never seen the shoes out of her bag.

  “I called Orbrey Perkins.”

  “You called Orbrey Perkins?” She glanced over her shoulder as the scanner hummed. “You must be worse off than I am this morning. Nobody in his right mind calls Orbrey Perkins.”

  “Not unless you want to know something about somebody in Hidden Springs. The man is a wealth of information.” Michael had been on the phone with Orbrey nearly a half hour, but it was time well spent.

  “Did he remember this guy’s family then?”

  “He did. Said they lived on a farm over on Gully Wash Road.” Michael picked up his doughnut again. “The fire department burned down the old house out there a few years back as a training exercise after the Bronsons bought the farm.”

  “I remember that. Hank took pictures and made it look like they almost caught the woods on fire. My cousin was one of the volunteer firemen that day and said the flames never even got close to the trees. That man will write anything to try to sell papers.” Betty Jean repositioned the annual and hit the scanner button again.

  “He does like to make a story dramatic.”

  “Except this week, I guess.” Betty Jean came back to her desk. She pushed the Gazette aside and fired up her computer. “Maybe I can enlarge this picture a little.”

  “That might help.” Michael stood up and watched over her shoulder as she brought up Jackie Johnson’s high school picture. Nothing there to make a person think serial killer.

  “What else did Orbrey tell you about little Jackie here?” Betty Jean pointed at the picture on her computer screen.

  “Nothing about him. Just the place and the family. He knew the farm as the Lillard place, but said that name went back, way before the Johnsons. Orbrey figured somebody in the mother’s family owned the place and let them live there. Everybody could tell they were down on their luck with no means of paying rent. He couldn’t remember her maiden name, but when he asked his wife, she was almost sure she was an Ellis. Virginia Ellis, she said.”

  “Hmm,” Betty Jean murmured as she moved the cursor to enlarge Jackie Johnson’s picture. “I can’t think of anybody named Ellis around here these days.”

  “Mrs. Perkins said the only ones she ever knew moved away some years ago. She had no idea where. Neither did Orbrey.”

  “Then I can’t see how any of this helps. Not if nobody knows where this guy’s family is now. The name Johnson isn’t exactly Zimrock. Probably only a few zillion of them in the country.”

  “You’re right, but it’s all we’ve got. How about your cousin? You talk to her yet?”

  “I can’t do but one thing at a time.” Betty Jean frowned up at him and then back at her screen. “Enlarging this is going to make the picture fuzzy. Do you think they would still have the original photo at the high school? Don’t they keep a photo in the student records?”

  “I can ask, but I’d be surprised if they have records back to when this guy was in school. Nothing digital back then.” He stared at the image on Betty Jean’s screen. It could be the man he pulled back from the edge of the bridge.

  “He was in one of the FFA Club pictures, but it wouldn’t enlarge better than this one. You think he might have had his picture in the Gazette? Maybe doing a project with the club or something? Newspapers keep files of pictures forever, don’t they?”

  “That’s an idea. I’ll check with Hank. Was he at the Grill?”

  “Nope. Cindy hadn’t seen him all morning. Said maybe his wife had finally put him on a real diet, but I told her I didn’t think that was it. That Barbara had gone to visit her folks.” Betty Jean looked up at Michael before he could say anything. “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell her why, although I don’t see what it could hurt. She’ll know before the lunch crowd shows up anyway. Nothing stays secret long in Hidden Springs.” She looked back at the picture. “You want me to print it out or just send it along to Whitt?”

  “Print it first.” Michael moved over to the printer and waited for the picture to slide out. He picked it up and stared at the man who had turned his life into a nightmare. “Maybe I should drive to Eagleton to give Whitt the picture. He might tell me what’s going on then.”

  “He can get it on the computer. You’re not going anywhere,” Betty Jean said matter-of-factly. “I don’t care if Alex calls and says she’ll marry you if you can get there before dark or else forget it. You’re still sticking in Hidden Springs today.”

  Michael twisted his mouth to hide his smile. “I don’t think I’ll get a call like that from Alex, but I did talk to her last night.”

  “I guess you both stuck to cases.” Betty Jean rolled her eyes at him.

  “What else?” He thought about telling Betty Jean about the earring, but decided there was no need her getting worried about him too.

  “If I have to tell you, it’s hopeless anyway.” Betty Jean leaned closer to the computer screen to study the picture. “I don’t know how Miss Keane can be so sure this is Jackson. Maybe if the picture were a little clearer. Why don’t you go check with Hank to see if he might have something better? Maybe even one of the guy’s father so we could see how this Jackie might look when he got older. He could have gotten his picture in the paper holding a turnip that looked like a cow or something. That kind of thing always makes the paper.”

  “Jackson might look like his mother.”

  “Could be. But you should go check on Hank anyway.”

  Michael looked over at her, but she kept her eyes riveted on her fingers on her keyboard as if she’d forgotten how to type. “Since when did you ever worry about Hank Leland?”

  “Well, you saw him yesterday.” She peeked up at Michael and then back at her keyboard. “The poor man was in a shape. What if he had a coronary in his sleep or something?”

  “Quite frankly, I figured you’d think that was good news.”

  “Come on, Michael.” Betty Jean slapped her hand flat against her chest. “You make me sound heartless.”

  “I thought you were when it came to Hank.”

  She waved him toward the door. “Just go check on him already and let me get this picture sent to our Eagleton friends. Then I’ll start looking up every Jackson or Ellis in the state. I tried to look last night, but I forgot my folks don’t have wireless.” She clicked a few keys without looking up. “And don’t expect me to babysit your dog. I like cats. Not dogs.”

  “Right.” Michael hooked the leash on Jasper’s collar and glanced back over at Betty Jean. “By the way, while you’re searching on there, see if you can find out if that doctor, Philip Colson, has ever written any books.”

  “He’s not going to call again, is he?” Betty Jean peered over her computer monitor at Michael.

  “I don’t know why he would. I’ve told him Whitt’s in charge of the investigation, but he did leave a message on my answering machine last night.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Best I could make out he was drumming up business by offering me a cut rate in case I needed his services.”

  “Civic-minded of him.” Betty Jean made a face. “But to be honest, he sounds like he might need a little counseling himself.”

  “I guess if I had to listen to very many stories like Jackson’s, that might push me over the edge.” He wasn’t sure he wasn’t tottering on the edge already.

  “Do you think Jackson told him anything that could help us find him?” Betty Jean waved toward her computer.

  “If he did, C
olson hasn’t shared that information with me or Whitt either, as far as I know. Whitt thinks the doctor is digging for information because he’s writing a book.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said last night. Okay. I’ll check his name on the internet to see if he’s published.”

  “Don’t make it a priority. It’s not important. I’m just curious.” He was almost out the door when Betty Jean called after him. “Don’t you dare tell Hank I told you to check on him. I wouldn’t want him to think he could start hanging around here trying to get the scoop on what’s going on.”

  At the newspaper office, Hank pointed at Jasper. “He can’t come in here unless he’s a seeing-eye dog.”

  Michael led Jasper on into Hank’s office. “Police dog will have to do.” He moved a pile of papers off a chair and sat down in front of the editor’s desk. Jasper glanced around and settled at Michael’s feet as if he knew he’d never be able to sniff everything in the room.

  Hank didn’t argue. He didn’t look capable of arguing.

  “You okay, Hank?”

  “No, I’m not okay.” Hank glared at Michael with bloodshot eyes. “How could I be okay? A man who murders girls touched my daughter. My wife has packed up and taken that daughter and left me. I’m afraid to look at the mail on my desk, and this is the shoddiest piece of newspaper work I’ve ever done.” He picked up the Gazette and shook it at Michael.

  Jasper sat up and peered across the desk at Hank, a low growl sounding in his throat.

  “And now I’ve got dogs growling at me in my own office.” Hank’s voice went up a level as he glared at Jasper. “I hate dogs.”

  “Why?” Michael put his hand on Jasper’s head.

  “Why what?” Hank gave Michael a puzzled look. He’d obviously slept in the office or not slept at all. His desk was littered with empty Styrofoam coffee cups and soft drink cans, but as far as Michael could tell, no new food wrappers gave evidence of him eating anything in the last twenty-four hours.