“I can do that.”
She finished one of the diagonal slices of toast, drank some that milky, sweet liquid and then told me what she could remember.
“I have these flashes of images, odd angles and such. I think I was under the big bed in the room where the crib was located. I keep seeing things from that perspective. I see people’s feet, walking into the room, standing by the crib, walking around the area of the crib.”
“Why are you under the bed?”
“I can’t remember. I could have been playing, maybe hide and seek, or something like that. I think that is what I told Reverend Ainsley.”
“Were you playing with someone?”
“I don’t remember playing with anyone. I could have been, but I just can’t recall. Too many years ago.”
“And yet you do seem to recollect some distinctive memories.”
“Odd isn’t it, how the mind remembers and forgets. What it remembers and all. Very odd I’d say.”
“Did you recognize any of the shoes you saw come into the room and go to the crib?”
“The shoes?”
“Yes, the shoes.”
“I never thought about that.”
“Focus on the image you can see. What color are the shoes?”
Mary stopped chewing her toast and appeared to be thinking, trying to recall an incident from long ago.
“I see black shoes. They are laced.”
“Men’s shoes?”
“No, I don’t think so. They are high-top laced women’s shoes. Black. They look uncomfortable.”
“The style of the era.”
“From what I can recall of that era.”
“And that’s what you see in your mind’s eye.”
“Yes. Some black, high-top laced women’s shoes approach the crib. They stand there for a few minutes. I also see black and white high-top tennis shoes with holes in them. Then I see the tennis shoes walk out of the room quickly.”
“Who wore the black, high top laced shoes?”
“My mother. At least I seem to recall that’s what she wore most of the time.”
“No one else? How about the nanny?”
“How did you know I had a nanny?”
“I’m a detective.”
“That’s not common knowledge.”
“Maybe not, but it’s available.”
“Available?”
“When you look in the right places.”
“And you look in the right places.”
“My job. What kind of shoes did your nanny wear?”
“Black high-top tennis shoes with holes in them. I once received a reprimand from my father because I laughed at her shoes. She looked funny in those black high-top tennis shoes, and the holes made it seem even funnier.”
“Her name was Rosemary Jenkins.”
“Oh, my. You weren’t bluffing.”
“You thought I was making a wild guess at the nanny thing?”
“You could have been. I don’t know you.”
“True, I could have been bluffing, but I wasn’t. So, tell me about Rosemary, your nanny.”
“She was black and I loved her and I think she may have killed my baby brother.”
7
I watched the elderly lady sitting across from me finish her pieces of toast and strawberry jelly. She was finally talking to me and I had no idea what changed her mind.
“Did you tell anyone that you saw the nanny kill your brother?”
“Oh, I don’t have any memory of actually seeing her kill little Colby. It was something I heard my mother say, I think.”
“Did it become a family story after that?”
“No. We never talked about it. You know, family secrets and all. I pushed it out of my mind because I seem to remember my mother telling me to push it out, not to think about it, it was over and done and ….”
“And?”
“I think I successfully pushed it out.”
“So why did your memory resurface now?”
“It came back last month. That’s when I think it happened, years ago, in the month of April. I don’t remember exactly, but I seem to think that’s when it occurred.”
“Did anything happen last month that may have triggered this memory?” I said.
“You mean something out of the ordinary?”
“Or in the ordinary.”
“Well, it happened on Easter Sunday afternoon. I recall watching some children search for Easter eggs in my yard. You know I have this very large yard full of bushes and trees and flowers, great places to hide Easter eggs. I was standing on the porch watching the children. That’s when I saw a little girl and her baby brother. I guess they were siblings. Anyway, she was helping him search for eggs.”
“And?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose. I just remember standing on the porch watching her help him. She found a pink and yellow egg. She held it up for him to see. He was waddling around, you know, learning to walk. He took the egg and tried to put it into his mouth. She stopped him, took the egg from him, and he cried. So, she gave it back and he waddled away, then fell down and crushed the egg.”
She paused and I waited without comment.
“That was it,” she said, “that’s what triggered my memory. As soon as the child fell and crushed the hard-boiled egg, I was transported to some forgotten memory and I was under the bed watching feet come and go around the crib.”
“Do you recall seeing anything else?” I said.
“What’s going on here?” Sheriff Roscoe Tanner said in a booming voice that caused the other customers in Maybelline’s to look in our direction. He was at the table before I could even consider running out the back door. Not that I wanted to run.
I had failed to see him approach since I was occupied with Mary Elizabeth Carpenter’s erratic walk down her faded memory lane. As soon as we made eye contact, I noticed two things about Roscoe. First, he was not happy. Second, he carried his overweight self as if what he was about to do was extremely official. Andy Taylor he was not.
“Hello, Roscoe,” Mary said. She moved over and gestured for him to sit down.
“I thought I told you to leave Mrs. Carpenter alone.”
He remained standing for the time being. More official to stand, I suppose.
“I don’t recall your threat to me being that specific.”
“What are you talking about?” Mary said.
“I don’t want this private detective bothering you,” Roscoe said to her. He sat down next to Mary. He touched her arm almost charmingly, as if he truly cared about her.
“She’s not bothering me. She’s trying to help me.”
“Help you do what?”
“Find some answers.”
“Mary, this is not good for you to be involved in. I think we should ask this detective to leave and not come back.”
“That’s ridiculous, Roscoe. She has the skills to find out what happened to my brother. I want to know.”
“Some things need to be left buried. You shouldn’t go digging around in the past. It will lead to nothing good. And you, whatever your name is, you should not be playing on the mental defects of an elderly woman.”
His sentence caught me off guard. Before I could respond, Mary, who was also apparently caught off guard as well, answered him with complete clarity.
“Who the hell do you think you are, Roscoe Tanner, talking about me having mental defects? Are you crazy yourself? I am completely sane and have every right to explore these haunting memories.”
I thought she might strike him with her purse, but she managed to restrain herself.
“Mary,” he said, turning in the booth seat to face her more directly, “you know that it is more than likely you have made this up and it did not happen the way you are telling.”
“How would you know how she is telling it?” I said to the Sheriff calmly.
“This has happened before. You’re not the first person she has brought into her storytelling. Lemme gu
ess. She told you that someone killed her brother. She probably told you that it was Rosemary Jenkins, the nanny that the Johnson family had at the time. Am I right so far?”
I nodded.
“She probably also told you something about seeing flashes of memories, images, but she can’t piece anything together. Close enough?”
I nodded again.
Mary looked at me and began to cry.
“There, there, Mary. It’s okay, it’s okay,” Roscoe said and put his arm around her. “She’s been doing this for years now, off and on. Something triggers these stories and, well, there’s simply no truth in them.”
I listened without speaking. His whole demeanor had changed. He became sympathetic and almost kind. It was a different side to the sheriff. Not necessarily an altogether pleasing side, but different.
“Come on, Mary. I’ll take you home now.”
“I drove my car,” she said through her sobbing.
“I’ll have a deputy drive it home for you.”
His arm was still around her as he guided her away from the booth. All eyes in the café were on her. He turned back towards me.
“I’ll expect you out of town within the hour.”
“I have a luncheon date,” I said.
“Consider it cancelled. He’s not coming.”
I was anything but surprised that he knew about my date with Josh Ainsley. Riley Corners had big ears and at least one big mouth.
He turned away and I watched his eyes catch Maybelline’s eyes.
“She can order something to go, May. See that she gets it quickly. Put it on my tab.”
The small bell over the café’s entrance door rang as they exited. His arm was still around her. It took a minute or so before the verbal humming of Maybelline’s customers came around. Maybelline approached my booth.
“You want something to go?”
“I’ll eat it here,” I said.
“That’s not a good idea, sweetie. Roscoe is not someone to be trifled with. Word to the wise.”
“Give me a Club Deluxe on rye. You can fill my coffee cup while I wait.”
“Okay, sweetie. It’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Say, do you have any crow on hand?”
“Beg your pardon? Crow?”
“Yeah, in case Roscoe returns before I finish my lunch. I want an extra helping for the big man. If he comes back, that’s what he will be eating. Bank on it.”
8
I was working on my last wedge of the Club Deluxe when the entrance doorbell rang. It was Roscoe Tanner, the Sheriff of Waylon County coming in with his eyes focused upon me. I leaned back to be sure that my pistol was still nestled in the small of my back. Ah, security. Just in case things got out of hand, I was prepared to go toe to toe with the local law.
“I figured you’d still be here.”
“Insightful.”
“You don’t strike me as a person who is easily persuaded. Perhaps I should try another route.”
“Possible, but you could also try talking to me and treating me as if I had a brain.”
Roscoe Tanner slid into the booth bench across from me. He was working on his control of himself. So far so good. At least he was not ranting and raving at me. Hard to eat when someone is yelling at you.
“Okay, lady detective. Here’s the story. My cousin, Mary Elizabeth Carpenter, has been slightly out of tune for most of her life. She somehow has the crazy notion that someone killed her brother while he was sleeping in his crib. He did die in his crib back in 1933. That’s a long time ago. Most likely it was what we now refer to as Sudden Infant Death. Whatever happened to him, happened naturally. As far as I know, there was nothing ever stated publicly that implicated anyone in the death of that baby. There were some rumors, old wives’ tales, things like that batted around. I grew up with some of those stories. As far as anything proven goes, there is nothing there to point towards anyone. That baby merely stopped breathing. It’s a mystery and it will remain a mystery. Mary has fabricated a wild story based on her memories. There is no evidence, no proof, no nothing to support it. She has deluded herself for over sixty years with this tale. Like Shakespeare wrote, her story is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.”
“Wow, a sheriff that quotes Shakespeare. And, you’ve just insulted a relative with a literary allusion. I have to be impressed.”
“Don’t be. Just be gone. There is nothing for you to do here except to further delude an old woman. I don’t want anyone like you digging up the past and creating more delusions for this woman. She’s had enough trouble in her life. She does not need this. She does not need you. Am I making myself clear?”
“As a bell. What if I find something that supports her claim?”
“You’re not listening to me, lady. I don’t want you doing anything regarding this.”
“So, if I return to Norfolk and I discover something unusual about this infant’s death, you really don’t want to hear about it? Is that what you are saying to me?”
“That is exactly what I am saying to you. The only way for you to find anything about this fairy tale is to make it up. There is nothing to it.”
“Hypothetically speaking, if there was something to it, you still do not want to know what I have found.”
“You got that right.”
“Wow. So, in Waylon County, under your legal supervision and control, there is a statute of limitations on murder. Someone kills someone back in 1933, you really do not want to hear about that.”
He was not happy with the box that he had built for himself. My conundrum was at least causing him to be calm, control his temper, and, quite possibly, reflect upon his legal position.
“Okay, lady detective, hypothetically speaking, if you happen to find something that you think is worth looking into, you can call me.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a business card. He placed it on the table in front of me with more force than I thought necessary. He kept his index finger in the center of the card.
“It better be something really good and substantive if you plan on wasting my time with this foolish endeavor.”
“Oh, it will be solid stuff and substantive. I really would not want to waste your valuable time, Sheriff Tanner. In fact, I promise that if I find something that needs to be explored, I will run it by some law enforcement people in my city with whom I have worked for the last few years. You know, just to verify that I have tangible and supportable evidence of a crime. If they think it is solid, then I will call you and we can get together again. I’d much rather waste their time than yours. Also, wasting their time would have the double effect of allowing them to see some solid evidence of a murder in Waylon County back in 1933. That would be helpful for your own investigation at that point, would it not? So, now you know. That’s what I shall do.”
“You do that, Detective Evans. You do that.”
Fire was burning just below his surface. I suspect it had been some time, if ever, since he had run into a fiery redhead like me. More mouth than muscle, but at least I could back up what I said.
“Thanks for lunch. Next time we’ll dine on my nickel.”
“If there is a next time.”
The sheriff slid out of the booth and walked away without another word.
“There will be a next time, Sheriff. You can take that to the bank,” I said to his backside only because he failed to turn and acknowledge my parting shot.
9
On my way out of town heading home to Norfolk I called Josh Ainsley. His Office Administrator Maxine Shelton answered the phone.
“Is the good reverend in?”
“May I tell him who is calling?”
“Not this time, Maxine. Just let me talk to him.”
The line clicked so I figured she either hung up on me or placed me on hold. It would have come as no surprise to hear the hum from a disconnected call in the next instant. I waited.
“Hello. This i
s Reverend Ainsley. May I help you?”
“Josh, this is Clancy. You want to tell me why you didn’t show up at Maybelline’s?”
“Sorry about that. I can’t be talking to you any longer. I’m still considered the new preacher here in town and I have been advised to sever all ties with you from now on.”
“Who advised you of that?”
“I really should not be talking with you now. I am sure that they will hear about this call. Your services are no longer needed. I was mistaken about Mrs. Carpenter. She is simply a deluded woman who is very frail. Please do not call me anymore. I can no longer work with you. Thanks for coming.”
He hung up. I had no chance to say another word. Perhaps it was for the best. I could easily tell that he was under duress. I figured that Maxine the spy was well aware of who I was even without giving her my name. I just didn’t know her connection. Perhaps she was kin to Roscoe as well.
When I returned to Norfolk, my friend and valued helper Roosevelt Washington was waiting on me in my apartment. Rosey and I had reconnected a couple of years back. It was good to have him in my life again after we had parted company following his high school graduation in Clancyville, Virginia in 1977. I graduated two years later while he was studying at the University of Virginia. He graduated from UVA in 1980 after only three years. Tall, good looking, and smart. Good combination for a friend to have. Did I say he finished magna cum laude?
“I thought you had some cloak and dagger stuff to handle somewhere in Europe.”
“Handled.”
“Expeditious.”
“My middle name. It only took three days. We Special Ops guys like the short missions.”
“You don’t usually work in Europe.”
“Is that a question?”
“Observation.”
“You keeping tabs on me?”
“What are friends for?”
“We were at the Thailand Embassy in Berlin. Small job. Translating mostly.”
“You take your gun?”
“I always take a gun.”
“Helps the translating?”
“Point of view.”
Mercy Killing Page 4