Death Over the Dam (A Hunter Jones Mystery Book 2) (19 page)

“Anyway, Mr. Mike didn’t want anything to do with funeral homes and all that stuff they do. If he had had it his way, he would have been just wrapped in a sheet and buried in the ground,, so he’d go back to nature, but I told him I couldn’t stand to do that, so he said to put him in that old casket then.

“

He even showed me where he wanted to be buried, which was right by the creek, and I guess it was too close to the creek.”

“Looks like it was,” Sam said.

“I’ve been down there and a whole bunch of land got washed away. I’ve been tryin’ to keep Dee Dee from goin’ down there since the flood cause she doesn’t know. Anyway, it was a real pretty place and Dee Dee and me planted some bulbs there, and had a little white wooden cross to mark the place, but now it’s all washed away. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it with doing it the way he wanted,” Grady said. “I knew folks used to do it, and that was what he wanted and it’s my land. He didn’t have any family but Dee Dee, and he said the only two things he asked of me was to take care of her and to bury him in a way that wouldn’t cost anything and would go back to nature.

“Well it’s not really a crime to bury somebody on your own land, if that makes you feel any better,” Sam said. “I got this young lawyer here to check that out.”

Jeremy Hayes smiled at Grady. “Funeral home people may not like it,” he said, but there’s no law saying you can’t have a burial on your own land unless zoning prohibits it. We might need to find another place to bury him, though.”

“Pastor Jimmy already said we could bury him in their church graveyard,” Grady said, looking relieved.

“But there’s another problem, Grady,” Sam said, “And this is real serious, so if you want a lawyer, I’ll get you one. If you can’t pay, it’ OK.”

Grady looked surprised.

“What other problem?”

“Well, for starters, you never filed a death certificate or let Social Security know he was dead,” Sam said.

Grady brightened up. “Oh, Sheriff Bailey, Mama handled all that. She can tell you about it. She took care of everything once we told her he was gone. She was out of town when he died and we buried him, but after I told her, she took his computer and all his papers, and she got us some money that he left us and every now and then we get some more. She sold his cameras, because neither one of us knew how to use them, nor she got us $500. You can ask her about that. You want me to call her?”

“No, “Sam said. “We’ll catch up with her.”

He turned to Skeet and said, “Will you get Grady to tell you about how he met Dee Dee and came to know Mr. Mike? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He went out, conferred with Shellie and found Taneesha.

“I need two search warrants signed as soon as possible,” he said, “One for Sharon Bennett’s home and one for her store. I think Judge Patterson is still in the building. And I guess we better get one for Grady’s place, too.”

“What’s the cause?” Shelley asked, starting to fill out the forms.

“Probable Identity theft and fraud,” Sam said. “We know who was in that casket now, and we know who’s been managing his funds since his death. Lord knows who much of it she’s taken.”

Taneesha remembered her lunch conversation.

“Hunter was going out to Grady’s house this afternoon.”she said.

Hunter was having a very pleasant visit with Deirdre, who was showing her all her paints and brushes, and paintings that were to be sold at festivals.

She was learning that Deirdre Donagan Bennett might be all grown up and married, but talking with her was like talking with a child eager to share her treasures.

The first thing she had asked the young woman was, “Do you want me to call you Dee Dee or Deirdre?”

“Deirdre,” was the happy answer. “That’s my real name.”

I’m glad you like my paintings,” she said politely after Hunter had praised the work in the studio. “Different people like different things. My daddy told me that all the time. Sometimes people like them. Sometimes they don’t. I can’t let my feelings get hurt about it.”

“But the ones who like them like them very much,” Hunter said. “I love the ones I bought at your mother-in-law’s store.”

“Mrs. Bennett .doesn’t like them,” Deirdre said with a slight pout that reminded Hunter of Bethie’s rare bad moods, “But Arnette does, and I’m going to paint a picture right on the wall at the church. It’s a Noah’s Ark picture. They want it to have a giraffe in it.”

Deirdre’s cell phone rang with a merry tune, and she pulled it from her pocket and answered it.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Bennett. No, I don’t know where he went. He went off with his friend Skeet, the one who’s a policeman.”

Hunter could hear the voice on the phone get higher.

“I told you I don’t know,” Deirdre said with a trace of stubbornness. “I’ve got company and we’re having fun, so goodbye.”

“She gets so bossy sometimes,” she said to Hunter after she hug up..

The phone rang again, and Dee Dee held it out to Hunter.

“Do you know how to turn it off?”

“Well, what if Grady wants to call you?” Hunter started.

“It’s all right,” Arnette Brayburn said gently. “He can call on my phone.”

“When’s Grady coming back?” Deirdre asked Arnette.

“Honey, I’m not sure. He’s going to call us as soon as he knows.”

“I really need to go,” Hunter said, “I didn’t plan to visit this long.”

“Oh, please don’t go,” Arnette said, giving Hunter a quick, pleading look.”I was going to make us some iced tea, and there’s some pound cake I brought over yesterday.”

“I think Binky needs to go out,” Deirdre said, as her poodle set up a fuss at the back door. “Hunter Jones, do you want to see our backyard and the place where my daddy is buried? We can walk around the flood puddles.”

“You just take Binky out and come back in” Hunter said. “If it’s muddy out there, I can’t walk in it with my high heels.”

Deirdre looked disappointed, but went out with the dog, and Hunter had a chance to ask Arnette, “Is there some kind of problem?”

“Grady had to go to talk to the sheriff because of a little problem,” Arnette said. “And Deirdre and Mrs.Bennett don’t get along so well. I don’t think Mrs Bennett means any harm, but she really does take a kind of fussy attitude with Deirdre and you know, Deirdre’s like my husband says, she’s one of God’s special children.”

Before Hunter could think what to say, her own cell phone rang.

It was Taneesha

“Are you at the Bennett’s house,” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then Sam wants you to leave,” she said. “Come on back into town. I’m on my way out there and Skeet and Bub are on the way out there with a search warrant and Grady’s with them. You don’t need to be in the middle of this. Sam was on the phone but I think he’s coming, too.

Then she paused.

“Have you seen Sharon Bennett? Is she out there?”

“No,” Hunter said, “But she’s called looking for Grady.

“OK, listen to me, Taneesha said. “You are to leave right now and tell the preacher’s wife who’s staying out there that she should take Grady’s wife down to the church. It’s not going to be five minutes before we get there, and Skeet can drop Grady by the church, too..”

Hunter heard a car pull up.

“Somebody’s here already,” she said and moved to get a view out the living room window. It’s Sharon Bennett. She must have been calling from her car..”

“OK, just tell her you were all about to go out, and leave.” Taneesha said, sounding tense, “And don’t say a thing about the search. Her house is being searched right now. T.J.’s in charge of that.”

Sharon Bennett came through the door without knocking. She was talking on her own cell phone and didn’t notice Hunter.

“What do you mean they’re going into my house?” she asked, her voice rising. “They can’t do that.”

Sharon suddenly noticed Hunter and glared at her.

“What’s going on? Why are you here?“

“We were just leaving to go down to the church,” Hunter said to Sharon, holding her cell phone, so that Taneesha could hear.”.

“If that’s Sam Bailey you’re talking to, you can tell him that if anybody’s going into my house without my permission, I’m going to sue him for every cent he’s got,” Sharon said, heading toward the back of the house.

“You heard that?” Hunter asked Taneesha in a whisper.

“Don’t argue with her,” Taneesha said. “She’s in a lot of trouble and she could be armed. Get Deirdre and that preacher’s wife, and get them in your car and leave, and go down to the church.”

“That’s Grady’s money box!” Deirdre suddenly wailed.at Sharon “You can’t take Grady’s money box. It’s his.”

“Shut up, you…you moron!” Sharon Bennett said. She was holding a metal box in one hand and a small handgun n the other.

“We’re leaving, Mrs. Bennett,” Hunter said, amazed at how calm her voice was. “Come on Deirdre. Come on Arnette. We need to go down to the church and meet Grady. They’re all going to be out here in just a few minutes.”

“I hear the sirens,” Arnette said. “Come on Dee Dee. Let Grady talk with is mom about the money box. It’ll get worked out.”

Deirdre wailed. Hunter took one of her hands and Arnette took the other, while Sharon Bennett ran toward the back of the house. They walked to the front door and out on the porch.

It looked like the whole Magnolia County Sheriff’s department was arriving at once.

“She went out the back,” Hunter called to Taneesha, who was the first one out and running, with Skeet Borders right behind her.

As soon as Deirdre was safely in Grady’s arms, Hunter reached into her shoulder bag for her camera, and began taking pictures. Sam came over and put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek..

“That makes it hard to use the camera,” she said, trying to concentrate on her work.

She even got a good shot of Taneesha and Skeet, leading a red-faced, out-of-breath Sharon Bennett back around the house..

Skeet has holding the handgun.

“I think she was trying to get to the creek to throw this in,” he said to Sam.”

Hunter noticed that Sharon was being put in handcuffs, and asked Sam, “What on earth is she being charged with?”

“I’ll send out a statement later,” he said with a wry smile.

“I want to know right now,” Hunter said. “You know we already printed the paper anyway, and Will Roy’s going to have it all to himself for a week.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Sam said with a smile, “I was thinking about that on the way out here. I just wanted to see if you were all right, and any time you do your reporter attitude, I know you are.”

Sharon Bennett was being read her rights by Skeet.

“What are the charges?”

“Identity theft, embezzlement and fraud in the case of Michael Donagan,She’s spent a ton of hismoney,” he said. “That’s who’s in the casket—or was.”

“You’re kidding!”

“And that’s just part of it,” he said. “T.J. called me just now to say that they found a whole bunch of photography equipment and the Noah’s Ark painting in Sharon’s back bedroom. That’s in addition to a whole filing case of stuff keeping Michael Donagan alive. We’re also charging her with theft and felony murder in the case of Ned Thigpen.”

Hunter stared at Sam, shocked.

“Arnette Rayburn is going to take Grady and Deirdre down to the church for a while,” he said “and now, as Sheriff of Magnolia County,” he said, “I am telling you to get in your car and leave.”

“Why?” she asked as she snapped one more photo of Sharon Bennett scowling at Taneesha.

“Because I’ve got work to do and you’re a distraction,” Sam said.

CHAPTER 23

N
IKKI CALLED ON
T
HURSDAY TO SAY
she had been to see Meredith Thayer, and that Meredith had told her that Deirdre Donagan had suffered brain damage at the age of ten in an accident that had killed her mother.

“The way she remembered it,” Nikki told Hunter,”was that Deirdre had to learn everything all over again: to walk, to talk, to dress herself. It had taken years of therapy and to most people who knew her, she was a walking miracle.”

“She learned how to paint in therapy,” Nikki said, “And her father took him with him to the festivals in the mountain where he sold his photographs and she sold her paintings.”

“I know about that part,” Hunter said. “She told me. She’s a real sweetie, but it’s like she’s a child. I don’t think Grady sees her that way, though, and I can see why Mike Donagan approved of the marriage when he saw them together. He was dying and he knew Grady would take care of her.”

And then they talked about how serious Nikki’s new relationship was getting.

All of her life Bethie Bailey would remember that weekend with the birthday party with so many people there and the giant silk butterflies strung on almost-invisible thread from tree to tree in the backyard, and the cake with lavender butterflies.

And then the second little birthday party with the Ransoms, and having to wear that awful pink dress to the concert, which seemed to go on forever.