Missed You In Church: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  “Knowing Jack,” Sam said, “He’ll be married again long before he has to make that decision.”

  “You really think so?” Hunter asked.

  “Sure,” Sam said, “There were probably half a dozen women at that service already planning what to cook for Jack when they invite him to dinner next Sunday.”

  The casket was in place under a large canopy set up by the funeral home, and those who had been willing to brave the heat were finding seats on folding chairs. Sam and Hunter chose to stand near the back instead, and when the brief graveside service was over, Sam slipped away to speak to Taneesha and Bub.

  Hunter moved into the line of people waiting to speak to the family members. She used the simple program from the funeral service as a fan, mostly keeping her eye on Mallory, who was the first family member in the line.

  Mallory looked tired and hot and was introducing Ben Barstow over and over. He was managing a few polite smiles, nods and handshakes.

  Hunter knew most of the people in the line ahead of her except for one man who had arrived late and weaseled his way into the line. He looked out of place because he was wearing boots with shiny black dress slacks, and a short sleeved shirt. His hair looked as if he had cut it himself.

  The line moved forward once, then twice, and then calamity struck.

  The sequence Hunter would remember later, almost in slow motion, was that Mallory had a slight frown, and the man with the bad haircut had passed her.Then the man was speaking to Ben Barstow in a low voice. Ben’s right arm went back and flew forward, and the man was knocked backward into the rows of empty folding chairs which fell in all directions.

  Sam appeared out of nowhere, got the man standing up, muttered something to him and turned him over to Bub and Taneesha.

  Ben Barstow was standing perfectly still, looking tense and rubbing his right fist with his left hand. Mallory was trying to talk with him.

  Sam straightened the chairs up, said “Excuse me” to a few of the stunned onlookers, and took Ben gently by the arm, whispering something to him.

  Ben nodded. He was breathing heavily. Sam caught Hunter’s eye, and nodded in the direction of their car.

  “Hunter,” Sam said when she met them at the roadside, “This is Noreen’s son. Ben, this is my wife, Hunter. She’s a friend of Mallory’s and she’s going to give you a ride back to Hilliard House. I’ll get your father headed home.

  Ben nodded and followed Hunter.

  Rocker Barstow had his wind back, and was declining a trip to emergency room. He was in the back of Deputy Bub Williston’s blue and white cruiser.

  Bub handed him a bottle of water.

  “All I did was say, ‘Hey Benjie,’ and he hauled off and knocked me crost all them chairs,” he said, “Man, that boy can hit. I wouldn’t have ever figgered him to hit like that. Course I hadn’t seen him since he was 12 or so, and he always had his nose in a book, but I woulda knowed him anywhere. Looks like my side of the family.”

  Bub nodded indifferently. His only goal was to determine if Rocker could drive himself home.

  “You been drinking alcohol?” he asked.

  “Not enough to matter. Had a beer for breakfast, but that’s all.”

  “You want somebody to drive you home?”

  “No, I’m okay. How much you reckon that suit of his cost?” Rocker said, his voice stronger.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Bub said.

  “You know he’s a lawyer.”

  “I heard that.”

  “He was a real Mamma’s boy growin’ up,” Rocker said. “Taller than me now. Course I coulda got in a fight with him just now and held my own, but that sheriff of yours got him outta the way too fast. Good thing I guess. It wouldn’t have been respectful to my late wife.”

  Bub had heard enough.

  “I’d say the sheriff saved you from gettin’ hit again.” he said, “Here he comes now.”

  Sam came over, opened the back door and asked Rocker if he needed to see a doctor.

  “They awready asked me that. I just got sucker-punched and lost my balance,” Rocker said. “Ain’t nothin’ broken, unless it’s his fist.”

  “Okay,” Sam said, “Deputy Williston is going to drive you around to your truck, and then follow you to the county line.”

  “When you see my boy, tell him I said maybe I had that coming, and no hard feelings,” Rocker said. “Tell him I was just going to tell him I was sorry about his Mamma dyin’ and all that.”

  “Right,” Sam said and shut the door.

  “He’s not going to press charges, then?” Ben asked when Sam told him what his father had said.

  “Deputy Williston said he was talking like he was proud of how hard you could hit,” Sam said. “He asked Bub how much he though your suit cost.”

  Ben Barstow almost grinned at that. He was on his second gin and tonic, courtesy of Hilliard House, and was glad the funeral was over and he could leave Merchantsville in the morning.

  He got up to thank Sam, and Hunter before they left together.

  She had been mercifully quiet while driving him back to Hilliard House, and when he had finally said, “I guess I made a spectacle of myself,” she had just smiled and said, “At least we all got out of that heat.”

  He was glad he had booked the room at Hilliard House, too. He hadn’t wanted to see the kitchen where she died, and being around the Bremmers was exhausting, and Mallory was the only one of them he really felt any kinship with.

  In his brief time with the family, having a late lunch in the church fellowship hall before the funeral, he hadn’t changed his mind about that.

  There was Jack, looking mournful, and very likely feeling guilty, Ben thought. He had understood even at 16 that the nice guy named Jack who appeared to be in love with his mother, was married to somebody else.

  He had put two and two together later, and realized that the nice guy named Jack was coming to visit his mother while his first wife, Mallory’s and Miranda’s mother, was dying of cancer. He just hoped the girls didn’t know that.

  He had little doubt that Jack Bremmer would marry again and cheat again. If he hadn’t already been cheating.

  Chad Montgomery seemed like a nice guy, but Ben couldn’t imagine why he was marrying Miranda. Yes, she was pretty, but why didn’t she have sense enough to wait until after the lunch and the funeral were over to tell everybody in excited whispers and giggles that Chad had made all the arrangements for their honeymoon to be in Hawaii.

  And then there was the girls’ Aunt Clarissa, fluttering around, caught halfway between wanting to be part of the grieving family and wanting to tell the church ladies how to run the luncheon. She had seated herself beside him finally, and after expressing her deepest sympathies for his loss, had told him all about Miranda’s wedding, which he had no interest in at all. She had even given him her card.

  “You keep that just in case you meet the girl of your dreams,” she said, “I do so love Savannah.”

  It was in his pocket now, and he pulled it out to look at it, and put it on the coffee table, just as Colin came into the sitting room with a plate full of barbecued chicken wings.

  “That your business card?” Colin asked.

  “Not mine,” Ben said, “Your local wedding and events planner gave it to me.”

  Colin picked it up and studied it. Then he laughed out loud.

  “Weddings are Forever, huh? I’ve got to show this to Robin,” he said.

  “You’re welcome to keep it,” Ben said, reaching for a chicken wing.

  The big front door opened and Mallory came in, looking around. She had changed into a lime-green sundress and sandals. When she spotted him, she came over.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “I hope I didn’t upset your family.”

  “They’ll survive,” she said. “Hunter explained. I’m glad you hit him.”

  Colin came over and asked Mallory if she wanted a gin and tonic.

  “Thanks, but
go easy on the gin. I’ve got to drive,” she said.

  When Colin left, Mallory sat down by Ben and said, “I miss your mother already.”

  “Me, too,” he said, “But I’ll be glad to get things finished up here and get back to Savannah. I’ve got a new job to be thinking about. They told me to take all the time off I needed, but I’d honestly rather be working.”

  “I’m the same way,” Mallory said, “I can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow.”

  In the kitchen, Robin took one look at Clarissa Scarbrough’s business card and grinned.

  “That explains a lot,” he said. “She’s using Miranda’s wedding to show off her wedding planning skills to the Merchantsville and Macon aristocracy.”

  “Are you going to find out about the deposit?” Colin said. “You could call Clarissa,”

  Robin thought about it and shook his head.

  “No, I don’t want to do that. She may be running the show, but she’s not the one paying for it. If the agency is open tomorrow, and I’ll just drop by and talk with Jack. I can even give him the option of letting us plan something simpler.”

  CHAPTER 14

  FRIDAY WAS USUALLY AN EASY-GOING DAY in the newsroom, but after the first two customers had felt obliged to express their condolences to Mallory, one giving an impromptu sermon and the other explaining at length why she couldn’t make it to Noreen’s funeral, Mallory was looking stressed.

  “Why don’t you hide out in Tyler’s old office and use that computer?,” Hunter said, “And I’ll work out here.”

  “Thanks,” Mallory said “I know everybody means well, but…”

  “But you need some space,” Hunter finished her sentence for her. “And we’d better not go to R&J’s for lunch either. Why don’t we drive over to Cathay and go to the Catfish Shack?”

  “Great idea,” Mallory said, “You don’t mind if Miranda comes too, do you? Chad’s leaving this morning to catch up with the work he missed and she needs not to mope around.”

  “How’s your dad doing?” Hunter asked.

  “He’s going back to work and going out to the country club to have lunch with some friends today,” Mallory said. “I think it will be good for him.”

  In the Sheriff’s Office, Sam had just finished telling T.J. about Rocker Barstow’s surprise appearance at Noreen Bremmer’s grave site.

  “I want to bring him in and get serious,” Sam said. “He can get his own lawyer, or we can get somebody from the Public Defender’s office. If he’s really got witnesses who can give him a solid alibi, he’s going to need to give us their names.”

  “OK,” T.J. said. “You coming over?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “I’ll bring Bub with me.”

  Shellie came in and handed him a note.

  “I’ll see you around 11:30,” Sam told T.J. after a glance at the note. “I’ve got a call waiting from an insurance investigator from Farmers State in Atlanta. I imagine they want to know if Jack Bremmer’s in the clear on this.”

  The investigator turned out to be a talkative sort.

  “We know he was at the insurance conference up here in Atlanta from Friday night until Sunday morning,” he said. “He had a young lady with him at the cocktail hour. I guess it wasn’t his wife.”

  “We know about that,” Sam said, “But if you’ve got a written report, I’d sure like to have a copy. What do you need from me?”

  “Just a notarized statement signed by you that Jack Bremmer is not under investigation or in any way a suspect in his wife’s death so we can go ahead with the payout,” the investigator said. “Can you do that at this point? I can e-mail you a form if you’ll have somebody fax it back and then mail me the original. He’s one of our own, and we’re trying to move things along for him. And, another thing is, we need to know it wasn’t a suicide.”

  “No problem there,” Sam said. “She didn’t shoot herself in the back of the head and then make the gun disappear.”

  “Can you help me with Benton Barstow, too? That’s her son. We already know he was in Savannah. You don’t have any reason to think he was involved, do you?”

  “None at all,” Sam said. “Why? Is he one of the beneficiaries?”

  The investigator was talkative.

  “Yep,” he said. “The policy’s for a million. Son gets half. Husband gets half. You didn’t hear this from me, but my boss said that she must have changed it without telling her husband, because he was thinking it was all coming to him. Not that half a million is peanuts.”

  “That’s true,” Sam said, surprised that he had gotten so much information with so little effort.

  Robin Hilliard thought at first that he might just walk over to the Bremmer Agency, but two steps out of Hilliard House he changed his mind.

  “It must be over 100 out there,” he said to Colin as he came back in to get his car keys.

  “So much for ‘just happening by’,” Colin said.

  “He may not even be there,” Robin said. “I just don’t want it to seem like a big deal.”

  Jack Bremmer was in his office, and welcomed Robin.

  “I’m glad you got a chance to meet Ben,” he said.

  “He’s a great guy,” Robin said. “I’m just sorry it had to be under such sad circumstances.”

  “Well, I’m sure you didn’t come out on a hot day to talk about that,” Jack said, leaning back. “Clarissa called me this morning to remind me that she promised you guys I’d give you a check.”

  “No big hurry on that,” Robin said. “I just wanted to make sure the plans were still the same, and that you realize we could do something simpler that would still be nice.”

  “You know, Noreen said the same thing,” Jack said. “I have to admit that I don’t know a thing about wedding planning. I never even heard of a Bridesmaid’s Brunch, but if it’s what my baby girl wants, let’s do it. Only thing is I’ve got a whole bunch of things to sort out here, and Noreen always took care of the checkbook.”

  Robin was tempted to suggest that a credit card would be fine, but it struck him that suggesting that might put Jack on the spot.

  “Jack,” he said with a smile. “I really didn’t come by to get a check. We mainly just needed to know if the plans were the same.”

  “I’ll get it to you early next week,” Jack said looking relieved, “Let’s say Tuesday at the latest. Just go ahead with whatever Clarissa and Miranda want. I’m going to have enough on my mind trying to run this agency without Noreen, so I’m glad to have Clarissa running that show, and I want my baby girl to have the wedding she’s been dreaming of.”

  They shook hands and parted.

  Back at Hilliard House, Robin told Colin, about the conversation.

  Colin summed it up.

  “He’s maxed his credit cards but a windfall’s coming,” he said, “Wonder how much he had his wife insured for.”

  “Colin, you are so cynical,” Robin said.

  In the meantime, Jack Bremmer was on the phone with an old friend, the Vice-president of Farmers State’s regional headquarters in Atlanta.

  “Yep,” Barney Willis said. “We’ve got it moving for you. Had to clear things with the sheriff’s office down there, but that was no problem.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Jack said tersely.

  “Well, Jack, you know we had to go through the motions. Anyway, you’ll have a check for right around $500,000. If you give me your checking account information, we can have it deposited by Thursday or Friday.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack interrupted. “That policy’s for a million.”

  Barney cleared his throat and was quiet for a moment.

  “I’m sorry. Noreen must not have told you,” he finally said. “She changed her policy about six months ago so that her son is a beneficiary, too. Ben Barstow gets half. You get half.”

  “Can I contest that?” Jack said, his face feeling hot.

  “Well, you could,” Barney said, “but I don’t think you’d get anywhere. She was paying f
or the policy with her own checks, not out of the agency account like yours. You know we have to honor what our customers put in writing.”

  Jack could feel his heart racing the same way it had after he found Noreen’s body.

  “And you need to update your beneficiary, too,” Barney said gently. “I mean, if anything happened to you, the way it stands now, her million would go to her legal heir.”

  Jack managed to give Barney the number for his checking account and found the bottle of pills the doctor had prescribed for anxiety. He took two and reminded himself that half a million was still more than enough to pay off his debts, cover the cost of Miranda’s wedding and invest in some good advertising.

  But, still, it just unbelievable that Noreen had made that change without telling him. Of course, she didn’t expect to die first. She was younger than he was, and healthier, too. Barney had said she made the change “about six months ago.” Was she mad about something? Did she find out something about him and Amber? The thought made his head hurt. First there was that business with the diamond. Then it turned out that her ex-husband beat on her and wasn’t even that far away. Now, Ben was getting half the insurance money.

  An unwelcome thought came into his mind – that he had kept secrets from her, too.

  He took another of the little green pills and told himself that his little flings had never meant anything. Certainly she would know that Amber was no threat to her. And besides, if she had been angry with him, he would have known it.

  He began to feel calmer and tried to see it another way – as Noreen’s wanting to do something for her son, and not wanting to run the risk that he’d say no. He thought about it and finally decided that if he had a son, he would probably have done the same thing right from the start.

  CHAPTER 15

  MIRANDA BREMMER WAS ON HER SECOND hushpuppy at the Catfish Shack.

  “Oh this is so good,” she said. “I don’t ever want to see another casserole.”

  “Miranda, you ungrateful wretch!” Mallory said, laughing, “All those people were so sweet to bring us food.”