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

by Charlotte Moore

  Colin got up to answer the phone.

  “Hey, Senator Roland,” he said, “We were so sorry to hear of your loss. It’s just terrible, makes no sense at all. Yes, you’re right. He really had a lot to live for. Yes, Megan’s here.”

  He covered the phone with his hand and asked her if she wanted to talk to her brother-in-law.

  “Tell him something. I don’t want to deal with him and Charmaine now,” Megan said in a low voice.

  “I don’t think she feels up to talking to anybody right now,” Colin said on the phone. “Can I give her a message for you?”

  He listened and said goodbye with more expressions of sympathy.

  “His daddy runs a funeral home,” Robin told Megan. “That’s why he’s so good at talking like that.”

  Megan actually laughed.

  And then she cried some more.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said, “There’ll have to be a funeral.”

  “Your brother-in-law said to tell you he’d take care of all that if you want him to,” Colin said. “He said just to let him know if you want to come stay at his place, and that Charmaine sends her love.”

  Megan buried her face in her hands.

  “Why don’t you go lie down for a while?” Robin said. “You don’t really have to make any decisions right now.”

  She sat, staring at her teacup for a while, and then she said, almost as if she were talking to herself, trying to organize her thoughts. “Lying down won’t help. I need to call my parents, and my office. I need to talk to Randy. He loves dogs. He’ll know what to do about the dog.”

  She got up, looked at both of them, and said one more time, “I really hate this town.”

  “We know,” Robin said.

  “We understand,” Colin added.

  It was nearly three when Sam went by Hilliard House to tell Megan Roland personally how the investigation was going.

  Thanks to Aaron Twitchell and the sketch artist T.J. had gotten brought in by a State Patrol helicopter, Sam already had a good sketch of the suspected shooter out all over the state, The metal flashlight had yielded superior fingerprints.

  He had no idea what the killing was about, any more than he had known what the poisoning was all about, but he believed they had a good chance of catching this kid, and if they caught him, they could prove he did it, and he could tell them why.

  And then, Sam thought, maybe they’d find out who sent the poisoned rum balls, which somehow didn’t connect with the shooting, but then, none of it had made sense so far.

  Robin welcomed him, and said, “She’s got a friend with her right now. He just got here about an hour ago and they’re in the kitchen talking. Thank heavens he’s here, because he’s got her calmed down better than we could, and he apparently knows her family. He’s been calling them for her, and he’s talked with the vet. He seems to be a real good friend of hers. Come on back.”

  Sam followed Robin to the kitchen and found her sitting at the table with Randy Slattery.

  They made eye contact and had the same thought. Don’t upset Megan.

  Randy stood up.

  “Good to see you, Sheriff Bailey,” he said. “I came down to see how I could help.”

  “Good to see you, too,” Sam said.

  They shook hands with mutual bone-crunching firmness.

  Robin’s phone rang, and he saw it was Hunter. He left the three of them in the kitchen.

  “Hi,” Hunter said, “I was just calling to see how Megan is doing. Can you talk now?”

  “Yes,” he said, walking toward the front door. “Sam’s in the kitchen with her and her ex-husband. I think he’s giving them a run-down on the investigation.”

  “Her ex is there?”

  “I gather they’re still friends,” Robin said, stepping out onto the front porch. “I think she’s doing better with him here. He seems like a good guy, and apparently she’s not all that close to Buck and Charmaine. She’s called her parents, and think they offered to come here, but she told them not to, that she didn’t know how long she’d be here herself. She’s sort of blaming the whole town, says she hates Merchantsville.”

  “I can see that,” Hunter said. ”First she gets here to find that a woman has died in her house, and now her husband gets shot. You know I have a pretty friendly relationship with her. Do you think it would help for me to come over and see her this evening?”

  “Let me tell her you called and asked,” Robin said.

  “And make sure she knows I’m not coming over as a reporter,” Hunter said.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Robin said. “You have to write stories about all this, don’t you?”

  “That’s my job,” Hunter said, and then she added that the sad thing was that she had been planning to write a really good profile of Hill, and now she’d be writing about his being killed.

  “I’ve got the most beautiful picture of the two of them with the dog,” she told Robin, “and I’ve got two hours of a taped interview with Hill, and all kinds of notes about the book he was going to write next. I wouldn’t bring that up yet, but she might want the picture and the tape later. “

  “What was the book going to be about?” Robin asked, “Oh, wait. I’ve got to go. Looks like Sam’s finished, and I was going to tell Randy how to get to the vet’s so he can see about the dog”

  CHAPTER 12

  “This is one time I’m actually glad to have a media circus, “Sam said to Hunter. “The more different ways that sketch gets out, the better. I just hope it’s a good as Aaron thought it was. And I hope the guy’s on the run and hasn’t seen it. He’d probably shave the beard off, if he did.”

  It was midnight and they were in bed, but both wide awake. She had been taking notes as he filled her in on the day’s events.

  Hunter studied the sketches on her computer. There was one of the suspect’s face, and another, with color added, that showed the whole figure.

  “It’s unusual to do that,” Sam said, “but we thought the clothes would stand out in people’s memories.”

  “He looks like one of those survivalists,” Hunter said. “But how would that connect with Hill Roland?”

  “I can’t connect any dots on this one,” Sam said. “Not until we catch him.”

  “Is it possible that he’s still around here?” Hunter asked. “I mean if he was on foot, maybe he’s camped out in the woods somewhere.”

  “Not likely,” Sam said. “We’ve had dogs all over the woods he ran into, and it’s only three or four acres. Once he got out of there, he would have been out in the open. We think either he had a vehicle well hidden somewhere, or it could be that somebody picked him up. He’s not from around here, so we’re thinking it was planned, and maybe he was there well before sunrise, and had been there before, watching the house. Megan says that Hill had started taking the dog out about the same time every morning.”

  He was telling her more, being far more open than he had been about earlier crimes that he had investigated and she had covered. But then, they seemed to have arrived at some real trust on that. They both understood “on the record” and “off the record.”

  Not that she couldn’t negotiate.

  “Why can’t I put in the paper that it was Aaron Twitchell who provided all this information?” she asked. “That was something he ought to get credit for in the community.”

  “We don’t want to take a chance on this guy coming back to take Aaron out,” Sam said. “He is our one and only witness. This guy might be crazy enough to come back, or maybe somebody else was in it with him. He disappeared really fast and nobody in the area had seen any kind of empty car or truck. There are some patches of woods, but it’s mostly a populated area, and people notice that kind of thing.”

  “It’s hard to imagine two people getting into something that crazy,” Hunter said.

  “Yes, it is,” Sam said, “Unless there was money involved.”

  “Money?”

  “Sure. As in somebody paid this kid to kill Hill R
oland.”

  “Who on earth would do that?” Hunter asked.

  “No comment,” Sam said, and reached over to turn out the light.

  “In fact,” he said in the dark, “All of that is pure speculation. We are going to catch the shooter, and if we get a match on the fingerprints, my guess is that he’ll tell us all about it.”

  Sam Bailey would prove to be only partly right in his prediction.

  The call came at 9 a.m. the next morning. A man who matched the description had been stopped about 3 a.m. for just south of the Georgia/Tennessee line by a state trooper who noticed there was no tag on the truck.

  The trooper, Sam was told, then discovered that the man had no driver’s license or proof of insurance and didn’t choose to tell the trooper what his name was. It followed that he also had no way of proving ownership of the truck, or that he had a permit for the sniper rifle barely hidden under a pile of blankets in the back.

  It was the jail warden who had just been looking at the pictures of the suspect from the Magnolia County shooting.

  By the time the mug shot of “John Doe” arrived in Sam’s e-mail, Aaron Twitchell was on his way.

  “That’s him” he said as everybody in the office crowded around the computer screen. “’That’s the man I saw. I’ll swear it on my Mamma’s Bible.”

  “Looks like you and that sketch artist nailed it,” Skeet said, comparing the sketch to the mug shot. Aaron beamed.

  “Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”

  Later that morning, when he was finally off the phone and had a moment’s peace, Sam noticed the time. He picked up his cell phone and called Hunter.

  “Write this down,” he said. “We’ve got a suspect detained in Catoosa County,” he said. You can quote me as saying that our eyewitness has seen a photograph of the man and verified that it’s the man he saw. The suspect had a bolt action sniper rifle in the back of his truck, which is similar to the gun the eyewitness saw yesterday. ”

  “Got it,” Hunter said. “Anything else? His name?”

  “He won’t tell anybody his name,” Sam said. “We’re working with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia State Patrol to have him brought to Magnolia County. We anticipate charging him with the murder of Hill Roland. I’ll get Shellie to send you the mug shot.”

  “Thanks,” Hunter said. She wanted to ask him if he was calling Will Roy at the radio station, too, but resisted. “Will there be a press conference later?”

  “I think about 3 p.m.” Sam said, “And watch your e-mail for something from the D.A.’s office going out to all media.”

  “Thanks,” Hunter said, and immediately called out to Tyler. “We’re going to have to change the front page. They caught the guy. We’re getting a mug shot.”

  “Hallelujah!” Novena said. “Do they know it’s him for sure? Where did they catch him?”

  Tyler rolled out in his wheelchair.

  “Novena, you can read it in the paper,” he said. “Hunter needs to give me a new headline and rewrite her story.”

  Sam sent Taneesha over to Hilliard House to tell Megan Roland about the suspect.

  “Find out if her ex-husband is still there,” Sam said as she left. “He has a dark blue Buick.”

  The Buick was in the backyard parking lot.

  Robin came out to greet her and said in a low voice, “In case it matters to anybody, he’s got a separate room. Oh, and we’ve got other guests coming in this afternoon, and we’re hoping…” he stopped, searching for the right words.

  “I’ve just come to give them an update,” Taneesha said as Colin came to join them. “Won’t take long. We’ve got the guy who shot Hill.”

  “Fantastic!” Colin said, “Do you think it’s the same person who sent the rum balls?”

  “Good question,” Taneesha said. “No comment. Now, I need to talk with Mrs. Roland.”

  “I’ll go up and get her,” Robin said. “How about Randy? He seems to be like the next-of-kin.”

  “It’s up to her,”Taneesha said.

  Randy Slattery stood while Taneesha and Megan sat on the sofa in the small back parlor that usually served as Colin’s office.

  Megan, who hadn’t recognized the man in the sketch the day before, did no better with the mug shot.

  “So that’s him,” she said. “Has he said why he did it?”

  “He hasn’t really even told them his own name,” Taneesha said. “They think he was headed out of state. He had a whole bunch of cash with him, nearly $5,000 in small bills.”

  “Somebody must have hired him to do it,” Megan said.

  “That’s a possibility,” Taneesha said.

  “Or he could just be one of those crazy kids who wants to kill somebody famous and have their name in the news,” Randy said.

  Taneesha didn’t say what she was thinking – which was that the suspect was doing everything he could not to have his name in the news. She made a mental note to tell Sam that Slattery had come up with an alternative to the hired killer theory.

  There was a knock on the door and Robin peeked in.

  “Megan, Buck and Charmaine are here,” he said. “I’m having them wait up front.”

  Megan sighed and said, “Sgt. Martin, if you’ve told me everything you can, I’d better go talk with my in-laws.”

  Randy Slattery started to follow Megan out, but she turned to him with a quick negative shake of her head.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  Taneesha was prepared to give Buck and Charmaine Roland the same information she had given to Hill Roland’s wife, but they already knew. Buck, whose grief seemed very real, gave Megan a hug, while Charmaine stood back, looking edgy.

  Taneesha was glad to make a quick exit.

  The boy – Sam couldn’t help thinking of him as a boy – was sullen and mostly silent. They had given him supper at the jail and his clothes – the same ones Aaron Twitchell had described – were bagged as evidence. He was dressed in an orange jump suit that was a bit too big for him.

  “If you’re under 18, you need to tell us,” Sam said.

  “I don’t have to answer your questions” the boy said.”I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “That’s true,” Sam said, “but in the meantime, I’m going to tell you a few things. Number one is that the man who nearly ran over you yesterday morning gave us the identification we used to catch up with you. He saw you running away from Hill Roland’s property at just about the same time Mr. Roland’s wife heard the gun shots, and you had that rifle with you. “

  “Why’d you shoot the dog?” T.J. asked. “Was he coming after you? Trying to protect his master from you?”

  The boy bit his lip and looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact.

  “We might work it out not to charge you with cruelty to animals if you’ve got a good reason for shooting a dog in the leg with a high powered rifle like that,” T.J. said.

  “Let me tell him the rest,” Sam said mildly.

  The boy looked up again, glared at T.J. and focused on Sam.

  “We found your flashlight on Mr. Roland’s property,” Sam said. “We know it’s yours because it has your fingerprints on it. We’ve got confirmation of that while you were on your way down here, and we’re expecting that the forensics guys will confirm that Mr. Roland was shot with that gun that was in your truck, the one our eyewitness saw you with.”

  The boy tried to look indifferent.

  “So tomorrow morning,” Sam said, “The District Attorney is going to tell the judge that we’re charging you with the murder of Hill Roland, and ask the judge to keep you in jail without bail until we can hold a trial.”

  “You may think not telling us your name is going to accomplish something,” Sam continued. “But we’ve got a photograph of you on television all over the state already, and it will be in newspapers all over the state tomorrow, because you killed a very well-known writer. We’re asking people all over Georgia to call us if they know your name or where y
ou’re from.”

  “What would be smart on your part,” Sam said, “would be some cooperation. We want to know..“

  “What do you mean writer?” the boy blurted out.

  “You didn’t know who he was?” Sam asked. “You shot a best-selling writer and you didn’t know who he was?”

  “I don’t have to answer anything,” the boy said, backing up like a caged animal. “And I didn’t say I shot anybody. Not a man or a dog. You’re trying to mess with my head. I want a lawyer. I got a right to a lawyer.”

  “The judge will appoint one if you can’t afford to pay one.” Sam said. “I guess we’re done here. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 13

  First it was that feeling of not being able to breathe, then the pounding heart, then sweating. Now they were showing the boy’s face on the news again as if they had nothing better to report, and the feeling was like suffocation, like his blood pressure was shooting up.

  It had been bad enough when the sketch and the description came out, and it was so clear that there was a good eyewitness. It was a good likeness, too, but there was the comfort that there must be hundreds, even thousands of young men with dark beards and shaggy hair out there, and that he was probably already out of the state.

  Now, though, they had him. He was under arrest. They just didn’t know his name yet. Breathe slowly. Calm down. The kid hadn’t told them his name so far, so he was following instructions. He was a tough one, and unlike most young people, he seemed ready to take a stand, even to make sacrifices.

  Another channel and there it was again. This was because Hill Roland was a celebrity. Otherwise, they’d never be sensationalizing the whole thing this way. It would all blow over when another big news story came up.

  But the palpitations wouldn’t stop. Maybe some of that rum would help. Didn’t matter how it tasted as long as it took away the feeling of being some small, wild creature snatched up by a hawk.

  It was 11:30 p.m. when Tate Andrews, the Sheriff of Cunningham County called Sam Bailey directly.