The Evidence Room: A Mystery by Cameron Harvey Page A

job at the bank, but insisted on pairing it with snakeskin boots. “Guess I’m still a country boy at heart,” he used to tease when she asked him about it.
    “I guess he never mentioned it when I was growing up.” She lowered the gator down to the water’s surface and watched it submerge in one smooth motion.
    Jefferson shrugged. “Not much work for an alligator man up north, I guess.” He laughed, but averted his gaze, as though afraid he had said too much. “Well, I’d better let you get settled. The house should be stocked with everything you need. I do hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything you need, Miss Aurora.”
    “Thank you so much. I guess I need to find my way to the courthouse to file some papers about the house.”
    Jefferson nodded. “I would start at the police station. They handle all manner of stuff down there, records and deeds and whatnot. It’s right in the middle of town. You can’t miss it.”
    “Great.”
    “I’ll let you get settled, then.” He gave her a salute and started down the steps.
    “I’m sorry—Jefferson?”
    He turned.
    “Did you know my mother?”
    “For true,” he said softly. “Raylene was prettier than all the stars in the sky.” The grief was written in bold strokes across his face. Her mother had meant something to Jefferson Gibbs. “For her to leave this earth that way—it wasn’t right. And your grandpappy, he never gave up trying to find out what really happened to her.”
    Something fluttered in Aurora’s chest. “What do you mean?” The story was simple. Aurora’s father had strangled her mother on the shores of the bayou, then disappeared into the night, leaving Aurora on the steps of a local store. In her presence, they’d never mentioned her father. When she pressed Papa for details, he’d told her Wade was an evil man who’d killed her mother in a fit of rage. She’d never questioned the story, and to her knowledge, neither had he.
    “Hunter came down here, every couple of months or so. Said it was to take care of the house, but I know different. He was working on something. He told me last time he was in town, he says, ‘Jefferson, I’m getting close to finding out what happened that night on the bayou.’”
    “I don’t understand. The case is closed. We know what happened.” Even while she spoke, the pieces were falling together in her mind. The fishing trips before he’d gotten sick. ‘The fishing was good, just the catching was bad,’ he’d joked when he’d returned to the house empty-handed. Papa had been here. All this time, she’d thought he’d put her mother out of his mind, but he’d been coming here, trying to figure out what had happened to his only daughter that night on the bayou. She should have been stunned, she should have felt betrayed somehow—but she felt none of those things. Papa had always been her hero, her defender, the person she turned to for help. Knowing that he’d been the same for her mother, even after her death, just made her feel that he was the man she had known all along.
    “Do you know what he thought? What he was working on?” The questions tumbled in her brain.
    Jefferson shook his head and gestured towards the set of keys in Aurora’s right hand. “It’s not for me to know,” he said. “You take care, now, Miss Aurora. Call if you need anything at all.” He plodded back down the steps and then paused, turning back once again. “I left everything the way it was,” he said, “just like your granddaddy told me to.”
    “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she nodded in gratitude. “Thank you for everything.”
    Aurora twisted the key and pushed the heavy door open. She flipped the light switch and then covered her mouth, grasping the elbow of a stately armoire to steady herself.
    Crucifixes covered every available wall space. Silver and gold, plastic and wooden, large and small, they stretched in uneven rows around the length of the great room, floor