Death Over the Dam (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 2) (11 page)

Not that she was a gossip, but Sue-Ellen couldn’t wait to tell one or two friends in strictest confidence that if Rhonda Ransom thought she was going to waltz back into Sam Bailey’s life, she had another think coming.

As for the pink roses, she had told Sam she didn’t have enough red ones, which was a fib. She just thought that red roses were for Valentine’s Day and beauty pageants, and the long stemmed pink ones were much more romantic.

“As soon as she opened the door, I could tell she had been crying,” Sue-Ellen told her two best friends later. “She was absolutely stunned when she saw the roses, and I just said, ‘Sam Bailey said you’d know these were from him,” and she started bawling , so naturally I went inside and put the roses on the table—it’s a really cute apartment—and then I gave her a hug and told her not to worry about a thing.”

CHAPTER 14

O
N
F
RIDAY,
H
UNTER GOT TO WORK
early and put the clear glass vase filled with long stemmed pink roses on her desk. Sam had suggested she do that and tell everybody who came in that they were from him, and just before she had left her apartment for work, she had decided to do just that.

If her private life wasn’t going to be private, at least she was going to make sure that she wasn’t going to be the “poor thing” in the stories that went around.

That settled, she was ready to focus her attention on work for the next issue of the paper—on another story about Ned Thigpen’s still-unsolved murder, and a wrap up of the report on the flood damage that Clarence Bartow and Sam had given to the County Commissioners, and the controversy about the casket in the courthouse basement.

“What else?” she asked herself, trying to think ahead to the Tuesday deadline.

Maybe an interview with Mayor Debbie Taylor about the damage to the city hall and whether it was time to start thinking about building a new city hall, she thought, scribbling down notes.

Or maybe a background story on earlier floods? Somebody from the Historical Society was sure to help with that. Tyler might even want to write that one himself.

And, of course, there was the story about hometown girl Rhonda Ransom giving a benefit concert for the flood victims. That one would be Novena’s to write. Hunter promised herself not to blink an eye if Tyler decided it should go on page one.

Tyler arrived at exactly 8:30 and stopped at her desk to find out what she was working on. Hunter moved the roses to the other side of her desk so that he could take notes, too, and if he noticed them at all, he did a fine job of showing no curiosity.

“I’ve got a good one from the P&Z work session last night,” Hunter told him. “They were all worked up about the casket being stored in the basement of the courthouse and they were saying it was against zoning regulations. They seemed to think the body was in it.”

Tyler grinned, as she knew he would.

“Good quotes?” he asked.

She flipped through her notebook.

“How about ‘This is not a mausoleum!’ and “It could be a health hazard.’? And then Commissioner Kelley told me ‘Don’t you put this in the paper.’”

“I hope you laughed in his face.”

“I smiled. Oh, and then Jaybird Hilliard was there doing his ex officio thing and got into a rant about how if anybody showed up to claim it they had to cover the expenses for hauling it away and how they needed to check with P&Z to make sure they could even rebury it legally without getting a plot at a cemetery.”

“Quotes from the sheriff?”

“He said if they’ll find a place for him to put it, he’ll move it, but the folks in Macon didn’t have room for it. They just kept the remains.”

“Sounds like top of the front page,” Tyler said, “I was hoping we’d have something good to follow up the way we sold out last week.”

Hunter wondered if it might be a good time to talk to him about a raise, but their discussion was over the moment Novena came in and saw the roses.

“Oh, how beyoootiful!” she crowed. “I bet I can guess who sent you those.”

She collapsed into her chair and gave what appeared to be a genuine sigh of relief.

Then she jumped back up and came over to hug Hunter, who returned the hug and couldn’t help smiling back.

“Ohhh, they smell so good,” Novena said.

Tyler gave them both a look of total disdain and said, “Let’s have our staff meeting at 10 a.m. You ladies take time to smell the roses.”

They both made faces at him as he turned and rolled his wheelchair toward his office.

“I’m so glad everything’s good between you two,” Novena said earnestly. “I worried all night about it after you left here looking so upset. I shouldn’t have even told you..”

“It’s all fine,” Hunter said, “And you didn’t do a thing wrong. I’m sorry you were worried about it.”

Skeet Borders and Bub Williston were making their way down a rough dirt road to Pine Haven, which appeared to be a trailer court with bigger lots than most.

“Long as I’ve lived in Magnolia County, I never knew this place was here,” Skeet said as Bub maneuvered around potholes.

“We get calls from out here now and then,” Bub said. “Domestics. Sometimes noise complaints. Now where do you want to start?’

“How about with that woman over there,” Skeet said, pointing to a woman hanging out clothes on a line.

“Sure, I remember J.T.,” the woman told them. “Everbody knew J.T. Nice friendly man. Worked over at the kaolin plant.”

“That’s what we’re looking into,” Skeet said. “We got some information that about five or six years ago, people heard gun shots from his house, and nobody’s seen him since.”

“I don’t think I want to get mixed up in any talk about gunshots,” the woman said. “I can just say I haven’t laid eyes on him for about five years.”

“Which trailer did he live in?” Bub asked.

“It’s way down at the end of the road,” she said, “You can’t miss it if you just keep drivin’, ‘cause those dogs are gonna start up soon as they see your car, and don’t be tellin’ that woman I said anything about any of it.”

“Are the dogs fenced in?” Bub asked.

“Oh, yeah, you’d think it was Fort Knox down there, and I’ll give you some advice as long as you don’t never say you heard it from me.”

Bub and Skeet both nodded.

“That woman is stone crazy an’ she’s got two crazy sons and them dogs of hers are crazy too.”

When Hunter met Sam for lunch, he had T.J. Jackson with him, and they had gotten the back corner table. T.J. was a detective with the District Attorney’s office, and Hunter held a special place in his heart. He was divorced when they first met, and had asked her out to dinner.

It was their only date though, because after an evening of hearing all about his lost love, she had persuaded him to put his best effort into courting his ex-wife and winning her back.

Their date had made Sam jealous, which T.J., now happily remarried, mentioned any chance he got.

This morning, however, he was all business, and wanted to know everything Hunter knew or had dug up about Ned Thigpen, and if she had any ideas about other photographers who might have been around on Tuesday.

“I saw that insurance list his wife sent, and I’m thinking he had some great gear,” T.J. said after waving toward Annelle for more coffee. “and another photographer might have wanted it.”

“Enough to kill him for it?” Hunter asked. “I can’t see that.”

“People have killed for less,” Sam commented. “Taneesha’s in Cathay looking into it now.”

“Well OK, let’s say another photographer wanted to steal his cameras and was willing to shoot him,” Hunter said. “How would he get him way out on that dirt road?”

“How did anybody get him out there?” T.J. said. “I’m just talking about motive. There wasn’t any reason to kill him except to rob him, not as far as I can see. He didn’t know anybody around here except you. “

“He barely knew me,” Hunter said, “and he knew this artist who lives here, and knew her father.”

“We checked that out,” Sam said to T.J. “He didn’t know the father all that well, because the man’s been dead for three or four years and he didn’t know it.”

Hunter told T.J. about Ned Thigpen’s recognizing Deirdre Donagan’s work and expressing an interest in Deirdre’s father’s cameras.”

“See what I mean,” T.J. said. “It’s going to turn out to be a photographer.”

“Most of the photographers I’ve known wouldn’t hurt a flea,” Hunter said. “They’re not nearly as mean as reporters.”

Sam laughed.

“It wasn’t just one camera,” T.J. said. “He had four with him, and a tripod and all kinds of lenses. Now I don’t see some thug deciding he could make a bunch of money at a pawnshop. I’m saying it could be somebody with a real passion for cameras.”

“I guess it would have to be somebody crazy,” Hunter said, getting out her notebook, “And it would have had to be somebody who still uses film, or they’re going to be really disappointed. Now, I have a job to do too. Is there anything you two can tell me about the investigation?”

“Just that it’s ongoing,” Sam said, “and we have cooperation from the District Attorney’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. If you can run that photo of him again, please do, and ask people to call my office if they talked to him or saw him, and put the details about the car in again too, in case anybody saw him heading out that way. Maybe it could be on the front page this time.”

“Not my call,” Hunter said, “Tyler decides that kind of thing. You could call him about it. What about the gun? Do you have any idea what kind of gun it was?”

“All I’m going to say is it was a handgun,” Sam said.

“I’ve got it. Somebody’s following him,” T.J. suddenly announced , “and he turns on that road and the other car turns too, so he stops to see what they want, and this other guy walks up like he’s going to ask for instructions, and Thigpen rolls down the window and gets shot. Then the killer takes the cameras and takes off.”

“I thought the killer took his laptop and his wallet and cellphone, too,” Hunter said.

“Well, sure, just so it wouldn’t make the camera motive so obvious, and then the killer is from out of town, so he heads straight for the interstate.”

“And we never catch him,” Sam said, scowling.

“OR,” Hunter said, a little amused at T.J.’s persistence about his theory, “Or Ned Thigpen took a photo of something the killer didn’t want seen by others, and the killer followed him and killed him to get the cameras and get rid of a photo of something incriminating. I think fear of exposure would be a stronger motive than just coveting somebody’s cameras.”

“I wouldn’t rule that out,” Sam said. “Could be there was somebody around Cathay who had good reason not to want to be photographed.”

“Well, it’s all speculation until we get more information,” T.J. said, and Hunter changed the subject.

“Have you decided what to do about the casket?” she asked Sam.

“I’m thinking of just putting it back in the creek somewhere near the county line,” Sam said with a grin.” “I was just telling T.J. about catching hell about putting it in the courthouse basement.”

“I can see their point,” T.J. said. “It looks like something from an old Lon Chaney movie, like the lid’s going to start creaking open.”

Hunter laughed and told T.J. that Sam had had about as much as he could take with the casket.

“How old do you think it is?” T.J. asked, trying to get serious.

Sam finished his iced tea.

“Well it’s been underground long enough for the deceased to be unidentifiable. From what we can find out, but that could mean anything from a year to ten years, since there was no embalming and the casket wasn’t exactly water tight when it was built. Anyway, I think we may have a lead on that. Could have been a domestic turned into homicide, which is off the record. Bub and Skeet are checking that out.

“So we may have a story for the paper?” Hunter asked.

“Maybe,” Sam said. “Let’s hope.”

In the meantime, Taneesha was having lunch at Porky’s, with the Mayor of Cathay. Debbie Taylor had been a stay-at-home mom and then part-time librarian before running for mayor when nobody else would. She had now been, as she put it herself, “stuck with the job” for 12 years, and she needed to be helping her daughter get ready to leave for college. She was nearly in tears.

“We had everything fixed up so nice,” she said after taking the final bite of her pulled pork sandwich,” We got the hanging baskets and the benches, and got the city hall painted and renovated, and then we get all this damn muddy water up to the ceiling, and I just don’t have time to do all this. You know how much this job pays, don’t you?”

“No, m’am,” Taneesha said, “but I know it’s pretty much volunteer.”

“$100 a month,” Mayor Taylor said. “Of course, we’ve got Marlene, and she’s the best city clerk ever, but she’s having to work out of her dining room. At least we got the computers out before the river reached us.”

She sighed and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve just been complaining nonstop and I didn’t even ask you what it was you wanted to talk about.”