Murder Comes by Mail by A. H. Gabhart Page A

to tell him more about that, but right now he wanted to tiptoe away from talk about love and marriage. Better to change the subject.
    “What about the jumper? Did he look like someone you’d seen before?” He didn’t know why he hadn’t asked her earlier. If this man had ever lived in Hidden Springs, she might remember.
    Aunt Lindy paused her digging and looked up at Michael. “He could be one of my former students, but as much as I’d like to deny it, in forty years of faces, a few have escaped my memory. However, there was something familiar about his picture. So, as a matter of fact, I pulled out the annuals for the range of years I thought might be right, but there were no Jacksons I’d forgotten.”
    “He might not have been a Jackson then.”
    “An assumed name. I didn’t consider that possibility. I’ll look through the books again.” Aunt Lindy stuck her trowel in the ground to go back to work on the weeds. “Although I don’t know why it matters. He didn’t commit any crime. There’s really no need for either of us to attempt to track him down.”
    “His car’s still at T.R.’s.” Michael straightened up and stretched his back.
    “And if he leaves it there forever, that’s certainly his own business. Saving a man’s life doesn’t give you any claim over his future, you know.”
    “In some cultures, the person would have to follow you around till he could return the favor.” He grabbed the grubbing hoe again and eyed the next invading bush.
    “That could be a problem, but in this particular case, you say the man has simply chosen to disappear. Story over. Ended. On to a new chapter.” Aunt Lindy was good at moving on. She loved the past, had spent a lot of her life making sure the past in Hidden Springs wasn’t forgotten, but she didn’t live there.
    She said life wasn’t like a math book where you had to have the formulas in the last chapter memorized before you could work on the next chapter. Life just kept rolling the same sort of problems by you over and over again, giving you chance after chance to finally figure out some answers. Of course, she was always quick to point out that there weren’t always clear answers. Not like in math. Life was a process. A glimmer of truth discovered here and a speck of reason unearthed there were the best a person could hope for.
    Now Aunt Lindy climbed slowly to her feet, grimacing a bit as she stood up. “Let’s take a break for some refreshments.” She pulled off her gardening gloves. “I made lemonade. Real lemons.”
    “Sounds good.” Michael stuck his shovel in the ground and leaned the grubbing hoe against it.
    As Aunt Lindy passed by him, she put her hand on his cheek briefly. “I’m not sure why this hero bit is bothering you so, Michael.”
    “It’s not the hero part, I don’t think. It’s more that I feel like Old Blue.”
    “Old Blue?” Aunt Lindy frowned.
    “That dog we had when I was kid that could hear a storm an hour before the rest of us and would tear up the screen door getting inside to hide under the bed.”
    “I remember that poor dog. You had to feel sorry for him, but he was a bother. As well as I recall, Old Blue often panicked even when the storms never edged close enough to give us more than a sprinkle of rain.” She looked at Michael a long moment, her hand still on his cheek. “Do you hear thunder, Michael?”
    “I feel it, Aunt Lindy.”
    “Well, don’t let it drive you crazy like Old Blue. Just wait and see if the winds blow the storm your way before you get too concerned.” She patted his cheek a couple of times. “You did the only thing you could do at the bridge. You couldn’t very well let the man jump.”
    You’ll wish you’d pushed me. The man’s words rang in Michael’s head, but he didn’t say them aloud. Aunt Lindy was right. There wasn’t much you could do about an imagined storm.
    Monday morning the storm hit full force.

10
    Betty Jean bemoaned the sorry life of a single girl