Missed You In Church: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  Taneesha returned to the subject of Amber,

  “Skeet called a few minutes ago and said he saw her going into the Bremmer Agency around nine this morning. She was all dressed up. I think we should go over there first.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Sam said.

  Amber was sitting at the front desk when Sam and Taneesha arrived. She had gotten her hair streaked and was wearing a low-cut leopard print top with a short black skirt and very high heels.

  “Y’all want to see Mr. Bremmer?” she asked. “Me and Judy Ann just heard on the radio that Miss Noreen’s ex-husband got away.”

  “We want to talk with you,” Taneesha said. “We need for you to come down to the courthouse with us, and if you need a lawyer, we can arrange that.”

  Judy Ann Styles got up immediately and headed toward Jack Bremmer’s office. Amber looked frightened for a moment and then feisty.

  “My Daddy said for me to call Mr. Buck Roland if y’all came around picking at me again. He’s our lawyer. I’ve got his number.”

  “That’s fine,” Sam said, “You can call his office on the way.”

  “I can’t just leave,” she said. “This is my job. This is my first day back.”

  “We’ll explain to Mr. Bremmer,” Taneesha said. “We just need to ask you a few questions, and we’re going to need to see your revolver – the one you’ve got the permit for.”

  “I don’t have it anymore, and if you think I shot Noreen Bremmer, you’re crazy,” Amber’s voice rose. “You’re just doing this because you let that trashy ex-husband of hers get away.”

  She burst into tears.

  Jack Bremmer came out of his office and asked, “What’s going on here?”

  Sam gestured to Taneesha to take Amber to the car and stayed to talk with Jack.

  “Look, Sam,” Jack said angrily, “It’s bad enough you let Barstow get away. Now you’re coming in here and bothering my staff.”

  “It’s part of the investigation,” Sam said. “Is Miss Winslow employed here now?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “I’m having to reorganize because of losing Noreen. I’ve hired Amber back because she already knows the job.”

  “Noreen’s job?” Sam asked.

  “No, of course not,” Jack said. “Noreen was the office manager. Amber’s coming back to be the receptionist and do some filing. Now I know you know about her being up in Atlanta at the conference, and I know some people just run their mouths when they don’t even know what they’re talking about. They did it when Noreen and I got engaged, too, but you’re supposed to be a professional.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and said. “If you keep on messing around making people mad, you’re going to have a hard time getting re-elected.”

  “Jack,” Sam said, as patiently as he could. “I’m not up for reelection for three years. I know this is a hard time for you, but my job is to find out who killed your wife.”

  He walked out and almost collided with Mallory Bremmer.

  “What’s going on?” she asked him. “I just saw Amber get in your car with Taneesha.”

  “We just have some questions to ask her,” Sam said.

  “Well, what was she doing here?” Mallory asked.

  “She’s working here.” Sam answered.

  Mallory had come on a peacemaking trip, to see if her father wanted to have lunch with her at R&J’s, but now she had other concerns.

  She went into Jack Bremmer’s office and shut the door.

  “What’s going on?” she asked her father, who was swallowing three aspirin with leftover coffee.

  “I guess they’re going to the courthouse,” Jack said. “Sam’s got this crazy idea that he needs to question Amber about Noreen’s being killed.”

  “Why would he do that?” Mallory asked. “And why did you hire her back? You know Noreen had to fuss at her all the time about getting her filing done, and how she dressed.”

  “She came in Friday and asked for her job back,” Jack said, “I helped her get a job in Atlanta, but that fell through, and she’s back home. It’s a lot easier not to have to train somebody new. She knows the customers, and, besides that, her dad’s got everything he owns insured here. I told her I was going to ask you to come in as office manager and I couldn’t have her giving you any trouble.”

  “Dad, I’m not coming to work here,” Mallory said. “But if I did, the first thing I’d do would be to fire Amber. She never respected Noreen, and she wouldn’t respect me either.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jack said, frowning. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. Sam’s just making a show because they let that damned Rocker Barstow run off. He’ll step on anybody’s toes to get what he wants and he wants to look like he’s investigating. I told him he’d better find that ex-husband of Noreen’s and arrest him if he wants to get re-elected.”

  “Let’s not argue,” Mallory said, keeping her voice as even as she could. “I really just dropped by to see if you wanted to go out to lunch.”

  He glanced at his watch and said. “Oh Lord, I forgot it’s Rotary day. I’ve got to go.”

  CHAPTER 19

  BUCK ROLAND, WHO WAS A STATE Senator as well as the senior partner at Roland & Billings showed up at Sam’s office looking exasperated.

  “This couldn’t wait until after the Rotary Club meets?”

  “Sorry,” Sam said. “I’m missing it, too. We can hold her here until you get back.”

  “Never mind,” Buck said. “It’s just the Superintendent of Schools doing his annual thing. Let’s get this moving. Where’s my client?”

  “She’s back in the conference room,” Sam said.

  “Why are you so interested in her?” Buck asked. “Jared said you were asking her questions about Jack Bremmer before. I’m surprised he let her come back to work for Jack.”

  “Well, she’s an adult,” Sam said. “This interview is part of the investigation of Noreen Bremmer’s death. We know that Amber drove up to an insurance convention in Atlanta on the afternoon Noreen was killed, so she would have been on the road that goes by their house, and she was with Jack at that convention that evening. We also know from the records of the magistrate court that she’s got a license to carry concealed and a permit for a Smith & Wesson revolver – a 22. Noreen was shot with a 22.”

  Buck went from looking annoyed to looking a little worried.

  “Let me go talk to her alone first,” he said, getting up. “I go hunting with Jared sometimes, and I know he made both his girls learn to shoot. Her having the gun doesn’t surprise me. He probably didn’t want her driving back and forth to Atlanta unarmed. He’s like that.”

  When Buck finished talking to Amber and came out to get Sam and Taneesha, he said, “I’m afraid she’s all upset now. Not that she’s committed any crime. What she’s worried about is what her Dad’s going to say if he finds out she went to Atlanta instead of spending the night with her girlfriend. And she says he’s going to be mad that she sold the gun.”

  “I don’t see any reason he needs to know anything she doesn’t want to tell him,” Sam said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Amber managed to cry, sniffle and bawl off and on through the interview, stopping to blow her nose from time to time.

  “I sold that stupid gun to this guy I met in Atlanta,” she said. “I never did want that thing. I hate guns and I needed the money. He gave me $200 for it.”

  “So were you still in possession of the gun on the Saturday that you went up to the insurance conference in Atlanta?”

  “I advise you not to answer that,” Buck told Amber.

  “No, I just said I sold it,” she said. “I sold it about two weeks ago.”

  “Do you have the name of the man who bought it?”

  “It was Jody something,” she said. “I met him at this club in Atlanta, and we got to talking and it turned out he likes guns, and I told him I had one I’d sell him. I went back the next night and he met me and gave me the money for it. An
d I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell my daddy.”

  “Do you know his last name?” Sam asked.

  “No. It was something funny-sounding,” Amber said. “Like it wasn’t English.”

  “What time did you leave Cathay to go to Atlanta that Saturday?” Sam asked, giving up on the gun.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Buck said.

  “Oh, I don’t care,” she said. “I want to get this over with. I left from Tara’s house about two and got to Atlanta about seven.”

  “It took you five hours to get to Atlanta?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, because I stopped at Tanger Outlet and did some shopping. I bought a dress.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever time it takes to get to Tanger Outlet.”

  “Have you got a receipt?” Taneesha asked, “A receipt would have the time on it.”

  “I don’t know where the receipt is,” Amber said. “I didn’t have this purse with me. Maybe I put it in the other one or in the bag with the dress. I don’t keep up with things like that.”

  “Do you remember the name of the shop?” Taneesha asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Amber said. “How am I supposed to remember all this stuff? It was kind of a boutique.”

  “Let’s move ahead,” Sam said, “When did you get back to Magnolia County?”

  She thought about it and bit her lip.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Buck said.

  “Oh, let’s get it over with,” she said. “I was going to drive back Saturday night, but I was too tired and I had a few drinks, so I slept in my car until around 6 a.m. and then I drove back. I stopped at McDonald’s in Forsythe and got coffee and a ham biscuit. I got to Tara’s about nine. You can ask her. She’ll tell you.”

  Sam didn’t believe her, but he changed the subject.

  “When did Jack Bremmer hire you to start working at the agency again?”

  “I started this morning,” Amber said. “I went in to talk to him Friday afternoon at the office. Judy Ann was there, too, so she can tell you. I told him I needed a job, and he said I could have my old one back. In fact, he said I could have a raise because I was going to have more responsibilities.”

  “That was so sweet of him,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with one of the tissues Taneesha kept handing her. “He said he’s going to bring Mallory in to do the job Noreen was doing, and that he was going to need for all of us to work like a team with her.”

  She glanced up at Sam, who looked a little doubtful. She wiped away the last of her tears, straightening up a little.

  “Maybe she hasn’t told your wife yet,” she said with a slight smirk. “I asked him Friday when Mallory was starting, and he said right away. She wasn’t there this morning and I asked again today when she was coming in, and he said maybe in two or three weeks, because she had to give notice at the newspaper, and then all the wedding stuff was coming up.”

  Taneesha offered Amber a ride back to the agency, but she tossed her head and said, “No thank you. I’ll walk.”

  “What do you think?” Sam asked Taneesha after Amber was gone.

  “I think that girl lies so much that she sounds like she’s lying even when she’s telling the truth,” Taneesha said. “Maybe she did sell the gun to some guy named Jody from a bar. I don’t believe for one minute that she spent the night in her car, but I think she was telling the truth about stopping and shopping.”

  Sam went home and took Flannery out for a short walk. He ate a ham sandwich, some leftover potato salad and the one remaining slice of Key lime pie, washing them down with sweetened ice tea

  Then he took a ride past the home where Doreen Bremmer was murdered.

  When he reached the house, he pushed the trip meter on his car and drove on toward the Interstate. It was 12.7 miles and took him 14 minutes. It was a typical rural two-lane road, curving between pine forests and farmlands– the sort of drive people made on auto-pilot once they were familiar with it. He crossed I-75 on the overpass, turned around at a gas station and started back, setting himself the task of remembering the cars passing him in the other lane.

  White Chevrolet truck, blue Impala, red Ford Focus, and then Aaron Twitchell’s old tan truck. Aaron recognized Sam and honked. Sam raised his hand in greeting and then gave up on his car watching. People might notice the cars and trucks of people they knew, he thought. Nobody was likely to be a reliable witness about other cars they had passed unless they had a specific reason or the vehicle was interesting in some way. As he approached the Bremmer home again, he asked himself if he would remember something like a car stopping and turning to head up that driveway.

  Yes, he might, he thought, since he knew the family, and even because it was an isolated home. He might even slow down and watch if the car was unfamiliar.

  He pulled over and stopped on the shoulder, imagining Amber Winslow or Rocker Barstow coming from the other direction, looking to see if there were any cars in view, turning quickly and driving up the long driveway.

  If Amber had done it, she probably rang the front doorbell, he thought. Then she was invited in by a none-too-thrilled Noreen. Maybe she was there to ask for her old job back and got angry when Noreen didn’t agree, or maybe she came prepared to kill Noreen the moment her back was turned. Maybe Jack Bremmer had told her that Noreen would be alone – that the girls would be gone, too. Maybe they planned it together. Maybe she thought Jack Bremmer would marry her. Maybe. Maybe.

  He tried to imagine Amber making her way around Noreen’s body to pull the diamond ring off her hand, and then leaving by the back door, but he couldn’t quite see that either. It seemed like a bad movie.

  As for any proof he knew beyond any doubt that the gun Amber’s father had bought for her was gone forever. Maybe it was sold to the guy named Jody, or maybe Amber had thrown it over the river bridge. It wouldn’t be found. There was no real case to make against Amber Winslow, who was most likely just guilty of having an affair with her boss.

  And he couldn’t see Jack Bremmer arranging to have his wife killed.

  He turned his thoughts back to Rocker Barstow.

  CHAPTER 20

  WHILE SAM WAS TAKING HIS RIDE, Mallory was venting to Hunter.

  “My father is impossible,” she had started out. “I love him, but he is absolutely impossible. What came over him? What was he thinking, hiring Amber back when she was such a pain in the neck to Noreen? She never got things done on time, and then she’d get hurt feelings and cry if Noreen tried to talk to her about her work. So, when Noreen finally got rid of her, he helps her get a job in Atlanta. Now he knew perfectly well she didn’t deserve a good reference, and naturally she loses that job and comes waltzing back in. And he hires her just like that.”

  “And here I was feeling bad, “ she continued. “I’m feeling guilty because be asked me to be office manager, and I’m just not going to do that, so I walk over there, thinking we can go out to lunch, and get on good terms again, and I see Taneesha putting Amber into Sam’s car. I ask Dad what’s going on, he tells me he hired Amber, and how Sam’s just picking on her because Rocker Barstow got away, and all this other nonsense, and all I can think is that he’s gone and hired somebody back who didn’t show Noreen any respect at all and..”

  She stopped, looking stunned, and put her hand over her mouth for a moment.

  “Oh, Hunter,” she said. “Could she have shot Noreen? Is that why they’re questioning her? What if she did it to get her job back? I wonder if Dad even thought of that. He is so trusting.”

  Hunter’s heart sank. Mallory might be angry with her father, but she apparently had no notion of the talk around town about Jack Bremmer and Amber Barstow.”

  “Mallory,” she said gently. “I know it all seems crazy right now, but Sam will get to the bottom of things. They’re questioning everybody who worked at the agency. I really believe that Rocker Barstow is the main suspect, especially now that he’s run off.

  Mallo
ry still had that stunned look. Then she shook her head as if she were shaking her thoughts away.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I guess I’m just overreacting. It was like Noreen was holding everything together and now it’s coming apart. I mean at home and at the office. I’m not sure Dad can keep it going without her or somebody like her, but I know that I can’t do that for him. Anyway, he wasn’t all that upset. He remembered all of a sudden that it was Rotary Club day and he was gone.”

  “Which reminds me,” Hunter said. “Did you ever have lunch yourself?”

  “No,” Mallory said. “Maybe this is all low blood sugar. Well no, it isn’t really, but thank you for listening to me rant and rave.”

  “You’ve been under a bunch of stress,” Hunter said. “And your Dad has been too. Not to mention grieving.”

  “Right,” Mallory said, “But it was still just nuts for him to hire Amber back when she was so worthless at her job and so much trouble to Noreen. She’s such a drama queen, and she loves to stir things up.”

  “Let’s go to R&J’s,” Hunter said gently, “You need some comfort food.”

  A little later, having finished the baked chicken special with two vegetables and cornbread muffins, Mallory said, “Please don’t tell Sam about my blowing up that way. I know he’s going to get things figured out.”

  Hunter said, “I won’t say a word to him about it, and I forgot to tell you. I’ve got a feature story I want you to do tomorrow. It’ll be fun. We’re going to an ostrich farm.”

  Flannery was already at the door when Sam got home later that afternoon. She jumped all around him.

  “I might as well take her out now, so I won’t have to shower twice,” Sam said to Hunter, who was busy at the stove.

  “Bethie already took her out,” she said. “You’ve got time for a shower before supper.”