Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows

by Nora Deloach

  “There was no money in her motel room?” Mama asked.

  “Not a dime,” Abe answered.

  “Except for the receipt for that five-thousand-dollar certified check you found in Ruby’s purse, there’s no trace of all that money,” Mama murmured.

  Abe’s expressive face turned sour. “Ruby could have shot herself because the money got away from her,” he pointed out.

  Mama looked thoughtful. “Did you ask Herman Spikes about Ruby having that much money?”

  “Herman told me they kept their money separate.”

  Mama shook her head. “This is all so puzzling.”

  “You might as well know that the gun Ruby used to shoot herself was reported stolen by a Jason Tuten who lives near Cypress Creek, not far from your cousin Agatha.”

  “When?”

  “July twentieth. Two days after the attempted rape on Ruby,” Abe said.

  “When did Jason Tuten say he missed his pistol?”

  “He said he usually kept it in his pickup. He was fishing, saw a snake, went to his pickup to get his .22 and it was gone. He came right to the office and reported it stolen.”

  “Did he know Ruby? Or remember seeing her anytime before he missed his gun?”

  “Nope. Jason swore to me that he never met Ruby Spikes, never even heard of her until I mentioned her name.”

  Mama had a look on her face like she was trying to figure things out. She took a deep breath, then stood up. “This is all so confusing, Abe. Simone, let’s go. I want to stop by to check on Sarah before we go back to the house.”

  My heart sank. “Do we have to visit Sarah tonight?” I asked, not wanting to hear Sarah whine about not having enough money to pay her taxes or the evilness of her neighbor who was lurking about, waiting for her to lose her property.

  “Jeff Golick made it clear to us that he got the impression that Ruby didn’t have any friends, at least none close enough for her to confide in. But Sarah was Ruby’s godmother—Ruby might not have told Sarah everything, but I’m willing to bet there isn’t much that Sarah Jenkins, Carrie Smalls, and Annie Mae Gregory don’t know about Ruby Spikes.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  There is still a lot of daylight at seven on an August evening. As I opened my car door, I saw a white Volvo 940 parked directly across from Abe’s office. The windows on the automobile were darkly tinted, so I couldn’t see the driver. Still, I had the distinct feeling that my mother and I were being watched. I started to say something to Mama, then decided it wasn’t anything to call attention to; the feeling was so faint it was probably foolish to mention it.

  As I had expected, Sarah Jenkins’s comrades, Carrie Smalls and Annie Mae Gregory, were keeping vigil with her on her front porch. “Candi,” Sarah asked excitedly as Mama walked up the front steps, “have you found who killed poor Ruby?”

  It’s only because I know my mother well that I saw the shadow of caution cross her face. “Sarah,” she replied gently, “how are you feeling this evening?”

  “You haven’t found anything, have you?” Sarah asked without answering Mama’s question.

  Mama shook her head. “No.”

  “Simone, go in the house and fetch you and your mama a chair,” Carrie Smalls ordered, shaking her head as if she was not pleased with Sarah jumping right on Mama about Ruby before offering her a chair to sit in. “Might as well sit down and rest your feet.”

  I hurried inside, found two folding chairs in the kitchen, and brought them out to the porch.

  “Sarah,” Mama said once she was seated, “I’ve talked to a few people and—”

  Sarah cut in. “Ruby didn’t kill herself, Candi. I tell you, that girl didn’t shoot herself and you’ve got to prove it by August thirtieth. I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. Everybody is talking about me, saying that I was stupid to send my tax money to Canada—you’d think the people in Otis are the smartest people in the world! The only way I can stop their wagging tongues is to pay my taxes on time just like everybody else. And people been calling me trying to steal my land for nothing. It’s getting so I can’t answer my telephone. I told Carrie and Annie Mae that is the only way I can shut the mouths of the people in this town and stop them from talking about me and my business like I was some low-life—”

  Mama interrupted. “Tell me something about Ruby. Who were her people? Where did she come from?”

  Sarah took a breath. “Ruby was born in the country outside of Bartow. Her mother married one of my cousins. Cousin Sam was from my mother’s side, the poor folks in my family. He wasn’t much. Come to think of it now, during them times there wasn’t much to choose from.”

  “What was Ruby’s mother’s name?” Mama asked without showing any reaction to Sarah’s derogatory remarks about her own family.

  “Nina,” Sarah whined as if she felt that Mama was asking questions that didn’t have anything to do with Ruby’s death. “Nina and Sam had two children. Their older child died when he was ten. Had the whooping cough. Ruby was eight at the time. When she was sixteen, her mother died. The next year, Sam accidentally shot himself to death during a hunting trip. Ruby had quit school, was working in the sewing factory.”

  “You know what I heard this morning, Candi?” Annie Mae asked, as if she, too, was tired of hearing Sarah’s whining.

  “I declare, I couldn’t believe my ears,” Carrie added before Sarah could say anything.

  “That crazy Betty Jo Mets has moved right into Ruby’s house,” Annie Mae announced. “Betty Jo is sleeping in Ruby’s bed, wearing Ruby’s clothes. The girl ain’t hardly dead yet and Betty Jo is making herself at home with Ruby’s husband.”

  “I have to admit, it’s hard to believe,” Mama murmured. But her attention seemed to be elsewhere.

  “And Ruby had some nice things. She might have had her faults, but Ruby Spikes knew how to buy the best. It’s a pity that tramp will be using them now that she’s gone.”

  Mama looked up as if she had recollected herself and was once again interested in what the women had to say. “Do any of you know whether or not Ruby had a man friend that she had a habit of meeting at the Avondale Inn?”

  “Sure, we know that Ruby met a man from Bartow at that place in Avondale,” Sarah jumped back into the conversation with full force. “I could have told you that long ago. Both Herman and Ruby slept around. Ruby’s sugar daddy was named Leman Moody. He is a tall, good-looking fella who gambles as hard as he works. Now that I think of it, Leman could have killed Ruby. I know for a fact that he’d told Ruby that he was tired of her, that he didn’t want anything more to do with her. My pastor’s daughter told me that she saw Leman hitting on two other women a few days before Ruby died.”

  “Things were really going bad for Ruby,” I said, thinking about the attempted rape in her own bed, her feud with Inez Moore, her being dumped by her boyfriend, and her husband sleeping with the town’s slut.

  “Ruby had sense enough to work hard, but that’s about all,” Sarah replied. “Come to think of it, that girl she worked with, the one that jumped on her and beat her behind in the plant’s parking lot, she could have gone to the motel and killed Ruby!”

  “You know about the fight between Inez and Ruby?” Mama asked.

  “I should have told you about it sooner,” Sarah said. “Candi, I’ve been so upset about my tax money and the vultures that’s trying to take my property away from me that I ain’t been thinking right. I know there are things I should have told you before now but, well, you understand that I’ve had so much on my mind,”

  “I understand,” Mama said quietly.

  “Fact is, Candi, if I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on that Inez putting a gun to Ruby and trying to fix it so that it looked like Ruby killed herself.”

  I couldn’t help thinking that Sarah’s betting instinct hadn’t kept her from being swindled of her tax money. But I kept still.

  “Did Ruby have a relative named Charles Parker?” Mama asked.

&
nbsp; Sarah coughed feebly, like something was tickling her throat. “The only living relative Ruby had other than me was her mama’s sister, Laura. And she moved to Philadelphia years ago, before Ruby’s mama married Sam. The last thing I heard about Laura was that she was in an old folks’ home. If a Charles Parker was some kin to Ruby, I’d be the one to know it,” she whimpered, as if suddenly she felt a great attachment to the dead woman.

  Mama nodded. “I’m surprised that Ruby didn’t come to you when she was having so many problems.”

  “Ruby kept to herself like she didn’t want me to know her business. The truth is, I don’t reckon she came to see me more than two or three times since Nina died, but that didn’t stop me from hearing about what she was up to.”

  “How did it come about that you became Ruby’s godmother?” Mama asked Sarah.

  Sarah lifted her chin. “It was one of those things that just happened without warning. The Sunday morning Nina planned to have the baby christened, she came to my house in tears. The woman who had offered to be the child’s godmother decided not to do it. It was too late for Nina to find somebody else. She asked me to stand with her to be the child’s godmother, saying that she wouldn’t expect anything more from me. After both Nina and Sam died, I took out this little policy on the girl, figuring that if something happened to her, I’d end up having to be the one most likely to see to burying her. Fact is, Ruby got married and even though my obligation ended, I still kept the policy. Didn’t think much of it until after Ruby’s body was found.”

  “So you didn’t know about the man who slipped in through Ruby’s back window and tried to rape her?”

  “She didn’t tell me about that either,” Sarah said. “Like I said, Ruby kept to herself. But I heard talk about what happened. A woman on the other side of town told me she overheard Ruby talking on the phone at the plant. Whoever she was speaking to, Ruby told that person that if it wasn’t for the fact that Herman came driving up during the time she was wrestling with her attacker, she didn’t think she could have held out much longer.”

  Mama asked, “Sarah, do you have an address for Ruby’s aunt Laura?”

  Sarah thought for a moment. “If I do, I can’t remember where I put it.”

  “It’s the right thing to do to notify her that Ruby’s dead, don’t you think?” Mama asked gently.

  Annie Mae crossed her arms under her large bosom. “Candi, I’ve got a cousin in Philadelphia who keeps up with folks who move there from Otis. If you want me to, I’ll call her and ask her to look up Ruby’s aunt—let her know that her only niece done gone to her reward.”

  “I’d like the phone number and the address of Ruby’s aunt myself,” Mama said as if it were an afterthought. “I’d like to be the one to tell Laura about Ruby’s demise.”

  “Suit yourself,” Annie Mae said. “As soon as I can get an address and a telephone number, I’ll give it to you.”

  Mama stood.

  “Candi, if I remember anything else that will help you track down who went into the motel room in Avondale and killed Ruby, I’ll call you,” Sarah said. But I couldn’t tell if the tears in her eyes were for herself or for the dead woman.

  “I know you will,” Mama responded kindly before she eased off the front porch and headed for my car.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  We got home at a quarter to nine. I went to the backyard, where my father was playing with Midnight, and said hello, then I went into the kitchen, poured two glasses of iced tea for me and Mama, and waited for her to join me.

  Mama, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in something cold to drink on a hot August evening. Instead, she went straight to the phone and called Abe. She asked whether or not he knew Leman Moody.

  Abe told Mama that Leman Moody and a man nicknamed Fingers had gotten into a fight three months earlier over a gambling debt. Both had spent a day in the Otis County jail. Mama thanked Abe for the information and hung up.

  No sooner had Mama joined me at the table and picked up her glass of tea than the phone rang. I glanced at the kitchen clock. Nine o’clock. Mama picked up the phone, and less than three minutes later her conversation was over.

  “That was Leman Moody,” she told me. “He wants us to meet him in the parking lot of the Avondale Inn.”

  “Now?”

  Mama nodded, then walked out back to tell my father of our plans. I’d just taken my first sip of iced tea when she was back in the kitchen, picking up her purse, and motioning me toward the door.

  In the brightness of sunlight, the drive from Otis to Avondale is beautiful. Pine trees line both sides of the highway. At nine-fifteen on a night when the moon is new, however, the darkness drapes the fifteen-mile stretch in a blackness that’s only occasionally pierced by the glowing eyes of raccoons, possums, or deer. The highway is virtually empty at night, seldom used by the locals since the advent of the interstate. As I drove, I felt a growing apprehension. “What does this Leman Moody want with us at this hour of the night?” I asked Mama.

  “I sent him the message that I wanted to talk to him, remember? I’m sure Inez Moore got in touch with him as soon as we left her house.”

  “Why couldn’t he come to Otis?”

  “I didn’t ask,” Mama said, her tone short the way it gets when she doesn’t want to do a lot of talking.

  “Suppose this Leman Moody killed Ruby. Suppose he’ll try to kill us.”

  “Simone, you’re exaggerating again,” Mama murmured.

  “Okay, I’m putting it on, but I don’t like this. Something tells me we shouldn’t be going to Avondale tonight.”

  “Tell that something that we have to find out whether Ruby committed suicide or not.”

  “Mama, that’s not funny. You’re always talking about instincts—your instinct tells you this or that. Well, right now my instinct tells me that we shouldn’t be going to Avondale tonight!”

  Mama’s head turned toward me, and although I couldn’t see the expression on her face, I sensed my concern had gotten her attention.

  “We’ll be careful,” she reassured me.

  As we pulled up in the Avondale Inn’s parking lot, a sleek black Mercedes pulled out. Six or seven cars in the lot made me think that there were more people staying in the Inn than the night Ruby died.

  We sat quietly, looking out the car window. “What now?” I asked my mother after we’d been waiting over five minutes.

  “Leman told me he’d be here,” Mama replied. “We’ll wait a little longer.”

  It was then that a white Volvo circled, then parked directly in front of us. The lights were switched off, the driver’s door opened. A tall, lean man approached us, his face in shadow. I felt my heart start to beat a little faster.

  “What this I hear about you putting the word out that somebody killed Ruby instead of her killing herself?” the man asked without greeting us.

  “Can we go someplace and talk, Mr. Moody?” Mama suggested. “Maybe across the street at the McDonald’s?”

  Leman Moody hesitated. “Okay,” he finally said, not bothering to hide his reluctance.

  McDonald’s had few patrons, although the drive-thru seemed busy. We sat in the back of the restaurant. Even though Leman Moody wore dark glasses, I could feel his unblinking stare. “I’m asking again, what this I hear that somebody killed Ruby?” he insisted in his gravelly voice.

  If Leman’s tone worried Mama, her face didn’t show it. “Did you see Ruby the night she died?”

  Leman took a deep breath and let it out, then he glanced toward the front of the room. I followed his glance but saw nothing. “No,” he answered to the empty space, as if someone were there, listening.

  Mama gave him a curious look. “What about Ruby’s money?”

  Leman’s head turned; he faced Mama again. “What little bit of money Ruby loaned me isn’t worth talking about. Besides, I planned to pay her back. No matter what had happened between us, I had all intention of paying her every cent, and she knew that!
”

  “I understand that Ruby had a large sum of money a few weeks before she died. And that money seems to be missing.”

  “What Ruby had was her business. What she loaned me was our business, and she didn’t loan me no large sum of money and don’t you go telling nobody anything differently. I ain’t looking for trouble but I ain’t scared of causing trouble when it’s due. Don’t you be going around throwing my name in the pot with Ruby. What went on between us was mutual. Ruby understood where I stood from the first day I took up with her.”

  “I heard that you broke up with Ruby just before she died. Is that true?”

  “So what if I did? Listen, if you want to point a finger at somebody, talk to the people at that factory. I wasn’t the only person who didn’t want anything else to do with her after she helped set up Inez and her old man. And there is that husband of hers. Talk is that she was about to dump him ’cause he wasn’t treating her right. That woman was off her rocker, taking pills to sleep and pills to wake up. Maybe she forgot what pills she’d taken and overdosed herself.”

  “But Ruby didn’t overdose on medication,” Mama reminded him. “She was shot.”

  “I don’t know anything about that!”

  Once again, very quietly, Mama asked Leman, “Are you sure that you didn’t see Ruby the night she died?”

  “I don’t know what makes you think that I’ve got to tell you anything.” Leman hesitated. “But the last time I saw Ruby was when she knocked off work at four o’clock that day. We had a big shipment to get out, so I worked another four hours. When I got home that night I was bone-tired. Soon as I took my bath I went straight to my bed.”

  Mama leaned forward. “I was told that you were in Avondale around midnight the night Ruby died.”

  “Who told you that?” Leman asked. There was a trace of uneasiness in his eyes.