When I am Dead, My Dearest: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  “Well, you might see if Taneesha Martin wants it,” Robin said. “She was telling me the other day how much she’d like to be able to cook a dinner on her own for her new boyfriend and have some space of her own.”

  “Hmmm,” Miss Rose. “Who’s the new boyfriend?”

  “Jeremy something,” Robin said. “He’s not from here. He’s a lawyer with the District Attorney’s office,”

  Miss Rose hung up and put on a kettle for tea, already thinking of dishes that would put Hilliard House on the map as a bed-and-breakfast and contemplating Taneesha Martin as a possible tenant.

  The boredom, if that’s what it really was, had gone, and she was smiling to herself as she reached for her recipe file.

  Another cook – the one who had made the rum balls and sent them to Hill Roland – was not smiling. The problem with using the mail was that there was no way of knowing if had gotten there. It should have, but had it? And even if it was there, maybe it was just sitting around unopened. Who could tell with people like that? They might not even open their own mail or think that anything might need acknowledgment. Nobody had manners any more.

  .

  CHAPTER 3

  Hill Roland wasn’t nearly as good looking as the photo on his book covers, Hunter decided.

  Not that he was bad looking. He just looked puffy under the eyes, and disheveled, as if he had rolled out of bed with his clothes on and run his fingers through his hair.

  It was Thursday night and she was at the book signing party. Having just parted with nearly $30 for a hardcover copy of “Sweet Sorrow” for Sam, she was waiting in line to have it autographed.

  The line was slow because most people were making a social occasion of it, reminding the novelist that they knew him when he was a kid, speaking kindly of his late parents, saying they hoped he’d come to church with them, asking when his wife would arrive.

  He had hugged Miss Rose Tyndale as soon as he came in, insisting on giving her a book, and writing a whole paragraph in it, which pleased her enormously.

  Now Miss Rose and Robin Hilliard were busy greeting people and selling books with the explanation that part of the proceeds would go to the woefully-underfunded public library. Other members of the book club (properly called The Merchantsville Ladies Literary Guild) were making sure the guests were served punch, cheese straws and tiny cream puffs filled with chicken salad.

  Robin must have said something funny, because Miss Rose laughed, and Hunter turned in time to get a really good photo of the two of them at the book table.

  A woman’s voice said in a near whisper, “Isn’t he handsome?”

  Hunter thought at first that the young woman behind her in line meant Robin Hilliard, but it quickly became clear that “he” was Hill Roland.

  “I’ve read all his books three or four times,” the young woman murmured almost to herself, her eyes fixed on the author. “He has been a huge influence on my work.”

  “I’ve enjoyed his books, too,” Hunter said, as matter-of-factly as she could in the face of such intensity. “He’s a very good writer.”

  The woman, maybe in her late twenties, looked fragile and pale. Her dark hair was cut in a short bob and her big brown eyes were heavily made up. She was wearing a long sleeved black dress tied at the waist with a red silk scarf. Hunter thought she could have been a character in one of Hill Roland’s vampire stories. She was holding a book in one hand and a small black purse in the other.

  She opened the purse to take out an expensive-looking cell phone, and accidentally spilled the other contents, which Colin Fletcher, Robin’s partner, hurried to pick up for her. There was very little to pick up — only a lipstick, a small notebook and pen, car keys and two bottles of prescription pills.

  “Have you two met?” Colin asked. “Hunter, this is Olivia Benedict. She’s our guest. She’s writing a story about the inn for Southern Journey. Olivia, this is Hunter Jones. She works with our local newspaper and… ”

  “Hi,” Olivia Benedict said to Hunter, dismissing the rest of the introduction as she held her cell phone out to Colin.

  “Would you take my picture with the author?” she asked him. “I would just love to have one of him signing my book.”

  Colin looked a little disconcerted, and Hunter understood why. Obviously, making a good impression on this young magazine writer was important to Colin, but people were arriving and he needed to be circulating.

  “I’ll do it,” Hunter said to Olivia, “and why don’t you go ahead of me? That way I can get two or three while you’re talking to him.”

  “Thank you so much,” Olivia said, her eyes once again fixed on Hill Roland. Colin gave Hunter a grateful glance, and she smiled back. She had a secondary motive as well. She needed to get the infatuated Miss Benedict out of the way before she met Hill Roland for the first time, so she could bring up the interview and get his phone number.

  She took half a dozen photos of Olivia Benedict with the author, who apparently had met a few adoring fans before, and came up with repeated smiles.

  When Olivia had reluctantly moved away, Hunter gave her back her cell phone, and presented the author with the book she had just bought for signing.

  “Could you make it ‘To Sam’?” she asked. “I think you know him. He’s… ”

  He looked up with a grin, and said, “I hope you’re going to read it before you give it to him.”

  “Of course I will,” she said. “I’m Hunter Jones from The Messenger,” she said, offering him her card. “I’m hoping we can set up an interview in the next few days.”

  “I know who you are,” he said. “I saw you with Sam yesterday when I was picking up lunch at R&J’s. Oh, and my cousin Jaybird told me you were practically writing the whole paper these days. You’re the one who found Cousin Mae-Lula when she was murdered right here in this house, aren’t you?”

  “The Hilliards are your cousins?” Hunter asked in surprise.

  “Several times removed,” the author said. “Didn’t Miss Rose tell you that ‘Hill’ is short for ‘Hilliard’?”

  She brought up the interview and he seemed agreeable, but she was disappointed that she couldn’t pin him down on a time. Instead, he put Hunter’s card in his wallet and gave her one that had his wife’s name and cell phone number on it. As he learned forward Hunter caught a whiff of alcohol and mint.

  “Megan manages my time and she likes to be there for interviews,” he said, “She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. Just give her a call.”

  Hunter spent a few more minutes taking photos of people whose names she already knew, just so Novena would have them for the lifestyle section.

  Miss Rose, who had finally been relieved from her shift at the book selling table, came up to ask for a ride home.

  “Robin picked me up early,” she said. “And I know he’s not going to be free to leave for a while.”

  Once they were headed home, Hunter told Miss Rose about having to call Megan Brooks-Roland to make an appointment for an interview with Hill. Miss Rose didn’t seem surprised.

  “Unless that boy has changed a lot,” she said, “He probably needs a manager. I hope she’s got a will of steel.”

  When the long line of book buyers ended, Hill Roland found his way to the refreshment table, recognizing some people and pretending to recognize those he didn’t. He got a cut glass cup full of punch, found the side door to the old portico and went outside. He tossed the punch into the azalea bushes and took a slim flask from his back pocket. He had just finished a punch cup full of scotch when Robin found him.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but some more people are coming in.”

  “I just needed a breather,” Hill said, “And I’ve got to go out to my car and get another pen. Tell them I’ll be right back and I won’t leave until all the books are signed.”

  He went to his car and got another pen from the box of expensive ones Megan insisted he use. There was not much scotch left in the bottle, so he filled the pu
nch cup , drank the remainder straight from the bottle, and headed back to the front door of the inn, hoping there wouldn’t be that many more people to deal with.

  He popped a breath mint into his mouth as he came back in the side door, the punch cup still in his hand.

  A new line had formed, and he resumed the pleasantries and autographing, but with a little less chatting and more smiling. At one point he wrote an inscription to “Robert” instead of “Ralph.” When Ralph’s wife pointed out the error, he called to Robin to bring him another book to sign for her. She was all smiles about the solution, but a little disconcerted when he looked up at her and asked, “Now, what was that name again? Arthur?”

  “Ralph,” she said firmly, and leaned over to watch as he wrote the name.

  Finally all the books were signed and the last of the guests were saying goodbye at the door. The remaining Literary Guild ladies were clearing away their dishes and Hill was more than ready to leave. He attempted to stand up, nearly knocking his chair over. Then the big-eyed girl in the black dress came back, radiating neediness.

  The girl didn’t seem to notice that he was trying to leave.

  “Hi! Remember me. I’m Olivia. We didn’t really get to talk before.”

  She spoke breathlessly, intensely, as if they had some special bond, and then, before he could make his escape, she was rambling on about how she had loved every word of his writing, with a few precise quotations to prove her expertise. She told him that she was a writer, and not just for the magazine, that she had a manuscript.

  At the word “manuscript,” Hill interrupted the flow of her words with an abrupt, “’Scuse me. Nature calls.”

  The floor seemed to tilt as he went to find the men’s room. Drunkenness always seemed to catch him off guard at some point, as if the alcohol had been lurking in his bloodstream waiting for him to make the wrong move, like trying to stand up and walk.

  “Home,” he thought a few minutes later as he leaned against the locked bathroom door, trying to get his bearings. “Get home.”

  He dug in his pocket for his car keys, and headed for the back entrance of the house, gripping the keys tightly, but when he reached the kitchen where two of the remaining book club ladies were washing and drying the serving pieces, he stopped. He smelled coffee.

  What he really needed, he thought, was some coffee. He looked around guardedly. The manuscript-girl was nowhere in sight.

  He walked to the kitchen table, nearly knocked over another chair, and set it upright with some difficulty.

  “Good evening, lovely ladies,” he said, taking great care to enunciate clearly, “Is there a chance of coffee? And something to eat? Maybe just some, you know, whatever you’ve got. Sandwich?”

  Annie Laurie Wooten summed up the situation in an instant. She had an alcoholic brother and a very low opinion of drunkenness. She was almost ready to go home, anyway. She gave him a fierce frown.

  He put his car keys on the table, looked around and had a moment of clarity. It wasn’t a restaurant even if this was an inn now. It was Mae-Lula Hilliard’s kitchen, all fixed up.

  “This must be about where Cousin Mae-Lula got herself killed,’ he said to nobody in particular. “I’ll bet this whole place is fulla Hilliard ghosh, an’ she’s boshing all of them aroun.”

  Annie Laurie, who had been a friend of Mae-Lula Hilliard, didn’t answer. She snatched up his car keys off the table and went to find Robin.

  She found Colin first.

  “Did one of you add alcohol to the punch?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said, surprised at the question.

  “Well, Hill Roland is intoxicated,” she said. “He’s in the kitchen asking for coffee and sandwiches and talking about Mae-Lula’s ghost. You drive him home so he won’t kill anybody. Here we try to do something nice to welcome him home… “

  She sighed a martyr’s sigh and held the keys out with an air of washing her hands of the whole thing. Colin took them, and went to tell Robin.

  Robin frowned, but didn’t seem all that surprised. “That must be why he took his punch out under the portico. Let me have the keys. I’ll drive him home right now.”

  At that very moment, a chain of events began that Robin would see later as leading straight to disaster. The front doorbell chimed.

  He hurried to open the door, assuming that one of the bookish crowd was coming back to pick up a lost pair of glasses or a purse, but it was two middle-aged couples he had never seen before, and they were hoping that there were rooms available for the night.

  “We’re on our way to Florida, and we had rooms reserved at that motel just off I-75,” one of the men explained. “But both of our wives pitched a fit when they saw that place, so we came all the way into town, and…”

  “Please tell us you have rooms,” one of the women said. “This place looks so lovely.”

  “Of course there’s room,” Robin said, “Welcome to Hilliard House.”

  Colin and Robin understood each other with a glance. There was no question in either of their minds that the comfort of their newly-arrived guests was more important than the drunk writer in the kitchen. After all, Robin had the keys to Hill Roland’s car. He looked around for Olivia Benedict, hoping she’d be watching and noticing the way they made guests feel at home, but she was nowhere in sight.

  Ten minutes later when the two couples had been settled into their beautifully decorated rooms, Robin hurried down the stairs to the kitchen to take Hill Roland home.

  “He’s gone,” Annie Laurie said. “That girl in the black dress talked him into letting her drive him home. She took him in her car, and now his car is blocking mine in. Could you move it for me?”

  It was less than a mile from Hilliard House to Hill Roland’s house, so when Olivia Benedict hadn’t returned an hour later, Robin got worried. What if she had gotten lost or had car trouble? He called her cell phone number just to check on her, and it rang from the table where Hill Roland had been autographing books. Without it, she’d have no way to call for help if she did need it, so Robin got into his car and drove out to Hill Roland’s old family home on Sumter Street.

  Olivia Benedict’s little red convertible was parked in the circular driveway and the lights were on downstairs.

  Robin pondered the situation for a while, and decided not to run the risk of annoying a writer for Southern Journey. Obviously, she was visiting for a while. Maybe she was cooking eggs and making coffee for the great writer and he was encouraging her in her career.

  Colin, who was setting up a slow cooker full of cheese grits when Robin returned, found the whole thing funny.

  “She was staring at him all evening,” he said. “Let’s leave the back light on and the kitchen door unlocked. She can sneak back in whenever she likes. I just hope she’s in a good mood in the morning.”

  Hunter, who had gotten home in time to look over Bethie’s homework and help her decide what to wear to school in the morning, tucked her into bed with two of the cats. Then she brought Sam a dish of Rocky Road ice cream, and told him about the book signing.

  Marmalade, who apparently had decided to be Sam’s cat, was on the back of the recliner.

  “What do you think about Hill Roland?” Hunter asked him. “What was he like in high school?”

  Marmalade moved down, placing one front paw gently on Sam’s shoulder, and trying to get his other paw into the ice cream.

  “Sorta shy, real smart,” Sam said. “Can we get this cat out of my ice cream? And don’t tell me his paw is clean.”

  Hunter picked Marmalade up and banished him to the kitchen before she returned.

  “Hill was undisciplined,” Sam continued. “We were friends when we were little kids, but not so much in high school, because he, well, he just wasn’t cut out for high school. He was probably smarter than all the rest of us. We never had anything assigned to read in English class that he hadn’t already read at home, but other than English, I think he just barely passed. A lot of the girls thought
he was cute, I think.”

  “Rebel without a cause?” Hunter asked.

  “Sort of,” Sam said. “That whole family went by their own rules. I remember when Hill got drunk our senior year and slammed his daddy’s car into one of the downtown street lamp posts, and the whole incident just got swept under the rug.”

  “How? Wasn’t your father sheriff then?”

  “That was back when Merchantsville had its own police department,” Sam said. “People like the Rolands could fix things up. I just remember my dad saying they ought to be looking after Hill better.”

  “What about his brother Buck?” Hunter asked.

  “Oh, he was sort of a politician even back then,” Sam said with a grin. “He was president of the student council when Hill and I were juniors. He always seemed more grown up than the rest of us. He could get up in front of the whole student body and make a speech, and he always dressed up. I don’t think he even owned a pair of jeans.”

  “Were he and Charmaine high school sweethearts?”

  “Lord, no!” Sam said, taking the last bite of ice cream. “She wouldn’t have given him the time of day back then. They got together later when he came back home and started his law practice. It was pretty clear by then that he was going to make some money.”

  “Novena says that Charmaine doesn’t like Hill’s wife.”

  “Charmaine doesn’t much like Hill either,” Sam said. “They had an all-out war when Hill and Buck inherited the house jointly, and Hill didn’t want to sell it. He wasn’t even living here, but he held up their selling it for a couple of years. He was just out of college then and didn’t even have a job and he wouldn’t go along with the sale. I think the only reason he finally did was because he was flat broke. This was all before his first book was published.”

  “And now he’s bought it back,” Hunter said. “He must really love that house.”

  “I can see why,” Sam said. “It’s a great house on great land. Charmaine and Buck could have fixed it up and lived in it themselves, but Charmaine just wanted something showy over on New River Road.”