“I heard this morning that it was somebody from Lucilla,” the counselor said. “And I saw the picture, but I didn’t really remember much about him as a student here. He didn’t get into any trouble, or I probably would.”
“Oh, here’s something,” she said, as she opened a file folder. “We sent his transcript to Byrnham. I don’t know whether he went there or not, but he apparently applied.”
“Byrnham?” T.J. asked.
“Byrnham Academy. It’s private and was church-sponsored at one time. I don’t remember whether it was Baptist or Methodist. It’s about 20 miles from here and we’ve always had a few students who commuted there. They take students in their last two years of high school and first two years of college, but they lost their accreditation and had financial problems, too. They closed last year. She looked at his graduation year and said, ‘If he did get in, he didn’t get a degree.”
They went by the town’s only bank and learned that Nathan Wood’s grandmother had a checking account with a balance of $270. She had written no checks at all for three months and her Social Security check was no longer being automatically deposited.
“Probably it’s going straight to the nursing home,” the customer service representative told them after the bank manager had told her she could cooperate.
As for Nathan Wood, he had never had an account there.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Taneesha said as they passed the Lucilla City Limits sign heading home.
“Especially since we’ve already got enough to put Nathan Wood away until he’s old and gray.”
“Yeah,” T.J. said, “but I still think somebody paid him to do it. Where would a kid like that get $5,000 in cash, and what reason would he have to kill a man who wrote vampire novels?”
“You think the D.A. will bargain with him if he did it for pay and will say who put him up to it?” Taneesha asked.
“Absolutely,” T.J. said, “And I think we need to keep track of one J. Randall Slattery in the meantime.”
“How would Slattery know Nathan Wood?” Taneesha countered. “He just moved to Atlanta a few months ago.”
T.J.’s cell phone buzzed before he could think of an answer. It was Sam, calling to ask if they had learned anything new, and to tell them that Megan Brooks and Randy Slattery had left Magnolia County.
“Were Megan and her ex-husband breaking any law by leaving town?” Hunter asked Sam that evening after Bethie had settled down to her homework.
“No, and I didn’t even suggest to Megan that she stay in town,” Sam said. He was in his recliner with Marmalade trying to untie his shoelaces. “It just never entered my mind that she would leave until after the funeral. Buck Roland says they were planning the funeral for Sunday afternoon.”
Hunter thought about the logistics of flying to New York City on Thursday and getting back in time for a funeral on Sunday.
“Of course,” she said, “It could be that she wanted to get out of Merchantsville and she’s just going to Atlanta for now. Who’s going to know the difference?”
“That’s a real possibility,” Sam said, “but it’s no crime if she does and none of my business. I can’t blame her for not wanting to stay in that house. First there’s Olivia Vincent dead in her bathroom, and then she sees her husband killed.”
That subject ended when Bethie came in with her homework done and handed it to Sam who looked it over.
“Looks good,” he said, giving his daughter a hug, “Now go get ready for bed.”
Bethie, as she often did, chose bedtime to start a discussion – in this case the school play her class would be presenting to the whole student body of Magnolia County Elementary School.
“Jason Bartlett and Alyssa Wells are getting to be the Pilgrim parents because they’re taller than the rest of us,” she announced, “and so they have to pretend they are married and we are their children. I’m their youngest daughter. I really, really wanted to be an Indian, but anyway, I need a costume, and Miss Thompson is going to send home pictures of how we should be dressed.”
“Who’s going to be the turkey?” Sam asked.
“Daddy, don’t be silly. Nobody’s going to be the turkey. Miss Thompson says she’s going to try to find us a real turkey gobbler that someone can lead onto the stage, carrying a little axe in one hand. We wouldn’t kill it though.”
“Hmmm,” Sam said. “I’ll have to be there to see that.”
“Gavin Thomas always thinks he’s so smart,” Bethie said. “He told Miss Thompson that a turkey gobbler would start gobbling and would try to chase us all off the stage.”
“And what did Miss Thompson say to that?”
“She said he was thinking about wild turkeys, and she was going to try to find a farmer who had a tame one like the ones the President of the United States pardons every year. “
“I guess her teacher never has been chased by a turkey gobbler,” Sam said after Bethie was gone.
“I think she’s good at the academic subjects,” Hunter said. “And the kids love her.”
Sam picked up the remote control, surfed the channels for a while, and then turned the television off. Hunter looked up.
“There’s something we need to talk about,” Sam said. “And I want you to hear me out.”
“What is it, Sam?”
“There’s this dog I want.”
CHAPTER 15
Another day, the one behind it all thought. Another day and the boy must not be talking, but how long would he hold out if they really put pressure on him? What if they were threatening him with the death penalty? What if one of those bleeding-heart defense lawyers decided he was not guilty by reason of insanity and he wound up in a mental hospital with a psychiatrist and started talking too much? There was never going to be any real safety as long as the boy was alive. It was a mistake to have thought he wouldn’t be caught, like the mistake of thinking that Hill Roland would eat the rum balls.
By the time Hunter got to work on Friday, Novena already knew that Megan Roland had left town with her ex-husband.
“I heard it from Sonya Richardson,” she said. “You know she’s the teller at the drive through at State Trust Bank, and Hallie Barnes told her when she was driving through. You know she’s Charmaine’s first cousin, not that Charmaine has much to do with her anymore, but she was at the Rolands’ house when…”
“Which Rolands?” Hunter asked.
“Buck and Charmaine,” Novena said. “Everybody seems to forget that they’ve had a death in the family, too. Sonya said Buck is just all broken up, and it didn’t help that Megan just left him with all the funeral details and took off with her ex-husband. Hallie said they were all wondering if the ex-husband paid that boy from Lucilla to do the shooting. He sure did swoop in here fast…”
Hunter just listened, surprised one more time at how fast news traveled in Merchantsville.
“Anyway,” Novena went on, “Ginger Leigh Hammond called me last night to see what I knew about it, because she had heard that Charmaine is saying that she can’t believe Megan Roland will have the nerve to show her face at the funeral. Oh, and another thing: Megan just left that poor dog at the vet’s, and Hallie said Charmaine said she hoped Megan wasn’t thinking she Buck were going to take that dog, because she had enough to do with her miniature poodle.”
“We’re going to take the dog,” Hunter said.
“What?” Novena asked, as if she didn’t believe what she had heard.
“I said we’re going to take the dog,” Hunter repeated, “Sam went over to the veterinary clinic and saw the dog and he wants her. “
Novena smiled.
“That is so kind of you two. Is it a secret?”
“It’s no secret,” Hunter said, knowing that Novena now had a fine piece of gossip to share with her ad sales customers. “We told Bethie at breakfast and she’s probably told everybody at her school by now. And we’re not just being kind. She’s a beautiful, smart dog. Well-trained, too. I saw her when I was at th
eir house doing the interview with Hill.”
“What about all those cats of yours?” Novena asked.
“It’s just three cats,” Hunter said. “And I’m sure they’ll work it out.”
In fact, Hunter wasn’t at all sure how the cats would react to the new addition to their family, or even how they were going to manage to give a dog the attention it would need, but if Sam wanted that dog, it was a done deal as far as she was concerned.
“What are you going to name her?” Novena asked, fishing for more details to liven up her morning advertising sales visits.
“Hill already gave her a name,” Hunter said. “It’s Flannery.”
Novena looked puzzled, and then the light dawned
“Oh,” she said, “After that writer from Milledgeville, the one who had the peacocks.”
Taneesha finished the report on the visit to Lucilla, filed it and printed out a copy for Sam.
She sat in Sam’s office as he read it, underlining a few points as he read.
“I’m afraid we didn’t get much,” she said, “Except for shooting those buzzards on the Lucilla water tank, he pretty much stayed under the radar. The grandmother can’t tell us anything. We’ve hooked up his computer and it looks like he was mostly using it to play games and to write that one term paper on Ernest Hemingway. He didn’t have internet service. Either that, or it was cut off like rest of the utilities, but in any case, there wasn’t anything of interest on it. “
“Did he put the name of the instructor on that term paper?” Sam asked.
“I didn’t notice,” Taneesha admitted.
“Well, take a look and see if he did,” Sam said. “Just on the off chance this teacher remembers him or remembers who he hung around with.”
Ten minutes later Taneesha was making a search for Professor E. Meriwether, Byrnham Academy.
Elspeth Meriweather turned out to live in Albany, and to have a listed number. She answered the phoned on the third ring.
“Oh dear, yes,” she said when asked about it, “I saw the drawing and the photo and it was so familiar, and then I learned this morning that it was Nathan Wood. It makes no sense at all to me, except that…”
Professor Meriweather paused.
“Well, except that he was one of those loners. There was a girl I saw him with sometimes around campus, one of the other teacher’s daughters, but other than that…”
“Can you tell me the girl’s name?” Taneesha asked. “We’re trying to get some kind of background on him to understand why he may have committed this crime.”
“You’re absolutely certain he did it?”
“Yes, M’am,” Taneesha said. “There an eyewitness when he was leaving the scene, and we have a fingerprint match, and ballistics…”
“I understand,” Professor Meriweather said. “You know he did it, but you don’t know why, I don’t know if this young lady can help at all, and I’d rather you didn’t tell her I gave you her name, but she’s Melanie Tolliver. Her father was an instructor at the college.”
“It would help to have his name, too,” Taneesha said.
“His name is J.S. Tolliver. I don’t know if he found another position. He was nearing retirement age. Quite a character.”
Taneesha thanked Professor Meriweather, and then asked, “If you don’t mind telling me, what kind of student was Nathan Wood?”
“He failed my course,” she said. “That term paper on Hemingway was straight off the internet.”
Knowing that Sam was going to want somebody to talk with Melanie Tolliver, Taneesha made another search, found nothing except random mentions of “Melanie” and “Tolliver” on a genealogical site, and then went to Facebook.
Bingo! Melanie Tolliver was living in Macon, attending Macon State University, but had graduated from Cunningham County High school and attended Byrnham College. In her photo, she looked a little pudgy, but with a friendly smile, and nicely cut hair. She listed herself as “in a relationship.”
Taneesha hoped that the relationship was with Nathan Wood.
She called T.J. with the information, and he sounded chagrinned.
“Looks like you were one step ahead of me,” he said, finding Melanie Tolliver up on Facebook as they talked, “OK, I’ll get my people on locating this girl. Oops! Look down where she shows the books she likes. She was a Hill Roland fan.”
Taneesha said, “Maybe was obsessed with Roland and our shooter was jealous?”
“Not a chance,” T.J. said. “I know we’ve got to chase this down, but it’s going to turn out to be Randy Slattery, and maybe Megan Roland, too. I just called her agency office in New York, and one of her assistants told me that she was in Georgia and they didn’t expect her back until next week sometime, due to the untimely death of her husband.”
Megan Brooks Roland was feeling restored after almost 24-hours of solitude at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta. She had gotten room service, watched mindless television shows, read an entire Donna Leon mystery, played Spider Solitaire on her laptop, and only answered her telephone when her parents or Randy called. He was on a business trip to Denver, and was checking on her when he had free time.
She had done some crying, too, because the memory kept coming back no matter how she worked at keeping her mind busy: the gunshots, the dog crying, and Hill being flung backwards on the grass.
Randy said she suffered a trauma, that she would have flashbacks and it would get better with time, and that she should rest, eat carefully and get exercise —but that was Randy. He thought fitness was the answer to everything. That was one reason he was as eager to get out of Merchantsville as she was. He wanted to get back to his body building equipment.
She wondered how she could have married two men as different as Randy Slattery and Hill Roland. Hill had been a relief after Randy’s take-charge approach to everything, and now – though it made her feel guilty to admit it – Randy was a relief after Hill’s unpredictability and self-indulgence.
Randy, she knew, loved her far more than Hill ever had, despite everything. He had really never let go. She wondered how long it would be before he asked her to marry him again, and what she would say when he did.
She sighed and decided to check her e-mail.
There was a message from the Merchantsville Veterinary Clinic saying that a home had been found for Flannery, that Sheriff Sam Bailey wanted her and was willing to take her home on Saturday morning, and was this agreeable to her?
She blinked back tears and hit “reply.”
“That’s wonderful news,” she wrote. “Please tell Sheriff Bailey that I am happy that Flannery will have a good home.”
She wanted to add more, to explain that she really couldn’t keep a large dog in her New York apartment, and wouldn’t have the time to give Flannery the attention she needed, that it was really her husband who had wanted a dog, and while she loved the dog, too, her situation had changed…
“No,” she told herself, hitting “send”, “Let it go.”
Then she thought about Sam’s being married to Hunter Jones, and wondered what on earth she would be doing with that long interview she taped with Hill, and how much Hill had told her about The Long Lie.
With this thought, her mind turned back to her work and to the future. She found “The Merchantsville Messenger” on her tablet and found Hunter Jones’ e-mail address.
“Piece of cake,” T.J. Jackson said to Taneesha Martin. “It took all of 20 minutes to track her down, and she sounded excited at the idea of being interviewed.”
“Excited?”
“Yeah. She had seen all the stories and was telling all her friends she knew that guy. I didn’t get the impression that she was at all worried about him. I’m thinking she probably doesn’t know anything useful, and maybe we can set up a conference call instead of driving up there. She said they weren’t in a relationship, just friends. I did ask her if she could think of any reason he would have shot Hill Roland, and she said she was surprised that he even knew Hil
l Roland existed.”
They agreed on making a conference call to Melanie Tolliver on Sunday afternoon after Hill Roland’s funeral.
CHAPTER 16
Flannery was getting good at limping around. She had given up trying to reach her leg and chew off the bandages and the splint. She had tried shaking the plastic cone off, and pushing at it with the leg that didn’t hurt. That didn’t work.
She had worked then on kicking the bandages with her hind leg, but they wouldn’t come loose and it hurt the bandaged leg when she did it too hard. Finally, she accepted the strangeness of it all. She stood in her pen and barked at the cat in the cage on the other side of the room now that it was awake and moving around.
The cat hissed. Flannery barked again. She felt restless.
The door opened and people came in. The dog never forgot people. There was a tall man who had been there before, a woman she had seen before in the house where she had stayed, and a little girl, who was new.
The cage was opened and they all talked to her at once. She limped toward them. She was a good dog, they said. The man clipped a leash on her. They were going somewhere. Even better, they were going outdoors together.
It got better and better. She was getting a ride in a car. The man lifted her up and put her on the back seat with the little girl. She was so excited she licked the little girl’s face and jumped around clumsily.
The tall man said, “Sit, Flannery,” so she sat,
The woman said, “Good dog!” The little girl gave her a new bone to chew on, he licked her face again and the little girl laughed. Off they drove, all together.
The house they went to was wonderful and smelled like good food and cats. Flannery tried to chase one of the cats but her leg slowed her down and the cats got away.
The tall man took her outdoors through another door and helped her down the steps. It took a while, but she checked out the fence all around and barked at the woods beyond the yard just in case there was a bad man there.
When I am Dead, My Dearest: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 14