Deep South Dead (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 1)

by Charlotte Moore

  They were all quiet for a while.

  “Where did the chocolate cake come into it, anyway?” Taneesha asked gently.

  “Oh, hell,” Keith said as if he were getting bored with whole thing. “I didn’t even know it was there until I came back from Mae-Lula’s and there it was, sitting on the dining room table. That’s why she came in, I guess, to leave that cake for Claire, and by that time, I didn’t think it was a good idea for anybody else to know that Mae-Lula had even been in the house.”

  He turned to T.J. for confirmation and then to Sam.

  “You see my point, don’t you? All they had to do was be reasonable. Neither one of them gave me any choice at all.

  T.J. looked at Sam.

  “What do you think Sam? Do you think he had a choice or do you think he’s crazy?”

  “That’s Sandy Beal’s problem,” Sam said, stifling a yawn. “I think we’ve got our murderer, and I’m going home and go to bed.”

  After he had taken care of sending Keith Harrow to the county jail, Taneesha was waiting.

  “Hunter called. She’s over at the newspaper, and she says she’s got to know what the charges are, and get a quote from you, because Tyler wants to put out a special edition.”

  Chapter 28

  SAM HAD BEEN ASLEEP LESS THAN 15 minutes when his telephone rang. It was Allison Birchy

  “Sam,” she said sweetly,” I hate to call you so early at home, but I just haven’t been able to catch up with you at work.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Sam said. His voice was like gravel.

  “Oh, I know, but this is really, really important. I have just searched my heart and prayed about this for days and there’s something I have to tell you, and I’ve got to ask you to promise not to mention it to a soul.”

  Sam put his head back down on his pillow, and tried to concentrate on what she was saying.

  “Okay,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I was with Jaybird last Tuesday morning,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that, so you’ll understand where he was all that time, and why he wouldn’t tell you. I just can’t bear the idea that he might be charged with murder because he’s trying to protect me.”

  “S’all right,” Sam interruped. “S’all over. We got the guy.”

  Allison seemed to have her speech prepared. She barged ahead without listening.

  “Not that anything was going on, but you know I’ve been trying to counsel with him a little about his drinking, and he’s been at my house a few times, because the thing is that Anne Marie, well, frankly, she’s a little possessive, but there’s absolutely nothing going on.”

  “You don’t need to tell me all this stuff,” Sam said. “I know Jaybird didn’t do it. We made an arrest last night.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, it looks like you’d put something like that on the news!” Allison said. “Well, for heaven’s sake, Sam, and here I was so worried, and I never would have said a word if I had… You arrested somebody? Well, just forget I said … Well, who did you arrest?”

  “You can read it in the paper,” Sam said, and he slammed the receiver down and buried his face in his pillow.

  The phone rang again. He grabbed it and said, “Allison, I am trying to sleep.”

  “This is not Allison, whoever that might be. This is Annie Laurie Wooten, and I understand you have found the petitions. When can I pick them up?”

  “I would estimate in a year and a half. They’re evidence in a homicide,” Sam said. “Goodbye.”

  He threw the entire phone across the room, rolled over and went to sleep.

  Meantime, Hunter was operating on adrenalin. After she got the information from Sam, wrote her story, filed her pictures, left a note for Tyler to call Sanders Beal for more comments, and then went home, fed the cat, set the alarm and collapsed.

  At 11:30, when she arrived back at work she nearly collided with Jaybird Hilliard at the door to the paper.

  There was a fading bruise on his left jaw. He appeared to be sober, but irritable.

  “I can’t find any damn body who’ll tell me a damned thing,” he said, following her inside and raising his voice so that he could be heard over the noise of the press. “Sam left his damned phone off the hook. Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” Hunter asked innocently.”That Sam left his damned phone off the hook?”

  “True they arrested somebody!”

  “I think our special edition is coming off the press right now,” Hunter said. “I’ll go back and see if I can get one for you.”

  “I never thought the day would come when I’d have to read the damned newspaper to find out what’s going on right here in Merchantsville,” Jaybird said.

  Hunter grinned.

  “The day,” she said, “has come.”

  “It’s funny, I’m not sleepy at all,” Taneesha told Annelle, who had just brought her a plate loaded with bacon, eggs, grits and biscuits cooked especially for her despite that fact that it was closer to lunch than breakfast.

  “I tried to go to sleep,” Taneesha said, “but I just wasn’t sleepy. I feel fine.”

  “I can’t believe it was Dr. Handsome the whole time,” Annelle said, opening up the four-page special issue to stare at the headlines and pictures again. “Poor Claire. Not that he looks so handsome in that picture. I always knew something was funny about that man. Now, Sam Bailey, that’s a real good picture of him, and look at you, your pretty self standing there with that gun, like you’re gonna shoot that doctor down dead if he makes a wrong move.”

  Taneesha mashed her bacon into her grits. She took a bite of her scrambled eggs. Chewing them seemed like an effort.

  She reached for her orange juice, but her hand wouldn’t get there.

  “Hey, look who just came in,” Annelle said. “Jaybird Hilliard himself. I wonder if he’s heard… well, I guess he has. He’s got himself a paper, too.”

  Taneesha was staring vacantly into space.

  “I know why she baked the cake,” she said. “She was taking that platter back and she wasn’t going to return it without something on it.”

  Annelle moved the plate of food out of the way.

  “James,” she called out. “One of y’all needs to drive this tired baby home. She’s talking out of her mind and she’s about to go to sleep sitting up.”

  Chapter 29

  IT WAS MONDAY WHEN MARVIS FLAMMONDE’S team returned.

  “Excuse me, are you Hunter Jones?”

  Hunter looked up from her desk to see a dark haired girl with three other young people in tow. The girls wore a simple spring dresses, the boys looked like youth ministers on Sunday morning.

  The dark-haired girl, who seemed to be in charge of whatever-it-was, reached out to shake Hunter’s hand and said, “I’m Brittanie Flammonde. I think you’ve met my father, Marvis Flammonde.”

  Hunter managed not to let her jaw drop.

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, Brittanie.”

  “And these are my friends, Jason and Alison and Todd.”

  “Hi, Jason. Alison. Todd.”

  “Hi.” They said in unison, all smiles.

  No earrings. No nose rings. No tattoos.

  “The reason we came to see you,” Brittanie said, “is that Mr. Jaybird Hilliard said maybe you’d take a picture of us and write a little story about how we’re going to be trying to get petitions signed to build the shopping center, I mean, so people will know who we are. I don’t know if you heard about it or not, but when I came down with the first group last week there were some misunderstandings, and two of the guys who were with us maybe sort of scared people, even though we’re not really thinking they meant to, and Daddy’s just real sorry about that.”

  “You’re going to start the petition drive again?”

  “We sure are!” one of the boys said enthusiastically. “We think Mr. Flammonde’s got a great concept and we’ve seen what he’s done for other small towns.”

  “I grew up
in a little town like this myself,” Alison volunteered. “I just love the way everybody knows everybody and wants to help everybody.”

  “And besides,” Brittanie said. “It would be so great to show a story to our marketing class.”

  Hunter looked at the four of them standing there. It was unbelievable, she thought, absolutely unbelievable, but then again, it was news.

  “Sure,” she said to Brittanie. “I’ll take your picture, but let’s get your daddy and Commissioner Hilliard in it too.”

  Commissioner Hilliard wasn’t in his office at that moment. He was in Sam Bailey’s office with the door shut.

  “I don’t know what fool stuff Allison Birchy told you,” he said. “I told her and told her not to be calling you. She just got everything all out of proportion.”

  “I was half asleep,” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember half of what she said.”

  “I know you better than that,” Jaybird said. “You never forgot anything in your damn life. But what I want to say is that I don’t want you getting’ the idea that anything was goin’ on between me and Allison, because all it was was I stopped by there to talk to her for a while, and I just want to tell you man to man..”

  “Let me tell you something man to man first,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, okay, what?”

  “I did everything in the world I could to keep you from being embarrassed in public” Sam said, “I tried every way I could to rule you out. I had two murders to investigate, and you wasted my time, and made a damned fool of yourself and told Skeet Borders stuff he didn’t need to hear when his wife wasn’t in the ground yet, and I don’t give a damn what you were doing at Allison Birchy’s house, but at least she was trying to do the right thing by calling me.”

  Jaybird bristled.

  “You probably were hoping it was me that was gonna show up with that key,” he said.

  “No,” Sam said, “I wouldn’t wish that on Anne Marie or your kids. Anyway, I knew it wasn’t you when I went out to the Borders house after that break-in Sunday night. Whoever did that was cold sober, and besides, there wasn’t any way in the world you could have hauled your 50-year-old ass through that dining room window.”

  “Well, don’t be asking for my support the next time you run,” Jaybird said, standing up.

  “I don’t remember asking you when I ran before,” Sam said.

  Taneesha had just finished a half hour telephone conversation with Marissa Coleman to, explaining that Miss Mae-Lula’s murderer was behind bars and trying to explain why it happened, when Bub came barging in.

  “Jimmy B. Bellweather the Second is back,” he said. “You wanta come go with me to get him?”

  “Is he back in the Conservatory?”

  “Hell, no!” Bub said. “I got that boarded up as tight as the state prison. He’s in the Hilliard mansion. Robin Hilliard just called. He’s got him locked in up in the attic.”

  Robin was sitting at the kitchen table with a fair-haired young man who couldn’t stop laughing.

  “This is my friend Colin,” Robin told Taneesha and Bub. “He thinks this whole thing is humorous.”

  “Well, it is,” Colin said, “The sheriff finally says we can get in the house, and we go up there looking from room to room and everything’s just perfect. I mean dusty but perfect, “and then we open this door and the whole floor’s..” he broke up laughing.

  “And the whole floor’s covered with beer cans and whiskey bottles and candy bar wrappers,” Robin said, “And there’s this character sitting up on the bed, propped up with pillows, reading the newspaper.”

  “And Robin says ‘Who are you?’” Colin said, between gasps of laughter, “and the guy says ‘I’m the Prophet Elijah Bellweather the Second. Who are you?’”

  “And then he takes off running,” Robin said, “and he goes up the attic steps, and I wasn’t going up there after him. He didn’t look dangerous, but as far as I know, there could be old swords up there. So I just shut the door and put the hook lock on it and called 911. Now he’s up there banging on the door, trying to get out.”

  “You did right,” Taneesha said. “We think he’s harmless, but you never can tell. Bub’s talked him down before. Why don’t you two just wait outside and we’ll get him out.”

  “I drove the sumbitch all the way to Macon last week,” Bub said. “I don’t know how he got back down here.”

  “You know who he is, then?” Robin asked.

  Taneesha explained.

  “Oh, Lord,” Robin said, “I know who he is now. He’s kin to us. Aunt Mae-Lula told me he came by now and then, and she always gave him something to eat or a little money.”

  Jimmy B. Bellweather was happy to see Bub and Taneesha.

  “Man can’t even read the paper in his own house without somebody breakin’ in,” he said.

  “It’s not your house, Mr. Bellweather” Taneesha said. “It belongs to Robin Hilliard. He’s Miss Mae-Lula Hilliard’s nephew and she left it to him. You can’t stay here.”

  “She tellin’ me the truth?” Bellweather asked Bub. “I thought I could have it now she’s gone to Jesus and nobody was livin’ in it.”

  “Taneesha don’t never lie,” Bub said, “Remember how when you wanted that chicken soup and soda crackers, she went and got it?”

  “Yeah,” Bellweather said. “How ‘bout taking me back up to the Salvation in Macon?”

  “We gotta see if Mr. Hilliard’s gonna press charges first,” Bub said as they started down stairs.

  Robin said he wouldn’t press charges, as long as Bellweather the Third didn’t ever come into the house uninvited again.

  And then he gave the old man $50 and told him that Mae-Lula Hilliard had left it to him in her will.

  Chapter 30

  SAM CALLED HUNTER EARLY SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

  “If you’re not too busy,” he said, “Bethie’s been pestering me all day about wanting to see her kitten.”

  “Fine,” Hunter said, “Bring her over.”

  It was a beautiful day. They sat on the steps while Bethie ran in and out of Hunter’s apartment, showing her father one kitten after another.

  “See, it’s got its eyes open,” she said, “and this one’s got a white tip on his tail. This is the one I chose first, but now I think maybe I want one of the splotchy ones that look like the mama cat, because they’re so cute, and if I got one of them, I’d name it Patches or maybe Rapunzel.”

  When Bethie had run back inside, Hunter said, “I was thinking about something this morning. Remember how Keith Harrow touched everything in that kitchen the day Miss Mae-Lula was murdered?”

  “I was thinking that you did a lot better than he did,” Sam said. “I couldn’t believe he moved that telephone and unhooked the dishwasher.”

  “He did it on purpose,” Hunter said. “That way he knew that if he’d left any of his fingerprints on the telephone or the dishwasher before, you’d just figure they got there when he came in to see about her.”

  “I think you’re right about that,” Sam said.

  Bethie was back.

  “See, we know these are girl cats because Miss Hunter says all the calicos are girl cats, but I still sort of like the black one. Could I get two?”

  “No,” Sam said.

  “But if I had two they could play together,” Bethie said, “and they wouldn’t be lonely when I was at school and..”

  “No,” Sam said. “One kitten. You never had a pet before, so I have to find out if you’re really going to take care of it.”

  “I will. I really will. Hey, look, there’s Miss Rose that goes to our church. Hey, Miss Rose!”

  Miss Rose came over to the bottom of the steps.

  “My goodness, it’s Bethany Bailey,” she said.

  “I’m going to get one of Miss Hunter’s kittens,” Bethie said. “Miss Hunter said you have a Persian cat.”

  “I certainly do,” Miss Rose said. “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Yeah!” Beth
ie said.

  “Yes, M’am,” Sam corrected automatically.

  “Yes, M’am,” Bethie said, squeezing between Sam and Hunter and taking the steps two at a time.

  “And something else,” Hunter said. “I think that’s why he was sitting on his front steps reading his mail, because he knew I was going to come tearing down the driveway the way I did.”

  “You’re probably right about that, too,” Sam said.

  They sat in silence for a while then. It was the kind of silence that comes before profoundly serious questions are asked in offhand ways.

  “I was thinking about cooking some spaghetti tonight,” Hunter said. “Why don’t you and Bethie stay for supper?”

  Sam considered the offer, shrugged and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Hunter’s eyebrows went up.

  “I was thinking we could go out and eat,” he said. “If you want Italian, I know a good place in Macon.”

  “Sounds good,” Hunter said.

  “Eyebrows down yet?”

  “What makes you think they were up? You weren’t even looking at me.”

  “I’ve got eyes in the side of my head. That’s why they elected me sheriff.”

  Miss Rose’s kitchen door opened and Bethie came out.

  “And Bethie can stay with her grandmother,” Sam said, turning around to look straight at her. “If you don’t mind.”