Looking for Lillian (Hunter Jones Mystery Book 7)

by Charlotte Moore

  “I just twisted my ankle,” Stacy said, hobbling toward the door. “I’ve got to see about Lucasta.”

  “Sheriff Bailey told her to wait here,” Hunter said. “But she didn’t.”

  “I know she wouldn’t mean to break the law,” Stacy said. “Maybe she didn’t understand. I’ll catch up with her and tell her.”

  She hopped to the coatrack and began digging through the coats and hats.

  “Let me help you down the stairs,” Hunter said.

  Getting down the stairs from the big front porch to the front walk was slow work, and the freezing wind didn’t make it easier. They made it to the sidewalk before Stacy said between chattering teeth. “Oh, there she g-g-goes!”

  A Volkswagen van was tearing down Literary Lane toward Main Street.

  “Did she leave you without a ride?” Hunter asked.

  No, I came in my own car,” Stacy said. “That’s it right across the street. I guess she’s okay if she’s driving. I’ll call her when I get home. Thank you so much for helping me. I can make it from here. It’s not that bad. N-n-no point in both of us freezing.”

  Hunter checked her digital recorder and was glad to see it had been running the whole time.

  Upstairs in the front bedroom, Sam and Sabrina were kneeling beside Buzz McFall’s body, which was sprawled face-up on the bedroom floor.

  “I can’t feel a pulse,” Sabrina said to Sam in a shaky voice. “His face looks awful.”

  Sam already knew that the man was dead. He reached out for tube-shaped plastic medicine bottle that was near the dust ruffle of the bed. It was open, with tiny white pills spilled onto the carpet. He read the label.

  “Nitroglycerin,” he said. “Did he have angina?”

  “No,” Sabrina said. looking paler by the moment. “No. He didn’t have anything. He saw the doctor last week and he told us all he was in perfect health.”

  “This prescription is in his name,” Sam said, delaying the inevitable. “He got it filled three days ago.”

  Sabrina apparently wasn’t into delays or denial.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked in a flat voice.

  “I’m afraid so,” Sam said, as he got up and helped her to her feet He got out his cell phone, hoping she would hold herself together for a few more minutes.

  Tab McFall burst through a side door that Sam hadn’t noticed before.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. Then he saw his father’s body.

  “He must have had a heart attack, Tab,” Sam said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m going to kill Dawson,” Sabrina said in a low, angry voice to nobody in particular. “Buzz didn’t come up here on any business call. His laptop isn’t even open. He came up here to get that medicine. We were all down there listening to Dawson run his mouth when somebody could have been helping Buzz.”

  Tab seemed determined to check his father’s pulse for himself, and listen for a heartbeat himself.

  When he stood up, he brushed some tears from his eyes, looking pale but steady enough.

  “Tab,” Sam said. “I know this is hard, but we’ve got to deal with it. Who’s the best one to tell your grandparents and your sister about this? Can you handle it?”

  “I’ll get Augusta to help,” Tab said after only a moment’s thought. “Augusta can handle anything. She’s already taken Granddad to the den because he was getting confused. But what about all those people downstairs?”

  “I’ll take care of that part,” Sam said. “I need to get some help and call the coroner.”

  “Who was that screaming woman?” Sabrina suddenly asked “What was she doing upstairs? What was it she said?”

  “I’m going to find out about that,” Sam said. “I need to make a couple of phone calls, and then let’s close this room and go downstairs the back way.”

  Downstairs, everyone had gotten quiet, wondering what had happened. Hunter’s cell phone chimed.

  It was Sam, in Sheriff mode, which meant she might as well have been one of his deputies.

  “Buzz McFall is dead,” he said. “Heart attack probably. The coroner and Taneesha are both on their way. Is that screaming woman still there?”

  “No,” Hunter said, moving away from the crowd. “She ran off, but she’s local. I’ve got her name and the name of the friend who was here with her. I got it all on my recorder.

  “Good,” Sam said. “Give Taneesha that information as soon as she gets here, and get Miss Rose and go home.”

  He didn’t bother to say goodbye.

  Hunter could hear a siren wailing, and then a second one in the distance.

  Lt. Taneesha Martin Hayes was Sheriff Sam Bailey’s second-in-command and one of the first friends Hunter had made in her adopted hometown. A former state tennis champion, she was tall, dark and graceful—beautiful when she smiled, and a little intimidating when she frowned and narrowed her eyes.

  She had been enjoying Monday off and had spent a good part of Sunday afternoon and Monday preparing a cassoulet, with a cut up duck she had ordered through a Macon butcher, sausage, white beans and an array of seasonings. She had just taken the finished masterpiece out of the oven when she got the call from Sam.

  She was wearing her one winter coat over the sweater, leggings and running shoes she had been wearing at home.

  Hunter already had Miss Rose ready to leave. She met Taneesha at the door handing her a page she had scribbled on and torn out of her reporter’s notebook.

  A woman named Lucasta Tilling found the body upstairs. She said “Lillian is up there.” A friend of hers, Stacy Vann, who works at Middle School was also here. Both have left.

  “Thanks,” Taneesha said, studying the names as Hunter and Miss Rose left.

  She remembered Stacy Vann from high school. It was the name of Lucasta Tilling that made her shake her head in exasperation.

  Lucasta Tilling was the President of the Magnolia County Paranormal Society.

  Chapter 4

  After taking a distressed Rose Tyndale home, Hunter headed back to her own safe and familiar world.

  She parked in the back of the Queen Anne house on Clearview Circle and came in through the little hallway that was once a pantry and now served as a cluttered entry hall with space for coats and her toddler’s outdoor toys. With doors at either end, it buffered the family room from blasts of heat in the summer and the less frequent cold winds of winter.

  The family room, which Sam and his deputy, Skeet Borders, had created by tearing out the wall between the old kitchen and the formal dining room, was everything Hunter had dreamed of when they bought the old house.

  Her new, entirely modern kitchen was at one end. Their big round table was in the center, and the rest of the space was for living, playing, watching television and even working. The sliding glass doors that led to a big wooden deck, where Sam’s beloved grill now waited for warmer weather. At the moment, curtains covered the glass doors to conserve heat.

  The floor was littered with toys.

  Bethie Bailey was reading Hunter’s childhood copy of “The Snowy Day” to her little brother, Tyler. They were curled on the comfortable old sofa that faced the fireplace. Two of the family’s three cats, Tuxedo and Marmalade, were snoozing beside them, while the oldest cat, Katie the Calico, watched from the back of Sam’s recliner.

  Ty, who was two-and-a-half, with his father’s blue eyes and his mother’s golden curls, forgot the book, jumped into a standing position on the sofa, and said, “My mommy!”, holding out his arms for a hug. Their German shepherd, Flannery tried to join in the embrace.

  Hunter was still shivering from the cold, so she enjoyed the warmth and was happy to see that Ty had already had his bath and was in his Star Wars pajamas.

  “Good job!” she said to Bethie. “Have you two had supper?”

  “No chili!” her son announced. “Yuck
!”

  “He’s decided he doesn’t like chili, so I fixed him macaroni and cheese,” Bethie said. “Where’s Dad?”

  “A problem came up,” Hunter said. “It’s going to take him a while. I’ll tell you about it after I get Ty off to bed.”

  “Aww,” Bethie said. “He was going to start a fire for us to toast marshmallows. I’m afraid I told Ty.”

  “I want marthmallows!” Ty said.

  “Well, I can probably do that,” Hunter said, although she felt a little uneasy about starting the fire.

  Her cell phone chimed.

  It was Mallory.

  “Hey, I saw you leaving Miss Rose off, and then my dad called and said they heard everything’s crazy over at the McFall’s. Sirens and everything. What’s going on over there?

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Hunter said as Tyler began struggling to get free.

  She put him down to Bethie to hear the rest of the story.

  “The candidate has, uh, passed away,” she told Mallory. “Sam says it was probably a heart attack.”

  Bethie, who was listening, gave her a wide-eyed look.

  “You’re kidding!” Mallory said, and then she said to someone in the background. “Buzz McFall died of a heart attack at this open house.”

  Hunter knew who was there. Mallory and her boyfriend, Tucker Townsend, were inseparable during their time away from their job, and sometimes on the job. Tucker even sat across from Mallory’s desk when he was between appointments as the local computer genius. He sold them, installed them, repaired them, and even taught people how to use them.

  “Does Tucker know how to build a fire?” Hunter asked, changing the subject. “I mean checking to make sure the flue is open and all that stuff?”

  “I don’t know if Tucker knows his way around a fireplace, but I do,” Mallory said. “It’s not just a guy thing.”

  Hunter could hear Mallory’s boyfriend, Tucker Townsend, objecting in the background. Mallory laughed.

  “Tucker says just because he’s a techie doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to build a fire,” she told Hunter.

  “Well, why don’t you two come over and build one so we can all toast marshmallows?” Hunter asked. “Maybe you and I can talk shop a little bit, too. All the pictures I took are inappropriate now, and we’re going to need a new game plan for the front page.”

  “My Bethie and me want marthmallows,” Tyler said as she ended the call. “Marthmallows. Marthmallows. Marthmallows.”

  “I’m trying to teach to say it right,” Bethie said.

  An hour later Sam was winding up his work. The local guests had been quietly urged to leave, and Deputy Aaron Whitchell had come to direct traffic. The new minister from Merchantsville United Methodist Church had been called and had arrived.

  While Taneesha spoke with Augusta Wren and took statements from Tab McFall, Dawson Reeves and Sabrina McFall, the body of Buzz McFall was seen by the coroner and taken from the upstairs bedroom to the morgue at the Magnolia County Medical Center.

  Dawson Reeves had written a check and handed it to the video team, and they had packed up and left without accomplishing anything. Jaybird Hilliard had spoken with those who were planning dinner at the country club, and a few had decided that they might as well go, having paid in advance.

  The McFall family members were gathered in their den. It was a newer room that had been added on during one of several renovations and had been in use that afternoon as a temporary strategy room for Buzz McFall and Dawson Reeves.

  Now Sam was standing in the kitchen with Reeves and a worried-looking young man.

  “This is my son, Declan,” Reeves said to Sam and Taneesha in a subdued voice. “He’s been working on the media relations and scheduling for the campaign. He’s gotten the yard signs and bumper stickers out of that front room and our luggage from upstairs. He and I can go back in his car and leave the campaign van here for Sabrina and Caitlin. It’s Sabrina’s van anyway. We just taped the posters to it.”

  Declan’s eyes were darting all around.

  “You don’t need us here any further, do you?” Dawson Reeves asked Sam. “I can tell Sabrina’s upset with me, and I have a feeling the family would rather we left. We’ll stay in touch and be back for the funeral, of course.”

  “No problem,” Sam said after a little thought. “You can go ahead. Just give me your card in case somebody needs to contact you.”

  “What do we tell the press?” Declan Reeves asked his father in a near-whisper. “Remember, I sent out that release about his being in Cordele on Wednesday.”

  “Hold off on telling them anything until I call you,” Sam interjected. “It won’t take long in the morning. The coroner says it was probably a heart attack, but he wants a confirmation from a pathologist. Buzz was a public figure, and it was unexpected. And, of course, there was that woman who came screaming down the stairs. That will get around. We have to do this by the book.”

  “What was that all about anyway?” Reeves asked. “Who was she?”

  “ “I think she was poking around upstairs where she didn’t belong, and she just happened to find Buzz’s body and panicked,” Sam said. “ We’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  “Will she be charged with anything?”

  “Not unless she stole something,” Sam said. “And I didn’t notice anything in her hands. It’s hard to call it trespassing when there’s an open house and the public is invited…”

  Declan suddenly turned and left, heading toward the back door.

  “He’s the one who wrote the newspaper ad,” his father said to Sam. “Buzz’s mother wasn’t happy about that.”

  Sam felt a wave of sympathy for the young man.

  “Just one more thing,” he asked. “Lt. Hayes may not have asked you this, but I heard what you told the crowd up front. and I’m curious. What was the business emergency?”

  Reeves looked embarrassed.

  “I’ve told Lt. Hayes about that,” he said. “There wasn’t one. I didn’t even know he had a heart problem. He told me he passed his physical last week with flying colors. I knew he was going upstairs because his neck and shoulder were hurting, and I thought maybe he had some kind of muscle cramp. He was really short-tempered all day, and I was writing it off to his being upset about the poll we had just seen. Anyway, he told me he had to take some pain medicine, and he’d be down as soon as he felt a little better.”

  “Did you offer to go with him?”

  “Yes, and then I offered to get Sabrina,” Reeves said, “But he just about bit my head off. He said he didn’t want her fussing around and worrying about him, and that I should just make something up and kill some time until he came down. He didn’t want anybody to know he was hurting. So I did what he said. I wish I hadn’t.”

  Sam nodded, expressionless. He had already had an opportunity to witness Reeves lying with ease and wasn’t sure he should put his full trust in anything the man said. Still, the second story made sense, and letting another man make bad decisions wasn’t a crime.

  Declan came back in and said, “Dad, can we get on the road? We need to find a gas station before we leave town. My tank’s almost empty.”

  “Lucasta Tilling is the head of that ghost-hunting group,” Taneesha told Sam a few minutes later in private. “Remember the ones who got permission from City Council to go into Oakvale Cemetery at night? It’s called the Magnolia County Paranormal Society. Augusta Wren says there’s been a story going around town about a ghost in this house since she was little. It’s supposed to be the ghost of Lillian McFall, who died a long time ago.”

  Sam frowned.

  “Yeah, I remember hearing that,” he said. “It was either a ghost in the window or one wandering around the cemetery. We need to talk to Miss Tilling about staying out of people’s homes with her nonsense, but it can wait until tomorrow.”


  “She may have learned her lesson,” Taneesha said, with a slight grin. “And one more thing. Sabrina McFall says she doesn’t want to spend the night here. I suggested Hilliard House and called Robin , so they’re expecting her. Can we go in the bedroom now? I’ll help her get her things and drive her over there before I go home.

  Sam nodded.

  A few minutes later, Taneesha was watching as Sabrina moved around the upstairs bedroom swiftly, grabbing up a few scattered items and stuffing them into an overnight bag. At one point, she seemed to be looking for something in particular, first on the vanity, and then in her purse.

  “Can I help?” Taneesha asked.

  “No, thank you,” Sabrina said, “I’ll just let it go.”

  “Is something missing that we need to know about?” Taneesha asked.

  “No, it’s not important,” Sabrina said, a little irritably. She shook her head wearily and closed her overnight bag, then went to take a wardrobe bag from the closet.

  Taneesha studied the room while she waited. She had grown up in an old house with old furniture, and she preferred contemporary styles in everything from architecture to furnishings to china. Still, she found herself admiring the huge four-poster bed, which had been covered with a pale blue duvet and piles of different colored pillows. A leather suitcase and laptop that must have been Buzz McFall’s were near the end of the bed, and she wondered idly what would become of them.

  “I’m ready,” Sabrina said suddenly. “Can we get out of here?”

  Taneesha nodded and said, “You’ll need your coat and gloves. It’s sixteen degrees outside.”

  Sabrina seemed to relax a little once they were in Taneesha’s car.

  “Thank you for your help,” she said, shivering as Taneesha got the heat going. “I just need to be someplace where I can call and talk with my family. I never had a chance to get close to Buzz’s family, and it’s almost like I’m in the way.”

  Taneesha was silent as she turned onto Hilliard Court, thinking that Sabrina must not be close to her teenaged stepdaughter the way Hunter was close to Bethie.