pay to have it repaired, whether Johnny Kinross turned up or not. Roger Carlton was up to his eyeballs in this thing, although Chief Bailey didn’t think he had anything to do with Johnny’s disappearance. Still, Roger should have to pay restitution in some way or another.
Chief Bailey was also going to demand that Mayor Carlton set up some reward money in an account at the local bank. It might encourage someone who might have some information to come forward. Dolly Kinross sure didn’t have a damned dime, and Mayor Carlton had plenty. He owed the woman that much; Chief Bailey would make sure he paid, too. It was his own way of doing something, because he had done precious little to solve the missing persons case. It wasn’t for lack of trying. There just wasn’t much to go on.
They had turned the school inside out the night of the tragedy. They had turned the town upside down in the days that followed. Johnny Kinross had just vanished. The only clue they had had was the destruction in the men's locker room a day or so after the tragedy. The mirrors had all been broken. They hadn't been broken when he and his deputies had searched the school the night Billy Kinross died. They had found the window that had been shot out, just like the Carlton kid said, and Billy Kinross’s glasses. But the destruction to the mirrors had to have happened after. They wouldn’t have known about the mirrors at all, but the new janitor had reported it. He had been hired several months before the tragedy and had been asked to clean up the construction dust and debris and ready the school for its first day.
“Parley? What was that janitor’s name again?” Chief called out into the front office area where his secretary, Sharon, and Parley were chatting over cups of coffee.
“Huh, Chief?” Parley shot his head inside Chief Bailey’s office. “Oh, um, the colored boy?”
Chief Bailey didn’t much like the term colored, but he didn’t correct Parley, who truly meant no harm and didn’t seem to know any better.
“His name is Gus...Jackson? No, Johnson…..Jasper! Gus Jasper. Why?"
“I want to talk to him again. Can you drive over to the school and see if he’s there – see maybe if I can have a word with him when he gets done with his shift?”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Gus Jasper was visibly nervous when he arrived at the police station at about 5:30 that afternoon. He held his cap in his hands and twisted it uncomfortably, but his eyes held Chief Bailey’s and his gaze was direct. He was a good looking black man in his early twenties, tall and well built, with limbs suited more to the basketball court than the janitor’s closet. Chief Bailey had noticed that he limped a little when he walked, but decided not to ask any personal questions. Gus had stayed in the background when the chief and a couple of deputies had gone to check out the broken mirrors he had reported. He probably thought he was in trouble now, and Chief Bailey rushed to put him at ease.
“Thank you for coming by, Mr. Jasper. I just wanted to follow up with you to check if you’d seen anything else at the school that might have struck you as out of the ordinary.” Chief Bailey raised his eyebrows hopefully at the uncomfortable young man.
“Well…. “ Gus Jasper had a soft voice with more than a hint of Alabama in its cadence. “I don’t know if I’ve been there long enough to know what ordinary is…but…“ He stopped and looked down at his hands.
“But what?” Chief Bailey prodded.
“Well, there are times when I feel like maybe someone’s been in the school. A few
Mortal Remains in Maggody