As a matter of courtesy, Sarah decide that she should give the sheriff an advance copy of the article, but only Deputy Thompson was on duty at the time she arrived.

"Ah, Miss Walker, Is there something I can do for you?" the Deputy asked.

"This is an advance of the story we're printing, I thought I just let you check to see if there are any major errors in the copy!"

The deputy took the copy and sat down behind his desk in his chair, he studied the document and silently nodded as he read. While the deputy was quiet there was someone how definitely wasn't, there was the screaming and hallowing coming from the cells next door.

Without taking his eyes of the newspaper copy the Deputy spoke to the reporter,

"It's the prisoner, He coming down from a high. Would you like me to tell him to shut up?"

"No I don't think that will be necessary."

The noise from the cells continued for a few more minutes and the language was starting to turn blue. Finally the deputy had heard enough and decided to do something about it; he got up from his seat and made his way to the secure door that lead to the cells.

Banging his baton against the heavy bars made a dull ringing sound that momentarily silenced the prisoner. The deputy warned

"If you don't settle down then I'll get Sheriff Casey to deal with your loud mouth. And you don't want to interrupt Sheriff Casey's day off now do you?"

"Huh! The sheriff can kiss my ass."

Sarah thought that it was the drugs talking as the prisoner had a lot of bravo. The prisoner stopped yelling and then smirked at her. He was alert enough to notice the blonde reporter standing behind the deputy. It unnerved her.

"Well hello there beautiful!"

Oh God, not only did the prisoner see her but now he wanted to charm her. He stood upright, sucked his belly in and gave her a big cheesy smile. The effect made her stomach flip.

"You're pretty cute!" Woodcomb continued with his charm offensive.

Woodcomb obviously had tickets on himself, he was tall, about six five and blond hair and blue eyes. He had a chiseled chin and a wicked smile that a girl could fall for but Sarah knew not to get suckered by the physical specimen in front of her. He thought he was God's gift to women, he probably was in high school but now here he was languishing in Jail on a murder wrap.

"Knock it off!" the deputy warned.

"Or what?" the prisoner taunted, "You going to get that incompetent idiot that you call a sheriff to shut me up?" The prisoner's reply meant that he wasn't afraid of the Sheriff.

"I thought you lawmen want prisoners to talk. I know the Sheriff does. He makes them say whatever he wants them to say. He doesn't search for the truth, he's so lazy he doesn't want to do any investigating, so he just leans on you. And if you don't say what he wants then he just makes it up.

Woodcomb just made a serious allegation against the senior law enforcement officer. That the sheriff makes up confessions, and he would verbal the prisoner, to get a conviction.

The most chilling thing he said when he laughed, "You know. The Hazard River murderer? I've seen the real killer every second day walking around the streets."

Sarah used the keys Bryce gave her to gain access to her office. She had just finished starting up her computer when she could hear a voice in the back of the building so she went to investigate.

At the back of the building was the where the presses were. As she walked back into the printing room she could hear one of the employees cursing to himself as he was bent over a printing press.

It was Jeff Barnes; Jeff was the newspaper's printer. Sarah never usually spoke to him as he was always out back in the printing room and covered with printer's ink.

There was something about Jeff Barnes made Sarah feel uneasy, as Sarah attempted to back out of the room Jeff turned his head and spotted her, he had a puzzled look on his face. Once he acknowledged her presence he spoke to her.

"Miss Walker, what are you doing here?"

"I'm wanting to do some research. I want to read through the old editions for a story."

"Oh….. Perhaps I can help, I've been here 25 years."

"The Hazard River Murder and trial."

Sarah was surprised when Jeff answered straight away.

"Volume 75."

Sarah looked a Jeff with a puzzled look.

"I have a knack. I can almost recall every article this paper has printed since I've been here."

"Impressive."

"Hannah McKay died in April and the trail was in October." Jeff added.

Old back editions of the newspaper were bounded in leather volumes, most of the volumes were in red leather with gold leaf writing. They were stored in a compactus that was never locked. Sarah looked inside and couldn't find the volume she wanted. She found volume 74 and volume 76 but 75 wasn't there. Someone had removed it and probably hadn't put it back.

"Excuse me, but I'm looking for Volume 75 and it doesn't appear to be here."

"Oh?" the printer said as he moved away from the presses to where Sarah was standing by the compactus. Jeff looked for himself and sure enough the volume wasn't where it should be. He scratched his head leaving an ink smear from his ink covered hands, he didn't seem to notice that he now looked like a complete dork. He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands but not his head.

"Check in the Boss's office, he never been any good at putting things back where they belong."

Jeff walked out the door and checked Bryce's office. Bryce never locked his office door as he believed that there was nothing of value to steal in there. He certainly never shut the door when he had company, he was mindful of litigation laws and he didn't want to be put in a compromising position. The only time Bryce closed his door was when he was on the phone and needed a bit of privacy.

There sitting on a small filing cabinet was the volume. Jeff was right, Bryce was lousy at putting things back, he was messy as well as some of the piles of notes and files on his desk had the tell tale signs of coffee rings from his mug.

Sarah got hold of the volume and took it to her desk. Her desk was bare and clean unlike her boss's. She placed the volume on her desk and then proceeded to open it up. The Hazard Herald was a twice weekly publication, she supposed that there would be about hundred editions in the binded volume. The paper would occasionally miss an edition because of Christmas or Easter or for a national holiday.

She flipped over biweekly editions and found what she was looking for.

"Body found in River"

The headline screamed off the front page. It was in bold black print.

There was a photograph of the body covered by a sheet on the bank of the river. A couple of lawmen were seen in the background as if they were looking for clues.

Below it as if almost as an afterthought was in smaller print,

"Suspect in custody"

Sarah checked the reporter's name, he no longer worked at the paper, he must have moved on.

Armed with her notepad and pen she started taking notes from the various articles in the paper. She noted dates and topics of the articles and then the trial and later the verdict. The trial was unusual as the accused confessed in the dock.

As she reviewed her notes, she couldn't stop the feeling that something was off about what she had read.

On Sunday afternoon Bryce Larkin called by after he had been to church. He wanted to collect his office keys so he could open the office the next day. In reality all you needed to do was knock of the back door and wake Jeff up, Jeff Barnes had a cot set up and tended to sleep overnight on the premises.