Murder at the Courthouse by A. H. Gabhart

collar. Then she reached over to touch Michael’s cheek. “Not all aunts are so blessed with their nephews.”
    Tender remarks were rare for Aunt Lindy, so Michael seized the moment to grab her in a bear hug and lift her off her feet.
    â€œFor goodness’ sake, Michael. Put me down. I’m not your teddy bear.” Back on her feet, she smoothed down her hair and straightened her jacket. “Finding that body must have caused you to revert to adolescence.”
    â€œThat could be,” Michael admitted. “I guess I thought things like that wouldn’t happen here the way they did in the city, and then some guy gets shot right on the courthouse steps. Why would anybody kill somebody there?”
    â€œWhy does anybody murder anybody anywhere?” AuntLindy counted off the reasons on her fingers. “Fear, greed, jealousy, revenge, or perhaps simple meanness.”
    â€œBut why chance shooting somebody right in the middle of town? Why not somewhere out of town where there wouldn’t be so much chance of witnesses?”
    â€œGood question, Michael.” Aunt Lindy slipped into her teacher’s voice. “Now find the answer.”
    â€œI told you Paul’s handling the case.”
    Aunt Lindy raised her eyes toward the ceiling. “Pretend what you like, but we both know Paul Osgood couldn’t catch a Peeping Tom if he saw one standing on a stepladder peering straight at someone’s window, much less a murderer.”
    Michael didn’t see any reason to dispute that as Aunt Lindy went out the door. Like always, she had the “straight of it,” the way the judge had said earlier that day.
    He watched her lights go out of sight up his lane and had to fight the urge to follow her to be sure she made it home safely. But if she spotted him behind her, he’d never hear the last of it. More than once, she’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that she had taken care of herself for years without his help and was capable of doing so for several more years to come.
    He would have to content himself with calling her later. There was no real reason to worry about her. If anybody was safe in Keane County, it was Aunt Lindy. She’d taught almost everyone there at one time or another, and she generally remembered not only their names but the kind of student they’d been. No one would hurt her. No one who knew her, but there could be a stranger in town. One who was a murderer.
    The thought barely slipped through his mind before he could almost hear Aunt Lindy’s voice chasing after it. What makes you think the murderer is a stranger?
    Michael shook the thought away, tired of thinking about any of it. He wanted to push aside the memory of the surprised look on the dead man’s face as if his last thought was that this wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s how Michael felt. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in Hidden Springs.
    If only he could go back to yesterday when his biggest problem was figuring out who stole Bonnie Wireman’s laptop. He really hoped it wasn’t Anthony Blake.
    He liked Anthony in spite of the boy’s determined effort to keep him from it. What was it Buck had said about him? A hard-luck kid. That was true enough. Anytime there was a report of vandalism or petty theft, Anthony was first on everybody’s suspect list. But surely he had nothing to do with the man on the courthouse steps.
    Yet something bothered Michael about the way Anthony ducked out of sight when Michael spotted him. It was more than getting caught skipping school. Anthony would have simply dared Michael to do something about that, but this morning the boy hadn’t looked defiant. Rather he’d looked . . . Michael searched his mind for the right word and was surprised when it came to him. Confused. The boy looked confused.
    Michael carried the dishes to the sink. As he dumped them in, he caught sight of his own reflection in the