Over Troubled Water: A Hunter Jones Mystery (22 page)

Aaron tried to put this together in his mind, but some pieces didn’t fit. He frowned.

“I’ll tell ’em about this on Monday mornin’,” he said, “They can just ask Russell straight out about it. That’s one thing about the law. They can just ask.”

For once in her life, Sunshine Chapman was furious.

“You did what?” she asked Garth in a cold voice.

“I was going to talk him into going by the agreement,” Garth said.

“You broke into the house to scare my brother!” she said, her voice rising. “You went to Merchantsville and broke into the house? Are you out of your mind? And, no, I will not give you my lawyer’s name. Find your own lawyer!”

“Will you calm down and listen? “Garth asked, “They’re putting me in jail, Sunshine.”

“Well, of course they are, and don’t tell me to calm down. Let me talk to Sheriff Bailey.”

“He’s not here. Look, you need to come down here. I’m going to have to pay bail to get out,” Garth said. “Look, I’m sorry about the thing with your brother,” he said, “but I thought somebody needed to take charge … Sunshine, are you there?”

Sunshine Chapman snapped her cell phone shut.

“Done with the phone call?” Bub asked Garth, trying to avoid grinning. “Sheriff Bailey wants to ask you a few questions.”

“I want a lawyer,” Garth said. “I’m not talking to anybody without a lawyer.”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to get one around here at this time on Saturday night,” Bub said. “So, let me get the bailiff, and he’ll show you your accommodations.”

Sam called Hunter to tell her what was going on.

“This isn’t off the record, is it,” she asked.

“Of course not,” Sam said. “The man’s in jail, and once he gets out, I don’t want him ever coming back here. I’ll even get you a mug shot. “

He told her that it had taken a while to get Andy Chapman settled down.

“He was like a scared kid. Dr. Marcus came over and gave him a sedative,” Sam said. “Sunshine’s coming down in the morning and if Miss Angelica is willing, they’re going to meet at her house. I’m just waiting here until I’m sure he’s asleep. I’m going to check on him again in a few minutes. Oh, and I finally found out why he had the rifle. He was writing some part of his book where some time-traveling renegade Earthlings arrive and he needed to know what a 20th century weapon looked like and how it worked.”

Hunter laughed.

Sam was quiet for a moment, and then said, “This kitchen has an old-fashioned pantry, the kind you can walk into, with shelves up to the ceiling.

As soon as Hunter was off the phone, she told Mallory and Nikki everything, winding up with Sam’s checking out the pantry.

“I think he really wants that house if it winds up on sale,” she said. “I need to go over and take a look at it. I know where Clearview Circle is, but I never have been all around the circle.”

“Let’s go take a look tomorrow,” Nikki said.

“Well, I’m not moving into it until I’m sure that Crazy Andy has moved out and that nobody’s going to change the locks again,” Hunter said, and they all three laughed.

Then Mallory got a wide eyed look.

“Hey,” she said. “What if this Thurlow guy was the Foxtail Creek shooter?” she said. “What if he knew that Sunshine was going to inherit that property and the money someday? Annie Chapman was only in her 50s. Maybe he didn’t want to wait.”

“Maybe neither one of them wanted to wait,” Nikki said. “And maybe she’s betraying him now because she’s gotten scared she’ll be implicated.”

“Oh, stop!” Hunter said. “She had a domineering father, and her mother always let her brother get away with bad behavior rather than argue with him. She probably just thought Garth Thurlow was a normal man.”

“And how do you know all this?” Nikki asked.

“From Robin Hilliard,” Hunter said.

After Nikki and Mallory had recovered from laughing, they noticed that Hunter was rubbing her stomach with a slight frown.

“You okay?” Mallory asked. “Do we need to call Sam.”

“It didn’t hurt,” Hunter said. “It was just like everything tightened up.”

Nikki looked at her watch.

A half hour later when Sam got home, nothing more had happened.

On Sunday morning, the sun was out, and Merchantsville was in its full springtime glory. People on Clearview Circle knew there had been some kind of disturbance at the Chapman home, but they were getting used to that, and word had not spread further.

Bethie came home at nine a.m., bleary-eyed from her slumber party, which had apparently not included much slumber. She headed straight for her bed and was asleep in minutes.

“I’m going to wake her up at noon,” Hunter said. “She said she wanted to go to Hilliard House with us.”

“Are you still planning to go to that?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Hunter said. “I can’t stand just sitting around waiting. We’re going to get all dressed up and go. And after that Nikki and I want to drive by the Chapman house and see if we approve of it.”

Miss Angelica Sampson meant to have a little talk with Andy Chapman before his sister arrived from Macon, but he seemed to be doing all the talking.

“This town isn’t safe anymore,” he said. “I’m moving out, and I’m taking my furniture with me.”

“Andrew,” Miss Angelica said, “That was just that one incident, and the Sheriff came right away and put the man in jail.”

“One incident!” Andy said, “There’s something all the time. My mother got shot. I had people come into the house and take my computer away. And now I have this criminal breaking into my house in the middle of the night, shouting that he wants to talk to me. No matter what I do, no matter how many times I get the locks changed…”

“Where on earth will you go?” Miss Angelica asked. Like Andy, she had lived on Clearview Circle in Merchantsville, Georgia, all her life.

“I was looking at the Macon Telegraph this morning,” he said. “There’s a place with apartments that has a security gate, and it’s only ten miles from where I work. I’m going to drive over there this afternoon and see how soon I can get into one. All I want is a place where people will leave me alone and let me write on the weekends.”

“Don’t you think you ought to talk to Sunshine about this first?” Miss Angelica asked. “She’ll be here soon.”

“No,” he said, taking out his key ring and pulling one key off. “But tell her here’s a front door key and I want half of whatever she sells the house for.”

Hunter’s phone rang just as they were about to leave for the antiques show. She saw an unfamiliar number and let it ring, but then she listened to the message.

“Miss Jones. This is Janice Jordan, Jim Jordan’s mother. I hope you don’t mind my calling on Sunday, but I’ve found something while I was going through Jim’s papers, and I just wanted to ask you a personal favor if you have the time.”

She left her own number at the end of the message.

Remembering the frail and sad woman she had met at City Hall, Hunter dialed the number immediately.

“Oh, I’m so glad you called back,” Janice Jordan said. “You know, right after I left that message, I remembered how pregnant you were when I saw you. Has the baby been born yet?”

“No,” Hunter said, “but it should be any time now.”

“Oh my goodness, I remember how that was. You just can’t plan a thing, can you? I shouldn’t be asking you any kind of favor.”

“Go right ahead,” Hunter said cheerfully, “Maybe it’s something that will help me get my mind off waiting.”

“Uh Oh! Jack’s back already,” Janice said, suddenly sounding a little uneasy. “I, uh, could you give me your e-mail address, please?”

“Sure,” Hunter said.

“I’ll be in touch tomorrow then,” Janice said in a business-like voice as soon as she had the address. “Thank you so much.”

Sunshine Chapman used the key Miss Angelica had handed her, and opened the front door to the old house. She had hoped to have a real talk with Andy, and to assure him that she hadn’t had anything to do with Garth’s breaking-in, but she was relieved to hear that he was on his way to see an apartment.

And finally she could take a good look at the house, and make a list of things that needed doing.

It obviously needed a good cleaning, she thought, and the dining room wallpaper was peeling, but people who were interested in old houses would be able to see past the air-conditioning units in the windows, and the 1960s kitchen appliances.

Upstairs, she found that Andy had locked the old nursery again, but she would worry about that later, she thought.

She wound up in the attic – in the little cozy little bedroom she fixed up and claimed as her own when she was a teenager. The leaves of the old magnolia tree were brushing against the window.

For half a minute, she thought about moving back into the house, but only for half a minute. It was just too big, too much to keep up, and too long a commute.

She liked her life in Macon and, she decided, she would like it much better without Garth Thurlow in it.

An hour after Sunshine had locked up and left, Sam Bailey drove around Clearview Circle with Hunter, Bethie, and Nikki. Nikki and Bethie insisted on getting out to take photos while Hunter sat in the car with her shoes kicked off.

The antiques show had been a huge success for Robin and Colin, and Hunter had found it fun for a little while, She had enjoyed the tea and scones on the shady grounds of the old conservatory across the street from Hilliard House, but now she had slowed down to a stop

“You’re right,” she said to Sam. “It’s a beautiful house.”

“It’s even better on the inside,” he said.

CHAPTER 19

Monday morning arrived and Hunter was still in bed when Sam was leaving for work. He brought her a cup of tea and made her promise to stay home, and to call him if she felt so much as a twinge.

“I’ll be home for lunch,” he said. “I’ll bring takeout from R&J’s.”

“Not hungry,” Hunter mumbled into her pillow.

“You will be,” he said. “Remember, you’re eating for two.”

A while after he left, Hunter got out of bed, showered and shampooed. If she wound up going to the hospital, she meant to arrive with squeaky clean hair.

She pulled on the pair of maternity slacks that she hated least, and then the tee shirt with “Great Expectations” printed on the front.

She looked in the mirror and sighed.

“Baby Bailey,” she said. “I am so ready for a new look. You need to get your show on the road.”

Then she made herself some tea and considered a day of doing nothing. Between Nikki, Mallory and Mary Bailey, the house was in perfect order. The nursery was ready. There wasn’t even an excuse to go to the grocery store because the refrigerator and freezer were both stocked.

Hunter was beginning to wish she had just kept on working. In the newsroom, there was always something to do.

At the Magnolia County Medical Center, Ricky Richards was insisting on going home.

“There’s nothing they’re doing for me here that I can’t do for myself at home,” he told Sasha. “And the bill is getting higher every minute I’m here. I’ve called the drugstore, and they can get us a rental wheelchair today. Dad’s going to bring over the walker Mom used when she had the knee surgery.”

“Honey, I don’t know if this is the best thing to do,” Sasha said. “You’ve been making such good progress in physical therapy. I know you’re worried about the money, but…”

“I told you I’m working something out with Burt Hilliard and his dad,” Ricky said.”We’re going to be back in business with a better location. It will all work out, but I can’t hold business meetings in a hospital room.”

“I’m worried about losing the house,” Sasha said.

“I know you are,” Ricky said. “But the thing is we’re going to lose everything if I keep running up this huge medical bill, and we delay getting GetFit going again. Now, you go pick the wheelchair, and put it on my credit card. I’ll tell the people here that I’m checking myself out. They’ll probably be relieved since they know we don’t have insurance. Now go ahead. I want to get out of here before they charge me for another meal.”

Just after Sasha left, the telephone by Ricky’s bed rang and he picked it up.

The booming baritone was familiar.

“This is Will Roy Johnston from the radio station. How are you doing, Ricky?”

“Are we on the air?” Ricky asked.

“No, but that’s what I was calling about,” Will Roy said. “I was wondering if we could do a telephone interview for my 10 a.m. news. That’s about 15 minutes from now. I don’t hear of much happening with the investigation, and I was thinking maybe you could bring us up to date on how you’re doing, and your thoughts on the whole thing.”

“That would be good,” Ricky said. “Sasha’s got to go get me a wheelchair, and I’ll just be waiting here. You don’t mind if I do a little promotion, do you. Jaybird and Burt Hilliard came over yesterday and told me I could set up my new gym in their shopping plaza. Burt wants to invest in it, be a co-owner. It will still be GetFit.”

“Fine,” Will Roy said, “Folks’ll be glad to hear that.”