Read Online Murder Comes by Mail by A. H. Gabhart - Free Book Online

note. “I pay my taxes. I’m entitled to protection. What’s the world going to think if you let an old woman get murdered in her own home?”
    Michael held the receiver away from his ear and let her have her say. Her spiel didn’t vary much week to week.
    Betty Jean picked up her purse and mouthed “I told you not to answer.” She waved and walked out the door with a wide grin on her face. She was usually the one who got stuck listening to Mrs. Hastings.
    Michael caught a pause and stuck in, “We’ll send somebody out.”
    The old woman’s tone changed at once. “Deputy Stucker came last time, and I just know he scared away whoever was bothering me.”
    It was tempting, but this was Wednesday, the night Lester always took his mother to church. As much as Michael hated listening to Mrs. Hastings, Mrs. Stucker was worse. Besides, Lester wasn’t there, and while it was unlikely anybody was actually rattling Mrs. Hastings’s doorknob, someone might be messing around out there. It wasn’t on the way home, but what was another hour? Jasper would wait patiently on the front porch for his supper, and the fish in the lake weren’t exactly going anywhere. He still had Aunt Lindy to see to, and Alex would no doubt have some kind of high-profile dinner date that would push the hero of Hidden Springs right out of her mind.
    Betty Jean was right. He shouldn’t have answered the phone. Betty Jean was always telling him his biggest problem was that he thought he could solve everybody’s problems and make everybody happy. She said he needed to remember that most of the time when you solved one problem for somebody, the person thought up two to take its place.
    As Michael drove around the twisty turns of Bear Creek Road to scare away the boogeyman for Mrs. Hastings, he wondered if the jumper would be that way. Michael had come along and solved his problem of not enough courage to turn loose of the railing and jump. What problems had ballooned up to take their place?
    He wished the doctor had let him see the man. Maybe if he saw him he could get rid of this uneasy feeling that the man might be right. Maybe it would have been better if he’d chanced driving the old church bus on the interstate.

8
    Michael missed the six o’clock news. At six thirty he was still going through the motions of checking out Mrs. Hastings’s phantom prowler. The old lady, Olive Oyl–thin and wearing a sweater buttoned all the way to the top even in the July heat, followed him around, complaining about how long it took Michael to get there. She obviously missed out on the news that he was a hero, and somehow that kept the trip from being a total waste. He could handle being an ordinary mess-up guy better than a hero any day.
    He even managed to smile and nod when she let him know how that nice Deputy Stucker would have been quicker, how he knew what an emergency was, how he wouldn’t have just come poking up as if nobody’s life was in danger. What was the use in taxpayers paying for the likes of sirens and those flashing lights if he wasn’t going to use them?
    After he inspected her windows and door, he looked around in the old woodshed that was falling down under its own weight and peeked in the outhouse that had sunken into the ground until the door wouldn’t open more than a crack. Not a prowler to be found, Michael assured Mrs. Hastings as he backed away from her toward his car, promising that he’d be sure to send Deputy Stucker out if anybody bothered her again. As he drove away, he figured that would be tomorrow, as soon as Mrs. Hastings spotted his footprints in the soft dirt below one of her windows.

    The next morning Michael was finishing his coffee when Hank Leland showed up at the Grill and plopped a handful of printed-out newspaper stories on the table in front of him.
    “Isn’t the internet the wonder of the universe?” Hank slid into the booth on the other side of Michael and called over to Cindy behind the counter. “How