Deep South Dead (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 1) Page 10

  T.J. said had called the Heart of Georgia Historic Trust and verified that Claire Hilliard-Harrow was at the seminar in Perry.

  T.J. and Taneesha had gone to the Hilliard mansion together and tested the dishwasher on the sterilizing cycle. It had taken a full hour and 15 minutes.

  “Long enough so that if somebody killed her at 11:46 and started it up, let’s say even 10 minutes later, it would have still been going strong when Hunter came in just after one,” Taneesha said.

  Chapter 12

  TYLER ASKED HUNTER TO GO TO the visitation for Mae-Lula Hilliard’s family.

  “It’ll be at Claire’s house, he said, and somebody needs to represent the paper,” he said, “Novena’s all tied up with the Borderses and there’s no way I can get up those front steps. Besides you might find out something.”

  Hunter wasn’t familiar with small town funeral customs.

  “Oh just wear something like you’d wear to church,” Miss Rose said, “Or, well, just anything conservative.”

  There weren’t any church clothes or conservative choices in Hunter’s closet. She finally pulled out a black raw silk dress that she had bought on an impulse and only worn once. That was when she found out that it was best not to sit down in it because it had a way of sliding upward.

  Well, she told herself, there wouldn’t be any need to sit down at the visitation, and it wasn’t really too short as long as she was standing up.

  She slipped into it, found her favorite black high-heeled sandals, and viewed herself in the mirror. Not conservative yet, she thought. More like cocktail waitress. She pinned her hair up and put on pearl earrings.

  “My goodness, don’t you look grown up!” Miss Rose said as she came out of her back door carrying a frozen pan wrapped in thick layers of aluminum foil.

  “Should I be taking something?” Hunter asked.

  “Oh, my dear, no,” Miss Rose said. “We’ll just say this is from you and me both.”

  “When I was growing up, we called this the Billy House,” Miss Rose told Hunter as they made their way across the uneven bricks of Hilliard Court toward the home of Dr. and Mrs. Keith Hilliard-Harrow. Cars were parked on either side of the narrow street.

  “There were three Hilliard houses in a row when I was growing up, so that was to tell them apart,” Miss Rose continued, giving her own historical tour. “The one that burned down, that was the J.B. House, that Jaybird’s granddaddy built. It was on the other side, down there where Jaybird’s office building is now, and it was more like Mae-Lula’s house, with the columns and all, but Mr. Billy Hilliard, that’s Robin’s and Claire’s grandfather and Mae-Lula’s older brother, he was younger and wanted something different. My mother said that their daddy paid for both the houses, for wedding presents, and then Little Lige inherited Hilliard House, and Mae-Lula, who was his only child, came along after the others were grown, and she never got married, so she stayed right there and she inherited the mansion.”

  “I like this house better than the mansion,” Hunter said as she helped Miss Rose up the front steps.

  “I did, too,” Miss Rose said, “until Claire’s and Robin’s daddy messed it up by adding that office on the side.”

  The front rooms of the high-ceilinged Victorian home were filled with visitors, some balancing china plates filled with small sandwiches, deviled eggs and slices of pound cake. A few wine glasses were also in sight, though most were drinking iced tea. Hunter saw Sam Bailey in the den. He turned and saw her and looked as startled as if a deer had just leapt in front of his car. Then he managed a smile and a nod.

  Hunter had immediate doubts about the dress and a panicky feeling about her hair.

  There was a guest book to sign just inside the door. A tiny elderly woman hurried up to anyone bearing food and whisked the offerings off to the kitchen, speaking briefly to a second, whose task it was to keep a written record.

  “It’s a chicken and rice casserole, Sarah,” Miss Rose said when her turn came. “From me and Hunter Jones. Nothing to return.”

  “Chicken and rice casserole. Foil pan. Rose Tyndale. Hunter Jones.” Sarah told the record keeper.

  They were then directed to the smaller of the two front parlors, where assorted Hilliard relatives were seated or standing. Commissioner Jaybird Hilliard looked gray and exhausted, but was still smiling and greeting people. His wife, Anne Marie, seemed to have taken over the task of keeping the line moving, greeting everyone with arm-touchings or hugs, followed by the obligatory moment of seriousness, the head nodding, the “Thank you so much,” and the “You’re so sweet.”

  Hunter followed Miss Rose’s lead.

  “It’s just so sad,” Miss Rose said.

  “It has been very difficult,” Anne Marie agreed. “Such a shock. You’re so sweet to come over.”

  Miss Rose introduced Hunter, who said, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” and was passed on to Jaybird.

  There was no chance for commiserations. He jumped right in.

  “Hunter Jones!” he said, almost jovially, “I heard you were right in the middle of another crime scene,” he said, “You got any ideas about , uh, the other murder? Anything new on that? Sam won’t tell us a damned thing.”

  “Honey,” Anne Marie said in a firm, motherly voice. “Now don’t be holding up the line with gossip. Here’s Arlene and Tom and they came all the way from Fort Valley.”

  Relieved, Hunter moved on.

  Robin Hilliard was dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief after hugging Miss Rose. He gave Hunter a kiss on her cheek.

  “Love the dress,” he whispered in her ear, “and the hair, too.”

  “Are you sure?” Hunter asked. “It’s not me at all.”

  “Well, whoever it is,” Robin said. “The sheriff is transfixed. He’s been watching you all the way through the line.”

  “Robin,” Ann Marie interrupted, “Have you met Arlene and Tom Trawick?”

  Robin smiled and moved Hunter right along.

  “It was so sweet of you to come,” he said, “Have you met my sister? Claire, this is Hunter Jones, from the Messenger.”

  Claire Hilliard-Harrow was seated in a Queen Anne chair, ankles crossed. She was dressed in beige linen and had her brother’s good looks and coloring, but not his liveliness. In fact, she looked puffy-eyed and pale.

  She looked up at Hunter, but didn’t seem to focus on her.

  “Thank you for coming,” she murmured. “So kind.”

  Stoned, Hunter thought.

  A look of interest came across Claire’s face. She sat up a little straighter.

  “You’re the one from the newspaper,” she said with careful articulation. “Aren’t you the one who found her?”

  “Tyler wanted to come,” Miss Rose chirped, turning back, changing the subject and doing Hunter’s social duty, “but you know how it is for him with the wheelchair.”

  “Oh, for heavens’ sake,” Robin said as he moved toward the back of Claire’s chair, “he could have come in through the office entrance.”

  Out of his sister’s sight, he signaled across the room to Keith Harrow.

  It all seemed a little patronizing to Hunter.

  Maybe somebody had shot Claire Hilliard-Harrow with a tranquilizer dart, but her question was a reasonable one. Hunter leaned forward and said, “Yes, I’m the one who found Miss Mae-Lula’s body, and I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Claire Hilliard-Harrow made actual eye contact.

  “Robin and Keith won’t tell me anything,” she said, still enunciating carefully as if she were afraid she might slur her words. “And Sam Bailey won’t even let me go into the mansion. There are things over there that belonged to my mother.”

  “Claire, sweetie,” Robin said. “We told you everything we knew, and Sam’s already said we can get into the house by tomorrow noon. I’ll take you over there then and we’ll find that cut glass cake stand for you.”

  “Wa-ter-ford,” Claire said in a surprisingly loud voice, getting up from her chair
unsteadily. “It is Waterford, Robin.”

  Robin rolled his eyes at Claire’s husband, who was now by her side.

  “Honey,” Keith Harrow said in a gentle tone. “I think I’d better get you up to your room so you can lie down. This is all just too much for you.”

  “Please excuse us,” he said to Hunter and Miss Rose and to the room full of people who had fallen silent. “Claire is just not feeling well at all.”

  “I don’t think she’s eaten anything all day,” Robin said to Keith. Everyone caught in the middle nodded sympathetically.

  Hunter looked toward the opposite parlor and saw Sam. He started toward her and was intercepted by a middle-aged couple who introduced him to a young woman, possibly their daughter.

  When his sister was safely out of the of the room, Robin turned to Miss Rose and said in a low voice, “She’s up to her eyeballs in Xanax and Chardonnay, and that cake stand is absolutely not Waterford.”

  Miss Rose shushed him, and then said, “I’ve had about as much of this as my old knee will take, Robin. Do you think we could go through the doctor’s office so I don’t have to take those steps going down?”

  Robin said of course and led them through the den to the hallway that connected with the suite of offices.

  They passed Sam on their way, but he had just been cornered by an elderly man who wanted to know what the world was coming to with people getting killed all over the place.

  Back at home, Hunter watched some TV with the Calico, who seemed to be ready for a break from kitten care. She got ready for bed and decided to check her e-mail before turning in.

  Nikki had written one of her long rambling letters all in lower case and full of questions with no question marks. Hunter read it twice before she hit reply and started her answer:

  Nikki! No, I was not expecting a sheriff to be all warm and fuzzy at a crime scene. And no, he doesn’t look like Clint Eastwood. He’s only about 35, for one thing. What I should have said is that I was thinking maybe he’s a sheriff because he likes to give people orders and walk around with a gun in his hand. Anyway, maybe you’re right, Miss Sigmund Freud. Maybe some of that was just that I was scared and didn’t know it yet. I saw him tonight and he was in a suit and looked entirely civilized.

  Okay, the detective-guy that I have the date with had a gun, too, but … stop in mid-sentence and think … but I’m just going because he asked me, to tell you the truth. He’s sort of cute, but it wasn’t like love at first sight, and he was like he was 16 years old on the phone when he asked me.

  About the second murder, they’re thinking it might be connected with the first one because the girl who got strangled to death was the receptionist for the handsome doctor I mentioned before, so she was right next door.

  Here’s the strangest thing. Her husband used to live right here in this apartment and he even built the steps up to it so the renter wouldn’t have to go through Miss Rose’s house. His parents got killed in an auto accident, and Miss Rose just about adopted him. She let him live here on the condition that he’d finish high school, and he did all her yard work and fixed things around the house in exchange for meals. That’s what she’s like. And no, he didn’t kill his wife. He was out of town.

  Yes, I’m keeping my doors locked.

  — H.

  Chapter 13

  AFTER HE DROPPED HIS DAUGHTER OFF at school on Friday morning, Sam headed for R&J’s to have breakfast.

  Maybe Hunter there and they could have a normal conversation. She had been on his mind since the night before. He grinned, thinking about the way she had stormed out with that pregnant cat, and about her taking off her boots and coming all the way down Rattlesnake Hill just to get some pictures.

  So maybe she was young, he thought, but she wasn’t a kid.

  She wasn’t at R&J’s either.

  T.J. and Taneesha were.

  Sam joined them after he loaded his plate at the buffet.

  Annelle came by with his coffee, and asked Taneesha, “Did you tell him what I told you?”

  Taneesha said, “Tell him yourself,” and went back to the business of breaking up bacon and stirring it into her grits.

  You want to know what’s all over town, Sheriff?”

  “Annelle, you know as well as I do that things can be all over town and not be anywhere close to the truth.”

  “Okay,” Annelle said. “So I’m just tell you what folks are saying. It’s a split. About half the people think those college kids killed Mae-Lula and then came back and killed Tamlyn, and the other half,” she lowered her voice, “think Jaybird killed Mae-Lula and that Tamlyn must have known something or seen something and he went and killed her, too.”

  Sam buttered a biscuit and said, “Hmmm.”

  “That means no comment,” Taneesha said to Annelle.

  When Annelle was gone, Taneesha told Sam that there would be a visitation that night at the funeral home for Tamlyn Borders’ family and they agreed that they would both put in an appearance. Then she asked Sam conversationally about the visitation at the Hilliard mansion.

  “Big crowd?”

  “There was while I was there,” Sam said.

  His phone buzzed.

  Taneesha could tell what it was just from watching his facial expressions before he ever started talking in response.

  When he was off the phone, he looked at both of them with a grin.

  “Tripp Rocker and Eric Bounds are being detained at the Jacksonville Police Department,” he said. “Let’s go back to the office. We need to get Bubba Shipley to fly us down there.”

  “Who’s us?” Taneesha asked.

  “Me and T.J.,” Sam said. “I need you here, Neesha.”

  “What were they doing in Jacksonville?” Hunter asked Taneesha at lunch.

  “I thought they were supposed to be in Daytona?”

  “Well, Jacksonville’s on the way to Daytona,” Taneesha said.

  “Look, the cat’s out of the bag, and I don’t have a paper coming out until Wednesday,” Hunter said .”I’m going to call Jacksonville PD anyway.”

  Taneesha peppered her chicken and dumplings.

  “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me. Tripp Rocker ran a red light last night in a Jacksonville and got picked up for that, plus DUI, plus open container, and once they got him identified, they held Eric Bounds for questioning too.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “They’re at the Flammonde’s house in Marietta,” Taneesha said. “Safe and sound.”

  Hunter wanted to hear more, but their conversation came to a stop as Sam’s secretary, Rose Wells, stopped by juggling two take-out trays.

  “Neesha, we got to look after Bethie this afternoon. Can you pick her up at school at three? I’d do it, but I’ve got a hair appointment.”

  “Sure,” Taneesha said, “but what about Sam’s mom? Everything okay?”

  “Well, you know she was up in Atlanta to see Sam’s brother’s new baby, and she just called and said she went out to start home this morning and her car had just flat died. She thought it was the battery but it turns out to be some kind of wiring harness thing, so they had to get it towed and then the mechanic said he’s got to order some part and you know how those things go and there she is up in Atlanta so who knows what they’ll wind up charging…”

  Hunter listened idly, wishing Rose didn’t have to provide every detail and a commentary. She wanted to find out more about the Jacksonville situation.

  “Anyway,” Rose wound down.” Sam’s brother’s going to drive her down here, but he can’t do it until their older kid gets out of school, and I just told her not to worry about it, that we’d look after Bethie until Sam got back or she got back. Oh, and guess who called Sam again? Allison Birchy. And here I thought she had given up.”

  By the time Rose finished and left, Annelle had come back around with tea. This time, however, she pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “You know what I just heard over there?” she said in a low vo
ice. “Not that I was listenin’ in, but I couldn’t help but hear it. Jack Beckworth, that’s that fat man in the red t-shirt over there, he was sayin’ that Bo Borders told him that Skeet woulda already broke up with Tamlyn if it wasn’t for the baby, ‘cause Tamlyn wasn’t as sugar-sweet as everybody thinks, and she was spending his money faster than he could make it. I don’t know who thought she was sugar-sweet, myself, but I still think it’s kinda funny for Bo to be runnin’ her down with her not even in the ground yet.”

  “Yes, it is,” Taneesha said, getting out a notebook and scribbling a word or two down. “That’s very interesting.”

  “Don’t you go telling Sam Bailey you heard it from me,” Annelle said, getting back up. “Cause I’m not getting crossways with any Borderses.”

  “Who’s Allison Birchy?” Hunter asked Taneesha after Annelle was gone.

  “The president of the sheriff’s fan club,” Taneesha said with a grin. “She’s this real sweet lady who goes to church every time the doors open. Right after Rhonda left, she started trying to get Sam to come over for supper. Then she used to come around with casseroles and peach cobbler and that kind of thing, and she called Sam a few times at night to tell him she was worried somebody was in her backyard and things like that. We hadn’t heard from her in a while, though.”

  “I heard he was still crazy about his ex,” Hunter said. “Is that why he’s not going out with anybody?”

  Taneesha looked surprised and then laughed out loud.

  “I don’t know where you heard that,” she said, “Rhonda drove him crazy, for sure, but he’s not crazy about her. As far as his not dating all those ladies, I don’t think he cares much about being chased, but for another thing, I think he was so worn out with Rhonda by the time she left that he just wanted to concentrate on work and looking after Bethie. He’s got his mom and Rhonda’s mom both to help, but he really works hard at being a good dad.”