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

by Charlotte Moore

  Hunter patted out the dough to Miss Rose’s specifications.

  “This first time we’re going to make them thick,” Miss Rose said, handing Hunter an ancient biscuit cutter. “Now try to cut them as close together as possible. You’ll always have some dough left, and you can make one last one out of the scraps, but that never is the best one. My mother taught me that the cook should eat that last one herself.”

  Hunter cut the biscuits.

  “This first time, you’re going to place them close together on the pan,” Miss Rose said. “That way they’ll rise higher. Does Sam like his biscuits high, or does he prefer the crispier kind?”

  Hunter laughed. “I think Sam will be happy to get a homemade biscuit at all.”

  “How does his mother make them?”

  Hunter thought about it.

  “She shapes with her hands,” she said, starting to place the half dozen biscuits on the baking sheet.

  “Oh dear,” Miss Rose said, “Well, each to their own. Now check the oven temperature. It should be 425 degrees. ”

  Hunter checked, and then was allowed to place the baking sheet in the oven.

  “I always use the rack that’s about 2/3 of the way up,” Miss Rose said. “If you place them too low, they’ll get done before they get brown on the top, which you do not want. And set the timer for 10 minutes. You do have a timer, don’t you?”

  “There’s one on the stove,” Hunter said.

  Miss Rose shook her head.

  “I have never depended on those,” she said. “Just get one of these simple ones. That way if you go to another room, you can take it with you.”

  They sat down to chat while the biscuits baked

  “So, you know Taneesha Martin is moving into the apartment at the end of this month?” Miss Rose asked.

  “Yes, and she’s thrilled about it,” Hunter said.

  Miss Rose beamed.

  “She came by yesterday with her nice young man. They went up there and took all kinds of measurements. It sounded to me as if he was going furniture shopping with her. I’m wondering if I might lose her the same way I lost you, although, of course, the apartment would be large enough for a couple. Do you think they’ll be getting engaged?

  Hunter’s cell phone beeped.

  “Go ahead and take it,” Miss Rose said, glancing at the timer. “It could be Tyler Bankston.”

  “No, I don’t recognize this number,” Hunter said, and then, with a shrug, she answered, work style.

  “This is Hunter Jones. Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Bailey?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Are you trying to reach Mary Bailey?” Hunter asked.

  “Well, whoever it is who writes for the paper.” This is Mayor Sandra Sheffield calling from Chaneyville. My cousin, Annie Laurie Wooten, talked to someone there who is writing an article about Gone Are the Days. “Oh, that was me,” Hunter said. “I’m Hunter Jones, but I’m not really planning…”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake,” the Mayor of Chaneyville broke in. “And she made such a big fuss about how you were named Jones, but had just gotten married to a man named Bailey, but anyway, I just wanted to offer you a special invitation to Chaneyville. Of course, you’ll want to see our historical marker at Col. Jimmy’s birthplace, and if you wanted to do any research, we have a collection of his papers at our library, and there are some fine old photographs in it…”

  She stopped for a breath and Hunter jumped in, “Mayor Sheffield, thank you so much, but I’m not planning to do any major research. This is just…”

  “But you really must do your research,” the Mayor said, “Believe me, I understand that some of the Roland family, I mean his children by his first wife, were of the impression that his first wife wrote the stories, but State Senator Buck Roland can tell you that he attended the dedication of our historical marker, and met many of his Sheffield cousins here and we had a wonderful program with a man who impersonates Col. Jimmy, and…”

  The timer went off.

  “I’m sorry,” Hunter said, “My supervisor needs me. Thank you so much for your kind invitation. I’ll be back in touch if I need to make a trip down there.”

  She pushed the off button just as Miss Rose was taking the biscuits out of the oven.

  “You see why you need a timer, Hunter? You can get distracted on the phone or with somebody at the door and ruin a pan of biscuits in a matter of minutes.”

  As they taste-tested the biscuits, adding honey and butter, Hunter explained about the call,

  “Goodness,” Miss Rose said, “Chaneyville must be 75 miles south of here. It’s hard to see how Buck Roland could be their state senator, too, but that’s the way they’ve drawn the districts, I suppose. It would be even harder to see why he’d go to Chaneyville except to get votes.”

  Hunter smiled and buttered another biscuit, thinking how impressed Sam was going to be.

  “Now,” Miss Rose said, getting up. “I’m going to let you make the second batch on your own. The only thing we’re going to change is that this time, you’ll pat them out a little thinner and give each one more pan space. Then you just decide which way you like them best, or how you’re going to serve them. I personally think the thin ones are best for ham biscuits and the thick ones are best for topping with sawmill gravy.

  She glanced at Hunter’s clothes and smiled gently.

  “And I really do recommend an apron,” she said. “I know you young people think they’re oldfashioned, but you will note that I don’t have flour all over my skirt, and you do.”

  Sam and T.J. were equally discouraged about the rum ball poisoning case, but for different reasons.

  Sam thought they had nothing at all to go on, while T.J. was thinking that Randy Slattery might have done it, with or without help from Megan Roland. The problem with that theory was that it was just a theory. District Attorney Sanders Beal had not been impressed.

  “You could be right,” he had told T.J. “but there is absolutely no real evidence to connect either of them to the crime. All you’ve got is that he made a threat three years ago when he learned that Roland was fooling around with his wife.”

  “And she had dinner with him the night before she drove down here,” T.J. said. “And she called him and told him about Olivia Benedict’s death.”

  “As I said,” the D.A. repeated, “You could be right. I’m just saying that I might talk a grand jury into an indictment, but I’d lose a jury trial. It’s complicated enough that the wrong person ate the rum balls. And on top of that, Hill Roland is a best-selling writer, and the media would be all over us. That would be fine with me if I knew I was going to win, but there’s no way I’d win.”

  “Hey,” he had added as T.J. got up to leave, “If he really did do it, he’s probably pretty frustrated right now that he killed the wrong person. Maybe he’ll try again and leave us some evidence.

  The remainder of the week passed quietly, the high point for Hunter being on Saturday morning when she got up early and preheated the oven to 425 degrees, with a new oven thermometer for verification.

  All three cats, anticipating their own breakfast, joined her in the kitchen. She decided to give them their food first. Feeling just a little nervous, she got out the ingredients, the measuring cups and spoons and the bowl, the board and the pan.

  Twenty minutes later, the Sheriff of Magnolia County came into the kitchen, wearing his Saturday jeans and sweatshirt, yawning and running hands through his uncombed hair.

  “I smell something good,” he said. “Is that flour all over your pajamas?”

  The new timer went off, and Hunter, who had already put butter and two kinds of jam on the table, took a pan of 12 perfect biscuits out of the oven.

  Bethie came in, still in her nightgown, and said, “Who made the biscuits?”

  Sam had five, Bethie had four, Hunter had three, and then because it was a beautiful October day, and getting close to Halloween, they drove out across Magnolia Coun
ty to the tiny Good Shepherd Church, which had a pumpkin sale under way, and came back in time to go to the Harvest Festival at Bethie’s school.

  On Sunday afternoon, they helped Taneesha move to her upstairs apartment at Miss Rose Tyndale’s house, and on Monday, they got back to their daily routines.

  It was on Tuesday morning that things got worse.

  It didn’t start out badly. It was, in fact, a beautiful day, and just cool enough for sweaters, which would be taken off by noon.

  Bethie wanted to walk to school with her friends, so Hunter and Sam decided to have breakfast together at R&J’s.

  It was something they hadn’t done since before they were married, and Hunter had forgotten the pleasures of going through the buffet line, saying “good morning” to friends and getting a little of everything, from crisply fried bacon to biscuits with sawmill gravy.

  Taneesha was there already, and Sam gestured to her to come and join them. She came with a cup of coffee, all smiles.

  “Are you all settled in now?” Hunter asked her.

  “Just about,” Taneesha said. “Jeremy says I’m obsessive, but I’ve got to organize that kitchen the right way, and you know how little it is.”

  Taneesha’s cell phone and Sam’s buzzed at the same time. They both answered. Hunter looked back and forth at the two of them: Sam standing up even as he listened, bowing his head slightly, Taneesha getting up, her happy mood gone.

  “Close the street both ways. We’ll be there in a minute,” Sam said into the phone.

  He hadn’t touched his breakfast, didn’t reach for his coffee, didn’t say “See you later.”

  What he said was, “Hunter, do NOT follow us.”

  And they were gone, almost running toward the café door.

  CHAPTER 11

  By a little after eight, all access to the Roland home was blocked except for law enforcement and rescue vehicles, which included the veterinarian, who had come and gone in his van.

  “The dog will make it,” Taneesha said to Megan, hoping it would give her a little comfort. “She’s just got a leg wound.”

  They were in Taneesha’s car, sitting in the back seat together. Sam had insisted on a search of the house at the same time that others on the force were fanning out through the woods. More vehicles were arriving.

  “She got shot first,” Megan said in a flat voice. “She ran into the woods barking and they shot her, and she came out crying, and then there was another showt and Hill fell backwards and she went to him.”

  “Did you see anybody at all?” Taneesha asked.

  “No. I was upstairs and I ran to the window when I heard the first shot, and I saw Flannery come out crawling and then there was another shot and Hill fell. I got down on the floor because I thought it would be me next, but it wasn’t. There weren’t any more shots.”

  “Can I call somebody for you?” Taneesha asked. “Would you like for me to take you to your brother-in-law’s house?”

  “Has somebody called Buck?” she asked. “Does he know?”

  “Sam called the minister of their church,” Taneesha said. “He’ll be told.”

  Megan took a deep breath and shuddered. “I don’t want to go to their house,” she said. “I just can’t deal with Charmaine now, and I need to go see about the dog.”

  “I think they’ll probably have her under anesthesia for a while,” Taneesha said. “She’ll get good care, and you don’t need to be sitting in that waiting room.”

  “Then take me down to Hilliard House,” she said.

  “That’ll be good,” Taneesha said. “Let me go tell Sam.”

  She did tell Sam, but the main reason she got out of the car was to call Robin Hilliard and let him know they were coming.

  “Hill Roland’s been shot and killed,” she said to him over the phone, “and his wife wants to come there.”

  Robin started asking questions, and Taneesha cut him off.

  “I’m sorry, I just don’t know much,” she said, “except it’s pretty awful and we need for her to be away from the house and looked after for a while.”

  “Gotcha” Robin said, “Tell her we love her and I’m making her some Earl Gray tea.”

  As Taneesha pulled out onto Sumter Road, she spotted a big bald man arguing noisily with Wiley Barrow, one of the Rescue Unit volunteers who had come out to turn cars away from the scene.

  It was Aaron Twitchell.

  “Just what we need,” she thought. “Him having a temper tantrum.”

  She stopped to see if the volunteers needed some back-up.

  “I gotta talk to Sam,” Aaron said to her. “If somebody got shot, I saw the shooter. ‘Bout a half hour ago. Nearly ran over him. I just came back cause I heard about a shooting on the scanner and knew it musta been him. I was on Pinholster Street on that curve near the creek bridge and I nearly hit the damn kid. He had a gun about as long as he was tall.”

  Taneesha knew exactly the place Aaron Twitchell was talking about. It was just beyond the woods on the Roland’s property

  “Take him to Sam right now,” Taneesha said to Wiley.

  “The Sheriff said don’t let nobody…” Wiley began.

  ”And I just told you to take him up there right now,” she said, “He’s got information the sheriff needs.”

  Hunter walked over to the courthouse and into the sheriff’s office. There was nobody there but the dispatcher, Lily Ann Wakefield, and Sam’s secretary, Shellie.

  “It’s Hill Roland,” Shellie told her, without being asked. “Somebody shot him.”

  “Is he… ” Hunter began.

  “He was dead when they got there,” Shellie said. “Out in his yard. He was walking the dog. Whoever it was shot the dog, too, but just in the leg.”

  Hunter felt sick.

  “Is Megan all right?”

  “She didn’t get shot,” Shelley said. “Taneesha’s taking her to Hilliard House. The Methodist minister is going over to tell Buck.”

  Hunter nodded and turned to leave.

  “Don’t you be going out there,” Shellie said. “They’ve got a manhunt under way.”

  “I’m not,” Hunter said. “I’m going to the office.”

  She walked back across the street and let herself into the newspaper office. For the first time in her working life she wished somebody else was covering the big story.

  Trying not to feel much, she turned her mind to work. She knew she wouldn’t get the information she needed for a news story until late in the day, but she could go ahead and write a profile of Hill Roland. She had the notes. She even had a good picture. She could do this, she thought. She could do the story justice.

  Sam, she thought, had a worse job than hers, but they would both do exactly what they ought to do.

  It wasn’t until Tyler came in, wanting to know what on earth was going on out at the Roland place that she burst into tears.

  Aaron Twitchell gave the description first, so Sam could relay it to all the search team.

  “Teenager, or at least he looked more like a boy than a man, scrawny thing, longish brown hair and a brown beard, but not a thick one. Sorta like he just didn’t shave. He had on camo pants and some kinda olive drab military jacket. Had boots on, and he was carryin’ one of them big guns slung over his shoulder, like a long black rifle with stuff stickin’ out of it. He came outta nowhere, but he was runnin’ from this side, across Pinholster, and he fell and got up, and then next I saw, he just went down that embankment on the other side and was gone. If he’s from around here, I never saw him before.”

  “It was after seven,” he said after Sam had sent the description out, “I don’t wear a watch, but I can tell you it was light. You know how the mornings are dark now. So maybe it was 7:30, but not much later,”

  “Can you describe his face?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know as I could describe it,” Aaron said, “But I’d know him if I saw him again.”

  “That’ll help,” Sam said.

  Aaron said he hadn
’t heard the gun shots.

  “If I had,” he said, “I probly would’ve jumped out and gone after him. I was just thinkin’ he mighta thought those woods of Hill’s had some deer and then he saw he was right in somebody’s back yard, and took off.”

  Sam called Skeet Borders over.

  “I want you to drive around to Pinholster with Aaron and let him show you exactly where he saw this guy come out onto the road and where he went down on the other side.”

  “Won’t be any trouble showin’ you,” Aaron said. “There’s a good skid mark there. Course, he’s probly had time to get clear to the interstate if he had a car hid somewhere,”

  “We’re going to get him,” Sam said. “We’re going to have the whole state of Georgia after him. I can’t thank you enough, Aaron.”

  He called T.J. Jackson, who was already in his car on the way, and said, “I’ve got an eyewitness on the suspect. We need an artist to do a sketch — fast.”

  There was a cheer from the woods, and Bub Williston came out and yelled to Sam.

  “Looks like the sonofabitch dropped his flashlight.”

  “I hate this town,” Megan said in a flat voice. “I really do. I wish I had never laid eyes on this town.”

  Robin nodded and poured her some more tea. He had thought she would want to be alone, but she wanted to talk.

  “I’m going back to New York,” she said. “I still have our apartment. I was going to have to go back and forth a lot. I can just move back and sell that house, because I’m not going to need it. I’m not staying here. What would I do with it? I don’t want to stay there another night.”

  Colin nodded.

  “I need to know about the dog,” she said, “I need to call the veterinarian about our dog. Why would anybody shoot our beautiful Flannery? I hate this whole place.”

  “Why don’t I call the veterinary clinic? Colin said.

  Megan burst into tears.

  “I can’t have a big dog like that in New York,” she said to Robin. “What am I going to do? What if she’s crippled?”