Murder at the Courthouse by A. H. Gabhart Page B

learned fast who was a prime sucker for a sob story. But some sob stories were true. So he and Preacher Dan found the two kids a place to wait out the months. Michael had financed it. The last time he heard from Preacher Dan, the mother was out and had kept her word about getting a job. Hallie was going to high school and Erik had learned to read.
    Michael still sent money. Nobody knew about it but PreacherDan. Maybe Michael couldn’t make a difference in every street kid’s life, but he had made a difference in Hallie’s. The day she turned and looked at him in that warehouse, her life had been in his hands. Sometimes he felt as if it still was.
    But he owed her something too. She was the reason he left the city before he got hardened like Pete. He was happy to be back in Hidden Springs where people didn’t need a gun shoved in their faces to listen to reason. Where there was some real chance of keeping the peace.
    Then what happened? Some John Doe got himself killed on the courthouse steps. A preliminary autopsy report had come in from Eagleton right before he left the office. The victim was shot in the back at close range with a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, a gun as common as fleas on a dog, even in Hidden Springs. There had to be four or five of them, confiscated for this or that reason, gathering dust in the sheriff’s evidence room at the courthouse.
    So knowing the type of weapon wasn’t much help. They hadn’t gotten an ID on the victim yet either. The man’s fingerprints weren’t on file in the computer system, and nobody matching his description had been reported missing.
    Michael wondered again if maybe he should have stayed at the office in case something came in, but the sheriff had practically pushed him out the door. “Don’t look so worried, boy. Nobody expects you to solve a murder in a day.”
    â€œI’m not so sure about that,” Michael muttered. Everybody he talked to that afternoon not only wanted a suspect behind bars, they had their own theories about the murder. Some wild stories that made absolutely no sense were making the rounds, but then what kind of sense did finding a body on the courthouse steps make?
    The sheriff acted like he didn’t hear Michael as they headed for the back door. The other offices were already locked up, and the hall was empty except for Roy White. The janitor pushed his mop along the hallway so slowly the mop practically had time to dry out before he finished his swipe and dipped it in the bucket again.
    In spite of being stooped from years of pushing a broom, Roy was still half a head taller than Michael and a full head taller than the sheriff. His long bones had so little padding that sometimes Michael expected to hear them clattering inside his skin when the old man moved, but if they did, the jangle of the huge ring of keys clipped to his belt drowned it out. Roy looked up from mopping to ask the sheriff if he was sure it was safe in the courthouse.
    â€œNow, have you ever had anything to worry about in all the years you’ve been cleaning the place here, Roy?” The sheriff smiled at the man. “Just how many years is that now?”
    The old man leaned on his mop handle and gave the question some thought, concentration increasing the wrinkles lining his eyes. “Well, let’s see, Sheriff. How long is it you’ve been in office?”
    â€œGoing on twelve years,” the sheriff answered. “And you were here a good many years before that.”
    Michael tried not to fidget as they waited for the janitor to consider his answer. A phone rang in one of the offices, a muffled, somehow lonesome sound. Roy and the sheriff paid it no attention as they both stood there, one thinking of an answer, the other waiting for an answer he already knew.
    Finally Roy said, “I reckon it was twenty-two years back in November, Alvin. It was dry that summer and the tobacco didn’t bring in much that