“I couldn’t get through on either of those numbers,” he said, “but, I know the guy you’ve got. He’s from here. His name is Nathan Wood, and he’s not right in the head, but he’s a good marksman.”
Sam punched the button for speaker phone and T.J. leaned across the desk.
“Have you ever arrested him?” Sam asked.
“Yep, for discharging a firearm in the city limits. He was shooting at some buzzards that had made a home on our water tank, and he got three of them.”
“He’s not a juvenile, is he?”
“Nope. He was 18 then, and I reckon he’s 19 or 20 now. Anyway, we finally dropped the charges, because frankly I thought he needed some kind of counseling and his grandmother said he’d been on some medication but he had stopped taking it and she’d make him start again.”
“Do you have fingerprints? “ T.J. broke in, “We know we’ve got the guy who did the shooting, but we need to be sure he’s the guy you’re talking about”.
“Sure do,” Sheriff Andrews said, and a cheer went up in Sheriff Bailey’s office.
When Sam got home, it was nearly 1 a.m., but Hunter was waiting up.
“You didn’t need to wait up for me,” he said, giving her a hug, “but it’s nice that you did.”
Hunter didn’t tell him that she fully expected him to be gone first thing in the morning, and this was her best chance to catch up on any progress in the case.
“Have you heard from anybody who knows your suspect?” she asked after they were in bed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, we’re waiting to see if there’s a match on the fingerprints, but it looks like his name is Nathan Wood and he’s from Lucilla.”
He explained about Sheriff Andrews’ call.
“Lucilla?” Hunter asked. “Where’s that?”
“Down near Albany,” Sam said, yawning and rolling over. “Taneesha and T.J. are going down there in the morning to try to talk to his grandmother, and the neighbors.”
“What’s the connection with Hill Roland?” Hunter asked, but all Sam managed to say was, “Don’t know. Maybe mental… maybe …”
Hunter lay awake, envying Sam his ability to fall asleep quickly.
She wondered if the shooter might have known Olivia Benedict, and decided she’d ask Victoria if the name Nathan Wood rang a bell. She wondered if Megan Roland would forget all about Olivia Benedict’s manuscript. She wondered if Hill Roland had gotten very far at all on his new book, and if he was right about the whole thing.
Finally, she decided that she would talk to Tyler about writing a story, or maybe a two-part story about the disputed authorship of Gone Are the Days. She had the taped interview, after all, and it would a way to honor Hill Roland’s memory, if she could get more information. Maybe, she thought as her mind gave way to sleep, it would even be worthwhile to make a trip to Chaneyville.
Molly Bloomfield, Public Defender, arrived in time to spend 10 minutes with her new client before he went before the judge for arraignment.
Jeremy Hayes, the Assistant District Attorney, had already pointed out to her that Nathan Wood was a flight risk, and told her about the evidence, so she was only hoping to get communication off to a good start. Maybe, she thought, there was a possibility, even something that could be documented, about his mental status, or maybe somebody paid him to shoot Hill Roland, and he could cooperate with the District Attorney’s office and get a shorter sentence.
What she didn’t doubt was that it was going to be a long time before this young man was free again.
She talked with him in a conference room outside the courthouse. He was wearing an oversized orange jail jump suit and his ankles were shackled. He looked like a disconsolate teenager to her, and for a moment her heart went out to him.
“Mr. Wood,” she said. “I’m Molly Bloomfield, the Public Defender for Magnolia County. I’ll be representing you this morning.”
He looked up at her and frowned. “They haven’t got a man lawyer?”
Molly had been through this before.
“Let’s talk about your situation,” she said, taking a seat across the table from him. ”Are you aware of the evidence they have?”
He nodded and looked down at the table, not meeting her eyes.
“Then you’re aware that you’re in a world of trouble,” she said. “It’s my job to make sure you’re treated fairly and to do the best I can to keep you from getting the death penalty.”
His head suddenly snapped upward.
“Death penalty?”
“That or life in prison,” she said. “The evidence shows that you shot a man in cold blood. Shot his dog in the leg, too.”
“I didn’t want…” he stopped.
“You didn’t want to shoot the dog?” she asked gently.
“I didn’t say I shot any dog or anybody,” he said.”
“Did you know Hill Roland?”
“Who?”
“Hill Roland, Nathan,” she switched to the tone of a patient mother. “Hill Roland is the man they’re going to accuse you of shooting. Let me show you something.”
She reached into her briefcase and brought out a battered paperback book that she had yanked from her bedroom bookcase before leaving home.
The title was “Blood Legacy.” It was the second book in Hill Roland’s trilogy about vampires in the Deep South, and it had his name in larger letters than the title.
“Hill Roland,” she said, pointing to the name. She turned the book over to show him the author’s photo on the back.
“That’s the man who was shot and killed,” she said. ”He was born and grew up here in Merchantsville. He had just moved back into the house he grew up in. Did you know him?”
“No!” Nathan Wood exploded, his voice rising to a shout “I didn’t know that’s who he was, or said he was, and y’all don’t know anything about who he really was, but you’ll know when it all comes down.”
He was standing up, red in the face, and Deputy Bub Williston opened the door and asked “Are you OK, Miss Bloomfield?”
She nodded. Nathan sat back down and covered his face with his hands.
When he looked at Molly Bloomfield again he said, “I’ll plead guilty if you promise they won’t put me in the electric chair. I just need time for them to break me out, anyway.”
“There isn’t an electric chair in Georgia,” she said, “And who’s going to break you out?”
“You’ll see,” he said with an angry stare. “You’ll all see in due time, all you people who don’t care if they destroy our way of life.”
She was beginning to feel a headache coming on.
“And another thing,” he said, “I never wanted to shoot that dog and I just got it in the leg. It was just running right at me and I had to get it out of the way, so I could take aim on the man.”
She looked at him, hoping that she would find some way to like him a little.
“One more thing,” she said, “Do you have any family I can call for you?”
“My mother’s in Florida,” he said, “but I haven’t seen her since I was ten and I don’t know how to reach her and I don’t want to. I’ve got a grandmother I’ve been living with, but she’s in the nursing home now, and she forgets things about as soon as you tell her.”
Molly gave him a sympathetic look that backfired.
“Don’t be sorry for me,” he said angrily, “I got a whole army behind me, and they won’t forget me.”
As Molly walked into the courtroom, where reporters were already gathering, she was making plans to get a psychiatric evaluation for Nathan Wood.
T.J. and Taneesha had a good ride to Lucilla. It was 70 miles, just long enough to get below casual chat and shop talk.
“Jeremy says you’ve moved into Hunter’s old apartment,” T.J. said. “I hadn’t realized that you lived with your uncle and aunt. I guess it’s a big change to be on your own.”
“It’s nice,” she said. “Aunt Ramona and Uncle James have always been wonderful to me
, but it’s good to have some space of my own.”
“How long have you lived with them?” T.J. asked, not realizing it was a sensitive subject.
Taneesha sighed.
“Since I was five,” she said, “My mother brought me down for a Christmas visit with my grandmother, Mama Rene, and a couple of days after Christmas she said she was going to Macon to buy a used car, and she never came back.”
“She went missing?” T.J. asked, cautiously.
“No, she went back to Chicago without me, and wrote a letter saying she loved me but I’d be better off with Mama Rene. Mama Rene won’t hear a bad word about my mother, but Uncle James says he thinks she probably found a boyfriend who didn’t want a child around. He doesn’t have a real high opinion of her. Anyway, whatever she was up to then, she’s married now and lives in California. She sends me birthday and Christmas presents.”
She bit her lip and concentrated on her driving.
“I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” T.J. said.
“It’s all right,” she said, “I lucked up, because Uncle James and Aunt Ramona loved kids and didn’t have any, and there’s never been a chance of their leaving town and not taking me with them.”
“Seems to me like they lucked up, too,” he said.
She smiled, and then laughed.
“Funny thing is,” she said, “I never thought that maybe they’d like some privacy. They’ve been acting like they’re having their second honeymoon. I mean most people’s children do grow up and move out.”
“You still having breakfast every morning at the café?”
“Sure,” she said with a smile. “I’m not going to mess up my kitchen cooking grits and eggs.”
They drove along for a while, and T.J. thought to himself that they were friendly enough now for him to ask her another question.
“So how are things going between you and Jeremy?” he asked.
She gave him a sideways glance and said, “None of your business.”
They both laughed.
Ten minutes later they saw a sign that Lucilla was just seven miles ahead.
Back in Merchantsville, Hunter showed Tyler the picture she had caught of Nathan Wood being escorted to the courtroom, and then brought up her idea for an in-depth story based on the questions over the authorship of Gone Are the Days and quotations from the taped interview with Hill Roland.
“I think it would get a big readership and stir up some talk,” Tyler said after some thought, “Might be a prize-winner, too, but we ought to hold it until next month or maybe longer, let the crime news settle down. Are you going to let his wife know what you’re doing?”
“I thought I should,” Hunter said, “But you’re right about waiting. I wouldn’t want to bring it up with her now. I was planning to visit her today, just not as a reporter. Robin was going to call me and tell me if she felt up to it. “
As it turned out, the visit didn’t happen. Robin didn’t call, either. Hunter finally called Robin.
Colin answered, and said in a low voice, “Not a good time, Hunter. Your hubby is here, and he’s not happy. He just found out that Megan and Randy have paid their bills and left.”
CHAPTER 14
“What do you mean they checked out? Where are they?”
Sam Bailey wasn’t often caught completely off guard, but it hadn’t occurred to him Megan Roland, or her ex-husband, would just pay their bill and leave. Nor, he realized, had he told Hill Roland’s widow that she shouldn’t leave.
They left in his car.
She said she was heading back to New York as soon as she could get a flight,” Robin said. “He didn’t say what his plans were.”
Sam scowled.
“It wasn’t as if I could interrogate them or make them stay,” Robin said defensively. “They were guests here.”
“You’re right,” Sam said. “I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just surprised. I was coming to tell her that Nathan Wood has entered a guilty plea.”
“She said she’d sent you and Buck both an e-mail,” Robin said.
“I’ll go back and look,” Sam said. “And let me ask you one thing. Did they have one room or two?”
Robin grinned.
“If it had been one, I wouldn’t tell you,” he said, “but since they each had a room, I can tell you that they not only had separate rooms, but paid their bills separately.”
“Did they seem like they were in a hurry?” Sam asked. “What about Slattery? Did he seem like he was in a rush?”
“No,” Robin said. “He was more relaxed than she was, but he’s been that way the whole time. I was glad he was here, to tell you the truth. He’s a nice guy and she needed somebody to look after her and help her sort things out.”
“How about the dog?” Sam asked, just out of curiosity.
“I don’t know,” Robin said. “I know Randy went over to see the vet.”
Back in his office, Sam read the e-mail.
It was like a business memo, giving the numbers at which Megan Roland could be reached, stating that she would return whenever the funeral was held in Merchantsville, and would return if her testimony was needed at the trial of “the man who killed my husband,”
She went on to say she would make arrangements in the near future to have professional movers pack the contents of the house and move them, prior to putting he house on the market, and that she had given a key to J. Randall Slattery, who had her permission to enter the house and supervise the move.
“Very efficient,” Shellie said after she had printed it out to file, “I guess she covered everything.”
“Not the dog,” Sam said. “I’m going over to the veterinary clinic, and then I’ll be at R&J’s for lunch.”
The German Shepherd struggled to stand up. Her right front leg was in a cast and she had a plastic cone around her neck to keep her from chewing on the cast.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” Dr. Carol Robeson said. “The bullet went straight through and didn’t hit the bone. We think she’ll probably have a limp from the muscle damage, but she’ll get around fine. The real problem is going to be finding a home for her.”
“That’s what I thought,” Sam said, reaching out tentatively to let the dog sniff his hand.
“Mrs. Roland sent me an e-mail with her New York address,” Dr. Robeson said. “She said she’d be responsible for any medical expenses, but that she wouldn’t be able to keep the dog. I think she sent me an e-mail because she didn’t want to say it face-to-face. I was hoping the Wilsons, they’re the breeders, would take Flannery back, but I’ve called them, and they can’t. They’re good people but they’re in business. They can’t sell her with a bad leg, they can’t train her for law enforcement, and they’ve got a new litter to look after.
“So what are you going to do?” Sam asked.
The vet smiled, “I’m thinking we can let Mrs. Roland’s bill run up for boarding and maybe advertise in the paper to find somebody who wants her.”
Flannery made her way tentatively toward Sam, putting her weight on her left leg, and looked up at him with big brown eyes.
He reached down to scratch her between her ears, and she made one more lurching step, sat and leaned against him
“Looks like she likes you,” the veterinarian said.
“I probably smell like cats to her,” Sam said. “We have three.”
“She grew up around cats,” the vet said. “The Wilson’s have every kind of animal under the sun.”
She knelt down to check the dog’s cast, and said, “You didn’t want to go to New York City anyway, did you, Flannery?”
The first thing Taneesha and T.J. learned was that Nathan Wood’s grandmother could not be any help.
“She had a really bad stroke,” the nursing home administrator said, “and most of what she says doesn’t make sense. I think she understands a bit though, and I wouldn’t want her upset. We weren’t planning to tell her about Nathan. He hasn’t been here to visit in over a mont
h anyway.”
Taneesha visited the room briefly, just for the record. The frail old lady opened her eyes, managed a vague smile and shut her eyes again. Taneesha said, “You have a nice day,” and left.
The next step, with a warrant that Sheriff Matthews had gotten, was to see what could be found in the home Nathan Wood had lived in with his grandmother.
It was a modest frame house badly in need of a coat of paint. Inside, they found little trace of Nathan, only identifying his bedroom by the fact that the other bedroom, his grandmother’s apparently, was over furnished, with powder and lipstick on the mirrored vanity, and had women’s clothes in the closet. The other bedroom had a single bed, neatly made, a canvas folding chair and an ancient computer on a card table.
T.J. took out a handkerchief and pushed the power button on the computer. Nothing.
Taneesha, noticing that, tried the light switch.
“I think the electricity’s been cut off,” she said. “Let me check the water.”
There was no water.
“It looks to me like he gave up on the house,” T.J. said.
They heard a knock on the door and went to find a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt holding a toddler.
“If you’re looking for that boy who lived here,” she said, “He moved out a couple of weeks ago, or he looked like he was moving out, anyway. He had what looked like a rolled up sleeping bag and some other stuff. Had a big gun, too. I asked him if he was going deer hunting and he didn’t answer. He was like that. You could say something friendly, like, “Hey, how are you?” and he wouldn’t even answer. I was surprised when I saw his picture on TV last night, but not that surprised after I thought about it a while. He wasn’t right in the head. I guess y’all know about his shooting all those buzzards?”
T.J. nodded, smiled and tried to find out more, but the gist of it was that the neighbor’s contact with Nathan Wood had been limited to speaking and not being spoken to.
They took the computer with them, bagged for evidence.
A trip to the counselor at Cunningham County High School confirmed that Nathan Wood had graduated with Bs and Cs, had participated in no extracurricular activities, and seemed not to have been noticed much.
When I am Dead, My Dearest: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 13
