He studied it and then looked around. The sheriff was showing him a piece of paper of some sort, while two uniformed officers were going straight into his house. The woman reached for his arm and said, “We need to ask you a few questions.”
He glanced at her name tag and remembered suddenly that Merchantsville was in Magnolia County. He felt hot, then nauseated, then cold. Before Taneesha could catch him, he fainted.
“Damn,” Sheriff Harley said, “Now we’ll have to call the EMS.”
Sam Bailey and T.J. Jackson had just crossed the Pine County line when Taneesha called him to say, “We’ve got him. No trouble. He fainted, but he’s come around and we’ve got a paramedic with him now. The search is already under way.”
“We’re about two miles out. Where are you?” Sam asked. “Who’s that yelling?”
“I’m by the back door of the rescue unit” she said. “He’s in there hollering for them to call Mayor Sheffield and saying she’ll fire them all. They’re trying to get him to calm down so they can get a normal blood pressure reading. Bub’s in the house leading the search. “
Sam’s observation when they arrived was that Tolliver seemed to be swinging between outrage and abject fear, but here was time to let him settle down.
He didn’t want Tolliver claiming later that he was in a state of shock, or had had a mild stroke. Besides, if he could, he wanted to take the professor back to Magnolia County already under arrest.
The search was what had T.J. fascinated.
“Six guns,” Bub Hollister said. “All stuffed in one closet.”
“Those apparently belonged to the kid,” T.J. said. “He told Skeet about them. Looks like he’s been living here.”
“Rum,” Bub said, holding up a clear plastic bag that held an almost empty bottle.
“You would think he would have gotten rid of it,” T.J. said.
“Rat poison,” one of the Pine County deputies said, holding up another bag with a dark glass bottle in it. “I didn’t think they sold this kind anymore. My granddaddy used to keep it on a shelf in the barn. It was in the garage.”
“I don’t think they do sell it anymore,” T.J. said, looking closely through the plastic bag to read the label, “but that’s what we’re looking for. Strychnine. Did y’all find computers?”
“Yep, one old desktop, still plugged in and a laptop… I thought you want to take a look before we pack them up.”
T.J. went into the laptop first, and found the forwarded e-mail messages to nathanwood789 forwarded by GATD1835 from Kause45T. He yelled to Bub to get Sam and they both read two of them before he got into the professor’s computer long enough to see that his one of his e-mail addresses was GATD1835.
“The one that says ‘Assign NW to take out MerchFoe ASAP’ is good enough to make the arrest,” Sam said. “Leave the rest for the techies. How about taking charge here? I want to go see if the Professor is sitting up so I can arrest him, and Sheriff Harley can enjoy the rest of his Saturday.”
When Sam got back outside, half of Chaneyville had arrived to see the show, and a short and plump woman with dark hair was standing behind the yellow crime scene tape, demanding to know what was going on.
“How ‘bout explaining this mess to our mayor?” the police chief asked him.
Sam wanted to move ahead with the arrest, but he also knew that he owned the Chaneyville police and the Pine County Sheriff’s Office any courtesy he could offer.
“M’am,” he said to Mayor Sandra Sheffield, “I’m Sam Bailey. I’m the Sheriff of Magnolia County.”
“What is going on here?” she asked. “Nobody will tell me.”
“We’re searching Professor Tolliver’s house,” he began.
“Well, that’s obvious!” she said. “What I want to know is why? And what is the matter with him? I know he’s in that ambulance.”
“He’s upset,” Sam said, “and I’m told he fainted, so the paramedics are making sure that his blood pressure and heart rate have stabilized before we tell him he’s under arrest?”
“Under arrest?” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “For what? Does it have to do with the papers? Of course, we can put them back in the library right away.”
“No, m’am,” Sam said, “It’s in connection with two murders that have taken place in Merchantsville.”
She backed off, wide-eyed, and fortunately for Sam, her husband arrived just in time to take her in his arms before she began to wail.
Sam, gestured to Taneesha and they went to see J.S. Tolliver, who was now being assisted out of the emergency vehicle, looking around at the crowd and the yellow crime tape.
“If this is about that poor mentally ill boy who was living here with me,” he said, “I’ll be glad to cooperate with anything you want to know.”
“Mr. Tolliver,” Sam said, “I’m happy to hear you plan to cooperate. For now, however, I need to explain to you that you are under arrest for the murder of Olivia Benedict and for complicity in the murder of Hill Roland. You have a right to remain silent and you should be aware that anything you say may be used against you in court. You have a right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you. Do you understand what I have just said?”
“What I understand is that this is utter nonsense,” Tolliver said. “And what is that man doing with my computer? I am a scholar and that computer has the work of a lifetime in it. I assure you I will sue you for everything you’re worth if that material is lost or damaged.”
Sam sighed.
“How about you and Bub taking him back to Merchantsville?” he said to Taneesha. “I need to wrap up a few things here.”
CHAPTER 23
That evening, back in Merchantsville, after he had wound down a little, Sam called Megan and then Buck.
The first conversation was brief, with Megan composed at first, getting as far as hearing that it was a Sheffield descendant from Chaneyville, and then cursing and crying uncontrollably. Sam heard crashing noises. A man took the phone. It was Randy Slattery.
“She’s throwing things,” he said after trying to listen. “I’d better see about her. We’ll call you back.”
Buck was a different matter. They talked for half an hour and he promised to call Megan himself the next day.
Then he wanted to know who J.S. Tolliver had for an attorney.
“He can’t pay,” Sam said. “And it won’t be Molly Bloomfield since she’s representing Nathan Wood.”
“Good!” Buck said. “As long as it isn’t Molly. She might get him off. You know I’ve tried to get her to come to work at my firm, but she said she didn’t want to dress up that much.”
On Sunday the news broke all over Merchantsville, and on Sunday afternoon Sam held one of his brief press conferences. The District Attorney planned to hold his own on Monday.
On Monday, things started getting back to normal for everyone except James Sheffield Tolliver, who could not get a lawyer to come up from Chaneyville to take the case and was appalled at the youth of the lawyer assigned to the case by the Superior Court Judge.
James Sheffield Tolliver tried to get comfortable on the cot in his cell. He had made a call to Sandra Sheffield at home, so that he could tell her the whole thing was preposterous and ask her which lawyer was best, but the mayor’s husband had answered and said some obscene words, followed by “Never, ever call here again.” And more vulgarity.
Tolliver wished he had been given time to say what he had always said about such language – that it was a sign of an inadequate vocabulary.
He would, he decided, defend himself. He should have thrown the rat poison and the rum out, he knew, but what did that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt? And as for Hill Roland’s death, it was his word against the boy’s word if it came to that and the boy was mentally unstable. He could get his daughter to testify. He could get Melanie to say that Nathan was strange.
He would
get a new suit he thought, and grow a beard and mustache. He wondered if there would be television coverage the way there was at so many celebrity trials now. He smiled a little, thinking of the publicity there would be for his book once it was done and published.
His mug shot, in fact, was already on television as the man arrested in connection with the murders of Olivia Benedict and Hill Roland.
Late Sunday afternoon Robin Hilliard called and told Hunter, “We know that man. He stayed here. He was one of our first guests, about a week after we opened”
“What man?” she asked. “You mean J.S. Tolliver?”
“Yes,” but he signed in as Ashley Wilkes.”
“No!” Hunter laughed.
“We thought it was funny then, too,” Robin said. “But you know Wilkes isn’t that unusual a name.”
“You’re sure it was him?”
“Absolutely. We never forget a face, and besides that, he raised hell about the bill. I guess he had planned to pay cash and didn’t have enough, so he finally got out his credit card and Robin noticed the different name, and he said Ashley Wilkes was his stage name, but anyway he had a driver’s license to go with it, and it cleared.’
“Did he say why he was in Merchantsville? Hunter asked.”
“Well, we had every room full, and neither one of us remembers much about him except that he was trying to call himself Ashley Wilkes and he made a fuss when he paid. He had some kind of business here though. He was out most of the time in this ridiculous old station wagon.”
“Sam will want to know about this,” Hunter said. “Oh, and you won’t believe this, but his daughters are named Scarlett and Melanie.”
Robin let out a whoop of laughter.
“Let me go tell Colin and Miss Rose about that right now. He’s been telling her all about it. He says he wants to be a witness if there are going to be TV cameras there.”
“Are you calling from her place?” Hunter asked.
“No, she’s over here. She’s teaching him how to make chicken and dumplings just in case some of our guests are hungry in the evening when they come in.”
“Has she started already?”
“No,” Robin said, laughing. “They’re still in there talking about Ashley Wilkes.”
“Then I’m coming over,” Hunter said. “Let me just find my apron.”
At just about the same time, Jaybird Hilliard called Sam, who was just finishing reading everybody’s notes on the arrest.
“I know that S.O.B.,” he said, “The one who got Hill shot. He was in my office, maybe six weeks ago, I’m not sure, but I do know it was after the Millers had moved out of the old house and before Hill moved in. He said he was interested in buying a house with some character and was just riding around looking and he had seen this fine old house on Sumter Street. Said it looked empty to him, grass grown up and everything, and asked if it was on the market. I told him it was already sold to a man had grown up in it, but we could show him some other older homes he might be interested in. I probably would have forgotten him if it hadn’t been for what he said then.”
Sam waited.
“He said he hadn’t seen another house in Merchantsville he’d live in. What kind of place did he have in Chaneyville?”
Sam laughed and said, “Nothing to brag about. Little one story, two bedroom place. He was renting, Of course it was better than where he’s living now.”
He explained to Jaybird that he would probably be called as a witness in the trial.
“I appreciate your letting me know about this,” he said.
“No problem,” Jaybird said, “I was going to call you anyway and see if you were still interested in the Roland house. I remember you’re telling me once that you would have bought it if you had known it was up for sale. Of course, I’ve told Megan that nobody’s going to pay as much for it as Hill did…”
“I don’t think so,” Sam interrupted. “It’s a beautiful house, but it’s got too much bad history for me. Just keep me in mind if you get another old one. And it’s got to have two bathrooms.”
Nathan Wood curled up on his cot. The guard had told him that they had brought Professor Tolliver in, but they were going to keep them apart, so they wouldn’t be talking to each other. Nathan didn’t say anything, but he was glad because he didn’t want to talk to the professor, who had poisoned some woman and lied about the man who lived in the blue house.
He wondered if Melanie would come to see the Professor and if she did, would she come to see him? And who was that man who had said the dog was okay? He had seemed like a friend, but he wasn’t really. Maybe he was a fed. It all seemed jumbled together.
There was only one thing he was sure of. It always calmed him down no matter how mixed-up things got. He knew that when feds made their big move, the men of the Cause would mobilize and come to get him.
Maybe they’d break the Professor out, too, he thought. Or maybe not. He would just slow them down, and he couldn’t shoot. And maybe they knew that he had poisoned the wrong woman and then picked the wrong man for Nathan to shoot. He didn’t like thinking about the Professor.
He thought instead about the men from the Cause, like the superheroes from his old comic books, crashing through the walls, pulling the bars apart and taking him with them.
EPILOGUE
The day before Thanksgiving, Sam sat in his office with Nancy and Aaron Twitchell. Aaron’s head was bandaged.
“Don’t you preach me any sermons, Sam Bailey,” Nancy said. “I’ve already said I’m sorry, and Aaron and I have made it up, and he’s not pressing charges, but you’ve got to understand that he went and spent $300 on a second hand smoker and he doesn’t even know how to smoke a turkey, and I told him I didn’t know how we was gonna get through the month, let alone Christmas, and he says he thought I liked smoked turkey and that smoker was my Christmas present.”
“How many stitches?” Sam asked Aaron.
“About a dozen,” Aaron said, “I was bleedin’ like a stuck pig.”
“That scared me,” Nancy said. “I shouldn’t have hit him that hard, and beside I broke my best Elvis figurine.”
“You two won’t consider going to a marriage counselor?” Sam asked.
“We’re going to work it out,” Nancy said, and Aaron nodded.
“Well I hope you will,” Sam said, “I need for Aaron to stay alive, because he’s our key witness for the trial coming up, and the fact is that if he hadn’t been as sharp-eyed as he was, we might never have caught that kid who shot Hill Roland.”
Nancy beamed at Aaron, who tried his best to look humble.
“Y’all have a nice Thanksgiving,” Sam said, “And please try to get along.”
Thanksgiving was wonderful. Hunter got compliments on her mincemeat pie and her mother-in-law was awed at her pie crust.
“I didn’t know anybody still made their own pie crust,” she said.
The next day, Hunter got up early and had the one remaining slice of mincemeat pie with her coffee as she sat down to write to Megan Brooks Roland.
It was probably the longest e-mail she had ever written, but she wanted to be clear, and, despite any arguments from Tyler Bankston, she still wanted to have Megan’s blessing on whatever she finally wrote about the battle between the descendants of Lorena and Col. Jimmy.
She wound up by saying how sorry she was that Hill had never gotten to write the book that meant so much to him.
She had read it twice and was about to send it when she could hear Sam and Flannery in the kitchen, and added another paragraph.
“Flannery’s leg is all healed up now. She has a bit of a limp, but she doesn’t let that stop her from chasing the cats and taking walks with Sam. She is a beautiful, smart dog and we are happy to have her.”
She didn’t expect an answer for a day or two, but there was one waiting for her when she checked her mail that evening.
Megan wrote, “First, let me surprise you. Hill actually did write the book. I found the manuscript in hi
s papers, when I was finally went through them last week. He wrote it in his twenties, just out of college and it must have been rejected ten times before he gave up on it. I also found an outline for a new version on his computer, but the first one is really fine as it is (he just needed an editor and an agent), and it will be published this spring.
“If you are going to write an article about the dispute over the authorship of ‘Gone Are the Days’, I really hope you can time it to coincide with the publication date for the book, and maybe write a review of the book as well.
If you’re in agreement with this, I will be glad to be interviewed for your story, and will send you an advance copy of the manuscript. The original was typewritten on paper, but my saintly assistants have almost finished putting every word on the computer
“Let me know if we have a deal, and I’ll e-mail the manuscript to you. Sorry to sound like an agent, but that’s that I do.
“Also, Olivia Benedict’s manuscript was quite a surprise. It is really excellent, and I have written to her sister to tell her I will try to find a publisher for it.
“I am so happy to hear that Flannery has recovered well, and so touched and pleased that you kept the name that Hill gave her. Randy is visiting for Thanksgiving and says thank you and Sam for taking that beautiful dog. Please give Colin and Robin my love when you see them and tell Sheriff Bailey that I appreciate all he has done, and have been meaning to call and apologize to him for not saying so sooner.”
Hunter read the e-mail letter twice, and then wrote back.
“Megan, I was so happy to hear about Olivia Benedict’s book, and am just thrilled about Hill’s book. I will be glad to hold off on the story until the publication date of the book and to write a review. I can’t wait to read it. We love Flannery, so no thanks are needed.”
The manuscript arrived on Monday as an attachment, and Hunter started printing it out, reading the pages as they came from the printer.
When I am Dead, My Dearest: A Hunter Jones Mystery Page 20
