Missed You In Church: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  Fifteen minutes later, Sam came to the kitchen table barefoot in jeans and a clean t-shirt and they dug into a supper of reheated leftovers from the cook-out, butter beans, sliced tomatoes and freshly baked peach cobbler with ice cream.

  Bethie chattered away about Amelia, the new friend she had made at the Presbyterian Vacation Bible School, and how they were playing a game together on the computer.

  “I’ve looked at it,” Hunter said to Sam. “It’s like a crossword puzzle.”

  “You know, you have become a really good cook,” Sam said to Hunter after eating half of his dessert. “A real Magnolia County cook.”

  “I could cook when I came down here,” she said.

  “Right,” he said with a grin. “Spaghetti and that stuff you called meatloaf, and Rocky Road ice cream.”

  “You never complained,” she said.

  “May I be excused?” Bethie asked. “It’s my turn to play and Amelia’s waiting.”

  “Me? Complain?” Sam said to Hunter after Bethie had gone upstairs. “You were always mad at me about something. I sure wasn’t going to complain about being invited to supper, no matter what it was.”

  Hunter laughed. Arguing about the rocky start of their courtship was as much flirtation as debate.

  “You’ve got your chronology all wrong,” she said. “By the time I invited you to dinner, you had stopped acting like I was getting in your way, and anyway, you turned me down because you wanted to go out to eat instead.”

  “And you had stopped going out with T.J.” he said.

  “I went out with T.J. Jackson exactly once,” Hunter said. “I’ve told you that a hundred times. One time, and all he did was talk about his ex-wife, and besides that he was allergic to my cats. And why shouldn’t I have gone? He was divorced then and you certainly weren’t acting like you were interested.”

  Sam grinned and finished his peach cobbler.

  “I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you,” he said, “But I’m a little exasperated with T.J. He and I have different ideas about surveillance.”

  “You mean because Rocker Barstow got away?” she asked.

  “Not just that he got away,” Sam said, “but he was long gone before T.J. even knew it. He was gone from Saturday morning until Monday morning and the only reason T.J. found out then was because the old man who owns the store called the sheriff’s office down there and wanted to press charges. He said he had been by there three times, once on Saturday, and twice on Sunday and he noticed the thing that were gone when he went back the second time on Sunday. He swears the dogs were still there on Saturday. Barstow was behind on the rent and he took all the money in the store. He could be in California by now, him and all three dogs.”

  “What kind of dogs?” Hunter asked, scratching their German shepherd behind her ears.

  “Just mutts,” Sam said, “Mixed-breed and half-grown. One of them could have been part pit bull. They barked the whole time we were there. I didn’t get the impression that he cared anything about them. Maybe he just had them for protection.”

  “That’s odd,” Hunter said.

  “What?”

  “That he bothered taking three dogs if he was trying to get away without being noticed,” Hunter said. “Think how much trouble that would be if you were traveling, Besides, he beat on Noreen, and apparently on this other woman, too, but he’s a loving pet owner?”

  “Maybe he just let them out to fend for themselves,” Sam said. “Now that you mention it, that’s more likely.”

  A while later their conversation continued in bed, with Sam taking the lead.

  “Did Mallory tell you that she saw us taking Amber in for questioning?” he asked Hunter.

  “Yes,” Hunter said.

  “I hope she wasn’t upset about it,” he said. “Jack was pretty mad.”

  “She’s okay,” Hunter said. “She knows you have to question everybody, and that her Dad’s under a lot of stress.”

  “Good,” Sam said, thinking to himself that whatever Mallory had actually said, Hunter had just given him the shortest possible version.

  CHAPTER 21

  “BETHIE’S GOING TO WORK WITH ME today,” Hunter said over breakfast Tuesday morning. “I got a call from this girl named Mindy Marshall who lives out past Cathay. She and her husband are raising ostriches. They’re talking about selling them for the meat. Apparently, they’re low in cholesterol. Anyway I thought it would be a good feature story for Mallory, and I’m going along, too, just to see the ostriches.”

  “That must be Billy Marshall’s wife,” Sam said, reaching for more peach preserves for his toast. “I heard he married a hippie from North Georgia.”

  “I don’t think they ought to kill them,” Bethie said.

  “Hippies?” Sam asked with a grin. “Why not?”

  “I meant ostriches,” Bethie said, frowning.

  “Don’t say that when we’re out there,” Hunter said. “It’s like raising chickens or pigs or cattle to eat.”

  “Well, I still don’t think they should eat them,” Bethie said. “They could just sell the feathers that fall off.”

  “You know,” Sam said, “About every ten years or so, somebody around here gets a couple of ostriches, or maybe some llamas. Ask Tyler.”

  “It still makes a good story,” Hunter said. “It’s going to be Mallory’s first real feature story.”

  “And I’m going to take the camera Nikki gave me and take some pictures,” Bethie said.

  “You ought not wear those earrings,” Sam said to Hunter. “I’ve always heard that ostriches go straight for anything shiny.”

  “Your dad’s being silly,” Hunter said to Bethie.

  “No. I’m serious,” Sam said to Hunter. “If one of those ostriches steals your jewelry and eats it don’t even bother to make a report.”

  “Bethie,” Hunter said. “You need to brush your hair.”

  “How’s Mallory holding up?” Sam asked when Bethie left.

  “She called last night and she sounded fine,” Hunter said. “She said she had finally talked her dad into hiring weekly cleaning service, for one thing.”

  “That sounds like progress,” Sam said. “That’s a big house, and I can’t see Jack vacuuming.”

  “And they’re having lots of company for the wedding,” Hunter said.

  Sam got up and took his dishes to the sink.

  “I was hoping Noreen’s case would be all wrapped up by now,” he said, “but right now we’re just spinning our wheels.”

  Bethie came back in swinging her camera and they dropped the subject.

  Sam gave them both goodbye kisses and was gone.

  Jack Bremmer arrived at the agency to find Jared Winslow waiting in the parking lot.

  “I came to tell you that my daughter is not working for you any longer,” he said. “She’s already left town with her mother to stay with my brother and his wife down in Valdosta, and if I find out you’ve so much as tried to talk to her…”

  “Jared,” Jack said, “Hold on. I don’t know what Amber’s told you, but…”

  The next thing he knew, he was sprawled backward against his car door, with his hand over his right eye.

  Jared walked off and Jack made his way into his office. After a few tries, he realized that he wasn’t really blind in his right eye.

  “Mr. Bremmer,” Judy Ann said, “What on earth happened to you? I saw Amber’s daddy waiting out there. Did he hit you?”

  “Never mind,” Jack said. “It was a misunderstanding, and Amber’s not coming back. How about calling Janelle Harrell for me and seeing if she can come over and talk sometime this afternoon?”

  Jack went into the private bathroom in his office and looked at his reddish-blue swelling around his eye.

  What would the girls think? He’d have to explain somehow.

  Judy Ann knocked on his office door.

  “Janelle says she has to make arrangements for the kids, and she’ll come in this afternoon.”

  “I
’m going home and put some ice on this eye,” Jack said. “I’ll come back after lunch. “

  He was almost to his car when Clarissa pulled up in the agency parking lot and rolled down her window.

  “Jack, what on earth happened to your eye?” she asked. “It’s all swollen and red.”

  “Jared Winslow hit me,” Jack said, figuring she’d hear about it one way or the other. Then he improvised.

  “He came over here half-crazy because I fired Amber. I’m going home to put some ice on it.”

  “Well, please do,” Clarissa said. “We can’t have you looking all swollen up for the wedding. Now, I just stopped to remind you to see about to rent your tuxedo for the wedding,” she said. “I called the rental place to check and they had everybody down but you. Have you still got the card I gave you? It’s the one with the gold edge. Ray’s Rentals in Macon. They may have to special order if they don’t have your size. Oh, and do you know where Mallory is? I need to talk to her about getting her hair styled the day before the wedding. I went by the newspaper and Novena said she had gone somewhere with Hunter and that little girl. I do wish you’d give her a job here so that I could find her when I need her.”

  “Clarissa,” Jack said, “My eye is killing me right now. Let me get home before it swells shut. Call me tomorrow about the tuxedo place. I don’t know where the card is and I can’t go looking for it half-blind.”

  “Well, alright,” she said, sounding a little hurt at his impatience. “You go see about that eye and keep the ice on it. Those things can take a while, you know, and even if the swelling is down, well, I suppose if you have a bruise, we could use some makeup.”

  “Clarissa,” he almost snarled. “Just leave me alone.”

  Clarissa got back into her car and made a note in her planner to buy some liquid makeup. She paused before starting. What was it she had read in The Wedding Planner’s Guide about tempers? The closer it got to the wedding, she remembered reading, the more likely some family members might be to get stressed and temperamental. Professionals handled them with tact and patience. She practiced a patient, tactful smile as she drove away.

  Mindy Miller was a newcomer to Magnolia County, and not much older than Mallory. She was tanned, fit and highly photogenic in denim shorts and white t-shirts proclaiming “OMG! It’s an Ostrich.”

  “Come on in the kitchen,” she said. “I just blended some kiwis in pomegranite juice. We thought we ought to tell you about the ostriches first and then take the pictures. We’ve got two males and two females, all at breeding age, but we don’t have any eggs yet. They’re still getting used to each other their new home,” Mindy said.

  Hunter and Bethie sipped their smoothies while Mallory did her interview, filling half a notebook with ostrich lore. When she seemed to have run out of questions Hunter popped in to get some local background..

  “Billy’s from here, I mean from Magnolia County,” Mindy said. “This was his granddaddy’s farm. He works at the kaolin plant.”

  Two of tall gangly birds were near the gate of the large fenced in area. They seemed eager to inspect their visitors, and Bethie was enchanted.

  “Look at their eyelashes!” she said.

  Mallory, who had taken off her earrings as soon as Hunter had told her of Sam’s warning, clearly felt uneasy and backed off quickly when one of the ostriches came close. Hunter stepped back, too, but Bethie grinned and asked “Can I go into the pen with them?”

  “NO!” Hunter said.

  “That’s the way it is,” the Mindy laughed. “Some people are ostrich people and some aren’t. Now, these two are Oliver and Odessa. Come on, Bethie. I’ll pose with them.

  Mallory laughed as Hunter stretched to try to take pictures from outside the fence. Once Bethie and Mindy were inside, however, Oliver and Odessa had other ideas and ran toward the far end of the pen, which stretched back into a stand of woods.

  “Oh, Wow!” Mindy said to Bethie, eyes wide. “Look down there. That’s Oscar, and he’s doing a mating dance. Oh, look, he’s got his feathers all ruffled out.”

  “Look at him showing off,” Bethie said. “Is the brown one a girl? Oh, look the other two are coming back to see us.”

  “Bethie doesn’t have a nerve in her body,” Mallory said to Hunter.

  “Nikki says she’s got a good eye with the camera,” Hunter said. “Her pictures are probably going to be better than ours.”

  After they talked a few more minutes with Mindy, they headed back to Merchantsville.

  “I used the zoom lens and got a really good picture of the mating dance,” Bethie said. “It’s too bad Ophelia just got up and ran away, or I could have gotten a picture of them mating.”

  “You’ll have to write and thank Nikki for that camera, and send her some of your pictures,” Mallory said. “I was scared of those things.”

  “I thought they were cute,” Bethie said. “I’ll bet Mindy won’t ever let them be killed. They’re like pets.”

  “They aren’t like any pets I ever had,” Mallory said, clutching the steering wheel.

  “Miss Novena, you should have been there,” Bethie said when they got back to the newspaper office. “Mallory and Mom were scared of the ostriches, but I got a whole bunch of pictures.”

  “Don’t tell me you got a story on ostriches,” Novena said. “I swear every two or three years somebody around here gets this big idea about ostriches. Or llamas. Who is it this time?”

  “Mindy Marshall,” Hunter said. “They live on the other side of Cathay.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Novena said. “That girl from Dahlonega that Billy Marshall married. She’s cute as she can be, but it’s a good thing Billy’s got a steady job.”

  “May I go across to the courthouse and show Daddy my pictures,” Bethie asked her mother.

  “Sure,” Hunter said, “and bring him back with you so we can have lunch.”

  “You had a call from Miranda,” Novena said to Mallory. “She sounded upset about something.”

  “Probably wants to know what’s for lunch,” Mallory said, reaching for her cell phone.

  Miranda picked up on the first ring and said, “You need to come home right now. Amber’s father hit Daddy, and he’s got this awful looking swollen up eye.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Mallory said.

  “He said not to call you,” Miranda said in a near whisper.

  “Fine. I’ll call him on his cell phone,” Mallory said and hung up.

  Two rings later, her father answered in a sleepy sounding voice.

  “Do you need to see a doctor?” Mallory asked.

  “Oh, you heard about it?” he said. “I guess it’s all over town.”

  “I’m serious” Mallory repeated. “Are you okay? Miranda told me.”

  “It’s just a black eye. I’ve got an ice pack on it.”

  Mallory started to ask why Amber’s father would hit her father, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She hesitated, and her father broke in.

  “If you want to know why he did it, he’s crazy. I had to fire Amber, and he got all worked up about it.”

  “Well, I’m glad she’s gone,” Mallory said, “Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor about your eye?”

  “It’s not that bad,” he said, “I can see fine. I’m going back to work this afternoon. Judy Ann’s trying to reach Janelle to see if she can fill in for a while..”

  “That sounds good, but you sound sleepy,” Mallory said. “Are you sure you ought to be driving.”

  “I just took one of those pills the doctor at the hospital prescribed. “ Jack said. “I’ll have some coffee before I drive back.”

  “Why’d you fire Amber?” Mallory asked.

  “Same old thing,” he said, “Wasn’t getting the work done. I’ll tell you about it later.

  ”I can’t believe her father would come over and hit you because you fired her. Can’t you press charges or something.”

  Jack Bremmer sighed.

  “No,” he said. “I�
��m not as worried about his hitting me as I am about losing his business. I hope he’ll just calm down.”

  Jared Winslow was sitting in Sam’s office. He had relaxed since he came in.

  “If you have to talk to her again, she’s going to be at my brother’s house in Valdosta. We’re not letting her have her car down there so she won’t be going anywhere, My sister-in-law’s got a beauty shop built onto the house, and she says she’s been needing somebody to do shampoos. Makes more sense for Amber than office work as far as I’m concerned, and there aren’t any men coming in to have their hair fixed.”

  He gave Sam a weary look.

  “Anybody tells you girls are easier to raise than boys doesn’t know what they’re talking about. My boy never gave me a moment’s grief, but my girls make me crazy.”

  Sam changed the subject.

  “I imagine if Jack was going to press charges, he’d have called by now,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Jared said. “I just wanted to tell you before he did. If he calls, tell him to get his lawyer to talk to mine.”

  “I imagine you’ve got the same one,” Sam said with a grin.

  “And I’ll call Buck and tell him what I just told you,” Jared said. “You know, I didn’t plan to do it. After my wife left with Amber this morning, I went over there with the idea of telling him she wasn’t coming back to work. I wanted to tell him face to face what I thought of him, but something came over me and I hit him instead. I’m not saying Amber wasn’t partly to blame, but he’s old enough to be her father and a married man. Or he was.”

  Sam wanted to say he understood, but he kept quiet and just nodded.

  “I can tell you right now Amber didn’t shoot Jack’s wife,” Jared said. “She can shoot pretty good if it’s just target practice, but she doesn’t have the nerve to kill somebody in cold blood that way. She wouldn’t even go deer hunting with us. I should have known she’d just sell that little gun I bought her. All that girl thinks about is how to buy more clothes.”

  “She’s still a person of interest in this case,” Sam said. “It would help if she could remember the name of the man she says bought the gun.”