Missed You In Church: A Hunter Jones Mystery

by Charlotte Moore

  Jack Bremmer was in a surprisingly good mood as he climbed out of his swimming pool and toweled off. He didn’t know Sam was about to give him bad news.

  “I sure am glad all the company’s gone,” he said with a grin. “Got my little girl married and now it’s time to get back to normal.”

  He got a beer for himself and offered Sam one.

  “No thanks, “ Sam said. “Now, I don’t know if you’re going to like what I’ve come to tell you,” Sam said, “but it’s definite that Rocker Barstow didn’t kill Noreen.”

  “How do you know that?” Jack asked, frowning.

  Sam explained, trying to keep it simple, but Jack obviously didn’t grasp it.

  “So you’re telling me that he didn’t do it because Sonny Taylor lied? Well if he lied one time to protect that man, why wouldn’t he lie twice?”

  “The thing is, he didn’t do it,” Sam said, “Barstow wasn’t here in Magnolia County that day. I’ve got four witnesses to that already. He was in Herman County betting on a dog fight. Sonny and Merle wanted to give him an alibi it because they knew he didn’t do it, but they didn’t want to tell us about the dog fights.”

  Jack looked both puzzled and annoyed.

  “So this guy Sonny isn’t all that reliable, is he?” Jack asked. “Why do you believe him.”

  “Because the other guy that told us they were playing poker at Sonny’s place backs him up,” Sam said. “I called him right before I came here. There’s two more down in the Herman County jail saying the same thing. Sonny told me because he knew I had my doubts about that poker story, and he wanted to be sure Ben would know that his father didn’t kill his mother.”

  “And you believe this guy?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Sam said.

  “Well, I don’t,” Jack said, “And I never will, but the Barstow guy got shot and killed just like he shot and killed Noreen, so as far as I’m concerned this whole thing is over. We don’t have to bother with a trial, and justice is done.”

  “The investigation isn’t closed,” Sam said.

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, it is,” Jack said, getting up to get another beer.

  Ben, when Sam reached him an hour later, listened carefully and responded differently.

  “That’s a relief,” he said. “I really thought he did it, but I’m glad I was wrong. What happens now?”

  “We’ll go over everything we’ve got tomorrow,” Sam said, “and see if we’ve missed anything.”

  CHAPTER 31

  ON MONDAY MORNING, MALLORY AND NOVENA were both already at their desks when Hunter got there.

  Hunter had spotted Novena and Bobby at the wedding, but not the reception. Now Novena was peppering Mallory with questions about the parts she had missed.

  “Who caught the bouquet?” she asked.

  “I did,” Mallory said.

  “Well, you don’t sound too thrilled about it,” Novena said.

  Hunter could tell that Mallory wasn’t up to being grilled about wedding details.

  “I’m going to go get some breakfast at R&J’s?” she said, getting up. “Who wants to go with me?”

  Novena said “No thanks. I’m watching my weight,” as Hunter knew she would, but Mallory seemed happy to go.

  “I don’t feel like I’ve had any ordinary food in days,” Mallory said as they walked toward the café. “It’s like I’ve been living on quiche and cheese straws and wedding cake, and that mess with Dad last night gave me heartburn. He is just absolutely determined that Rocker Barstow killed Noreen, no matter what Sam said.”

  “You know,” Hunter said. “If I were you, I’d just let it go. He probably just wants everything to be settled. He’s been through a lot lately, and they may never settle this case.”

  “You’re right,” Mallory said after a pause. “And I guess if he wants to think Ben’s dad did it, it doesn’t matter that much.”

  Hunter nodded as Annelle came up with her order pad.

  “You want your usual, Hunter?”

  Hunter suddenly felt queasy. She hadn’t been hungry at breakfast and the coffee hadn’t tasted right. Now she still wasn’t sure about eating, but she definitely didn’t want her usual ham biscuit and scrambled eggs.

  “Do you have toast?” she asked Annelle.

  “Sure.” Annelle said.

  “I’ll just have some toast, and, uh, I don’t think I want any butter. And some coffee.”

  “That all?”

  “Yes,” Hunter said. “Let me have that and then maybe I’ll have something else.”

  Mallory ordered eggs, bacon, grits and biscuits, with orange juice and coffee, and Hunter wondered how she could even think about all that.

  “Was Bethie excited about Middle School?” Mallory asked

  “She was glad to start school again, but a little uneasy, too,” Hunter said. “You know she’s small for her age and some of those kids are already practically adults – physically, anyway. It’s hard to go from being one of the oldest to being one of the youngest.”

  “I remember how that was,” Mallory said.

  “Maybe you can slip that into your next conversation with her,” Hunter said.

  “Yep, I was little, with glasses and freckles and red hair,” Mallory said, “and some of those girls in eighth grade looked like they were 25.”

  “Here you go,” Annelle said, placing two big mugs of coffee on the table.

  Hunter reached for hers and took a sip.

  She put the cup back down.

  “Could I have some tea instead?” she asked Annelle. “I don’t mean to be such a bother, but I’m just feeling kind of funny.”

  When Annelle left, Hunter leaned over and said, “The coffee must be from the bottom of the pot.”

  Mallory drank some of her coffee and said, “It’s fine. Same as always.”

  “I hope I’m not getting some kind of bug,” Hunter said. “The coffee at home tasted bad and so did that.”

  The toast turned out to be edible, if not interesting, and Hunter nibbled at it slowly, averting her eyes from Mallory’s bacon and eggs. She felt hungry and not hungry at the same time.

  Annelle came back and asked, “Do you want some real food now?” and Hunter said. “No, thank you. I guess I ate too much wedding cake this weekend.”

  On the way back to the newspaper office, they talked a little about the wedding and Miranda’s abrupt departure.

  “I guess it was just too much,” Mallory told Hunter as they walked back to the newspaper office. “Miranda was so happy when she woke up, but I could see early in the day that she was getting all stressed out. Remember about the garter? She was all worked up about it and then when I got there, it was though it hardly mattered. She told me she just wanted it to be over. I really think Aunt Clarissa must have been cross with her about something. I mean they must have had some kind of argument. I couldn’t believe Miranda’s leaving without even thanking Aunt Clarissa.”

  “They were probably both just a little overwhelmed,” Hunter said, thinking to herself that Clarissa Scarbrough could get on anybody’s last nerve, but also that Miranda had been inconsiderate, headache or not.

  “So,” Mallory said, “My bracelet and your garter are in Hawaii, so let’s hope they get back here safely someday.”

  “Don’t worry about the garter,” Hunter said, “I don’t plan to get married again. Hey, look who’s coming across the street to see us.”

  It was Taneesha – but not the Taneesha who had been looking like a brewing thunderstorm for the last week. A smiling, sunny, radiant Taneesha, with her hands held behind her back.

  “I’ve got something to show you,” she said. “Pick a hand.”

  Hunter caught on first.

  “Left!” she said.

  And Taneesha held her hand out to show them her engagement ring.

  “I thought you were about to break up with him,” Hunter said after there were hugs all around. “What happened?”

  “I changed my mi
nd,” Taneesha said with a small smile. “Well, it never really came up, because he proposed, and he already asked Uncle James and Aunt Ramona for their blessing, so I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “So you were wrong when you thought he was about to pack up and move to a new job?” Hunter asked.

  “No,” Taneesha said, brushing a tear from one eye. “I was right, but what I didn’t know was that the new job is with Buck Roland’s law firm, and he was just waiting for the offer before he told me about it. He wanted to make the change in part because he’s always wanted to be a defense attorney, and in part because Buck Roland’s going to pay him more, and he wanted…”

  She stopped, sat down and burst into tears.

  Hunter, who had never seen Taneesha in tears, patted her on the back.

  “He wanted… he wanted us to get married,” she stammered, “and he wanted to make enough for me to be able to stop working and go to law school full time. He is just the sweetest man in the world.”

  “Are you going to quit working?” Hunter asked. “I know Sam would just hate to lose you, but if…”

  “I don’t know yet,” Taneesha said, sniffling and taking a tissue that Mallory offered her. “I haven’t decided. I’m not even as sure as I used to be that I want to go to law school. All I could decide was that I really wanted to get married to Jeremy.”

  “Well thank heaven for that,” Hunter said. “Have you told Miss Rose?”

  “Not yet. I have to tell Mama Rene first,” Taneesha said. “You know she’s been planning this wedding since I was 12. We’re going to have to jump the broom and everything. Do you think you could get your friend Nikki to come down and take the pictures? ”

  “I’ll ask her,” Hunter said. “Have you set a date?”

  “Sometime in October,” Taneesha said, “but we have to see what works for Mama Rene.”

  Hunter hugged Taneesha and they jumped up and down like two teenagers.

  Mallory watched with a smile, wondering if this meant that the upstairs apartment at Miss Rose Tyndale’s house would be available.

  CHAPTER 32

  AFTER THEIR MEETING ON THE BREMMER homicide case, T.J. and Sam went for coffee and ham biscuits at R&J’s, with Jeremy Hayes.

  “You know, Sam,” T.J. said. “You and your department have done a great job. Rocker Barstow was just the perfect bad guy for this case. Abusive ex-husband with a record of asking for money. And a woman who couldn’t quite get rid of him, and probably would have let him in if he had showed up at her front door. You couldn’t ask for a better suspect.”

  “But he didn’t do it. He was at the dog fight,” Sam said, “He had an alibi he couldn’t use, so he got Sonny and Merle to give him one he could use. In fact, Merle told me that they really had gone to Sonny’s place one Saturday afternoon to play poker and watch dirty movies. They just changed the date and used that.”

  “And then he was fool enough to threaten the Till brothers,” T.J. said, if everything Sonny said is true. “But what if Sonny was lying and he was in on Noreen Bremmer’s murder somehow.”

  “I think the Till brothers really did feel threatened,” Sam said. “They thought he was facing a trial for murder, and they may have been worried he was going to give being there as an alibi. Sonny wasn’t going to get in the middle of it and call attention to the fact that he and Rocker were buddies. In fact, he said that the reason he went back again the next Saturday after knowing they killed Rocker was that he didn’t want them thinking he cared one way or the other. He wouldn’t have ever told, except he was facing possible prison time, and he saw a way to cut a deal.”

  “Where do you suppose Sonny is now?” Jeremy asked.

  “Sonny who?” Sam asked, and T.J. laughed.

  Jeremy got serious and said, “If y’all are done with the dog fights, I’ve got some good news.”

  “If it’s that you’re going to work for Buck Roland, I heard that already,” T.J. said.

  “Well, I hadn’t,” Sam said. “That’s great news. Are you going to move here?”

  “Not until after Taneesha and I get married,” Jeremy said with a grin “And don’t tell me you knew about that, T.J.”

  Outside of the Dayco Kaolin Plant, Deputy Skeet Borders sat in his car with Billy Marshall. He had gotten the younger man out of work for a short time, but there was no office to talk in, so they chose the air-conditioned car, which meant getting the chalky white dust from the plant inside his car.

  “So Mindy told Hunter Jones that y’all saw the Bremmer’s dog that Saturday Noreen Bremmer was killed,” Skeet said. “We’re reviewing the whole case and the sheriff was thinking that you might be able to help us pin down the time, or there might even be some information you have that we don’t.”

  “I would have come in if I’d known it was important,” Billy said. “But I thought y’all already had the guy.”

  “We thought we did, too,” Skeet said. “But he’s dead and it’s settled that he wasn’t the one anyway. Looks like we’re starting over. So tell me about that Saturday. Do you know what time it was that you drove by the Bremmers’ house?”

  “Mindy and me were talking about it over the weekend,” Billy said. “And I’d say it was about 1:30 or maybe a little later. She picked me up here right after one, and she had everything packed, and I wanted to stop and get some fried chicken, and we had to fill the tank for the trip. Anyway I know it was a good bit before two, because it was about 15 more miles to the interstate. I looked at my watch right when we got on 75, and it was right at two then. I wanted to know how long the trip was and how good mileage we got. Mindy pulled over to let me drive, so I set the trip meter and told her what time it was.

  “OK, good,” Skeet said. “So what about the dog? How come you’d both remember seeing a dog?”

  Billy grinned.

  “You can’t give us any tickets for speeding now, can you?”

  “No,” Skeet said. “I just need the facts.”

  “Well, Mindy was driving because I was eating chicken,” Billy said, “ That girl grew up in the mountains, and she was going at least 60 around that curve right before the Bremmers, and I yelled out ‘Whoa’ because there was the dog up ahead of us running in the road.”

  “Describe the dog for me,” Skeet said.

  “Black and tan cocker spaniel, kind of overweight,” Billy said.

  “Right,” Skeet said. “That’s the one.”

  “He was all worked up and barking,” Billy went on. “She got the truck stopped in plenty of time not to hit him, and she came close to jackknifing the horse van. Then she couldn’t move on because he was jumping all around us and sniffin’ in the horse van. Anyway, I got out and let him smell a piece of the chicken.”

  Skeet smiled.

  “And he followed me,” Billy said, “I got him over to the curb and threw it as far as I could into Jack Bremmer’s yard, and he was gone like a streak of lightnin’ after it. So we drove on and that was all there was to it.”

  “Did you notice any cars around their house?”

  “Well, you can’t see much from the road,” Billy said, “but I had a pretty good view when I threw that chicken. All I remember seeing was a little red car, I think it was a Subaru. I thought about going on up to the house and making sure they got the dog inside, but then I wasn’t all that sure it was their dog. Besides, it wasn’t that good a place for Mindy to be stopped in the road.”

  “Are you real sure about the time?” Skeet asked.

  “Sure as I can be,” Billy said. “Like I told you, we reached the interstate right at two, so you can just try it yourself from Bremmer’s house, only be sure you go about 70 most of the way…”

  Suddenly he slapped his forehead.

  “Hey, I just remembered something if you need somebody else who might have seen the dog,” he said. “Right when we came over the hill that goes up from Ocheebee Creek, maybe a couple of miles from the Bremmer place, there was this car going about 40 miles an hour – you know how so
me old folks drive. ”

  “Did you see who it was?” Skeet asked.

  “Nope,” Billy said, laughing again. “But I spilled iced tea all over the floor of the car because Mindy passed that car going about 75 in a no passing lane.”

  “You remember what kind of car it was?” Skeet asked.

  “Buick Regal,” Billy said, still grinning. “Dark blue. I think I’ve seen it around town, but I don’t know whose it is.”

  Skeet felt a shiver on the back of his neck.

  “You know whose car it is?” Billy asked.

  “I might,” Skeet said cautiously. “Are you real sure about that time, Billy?”

  “How many times are we going to have to go over this?” Billy asked. “We can go drive the whole thing if you got to be that particular.”

  “If I know Sam, he may want to do that,” Skeet said.

  Hunter and Mallory had been back at work about half an hour when Clarissa Scarbrough came in. Her face looked pinched with anxiety.

  “Mallory, sweetie, I have just got to have your help today,” she said, “I need you to drive up to Macon with me this afternoon, but before that I need your help at the house. I’ve got the cleaning people from TidyUp coming tomorrow and I can’t expect them to deal with a mess.”

  “I thought that’s why you had them come every week,” Mallory said with a grin.

  Clarissa frowned and said, “They dust and do the floors, Mallory. I don’t expect them to pick up after anybody. I mean yours and Miranda’s room. All Miranda’s makeup and rollers and underwear and clothes are there, and some of the bridesmaids left things, and I don’t know which goes to whom. There are things all over the floor and you know I’ve got a bad back.”

  “I’m sorry, “ Mallory said. “We shouldn’t have left it that way. I’ll come over when I get off work and clear it all out, but I really don’t have time to drive up to Macon with you.”

  “Oh, please, Mallory. You know how I hate up going that far from home alone, and I had so much trouble finding this place before.”