“You know who owns that land now?” Aaron asked.
“It woulda been hard to sell,” Jeremiah said. “It flooded five or six times, and it was way off the main road. Not fit for anything but makin’ moonshine and getting’ rid of garbage, far as I know. Some folks still dump stuff there.”
“Did you know Will Carson’s son?” Aaron asked, trying to keep his voice easy going. “He’s got the cleaning business now. His name is Russell.”
“I don’t remember the name,” Aaron said, “but Will used to have this boy get out of his truck sometimes to shoo the goats off the road. Skinny little boy in glasses. I think he was scareder of the goats than they were of him. He had a girl who came with him sometimes, too, but she was older than the boy.”
“Well, thank you for your time,” Aaron said.
“Ain’t got nuthin’ but time,” the old man said, and then, as Aaron stood up and started making his way though the goats, Jeremiah Jones had another question.
“What’d you say your name was?”
Aaron told him again and then drove on down the dirt road until he came to the turnaround, which was nothing but a bare patch of red clay and big enough to turn around in. He got out and looked down through the scrappy pine woods. There were old tires, broken chairs, a refrigerator on its side. The sun had come out and he could see the creek water glittering in the distance.
He turned and looked the other way. The farm fields had ended on that side, and there was nothing but more woods.
Sam was on the phone with T.J. Jackson.
“I need your help with something,” he said. “There’s somebody we need to interview over in Taylor County and I don’t want to go that far from home right now. Hunter could have the baby any time now.
“Why me?” T.J. asked.
“Just a better match, and this is sensitive,” Sam said. “This guy went to the University about the same time you did,” Sam said. “His name is Cameron Coley. Called Cam. Sells tractors, grows peaches. Old money, I think.”
“And he’s a suspect?” T.J. asked.
“He was Sasha Richards’ first husband,” Sam said. “I just need to rule him out. You probably ought to make an appointment.”
“So Ricky had something to do with their breaking up?”
“Well, Ricky claims that the marriage was over anyway,” Sam said, “Ricky and Sasha got married about a month after the divorce was final. She had already moved out of their house in Reynolds and was working over here at the hospital two or three days a week, doing dietary counseling. That was all about three years ago.”
“Has this Coley guy married again?” T.J. asked.
“Not that Ricky knows of,” Sam said.
“Anybody talked to Sasha about all this?” T.J. asked.
Shellie came in and handed Sam a note.
“So you’re looking into the possibility that this is all about Ricky?” T.J. asked.
“It’s my best idea right now,” Sam said, “Especially since somebody burned his gym down. I’ve got some other names I can handle here. He’s saying he’s been faithful since he married Sasha, but who knows?”
“Can this wait until Monday?” T.J. asked.
“I was about to suggest that,” Sam said, looking at the note from Shellie. “I just got word that a psychiatrist is coming down to try hypnosis with Ricky and see if he can remember more about the shooting. If we get something from that, maybe we won’t even need to talk to anybody else.”
In Warner Robins, Andy Chapman was having his second appointment with an attorney named Watson Wellston, a straightforward man in his fifties.
“Now about the will,” Wellston said, “I have obtained a copy of it from your mother’s attorney, and it seems to be in order. If you want to contest it, we would have to make a very strong argument in your favor.”
“That’s what I’m hiring you for,” Andy said.
“In your opinion, was your mother in her right mind?” the attorney asked. “I mean, could it be established that she was not thinking clearly?”
“Well, of course, she wasn’t,” Andy said. “Why would she leave the house to Sunshine? Sunshine has a job in Macon and an apartment there. She doesn’t need the house.”
“Let me rephrase the question,” Wellston said. “Had you seen any signs that your mother might have been confused or mentally disoriented?”
“She didn’t eat meat or even eggs,” Andy said. “I had to buy all my own food because she didn’t cook normal meals.”
“I understand that you have been driving her car to your job for some time,” Wellston said. “She’s left it to you, so it’s clear that she did think about you when she was making her will. Why were you driving her car? Didn’t you have one of your own?”
“It was just common sense,” Andy said. “My car broke down two years ago and it would have cost $600 to repair it. My mother was only using hers for running errands around town, so I started using it. She had her bicycle, and she had the car on the weekends.”
“And this was acceptable to her?” Wellston asked. “Riding a bicycle while you used her car?”
“We argued some about it,” Andy said. “But she liked riding a bicycle. She was funny that way.”
“Have you been contributing to the household costs?’ Wellston asked. “Have you invested anything in repairing or maintaining the house?”
“It didn’t cost my mother anything for me to stay there,” Andy said. “I bought my own meals, as I said, because she didn’t cook anything I wanted to eat.”
“Did you help with paying the insurance or the property taxes?”
“No,” Andy said, looking exasperated. “My father left her enough money to take care of things like that.”
“Did she ask you at any time to share in the costs?”
“She brought it up a few times,” Andy said, gripping the arms of his chair and tapping one foot. “But I didn’t see the point in it. What you need to understand is that my father would never have expected my mother to leave the house to Sunshine. He told me once that his grandfather built it and it would be mine someday.”
“We have a major problem,” Wellston said, “In the first place, as I understand it from Mr. Hayes, he’s done a title search, and your father’s will was not entailed . That means whatever he might have expected is beside the point. In the second place, I can’t contest this will with any hope of success if you can’t give me a good reason why she should have left it to you instead of your sister.”
The color in Andy’s face was growing redder.
“Are you saying you can’t get the will changed?”
His voice was rising. Wellston’s secretary came to the door and gave her employer a questioning look.
“Please lower your voice,” Wellston said, “I am saying that it would be a waste of my time and yours to attempt to circumvent your mother’s wishes, as unfair as they may seem to you.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Andy said, his voice rising. “Just move out?”
“My advice to you is to find a suitable place to rent or buy and make arrangements to move out of the house by the date your sister has set. You certainly don’t want to wait around and be evicted with no place to go. Being evicted would make it very difficult to find a suitable place to rent.”
“I’m not paying you to tell me to move!” Andy shouted, jumping to his feet, and letting loose a volley of curse words. “I’m paying you to get the house in my name, and if you can’t do that, I’ll find somebody who can.”
“You must do as you think best,” Wellston said calmly. “Now please leave my office unless you want to be removed by the police.”
At home, Hunter was talking with Nikki on the phone.
“It is really frustrating,” she said. “I can’t plan anything at all because I might go into labor. I was thinking about baking bread this morning, and I thought, ‘What if I get it all ready and it starts rising and I start having contractions?’ And Sam has this huge crime to deal wit
h, so his schedule is crazy, too. He wants his mother to come over here and stay with me, but I told him that she’s doing enough taking care of Bethie so much. I mean, she’s got a life of her own.”
“I’m going to come down there tomorrow,” Nikki said. “I can be there before lunch and stay until Monday morning.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Hunter said. “Really. I was just venting.”
“Yes, I do have to,” Nikki said. “That’s what friends are for.”
Baby Bailey kicked. A ray of sunlight came through the living room window. Hunter thought about having Nikki there and smiled.
“Oh, please do come,” she said. “That would be wonderful, and Sam would be relieved, too.”
“Besides,” she said. “There’s going to be an antiques show and outdoor tea party at Hilliard House, and I know Sam doesn’t want to go!”
CHAPTER 17
R&J’s was less crowded on Saturday mornings, which made it a good place to meet and talk. Sam was treating Aaron, Bub, and Skeet to breakfast, and they had heard Aaron’s account of his trip down Old Dairy Road.
“Here’s the main thing,” Aaron Twitchell said to Sam, leaning across his plate of biscuits and sawmill gravy. “Russell Carson would have known how to get upstream of that bridge. He coulda mailed that letter in town, driven out Tyner Road, drove his car into the woods, run down to the creek and either run along beside it or floated down it. The creek’s been runnin’ pretty high. He coulda used an inner tube for that matter, and let it float on down to the river.”
“I can see him getting there without being seen,” Sam said, studying Aaron’s homemade map. “That would have been mostly in the dark. It’s getting back home that I don’t see.”
“It’s only three miles as the crow flies,” Aaron said. “Maybe he ran the whole way.”
“Somebody would have seen him carrying that gun,” Bub Williston said. “But I think Aaron’s right, Sam. We need to zoom in on Russell some more. Everybody’s mostly felt sorry for him.”
“Well, the man’s about crazy with grieving,” Skeet said.
“There’s crazy runnin’ through that family,” Aaron said.
“Well, Aaron and Bub, you two look into it more,” Sam said. “Skeet, I need for you to work on the arson case, and I’ve got Taneesha on Andy Chapman.
“Have you found out anything more from that computer game?’ Skeet asked.
“Yep,” Sam said. “I’ll never live this down, but it turns out that Abomination is a twelve-year-old genius.”
There were laughs around the table.
“He’s got nothing to do with it,” Sam said. “but I still think that our shooter might have picked up the name from that game, or they both picked it up from the same source. I think it’s a dead end in any case.”
“The good news is that we’ve finally got a psychiatrist who’s going to hypnotize Ricky Richards this morning,” He said.
“Any chance he’ll remember the shooter?” Skeet asked.
“She’s got some doubts,” Sam said. “Because of his concussion and the fact that he was unconscious for a while. We can still hope, though. I’m going over there now. Believe me, if Ricky names the shooter, I’ll be calling all of you.”
“So how’s Hunter?” Annelle asked as she collected her tip from the table.
“She’s fine,” Sam said. “Just impatient to have the baby. Mallory’s over there with her now, and her friend Nikki’s coming down from Atlanta later.”
On Clearview Circle the Fergusons were heading out with their poodles, hoping to enjoy a long walk now that the rain was over. Miriam went out first with Pierre and turned right around.
The poodle was straining at the leash as she said, “Robert, you aren’t going to believe this.”
Robert, who had just finished snapping a leash onto Gigi’s rhinestone collar, came to the door, looked at the van parked in front of the Chapman house, and uttered an expletive.
“We need to let Sunshine know about this,” Miriam said. “I wish I had gotten her number while she was here.”
“Let’s not get involved,” Robert said. “She should never have let him come back into the house.”
“I’m going to call Robin Hilliard,” Miriam said, handing Pierre’s leash to Robert. “He’ll know how to reach her. You take the dogs. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
Ricky Richards told Dr. Alice Bell, the psychiatrist that he didn’t think he’d be hypnotized easily. This was after signing several papers agreeing to the session and allowing anything he said to be released to those investigating the shooting.
“Well, some people are more easily hypnotized than others,” Dr. Bell said. “Now let’s talk about the last thing you remember clearly before the shooting. Close your eyes and just tell me what you see.”
“There were four of us riding bicycles up Sumter Road,” he said. “There’s a steep hill and when you get to the top of it, you’ve got a long view. You can see the creek bridge at the bottom of the hill. We all stopped at the top of the hill just to get our breath, and China Carson came up last. We cheered for her, because it was her first time on the ride, and it was hard work for her to make it to the top of the hill.”
“And after that?” Dr. Bell asked.
“Next thing I’m sure about is my leg about to kill me and this man – turns out his name is Aaron Twitchell – is tying something around it. Then I blacked out again, and I remember being in the ambulance a little. I remember seeing Sonny Rayburn, and he asked me, “Who shot you?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I asked him if I was going to die,” and he said, ‘No way,’ and after that I woke up in a hospital room. I didn’t know about the others until they told me.”
“Let’s go back to being on Sumter Road,” Dr. Bell said. “Now all I want you to do is relax and look up at this disk I’m holding.”
Ricky looked up at the shiny gold disk.
“I thought you were supposed to use a pocket watch,” he said with a grin.
“Keep your eyes on it,” Dr. Bell said. “And I’m going to count backwards from ten to one.”
When she reached one, she passed her hand in front of his eyes and nodded to Sam and the nurse who was observing. Sam checked the digital recorder to make sure it was recording.
“You’re on your bicycle, “she said, “You’re stopped at the top of the hill on Sumter Road. Who are you cheering for?”
“China,” he said.
“Now you’re starting down the hill,” she said.
“Great going downhill,” he said and smiled.
“Can you see the bridge and the creek?”
“Yeah, Foxtail Creek. The bridge.”
“Are there any cars coming either way?”
“No cars. We’ve got the whole road.”
“Is there anybody on the bridge?”
“Foggy.”
“The bridge was foggy?”
“Creek was foggy”
“Is there a person on the bridge? Do you see anybody near the bridge or on the bridge?”
“No.”
“Get closer to the bridge. Is there anybody on the bridge?”
“Nobody.”
“Do you see anything on the bridge?”
“Flag. No. Black bag. Garbage bag flapping around.”
“Do you hear anything, Ricky? What do you hear?”
“Annie”
“What do you hear Annie saying?”
She’s saying, “What’s that?”
“What happens next?”
“Head hurts. Leg’s killing me,” Ricky said. “This guy’s hurting my leg.”
“Let’s go back to the black bag. Are you sure it’s a garbage bag?”
“Yes, a garbage bag. Big one. Plastic.”
“Where was it?”
“On the guard rail. Over the rail. Moving around.”
“Did you see anybody near the bridge? Anybody but your friends?”
“No.”
She went over it with him three more times, and there was no more information to be gained.
“Sometimes when people lose consciousness, memories of what happened just don’t get formed,” she said to Sam an hour later. “He just doesn’t have any memories from the time he saw the black bag and Annie Chapman asked ‘What’s that?’ until the pain of the tourniquet woke him up briefly.”
Sam sighed.
“You knew about the black bag?” she asked.
“We found two of them near the site,” Sam said. “I’m thinking the shooter could have been keeping the rifle wrapped in them.”
“Why are you so sure this was a man?” she asked.
“I know it could be either,” he said, “The last person I arrested for homicide was a woman. It’s just a way of speaking.”
Nikki Daniello was Hunter’s opposite at the moment: skinny and full of energy. Her thick dark hair was cropped close to her head and she was wearing a pink cotton blouse with a short denim skirt and sandals. She arrived loaded down with camera bags and a care package of spiced tea, fruits, vegetables and baked goods from the DeKalb Farmers Market.
On her second trip to her car, she emerged with a fluffy stuffed kangaroo for Baby Bailey, an Atlanta Braves tee shirt for Bethie, and a pair of teal blue embroidered satin pajamas for Hunter.
“Oh, they’re beautiful,” Hunter said, “But I’ll never get into them.”
“They’re for inspiration, “Nikki said, “Now have any other disasters happened since yesterday?”
Fifty miles away in Macon, Garth Thurlow was in a rage.
“I told you he’d pull another stunt,” he said to Sunshine. “Didn’t I tell you not to let him back in that house? Now we’ve got another whole round of changing the locks, and there’s no telling what he’s stockpiling in there. We could have that house on the market already if you’d left well enough alone. Now what are you going to do about it?”
Sunshine was getting a headache.
Over Troubled Water: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 15
