Looking for Lillian (Hunter Jones Mystery Book 7)

by Charlotte Moore

  Sam hated what he had to do.

  Chapter 8

  “Is anybody upstairs?” he asked Augusta.

  “No,” Augusta said, “Nobody slept up there. Those folks from Atlanta left, and so did Buzz’s wife. Caitlin said she wouldn’t go up there alone, and I couldn’t blame her for that, so I got her things and brought them down myself. She slept in the small parlor. Of course, the old folks have a bedroom down here now, anyway.”

  She gave him a shrewd look. “Why are you back? Is there something I ought to know?”

  “We have to close off the upstairs for a while for an investigation,” Sam said, “Something’s come up that we have to check out.”

  “I’ll tell Miss Pink,” Augusta said, giving him a doubtful look. “I sure do wish you had finished this up last night.”

  “Me, too,” Sam said and left it at that.

  Skeet Borders, who had been a truck driver and a skilled carpenter before he entered law enforcement, was fascinated with the McFall house.

  “This is a beautiful place,” he said, looking around as they got to the top of the stairs. “They don’t build them like this one and your house anymore. But it must cost a fortune to heat.”

  At the top of the stairs, the bedrooms opened off the wide hallway on both sides. Sam knew there was a smaller and steeper staircase in the back, and that there must be another one up to the room in the third-floor turret.

  He looked around and said, “Let’s start where the body was. Maybe our killer didn’t have time to hide the pillow.”

  Sam led the way to the front bedroom where Buzz McFall had died, and his eyes landed immediately on the bed, where the suitcase was still open, and decorative pillows were piled high.

  The search was over in three minutes and only took that long because they were wearing gloves and picking up each pillow with care.

  The blue velvet pillow was at the bottom of the pile on the opposite side of the bed from where Buzz McFall had died. Sam flipped it over with his gloved hand and shuddered a little at the dried fluids that identified it as a means of suffocation.

  “Let’s leave it in place,” he said to Skeet. “The crime scene guys need to take over from here and check the whole upstairs. Maybe the killer left something behind that we didn’t already mess up last night.”

  “Hey,” Skeet said. “Don’t give yourself a hard time. Who would figure in a thousand years that somebody would just happen to come across a man having a heart attack and finish him off with a pillow?”

  “Or that a woman would come screaming down the stairs saying a ghost scared the man to death,” Sam said grimly, taking out his phone to start making calls.

  Stacy Vann was home. She had called the middle school lunchroom director and explained that she had sprained her ankle, and couldn’t get a shoe on that foot.

  “I don’t know where Lucasta is,” she said to Taneesha and Aaron when they arrived. “She just has a landline phone, and if she goes out, nobody can reach her. She thinks cell phones cause cancer of the brain.”

  “Have you talked to her this morning?” Aaron asked.

  “No. I haven’t seen her since last night at the McFalls’ house. Her line was busy after that, but she could have been meditating to get calmed down. This morning, it’s just ringing, so I guess she’s gone out.

  The sheriff wants to talk with both of you,” Taneesha said. “You’re going to need to go with Deputy Whitchell while I try to find your friend.”

  “Oh, I wish we had never gone to that house,” Stacy said, starting to cry.

  “Yep,” Aaron said in a matter-of-fact way. “If y’all are gonna hunt ghosts, you probably oughta stick to the graveyards from now on.”

  “Could I do this later?” Stacy asked a few minutes later. “I really can’t put my shoe on.”

  “Let me take a look at that ankle,” Taneesha said. “Sit back down.”

  It was swollen and obviously painful to the touch. Further up Stacy’s leg, there was a bad bruise.

  “How did you do this?” Taneesha asked.

  “Oh, I’m just so clumsy,” Stacy said. “I just stumbled.”

  She seemed nervous.

  “Where?” Taneesha persisted, “When did you do this?”

  “At the McFalls’ house last night,” Stacy said after a little hesitation. “You have to, hmm, step down to get to the hall where the back bathroom is, and I, uh, didn’t notice.”

  Taneesha remembered that from the night before. It was one of those things about old houses. People added on rooms and didn’t get the floors at the same height. The hall between the kitchen and the added-on den also opened to a full bathroom and led to the back door. It had two step-downs. The tripping hazards were built in.

  All the same, she thought Stacy Vann was lying, and she wondered why.

  “I think Deputy Whitchell had better drop you off at the emergency room while we find your friend,” she said gently. “That ankle needs looking after. Now what kind of car does Lucasta drive?”

  Chapter 9

  Downtown at the Cut’n’Curl Boutique, which was just a block from the courthouse, Lucasta Tilling was eyeing herself in the mirror as Twila Morris wielded a hairdryer and a brush.

  “I just got up this morning and decided I had to do something about my hair,” she said, feeling very pleased with the results she was seeing.

  “Well, I’m glad you came in,” Twila said. “You’re the only customer today, and I already told my assistant not come in because we had so many cancellations. Lots of people don’t want to get out in this freezing cold.”

  “I lived in Ohio for a few years,” Lucasta said, “I can’t believe what a fuss some people make about a little cold snap.”

  “You look younger with your hair this way,” Twila said. “I always say that if you’re going to have long hair, you ought to make the most of it. All it takes is a nice trim, and a little mousse and a hair dryer.”

  “Do you watch Channel Seven?” Lucasta asked a few minutes later as she wrote out a check with a nice tip added. “I mean the six o’clock news.”

  “Oh, I hardly ever watch the news,” Twila said, shrugging. “I always think if there’s something I really need to know about, my husband will tell me.”

  “Well, watch it tonight,” Lucasta said, “And you’ll have a chance to see your work—I mean my hair—on the news.”

  “You’re going to be on the news?” Twila asked. “What about? Did you win the lottery?”

  “No. It’s kind of serious,” Twila said, “And I really shouldn’t be talking about it ahead of time. Just watch.”

  “Well, I will!” Twila said. “Now you’ve got me in suspense!”

  Lucasta made another sudden decision when she was in her van, which she had parked behind the Cut’n’Curl.

  With everybody making such a fuss about the cold, it was obviously a great day to drive to the mall in Macon and buy something new to wear. Maybe black or wine red, she thought, with one of those fringed shawls.

  The night before, after meditating in a hot bubble bath, and sipping a little blackberry wine, she had risen above the trauma she experienced upstairs in the McFall house.

  It couldn’t have been that Lillian meant her harm, she thought. Lillian was trying to warn her about the evil that was present.

  It dawned on her just as she was falling to sleep that she had been privileged to be present during something extraordinary, and she might never have a better chance to make her name known in paranormal circles.

  Chapter 10

  It was still cold at the newspaper office, and Novena had brought in another electric space heater. They knew nothing about the pathology report, but their minds were on the McFalls’ calamitous open house and Lucasta Tilling’s screaming departure.

  “I stopped by and asked Miss Rose about that ghost story this morning,”
Mallory said, “She said it was just foolishness that got started because this girl Lillian McFall died just a month or two after her boyfriend had died. It was supposed to be a tragic love story because he was buried at sea and she was buried here. She said it all happened before she was born, and the McFalls had always been really annoyed with the ghost story.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go poking around upstairs in that house for a million dollars,” Novena said. “I heard that story when I was a kid. Somebody said they saw her wandering around in the cemetery, and there were others who said they saw her looking out the window at night. I remember Buzz just laughing when somebody brought it up.”

  “Well, I guess if you lived in a house, and slept upstairs every night, you’d notice if it was haunted,” Mallory said.

  “Well, maybe,” Novena said reluctantly, “But there are some things we just don’t understand, and those paranormal people should leave well enough alone.”

  Hunter gave Novena a wide-eyed look.

  “You believe in ghosts?” she asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” Novena said with an arch look. “I said there are some things we don’t understand, and it doesn’t make sense to go wandering around looking for trouble.”

  After the crime scene technicians arrived at the McFalls’ house and took over, Sam made a call to his office and another to District Attorney Sanders Beale. Then he and Skeet went back downstairs and found Caitlin McFall in the kitchen eating some cream puffs from the evening before

  She was wearing deliberately torn jeans and an oversized sweatshirt and combing her tangled dark hair with her fingers. Sam reminded himself that she was not much older than Bethie.

  “This is Deputy Borders, Caitlin. Can we talk for a few minutes?” he asked her. “I’m Sheriff Bailey. I didn’t get to talk with you last night.”

  “I remember who you are. What’s going on up there?” she asked, “Who are those people?”

  “They’re helping us investigate,” Sam said.

  “Investigate what?”

  “We have to make a full report on your father’s death,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, I guess he was important,” she said, biting her lower lip.

  Sam felt sympathetic. Despite the bored adolescent act. Caitlin had just lost her father, and her mother was on another continent. On top of that, she was away from home and away from her friends.

  “We won’t take long,” Sam said. “I didn’t get a chance to talk with you last night. I just wanted to know if you saw anybody going up the back stairs yesterday while the open house was going on.”

  “I was in here most of the time,” she said, “With Augusta and Kenyatta. That’s her granddaughter. There were lots of people I didn’t know, lots of old people, and I really wasn’t paying attention that much, and then Augusta said I had to go up to the front.”

  She thought a while and said, “I did see the woman in the gray dress who was screaming so loud.”

  “You mean you saw her when she came down the front staircase?” Skeet asked.

  “I saw her then, but I saw her before that, too,” Caitlin said. “She was in the bathroom by the family room for a long time. I was waiting to get in, and she came out. She was weird looking.”

  “Did you see where she went from there?” Sam asked.

  “No,” Caitlin said. “I went into the bathroom as soon as she came out. I guess she must have gone upstairs sometime since she came downstairs later.”

  “Did you see your father go upstairs?”

  “No, I thought he was in the den with Mr. Reeves. Then when I went up front and found Tab, and Mr. Reeves was saying he was, like, upstairs doing some kind of business stuff.”

  “Did your dad stop everything for business calls?”

  “Yeah,” Caitlin said. “He’d stop all the time to make calls or take calls or go back to his office. He and Sabrina fought about it sometimes. She said he was a workaholic. I think they were probably going to wind up getting a divorce like he and my mom did, and Tab’s mom, too.”

  There was a burst of music. Caitlin pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and seemed to forget Sam and Skeet were there.

  “Oh hi, Tab,” she said, brightening up. “Listen, do you have wi-fi at your house? They don’t have it here, and besides, it’s cold over here. Okay. That would be so great. Hey, is there any, like, fast food in this town? All they’ve got here is like leftover party stuff and vegetables with cheese sauce and stuff. Okay. Thanks. Bye.”

  “That was my brother,” she said, smiling a little for the first time. “He’s coming over to get me. He said we can get pizza, and I can go to his house with him for a while.”

  Sam smiled back, relieved that she had a good relationship with her brother.

  He decided that while he was at the house, he would speak to Pink McFall and explain that there might have been foul play in her son’s death and that he would need to call Tab as well.

  Pink McFall, with Augusta Wren at her side, seemed doubtful of Sam’s common sense.

  “Sam,” she said. “He had those pills for angina, and I know my father had angina before he finally had a heart attack. Buzz was clearly under a lot of pressure. I wish he’d never even thought of running for office with all the business obligations he already had, and a young wife and a teenaged daughter at home.”

  Augusta Wren seemed to be having her own thoughts, but she didn’t interfere or argue.

  Sam felt satisfied that he had done the notification and relieved that Pink McFall wasn’t prepared to believe him.

  Later, over the phone, Tab McFall had much the same doubts, and because Sam wasn’t prepared to share the information about the cause of death and the murder weapon, he concluded by saying, “Tab, I just didn’t want you to see something on the news that I hadn’t already told you.”

  Chapter 11

  Shellie Carstairs called Hunter at the paper and said, “I’m e-mailing all the media a short statement from the Sheriff about Buzz McFall’s death. He’ll be having a joint press conference at four with District Attorney Sanders Beale.”

  “What kind of statement?” Hunter asked, glancing at Mallory and tapping her computer screen. “Why’s Sanders Beale getting into it?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say more than that,” Shellie said in a prissy voice and tone that was code for “Somebody’s listening.”

  Hunter figured that must mean that some other media person was within listening distance.”

  “So was there something new from the pathology report?” Hunter asked on a sudden hunch.

  Mallory already had the e-mail up on her computer screen.

  “Yes,” Shellie said crisply. “I cannot confim or deny.”

  “And there’s no chance he can meet us at R&J’s for lunch like he promised?” Hunter asked, knowing the answer.

  “Not a chance,” Shellie said. “He won’t be available to the media until four.”

  “The press release says they’re calling it a suspicious death,” Mallory said when Hunter was off the phone. “An investigation is under way. I wonder if that means that Lucasta Tilling is a suspect.”

  R&J’s Café was Merchantsville’s favorite eating place. Owned and operated by Taneesha’s uncle and aunt, James and Ramona Martin, it was a storefront soul food restaurant, with a buffet and table service, and did a steady business in take-out meals as well. It was within walking distance for anyone who worked in downtown Merchantsville.

  Hunter and Mallory arrived there a little before noon. Tucker Townsend waved from a table in the back. Nobody from the Sheriff’s Office was in sight.

  When they reached the table, Tucker got up and kissed Mallory on the cheek. They sat down, and he took her hands and began to rub them.

  “Why aren’t you wearing gloves?” he asked. “Your hands are cold.”

  When they got over not having see
n each other since the night before, Tucker asked. “What’s new?”

  Mallory filled him in.

  “That explains something,” Tucker said. “Aaron Whitchell was just in here picking up a stack of take-out trays. They just about bought out the fried chicken. I guess the Sheriff has canceled lunch hours.”

  They were halfway through lunch when Mallory’s cell phone rang. She looked at the number, a little puzzled, and then answered.

  A moment later she smiled and said, “Ben! How great to hear from you!”

  Tucker looked curious.

  “Oh, that’s great. You’re only about thirty miles from Merchantsville. What are you doing in Perry?”

  She listened intently, “All week? Well, are you coming over? Yes, I’m still working at the paper. I’d love to see you.”

  “Ben?” Tucker said to Hunter in a near-whisper.

  “If it’s Ben Barstow, and I guess it is,” Hunter answered. “He’s Noreen’s son. He’s a lawyer in Savannah.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tucker said. “That Ben.”

  Mallory was off the phone, smiling.

  “That was Ben,” she said to Tucker, “Ben Barstow, my, uh, step-brother. You know, I told you about him. He’s Noreen’s son.”

  Tucker did know that the late Noreen Barstow Bremmer had been Mallory’s father’s second wife, and he knew all about the events surrounding her death from late night conversations when he was first getting to know Mallory. She had certainly mentioned Ben, but not with the bright smile and excitement he had just witnessed.

  “He’s got a trial in Perry,” Mallory said, “He’ll probably be there for the rest of this week, and they just took a recess until tomorrow. He’s going to drive over in a little while. I’m so glad the two of you can finally meet each other. I guess I’d better plan some take-out food because I sure don’t have anything to offer him for supper. I think he likes pizza.”