Over Troubled Water: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  “I’m just going to let it be,” she said. “I told him he had a month to find another place, and I’ll get Jeremy Hayes to write him a letter reminding him of that. I wasn’t planning to go down there anyway. We can get the locks changed if he won’t give up the keys, and if he doesn’t move out, I’ll have him evicted, but I don’t want to do it that way.”

  “This is going to hold up selling it,” Garth said. “You know a house has to be ready to sell. Everything needs to be moved out. It needs to be cleaned up. Maybe some rooms need painting. We need him out of there so we can start going down there on weekends and getting it ready. This whole thing could wind up taking months, and we need the money now.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Sunshine said. “I’ll call Jeremy on Monday. I have to handle this my own way, Garth.”

  “Your own way is just to let that crazy brother of yours have his own way,” Garth said, his voice rising. “You let me talk to the lawyer. I’ll tell him we want your brother out of that house now, or I’ll go down there and throw him out myself.”

  Sunshine would remember later that as she stood there listening to Garth yelling, she had a moment of clarity, or what her mother would have called an epiphany.

  She realized that Garth saw her inheritance as a way out of his own financial troubles.

  He had stopped yelling, and she tuned back in.

  “I’ve got to get outta here,” he said, snatching his motorcycle helmet from the kitchen table. “I don’t need this stress.”

  “I don’t either,” she said to the empty room after he had slammed the door.

  Nancy Whitchell’s feet were hurting. As usual, she was the last employee standing at the Cut ’n’ Curl Boutique. The owner, Twila Morris, had taken care of her favorites and left the others to Nancy.

  She glanced at the clock and saw that she only had an hour to go. Frances Butcher had her newly-colored red hair set in small rollers and was under the dryer reading the same romance she had brought with her every week for the last month.

  Nancy finished shampooing Sara Lou Whittaker’s skimpy white hair and was getting ready to cut and blow dry.

  “Just the same way as always,” Sara Lou said. “Except maybe a tiny bit longer in the front than you did it last time and not shaped so much in the back – more like I use to have it before I had that permanent that didn’t work and had to let it all grow out.”

  Nancy managed a smile. She would give the old lady her usual haircut and blow dry, and it would look nice when she left.

  “So what do you hear about that terrible shooting?” Sara Lou asked. “I heard it was your husband who found them all there and that he saved Ricky Richards from bleeding out. That’s what my daughter said –she said he would have bled out and died. You know Doris, don’t you? She works at the hospital. She’s an LPN, but let me tell you, she knows as much as those RNs and all the nurses know more than some of those doctors.”

  Nancy had heard this before. She smiled and snipped. “I’m sure they know more than the last doctor I went to,” she said. “Let me go check Miss Frances’ hair.”

  When she returned, Sara Lou said, “Did you know that China Carson?”

  “Only to say hello,” Nancy said.

  “She’s not any relative of yours is she? I know your Mama was a Jackson.”

  “Different family,” Nancy said. “My mother was from Bleckley County. None of her folks lived here.”

  She knew that Sara Lou was building up to saying something about China Jackson Carson that might not go over well with one of her friends of relatives.

  “I don’t know that I could have told her from her sister,” she said. “What I don’t understand about her, not to speak ill of her or anything, is what she was doing riding a bicycle if she was expecting?”

  Sara Lou sat up straighter, looking triumphant.

  “That’s not the big question,” she said. “The big question is who the daddy was?”

  Nancy frowned.

  “I heard her husband was all broken up about her getting’ shot,” she said.

  “He was,” Sara Lou said, lowering her voice, “And between me and you and the lamppost, his sister was worried that he might even kill himself, but he still stood by her even after hearing about the baby. See, the thing is that he couldn’t make a baby. He was like, you know, well, I’m not sure what the word is, but he had mumps when he was in high school, and it made him not able to make a baby.”

  “I never heard of such a thing,” Nancy said honestly, clipping away.

  “Well, it’s true. I can’t tell you where I heard it, but it’s true and I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles. I don’t believe in judging others but on the good side, you got to give that young man credit for standing right up there by her casket after that funeral and hearing all those kind things said about her and the baby, and knowing the whole time it wasn’t his. Now that’s forgiveness.”

  Nancy turned on the blow dryer and thought to herself that it was the craziest story she’d heard in a while, but, true or not true, she was sure going to have something to tell Aaron.

  Sam stopped by the Save-Mart and bought a bag of charcoal, steaks, fresh corn, salad ingredients, ice cream, beer and red wine. Then, unsure whether Nikki ate red meat, he circled around and bought fresh shrimp to steam.

  He flinched at the check-out counter, thinking he might have done better to take everybody out to dinner.

  All the same, though, he found something satisfying in arriving home like a mighty hunter and starting the coals in the old grill.

  “I love steak,” Nikki said. “Rare, please.”

  “I’ll steam the shrimp,” Hunter said, ‘but everybody has to peel their own.”

  It was a fine meal, followed by a futile effort not to talk about the investigation. Sam told them that the hypnosis had yielded nothing much from Ricky Richards.

  “He’s the good looking rascal?” Nikki asked.

  When Sam and Hunter looked surprised, she said, “I’m just going by the pictures that were on the website. The one I really noticed was the ladies’ man with the curly hair.

  “Yes,” Hunter said. “Ricky Richards has curly hair. I never thought of him as a rascal, though.”

  Sam laughed and said, “Nikki’s right, but I think his rascal days are over.”

  “Was he hurt that bad?” Nikki asked.

  “No, he’s going to mend,” Sam said, “I mean he’s happily married now.”

  Nikki raised an eyebrow.

  Hunter went and got a copy of the paper that came out right after the shooting.

  “Now,” she said to Nikki, “Give us your assessment of the others.”

  “Both of these are standard studio stuff,” she said, pointing to the pictures of Annie Chapman and Jim Jordan. “You can’t tell a thing about them.”

  Then she pointed to China Carson.

  “She was happy,” she said. “That makes it sadder, doesn’t it?”

  An hour later when Sam and Nikki were cleaning up the kitchen and Hunter was half asleep on the sofa, Sam’s phone rang.

  “Sorry to bother you, Sir,” the dispatcher said, “It’s a home invasion report. Andy Chapman called from 128 Clearview Circle, says some man is in his house yelling at him. He’s barricaded himself in his bedroom. Deputy Williston is on his way over there.”

  CHAPTER 18

  When Sam arrived at the Chapman home, Taneesha was right behind him. Bub was holding Garth Thurlow at gunpoint at the bottom of the back steps. Thurlow’s hands were clasped behind his head. His motorcycle was by the garage.

  “I don’t know if he’s armed,” Bub said to Sam without taking his eyes off Thurlow, “I told him if he lowered either arm, I was going to shoot him.”

  “I’ve got a handgun under my belt on the right side,” Thurlow said in a surly voice. “Got a permit for it, too.”

  Sam came closer and removed the gun carefully, nodding to Taneesha, who moved in with handcuffs.

 
; “Put your hands behind your back,” Sam said to Thurlow. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering.”

  “You’re the Sheriff, right? You know me,” Thurlow said to Sam. “I’m Sunshine Chapman’s fiancée. Remember? We met at the funeral. I just came down to check on the house for her and to talk to her brother about moving out. He got the locks changed again today. Did you know that?”

  “He got in through the dining room window,” Bub said to Sam. “He was upstairs yelling threats at Andy Chapman when I got inside. Andy’s locked in his bedroom. I figured it was just as well to leave him there.”

  “This is crazy,” Thurlow said, “You need to call Sunshine Chapman right now before you wind up getting sued for false arrest. She’s got a lawyer down here. He’ll tell you about it. It’s her house.”

  “But it’s not your house, “Sam said.

  After Taneesha and Bub had taken Thurlow off, Sam found the opened window and climbed through it.

  “Andy,” he called out when he got halfway up the stairs. “It’s Sheriff Bailey. We’ve arrested the intruder, and he’s been taken away. You can come out. It’s safe now.”

  He had to repeat the same words at the door several times before he heard the sound of a chest of drawers being shoved sideways, and Andy Chapman opened the door.

  He looked pale and shaken.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “It’s okay. We’ve got him,” Sam said. “He’s going to jail right now.”

  Nancy Twitchell knew her husband well enough to keep her story short, and then fill in the details when she had his interest.

  “That baby China Carson was going to have couldn’t have been Russell’s,” she said.

  “How would you know that?” Aaron asked.

  “Miz Sara Lou Whittaker told me that Russell was sterile because he had mumps in high school, and it got to his private parts. I never heard of that before.

  “I’ve heard of it,” Aaron said. “Remember when we went to that doctor? He asked me if I’d had mumps.”

  The Twitchells had long since resolved themselves to being childless, and they both knew that the problem was Nancy’s. It was a subject they were at peace with, and one of the few things they had never fought about.

  “How’d Miz Sara Lou get that kind of information?” he asked.

  “Her daughter, Doris, is a friend of Rondelle Carson,” Nancy said, “They work at the hospital together. Rondelle told her a while back, like a year or two before all this happened. Miz Sarah Lou said Doris said that Rondelle was all worked up at the time because Russell had found out for sure from the doctor, but he wasn’t tellin’ China. Anyway, China was goin’ on and on’ about wantin’ a baby when it wasn’t gonna happen, and Rondelle was thinkin’ about telling China herself. Miz Sara Lou didn’t know how it turned out..”

  “Russell should’ve told her,” Aaron said, frowning.

  “Well, maybe he finally did,” Nancy said. “But the thing is that if she was pregnant when she got shot, it wasn’t his –or probably wasn’t. I mean, there could have been a miracle or something.”

  Aaron tried to put this together in his mind, but some pieces didn’t fit. He frowned.

  “I’ll tell ’em about this on Monday mornin’,” he said, “They can just ask Russell straight out about it. That’s one thing about the law. They can just ask.”

  For once in her life, Sunshine Chapman was furious.

  “You did what?” she asked Garth in a cold voice.

  “I was going to talk him into going by the agreement,” Garth said.

  “You broke into the house to scare my brother!” she said, her voice rising. “You went to Merchantsville and broke into the house? Are you out of your mind? And, no, I will not give you my lawyer’s name. Find your own lawyer!”

  “Will you calm down and listen? “Garth asked, “They’re putting me in jail, Sunshine.”

  “Well, of course they are, and don’t tell me to calm down. Let me talk to Sheriff Bailey.”

  “He’s not here. Look, you need to come down here. I’m going to have to pay bail to get out,” Garth said. “Look, I’m sorry about the thing with your brother,” he said, “but I thought somebody needed to take charge … Sunshine, are you there?”

  Sunshine Chapman snapped her cell phone shut.

  “Done with the phone call?” Bub asked Garth, trying to avoid grinning. “Sheriff Bailey wants to ask you a few questions.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Garth said. “I’m not talking to anybody without a lawyer.”

  “Well, it’s kinda hard to get one around here at this time on Saturday night,” Bub said. “So, let me get the bailiff, and he’ll show you your accommodations.”

  Sam called Hunter to tell her what was going on.

  “This isn’t off the record, is it,” she asked.

  “Of course not,” Sam said. “The man’s in jail, and once he gets out, I don’t want him ever coming back here. I’ll even get you a mug shot. “

  He told her that it had taken a while to get Andy Chapman settled down.

  “He was like a scared kid. Dr. Marcus came over and gave him a sedative,” Sam said. “Sunshine’s coming down in the morning and if Miss Angelica is willing, they’re going to meet at her house. I’m just waiting here until I’m sure he’s asleep. I’m going to check on him again in a few minutes. Oh, and I finally found out why he had the rifle. He was writing some part of his book where some time-traveling renegade Earthlings arrive and he needed to know what a 20th century weapon looked like and how it worked.”

  Hunter laughed.

  Sam was quiet for a moment, and then said, “This kitchen has an old-fashioned pantry, the kind you can walk into, with shelves up to the ceiling.

  As soon as Hunter was off the phone, she told Mallory and Nikki everything, winding up with Sam’s checking out the pantry.

  “I think he really wants that house if it winds up on sale,” she said. “I need to go over and take a look at it. I know where Clearview Circle is, but I never have been all around the circle.”

  “Let’s go take a look tomorrow,” Nikki said.

  “Well, I’m not moving into it until I’m sure that Crazy Andy has moved out and that nobody’s going to change the locks again,” Hunter said, and they all three laughed.

  Then Mallory got a wide eyed look.

  “Hey,” she said. “What if this Thurlow guy was the Foxtail Creek shooter?” she said. “What if he knew that Sunshine was going to inherit that property and the money someday? Annie Chapman was only in her 50s. Maybe he didn’t want to wait.”

  “Maybe neither one of them wanted to wait,” Nikki said. “And maybe she’s betraying him now because she’s gotten scared she’ll be implicated.”

  “Oh, stop!” Hunter said. “She had a domineering father, and her mother always let her brother get away with bad behavior rather than argue with him. She probably just thought Garth Thurlow was a normal man.”

  “And how do you know all this?” Nikki asked.

  “From Robin Hilliard,” Hunter said.

  After Nikki and Mallory had recovered from laughing, they noticed that Hunter was rubbing her stomach with a slight frown.

  “You okay?” Mallory asked. “Do we need to call Sam.”

  “It didn’t hurt,” Hunter said. “It was just like everything tightened up.”

  Nikki looked at her watch.

  A half hour later when Sam got home, nothing more had happened.

  On Sunday morning, the sun was out, and Merchantsville was in its full springtime glory. People on Clearview Circle knew there had been some kind of disturbance at the Chapman home, but they were getting used to that, and word had not spread further.

  Bethie came home at nine a.m., bleary-eyed from her slumber party, which had apparently not included much slumber. She headed straight for her bed and was asleep in minutes.

  “I’m going to wake her up at noon,” Hunter said. “She said she wanted to go to Hilliard House with us.”


  “Are you still planning to go to that?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” Hunter said. “I can’t stand just sitting around waiting. We’re going to get all dressed up and go. And after that Nikki and I want to drive by the Chapman house and see if we approve of it.”

  Miss Angelica Sampson meant to have a little talk with Andy Chapman before his sister arrived from Macon, but he seemed to be doing all the talking.

  “This town isn’t safe anymore,” he said. “I’m moving out, and I’m taking my furniture with me.”

  “Andrew,” Miss Angelica said, “That was just that one incident, and the Sheriff came right away and put the man in jail.”

  “One incident!” Andy said, “There’s something all the time. My mother got shot. I had people come into the house and take my computer away. And now I have this criminal breaking into my house in the middle of the night, shouting that he wants to talk to me. No matter what I do, no matter how many times I get the locks changed…”

  “Where on earth will you go?” Miss Angelica asked. Like Andy, she had lived on Clearview Circle in Merchantsville, Georgia, all her life.

  “I was looking at the Macon Telegraph this morning,” he said. “There’s a place with apartments that has a security gate, and it’s only ten miles from where I work. I’m going to drive over there this afternoon and see how soon I can get into one. All I want is a place where people will leave me alone and let me write on the weekends.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to talk to Sunshine about this first?” Miss Angelica asked. “She’ll be here soon.”

  “No,” he said, taking out his key ring and pulling one key off. “But tell her here’s a front door key and I want half of whatever she sells the house for.”

  Hunter’s phone rang just as they were about to leave for the antiques show. She saw an unfamiliar number and let it ring, but then she listened to the message.

  “Miss Jones. This is Janice Jordan, Jim Jordan’s mother. I hope you don’t mind my calling on Sunday, but I’ve found something while I was going through Jim’s papers, and I just wanted to ask you a personal favor if you have the time.”