Michael blocked the path out the door and turned to the two women behind him. “Stella, why don't you take Miss Willadean back to speak to Neville? I'm sure he's wondering why she high-hatted him this morning.”
Stella raised her eyebrows at Michael, but she did as he said and took hold of the old lady's arm. Miss Willadean allowed Stella to tow her two steps back toward the clerk's office before she put on the brakes. Michael could almost see her thinking Neville Gravitt would be in his office all day, but if there was someone in Hidden Springs she didn't know, it was her bounden duty to find out his name and his business.
She shook off Stella's hand. “I will not. I'll stay right here and be sure you do your job, Deputy. It's my right as a tax-paying citizen.”
Michael knew when he was beaten. There was nothing for it but to pull out his radio, push the button, and open up the line to the office with Miss Willadean's ears tuned to every word.
“Betty Jean, get hold of the sheriff and Chief Sibley and tell them to come on down.” He paused a moment. “And bring out some of that police line tape.”
“Police line tape?” Betty Jean's voice crackled through the radio. The static didn't hide her surprise. “You mean like on TV? Do we even have any of that stuff?”
“The bottom shelf by the door.” Beside him, Stella and Miss Willadean both looked as baffled as Betty Jean sounded. “I guess you might as well go ahead and call the state police too.” Michael hesitated again, but it had to be said. “And get hold of Justin Thatcher.”
When he said the coroner's name, Stella's eyes widened, and she was almost pretty.
“What do you need Justin for?” Miss Willadean's voice went up a few decibels. “You don't need a coroner to tell you the man's inebriated.”
“No, Miss Willadean, you don't.” He put his hand on her arm and spoke gently, almost as if he were breaking the news about a family member. “I'm afraid the man out there isn't drunk. He's dead.”
The color drained away from the two spots of rouge on Miss Willadean's cheeks, and she swooned. Michael caught her easily. Beside her, Stella let out a gasp, but Michael wasn't sure whether it was because the man was dead or because she hadn't thought to swoon before Miss Willadean did.
Neville Gravitt, who must have come out into the hall looking for Stella, rescued Michael. He shoved one of the chairs that sat along the wall under Miss Willadean. Michael lowered the limp woman down into the chair and looked at Neville. The slightly stooped, graying county clerk met Michael's eyes. While Neville Gravitt didn't have much imagination, he had enough to know what Miss Willadean would surmise when she opened her eyes to see him tending to her. So the hint of desperation that appeared in the man's eyes was
understandable. Nevertheless he loosened Miss Willadean's collar and sent Stella after a cup of water.
Michael went out the door to get a closer look at the man slumped against the column. He was, as Miss Willadean noted, a stranger. Michael squatted down and lifted the man's hand. Not long dead, but definitely dead, and not from ordinary causes like a heart attack or stroke. Not with the smear of dark red on the column behind him and a slowly coagulating pool blood around him. He didn't know how Miss Willadean had missed that.
Michael pulled out his radio again and told Betty Jean to bring a camera when she brought the police tape.
She came right out to see what was going on. It was so quick that Michael was sure she couldn't have made the first call.
When she saw the body, she got pale around her lips, but she didn't come anywhere close to fainting. Not Betty Jean. She might have gotten her job in the sheriff's office because she was the sheriff's niece, but she was good at the job. Hardly anything anybody did surprised her. Even better, she was a computer whiz and had no problem handling the folks who raised a ruckus about paying their property taxes. A couple of years older than Michael, she was a few pounds on the heavy side and unmarried in spite of being a faithful subscriber to
Brides
magazine.
She handed Michael the camera and tape. “I guess Miss Willadean will have enough to talk about from this to last her the rest of her life.”
Michael didn't bother agreeing as he focused in on the corpse.
Betty Jean hadn't moved. “She'll probably even get her name mentioned in the
Gazette
.”
Michael looked up from the camera to glance uneasily
across the courthouse lawn toward the street. The
Hidden Springs Gazette
office was a mere half block away. Hank Leland would be there in two minutes flat if he got wind of something going on at the courthouse. All that had saved them so far from curious onlookers were the empty sidewalks and the fact that most people parked in the lot behind the courthouse and used the rear entrance.
Michael looked at Betty Jean. “You better go make those calls. It wouldn't do for Hank to find out about this before Chief Sibley or Sheriff Potter.”
Betty Jean shook herself a little, as though coming out of a trance. “Right.” She took one last look at the man's body. “A funny place to pick to die.”
“I don't think he did the picking.”
“You mean . . .” Betty Jean stopped and took another look at the blood on the post and step.
“You better go make those calls.”
With a quick nod, she headed toward the courthouse door. When she pulled it open, Judge Campbell's voice boomed out his usual good morning as he showed up for work. Then the door shut again, clipping off the confusion of voices answering him.
Michael was surprised nobody had followed Betty Jean outside. Neville must be guarding the door to give Michael time to do what needed to be done.
If only he felt more certain about what that might be as he took a few pictures and then gingerly felt the man's pockets without disturbing his final resting position. A roll of bills and some change. No phone. No wallet that he could feel. No business cards. Nothing to explain why he was dead on the Hidden Springs Courthouse steps.
Michael hadn't worked a murder in Hidden Springs, hadn't actually ever worked a murder. He and Pete had come across a few dead bodies in the city. Suicides or overdoses mostly. Some accidents. A child hit by a car. Another kid thrown down the stairs by his drunken father. The kids were always the worst. Preacher Dan who ran a ministry for street kids called them throwaways. Kids nobody wanted. Kids nobody would miss.
Michael couldn't say he missed them since he hadn't known them. But he had grieved for them, for the loss of hope and innocence. For how easily their life flame had been snuffed out. And their lifeless faces had a way of popping up in his head at odd times to bring back the sadness. They were there now as he stretched the yellow police tape around the porch pillars, the World War I monument, and a conveniently located tree.
Michael looked at the body against the post and wished he'd told Betty Jean to bring out something to cover it up. Somehow it seemed obscene to leave the man exposed like that where everybody could stare at him. Even worse was the feeling the man was staring back.
“You can't see 'em as a person,” Pete's voice echoed in his head. That's what he told Michael whenever they found a body. “There's too many dead people to cry over them all. Better to concentrate on what happened to them and why.”
Michael tried to do that now. He blocked out the thought of the man eating breakfast awhile ago with no idea this day was going to be his last. The almost surprised look that death had frozen on his face didn't matter now. What mattered was why the man was there on the Hidden Springs Courthouse steps where folks didn't get murdered. At least never until today.
Murders rarely happened anywhere in Hidden Springs. Winston Lakes shot his son-in-law a few years ago, but everybody knew why that happened. There were only so many times a man could stand seeing his daughter get beat up, no matter the consequences. Then that tourist had shot his wife before he killed himself out at the campgrounds on the lake. That was while Michael was in the city, but Aunt Lindy had written him about it.
Maybe that was what happened here. Maybe it wasn't a murder at all. Maybe the man had shot himself. A hard theory to hold on to with no gun in sight and the fatal wound not visible. Obviously shot in the back. On top of that, a man who shot himself had no reason to look so surprised. None of that kept Michael from wanting to think it possible.
“Neville tells me there's a body out here. What in the name of Jehoshaphat is a body doing on the courthouse steps?” Judge Campbell's voice boomed loud enough to alert half the town as he came out of the courthouse.
The judge always talked that way. He claimed it won him votes because nobody ever had to ask him twice what he had to say. Michael couldn't say he was wrong. The judge had won three consecutive terms as judge-executive of Keane County.
“I don't know, Judge. I was just wondering if the poor soul shot himself.”
The judge looked a little green around the gills as he stared down at the body. “Why in the world would he come here to do that? Unless it was some kind of political protest or something. You think that could be it?”
Michael couldn't believe the judge was being serious, but it wasn't exactly a time for joking. So Michael only said, “I don't think so, Judge.”
Folks started flocking into the courthouse yard, attracted by the judge's voice and the yellow plastic strips flashing in the sunshine. Chief Sibley and his son-in-law, Paul Osgood, arrived in their patrol car with the roof lights flashing. Buck Garrett was right behind them in his unmarked state police car. His blue light went round and round on the dash. Every store on Main Street emptied out.
Hank Leland came running and pushed through the crowd to edge up close to Michael, the only county or city official he knew would actually speak to him. The others gave him rehearsed quotes. Carefully.
“Can you believe this?” Hank peered toward the body. “I guess I should have been suspicious instead of relieved when Miss Willadean didn't show up at 9:22 to tell me what stories to put on the front page this week.”
“Your news instincts must have dozed off,” Michael said.
“Dozed off?! I must not have any. Look at that. A stiff on the courthouse steps half a block from my office. What's going on, Keane?”
“You know about as much as I know, Leland, and probably will know a lot more than me before the day's over.”
Hank grinned. “Not me. I'm hopeless. I didn't even pick up my camera. I had to give Harold Hoskins five dollars to go back and get it.” Hank looked up the street toward his offices. Harold was nowhere in sight. “I guess I should have made it ten bucks.”
“Or picked somebody who can move faster than Harold.” Michael shook his head at Hank and walked away. He still wanted to check for some kind of trail or clues, and with this many people converging, he needed to look fast.
The judge was ahead of him, stepping over the yellow
police lines to walk across the portico and stare down at the dead man.
“Don't move around in there, Judge,” Michael called, but it was too late.
The judge glanced down at his shoes, swore under his breath, and scooted his feet on the concrete as he walked back toward the courthouse door, leaving a bloody smudge with each step.
After that, the only good thing to happen was the coroner showed up with his body sheet before Harold got there with Hank Leland's camera.
As more people gathered on the courthouse lawn, what had been an interesting sideshow turned into a three-ring circus. All they needed were bleachers for the spectators and a spotlight for the performers. And a ringmaster. That was what they needed most.
Michael felt a lot more like a spectator than a ringmaster. But even if he couldn't direct the show, he could act like a police officer and do something instead of simply taking in the sights. He headed over toward Paul Osgood and Buck Garrett, then changed directions when their conversation turned into a shouting match about who got to tell who what to do. They hadn't even looked at the body yet.
That was their problem. His was making sure nobody else followed Judge Campbell's lead and climbed across the police lines to get a closer look at the body. The judge had left tracks across the porch and no doubt right on into the courthouse. The chance for gathering any useful evidence was getting slimmer by the minute.
At least he had taken pictures of the scene before the circus started. He held up his camera and took two more of
the body. Then just for the heck of it, he turned the camera on Paul and Buck up in each other's faces. Buck Garrett's muscles strained against his state police uniform. He could easily make two of Paul Osgood, who looked more like somebody's idea of an accountant than a police officer, but in a war of words, Paul might come out the winner.
Michael looked away from them to focus in on Sheriff Potter bustling up the walk, one of the Grill's white coffee mugs in his hand. Before the sheriff could notice him there and ask why he was playing with his camera at a time like this, Michael turned to find Hank Leland in his viewfinder. Hank had sneaked inside the yellow police line to edge up behind the coroner examining the body. Hank spotted Michael taking his picture and gave him a goofy smile. Then Michael snapped a shot of Judge Campbell coming back out of the courthouse, presumably after cleaning his shoes.
Michael turned the camera on the crowd in the courthouse yard and took some random shots. Nobody could be left in any of the stores or offices in all of Hidden Springs. Even Reece Sheridan had come across the street, and hardly anything but the promise of good fishing stirred him out from behind his lawyer's desk these days.
When Michael spotted Anthony Blake in the crowd, he wondered if they'd dismissed classes at school so everybody could share the excitement. But of course, it wasn't school that had been dismissed, just Anthony who had dismissed school.
Michael frowned. It was part of the boy's last deal with the court that he not skip school. Sometimes Michael wondered if the kid really wanted to stay out of jail.
At sixteen, Anthony had already been in and out of trouble
a half-dozen times. Nothing major, but he seemed to be working up to it. Anthony must have felt Michael's eyes on him, because he jerked his head around to look directly at Michael. Something near panic flashed across his face before he ducked behind the World War I monument.
Michael started across the lawn toward Anthony, but Sheriff Potter stepped in front of him.
“What in the world is going on here, Mike? Why didn't you call me sooner?” The sheriff's fleshy face was red and glistening with sweat, even though the morning was cool.
“I told Betty Jean to call you, Sheriff. First thing.”
“From the looks of it, she must have called everybody else in the county before she remembered my number.” The sheriff pulled a white handkerchief out of his back pocket and mopped off his face.
“I'm sure she called you first. It's just that you had to walk down here, and the chief and Paul came down in their car.”
“I don't guess that matters now.” The sheriff pulled in a breath and blew it out. “What's this about a body on the steps? Whose body?”
“I don't think he's been identified yet.”
The sheriff's eyes tightened a little. “What happened to him?”
“I can't be sure. I didn't think I should disturb the body until after Justin had a look. He's examining him now.”
The sheriff glanced toward where the coroner was bent over the body. “Yeah, well, he'll probably be able to tell he's dead anyway.” He took a sip of the coffee in his mug, made a face, and slung the rest of the brown liquid out on the ground. “What do you think, Mike? You're bound to have seen this kind of thing a lot up in the big town.”
“Not that much, but looks like he was shot.”
“Shot, huh?” The sheriff didn't wait for an answer. “He shoot himself?”
“No indication of that. No weapon nearby.”
The sheriff muttered a few choice words before he turned his attention to Paul and Buck. “What are those two going at each other about?”
“I think they're trying to work out whose jurisdiction this falls under.”
The sheriff rolled his eyes heavenward and mopped his brow again. “I reckon I'd better go straighten them out and then see what Justin has to say.” He shoved the empty cup at Michael. “Next time somebody gets shot on the courthouse steps, you make sure Betty Jean calls me first.”
Michael didn't bother to answer as the sheriff stepped over the police line fairly easily, in spite of his considerable bulk. He looked back at Michael. “Good idea these police lines.”
“Yeah, if we could just keep the people on this side of them.” Michael looked around at the people leaning across the strips to get a better look.
“People want to see what happened. Natural as breathing. Find Lester and get him to help you keep the crowd back.”
Crowd control. Michael couldn't keep an ironic smile off his face. But it didn't matter. The sheriff had already turned away to pat Paul's shoulder and punch Buck's arm. The sheriff knew how to handle people, and Michael supposed he knew how to handle crowds.
He'd pulled a lot of that kind of duty in the city. Kept the spectators out of the street during parades. Dragged protesters off to jail when they wouldn't clear an area. Worked the crowds at concerts to make sure the kids didn't trample
each other in their fan frenzy. Held back reporters when some big shot got arrested. It wasn't something he enjoyed doing, and it wasn't something he ever expected to need to do in Hidden Springs.
Almost as if the sheriff had called him, Lester Stucker came out of the courthouse and stared in a kind of dazed wonder at all the people. When Michael motioned to him, the little deputy slowly made his way over. It took him awhile since he couldn't push anybody out of his way and no one paid him much mind. Lester was so thin that folks joked about him getting under a clothesline to get out of the rain. He always laughed with them, even though he must have heard the same joke or some version of it a thousand times.
Lester liked being a deputy sheriff, especially his duty as crossing guard at the elementary school. Lester had only missed being in his appointed spot twice in the three years he'd been working the street in front of the school. Once when he'd had pneumonia and once for his father's funeral. It was the first important job Lester had ever had in his forty-three years. While his mother had told him bagging groceries was important, even Lester knew wearing a uniform that included a gun, whether it was loaded or not, was miles ahead of that.
Now, when Michael told him they needed to keep the people back, Lester's eyes lit up as he fingered his whistle. “Sure, Michael. Do you think I'll need to blow my whistle at them? You know, to get their attention like I do the kids out at school.”
“I don't think so, Lester. Just tell them to step back if they're getting too close. They'll listen without the whistle.”
“What about that Hank Leland?” Lester's eyes narrowed as Hank came toward them. “He won't listen to anybody.”
“I'll take care of Hank,” Michael promised.
Lester gave Hank a look as he headed over to tell Miss Stapleton from the bank to step back a bit.
“What's Lester looking so pleased about?” Hank asked.
“He's getting to tell people what to do. Grown-up people.”
“I ought to take a picture of him and put it in the paper. That might make him decide I'm an okay guy and give me a tip sometime.”
“A tip about what? Who's playing hooky at the grade school?”
“Yeah, well, it's a thought.” Hank shrugged with a grin. “Sometimes news in Hidden Springs is slow.”
“Not today.”
“No siree,” Hank agreed. “Not today. Did you hear Justin's pronouncement?”
Michael shook his head, not looking at Hank but watching Paul and Buck move apart and finally head over to look at the body. Sheriff Potter stood back and watched them like a satisfied father.
Hank followed his gaze. “They're a pair, aren't they?”
“No comment.”
“Oh come on, Michael, don't give me that. Somebody around here has to comment on something.” Hank fingered the little notebook in his shirt pocket. “If I quote you, I promise I'll say it was from an anonymous source.”
“That's a promise you won't have any trouble keeping because I'm not saying anything to quote.” Michael kept his eyes on Buck and Paul. Buck was groping through the dead man's pockets, and Paul was taking notes while he listened to the coroner. “What did Justin say?” he asked Hank.
“That the guy had been shot.” Hank paused a little to give his next statement more emphasis. “In the back.”
“He sure about that?” Michael wasn't surprised, just sorry.
“Yeah.
I
could be sure about that. Of course Justin said he'd have to send the body up to Eagleton for an autopsy, seeing as how it appears that there could be, and I quote, âfoul play involved.'”
Hank stared at Michael to gauge his response to his words. Michael kept his mouth shut and his face expressionless.
“You're not helping me.” Hank leaned a little closer to Michael. “You know, I could always put in the paper that Deputy Sheriff Michael Keane showed no sign of surprise upon learning that a man had been murdered on the courthouse steps.”
Michael ignored the jibe. “Justin thinks he was shot out here then.”
“What's Justin know? He's just an undertaker.”
“He's had postmortem training.” Michael took up for Justin.
“Yeah, whatever the state makes him take, but we both know he's coroner because he just happens to be the only man in Hidden Springs who doesn't mind looking at dead bodies.”
“Him and you.” People were always complaining about Hank publishing shots of accident scenes before the victims were carried away. There would be another sheet-covered body in tomorrow's edition.
“What can I say?” Hank threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Death sells newspapers. And I have a feeling murder will sell even more. Anyway, it's pretty obvious the poor guy was shot out here. Who would carry a body to the courthouse in the middle of town to dispose of it? Plus, he seemed to be sitting the way he fell. It'd be pretty hard to
dump a body that way, don't you think? Who found him?” Hank sort of slipped in that last one as if he hoped Michael wouldn't notice it was a question.
Michael noticed, but answered anyway. “Miss Willadean. She thought he was drunk. âInebriated,' I think is the word she used. I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about it.”
“Several hundred times over the next couple of years, and I might even enjoy the first ten or so times.” Hank looked around. “Where is she?”
“Still in the courthouse, I suppose. She had a bit of a fainting spell when she found out the real reason the man wouldn't speak to her had nothing to do with his manners. I left her under Neville's care.”
“This must be Miss Willadean's lucky day.” Hank shook his head. “I guess me taking her picture and putting it in the paper will just about be the capper.”
“She won't be able to tell you much. She saw him on the steps. She didn't know who he was, and he didn't speak to her. She went back to the sheriff's office, and in due course, the deputy came out to investigate, arrest the drunk, whatever needed to be done.”
“Only the drunk wasn't drunk.”
“Whether he was or not, that wasn't his major problem. Put it that way.”
“Got to give it to you, Keane. You're observant.” Hank let his gaze wander back over the scene. “What else did you see that none of these others will think to look for?”
“Not a thing. I'll have to read the paper when it comes out to find out what happened.”
“You and everybody else.” Hank focused on Michael again. “So help me out with a few facts. Who is the victim?”
“Never saw him before. How about you?” Michael looked from where Buck was helping Justin load the body in the Hidden Springs Funeral Home hearse back to Hank. Sometimes the editor surprised him. This might be one of those times.
But Hank shook his head and pulled the little notebook out of his shirt pocket to scribble something in it. “If he's a
Gazette
subscriber, he's never been in the office. I remember faces.”
“Even more telling, Miss Willadean didn't know him.”
“A total stranger then for sure.” Hank jotted down a few words.
Michael had seen the notebook pages once. They were covered with nothing but disjointed letters that could be deciphered by Hank and Hank alone.
“What else can you tell me, Michael?” Hank looked up.
“You know as much as I do.”
“You came out to investigate. The man was deader than a doornail. So you called in the troops.”
“That pretty much covers it. I'm sure Officer Osgood will be able to fill you in on more details.” Michael nodded toward Paul Osgood making his way over to them.