“Nothing was wrong with Joe,” Mom continued. “He had fallen while hiking during the summer and had checked himself into the facility for some therapy for his injured hip. The man was still young and strong. No reason for him to die like that.”
“Mom, people die every day. Kidneys fail. The heart stops. Strokes. It happens. It’s a natural part of life.”
“It feels wrong. Something is going on there, but you can’t find it.”
I chose not to tell her that two men tried to kill me. She already had enough issues with which to deal.
“I’m still looking into it.”
“And you have found nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing. I have some leads.” I had nothing. I was trying to make her feel better. It wasn’t working.
“Well, you might want to check on Sarah Jones while you’re in town.”
“Sarah’s sick?”
“Bad back, bad hip, at any rate, she can’t walk. Her family put her in Peace Haven last week. She’ll be dead inside of a month.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? Not everyone in Peace Haven is at the threshold of death.”
“I don’t like sitting around doing nothing while friends are being murdered. Just go see her if you want to see her before she dies.”
Despite her theatrics, I knew that something was happening at Peace Haven. The two impotent thugs who had come after me plus the remnants of my cinder block headache were enough evidence for me that I was onto something. That doesn’t even count the phony policeman and the shopping cart woman who seemed to be part of the plot. I convinced myself that telling mother all of this would only add to her theatrical performance. It was not where I wanted to go.
After we said goodnight to Mom, Rosey and I walked around the backyard before going to bed. It was one of my Southern rituals. The night air was chilly, but the friendly confines of the yard made it inviting. I had spent many hours in this yard contemplating the situations of the world. Cheap therapy.
“If you’ll go to the funeral home and see Keith or Allen, I’ll go back to Peace Haven and see if I can stir up some more animosity towards me. I must have rattled somebody’s cage, somewhere. I figure it was at the nursing facility.”
“Could be there, or not. Small town. Word gets around. Might be you rattled some coffins.”
My mother and I drove over to Peace Haven Nursing and Care Facilities late in the morning. Rosey was checking with the good folks of the Cuthbert-Boran Funeral Home. My mother drove her 1969 Studebaker Hawk. For whatever reason, she bought the car after my dad died in ’73 simply because she had wanted one. She used it around town, which explained why a car that old only had 40-some thousand miles on the odometer. Mint condition, too.
“You should take this car out on the highway some,” I said.
“Why?”
“I think it would help the engine last longer by driving it at higher speeds occasionally.”
“The engine has lasted forty years and counting.”
“Point taken. But still, it would be good for the engine to run it at higher speeds.”
“Engine is fine. I have it checked every year.”
“I’m sure it is. I’m just saying.”
“You take care of your car and I’ll take care of mine,” she said with great emphasis.
We arrived at Peace Haven. Thank heaven for short trips.
“I’ll be in Sarah’s room while you do whatever it is you do,” Rachel said and walked away. Rachel Jo Clancy Evans, longsuffering wife of Bill Evans, Sheriff of Pitt County, Virginia, killed in the line of duty. My adversarial mother. The love of my daddy’s life.
Good phrase. Whatever it is I do. I ask questions. I talk to people. I look for clues. I look for leads. I get shot at. I get hit over the head with a cinder block. The police think I make up stories about shooting people. I make enemies. I aggravate, irritate, and sometimes obfuscate. I keep coming back for more of the same. Relentless am I. Whatever it takes. Whatever it is. Some job. Could be a personality disorder. Or a profession.
I nosed around for a good while, mostly talking with the nurses. I chatted with the physical therapist. I walked up and down the corridors looking for whatever it was I was looking for. I had no idea. As some famous detectives have said before, you will know it when you see it. I was hoping. Nothing was leaping out at the moment. Maybe I wouldn’t know it if I saw it.
After more than an hour of doing whatever it is I do, I could tell that some of the nurses were annoyed by my presence. My effervescence was wearing thin. Perhaps my personality was not as charming as I had imagined. I decided to go check on Sarah and Mother.
Sarah had worked for my family for decades. I had no idea how old she was, but I guessed that she was probably my mother’s age, maybe a little older. I grew up with Sarah. She was a fixture in our house. She did practically everything except cook. Not that she couldn’t cook, mind you. It was the one thing my mother enjoyed doing most days. Sarah raised me as much as my mother. My dad was around until I was almost twelve. Then he wasn’t. Mother and Sarah remained.
“Land a Goshen, child. You look good to these old eyes,” Sarah said when I entered her room.
“About time,” Mother added.
“Good to see you, Sarah,” I hugged her. She was sitting up in the bed with pillows packed in behind her.
I pulled up one of those padded, nursing home chairs which looks comfortable but isn’t. Mother was sitting in a straight back chair on the other side of the bed.
“So you are snoopin’ around.”
“Mostly upsetting the locals.”
“Oh, they always need something to gripe about. Way of life for them.”
“So how are you?”
“Still kickin’, Child. I be around soon enough.”
“Doing some therapy?”
“Day after painful day. Improving though. Leastwise that be what they tell me. All I know is that it hurts like hell when I walk,” she laughed when she said it. Mother smiled.
We talked on about her family, her grandchildren, and her new great grandson. She asked about my life in Norfolk and my work. It had been a number of years since she had worked for my mother. I had managed to lose track of her for a few years. We passed some time catching up.
“Tell me about Roosevelt,” she said after the discussion had waned a bit.
“He works with me on some of my cases.”
“I haven’t seen that boy in … well, it’s like a lifetime. Could you ask him to come visit me?”
“Sure. I’ll do better than that. I’ll insist and bring him myself.”
She laughed again, one of those deep, alto voice, throaty laughs which seem to resonate throughout a room. It was good for me to hear her laugh again. It was home.
“No, don’t do that, Child. He be a man now. Has to make up his own mind. Just tell him Sarah wants to take a look-see at him one more time. He was such a strapping boy back when he lived here.”
“Still is strapping,” I offered.
“You and him…,” she was fishing.
“Friends. Good friends.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“Well, sometimes after I ask a lot of questions, snoop around and get folks upset, he helps to settle them back down. He has a calming effect on people.”
“That’s good. Tell him to come by. So tell me about this case you’re on.”
I told her what I knew, and my mother told her what she suspected. We never worried about alarming Sarah. She was one of those folks who stayed quiet and collected in the midst of any calamity. She was someone whom I would love to be with when the world came to an end. We could drink coffee and chat together all the while the bombs would be bursting around us. Mrs. Cool and Collected. Unflappable.
“Have you talked with any of the cleaning people here?”
“No. Haven’t seen many.”
“That’s because they mostly work at night. Talk with Joy Jones. She’d be
the one to know what’s what. I think she’s in charge of keeping this place clean. She’s a good worker. Talk with her.”
“She work every night?”
“She pokes her head in the door of my room most every night. Some nights she sits awhile, and we talk more. Come back after 6 and I suspect she be here.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Bring Roosevelt. A lady’s got to have some pleasures in life.”
19
It was after 6:30 when Rosey and I got to Sarah’s room. We parked his Jag at the far end of the parking lot in hopes of hiding our presence from the community. Like a tall white woman with flaming red hair and a tall, handsome black man working together could hide themselves from the prying eyes of a small, Southern town in Virginia. Sure.
I insisted that Rosey enter the room just behind me. I wanted to be able to see Sarah’s face when Rosey came in. Her expression changed from mere delight at seeing me again to bright illumination. If anyone could radiate sheer happiness, that woman did the moment she saw Mr. Roosevelt Washington standing next to me.
“My, oh my, oh my. Good lookin’, I reckon … you be the living end, boy.”
I would imagine that she might be the only living person Rosey would tolerate calling him boy. I had seen some strong men go down who attempted such. I wondered if he were blushing at this point. It was hard to tell.
He smiled at her and they hugged for a long time. Old friends.
We sat and talked for a long while. I decided to wait on Joy Jones to pop her head into Sarah’s room rather than go looking for her down all of the corridors. Despite the size of the town, Peace Haven was a large facility and could handle nearly 200 residents.
“So, you are not a lawyer and yet you work for a law firm,” Sarah said to Rosey.
“Yes, ma’am. I investigate certain clients and situations for them.”
“Like Clancy.”
“Well,” he smiled and stretched his arms out as if to find a more relaxed position, “sometimes our strategies for investigating are different.”
“You use more force. Is that it?”
I laughed to myself at her insight. Hard to deceive a wise old woman.
“Some times,” he confessed.
“You be careful. Those clients might gang up on you.”
“I’ll call in Clancy if that happens. She’s good to have around, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Always has been one of those people who more often than not say or do the right thing at the right time. Maybe just lucky, you think?”
Rosey looked at me and smiled. “Maybe, but I suspect it be more than luck.”
“Sure enough,” Sarah admitted. “Sure enough.”
The door creaked open and a black woman stuck her head in the room, looked towards Sarah, and smiled.
“Land of Goshen, it’s about time you showed your face in here,” Sarah said.
“What you think, I got time to waste visiting your lazy bones all day?” Joy said and lumbered over to Sarah and hugged her. Joy was a large, round woman. Her shoes squeaked when she walked. Perhaps it was the weight they were supporting.
“Joy, these are my old friends, Clancy and Roosevelt.”
Rosey was standing by this point and nodded towards Joy. I stood, walked over to her, and held out my hand. Instead of taking my hand and shaking it, she grabbed me and gave me a bear hug. I felt the breath begin to leave me.
“Good to meet you, Clancy. And you, Mr. Roosevelt,” she nodded towards Rosey.
“Clancy’s a detective, Joy.”
“You workin’ a case or just visiting Sarah here?”
“Both.”
“You investigating this place?”
“I’m doing some research, yes.” I was surprised with her question.
“About time somebody checked on this place.”
“Whataya mean?”
“Full of haints, it is. Been real restless the last few months, too.”
“What have you seen?”
“Ain’t seen much, Miss Clancy. But I hear plenty.”
“Whataya hear?”
“Noises. Bed pans falling to the floor, people walking where they ain’t no people, stuff like that. I hear a bed pan rattling around and I go to the room and it be empty. I turn on the lights and look all over that room. Nothing there. Just a strange feeling, that’s all. A body could get scared real easy here, if it weren’t for Jesus.”
“Jesus?”
“I got Jesus with me. Protect me. Ain’t worried about no haints. Got a job to do, so I do it. But I don’t like all those noises. Makes a body restless, you know. Fidgety like. When it happens, I just calm down, say a prayer or two, and then sing some. The fidgety goes away and I go back to work. That’d be Jesus helping me, Clancy.”
“No doubt.”
“You clean any other places?” Rosey asked.
“Yessire, I do. Two banks and a grocery store. Keeps a body busy and my head above water. I got a husband on disability, so I has to take care of everything.”
“You notice strange noises at the other places?”
She gave him a knowing smile and shook her head no.
“I know where you’re going here, Mr. Roosevelt. You think I’m crazy or something. No, sir. Those other buildings are just buildings. No haints there. Just here. Haints roam all over this place. Got a peculiar smell, you know.”
“Peculiar smell?” I asked.
“Smell of death. There be good haints and bad ones. This place got the bad ones. They smell of death.”
“But you’ve never seen anything.”
“Felt ‘em once. I was mopping outside of Room 324 and heard a noise inside the room. It was Mr. Eli’s room.”
“Eli Rowland?”
“Yes ‘em, that’d be the one. Kind old man. Always had a story for me when I would go in and clean. Always friendly. Never in a bad mood, nothing like that. So, I hear this strange noise, like someone kicking or hitting the side of the bed. Done that so many times myself that I know that sound. Anyhow, I investigate. The room was dark and I didn’t want to turn the light on to disturb Mr. Eli. So I opens the door wide to let some hallway light get in and maybe see what makes that sound. I took a step inside the room but could see nothing but Mr. Eli lying in bed. Then something pushes me and I fell against the bed and landed on the floor. I heard something behind me and then suddenly the room got dark. Somebody done closed the door. I just knew that I had disturbed Mr. Eli. So I got up expecting to talk with him, but he was still just lying there. Then I smelled it. That be the first time I smelled it. That smell of death. Mr. Eli was dead for all the world. I could have fallen on his bed and it wudda made no difference. Mr. Eli was gone from this world. So then I opened his door, but whoever or whatever it was that shoved me and closed the door was long gone by then.”
“Did you report this?” I asked.
“I told the boss lady, but it made no never mind to her. She believes little I say. She say to me, just do your job, do your job. That’s none of your business.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“You believe me, Miss Clancy?”
“I do. But I think some of the haints here might just be real people doing bad things. Anything happen recently like this?”
“Nobody shove me or nothing, if that’s what you mean. But I hear things at night while I’m working.”
“Every night?”
“No, ma’am. Haints must take a break now and then. Every few weeks I hear things.”
“Anything unusual around the time when Joe Pearson died?”
She looked at me strangely and shook her head. Then she headed towards the door, turned and motioned with her hand for me to follow her.
“Sarah, I’ll come back to check on you later, after I be finished. Nice to meet you, Mr. Roosevelt,” Joy said. She nodded in Rosey’s direction.
We left the room and started down the hallway. She stopped a few feet from Sarah’s door.
“I didn’t want to
talk no more in front of Sarah. All this talk of death might scare her,” Joy said.
I nodded.
“You asked about Joe Pearson. Let me show you something.” Joy began walking away from Sarah’s room again.
“Hold on, Joy. Let me tell Rosey I’m going with you.”
I stuck my head back inside the room. “Joy and I are going exploring. You and Sarah can gossip about me for a little now.”
“Maybe I can get her to tell me all of your secrets,” Rosey said. Sarah smiled.
“Joy wants to show me something. I’ll be back.”
“Take you time, Child,” Sarah said. “I got me a good looking man to talk to. You just take your time. Take your time.”
I rejoined Joy and we headed off in the direction of her lead. The facility had a system of built-in night lights which I assumed came on at a certain time when the main fluorescents automatically went off. The halls were lighted sufficiently to see, but they were definitely dim. It offered an eerie atmosphere. No wonder Joy could feel the presence of haints.
I walked alongside of the large, round woman, enjoying the sound of her squeaky shoes. Her cadence of squish-squash was difficult to ignore. I was thinking of some old song that had the beat her shoe cadence provided. She suddenly stopped and whispered to me.
“I want to show you something I found just before Joe Pearson died.”
“In his room?”
“No. Outside the door, in the hallway. The night before they found him dead I saw someone leave his room. Nothing unusual about that, except that while I was wiping down the fire hoses nearby, I watched the person walk away and something fell out of his pocket.”
“His pocket?”
“Well, Miss Clancy, to tell the truth, it cudda been her. Hallway was dim. But I saw something fall right out of the pocket of the person leaving that room, jest like it’a jumped out. And it did look like a man to me.”
“Why didn’t you call the person’s attention to it? Might have been something important.”
“Rules.”
“Rules?”
“No loud talking after the lights change at night. If I yell, they fire me. So I waited to see what it was that they dropped. My job is to leave stuff like that at the main desk.”
The Peace Haven Murders Page 7