Who murdered Mamma Nelle?: A Hunter Jones Mystery Read online

  WHO MURDERED MAMMA NELLE?

  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.

  eBook designed by MC Writing

  WHO MURDERED MAMMA NELLE?

  CHARLOTTE MOORE

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  EPILOGUE

  Other books in the Hunter Jones Series

  Coming next

  CHAPTER 1

  It was just after seven on a Sunday morning in late May.

  Hunter Jones stood in the kitchen doorway, yawned, and smiled. Her husband was sitting on the floor building a tower of blocks as their 14-month-old son, Ty, watched his father’s every move, while bouncing on his bare feet.

  “I’ll take over if you want to go back to bed,” she said.

  Ty knocked the tower down with one hand and burst into peals of laughter before running toward Hunter, who held out her arms and picked him up for a hug.

  “I might just sleep here on the floor,” Sam said. “We’ve been up since before five. He needs a diaper change. Sorry.”

  Hunter noticed that Ty had already collapsed in her arms and had his thumb in his mouth.

  “I think he’s ready for a nap,” she said. “I’ll go change him and put him to bed. Maybe you could get some more sleep, too.”

  The cell phone on the kitchen counter gave a loud beep.

  Sam was on his feet before the second beep. Hunter rocked Ty in her arms and waited, curious. As the wife of the Sheriff of Magnolia County, she knew that nobody would call him on his work cell phone on Sunday for anything less than a tornado or a homicide.

  And as the editor of the local weekly newspaper, she knew the call could mean a front page story.

  “Bailey here,” Sam answered, after glancing at the caller ID. “What’s up, Skeet?”

  Hunter watched his face cloud over.

  “Where?” Sam asked. The answer took a while and as he listened some more, he was rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache coming on.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Give me five minutes to get dressed and just wait in the driveway when you get here. Call Aaron and the coroner to meet us there.”

  Once he was out of Merchantsville city limits, heading west, Deputy Skeet Borders put on the siren and made the fourteen mile trip in ten minutes, slowing down a little when he reached the dirt road that led from the two-lane state highway to Mimosa Lake Campgrounds.

  They were greeted at the open gate by Bug Turley, a wiry, weathered-looking man in his late fifties, riding a rusted golf cart.

  Sam knew from attending County Commission meetings that Turley managed the campground and wasn’t paid because there wasn’t any money in the budget for it. He did whatever work had to be done in exchange for living rent-free in the old farmhouse that was part of the original property and for a portion of the fees that came in from groups using the campgrounds.

  The fees amounted to less every year. Sam thought the only reason the place remained open at all was that Turley was willing to manage it without being on the payroll and that nobody had offered to buy the land for other purposes.

  Skeet stopped, and Sam let his window down. Aaron pulled up beside them, got out of his car, and came to listen.

  “Just go ahead and drive over the grass, through the trees,” Turley said. “Her body’s right down there on the other side of the lodge, near the dock. You won’t see it until you get pretty close. One of the kids found her floatin’ face down right by the cattails.”

  “She still in the water?” Skeet asked.

  “No, we pulled her out, but there wasn’t nothin’ we could do. She musta been there all night, ‘cause she was still in the same dress she had on for the big event. She’s got a bad lookin’ wound on her head. I got her sons to get everybody into the lodge, but Harold Junior, he’s one of the grandchildren you know, he won’t leave the body. He’s real worked up. I’ll have to leave him to y’all.”

  “Thanks. What was the big event?” Sam asked, slapping at a mosquito that had landed on his arm and studying the dozen or more cars and trucks in the graveled parking area. He wondered why anybody would choose to gather at Mimosa Lake Campground on a hot summer weekend.

  “Hokely Family reunion and what they’re callin’ a Diamond Wedding Anniversary, Miss Nelle’s and Mr. Bobby Jack’s,” Turley said. He used the customary local pattern of referring to older men and women one had known a while.

  “They got him outta the nursing home and brought him out here,” Turley went on. “There were more folks here yesterday evenin’, some from their church and some friends from town. I’m pretty sure it’s just family in there now. Harold Junior had all the cabins booked for last night, but some of them went home and came back, you know, because of the heat. I offered to call the preacher who was here yesterday, but they all said not to bother.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said as Skeet waited impatiently to drive on. “You did real good, Mr. Turley. I’ll tell the Commissioners you handled it right.”

  “’I’d appreciate that,” Turley said. He started the engine on his golf cart and then turned around.

  “If y’all need to get cooled off, come on up to the house. We got air-conditioning.”

  Sam looked over at Aaron, the newest man on the force, who had been standing with his arms folded across his chest, listening intently. They were the same age, old friends from high school.

  “Aaron, you take charge of the lodge, “ Sam said. “Tell them I said nobody’s to leave until we get some things done. Start making a list of names and contact information and what each person’s relationship is to the deceased.”

  Aaron slapped a mosquito that had landed on his neck and looked at his watch. “How long are we gonna keep ‘em there? Some of ‘em might say they want to go to church.”

  “I want to see what the coroner thinks first,” Sam said. “Say a half hour.”

  “It’s gotta be an accident,” Skeet said as turned the steering wheel back and forth to maneuver the cruiser between the mimosa trees down toward the dock. “I’ll bet she tripped on the dock and hit her head on one of the old palings under the water.

  “I hope you’re right,” Sam said.

  The substantial body of Nelle Sutterfield Hokely was on a grassy spot beneath a mimosa tree, just a few yards from the edge of the lake. A thin, thirtyish man was kneeling beside her and seemed to have been trying to repair her appearance. Her hands had been folded over her waist, and her soaking wet dress was neatly arranged, with
a water-logged corsage near her shoulder. From the front, her gray hair seemed to have withstood the lake water without losing its helmet of curls, and a large pink jeweled earring remained clamped onto one of her thin earlobes. She had on wet stockings that were twisted and ripped, and her shoes were still on her swollen feet.

  “She lost one of her earrings,” Harold Hokely Jr. said in an aggrieved tone. “I bought those for her on Mother’s Day. I don’t guess they’ll ever find it.”

  “You can let us take charge now, Harold Junior,” Sam said in a consoling voice. He was familiar with people fixating on small details when tragedy struck. We’ll make sure everything’s done right. I want you to go sit in my car with Deputy Borders so he can get a statement from you.”

  As Skeet had put his arm around the shoulder of the grieving man and led him away, Sam felt thankful for both the deputies he had with him for this incident.

  Like him, they had grown up in Magnolia County, and they knew many of the people they dealt with by name. He didn’t need to explain to Skeet that Harold Hokely, Jr. was a bit high-strung, any more than he needed to explain to Aaron that Nelle Hokely was the matriarch of a large local family.

  He knelt down beside the body and tilted the head slightly to one side. The wound made him shudder. The lake water had washed away any blood, but he could see fragments of bone and brain tissue. Someone had cracked open the back of Nelle Sutterfield Hokely’s skull.

  Harold Hokely Jr., usually referred to as Harold Junior, was clean-shaven, in his Sunday clothes, wearing a dress shirt and tie despite the heat. Once they were inside the air-conditioned cruiser from the sheriff’s office, he used his tie to polish his fogged up glasses. Skeet could see from the red edges of his eyelids that he had been crying.

  Harold Junior began to talk even before Skeet could get his digital recorder going.

  “I’ll tell you right now, there’s no use in talking to my grandfather about any of this, so please don’t be upsetting him,” Harold Junior said. “I think Aunt Debbie Jean ought to just take him on back to the nursing home. Whatever happened, he didn’t have a thing to do with it. He was supposed to be there on the dock with her, but you have my word that she wasn’t on the dock when he got there. I know because I was with him.”

  “Let’s back up a little,” Skeet said patiently and identified his witness on the recording before he asked his first question.

  “Why do you say your grandfather was supposed to be on the dock with your grandmother? Start at the beginning. What was she doing on the dock? Who was with her?”

  “Well, you see,” Harold said, telling the story in his own way, “it was a special private part of the program. They did the same thing on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and that was out here at the campgrounds, too. I don’t think people minded the heat so much back then. Of course, they had their fiftieth anniversary at the church fellowship hall, when Mamma Nelle and Big Daddy were still going to First Baptist, but they’d changed churches twice since then, or she did, anyway, and Pine Hill doesn’t have a fellowship hall.”

  “How about starting with last night,” Skeet said.

  Harold nodded.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to run on. Anyway, Mamma Nelle got it in her mind that she wanted everybody to come here for their Diamond Anniversary. She was real sentimental about special days, like their anniversary, and her birthday and, you know, Mother’s Day and the Christmas holidays, all those things. The whole family can tell you that.”

  “So, let’s get to the time she went to the dock,” Skeet said, determined to keep Harold Junior on track.

  “We had already had the renewal of vows and then the supper in the lodge, “ Harold Junior continued. “The last thing was that the two of them were going to stand alone on the dock and watch for the evening star to come out so they could wish on it.”

  “They didn’t want the whole crowd there for that?” Skeet asked.

  “Well, no, that dock isn’t that wide, you know, but besides, it was supposed to be their time alone together. See, the way she told me, when they did that on their twenty-fifth, it wasn’t even planned. They just wanted that little quiet time together, and it became a sweet memory for her over the years. Anyway, once we had decided the celebration would be out here, Mamma Nelle wanted to do that again the same way because she firmly believed it was their last anniversary together on this earth. I mean, because of him being in failing health, not her, but anyway Big Daddy…”

  “That’s Mr. Bobby Jack Hokely?” Skeet asked, to have it right on the recording.

  “Yes. We grandchildren and greats and great-greats all call him Big Daddy, except for Skip’s two girls, and they call him Granddaddy Hokely when they call him anything, but you know they grew up in Tennessee.”

  “Right. Go on,” Skeet said.

  “Well, it was getting a little dark. She came and told me it was time, and we had started out to the dock. I was supposed to help him along because he’s slow on the walker, and the ground’s uneven, but then all at once he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I had to take him all the way down to the cabin they were staying in for the night. That’s the only one set up for handicapped, and it just wound up taking more time than you might think. You just can’t hurry some old people. We really should have brought a wheelchair.”

  “What time did you get him back to the dock?” Skeet asked.

  “It was definitely past sunset, probably after nine. Maybe quarter after. But when we got back, I saw she wasn’t on the dock. I thought she had gotten tired of waiting and left. Mamma Nelle’s that way, you know. She doesn’t, I mean didn’t, have much patience for waiting. To tell you the truth, I thought maybe it hadn’t seemed so romantic once she waited out there a while with the mosquitos biting and all those frogs croaking. Anyway, I took Big Daddy back to the lodge, and…” he looked out the window of the cruiser. “Who’s that?”

  “Milton Mackey. He’s the coroner now,” Skeet said, as a gleaming Buick pulled up and stopped beside them.

  “The coroner. I can’t believe this is happening,” Harold said.

  “Let’s get back to last night,” Skeet said. “So you went back to the lodge with your grandfather. Did you see your grandmother when you went back?”

  “No,” Harold Junior said. “I guess maybe I should have gone to find her, but I wanted to get Big Daddy sitting down before he fell down, and it never entered my mind that anything had gone wrong except Mamma Nelle losing patience.”

  “So?” Skeet asked.

  “Well, I just turned him over to Uncle B.J., and then I left because I absolutely had to get home and cool off. I swear I was about to have a heat stroke. I don’t know why they’ve never air-conditioned that building or any of the cabins. I actually can’t sleep this time of year without air-conditioning.”

  He seemed defensive, a little nervous and wary.

  Skeet dug in.

  “So you didn’t check on her, and you didn’t know for sure that she was in the lodge when you left?”

  Harold’s lower lip trembled, and his voice broke.

  “No, and I’ll never forgive myself,” he stammered. “I should have made sure she was back, but honestly, I just assumed that she was there. To tell you the truth, I thought she might be ready to jump on me for not getting Big Daddy back to the dock sooner.”

  “You were afraid of her?” Skeet asked in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “Well, no, I wouldn’t say afraid,” Harold said with a pout. “I just thought I’d give her time to calm down before she saw me again, and—to tell you the truth—I didn’t want her to know I was going to go home, and I was ready for some of the others to take care of Big Daddy. They all expect me to do everything.”

  He sighed and continued his saga.

  “I came back out early this morning. I was expecting her to jump on me like a chicken on a Junebug when I walked in,
but she wasn’t there. So I was going to go check at the cabin when one of the children started screaming that she was floating in the lake.”

  “Those clothes she’s in now, are they the ones she was wearing last night?” Skeet asked.

  “Yes,” Harold said. “You know, it seems to me that somebody should have noticed she was missing. Whoever took Big Daddy back to the cabin for the night could, at least, have checked on her, but no, they all just take it for granted that Harold Junior will look after Mamma Nelle.”

  “So your grandfather was sharing the cabin with her?”

  “Well, of course, but you can’t blame him for not noticing whether she was there or not. He’s not that clear-headed. And besides that, the first thing Uncle B.J. did when we came back was hand Big Daddy a bottle of beer. There’s a sign big as life out there at the gate. No alcohol. You think they paid any attention to that?”

  Skeet didn’t comment.

  “If you’re done, can I go home now?” Harold asked. “I’m getting a migraine from this heat and all the stress, and I absolutely cannot go back in that lodge. I’m afraid of what I might say. Besides, there’ll be people coming over to the house once the news gets out.”

  “You’re going back to your grandmother’s house?” Skeet asked.

  “Yes, I live there,” Harold said.

  “Well, just don’t leave town,” Skeet said.

  Milton Macky, Coroner of Magnolia County, took a good look at the head wound, shuddered and made his ruling.

  “Looks to me like somebody hit her hard with a tire iron or something like that. You’d better send the body to the pathologist. Now if that’s all you need from me, I’ve got some forms I can fill out in the car, and I’d like to make it to church on time. It’s my Sunday to usher.”

  Sam nodded. Skeet had returned, and the two of them walked the few yards to the dock to take a look. They learned nothing.

  “I’m going to call for the crime techs,” Sam said, “and I’ll see if they’ll let us have a couple of divers to look for the weapon. With so many people around, I would think the killer got rid of it fast, and the fastest way would be to toss it into the water.”