Where Southern Cross the Dog by Allen Whitley Read Free Book Online Page A

newspaper’s assistant editor and chief reporter, she was accustomed to these late-night outings. He descended the stairs and quietly shut the front door behind him.
    Murphree walked the short distance from his house on Court Street to the courthouse. A block away, he made a detour so that he could approach the building from the rear. He crept in the shadows,ensuring that no one saw him, and slowly made his way to the side door where Moses had originally entered. He glanced around, making sure his presence was still unnoticed, and tapped on the door.
    From the other side came a familiar voice: “Mr. Murphree, that you?”
    â€œYes,” came the whispered reply.
    Moses shut off the light in his small room and gently opened the door. Murphree slipped in, and Moses closed the door behind him.
    The two men exchanged greetings and started up the stairs to the coroner’s second-floor office.
    â€œHow’d you find it?” was the reporter’s first question.
    â€œI was cleaning up and there it was, big as life, just lying on the desk. I’m always surprised folks don’t lock things up, or at least put things away. They ought to try and be a little more careful.”
    â€œWell, lucky for us they’re not.”
    â€œMost people know I clean the courthouse. Don’t they think I might see something on somebody’s desk? I guess they just forget I’m here. Like I’m invisible or something.”
    â€œThey probably don’t know you can read.”
    â€œNow that’s true,” Moses said. He grinned at Murphree. “Yeah, I try to keep that a secret. Between you and me.”
    â€œAnd we’d better make sure that’s how it stays. We’d sure have a lot of explaining to do if someone found out different.”
    They approached the office and picked up their pace. Moses had left the door ajar, and he pushed it aside as they stepped in. He pulled it nearly shut so he could listen for noise in the hallway. They walked past Ruth’s desk into Bill Montgomery’s office.
    â€œIt’s on the desk, there on the left,” Moses said, pointing to the report.
    Murphree picked up the document and started to read. After a moment, without removing his gaze, he opened his briefcase, removed a pad of paper and a pencil, sat down, and began to make notes. Moses picked up where he had left off cleaning the room.
    â€œFind anything good?” Moses asked after a few minutes.
    â€œOh yeah, there’s always something good in these reports. It’s just a matter of finding what we can print and what we can’t.”
    The newspaper reporter continued reading and taking notes for another ten minutes, hastily paging back and forth among various sections of the document. Finally, he closed the report and placed it back on the desk, exactly as he had found it. Moses moved it slightly.
    â€œWell, that was certainly interesting,” Murphree said, still sitting in Montgomery’s chair. “Seems like we have a pattern. I wonder what they plan on telling the public?”
    â€œWhich public?” Moses said, as he gathered his cleaning supplies near the door.
    â€œGood question.”
    Murphree stood up and rearranged the chair as he had found it. “I don’t know. Maybe another story in the paper will get the sheriff moving a little quicker on this. It’s pretty clear somebody needs to do something before things get out of hand, because this surely isn’t what we typically see in Clarksdale. I think I can help speed up the process. Whether that’s what they want or not, I guess we’ll find out.”
    Both men entered the hallway and made the short trip back to Moses’s storage room. Murphree pulled out a few dollars—compensation equal to at least a few days’ worth of monotonous janitorial work—and pressed it into Moses’s hand, who closed a tight fist around the money and smiled.
    â€œThanks,