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

by Charlotte Moore

  The man helped her get back up the steps and they all said “Good dog. Good Flannery.”

  The man took the leash off and Flannery drank some water from a big bowl and went cat-hunting.

  Sunday came. Hill Roland’s funeral service was not long. Sam and Hunter went in separate cars since he had a meeting immediately after the funeral, and Hunter was taking Miss Rose Tyndale, and would be taking her back home.

  The preacher at the Methodist Church had never met him, but did his best, dwelling on Hill’s return to the home he had loved while many of those attending thought to themselves that if he had stayed in New York he would still be alive.

  Buck Roland cried. Charmaine Roland comforted her husband and dabbed her own eyes with a handkerchief. Megan Brooks Roland fixed her gaze on the organ pipes through the service, but gave her brother-in-law a long embrace when they finally stood to leave.

  Miss Rose was crying a little when they left.

  Randy Slattery, who had driven Megan to Merchantsville, spent the time before and during the funeral moving Hill Roland’s computer and several boxes of miscellaneous files and papers to the back of his van. The last thing he took was a portrait from the wall. Megan had let the sheriff’s office know he would be doing this on her behalf.

  Afterward, at a single buzz of her cell phone, he drove to the cemetery gate and waited for her.

  “How was it?” he asked when she finally got into the car.

  “None of it had anything to do with the real Hill,” she said, “Well, no. I shouldn’t say that. Buck cried and Hill’s being buried near Sophie and Lorena.”

  “You sure you’re ready to go back to New York tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure. I want to get back to work.”

  “You don’t need the money,” he said. “You could just unwind for a while.”

  “It’s not about money,” she said. “It’s about putting my life back together.”

  Once Sam got back to his office from the funeral, he sat down with Taneesha and T.J. for the call to Melanie Tolliver.

  T.J. had arranged the time with her, and she answered eagerly on the first ring.

  T.J. explained to her who was there, and thanked her for her cooperation. Then he asked, “How long have you known Nathan Wood?”

  “Only, like, since two years ago. He was in one of my dad’s history classes and he came around to the house one day because my dad needed the lawn mowed and the guy who had been mowing it had left school, and my dad always paid some student to do it.”

  “What’s your dad’s name?” Sam asked.

  “J.S. Tolliver. He taught history there.”

  T.J. asked for the father’s telephone number.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, “He’s got a new cell phone. I wrote it down somewhere.”

  After a couple of minutes, in which she was apparently searching, she came back on the phone to say, “I think I left my purse in my car.”

  T.J. said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you back later. No hurry.”

  “So you and Nathan got to be friends?” Taneesha said to get back on track.

  “Yeah, sorta. I can’t believe he killed Hill Roland.”

  “You know who Hill Roland is?” Sam asked.

  “Sure. I love his books.”

  “Did you ever talk to Nathan about Hill Roland’s books, or about vampires?”

  “No,” she said, and then, after a pause, she added “I didn’t even read the first one until last year, and by then Byrnham was shut down and I was up here.”

  “What did you talk to him about?” Taneesha asked. “What was he interested in?”

  “Just stuff, like, you know, what classes we were taking, what we thought about some of the people in our classes, and sometimes he’d talk about his guns and he’d go off about the government and stuff.”

  “He didn’t like the government?” T.J. asked.

  “Oh, you know,” she said. “It was like he had one of those Confederate bumper stickers on his truck.”

  “Did you have dates with him,” Taneesha asked. “Were you in love?”

  “No,” the girl said after a pause, “Like I said, we just hung out together.”

  She giggled a little.

  “I told my boyfriend about knowing him at Byrnham and he said I was lucky it didn’t get serious since he turned out to be, you know, like…..”

  “Like what?” Sam asked in his fatherly voice.

  “Like one of those, you know, crazy shooters,” Melanie said.

  Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “So when did you stop being friends?” Taneesha asked.

  “Well, we didn’t really stop. I mean, I just moved up here with my mom. See, I got free tuition at Byrnham because my dad taught there and he had a faculty house, but my mom wanted me up here because she and my dad, well, do I have to go into that kind of stuff?”

  Sam spoke up.

  “No, Miss Tolliver” he said. “We’re mainly interested in knowing about Nathan Wood. You said something about his winding up being ‘one of those crazy shooters.’ Did you ever have the feeling that he was odd in any way, of that he was mentally ill?”

  “No,” she said. ”At first I thought he was like some kind of deep thinker, or he was shy, and after a while, it was kind of boring, you know?”

  T.J. looked at Sam and Taneesha and ran the side of his hand across his throat in a slashing motion. They both nodded. He thanked Melanie Tolliver for her time, and as soon as they were disconnected, Sam turned off the tape recorder and said, “OK, so let’s say that whatever’s going on with him started after she knew him.”

  “I haven’t read Hill Roland’s books,” T.J. said. “Is there anything in them about the Civil War?”

  “Well, in a way,” Sam said. “They’re about these vampires who live in an old mansion that was half burned down during the war, but there’s not anything about the war itself.”

  “Maybe he read one of the books and thought Hill Roland was insulting the South or something,” T.J. said.

  “I think” Sam said, getting up, “That even if he did read one of the books, that doesn’t explain how he would know Hill Roland was living down here, and would know where he lived and the lay of the land around his house.”

  “Or how the shooting ties in with the poisoning attempt,” Taneesha said. “He sure doesn’t seem like the kind who would send poisoned cookies through the mail.”

  “What did you think about Melanie?” Sam asked Taneesha.

  “I think she was hoping something would come of it, and nothing came of it,” Taneesha said, and shrugged. “We might get better information from her dad.”

  “I’ll follow up on that,” T.J. said.

  While Sam was at his meeting, Hunter drove Miss Rose home and went in for tea.

  “How did your biscuits turn out?” Miss Rose asked as she put on the kettle.

  “I’m not sure they were as good as yours,” Hunter said, “But Sam and Bethie were awed, and there were none left at all. I’ve made them twice since. It really has emboldened me with all my cooking – you know, just to learn to follow the instructions exactly.”

  “So what do you want to do next?”

  “Mincemeat pie,” Hunter said after some thought. “You know Thanksgiving is coming up, and everybody in Sam’s family will be cooking. Sam loves mincemeat.”

  “Well the filling in a pie is usually a simple matter,” Miss Rose said. “I always add chopped apples and nuts and a little brandy to my mincemeat. The challenge is making a good pie crust. How’s Wednesday afternoon for you?”

  “Fine,” Hunter said, “and what am I going to need?”

  “A pastry cutter,” Miss Rose said, “Flour and butter – or you could use lard.”

  “Which is better?” Hunter asked, “I’ve never even bought lard. It sounds so… ”

  “I know,” Miss Rose said, “but it does make a flakey crust. Butter is good, too.”

  They drank their
tea in silence for a while.

  “I found the funeral very sad,” Miss Rose said finally. “I know the pastor did his best, but he didn’t know Hill. I wonder if anybody knew Hill.”

  Hunter told her about the interview she had done and asked if she would like to hear the tape.

  “You know,” Miss Rose said. “I really would. I had no idea that he had that kind of family feeling, and especially about Sophie. When I was a young woman, and I suppose she was in her 50s then, I found her – how can I put it – sort of like royalty. I mean in her demeanor. I had to resist curtseying.”

  “Did you ever hear her mention the book?” Hunter asked.

  “No,” she said, “but now that you mention, I just remembered that Hill brought something like that up once in English class. I had assigned essays and he wanted to write his a story in his family, about a book that somebody claimed to write when somebody else wrote it. I said absolutely not, that he had to write about one of the writers we had studied. He wrote on Shelley, I remember, and it was the only A paper he ever wrote for me.”

  “I thought he was a good student in English,” Hunter said.

  “Oh, I mean it was the only one he wrote that didn’t get an A plus,” Miss Rose said. “It was sort of like the vampire books. I have enjoyed them, but they weren’t what I’d call A plus work. Perhaps this book he told you about would have been.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Is Flannery going to be all right all by herself?” Bethie asked over breakfast on Monday morning.

  “Your daddy and I will be home for lunch,” Hunter said, “and then I’m going to pick you up after school and I’ll do my work at home, but Flannery is going to have to get used to our being gone.”

  “I can drop by sometime this morning,” Sam said.

  Flannery looked back and forth at them.

  “She knows we’re talking about her,” Bethie said. “I think she’s going to be sad and lonely.”

  “She’s made friends with Marmalade already,” Hunter said, as the big orange and white striped cat sauntered into the kitchen and swatted at the dog’s tail. “They’ll keep each other company.”

  Katie the Calico was spending most of her time on top of Hunter’s bookcase, hissing whenever Flannery came into the study, and Tuxedo had taken up residence under Bethie’s bed, but Marmalade had learned quickly that the new animal could be led on wild chases and was good to curl up with at night.

  Sam kissed Hunter and Bethie goodbye and managed to get his hand inside the plastic cone and scratch the top of Flannery’s head.

  “We’re going to get this thing off soon,” he said to the dog, “Now you be good.”

  Hunter finished the first two stories on her list, which included the one about Nathan Wood pleading guilty and getting no bond, and the investigation being ongoing. She was about to go to work on the Community Calendar when Tyler rolled up to her desk.

  “Just so we won’t duplicate,” he said, “My column this week is going to be about the good job the sheriff’s office did on making a quick arrest following Hill Roland’s murder.”

  “Good,” she said. “I was hoping you would. I might sound biased.”

  Then she added, “I don’t know what I’m going to do for a column. I had thought about writing some kind of tribute to Hill Roland, but I can’t come up with a good angle. I’m not going to write about the famous writer coming home, since coming home got the famous writer killed. Obviously, he would have done better to stay in New York City. You know his wife just left? She’s not going to live here and I can’t say that I blame her.”

  “You think he wouldn’t have gotten killed if he had stayed in New York City?” Tyler asked.

  “Did I say that?” Hunter asked, and then she frowned. “Well, I guess I did, and I do think that. What if somebody from around here has had it in for him for years, and hired that kid to shoot him?”

  Tyler said. “I’m hoping it will wind up not being anybody from here. We’ve had enough of that. Now let’s talk about what you’re going to do with the notes from that interview you did with Hill. Do you still want to do a story about the question of who wrote the book? I’ve been thinking that’s a prize winning feature story.”

  “He actually wanted me to write about it,” Hunter said. “But now, the book is never going to be written, and I’m wondering if I should talk to Megan before I do it. I was even thinking I should give her a copy of the tape if his papers are going to be in some library somewhere.”

  “I think you need to do some more research on the other side of it, and then see if there’s a good story to be written,” Tyler said. “But you don’t have to ask Megan if you can write it. You should just tell her, when the time comes, that you are writing it, and ask if she wants to comment.”

  Hunter thought about it.

  “The big problem,” she said, “is that Hill Roland didn’t care about having any definite proof. He just believed his great-grandmother’s version of it. He was planning to write a historical novel, not a scholarly work. I can go with what he said to me about it, but I’d need to have the other point of view and I sure don’t want to get all involved with Annie Laurie Wooten and her cousin – you know, the mayor of Chaneyville. Annie Laurie thinks that the fact that they got a historic marker settles the question of who wrote the book.

  “If it were me,” Tyler said, “I’d start by calling Patsy McFall.”

  “Who’s that?” Hunter asked.

  “The editor of The Pine County News Recorder. She grew up there and if she doesn’t know something, she’ll know who does. She puts out a pretty good paper.

  He thought about it further.

  “Better yet,” he said “If I were you, I’d ask me to call Patsy McFall.”

  As he started back to his office, Hunter laughed and said, “Please call Patsy McFall!”

  A half hour later, he came out of his office and said, “Patsy’s retired. I can’t believe it. She sold that paper to Marshall-Wade Publications a year and a half ago, and the first thing they did after she quit to promote her Lifestyle Editor to the Managing Editor’s position and tell her advertising guy that he had to cover Board of Ed and sports.

  “Sounds like a mess,” Hunter said.

  “That’s the bad news,” Tyler said. “The good news is that she’s still friends with everybody at the paper and writes a column for them free, and she’s going to get them to e-mail her a copy of the story on the ceremony they had when they dedicated that historic marker at Col. Jimmy’s birthplace. Then she’ll send it on to me. That’ll give you some names to start with.”

  “Great,” Hunter said.

  “I just can’t get over her letting go of the paper that way,” Tyler grumbled. “She’s a couple of years younger than I am, and I thought that paper was her life. Turns out when her husband retired, he wanted to buy one of those big RVs and travel all around the country, so she sold the paper, and they just got back from their third trip.”

  “Sounds like they’re having fun,” Hunter said.

  Tyler scowled.

  “I’d shoot myself before I’d sell to Marshall-Wade,” he said.

  Taneesha met Jeremy Hayes for lunch at R&J’s. She was planning to cook a meal for him herself sometime soon, but that was still in the planning stages, and involved wine, candlelight, and a pretty dress.

  For now though, since he as Assistant District Attorney and she was Sam Bailey’s second in command, they were talking shop.

  She told him about wasting time in Lucilla and gave him her impression of the phone conference with Melanie Tolliver.

  “I think she probably hoped Nathan Wood was interested in more than friendship, but had given up on him, and now she’s enjoying telling her friends she knew the guy who shot Hill Roland.”

  “All the same,” she continued, “Everything we’ve learned kind of fits the crazy loner pattern, like he seems introverted, but he’s got all this stuff going on in his head and was a kind of time bomb all along.”
r />   “But why Hill Roland?” Jeremy asked. “I do think probably the kid was paid and maybe he was told some kind of crazy story about why Hill Roland should be killed, but he’s not talking and he doesn’t seem to be thrilled about its being big news, either. So that doesn’t fit the profile. I’m thinking T.J. might be right, that it could be the ex-husband, or even the wife paid him to do the shooting>”

  “I was with Megan Roland right after the shooting,” Taneesha said. “She was terrified and she sure wasn’t acting.”

  “Well, from what I hear, her ex sure isn’t worried about looking like he cares about the widow,” Jeremy said.

  “I don’t think either one of them is worried about what anybody in Magnolia County thinks,” Taneesha said, “but that doesn’t mean they conspired to kill him. In fact, I’d be inclined to think that if Randy Slattery had planned the whole thing he wouldn’t be showing his face around here.”

  “True,” Jeremy said, and then he grinned. “For all we know, Nathan Wood may think he’s a vampire and that Hill Roland was telling all their secrets in his books and trying to stop the vampire apocalypse.”

  Taneesha smiled, and said, “You know, that’s crazy enough to be true.”

  Then she finished her iced tea and brought up a new subject.

  “Now that I’ve got my own place, I would really like to cook dinner for you Friday night. You’ve had everybody in the family’s cooking except mine. What’s your very favorite dessert?”

  She was hoping he’d say “Crème brulee.”

  He thought about it and asked her, “Can you make banana pudding like your grandmother makes it?”

  CHAPTER 18

  The story Patsy McFall had promised arrived by e-mail on Thursday.

  Hunter read it aloud to Tyler.

  The Georgia historic marker designating the birth site of James Lanier Sheffield, affectionately known as Colonel Jimmy, author of “Gone are the Days,” was unveiled and dedicated on Sunday afternoon.