Death Over the Dam (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 2)

by Charlotte Moore

  Sam picked up the dessert menu and pretended to study it with care, but he was really just realizing that Hunter was still going to be there when Bethie was 16.

  They drove home with Bethie falling asleep in the backseat and were back in their separate homes by 10:30.

  Sam was fast asleep at 4 a.m. when the phone rang.

  “We’ve got a kid we need to turn over to you,” the state trooper told him. “He was weaving all over I-75 and we stopped him just off the exit to Merchantsville. He had about five ounces of marijuana and some Oxycontin on the front seat. He got combative when we searched the car and tried to hit me when I was opening the trunk, so we cuffed him. Now he is saying he lost control because he was so tore about his grandmother dying and he wants to call his lawyer. Can somebody meet us at the jail? We’re towing his car there and there’s another accident up the Interstate.”

  “What’s his name?” Sam asked, already standing.

  “Damon Dixon.”

  Sam groaned and said, “I’ll get Deputy Williston to meet you over there. I will follow up. “

  He called Bub, who said, “Looks like the little son of a bitch could have waited until his grandmother was in the ground before he caused more trouble for his folks.”

  Damon Dixon was already in a holding cell when Bub got to the Magnolia County Detention Center.

  “Kid’s a real pain,” the trooper said. “He went after me trying to stop me from opening his trunk, and there wasn’t anything in there except an old spare and a camera. I think he made up that stuff about his grandmother dying. I told him he wasn’t going to get a lawyer to come out in the middle of the night, and he said he had a right to remain silent, and he shut up, which was fine with me. He hasn’t said a word since.”

  “What kind of camera,” Bub asked, suddenly alert. “Where is it?”

  “I left it in the trunk,” the trooper said. “It was a big one, a Nikon in real good leather case with a strap. I opened the case because I was thinking it might have more drugs in it, but it was just the camera unless he’s got drugs inside it. Maybe he stole it, ‘cause he sure was ready to fight me to keep me from looking in there. We left the car in the parking lot. It’s the beat-up looking blue Toyota. ”

  After the trooper got his paperwork finished and Bub signed a receipt for the keys, he walked back to see Damon, who was sitting on the floor of the holding cell.

  “How you doin’” he asked.

  Damon looked straight at him and remained silent.

  Bub shrugged. He could do without talking to Damon until he saw the camera, and if it was one of the cameras on the list they had gotten from Ned Thigpen’s wife, Damon Dixon was going to need a lawyer big time.

  He called Sam and told him about the camera in the trunk. He had the keys in his hand and he was half hoping Sam would tell him to and look.

  Sam said, “No, don’t. I want to see it too, but if it turns out to be one of Ned Thigpen’s cameras, we need to start going by the book right now. No point in helping Molly Bloomfield out. Just meet me at the courthouse.”

  After delivering a very sleepy child to his mother’s house at 5 a.m., he stopped at a gas station/convenience store to pick up two large coffees and some donuts, and headed to the jail.

  He didn’t mind the loss of sleep. Things, he thought, might be looking up. Maybe Hunter would even have a big story to report.

  He called Taneesha and Skeet at seven, and let Bub off the hook by calling John Dixon, Damon’s father. The number was in his file on Damon.

  He identified himself and said, “First I want to say I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  John Dixon interrupted and said, “You’re not calling about my mother. What’s Damon done now? That girlfriend of his has called here three times trying to find him.”

  Sam explained that Damon had been picked up by the Georgia State Patrol for driving under the influence and was in the county jail.

  “Who’s the girlfriend,” he asked, “Can you give me her address?”

  The weary-sounding father hesitated and then said, “Well maybe you can tell her where he is and to stop calling here. We’ve got enough to deal with without her crying over the phone. She was afraid he’d had a wreck or something. Anyway, it’s in that old duplex at the dead end of Jasper Street. Her name’s Courtney Chapman. He doesn’t even know I know where he’s living but I try at least to know where he is.”.”

  “Damon told the trooper that he wanted a lawyer,” Sam said. “Do you want to….”

  “He’s 19,” John Dixon said. “If he’s got himself in trouble again, he can get himself out, and personally, I wish you’d just keep him in jail until I get my mother buried, because I don’t want to see his face, and his aunt’s already claiming he sent Mama to her grave and he’d better not come near her. We’re going to have a nicer service if he’s not around.”

  Sam made a note to have Bub talk to the aunt, expressed his condolences again and got off the phone.

  Taneesha was standing in the open doorway.

  “I’ve got to fill out two search warrants,” he said, “and then I’d appreciate your taking them over to Judge Thomas’ house. I’ll call and let her know you are coming.

  “Two?” she asked.

  “Yeah, one for Damon’s girlfriend’s apartment. And one for Damon’s car. By the book. To the exact letter of the law. You know our Public Defender. If this turns out to be a homicide, she’s going to throw everything at us she can.”

  Damon sat in his cell, wishing he could smoke. He was trying to think of ways to explain how he happened to have the Nikon. He wished he had been able to find the microchip and take it out in case the old guy had been taking pictures of his wife or something. That way he could just say it was his. Or maybe he could say Courtney put it in his car and he didn’t know where she got it. Through a headachy haze, he remembered fighting with the trooper about opening the trunk. Weren’t they supposed to have some kind of judge’s order to search people’s houses? Maybe that would go for a car too. His lawyer would know about that.

  He wanted the same lawyer he had before. Molly Bloomfield. She was good looking and she hadn’t give him a long old sermon. She just told him to tell her the truth, so he did, and added that he was very sorry, but that it had hurt his feelings so bad that Jenny broke up with him. Anyway, Jenny’s dad had been saying he wanted to see Damon go to jail, but all he got was having to pay for the garage to be repainted, and his Grandma came up with that, and then he had to be on this clean-up crew around Lake Timpoochee every Saturday morning for six weeks.

  Maybe he could just tell them that he found the camera on the side of the road. He wished he had a cigarette.

  Then there was the laptop at Courtney’s apartment. He was pretty sure he had cleaned all of the old guy’s stuff out of it. Then he relaxed a little. How would they know he was living with Courtney anyway? If they searched any place, it would probably be his mom and dad’s house and they sure wouldn’t find anything there.

  The search was already under way. They each had a photocopy of the list of items that Ned Thigpen’s wife had sent, and as Courtney Chapman stood by wailing, they went through her apartment systematically.

  “Got the laptop!” Taneesha called from the bedroom.

  “That’s Damon’s. He just bought it,” Courtney protested.

  Bub held a plastic bag for Taneesha to slip it into. He wanted to tell Courtney that she ought to go home and live with her Mama and Daddy and stay away from trash like Damon Dixon, but he knew he couldn’t. Sam had told her politely that Damon was in police custody and was not injured in any way.

  A half hour later, they still only had the laptop.

  Skeet had come to meet them at the jail parking lot and had gone in to take a look at Damon Dixon. Damon was eating a bowl of cereal and said nothing.

  The jail warden came out to see the search warrant for the car, thinking the whole thing was ridiculous. Taneesha videotaped Sam holding up the warrant and then t
he keys, and then opening the trunk. Bub held a plastic bag open and Sam carefully placed he camera in it, holding by the strap.”

  “This is a real dog and pony show,” the warden said. “I thought the state patrol already found that camera once.”

  Nobody said anything in response.

  They headed back to the courthouse where Taneesha took the two bags to the evidence room, and Sam got on the phone to the District Attorney’s Office.

  “I think,” he said when he was off the phone, “That I have time for breakfast with my fiancée at R&J’s. Let’s plan to have Mr. Dixon over here for questioning at 11 a.m. I’m going to call the D.A. and give the Public Defender a heads up.

  Bub groaned.

  “By the book,” Sam said. “If Sanders Beal has to try a case coming out of this, I want our part of it to be flawless. I am not going to question Damon Dixon without his attorney present. In fact I’d rather not even look at him without his lawyer present.”

  “Are you thinking he killed Ned Thigpen?” Skeet asked.

  “I’m certain he robbed Ned Thigpen,” Sam said, “But let’s see what he has to say.”

  He went by the paper to get Hunter to have breakfast with him.

  “We might as well get it over with,” he said as they crossed the street. “Once everybody’s congratulated us and looked at the ring, they won’t need to do it again. “

  He didn’t mention Damon Dixon at all.

  Shellie came in at nine and had no time to find out anything before she answered the first phone call.

  “All I want to say is that he killed her.”

  It was the voice of an older woman.

  “M’am, could I get your name?”

  “You certainly can. My name is Frances Hartfield, and my sister, Velma Dixon just passed away from a stroke, and I know Damon Dixon has been arrested for something else, but I hope you’ll keep him there, because he scared her into lying to y’all, and then her blood pressure went up and she had a stroke and died, and if you need anybody to speak up against him, you can call me.”

  “Mrs. Hartsfield,, this is your neighbor Shellie Carstairs and I’m so sorry for your loss,” Shellie said soothingly “Could I send somebody out to talk with you in your home?”

  “Yes,” the woman seemed to have started crying. “Thank you. Could you send that nice Deputy Williston? He’s the one who drove her here the other night. I won’t have to explain as much to him.”

  On the other side of the river, where Timpoochee Creek marked his property line, and the ground had just dried out enough to walk through, Grady Bennett has seen how much land the flood took away, and he was crying. He wondered if God would be annoyed with him for praying after he hadn’t prayed or even been to church in so many years.

  In addition, who could he ask? Not Deirdre or Mama, for sure.

  He thought about it a long while and remembered from somewhere, maybe a movie that preachers were not supposed to tell anybody what you told them. Well, Deirdre was down at the Good Shepherd Church already with Arnette, who had talked her into painting a picture for the children’s Sunday School class, right on the wall. She was a nice, smart woman, and she wouldn’t have married a man who wasn’t pretty good, he thought. Maybe he could walk down to get her and spend some time talking with Pastor Jimmy Rayburn..

  He remembered that old song, “Standing in the Need of Prayer,” and thought to himself. “That’s me.”

  CHAPTER 19

  IT WAS AFTER LUNCH AND HUNTER couldn’t believe she had so much of her work done. It was a rare Tuesday night that there were not any government meetings

  As if he were a mind reader, Tyler came out of his office and rolled his wheelchair to her desk.

  “What would you think about writing a column for the editorial page?” he asked. “We are blessed this week with a screw up by the Ministerial Association. Somebody forgot to tell the new minister at the Presbyterian Church that it was his turn. I think we need to move them to the church section anyway so you can have that space.”

  “A column?” Hunter said.

  “Yes, Hunter, one of those things with about 500 words and your picture, on a subject of your choosing, though preferably not on the subject of your engagement to the sheriff.”

  Hunter, who had been wanting to write a weekly column ever since she started at the paper, and had thought of hundreds of things to write about, suddenly felt every idea she had ever had slowly slipping away. She was a complete blank.”

  “OK,” she said off-handedly, “I’ll come up with something.”

  “I need it on page four before I leave this afternoon,” Tyler said.

  In addition, there went the afternoon.

  Something poked at her memory, and she looked at her desk calendar.

  No, the trip to see the Bennett’s was for Wednesday.

  A column. She had to think of a column. And a picture. She would need a picture.

  Could she trust Novena to take one?

  Then she remembered that Nikki had taken a bunch on her one and only trip to Merchantsville, and that some of them were good.

  She went outside and called Nikki.

  “Emergency!” she said as soon as Nikki answered. “Tyler wants me to start writing a column. NOW. Like today, and I don’t have a good picture of myself and I’m thinking maybe you do.”

  “Emergency over,” Nikki laughed. “I probably have 20 or 30,” Nikki said, “How many do you want to choose from? How about I send you my top three picks by e-mail. Do you want to look professional or sexy?”

  “Both!” Hunter said with a laugh. “Thank you. You’re saving my life.”

  “Speaking of life,” Nikki said. “From what I hear, Michael Donagan is not dead at all. I was going to e-mail you about this tonight.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hunter asked.

  “You know my friend, Sunny? She started working as the part time manager for the Piedmont Camera Club about six months ago. She’s doing it at home, and doing their newsletter and everything. It’s not a whole lot, but it means she can stay home with the baby, and..””

  “Michael Donagan,” Hunter prompted, heading back into the paper, so she could take notes.

  “Yeah. I was telling her about your buying those paintings by Deidre Donagan and about finding the place in Buckhead, and she said ‘Oh, that’s Michael Donagan’s daughter, isn’t it.

  “And I said yes it was and that I had learned from you about his dying, and she said he’s not dead.”

  “You’re kidding,” Hunter said.

  “Not kidding. She not only said he wasn’t dead, but that he was still a member in good standing of the Camera Club and she knew that because his dues came in right after she started working there, and that he was still on their e-mail list and their mailing list for the newsletter. I made her look it up and check and she said he was on there, that he had a P.O. Box in Macon, which is probably why the Atlanta crowd has lost touch with him. I even asked her if she had seen him, and she said not for a long time, and she remembered hearing once that he had emphysema, so maybe he wasn’t out and about much, but she didn’t figure he’d be paying his dues if he was dead.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Hunter said. “Maybe Deirdre kept his membership going.”

  “You mean the girl who can’t remember the name of her own favorite boutique?” Nikki asked. “Uh, oh. I’ve got a shoot in about half an hour. I’m going to send you those pictures now.”

  Hunter put the strange problem of Michael Donagan out of her mind as she wrapped up the last of her news stories and pondered what to write for a column.

  At about the same time, Sam Bailey and the Public Defender, Molly Bloomfield, were in agreement about starting the interview with Damon Dixon. The crime tech team had already made a written report and Sam had a copy for the Public Defender, who was not looking very happy after talking with her client privately.

  Bub had quickly written down the gist of what Frances Hartfield said V
elma Dixon had told her and her husband shortly before her stroke. Sam had read it with raised eyebrows, and then patted Bub on the back.

  They were ready to start.

  Sam recited Damon Dixon’s Miranda rights to him, and said, “We are investigating the theft of certain items from the car belonging to a murder victim, Ned Thigpen of Marietta, Georgia, on the bypass road to Bubba Shipley’s hangar which starts and ends on Highway..”

  He continued to roll out factual background until Molly Bloomfield nodded briskly and said, “I think we’re all aware of those facts. My client has agreed to tell you the whole truth.

  “Mr. Dixon, are you ready to explain how you happened to have a Nikon camera belonging to Mr. Thigpen in the trunk of your car early this morning when you were stopped by the Georgia State Patrol? And, how you happened to be keeping Mr. Thigpen’s laptop computer at the apartment of Courtney Chapman?”

  “I took them from his car,” Damon said as if that had to be obvious, and he was bored with the whole discussion. “He was already dead when I took them. Now you’ve got them back.”

  “Did you also take Mr. Thigpen’s cellphone and his wallet?”

  “I refuse to answer,” Damon said. His attorney winced.

  “Did you take any of the following items,” Sam said, “A Canon camera with zoom lens, another Nikon camera with zoom lens, both in camera cases, and two tripods” he handed out a list of the equipment with specifications.”

  “No!” Damon said. “I did not.”

  “Did you take a painting on canvas of Noah’s Ark?”

  “No,” Damon said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  “So,” Sam said. “You admit to taking the Nikon that was in your trunk, and the computer we found in Miss Chapman’s apartment, but you refuse to answer the question about the cell phone and the wallet, and your answer as to whether you took the items on the list starting with the Canon camera is no.”

  “That’s right,” Damon said. “I took the two things you’ve got.”