Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows

by Nora Deloach

  “Ruby had so many secrets,” Mama murmured.

  “Parker is coming to my office tomorrow morning around ten,” Abe said. His blue eyes blazed with the excitement of finding Charles Parker. “He promised to bring information that will prove his relationship with Ruby was strictly a business one. Still, I ain’t taking no chances. I called my buddy, Savannah’s chief of police, Adams. He’s doing a rundown on Parker for me. He’s also having one of his men keep an eye on him for me. If Parker doesn’t show up tomorrow morning at ten o’clock here in Otis like he promised, Adams will have him picked up for questioning.”

  “I’d like to meet Charles Parker,” Mama said.

  The smell of honey-baked ham told me that Mama had already gotten Sunday dinner well on its way when, at eight-thirty the next morning, I shuffled out of my bedroom into the kitchen.

  “Breakfast is light,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. Then she motioned me toward toast, bacon, juice, and peaches. “I’ll poach you an egg whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready,” I said, pouring a cup of hazelnut coffee. A few minutes later my father and Cliff joined us.

  Mama served the poached eggs, then looked around her kitchen. Satisfied that everything was in order, she finally joined us at the table.

  “Would you believe,” I said, my fork in the air, “that this Parker is a real estate broker? Ruby must have been buying property. She couldn’t be selling it: she didn’t own any.”

  “Simone and I are going to be at Abe’s office when he talks to this Charles Parker,” Mama told my father. “But I’ll finish preparing dinner before we leave.”

  “Miss Candi, may I ask what’s for supper?” Cliff asked, his glance lingering on the pots on Mama’s stove.

  “I’ve baked a ham.”

  “I smell it,” he said.

  “I’ve made okra and tomatoes and field peas and rice. I’ve got potatoes boiling to make salad, and”—Mama pointed to a counter on the other side of her stove—“I’ve got a pan of bread rising for homemade yeast rolls.”

  “You kneaded bread this morning?” I asked, wondering what time she had gotten out of bed to have all that cooking done.

  “No, Simone. I keep dough in the freezer. It’s easy to pull it out. It will have risen nicely by the time we get back home from Abe’s office.”

  Cliff’s eyes danced excitedly. “I’ll watch that bread every second that you’re gone,” he teased. But it was a statement that I suspected had more truth in it than jest.

  Charles Parker was tall, thin. He had a yellow complexion, the color of summer squash. His salt-and-pepper hair was tastefully trimmed. His hands were slender, his fingers manicured. He wore a tailored pin-striped navy blue suit, a perfectly ironed white shirt, and a bright red tie. A gold-plated tie pin shone on it. His shoes gleamed. He smiled graciously. He reminded me of an undertaker.

  Abe introduced us, then told Parker that we were close friends of Ruby’s. For a second, Parker looked doubtful, but then the lines in his face smoothed. He accepted Abe’s offer of a seat. “Ruby first called me about three months ago,” he told us. “She’d seen a piece of property I’d advertised in the Savannah Sunday paper. We made arrangements. She came to my office.” He opened a manila envelope and pulled out a signed contract. I had a momentary vision of Ruby Spikes contemplating the purchase of a house without her husband’s knowledge, and wondered just how angry that might have made Herman Spikes.

  “Ruby was a good businesswoman,” Mama commented.

  Charles Parker’s manner, which up to now had been detached and coolly professional, softened. “I admired her financial sense,” he agreed. “I, of course, guided her. She paid thirty-four thousand dollars toward the purchase of a house. Because of the need of repairs, she struck a good bargain.

  “The property was on a one-acre tract in Bartow,” Parker continued, showing us a color photograph of a small brick house. “The old woman that owned this house died about six months ago. Her children live up north. They wanted to sell the place quickly, so even though they wanted seventy-five thousand for it, when Ruby offered sixty thousand, they accepted.”

  Abe was still looking through the papers Parker had handed to him. “Why this check for five thousand dollars?” he asked.

  “Ruby asked me to see to the repairs,” Parker replied. “That’s not usually a part of my duties, but she insisted she had no other resource. The check she gave me paid for new plumbing and wiring.”

  Abe seemed satisfied that Charles Parker’s story was legitimate. “Do you have an idea who might have wanted to kill Ruby?” he asked.

  Charles Parker looked Abe in the eyes without blinking. “I do not,” he said. “My only dealings with Ruby Spikes were pure business.”

  “Ruby Spikes’s death is an official murder investigation,” Abe told Parker.

  Charles Parker’s face clouded briefly. “I understand,” was his soft reply. I could see that he was shaken by Abe’s news.

  “I’ll be getting back with you,” Abe continued.

  “I’ll make myself available,” Parker answered as he stood to leave. “Those papers,” he continued, “are copies. They’re yours to keep. I have the originals in safekeeping.”

  Charles Parker turned to Mama, looked down at her with genuine interest, and then bowed stiffly. “I’m sorry about Ruby Spikes’s untimely death,” he said stoically as if he was giving Mama his condolences. Then his voice changed. I swear it even sounded a bit sad. “It was a nice little house. Ruby seemed truly happy with her purchase.”

  Mama didn’t say anything but I could tell from the way she looked at Charles Parker that she believed his assessment.

  “Well, Candi,” Abe said once Charles Parker was out of his office, “what do you think about all this?”

  “I suppose you know for sure that Parker is telling the truth about buying the house? And that the five thousand dollars was for repairs, not for some kind of blackmail payments?”

  “I got a call this morning from Chief Adams, in Savannah. He assured me that Parker’s establishment is legitimate, all right.”

  Mama allowed a long silence. “Let’s go,” she murmured to me, her eyes once again betraying frustration.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Thirty minutes after we left the sheriff’s office, we pulled off onto a dirt road that wove through a pecan orchard. We drove until the main road was out of sight, leaving clouds of dust. Finally we arrived at a cinder-block house with a rusted tin roof. Chickens pecked in the dirt of the front yard. I beeped the horn. Herman Spikes came through his front door.

  Now, I’d heard so much about Herman Spikes that I was almost bowled over when I finally saw the man. While he was about as tall as me, his body was irregularly proportioned, with short arms, a very long torso, and a neck the size of a tree stump. He had a scraggly beard that needed to be trimmed. He wore glasses—thick lenses with a heavy plastic frame. His hair was uncombed and badly in need of a cut. He had on a pair of khaki pants and a yellow shirt that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in weeks. And he was drunk. When he stumbled down the wooden steps of his front porch toward us, I thought he was going to fall flat on his face, but he somehow recovered his balance and came to a stop in front of my car.

  “Miss Candi,” he said, extending a hand to Mama as she climbed out of the car. His voice came out as a deep rasp.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Mama said courteously, taking his outstretched hand and shaking it.

  Herman invited us into his house. It was hot inside; the window air conditioner wasn’t turned on. Although the room was smartly furnished in peach and burgundy, it was clear that it hadn’t been cleaned for weeks. Everything smelled of whiskey, cigarettes, and sour musk. If Betty Jo had enjoyed Ruby Spikes’s house, she’d done little in her housekeeping to prove it.

  “I couldn’t help but wonder,” Mama began, once we’d been seated, “whether or not you suspected that Betty Jo wasn’t feeling we
ll that night, before you went to bed.”

  Herman rocked back on his heels. “You’re asking me questions, huh?” he said. I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. “If there weren’t so many spiteful people in this town talking things they don’t know nothing about,” he slurred, his big hands trembling. He paused as if he was trying to remember what Mama had asked him. “Betty Jo was healthy as a horse—never complained of anything.” Then, as if he’d just decided that he should do something more, he urged, “Go in there and see where she slept!”

  I wasn’t surprised when Mama accepted his invitation and walked into his bedroom. Herman stumbled behind me as I followed her.

  The room was beautifully decorated. A full-length mirror stood in one corner. There was a writing desk with a cushioned chair. The four-poster bed that I assumed Betty Jo had died in was king sized, with a dark mahogany headboard. All the bedding had been stripped from the mattress.

  Herman leaned against the bedpost, looking bewildered. “Miss Candi, I don’t know. When I found her, she looked like she was dreaming.”

  The closet door was open. From where I was standing, I could see dresses, blouses, and jackets. Thrown haphazardly on the floor in a heap were shoes. There was a garment bag. I wondered whether or not Betty Jo had had a chance to try on everything in Ruby’s closet.

  “I slept good myself,” Herman continued. “But I told Abe that Betty Jo was having trouble getting to sleep, that she took something, that whatever she took helped her ’cause when I got up to go to the bathroom I heard Betty Jo snoring. I remember that, all right.”

  “I suppose Abe told you that he’d finally gotten the autopsy on Ruby.”

  Herman’s eyes blinked rapidly. “I told Abe and I’m telling you. I don’t know nothing about Ruby dying! I was locked up in the Otis Motel with Betty Jo that whole night!”

  “I know,” Mama said, stepping into the adjoining bathroom. I stayed close behind her. Towels, washcloths, and clothes were tossed all over the floor.

  Suddenly Herman’s eyes flickered toward the clothes on the bathroom floor. His expression changed, like he was ashamed of the mess we were looking at. He stepped in front of Mama and motioned us back toward the living room. I was surprised at how calm and deliberate he now seemed, as if he was sober. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” he said apologetically. “A bedroom ain’t no place to entertain women who came to pay their last respects to the dead!”

  Mama studied him for a moment in silence, then she turned and headed out of the room. “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed.

  We said good-bye to Herman Spikes, who didn’t bother to hide his relief at seeing us go.

  “Why are we going to Susy Mets’s house?” I asked Mama as I drove back toward Otis, following Mama’s directions.

  “Susy is Betty Jo’s next of kin. She’ll be the one to handle the funeral arrangements. And I’ve got a special fondness for Susy. She was one of my first clients when I started working as a case manager. When we talked, I learned that she had the ambition of becoming a medical assistant in a doctor’s office. So I set up classes for her through Otis Technical and I got her an apprenticeship with Dr. Huggins. Susy finished school and became one of the nurses Dr. Huggins uses at his office. She also volunteers to help at the health department on Wednesday evenings when working mothers take their children in for their immunization shots.”

  “She sounds like an okay lady.”

  “Believe me, she’s nothing like her cousin Betty Jo.”

  “How many children does she have?”

  “Two,” Mama told me. “Twin girls, Joy and Jane. They’re in the fourth grade now and they’re doing very well in school.”

  “You sound like you keep up with the family.”

  “Susy has so much going for her, and her girls show all signs of having ambition like their mother.” Mama sounded proud.

  “Mama, I know you’re going to pay your respects to Susy because of Betty Jo’s death, but I also know that you want to get information from her. What do you want?”

  “As closely as I’ve worked with Betty Jo as her case manager, she just never impressed me as the kind of woman who needed anything to help her sleep,” Mama said thoughtfully.

  Susy Mets’s front yard sported four pine trees, two crape myrtles, and four smaller shrubs.

  Susy herself was a tiny woman with a warm manner I liked instantly. She greeted us cheerfully when we walked up onto her porch. “I’m so glad to see you, Miss Candi,” she said, motioning us to come inside her home. The house was very cold. I could hear the air conditioner churning away in the dimness. Susy fumbled with the light, finally turning on a fringed lamp. I sat in an overstuffed armchair. Susy sat on a matching couch and Mama sat next to Susy.

  “I’m sorry about Betty Jo,” Mama told Susy.

  “I never thought she’d die in her sleep,” Susy told us, shaking her head. “I mean, the way she lived, I just never expected her to go to bed and not wake up.”

  “Will you have a problem with Betty Jo’s burial?” Mama asked Susy. “There are some county funds available.”

  There were tears in Susy’s eyes. “I kept a small policy on Betty Jo, the same as I’ve got on me and my girls.

  “I wish Betty Jo wouldn’t have been the kind of woman that she was,” Susy went on. “I tried hard to talk her into making something of her life, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Betty Jo wasn’t a bad person. She did good things for people, was always feeding stray cats and dogs. She even kept the churchyard clean, made sure there wasn’t any paper or trash left after service. And she helped the old ladies at the Community Center sew patches for their quilts. Ask any of them—they’ll tell you that Betty Jo did whatever was needed. She just had a weakness, one that, at times, made her forget that her boys needed her.”

  Mama reached out and gently patted Susy’s hands. “I know that Betty Jo didn’t want to hurt anybody. Unfortunately, the only persons she really did harm to was those boys, Curtis and Mack.”

  Susy looked up at Mama, a tear spilling down her cheek. “I wish I could have kept the boys. Fact is, it takes all I can do to take care of my girls.”

  “And you do a good job at it, too,” Mama reassured her. “Susy, I need to ask you something about Betty Jo.”

  “What do you want to know, Miss Candi?”

  “Did she ever speak to you about Herman?”

  “No, I don’t recollect her saying anything about Herman, but then you know he’d only been messing with Betty Jo a few weeks.”

  “Do you remember exactly when Herman started taking up time with Betty Jo?” Mama asked.

  “Let me think.… It was about a week before Ruby was killed.”

  Mama looked surprised.

  “There is one thing that Betty Jo told me,” Susy said as if it was an afterthought. “Betty Jo was scared of the dark. She tried to tell me something about dreaming that she woke up in the motel room upset because Herman had turned out all the lights. Before she finished telling me her dream, Herman came and stood next to her. After our conversation, Herman wouldn’t let Betty Jo out of his sight.” She shook her head again. “That’s around when she moved into his place. I don’t know how long that was going to work, though. My cousin wasn’t for sticking too close to any one man for very long.”

  Mama took a deep breath. “It will be a week before the medical examiner will release Betty Jo’s body so that you can have a funeral. Once that happens, if you need help in making funeral arrangements, I’ll be glad to be there for you.”

  Susy’s face lit up when she smiled. “Miss Candi, you’ve already done so much for me. I really can’t imagine how I could ever repay you for all of your kindnesses. You taught me so much. What you said about setting goals has helped me to turn my life completely around. I’ve got so many things I want to do, so many things I want for me and my girls.”

  Mama looked into Susy’s eyes. Her fondness for this young woman was clear. “Your attainment of all those goals is
all the thanks I will ever need,” she told Susy.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Sunday before noon the telephone rang. Mama answered it. When she returned to the table she told us that Sarah Jenkins had called to tell her that she just remembered something that might help find the person who killed Ruby.

  “I suppose Sarah’s memory is working up to speed now that Ruby’s death has been ruled a homicide rather than a suicide,” I said.

  Mama nodded. “Yes, it means that she can collect on that insurance policy she’s been paying on for years.”

  “More importantly,” I sniggered, “the respectable Miss Jenkins will be able to pay her taxes on time, which will stop the townspeople from talking about how silly she was to send her tax money off to Canada on a scam.”

  Mama smiled and nodded. “In a small town like Otis, people talking about you can slap you in the face every day. It’s a shame that talk can have such a sting, but in Otis it’s more like a sore that keeps getting irritated until it festers.”

  “Sarah can give it but she can’t take it,” Daddy said.

  “Isn’t that the way it always works,” Mama responded.

  “Payback is hell!” I said.

  “Sarah Jenkins has got a lot more payback coming to her than what she’s just gone through,” Daddy said. “That woman, along with her two comrades, has dragged more people’s names in the mud than anybody in this town.”

  “Sarah, Carrie, and Annie Mae got their reputation,” Mama agreed. “Still—”

  “Mama likes to keep them as her source,” I cut in.

  “Simone, James and I have been away from this town for thirty years. There is a lot of history that I just don’t know.”

  “Well, teaming up with the good Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls was the right thing for you to do,” I said. “They know more about the history of this town than the CIA.”