Deep South Dead (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 1)

by Charlotte Moore

  “Looks like he thought something was hidden,” Bub said. “If he was just after something normal that somebody’d have out in the open, he wouldn’t have been going under the bed and all that stuff.”

  They walked back through the house slowly.

  “Try to see it,” Sam said to Bub. “Where do you think he started?”

  “If it was me and I was looking for something somebody hid ,” Bub said, “I’d probably start back in the bedroom, up in the closets, that kind of place. You know, like where you hide Christmas presents from kids.”

  In the front rooms, sofa cushions were hurled off the sofa. The doors to the dining room hutch stood open. Kitchen cabinet doors stood open. Two ceramic roosters were lying in pieces on the floor. A breadbox that Sam remembered being on top of the refrigerator was on the floor in the dining area. The refrigerator door was ajar. Sam opened it and saw that the vegetable bins at the bottom were crooked and jutting out. They had been yanked open and pushed halfway back by the door.

  “You reckon the son of a bitch found whatever it was he was lookin’ for?” Bub asked.

  “Tell you the truth,” Sam said. “I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d think that the minute he found it, he’d quit hunting,” Sam said, “so there’d be some parts tossed like it is and some parts not. I think he wound up looking everywhere in the house and he got sloppy and crazy by the time he got in here, like throwing that breadbox and knocking those roosters all over the floor. Here he goes to all that trouble getting in by the window and then he’s just throwing stuff around in here, making more noise than he needed to, too.”

  Bub nodded.

  “You think it’s the same one that killed Tamlyn? Still lookin’ for whatever it is he wanted in the Taurus?

  “More than likely,” Sam said. “Let’s go tell Skeet he’s out of luck for moving today.”

  He had just finished explaining that the crime tape was going back up, and the house would off limits for a few more days, when a familiar van came hurtling down old River Road.

  “Hey Skeet!” Bo said. “Here comes Miss Television.”

  “You don’t have to talk to her,” Sam said to Skeet.

  “I’m not gonna,” Skeet said with a grin, “Bo’s gonna do it. He’s the official spokesperson for the entire Borders family.”

  “And besides,” Bo said, “I’m a Marine. You want to hear how many cusswords I can fit between ‘No’ and ‘Comment’? “

  “I’m not part of this,” Sam said with his first smile of the day. He turned and walked straight back into the house.

  “You people are INSANE!” Sachet DeVane screamed a few minutes later. “You can’t say things like that on television! “

  “I can say anything I damn well want to,” Bo said, “You just can’t put it on television. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re leaving. You want to know anything else, ask the sheriff”

  It was three that afternoon before Hunter caught up with Sam to ask about the break-in at the Borders house.

  He kept it simple.

  “Somebody broke in,” he said. “Went through a window.”

  “Anything stolen.”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  “Do you think it has any connection with Tamlyn Borders’ murder.”

  “I’m not going to speculate about that. The house is isolated, and plenty of people probably knew nobody was staying there. It’s under investigation.”

  “Okay,” Hunter said, realizing that Sam had said all he was going to say. “There’s something I found out this morning that you might need to know about.”

  “What?”

  “Well, this is about Claire Hilliard. I don’t know if it’s important, but I thought I ought to tell you and let you decide that. You know Dr. Harrow and Robin both told me she was at a seminar in Perry..”

  “We’ve verified that,” Sam interrupted.

  “I haven’t finished yet,” Hunter said. “What I’m trying to tell you that she showed up for the coffee and the orientation, and then she left and didn’t come back.”

  “How do you know this?” Sam asked. “You doing your own investigation?

  It was a blunt question, and Hunter took it as ill-tempered.

  “I was doing my job, and I happened to learn something,” Hunter said, flipping through her notebook. “Why don’t I just give you the names of the people who told me she wasn’t there and you can do your own investigating. Or not.”

  She found the page she was looking for, tore it out and put it down on his desk.

  He reached for it and looked at the names. One he knew. Marlys Wilberforce. One he didn’t. Carlton Sedgewick, with an Atlanta phone number. He frowned, wondering exactly how much verifying T.J. had done.

  When he looked back up, Hunter was gone.

  T.J., he discovered a few minutes later, was also gone.

  “He ran out for a few minutes,” Shelley said. “He said he had flowers to order for somebody.”

  She was practically cooing.

  “I found out why he came in singing this morning.”

  Sam wasn’t interested.

  “He’s getting back together with his ex-wife,” Shelley said.

  “T.J.?” Sam stopped in his tracks.

  “Yes. It was the cutest story you ever heard. He told me and Taneesha all about it . He said he took Hunter Jones out to dinner and Hunter wound up talking him into calling his ex and trying to get her back, and he did and he thinks they’re going to be moving back in together. I was going to ask Hunter about it but she practically flew out of here.”

  “Right.” Sam said.

  He stared down at the note in his hand, and then went back to his office to call T.J.

  “What did you do to confirm that Claire Hilliard-Harrow was at that seminar?” he asked.

  “Called the office of that historic preservation agency in Macon. They said she was on the registration list. And she had all that stuff from it, name tag and everything.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “Seems not to have been,” Sam said, “I’m going over to talk to Claire Hilliard-Harrow.”

  Chapter 21

  CLAIRE SMILED AND INVITED SAM IN. She looked better than she had when he saw her last. Not as foggy and distant.

  As they entered the den to sit down, Keith Harrow came through from his office.

  “Tilda saw your car out front, Sheriff. Is there any news?”

  “Sorry, not much,” Sam said. “I just needed to talk with Claire about something.”

  The doctor either didn’t get the hint or didn’t take it. He sat down beside his wife on the sofa.

  Sam considered whether to ask to have a private talk with Claire, and decided it would be interesting to see Harrow’s reaction.

  “I just wanted to go back over what you told me about Tuesday morning,” he said to Claire.

  “Oh, yes,” she said with a wry smile, “my alibi.”

  “I’ve talked with a couple of people who said that you only stayed for a short time,” Sam said. “I need to know where you were between 10 a.m. and the time you got back here.”

  Dr. Harrow looked baffled.

  “Honey,” he said, “maybe you ought to show the sheriff all those things you brought back from the seminar.”

  Claire looked Sam straight in the eye and said, “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “You’re not going to tell me where you were?”

  “Honey, I think you have to tell him. You were shopping part of the time weren’t you?”

  “What I do with my own time is my affair,” Claire said. “Sam knows perfectly well that I didn’t kill Aunt Mae-Lula.”

  “It would be a help if you’d cooperate,” Sam said.

  “Well, I’m sorry not to seem cooperative,” Claire said, “but I don’t choose to tell you and I’m certainly not going to fabricate something.”

  “Dr. Harrow,” Sam said, “I need
to talk with your wife privately, if you don’t mind.”

  Harrow didn’t budge.

  “Claire,” Sam said, “Why don’t you and I walk out on the porch?”

  She got up.

  When Harrow stood up to follow, Sam said. “You’re not part of this discussion, Doctor. You stay here.”

  Harrow looked surprised, then angry.

  “I’ve got to get back to my patients anyway,” he said.

  On the porch, Sam said, “If this is something you just don’t want your husband to know about, he certainly doesn’t have to know. I’m just trying to rule you out.”

  “Well, it’s not my problem that your investigation isn’t getting anywhere,” Claire said. “And you’re not going to violate my privacy just so you can check me off some silly list. You’ve known me since we were in kindergarten together, and you know perfectly well that I wouldn’t kill anybody. Don’t you?”

  Sam didn’t answer.

  “Don’t you?” she demanded.

  “I’d know you didn’t if you told me where you were that morning and I could confirm it,” he said.

  “Well!” she said turning sarcastic, “If you decide to charge me with murder, I suppose I’ll have to tell you where I was and then you’ll look like a real fool, won’t you?”

  Her voice rose.

  “I can’t believe this is even happening. Here you are, with two unsolved murders on your hands, and you’re twiddling your thumbs, checking out whether I was at that seminar or not. What did you do? Ask everybody that went whether they saw me or not, or was it just that idiot Marlys Wilberforce?”

  The color was high in her cheeks. She was sounding strident, outraged.

  Sam suddenly grinned.

  “You know, Claire,” he said, “I never noticed this before until right now, but when you squinch your eyes up like that and go into a rant, you’re the spitting image of your Aunt Mae-Lula.”

  Chapter 22

  THE THUNDERBIRD WAS A ROBIN’S EGG blue and white, sleek, long and low . Hunter had somehow been expecting something heavier, clunkier looking, and she was taken by surprise. It had the long hood and short trunk of a sports car, but it took twice the space.

  Mostly, though, it was extravagant in design, a car that said, “Look at me!” from every angle.

  Miss Rose had come out to admire it.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said, “Doesn’t this bring back memories?”

  “You remember how bad it looked when I bought it?” Skeet said.

  She nodded and laughed.

  “Now, don’t you be gettin’ in that car,” Skeet said to the little boy he had brought with him. “I don’t want the seats dirty.”

  The little boy turned out to be Skeet’s nephew, Chipper.

  “My baby girl is down for a nap,” Skeet said, “So I brought Chipper with me to give my sister-in-law a little quiet time.”

  Skeet and Hunter sat down together at Miss Rose’s patio table, and Skeet handed her two photographs, one, obviously taken in a hospital room, showed Tamlyn holding a bundled up baby. The other was older, but a good one. It showed a very young and blonde Tamlyn and a very young and scrawny Skeet leaning against the Thunderbird.

  “This is just great,” Hunter said.

  Chipper ran up and down the steps to Hunter’s apartment.

  “Uncle Skeet built all those steps,” he called down to Hunter.

  “I know,” she said. “Aren’t they great?”

  She and Skeet went back to discussing the photographs.

  “Hey,” Chipper yelled down to them, climbing up the stairs, and leaning precariously over the rail. “Hey, Miss Hunter, you got a Ford Escort. They don’t make those anymore. My mom has a Toyota Corolla and my dad has a Dodge truck and Uncle Skeet…”

  “That’s enough, Chipper,” Skeet said, “You keep on interrupting, you’re gonna be sittin’ in the truck. You be good, and we’ll get some ice cream on the way home. I just to talk to Miss Hunter a little while, now.”

  “He knows his cars,” Hunter said. “I guess that runs in the family.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Skeet said. “I don’t know where he got that motor-mouth from, though.”

  Then they talked about Tamlyn.

  “Now, we don’t need to talk about the crime at all, unless you want to,” Hunter said. “This story is going to be separate from that. I’d like to use both the pictures.”

  “I was thinking that,” Skeet said. “They’re both good of her.”

  Let’s just start at the beginning,” Hunter said. “When did you meet her?.”

  He talked.

  She listened and made notes, getting the feeling along the way that Skeet Borders was grieving for pretty cheerleader he met in high school, and for the beautiful bride who reveled in having a fancy church wedding, but that he was more locked up when it came to talking about the grown woman who had been his wife.

  He just kept repeating that she loved the baby, that she was a good mother.

  They finally turned back to the subject of the Thunderbird.

  “You’re going to wind up with two pictures of the car in the paper,” Hunter said. “One in the ad and one with the story. Maybe if there’s a car collector out there, one’ll catch his attention if the other doesn’t.

  Chipper was apparently nearing the end of his rope. He was sitting on the ground by his uncle’s chair, drumming his feet up and down.

  “When’s the paper coming out?” Skeet asked.

  “Tomorrow noon,” Hunter said.

  “Lord, I hope that locksmith shows up like he said he would,” Skeet said. “I want to get the car running and be ready to show, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to make the keys. It’s pretty hard to sell a car with no keys.”

  “What keys?” Chipper asked, turning around.

  “Keys to the Thunderbird,” Skeet told him.”They got lost, Chipper. That’s why we had to tow it over here.”

  “Aunt Tam had ‘em,” Chipper said.

  Skeet stared at his nephew.

  His voice got gentle.

  “Now, Chipper, you tell me what the keys looked like. The ones you’re talking about.”

  “It was the rabbit foot ones that always hung by the kitchen door,” Chipper said. “Aunt Tam went back in the house and got’em.”

  “What’d she do with ‘em?”

  “She opened the shed and she opened the trunk?”

  “What trunk?”

  “The Thunderbird trunk!,” Chipper said, as if that were obvious. “She put bag of garbage in it.”

  “When was this?” Skeet asked, sounded doubtful.

  “The day the police lady was there,” Chipper said, “after the police lady was gone. It was before Aunt Tam got dead cause she was drivin’ me home.”

  Skeet pulled his nephew up, and sat him in his lap.

  “Look, man,” he said, “This is important. I want you to remember the whole thing. Like, start when she got the keys.”

  “Okay,” Chipper said, “First, we went out to the Aunt Tam’s Taurus, and I got buckled in and Aunt Tam put Madison in her baby seat, and then she went back and opened the trunk and did something. I couldn’t see. And it took a long time and then she slammed the trunk real hard, and that scared Madison and she started crying.”

  “And then?”

  Aunt Tam went back in the house and I went after her to tell her Madison was crying, cause I thought she didn’t hear, and she got the rabbit foot keys and I told her Madison was crying, and she hollered at me to just shut up.”

  Skeet frowned.

  “Okay, what came next?”

  “And then,” Chipper went on, “Madison was still cryin’, and we went down to where the shed is and Aunt Tam got out and opened the door of the shed, and she opened the trunk of the Thunderbird, and then she opened the trunk of the Taurus, and then she took the garbage out of the Taurus and put the garbage in the Thunderbird and she shut the Thunderbird trunk and then she shut the Taurus trunk and then
..”

  “What do you mean garbage?” Skeet asked.

  “Garbage. Like in a black bag,” Chipper said. “And then she locked the shed back with the padlock.”

  All at once, he looked about ready to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Skeet said. “It’s okay. You’re doing great. You didn’t do anything wrong, man.”

  “I know I didn’t,” Chipper said. “Aunt Tam said I didn’t. She got back in the Taurus and Madison was still crying, and she kissed Madison and talked to her real nice, and she told me she was sorry she yelled at me, but I stayed shut up anyway.”

  “Did you see what she did with the Thunderbird keys?” Skeet asked.

  “No. I forget.”

  “Okay, you did great to remember all that,” Skeet said. “Now how about going to the truck and seeing if you can find me a map in my glove compartment.”

  “That doesn’t make a lick of sense,” Skeet said when Chipper was out of hearing range. “Why would she put a bag of garbage in the Thunderbird?”

  There was a long silence.

  Because it wasn’t garbage, Hunter thought, because she was hiding whatever it was, What better place to hide something than in the trunk of a car locked up in a shed?

  “You need to call the sheriff,” she said to Skeet. “He needs to know about this. Whatever’s in there, it must be what that person who broke into your place was hunting for.”

  “No way.” Skeet said bluntly. “I’m having enough trouble gettin’ Tamlyn’s Taurus back from him. I’ve got a house I can’t move out of, on top of that, and I’m not having the T-bird hauled off, too.”

  “Skeet, it seems to me like if she was hiding something in there, and it could be some kind of evidence.”

  When Skeet answered he sounded weary, not angry.

  “Maybe there could be,” he said, “but to tell you the truth maybe it could just be a couple of hundred dollars worth of new clothes she was hiding so I wouldn’t see ‘em when I got home. What am I gonna do if Sam takes a crowbar to that trunk and messes it up? I need to turn some cars into money and get some credit card bills paid.”