Ty Bailey, who was in his downstairs cradle, opened his eyes and focused for a moment on a ray of sunlight and the voices from the next room. Then he began to let the world know that he was hungry again.
Flannery rushed to check on him and trotted back to look anxiously at Hunter and Sam.
“I’ll change him first,” Mary Bailey said from the door. “Hunter, you slept right through breakfast. Better come have some lunch.”
The interview with Russell Carson took place in the hospital’s medical library. He arrived in a wheelchair with one wrist cuffed to the armrest.
District Attorney Sanders Beale was there, along with T.J. Jackson. They were both looking exasperated.
Molly Bloomfield was looking pleased.
Russell Carson, it turned out, wanted to plead guilty and be done with it.
“I don’t want some big trial on television,” he said. “I’m not gonna have China’s name dragged through the mud. She did what she did, and I already forgave her, and I hope if she’s in heaven like the preacher said, she’s forgiven me. She just got tempted and led astray because she wanted a baby so much.”
“Before we talk about your late wife,” Sam said, “I want to talk about these letters.”
He placed the first one on the table.
“Did you write this and mail it?” he ask.
Russell glanced at it and nodded.
“Can you tell us why?” Sam asked.
“I guess it was stupid,” Russell said, “but when I decided I was gonna shoot Ricky Richards, I didn’t want China to think it was me. I thought it would come out in the paper and everybody would believe it was some crazy person who just wanted to shoot a bunch of people.”
“And this one?” Sam asked, putting the one about the burning of the gym beside the first one.
“Same way,” Russell said. “I was cleaning a lady’s rug and she was on the phone tellin’ some other lady about how they were all going to pitch in and help keep the gym open, and I thought, well, we’ll see about that, but by then I knew they weren’t gonna put it in the paper or on radio, so I just wanted to be sure you thought it was the same crazy person who did the shooting.”
“Where’d you get the name Abomination?” T.J. asked, leaning across the table, almost smiling at Russell. “That’s quite a name.”
“Yeah,” Russell said, not returning the smile. “I got it off this computer game that I bought. I only played for a while. It was a real hard war game.”
“Brutal Battalion?” T.J. asked.
“Right,” Russell said. “There was this one player who was always ahead of everybody and that was his avatar. He would write these messages full of big words. I was trying to come up with a name that would sound scary, and I thought of that.”
The District Attorney sighed.
“Let’s get serious here,” he said. “Mr. Carson, what made you think your wife was having an affair with Ricky Richards?”
“I didn’t want to think it,” Russell said slowly, almost to himself. “She changed so much. I mean she even looked different, and she wasn’t acting the same, but it was the Valentine that worried me first.”
Silence filled the room.
“See, we knew each other from high school, and back then she made me these Valentines. She could draw really cute things, and she’d put a lot of work into them, but she hadn’t done that after we were married. I mean she still drew, but she didn’t draw things for me in particular.
“So then right before Valentine’s Day I went by her mother’s house. India had just spent the night there, and she called me and asked me if I could go by there and take a look at the washing machine because there was water on the laundry room floor, so I went by. Miss Martha Mae was there, and she shut the cats up in India’s room so they wouldn’t bother me, and then she went back to see about Miz Jackson…”
“And…” the D.A. said impatiently.
“And I looked into the room China used and saw that she had all her art equipment out on a little table, so I went and looked, and she was making this Valentine, kinda like the ones she made when we were in high school, but better, because you know she had gotten to be a really good artist.
“So, I thought she was making it for me, and I got to thinking that I hadn’t sent her any Valentines flowers for a while, so on Valentines Day, I had a dozen red roses sent to her office.”
The D.A. nodded.
“But she never gave me the Valentine,” Russell said, “and I thought well, maybe she had messed it up or something, but I guess it did get me suspecting something , because I started noticing things – like a couple of times after that I’d come in and she’d be on her cell phone, and she’d just say “Bye” real quick. And then I started going by her mother’s house at night, and one time the GetFit van was right out front at nine p.m. Then I was talking to one of my customers while I was setting up to clean her septic tank, and she said she heard China had lost a lot of weight, and I said something about her going to the gym, and she told me that I must be more trusting than her husband because, and then she laughed about Ricky Richards fooling around.”
He stopped.
“That’s it?” T.J. asked. “You mean you didn’t actually know she was having an affair.”
“I knew something was going on,” Russell said. “You married?”
T.J. nodded.
“Well, then you know if your wife’s not acting the same,” he said. “And I was right, too, because I might as well tell y’all right now if my sister hadn’t already, that I can’t – you know – get a woman pregnant. I mean I would have raised that baby like my own, but it wasn’t mine.”
“Did she even tell you about it?” Taneesha asked.
“No,” Russell said. “I don’t even know if she knew.”
“I guess we’ll never know that,” Sanders Beale grumbled.
Taneesha suddenly spoke up.
“You killed two people besides your wife on the bridge that morning,” she said. “Did you know them?”
“I knew Mrs. Chapman, sort of. I went to school with her son, Andy. I never had met that Jordan guy. I’m sorry about them, because I didn’t get Ricky Richards anyway, and I never woulda shot China if I’d known that was her. I wish I hadn’t ever thought of it.”
His voice broke, “I swear I didn’t even know she was going to be on that ride. I didn’t know I had shot her until you came and told me. It was foggy, and I had left the gun there the day before. I had it in two plastic bags with duct tape around them, stuck up behind that tree, and I heard them coming, and was having trouble getting the bags off. One of them stuck to the gun and it was flapping around in the breeze, and my glasses fogged up, and they were coming so fast.”
He began to sob.
“I think this is enough for now,” Molly Bloomfield said.
“I just have one more question,” Taneesha asked.
She took a hand-drawn card out of a folder on her desk. Everyone looked at it as she held it up.
It was in surprising contrast to the harsh realities that had been under discussion.
It was a Valentine, decorated by hand with ink and water colors. There were two bears hugging in the center of a perfectly drawn heart. The heart was surrounded by a border of tiny flowers.
Inside, the words “I love you” were carefully printed.
There was no signature.
“Is this the Valentine you saw in your wife’s art case?” Taneesha asked.
He grabbed for it as she pulled it back. “Where did you get that?”
“China gave it to Jim Jordan,” Taneesha said. “His mother found it last week. There’s a whole e-mail correspondence between them, too. It was on his laptop computer.”
“Jim Jordan?” Russell asked, blinking. It was almost as if he had never heard the name before. “What are you talking about?”
“It wasn’t Ricky Richards your wife was having a romance with,” Taneesha said. “It was Jim Jordan.”
“And you
don’t need to respond to that at all,” Molly told him.
He wasn’t responding. He went pale, and then very still.
Finally, he spoke in a whisper.
“Then I did kill the right one,” he said.
That night Taneesha had a serious talk with Jeremy.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure I don’t want to be a lawyer,” she said.
“You’d be such a good one,” he said.
“I’m a good law enforcement officer,” she said. “That’s what I want to do.”
“I thought you wanted to prosecute criminals,” he said.
“No, I’ll leave that to Sanders Beale,” she said, “By the time they’re arrested and charged, I’m sick of them. I don’t want to think about Russell Carson one more minute.”
“What about being a defense attorney?” Jeremy asked.
She laughed out loud.
“Can you even imagine me trying to talk a jury into thinking somebody like that wasn’t guilty?”
EPILOGUE
Six months later
It was a beautiful late October afternoon – a perfect time for a housewarming.
Hunter had almost covered the new kitchen counters with trays of appetizers while Sam made sure the charcoal was perfect for steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs and shrimp.
Mallory and Nikki had decorated the backyard with balloons and were both taking pictures of everyone who arrived.
Ty Bailey was sitting on a pile of fall leaves, falling sideways with laughter from time to time, as Flannery pounced around him catching the ball that Bethie tossed in the air. Fair-haired, blue-eyed and sturdy, he was the uncrowned ruler of the big Queen Anne house on Clearview Circle.
Tyler Bankston watched his namesake with a smile. He had already started a trust fund for little Ty’s college education.
For Bethie, moving to the new house meant having the wonderful attic room, safe and secure, but still with a bit of independence. Katie Calico, who was getting older and liked some peace and quiet, shared it with her. Sometimes she watched the squirrels run across the magnolia branches, and sometimes she just napped.
In the living room, Robin Hilliard and Colin Fletcher were in a huddle with Miss Rose Tyndale, who had written a poem for the occasion and wanted one of them to read it aloud at the appropriate moment.
Jeremy and Taneesha Hayes were late, in part because Taneesha had been determined to make her own version of her grandmother’s famous 12-layer caramel cake and had to make the icing twice to get it right.
Aaron and Nancy Twitchell were impressed by the house, but agreed in whispers that they’d never want neighbors so close by. Nancy went straight to work helping fill the punch bowls that Hunter had set out. She thought Hunter was very nice, very pretty too, if she’d just get something done with that wild hair.
She came close to suggesting that she could straighten it just a little, maybe lighten it up to platinum, but decided she would wait until she knew Hunter a little better.
That day would come, she thought, now that Aaron was going to take the course to become a full-time deputy. He was replacing Bub Williston, who had just been hired by the Georgia State Patrol, and arrived already wearing dark sunglasses.
India Jackson came to the party with Skeet Borders and his daughter Madison.
Sunshine Chapman had invited her boss, Randall Morris, to see her childhood home and her hometown.
“I can’t believe you gave up a house like this,” he said as he found a parking place along Clearview Circle.
“Well, I like my job,” she said, “and I like Macon, and I never wanted the upkeep of a place this big. I’m just so glad the Baileys bought it. They’re going to make the house happy.”
Ricky and Sasha Richards were among the fifty or more who were invited. Ricky had said they’d try to make it, but the new gym was packed on Saturdays.
Andy Chapman had been invited, too, but he hadn’t opened the invitation and wouldn’t have driven back to Merchantsville if he had. He had a small, tidy apartment that as close to the air force base where he had worked, but he had just given up the job.
He was busy communicating with his publisher and the agent who was so enthusiastic about “Five Moons over Modor.” Andy didn’t care about being famous or even that much about the money except for the freedom it gave him. He wasn’t that excited about the bidding war for the movie rights either.
He saw a long and quiet life of solitary writing stretching out before him. He was a happy man.
The End
ALSO BY CHARLOTTE MOORE
Deep South Dead
Death over the Dam
When I am Dead My Dearest
Missed You in Church
Visit the Charlotte Moore author page at Amazon.com
Table of Contents
OVER TROUBLED WATER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
EPILOGUE
Also by Charlotte Moore
Over Troubled Water: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 19