Deep South Dead (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 1)

by Charlotte Moore

  At 38, he was the elected sheriff of Magnolia County, which meant that – with the consolidation just approved by referendum – he was the first to head the combined law enforcement effort for both the city of Merchantsville and the county.

  He had lost some of the explosive energy of his basketball playing days, but he still had that intense, watchful look when there was a lot at stake, as if he might spin around at any moment or jump straight up to catch a ball coming out of nowhere.

  He wasn’t in uniform that afternoon, but then he seldom was. Straight from a trial at the Magnolia County courthouse, he was wearing khakis and a pale blue dress shirt. Collar open. Tie loosened. He’d left his sports coat and badge in his car.

  T.J. Jackson, the new detective with the District Attorney’s office, had come with him, and was walking around with a clipboard, taking some notes, and occasionally sneezing.

  Deputy Taneesha Martin came through the open kitchen doorway.

  “Jaybird Hilliard’s out front, Sam. He wants to talk to you. Says he’s family and he has a right to know what’s going on. And Annie Laurie Wooten’s out there crying and wanting to know if she can have the petitions.”

  “Tell Jaybird to talk to Dr. Harrow next door if he wants to know about Mae-Lula,” Sam said, “and tell Miss Annie Laurie I haven’t seen any petitions, but to go home and I will personally call her as soon as I get a minute. And after you do that, how about getting Hunter back in here?”

  “If I can catch her,” Taneesha said with a grin. “I couldn’t get her to stay put. She’s been taking pictures of everything. She even got some of Jaybird trying to step over the crime tape and arguing with Deputy Aycock.”

  T.J. Jackson was back in the kitchen.

  “Is that the gorgeous reporter with all the hair?” he asked Sam. “Her name’s Hunter?”

  Sam nodded. He wouldn’t exactly call Hunter Jones gorgeous, he thought. Pretty, maybe. Well, very pretty, but…

  “She single?” T.J. asked.

  Taneesha looked amused. She could answer that one, but she waited it out.

  “Yep. Last I heard.” Sam said.

  “Got a boyfriend?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Sam said, turning abruptly back to Taneesha.

  “Anything else, Deputy?”

  She took the hint and left. T.J. in the meantime had started sneezing again, and had pulled out an inhaler.

  “I don’t know whether it’s the dust in this old place or the pollen outside,” he said, when he recovered. “I take it she’s not your type.”

  “Who?”

  “The blonde. The reporter.”

  “I’ve got a murder investigation to think about right now,” Sam said.

  T.J. tucked his clipboard under one arm, put the inhaler away, straightened his tie and grinned.

  “No chance she did it, is there?” he asked “I wouldn’t want to ask her out and get something going if she’s going to wind up getting a lethal injection.”

  “We can rule that out,” Sam said, all business. “Neesha had lunch with her over at R&J’s. Then Hunter came straight over here for an interview with the victim and found the body. The doctor said that she walked past him on the driveway right about 1 p.m., went inside and was back out in a few minutes white as a sheet.”

  “We’re ruling out the doctor, too?”

  “He just happened to live next door and be a doctor,” Sam said. “If you want to help, how about looking around to see if you can find any petitions. Maybe they’ll be in her den. Should be a big stack.”

  “What kind of petitions?”

  “They’ll say ‘Save the Hilliard Conservatory’ at the top.

  “That’s the old Victorian monstrosity across the street?”

  “Right,” Sam said. “There’s a big controversy going on between those who want to save it and those who want it torn down so a shopping center can be built.”

  T.J. left and Sam sighed, remembering the refereeing he’d been called to do the afternoon before. Mae-Lula and Annie Laurie Wooten already had their card table set up to get petitions signed to save the conservatory and that bunch of kids from Atlanta were trying to get petitions signed for the other side. Mae-Lula had demanded that Jake Smith, the storeowner, send them packing, and they had argued back that if they had to leave, the old ladies should have to leave, too. Nobody would budge, and Jake, who had a business to run, called Sam, making it sound like an all-out riot.

  “Outside agitators!” Mae-Lula had told Sam as a curious crowd gathered. “That’s what they are. Coming here to our town dressed like gypsies, talking to our people about something they don’t know the first thing about! And he’s paying them, Sam! That girl with the ring in her nose said so herself! That Flammonde man is her father, and he’s paying them $5 a signature.”

  They were somewhere between high school and adulthood. Maybe in college, maybe not. There was Brittanie Flammonde, the dark-haired one with the ring in her nose, all in black on a spring day. In addition, her anorexic-looking blonde girlfriend, Michelle. Then there were the two guys, one named Tripp something, a body-builder with his hair shaved off and two earrings in his left earlobe. The other was wiry, short and dark with a dragon tattooed on his left arm, but he didn’t really look tough.

  Brittanie, who identified herself as Marvis Flammonde’s daughter invoked the names of “Mister Hilliard” and “My Daddy,” as authorities on who could do what in the SaveMart parking lot.

  “Mister Hilliard and My Daddy both said we could get the petitions signed here,” she told Sam, punching numbers into her cell phone. “I can’t reach Mr. Hilliard, but I’m trying to get my Daddy on the phone now. He’ll tell you.”

  The one named Tripp asked, “What kind of redneck town is this. Who called the law?” and then he turned to the others and said, “Hey, first we got Aunt Bea over there raising hell, and now we’ve got the sheriff. Wonder where Barney is?”

  The blonde had giggled.

  Sam explained patiently that Jake, who was watching from inside the store, wanted them off his property.

  “Well, do they have to leave, too?” Brittanie asked, pointing at Mae-Lula and Annie Laurie, her cell phone still clamped to her ear.

  “They haven’t been asked to leave,” Sam said. He could have added truthfully that Jake would have been happy to have both sides off his lot, but that he wasn’t about to offend the entire historical society.

  Mae-Lula had looked triumphant as the young people headed for their car, muttering to each other. Then she had crowed, “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

  It was loud enough for them to hear. The body builder glared back angrily. As old as she was, Sam thought, Mae-Lula Hilliard had never learned when to leave well enough alone.

  Taneesha came back in with Hunter.

  Okay, so maybe almost gorgeous, Sam thought, but what was it with the crazy clothes? He snapped himself out of it.

  “How about putting the camera and notebook away?” he said to Hunter, “And please don’t touch anything.”

  He meant to sound courteous and casual, but it came out like an order anyway.

  Hunter eyebrows went up slightly, “Yes, Sir.”

  “We need to get the crime scene pinned down exactly the way it was when you first came in,” Sam said. “And we need to know what you may have touched or moved.”

  He turned the tape recorder on.

  “Let’s start with which way you came in and what time it was then.”

  “I came in by the kitchen door, just a little after one,” Hunter said, “maybe three or four minutes after. And, yes, I did touch some things.”

  She told him about the racket the dishwasher was making, and about opening the door.

  She took a step toward the dishwasher and pointed inside.

  “See the handle of that big griddle in there, how it’s sticking straight up and the impeller, that metal blade at the top, was hitting it. That’s what was causing the noise.”

  “Wonder why the gridd
le’s in the dishwasher, anyway?” Taneesha interjected. “My mother has a fit if anybody tries to put her cast iron pots in the dishwasher at work. Makes ‘em stick.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Hunter said to Taneesha. “The detergent takes the seasoning off.”

  “If it was running, she must have started it,” Sam said to Taneesha “The timing on the dishwasher might give us some parameters for the time of death,”

  Taneesha bent down with her hands held behind her back, and studied the dishwasher dials.

  “It was set on the sterilizing cycle,” she said. “That’ll take a long time with these old ones.”

  “When I opened it, the griddle was too hot to touch,” Hunter said.

  T.J. Jackson came back in, sneezed twice, told Sam he didn’t see any petitions, and made a production of introducing himself to Hunter.

  “I’m from the D.A.’s office,” he said. “We didn’t get introduced when Sam was throwing you out of the house.”

  She smiled and offered her hand, but the handshake never happened. T.J. was overcome with a sneeze that almost happened, didn’t happen, started up again and finally exploded as he reached for his handkerchief and turned away.

  “God bless you,” Sam said, stifling a grin.

  Hunter had noticed something that seemed to interest her. She came closer with her hands held behind her back, just like Taneesha, and peered into the dishwasher.

  “Hey, look, it’s got a sunflower painted on this side,” she said to Taneesha, pointing to the back of the griddle.”

  “That’s one bad looking sunflower,” Taneesha said.” I thought it was scrambled egg or something.”

  “Well, the hot water messed up the paint, I guess. But, I’m wondering why she’d put it in there at all. It looks like it was a decoration or something.”

  “You’re right,” Taneesha said, “It does.”

  Sam and T.J. exchanged glances over the women’s heads, momentarily allies.

  T.J. sneezed again. His eyes were watering.

  “Maybe it’s the dishwashing detergent that’s making you sneeze,” Hunter said to him. “There was really a lot of steam when I opened the door.”

  “Let’s stay on the subject,” Sam said. “Anything else, Hunter?”

  “The dishwasher hose was hooked up to the sink faucet when I came in,” Hunter said, “Dr. Harrow disconnected it to wash his hands.”

  Sam frowned, thinking to himself that the doctor should have known better.

  “And that door right there, the one to the butler’s pantry, was closed when I came in,” Hunter continued.” I swung it open. Well, actually, I pulled it from this side and then swung it back, so if you’re looking for fingerprints, mine will be there.”

  “What made you decide to open it?”

  Hunter explained about waiting in the kitchen for Miss Mae-Lula and hearing the phone ring a number of times, before she decided to answer it, and then about the trouble she had getting the door open.

  Sam and Taneesha listened impassively. T.J. nodded sympathetically.

  Then there was an interruption. Deputy Bub Williston, a heavily muscled redhead, came barreling through the door from the main hallway that ran through the mansion.

  “Hey Sam,” he boomed. “There’s five fireplace sets on this floor alone, and three more upstairs,” he said. “No bloody pokers as far as I can tell. And none missing. You want us to bag all of ‘em anyway?”

  “Just hold on!” Sam said, looking annoyed and jerking his head in Hunter’s direction.

  “Oh, sorry.” Williston looked embarrassed.

  “Hey, Sheriff,” the photographer called from the next room. There’s a cat in here. Can you get somebody to get it out?”

  “Bub, can you catch a cat?”

  “Sir, I, I uh, I can’t deal with cats,” Williston said, looking panicky.

  “Oh, damn!” T.J. said. “That’s why I’m sneezing. Cat dander.”

  “I’ll get the cat,” Hunter said. “It’s Miss Hilliard’s cat. She came in with me when I first got here.”

  “You stay right here,” Sam snapped at Hunter, “’Neesha, can you get the cat out of here?”

  Hunter raised her eyebrows and stood still. Taneesha headed around to the den.

  T.J. was sneezing again. He left for the porch to get some fresh air.

  Sam was exasperated. He took the Bub aside in the main hall and talked to him briefly. Yes, he wanted all the pokers. And he wanted Bub to be careful about what he said in front of reporters.

  Williston was defensive.

  “Well, I’m sorry, boss, but what the hell’s she doin’ in here anyway?”

  “She found the body.”

  “Oh.”

  Hunter seemed lost in her own thoughts when Sam returned.

  “Just one more thing,” Sam said, “You okay with taking another look at the body?”

  Hunter walked to the open doorway and shielded her eyes from the lights the crime photographer had set up at the other end of the narrow hall.

  T.J. came back across the kitchen to listen. His nose and eyes were both looking red.

  “Only one thing’s different,” Hunter said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The phone on the counter. It was on the floor when I first saw her and the funny thing is that the handset was in place.”

  “You’re sure?” Sam asked.

  “Absolutely. It was just sitting on the floor beside her, ringing, and I didn’t move it because I didn’t think I should touch it. I didn’t answer it and it stopped. I guess Dr. Harrow must have had to move it out of the way when he was examining her.”

  “Damn!” the photographer shouted, “Can’t somebody catch that beast!”

  “I’m trying!” Taneesha yelled back.

  “Kitty, kitty!” Hunter called, in the kind of voice most women would use talking to a baby, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  The calico almost knocked the camera tripod over as she came straight through the butler’s pantry, making two nimble diagonal leaps over Mae-Lula Hilliard’s body. She ran into the kitchen and headed straight to Hunter, who picked her up and held her protectively.

  “She lives here,” Hunter said, looking at them all defensively as she scratched the cat behind the ears, “and she’s scared of all of you. Besides, she’s about to have kittens.”

  “Not in this house she’s not,” Sam said. “Neesha, you want to get Aycock to get animal control over here?”

  Taneesha, who had come back around through the main hall, nodded and slipped out through the porch.

  “If that cat stays in here, I’m going to have to go outside,” T.J. said in a strangled voice. “My throat’s starting to itch.”

  “Go on outside. We’re about done,” Sam said.

  Hunter clutched the cat.

  T.J. fled through the porch, stopping once for a series of noisy sneezes and then going outside and slamming the screen door behind him.

  “Anything else you can think of?” Sam asked Hunter.

  “Well,” Hunter said. “There’s one more thing that I noticed.”

  She stood, scratching the cat behind its ears, and thinking.

  Sam waited. He looked up at the ceiling. Why, was he feeling a little awkward around Hunter without Taneesha and T.J. in the room? This was ridiculous. She couldn’t help being in the middle of it, and she had handled it well and was giving careful answers, but she was just a distraction.

  Hunter said, “You notice there’s a chocolate smell in here?”

  Sam sniffed. Mainly he smelled her perfume, but he wasn’t going to comment on that. Still, there was a hint of chocolate.”

  He nodded.

  “It was a lot more noticeable when I came in, and you can see there are cake tins in the dishwasher, and those mixer blades. Either somebody else was here doing the baking, or Miss Hilliard made a cake this morning.”

  Sam managed not to say “So?” but the word was hanging in the air.

  “So, I’m wonderi
ng about that.” Hunter said, “Where’s the cake?”

  Sam looked around the kitchen, trying to take the question seriously. He called through the butler’s pantry to the photographer, “Hey, Danny, you see a cake in there in the den?”

  “Nope. But if you find one, I want some. Can we get some pizza or something?”

  Sam pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and opened the refrigerator, by the door, not the handle.

  A package of cut-up chicken. Some weird looking casserole covered with plastic wrap. Milk. Eggs. Margarine. Lettuce. No cake.

  He tipped open the top of the covered kitchen trash can with his ballpoint pen.

  “You’re right,” he said to Hunter. “There’s a cake mix box right here. Chocolate, too.”

  He poked further. “And there’s a can of frosting.”

  “But the cake’s not here,” she said stubbornly.

  He had a homicide on his hands, and she was standing there, clutching that cat, talking about cake. He wanted to explain to her that people generally didn’t know they were about to be murdered, that they did all sorts of ordinary things. He just didn’t have time.

  She seemed to realize that he wasn’t taking her seriously, and changed the subject abruptly.

  Back to being a reporter.

  “When will you be ready to give me some kind of statement for the paper? You know we’re printing tomorrow.”

  “I’ll get Rose to call you about that,” he said.” We’ll be getting with you about taking a written statement, anyway, and we’ll need to get your fingerprints.” He managed a grin. “And Dr. Harrow’s too, since it looks like he touched just about everything.”

  “I know,” Hunter said.

  “And how about forgetting what Bub said about the pokers? As soon as we have something definite on the weapon, I’ll let you know.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “Mrowrr!” The cat clung tighter and clambered up around Hunter’s shoulder, half-hiding under her hair.

  “I’m going to take the cat home with me until some of the family shows up.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Sam said, “It can go to the shelter.”

  “She’s not an it,” she said. “And I’ve seen that place you’re calling a shelter,”