Page 33 of Death on Gallows Path

Ruby’s short nod hadn’t finished before she said, “How he was found, a call to the sheriff’s department about a truck parked with its lights on and door open took them out to Gallows Path real early this morning. He was on the ground nearby.”

It had to have been early to be dark enough to see the truck’s lights. I don’t claim first-person experience, because I don’t see sunrise if I can avoid it, but I know the theory about sunrise coming earlier this time of year.

“As for what’s being said . . . Not a lot. Folks shocked, for sure.”

“His friends must be, especially. Who are his close friends?” Clara asked.

“Oh, well, close . . . He and his wife do a lot with Bryon and Zoley Georger. Live near each other. They’re in that training class, right?”

“They are. His other friends?” Clara nudged. “He grew up in the county, didn’t he? Went to UK?”

“Uh-huh.” The older woman stopped.

Clara pressed. “He doesn’t have friends from growing up or school or now?”

Ruby lifted her left shoulder. “Not that I know of.”

I asked, “Could it have been a robbery gone bad? Or . . . drugs?”

“Never heard about him and drugs,” she said.

“Are there houses or other buildings around where he was found?” I asked.

Kit emphasized that the location of a murder was often a vital element.

Ruby and Clara shook their heads.

No drugs, no buildings . . . What had taken him to where he was killed?

“What does Gallows Path lead to?” I asked.

“Doesn’t lead much of anywhere,” Ruby said. “Led to the gallows, way back. Now it’s kept as a back way into a park near the river, because the main road in floods sometimes. Needed that second way to get people out one year when the river rose fast.”

“I remember that—”

The door opening cut short Clara’s remembering.

A young woman with an open box filled with envelopes walked in.

Ruby brightened. “Kacey, you have all the wedding invitations ready to go?”

A wedding put talk of murder in the back seat.

With quick thanks and goodbyes to Ruby and Ike, Clara and I retreated and stepped outside.

“Where to next?” she asked me.

“The café.”

“Oh, good thought. We can pick up gossip there.”

That, too. But first, pastries.

* * * *

“Go straight,” Clara ordered at the intersection where I needed to turn right for the café.

“The café—”