At least half of the commercial buildings seemed to be empty.
Hunter found that the entrance to the library was on a side street, and turned in to park.
Inside, Bethie headed for the children’s book section while Hunter spoke to the young man at the circulation desk.
“I understand that you have a collection of the papers of Col. Jimmy Sheffield,” she began. “I’m working on a newspaper story, and I’d like to see what you have.”
He looked disconcerted, and said, “Let me get Mrs. Tungate.”
Mrs. Tungate, a slim brunette in tailored gray wool slacks and a black cashmere sweater, came out of her office looking serious, and immediately went wide-eyed.
“Hunter Jones!” she said with a big smile, “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Amanda Riley!” Hunter said, “What are you doing here?”
They hugged each other as Bethie came over to see what the commotion was about.
“This lady was a friend of mine in college,” Hunter explained to Bethie. Then she explained to Amanda who Bethie was.
“I would have thought she was yours, with that blonde hair and those blue eyes,” Amanda said, and Bethie beamed.
“I call her Mom,” she volunteered. “I liked her before my daddy did, and now we’ve all got each other and three cats and a dog.”
“Now tell me about this man you married,” Hunter said, and once they started catching up, it was at least a half hour before she got down to the reason she was at the Chaneyville Public Library.
“Well, we’ve got a problem,” Amanda said, looking unhappy. “The Sheffield Collection isn’t here.”
“It isn’t?”
“No,” Amanda said, lowering her voice, “I haven’t even had a chance to go through it myself. One of the older relatives had these two big boxes of his papers, and they made a big production of giving it to the library. That was right after I started as library director. Nobody was supposed to borrow it, but the Mayor talked the Chairman of the Library Board of Trustees into letting this Professor Tolliver take it all to his house…”
“James Sheffield Tolliver?” Hunter asked.
“That’s him,” Amanda said. “He apparently helped write up the documentation for the historic marker they’re so proud of and now he’s working on a book about Col. Jimmy. He was only supposed to have it for two weeks, and he’s had it all for a year and half at least. I’ve called him and the first time he said that he was nearly through. Then after the second time I called him, the mayor called me, all in a tizzy, and asked if people were asking for the papers, and the truth is that they weren’t. I just wanted to organize them, and make some kind of exhibit that might interest local people. Anyway, she said that if nobody was asking to see them, she didn’t see any reason for him to not to have them at his house for the project he was working on.”
“I get the picture,” Hunter said sympathetically. “I’ve spoken with your Mayor myself.”
Amanda squared her shoulders and said, “Well, whatever he’s working on, he’s had long enough to go through two boxes of documents, and now somebody really is asking to see them. This may be my best chance to get the collection back.”
She went to her office to make a call, and in five minutes, she was back, looking frustrated.
“He answered from his car,” she said. “He’s in Atlanta for his daughter’s birthday. He said he won’t be back until tomorrow night, but he gave me his e-mail address and said if you have any questions about Col. Jimmy, he’s sure he can answer them for you. I just hate it that you wasted your time driving all the way down here.”
Hunter was frustrated too, but she handled it with a smile.
“Let me have his phone number, too,” she said. “I’ll call and talk to him about it. And I didn’t waste my time. I’ve seen you, and I’m going to visit Patsy McFall. Do you know her?”
“Oh, she’s great,” Amanda said, jotting down the number under the e-mail address. “I just hate it that Patsy’s retired. The paper is a mess without her there”
“I think I’ll call her and see if I can come now” Hunter said, getting out her cell phone, “The only reason I made the appointment for this afternoon was that I thought I’d be here a few hours.”
Patsy McFall said, “Come on over!” and Hunter and Bethie were heading toward the front door of the library, when a short, plump, very angry woman came charging in.
Hunter recognized her immediately.
“I want to know what you said to upset Professor Tolliver so much,” Mayor Sandra Sheffield said to Amanda Tungate. “He was having trouble getting the words out. I honestly think he was hyperventilating.”
Amanda looked astonished, but she kept her own voice level.
“Good morning, Mayor Sheffield,” she said with deliberate calm, “Professor Tolliver seemed fine when I talked with him, and we got it all worked out. I have a newspaper reporter here who drove over 70 miles to see the Sheffield Collection, but he was in Atlanta for his daughter’s birthday. He gave me his e-mail address to give to Miss Jones so she can send him her questions. It’s all settled.”
The mayor’s face went from peeved to painfully perplexed.
Hunter decided to try to smooth things over further.
“I’m Hunter Jones from The Merchantsville Messenger. Mayor Sheffield. We’ve spoken before. Remember? Your cousin Annie Laurie Wooten…”
“Of course I remember,” Mayor Sheffield said, putting on an official smile. “How nice that you’re here, but I wish you had called me. I thought we had agreed that I’d give you the grand tour, and I’m afraid I don’t have time today, and now the Professor is all upset, too.”
“I’ll communicate with Professor Tolliver by e-mail,” Hunter said soothingly, “It’s all worked out.”
It wasn’t really all worked out, and now she wanted to see the papers more than ever, but her goal at the moment was to get Amanda off the hook.
“Well he seemed very upset when he talked to me,” she said, sounding a little unsure of herself. “Apparently he’s at a key point in his research, and I suppose it was just artistic temperament. He’s such a gentleman that he probably wouldn’t let his feelings show to Miss Tungate here, or to you, but he and I are friends, and of course he and my husband are cousins. The poor man has been through so much in recent years, having his wife leave him, and then the academy failing, and he’s just so brilliant, and his work is so important to him.”
Then she put on her official smile again and said to Hunter, “Professor Tolliver is writing a biography of Col. Jimmy, and we really think it’s going to put our little town on the map. He has special permission from me and the Library Board Chairman to have the collection in his home office until he has gone through it. I think he’s very systematic in his research, but I’m sure if it’s only information for a newspaper article, he can answer any questions you have off the top of his head.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Hunter said, forcing a polite smile. “It’s been nice to finally meet you.”
“I do wish you’d let me know you were coming,” Mayor Sheffield said. “Mrs. Tungate, did you know she was coming?”
“No M’am, she didn’t,” Bethie said, surprising all three of them. “She and my mom were college friends and they were both surprised to see each other again.”
“What was that lady so mad about when she came in?” Bethie asked when they were finally in the car.
“I think she just misunderstood things,” Hunter said. “And now, we’re going to go and see an old friend of Mr. Tyler’s. She used to be the newspaper editor here. Then we’ll have lunch and start home.
Patsy McFall was sixty-ish with salt and pepper hair cut in a short bob. She was wearing polyester slacks and a Pine County Pirates sweat shirt. Her old frame house was comfortably cluttered and she went out of her way to make Bethie feel at home, setting her up with a laptop computer.
“I just use it to play games on,” she said, “Maybe you�
�ll find some you like to play.”
After Hunter explained about the story she was working on, Patsy leaned back in her chair and said, “You know, I never gave any thought of the possibility that Col. Jimmy didn’t write the book, but maybe that explains things. I always thought it was kind of an odd thing for him to write. I know a little bit about him just from going back through the old newspapers when this whole idea of getting the Historic Marker came up. I’m afraid I’ve just gotten bored to death with that whole thing now.”
“But,” she said, “You didn’t come here to hear about my being bored. Let’s stick to Col. Jimmy. At the start, I did a pretty solid background story, and I can see that you get a copy of it if you want it. I remember having a little writer’s block with it because there just wasn’t any connection I could make between the biographical information and the book. He didn’t really grow up on a plantation, for one thing. And the stories, well, they’re funny and I think they’re very well written, but…”
“But you don’t think the book fits into what you learned about him?” Hunter prompted.
“Well, no. There was nothing light-hearted and funny about him. He was a lawyer, and he got elected to be Probate Judge. I couldn’t find anything about his military service except that he went and came back alive. That title of Colonel was just honorary. Lots of lawyers were called Colonel back then, and even when I was a child. I know he lived in Merchantsville for a while and that Sarah Jane was his second wife, but since he was born here and had family here, there wasn’t anything remarkable about his coming back here.”
“Well, a lot of writers have led boring lives,” Hunter said.
“True,” Patsy McFall said, “but there’s something that really doesn’t fit is – well it’s not on record anywhere so you may not be able to use it, because you sure can’t quote me on it — but it’s something my grandmother said.
“This was back when I was a child and I was reading the book.”
Hunter waited.
“My grandmother said she thought it was an odd thing for him to write these happy stories about white children and black children playing together when he was a leader of the Klan.”
Hunter took a moment or two to absorb that.
“Of course, you won’t find anything about that in the newspaper,” Patsy said, “This paper was started in 1870, but you won’t find a mention of the Klan in it. Probably Merchantsville was the same way. There’s a history that gets written down, and then there’s all the rest that nobody writes down.”
“Do you know anything about Col. Jimmy’s papers?” Hunter asked, and Patsy said, “The ones that somebody in the family gave to the library?”
“Yes, but they’re not there,” Hunter said “It turns out that a Professor Tolliver has them, because he’s writing a book about Col. Jimmy.”
She told Patsy the whole story, ending with the phone call Amanda Tungate had made, and the Mayor’s odd intervention, Patsy sat up and snorted with laughter.
“Amanda Tungate got lied to,” she said, “Unless he went to Atlanta by private jet. I saw him at the grocery store this morning at 9:30 putting groceries into that old station wagon of his. Sounds to me like Mrs. Mayor and the Professor don’t want anybody looking at those papers. Either that or it’s just a bunch of old probate court records and legal briefs, or he’s pretending like he’s doing some real research.”
“Do you know him well?” Hunter asked.
“Only enough to want to avoid him,” Patsy said. “He’s not really friendly to me because I wouldn’t publish his 2000 word letter to the editor calling for secession. It would have taken up two thirds of the editorial page, and he said he couldn’t cut it down to 500 words.”
“Secession?” Hunter asked.
“Oh, yes, and there’d probably be an audience for it, but it was too long. That was our first encounter, and he still isn’t friendly, which is fine with me.”
“So he’s new here?” Hunter asked.
“I think he had to move when Byrnham Academy failed, and he didn’t have a faculty house any longer. He’s one of the Sheffield descendants of course, but he’s not from here. One of my friends who’s forever looking for a husband got real interested in him when she found out he was single. Turns out he’s divorced.”
“Lucilla?” Hunter repeated.
“Yes, now if you think this town looks down at the heels, you ought to see Lucilla, Anyway our Mayor Sandra Sheffield thinks he’s some kind of genius, and they’re thick as thieves.”
The back door slammed, and a short, hefty man came in.
“And this is my better half,” Patsy said. “Jerry, this is Hunter Jones from Merchantsville. She’s working at the paper there for Tyler Bankston. Remember, how he used to get all those first prizes and I got seconds? And that little girl over there with her nose in the computer is Bethie. Hunter married the sheriff down there and got Bethie as a bonus.”
Jerry was all smiles.
“I’ve just been getting our RV serviced,” he told Hunter. “We’re going to spend the holidays as far south in Florida as we can get in two days.”
“Tell me this,” Patsy said, “Did you see Professor Tolliver running around town?”
“No,” Jerry said. “Last time I saw him was at that gun show they had at the old armory last month. I started to ask him if he was getting ready to secede.”
“The Professor at a gun show?” Patsy said. “I can’t imagine him with a gun.”
“Well he had some scrappy looking kid with him,” Jerry said. “I guess it could have been his son.”
“Oh, I remember now,” Patsy said. “Somebody said he had one of his former students living with him for a while.”
Suddenly Hunter felt uneasy.
“Do you remember what the kid looked like?” she asked Jerry.
He looked surprised at her interest.
“About like a lot of ‘em around here,” he said, “Looked like he was dressed for deer season, and needed a shave and a haircut. Probably needed a job, too, but he wouldn’t get one looking like that.”
Hunter looked around for Bethie who was still lying on her stomach on a big hooked rug, intent on the laptop, and decided she wanted to go home.
She thanked Patsy McFall for her time, roused Bethie and managed to keep up the required happy small talk all the way to the front door of Patsy’s house. She liked Patsy and Jerry McFall, but she was ready to get out of Chaneyville.
“Are we going to get lunch now?” Bethie asked Hunter after they were in the car.
“Yes,” Hunter said, “Just as soon as we come to a place that looks good. I remember passing a barbecue place up the road. Put on your seat belt.”
She was five miles past the Chaneyville city limits when she realized she was going 70 miles per hour on a two-lane country road. She eased up on the accelerator, loosened her tight grip on the steering wheel and began to connect the dots.
When they stopped for barbecue, they were 20 miles north of Chaneyville. Hunter waited for Bethie to go to the restroom before she called Sam’s cell phone.
“I need to talk with you in your office as soon as I get back,” she said.
“Something wrong?” Sam asked.
“Not with me or Bethie, “she said, “but, well, does the name James Sheffield Tolliver ring a bell with you?”
“Tolliver does,” Sam said. “We interviewed a Melanie Tolliver the other day. She knew Nathan Wood when he was a student at Byrnham Academy.”
“This man worked there,” she said.
“Okay, now I know,” Sam said, sounding relaxed. “T.J. has been trying to locate him for an interview. He’s her father and he had Nathan in one of his classes. What about him?”
Bethie was coming back.
“I don’t want to explain in front of Bethie,” she said. “I’ll be there in about an hour. It may not be anything, but it’s too much to ignore.”
“Are you talking to Daddy?” Bethie asked.
“I sure am?
” Hunter said, “Do you want to say hi to him?”
Bethie took the phone and said, “Hi Daddy, you know how I was saying I might want to be a reporter when I grow up? Well, I’ve changed my mind. I think I might want to be a teacher instead.”
After a few more exchanges, she handed the phone back to Hunter.
“Why don’t I meet you at home?” he said. “That will be simpler than bringing Bethie to my office with you.”
“I’m taking Bethie to your mom’s house, remember?” Hunter said. “She’s going to be spending the weekend with her cousins. I was going to do that on the way in. We’ve got her things in the car.”
“I need to check on the dog anyway,” Sam said.
Hunter thought it was more likely that he didn’t want his staff getting the idea she was getting involved in the investigation, but that wasn’t anything she was going to argue about on the phone.
“Sure,” she said. “Love you. Bye.”
When they were back in the car and on the road again, Hunter asked Bethie, “Why did you change your mind about being a reporter?”
Bethie wrinkled her nose and said, “Borrrrring, and besides, you keep getting that same look Daddy gets when he’s worried about sheriff stuff.”
“Maybe you should be a psychiatrist,” Hunter said.
At home, Hunter sat at the kitchen table with Sam and said, “I think there could be a connection between this Professor Tolliver and Hill Roland’s death.”
“Something more than that he taught Nathan Wood and Nathan Wood was a friend of his daughter’s?” Sam asked.
“Yes, more than that. How about letting me tell you the short version first, and then you can ask questions?”
“I’m listening.”
“The short version is that Professor Tolliver is writing a book about Col. Jimmy Sheffield, and he might very well have found out that Hill Roland was planning to write a book claiming Col. Jimmy didn’t write “Gone are the Days.”
“How would he have known that?”
When I am Dead, My Dearest: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 17