Over Troubled Water: A Hunter Jones Mystery Read online

  OVER TROUBLED WATER

  A Hunter Jones Mystery

  Charlotte Moore

  Copyright © 2016 by Charlotte Moore. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author.

  OVER TROUBLED WATER

  A Hunter Jones Mystery

  CHARLOTTE MOORE

  CHAPTER 1

  It was seven on an April morning, still a little cool and misty, but with the promise of a beautiful spring day ahead. Wild dogwoods were blooming in the woods on either side of Sumter Road, and in one place where a house had stood long ago, a mass of wisteria was climbing into the trees.

  Aaron Twitchell wasn’t appreciating the beauties of nature. He was scowling and clutching the steering wheel of his battered Ford pickup while his wife Nancy complained. One minute she was whining that she was going to be late to work. The next she was yelling at him not to go so fast.

  “If you’d remembered to fill your gas tank yesterday, I could still be in bed,” he said.

  “Well, excuse me! I had my mind on getting your store-bought fried chicken to you before it cooled down,” she said as he slowed down to maneuver a curve. “When I think of all the times you’ve left your lights on and I’ve had to drive all the way back out here with the jumper cables…”

  Aaron knocked her backward with his right arm as he slammed his foot down on the brakes. The truck skidded and screeched to a stop right before the bridge over Foxtail Creek.

  “Oh my Lord,” Nancy gasped. “Did they get run over? Aaron, look at all the blood. Are they dead?”

  “Call an ambulance,” Aaron told her, “Tell them it’s a bunch of people.”

  And then he was out of his truck, running in a zig-zag path between the bodies and bicycles on the bridge, seeing if anybody was alive.

  He had thought at first that they were all hit by some speeding vehicle, but one glance at the first body told him otherwise.

  When Magnolia County Sheriff Sam Bailey arrived on the scene, Deputy Sheriff Skeet Borders had the road barricaded with his cruiser on one side of the bridge. On the other side, Aaron Twitchell had pulled his truck sideways across the road on the other side and was turning traffic back. Lt. Taneesha Hayes, who was the Sheriff’s second-in-command, was on her cell phone.

  Sam saw three bodies—one man and two women, all in bright-colored form-fitting biking outfits with helmets strapped on. They were sprawled on the pavement of the bridge, their expensive bicycles at odd broken angles. Blood was splattered everywhere.

  “I passed the ambulance,” he said to Taneesha. “Who’s in there?”

  “Ricky Richards,” Taneesha said, “The guy who owns the gym. He’s lost a lot of blood from his leg, but Sonny thinks he’s got a chance. Aaron Twitchell was the first on the scene, and he made a tourniquet with his shirt. He says the other three were dead when he got here. The paramedics confirmed that. I’ve already called the coroner.”

  Sam and Taneesha, like Aaron Twitchell and Skeet Borders, were small town people, familiar with every mile of their rural Georgia county, and – between them – they knew most of the people who lived there. That included the three who had just been murdered on the bridge over Foxtail Creek.

  “That’s China Carson,” Taneesha said nodding toward the body of a slender young woman who was halfway over the handlebars of her bike. “I’ve seen her at the gym. She’s married to Russell Carson, the guy with Carson Cleaners. “

  Sam nodded.

  “That man over there is Jim Jordan,” Taneesha said. “I’ve met him at the gym, too. Works at Merchantsville City Hall, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “Director of Planning and Zoning. Moved here a couple of years ago. I think he’s single.”

  “I’ve seen that other woman,” Taneesha said. “but I don’t know her name.”

  “Annie Chapman,” Sam said, speaking quickly as Taneesha made notes. “She has grown children – a son and daughter. The son is named Andy. Last I heard he was still living with her.”

  “Aaron said he’s seen the bikers riding along here before,” Taneesha said.

  Sam, nodded, took out his cell phone, and called his office manager.

  “Shellie,” he said when she picked up. “We’ve got a multiple shooting on Foxtail Creek Bridge. Three dead. One wounded. Don’t know where the shooter is. We need the Emergency Management volunteers to close Sumter Road at both ends. Call the District Attorney’s office and let T.J. Jackson know we need him here. He’ll know the others to call. Taneesha’s coming back in to start notifying families.”

  Taneesha winced at hearing this.

  Shellie, who usually chatted and kidded around with her boss, said, “Yes, Sir. Anything else?”

  “Call Will Roy at the radio station and Hunter at the paper. Tell them about the closing of Sumter Road. Tell them I said there’s been a shooting incident. One wounded. Three fatalities. You don’t know the names. A search is underway for the shooter who is probably on foot, and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Anyone who’s seen anything out of the ordinary in the Sumter Road area should call the hotline number et cetera. Have you got all that?”

  “I recorded it,” Shellie said. “Take care.”

  Sam made his way across the bridge, staying close to the railing. He stared down the creek, stepped over a fallen bicycle, and made his way to Aaron Twitchell, who was leaning against the hood of his truck. They had played basketball together for four years in high school. Sam, at six-two even then, was captain of the team, and Aaron, who was shorter, but fast as a bullet, was a guard.

  Aaron was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, with blood on both. He looked red-faced and sweaty. Sam could see Nancy Twitchell, crouched in one side of the truck, talking on her cellphone.

  “Aaron, you did good,” Sam said, “You okay?”

  “Just got a little winded,” Aaron said. “I ain’t kept the weight off like you. This is awful, Sam. I did what I could for that Richards boy.”

  “Looks like you did the right thing. They say he might make it,” Sam said, “Now tell me, did you hear any shots? Did you see anybody? Did anybody pass you while you were driving here?”

  Sam knew already where the shooter must have been standing.

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing. Had the windows up, and Nancy was hollerin’ about gettin’ to work. I don’t remember anybody passin’,” Aaron said. “Soon as I saw how it was just hopin’ the brakes would hold. I thought at first they had all been run over. You know, I’ve seen ’em ridin’ out here before.”

  “All of them?” Sam asked.

  “Well,” Aaron said. “Not that girl, but the other three.”

  He pointed toward China Carson’s slender body.

  “I think she’s one of the Jackson girls.”

  Deputy Bub Williston pulled his cruiser up behind Aaron’s truck and got out.

  “I put sawhorses and a detour sign up where Sumter meets 233,” he called out to Sam, “But we need somebody up there.”

  “You and Nancy need to go somewhere safe,” Sam said to Aaron. “Your house is close to here as the crow flies, and we don’t know where this killer is. He could have been running toward your shed while you were driving here, so let’s not take any chances.

  “We’ll be at her Mamma’s house,” Aaron said. He turned to
get in his truck and then stopped.

  “I know you know your job, Sam,” he said, “but I’d bet money the shooter was hiding under that the corner of the bridge right there and pulled hisself up by the railing right when they got to the other side. There was still some mist coming off the creek when we got here, and they probably didn’t even see him.”

  “That’s pretty much what I was thinking,” Sam said, nodding.

  “And one more thing,” Aaron said. “My daddy used to call this Snake Creek, ’cause it’s got a heap of water moccasins,” Aaron said. “Watch where you step.”

  An idea struck Sam.

  “Aaron,” he said, “How about coming in to see me first thing tomorrow morning? We’ve got to get a statement from you anyway, and if we haven’t gotten this thing figured out by then, I’m going to need to hire some extra help.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron said, straightening his shoulders. “Sure, Sam. That’d be good. Glad to help.”

  Twenty minutes later at the Magnolia County Weekly Messenger, Sam Bailey’s wife, Hunter Jones, was proofreading the newspaper’s website over Mallory Bremmer’s shoulder.

  The two young women were a study in opposites. Hunter, who was editor of the paper, wore a baggy light blue cotton shift topped with an oversized silk blouse. Her curly blond hair was escaping the scarf she had used to tie it back, and she had kicked off her shoes because her feet were swollen. Sam told her almost every morning that she was radiant and beautiful, but, for Hunter, there was something about being eight-and-a-half months pregnant that defied every effort at style.

  Mallory was wearing her work uniform of jeans with a skinny black tee shirt. At 23, she still looked like a freckled-faced teenager when she didn’t bother with makeup. She had been a staff writer, and all-around computer whiz for the Messenger for the better part of a year.

  They both knew something terrible had happened just a few miles away, and they had the bare bones information with more to come, but there wasn’t time to feel emotional. Like Sam and his team, they had a job to do.

  Hunter was glad they had the website now. It was something that the owner, Tyler Bankston, had resisted for years, and still had some doubts about, but it was a way to get information out fast.

  Her mind was already on the print edition that came out every Wednesday just after noon. She knew that the stories and photos she had planned to put on the front page were going to be moved to the inside pages because whatever had happened on Sumter Road would take over the paper.

  If there were three fatalities, she thought, each one should have a picture and a story. If the one who was wounded died, that would mean a fourth. Always, she reminded herself, pay tribute to the victims. Make sure their value was known. Whoever they were, those stories would take going after.

  And then there was a killer. That story, she knew, could go in more than one direction: He – and she did assume it was a man – could be still on the loose, or dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, or killed, or captured and charged. That was a story she’d have to wait for, and it was a story her husband would live through. There was one law enforcement agency in Magnolia County, and he was in charge of it.

  Her back ached, but she barely noticed that as she sat back down and wondered how on earth four people had been shot on a creek bridge on a rural road.

  “Oh, here’s Novena,” Mallory said. “Maybe she’s heard something.”

  Novena Baxter, who served as the Messenger’s Lifestyle Editor and Advertising Manager, opened the front door and came in, looking upset.

  “Did y’all hear about that Ricky Richards getting shot?” she asked.

  “Ricky who owns the gym?” Mallory asked.

  “Yes,” Novena said. “His daddy was just in R&J’s having breakfast and Sasha called him from the hospital. He called his wife right then. Annelle said he was saying Ricky got shot while he was riding his bicycle over the bridge out on Sumter Road. If that isn’t the craziest thing. I wonder if it was some driver who doesn’t like bikes on the road. What they call road rage.”

  “It wasn’t just him,” Mallory told Novena. “Three other people were shot and killed.”

  Novena looked stunned.

  “He was riding his bicycle?” Hunter asked. “I wonder if the others were on bicycles. They must have been. Remember that story we ran a couple of weeks about “Cycling Georgia. That big bunch of people is coming through here on bicycles. They were going to have a local team to lead them to the county line.”

  “Let me look at the gym website,” Mallory said, her fingers already on her keyboard.

  “Got it!” she said half a minute later. “They were practicing—riding a 14-mile round trip on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, starting at 6:30 a.m. Ricky Richards and Annie Chapman were the team leaders. It says here for people to call if they wanted to be part of the host team. See, it even gives a map of the route.”

  She zoomed in on the map.

  “Sumter Road is on the route.”

  “And it gives their starting time,” Hunter said, feeling sad and angry. “So somebody who wanted to shoot them could just pick a place and wait for them.”

  Mallory’s phone played a few notes of piano music, and she picked it up.

  “That’s just insane,” Novena said to Hunter. “Oh, Lord, I hope Annie Chapman wasn’t one of them. That woman rides a bicycle everywhere, and she’s as old as I am. I’ve seen her out in a cotton housedress with one of those plastic helmets on her head. You know that fool son of hers takes her car to work with him every day. That’s how she got started. Of course, she’s real big on staying fit anyway. Won’t touch a piece of meat or even milk and eggs.”

  Mallory was off the phone.

  “That was Janelle from my dad’s office,” she said. “She says they’re calling for the Emergency Management Agency volunteers for traffic control. Her husband’s one of them. Oh, and they’re about to have helicopters overhead and dogs on the ground out there by the bridge.”

  “Bless Janelle,” Hunter said. “I think you should go try to get some pictures. If you can’t get anything else, get the barricades.”

  An hour later, the crime techs were everywhere on the bridge, taking notes, photographs, and measurements. Two were under the bridge, and two more were searching the wooded areas on either side of the shallow creek. So far they had come up with two empty black plastic trash bags. The sound of the choppers was steady.

  The coroner had come and gone, and a team had arrived with body bags and stretchers. Three hearses were waiting to take the bodies to the Magnolia County Medical Center’s back parking lot long enough for identification and then on to a pathologist in Macon.

  Taneesha called Sam to report.

  “I just left China Carson’s house,” she said. “Her husband, Russell, is just about crazy with grief. He couldn’t answer questions, and I’m not going to try to ask him any now. He was kicking the furniture and taking swings at the people trying to comfort him when I left. I don’t think we’re going to get anything coherent out of him for a while. We called his sister. She’s a nurse. I’m picking up India Jackson in a minute. She’s China’s sister. She can do the ID.

  “The others?” Sam asked.

  “Annie Chapman’s pastor at First Baptist said he’ll identify the body. He got some church member to call the son and the daughter both. It’s neighbor, and apparently Mrs. Chapman left both their numbers with her in case there was ever an emergency.

  Taneesha continued.

  “Shellie called Mayor Washington and he’ll identify Jim Jordan. His family’s from somewhere in North Georgia. The mayor says they’ll have the information in Jordan’s personnel file. He offered to make the call himself since he’s met them once before. That was the easiest one.”

  “Good work,” Sam said. “Ricky Richards is in surgery. They expect him to make it. I told them to tell everybody including his family if he so much as opens his eyes, to ask him who shot them, and as soon as he can take being
interviewed we need to be there.”

  “What about the media?” Taneesha asked. “I’ve seen a Channel 20 van already.”

  “Oh, yeah, that,” Sam said. “There’ll be a briefing at one in the County Commission chambers. T.J.’s going to handle it, and the District Attorney may show up. I want you to represent our office and make sure they get in all the hotline numbers and safety tips. I’ve got red clay up to my knees and I don’t have time to clean up.”

  “Sam, they’ll be expecting you,” Taneesha said.

  “You can do it,” he said. “Besides, if you’re going to law school, and you want to be a prosecutor, you need to start warming up to Sanders Beal and T.J. both. Show them how you’d be in the courtroom.”

  Hunter and Mallory both went to the briefing early that afternoon. The information, presented in the simplest terms, was stark.

  “At some time before seven a.m. today, four cyclists, all from Merchantsville, were shot as they crossed the bridge over Foxtail Creek on Sumter Road. Aaron Twitchell, a local resident, had been first at the scene and called 911 at approximately five minutes after seven.

  “Responders found three dead and one wounded.

  “Ricky Richards, the owner of the GetFit Gym and Health Club, was in stable condition at the Magnolia County Medical Center following surgery for two gunshot wounds to his right leg.

  “Annie King Chapman, 50, a widowed mother of two, Yoga teacher at GetFit Gym and Health Club, was found dead at the scene.

  “China Rose Jackson Carson 22, a receptionist at the Magnolia County Board of Education Office, married, was found dead at the scene.

  “James Everidge Jordan, 29, the Director of Planning for the City of Merchantsville, a native of Tarryville, Georgia, was found dead at the scene.

  “Investigators at the scene concluded that the shooter was on foot. No weapon has been found, but ballistics tests on the ammunition indicate that it was an assault rifle. A search is ongoing…”

  After it was over, Hunter talked to T.J. Jackson briefly. He was the chief investigator for the District Attorney’s office and a good friend of Sam’s.