Skeet kept driving and staring straight ahead.
“You think it would be all right for me to call her?” Grady said. “I was supposed to go by and help her with something later.”
“OK,” Skeet said.”But how about not telling her where you’re going? I don’t know that the sheriff wants a lot of people to know about this.”
Grady made his call and left a message.
“Hey, Mama, I’ve got some business to tend to, and I probably won’t be by later. I’ll call you “
Hunter was relieved when she finally saw the little white church where she was supposed to turn off for the Bennett home. She had been thinking she was lost in endless farm fields, and having looked at the big county map, before she left the office to make sure she understood the detour, she could really see how essential the rebuilding of the Timpoochee Creek Bridge was, even if they didn’t rebuild the dam.
That, she thought, as she reached the Good Shepherd church, could be her next column.
She pulled up in the circular front driveway of the old farmhouse and smiled at the view. It wasn’t fancy, but a huge oak tree shaded the front yard, and there was a big front porch. She could see a barn in the back. It all looked like Grady worked hard at keeping things up.
She got the paintings out of the back seat and headed for the front door.
A woman she had never met before, slim and gray-haired with a warm smile met her at the front door and she wondered if she was at the wrong house.
“Hi,” Hunter said, “I’m Hunter Jones. I’m looking for Grady Bennett. He was going to repair these paintings for me. His wife did them.”
“He’s had to go take care of some business, but come on in. I am sure Dee Dee would like to meet you if you have bought some of her paintings. I am Arnette Rayburn. My husband’s the pastor at the church down the road.”
Hunter smiled and went inside. Finally, she was going to have a chance to meet the mysterious Deirdre Donagan Bennett.
Sam had explained Grady’s rights to him before he started asking questions.
“I don’t think I need a lawyer. I’ve already told Skeet the whole thing,” Grady said, “And Sheriff Bailey, I’m sorry if I’ve caused a problem . I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, and then I’ll be honest. I just got scared.”
“Tell me about your wife’s father to start with,” Sam said. “Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
“When did he die?”
“It was about four months after me and Dee Dee got married. He was living with us then and he was real sick. He had a bad heart and that awful cough and problems breathing from smoking a lot.”
“Lung Cancer? Emphysema?”
“I don’t think it was cancer, but he had to have oxygen about half the time, and he kept doing more than he should and getting out of breath. I wanted to take him to a doctor, but he had this service for the oxygen and he said he was tired of doctors and he knew he was gonna die. He just wanted to be outdoors a lot and take pictures, and be with Dee Dee. He called her Deer-Druh. Anyway I fixed him up a darkroom in the barn so he could develop his photos but he hardly got to use it.
“How did he die, Grady?”
“Dee Dee found him lyin’ out in the woods in the back of our house and he was already gone. I was away from home until about an hour later and I found Dee Dee just sitting there beside him, crying.”
“Did you bury him in that old wood casket?”
“Yes Sir, I did. That’s what he wanted. He even wrote that down, and I’ve got it in my lockbox where I keep my money. He had seen the old casket in the barn. I did not even know it was a casket. My granddaddy used it to keep kindling’ wood and coal in. They must have made it for somebody who didn’t die after all.
“Anyway, Mr. Mike didn’t want anything to do with funeral homes and all that stuff they do. If he had had it his way, he would have been just wrapped in a sheet and buried in the ground,, so he’d go back to nature, but I told him I couldn’t stand to do that, so he said to put him in that old casket then.
“
He even showed me where he wanted to be buried, which was right by the creek, and I guess it was too close to the creek.”
“Looks like it was,” Sam said.
“I’ve been down there and a whole bunch of land got washed away. I’ve been tryin’ to keep Dee Dee from goin’ down there since the flood cause she doesn’t know. Anyway, it was a real pretty place and Dee Dee and me planted some bulbs there, and had a little white wooden cross to mark the place, but now it’s all washed away. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it with doing it the way he wanted,” Grady said. “I knew folks used to do it, and that was what he wanted and it’s my land. He didn’t have any family but Dee Dee, and he said the only two things he asked of me was to take care of her and to bury him in a way that wouldn’t cost anything and would go back to nature.
“Well it’s not really a crime to bury somebody on your own land, if that makes you feel any better,” Sam said. “I got this young lawyer here to check that out.”
Jeremy Hayes smiled at Grady. “Funeral home people may not like it,” he said, but there’s no law saying you can’t have a burial on your own land unless zoning prohibits it. We might need to find another place to bury him, though.”
“Pastor Jimmy already said we could bury him in their church graveyard,” Grady said, looking relieved.
“But there’s another problem, Grady,” Sam said, “And this is real serious, so if you want a lawyer, I’ll get you one. If you can’t pay, it’ OK.”
Grady looked surprised.
“What other problem?”
“Well, for starters, you never filed a death certificate or let Social Security know he was dead,” Sam said.
Grady brightened up. “Oh, Sheriff Bailey, Mama handled all that. She can tell you about it. She took care of everything once we told her he was gone. She was out of town when he died and we buried him, but after I told her, she took his computer and all his papers, and she got us some money that he left us and every now and then we get some more. She sold his cameras, because neither one of us knew how to use them, nor she got us $500. You can ask her about that. You want me to call her?”
“No, “Sam said. “We’ll catch up with her.”
He turned to Skeet and said, “Will you get Grady to tell you about how he met Dee Dee and came to know Mr. Mike? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He went out, conferred with Shellie and found Taneesha.
“I need two search warrants signed as soon as possible,” he said, “One for Sharon Bennett’s home and one for her store. I think Judge Patterson is still in the building. And I guess we better get one for Grady’s place, too.”
“What’s the cause?” Shelley asked, starting to fill out the forms.
“Probable Identity theft and fraud,” Sam said. “We know who was in that casket now, and we know who’s been managing his funds since his death. Lord knows who much of it she’s taken.”
Taneesha remembered her lunch conversation.
“Hunter was going out to Grady’s house this afternoon.”she said.
Hunter was having a very pleasant visit with Deirdre, who was showing her all her paints and brushes, and paintings that were to be sold at festivals.
She was learning that Deirdre Donagan Bennett might be all grown up and married, but talking with her was like talking with a child eager to share her treasures.
The first thing she had asked the young woman was, “Do you want me to call you Dee Dee or Deirdre?”
“Deirdre,” was the happy answer. “That’s my real name.”
I’m glad you like my paintings,” she said politely after Hunter had praised the work in the studio. “Different people like different things. My daddy told me that all the time. Sometimes people like them. Sometimes they don’t. I can’t let my feelings get hurt about it.”
“But the ones who like them like them very much,” Hunter said. “I love the ones I bought
at your mother-in-law’s store.”
“Mrs. Bennett .doesn’t like them,” Deirdre said with a slight pout that reminded Hunter of Bethie’s rare bad moods, “But Arnette does, and I’m going to paint a picture right on the wall at the church. It’s a Noah’s Ark picture. They want it to have a giraffe in it.”
Deirdre’s cell phone rang with a merry tune, and she pulled it from her pocket and answered it.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Bennett. No, I don’t know where he went. He went off with his friend Skeet, the one who’s a policeman.”
Hunter could hear the voice on the phone get higher.
“I told you I don’t know,” Deirdre said with a trace of stubbornness. “I’ve got company and we’re having fun, so goodbye.”
“She gets so bossy sometimes,” she said to Hunter after she hug up..
The phone rang again, and Dee Dee held it out to Hunter.
“Do you know how to turn it off?”
“Well, what if Grady wants to call you?” Hunter started.
“It’s all right,” Arnette Brayburn said gently. “He can call on my phone.”
“When’s Grady coming back?” Deirdre asked Arnette.
“Honey, I’m not sure. He’s going to call us as soon as he knows.”
“I really need to go,” Hunter said, “I didn’t plan to visit this long.”
“Oh, please don’t go,” Arnette said, giving Hunter a quick, pleading look.”I was going to make us some iced tea, and there’s some pound cake I brought over yesterday.”
“I think Binky needs to go out,” Deirdre said, as her poodle set up a fuss at the back door. “Hunter Jones, do you want to see our backyard and the place where my daddy is buried? We can walk around the flood puddles.”
“You just take Binky out and come back in” Hunter said. “If it’s muddy out there, I can’t walk in it with my high heels.”
Deirdre looked disappointed, but went out with the dog, and Hunter had a chance to ask Arnette, “Is there some kind of problem?”
“Grady had to go to talk to the sheriff because of a little problem,” Arnette said. “And Deirdre and Mrs.Bennett don’t get along so well. I don’t think Mrs Bennett means any harm, but she really does take a kind of fussy attitude with Deirdre and you know, Deirdre’s like my husband says, she’s one of God’s special children.”
Before Hunter could think what to say, her own cell phone rang.
It was Taneesha
“Are you at the Bennett’s house,” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then Sam wants you to leave,” she said. “Come on back into town. I’m on my way out there and Skeet and Bub are on the way out there with a search warrant and Grady’s with them. You don’t need to be in the middle of this. Sam was on the phone but I think he’s coming, too.
Then she paused.
“Have you seen Sharon Bennett? Is she out there?”
“No,” Hunter said, “But she’s called looking for Grady.
“OK, listen to me, Taneesha said. “You are to leave right now and tell the preacher’s wife who’s staying out there that she should take Grady’s wife down to the church. It’s not going to be five minutes before we get there, and Skeet can drop Grady by the church, too..”
Hunter heard a car pull up.
“Somebody’s here already,” she said and moved to get a view out the living room window. It’s Sharon Bennett. She must have been calling from her car..”
“OK, just tell her you were all about to go out, and leave.” Taneesha said, sounding tense, “And don’t say a thing about the search. Her house is being searched right now. T.J.’s in charge of that.”
Sharon Bennett came through the door without knocking. She was talking on her own cell phone and didn’t notice Hunter.
“What do you mean they’re going into my house?” she asked, her voice rising. “They can’t do that.”
Sharon suddenly noticed Hunter and glared at her.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?“
“We were just leaving to go down to the church,” Hunter said to Sharon, holding her cell phone, so that Taneesha could hear.”.
“If that’s Sam Bailey you’re talking to, you can tell him that if anybody’s going into my house without my permission, I’m going to sue him for every cent he’s got,” Sharon said, heading toward the back of the house.
“You heard that?” Hunter asked Taneesha in a whisper.
“Don’t argue with her,” Taneesha said. “She’s in a lot of trouble and she could be armed. Get Deirdre and that preacher’s wife, and get them in your car and leave, and go down to the church.”
“That’s Grady’s money box!” Deirdre suddenly wailed.at Sharon “You can’t take Grady’s money box. It’s his.”
“Shut up, you…you moron!” Sharon Bennett said. She was holding a metal box in one hand and a small handgun n the other.
“We’re leaving, Mrs. Bennett,” Hunter said, amazed at how calm her voice was. “Come on Deirdre. Come on Arnette. We need to go down to the church and meet Grady. They’re all going to be out here in just a few minutes.”
“I hear the sirens,” Arnette said. “Come on Dee Dee. Let Grady talk with is mom about the money box. It’ll get worked out.”
Deirdre wailed. Hunter took one of her hands and Arnette took the other, while Sharon Bennett ran toward the back of the house. They walked to the front door and out on the porch.
It looked like the whole Magnolia County Sheriff’s department was arriving at once.
“She went out the back,” Hunter called to Taneesha, who was the first one out and running, with Skeet Borders right behind her.
As soon as Deirdre was safely in Grady’s arms, Hunter reached into her shoulder bag for her camera, and began taking pictures. Sam came over and put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek..
“That makes it hard to use the camera,” she said, trying to concentrate on her work.
She even got a good shot of Taneesha and Skeet, leading a red-faced, out-of-breath Sharon Bennett back around the house..
Skeet has holding the handgun.
“I think she was trying to get to the creek to throw this in,” he said to Sam.”
Hunter noticed that Sharon was being put in handcuffs, and asked Sam, “What on earth is she being charged with?”
“I’ll send out a statement later,” he said with a wry smile.
“I want to know right now,” Hunter said. “You know we already printed the paper anyway, and Will Roy’s going to have it all to himself for a week.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Sam said with a smile, “I was thinking about that on the way out here. I just wanted to see if you were all right, and any time you do your reporter attitude, I know you are.”
Sharon Bennett was being read her rights by Skeet.
“What are the charges?”
“Identity theft, embezzlement and fraud in the case of Michael Donagan,She’s spent a ton of hismoney,” he said. “That’s who’s in the casket—or was.”
“You’re kidding!”
“And that’s just part of it,” he said. “T.J. called me just now to say that they found a whole bunch of photography equipment and the Noah’s Ark painting in Sharon’s back bedroom. That’s in addition to a whole filing case of stuff keeping Michael Donagan alive. We’re also charging her with theft and felony murder in the case of Ned Thigpen.”
Hunter stared at Sam, shocked.
“Arnette Rayburn is going to take Grady and Deirdre down to the church for a while,” he said “and now, as Sheriff of Magnolia County,” he said, “I am telling you to get in your car and leave.”
“Why?” she asked as she snapped one more photo of Sharon Bennett scowling at Taneesha.
“Because I’ve got work to do and you’re a distraction,” Sam said.
CHAPTER 23
NIKKI CALLED ON THURSDAY TO SAY she had been to see Meredith Thayer, and that Meredith had told her that Deirdre Donagan had suffered brain damage
at the age of ten in an accident that had killed her mother.
“The way she remembered it,” Nikki told Hunter,”was that Deirdre had to learn everything all over again: to walk, to talk, to dress herself. It had taken years of therapy and to most people who knew her, she was a walking miracle.”
“She learned how to paint in therapy,” Nikki said, “And her father took him with him to the festivals in the mountain where he sold his photographs and she sold her paintings.”
“I know about that part,” Hunter said. “She told me. She’s a real sweetie, but it’s like she’s a child. I don’t think Grady sees her that way, though, and I can see why Mike Donagan approved of the marriage when he saw them together. He was dying and he knew Grady would take care of her.”
And then they talked about how serious Nikki’s new relationship was getting.
All of her life Bethie Bailey would remember that weekend with the birthday party with so many people there and the giant silk butterflies strung on almost-invisible thread from tree to tree in the backyard, and the cake with lavender butterflies.
And then the second little birthday party with the Ransoms, and having to wear that awful pink dress to the concert, which seemed to go on forever.
But the best part was when it ended with a big surprise, and a handsome man in cowboy clothes, who would later become Bethie’s stepfather, ran up to the front of the church and handed Bethie’s mom a dozen red roses.
It had turned out that he was from Nashville, and had come all the way to Magnolia County to talk her Mom into marrying him, and that Mom was very glad to see him and said she had only left in the hope that he would be jealous and come after her. His name was Vance Holliday, and he could sing, too.
They sang “Blessed Assurance” together, and Miss Novena from the paper took a picture and a television team from Macon that had come to get a story on the concert put it on the late evening news.
Everybody in the county was talking about that great romantic moment for days, and Hunter convinced Tyler that Novena’s photograph was just great and should go on Page one of the following week’s paper.
Death Over the Dam (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 2) Page 14