Mama Stalks the Past Read online

  “Grace, aka Mama Covington, the Miss Marple of

  this mystery, is a case manager for

  Social Services, a fabulous cook,

  and a canny sleuth.”

  —Booknews from the Poisoned Pen

  DIRE NEWS

  The answering machine picked up. My father’s frightened voice filled the room.

  “Simone, for God’s sake, if you’re there, pick up the phone!”

  I ignored Cliff’s scowl and snatched up the receiver. “Calm down, Daddy. What’s the matter?” As I listened, my stomach began hurting, a pain that moved from the top to the bottom like somebody had a knife in my gut. “Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can,” I said, then gently put the phone back onto its receiver. My hands were icy cold and trembling.

  Cliff gave me a direct look, his brown eyes soft, gentle. “What’s wrong? Simone, what’s happened?”

  “Mama has been poisoned,” I whispered, unable to believe my words.

  Cliff’s eyebrow arched, his mouth opened.

  “She’s in Otis General Hospital fighting for her life.”

  “A woman’s voice—specifically Mama’s—is clearly

  heard and answered in the mystery novels

  of Nora DeLoach.”

  —American Visions Magazine

  This edition contains the complete text

  of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  MAMA STALKS THE PAST

  A Bantam Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam hardcover edition/December 1997

  Bantam mass market edition/October 1998

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1997 by Nora DeLoach.

  Map by Laura Maestro.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-10117.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording, or by any information

  storage and retrieval system, without permission

  in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79493-2

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  In Dedication:

  To my wonderful family, who lovingly support me!

  Thanks to my editor Kate Miciak, the master of all editors, whose help was invaluable. I could never have presented Mama as the sophisticated lady she is without Kate. Thanks to Amanda Clay Powers, Kate’s Editorial Assistant, whose charm and assistance made it an easier task, and special thanks to my agent Denise Stinson, who aided in Mama’s debut.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  I was pissed.

  The temperature was thirty-eight, the wind-chill eighteen; gusts snatched my breath from my throat. With my gloved right hand I pumped gas; my left I tucked inside my coat to warm my tingling fingers.

  Five minutes later I was crossing Wesley Chapel, my eyes following a plane that kissed the only thing on the November horizon, a thin cloud that looked like it had been sketched across the sky. A blast of frigid air through my Honda’s window told me that I’d crossed the Interstate and pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through. I took a deep breath before ordering black coffee.

  A few minutes later, I was making a sharp right onto Interstate 20. I slipped in an Anita Baker CD, got caught up in her mood, and watched gold, brown, and rust leaves dance across the highway.

  Let me introduce myself—My name is Simone Covington. I live in Atlanta and work as a paralegal. My boss, Sidney Jacoby, is a defense lawyer who dresses impeccably and whose entire domain is in absolute order except for one thing: Dandruff falls from his hair like soft new snow. Everybody who knows him feels obliged to flick the stuff from his very expensive jackets.

  My reason for not being tucked under my new downy comforter this gray November day was that I was driving to Otis, South Carolina, to visit my parents. For two months I had been working sixteen-hour days on the legal defense of a young man Sidney was representing, the son of an Atlanta minister. Sidney had finally pulled together a case that he felt good about, so I asked him for three extra days to be added to my weekend.

  He’d agreed. So I called Cliff, the guy I’ve been dating for the past few years. Cliff is a divorce lawyer who is working hard to become a partner in his firm. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, but he always ends up with the client who wants her lawyer to fly all over the United States whenever she suspects she’s getting the short end of the detachment stick.

  Anyway, when I told Cliff about my extra long weekend, he was elated. He, like me, was beginning to think that we might be losing what we had. Five days alone together was exactly what we needed.

  Less than an hour later, however, things had soured. Cliff was flying to New York. His client, Mrs. Zwig, insisted that he come; she wanted to renegotiate a clause because she’d learned that Mr. Zwig’s live-in secretary was pregnant: Mrs. Zwig was determined to use the baby as leverage.

  Tired, disappointed, and as I said earlier, pissed, I was in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with my five days off when Mama called.

  My Mama, whose name is Grace but who is called Candi by everyone because of a golden-brown complexion the color of candied sweet potato, promptly said, “Come home!”

  “For what?”

  “Rest,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “I’d planned to do something more exciting with my time, thank you,” I replied.

  Mama’s laugh had a mock to it. “Without Cliff, the most exciting thing you can do, Simone, is to rest!”

  I took another deep breath. “Don’t rub it in,” I muttered, thinking of the things I’d planned for me and Cliff to do.

  Mama’s tone moderated as if she understood my frustration. “Really, Simone, your father and I haven’t seen you in over two months.”

  She was right. My work with Sidney had not only cut into the time I would have spent with Cliff but my trips to visit my parents as well. “And you’re dying to see me this weekend, right?” I said, still not willing to view visiting Mama and Daddy as a substitute for being with Cliff.

  “James did say that he’d like to see you, yes.”

  Mama’s voice was nondefensive. I had to concede that the only other thing I could think of to do with my five glorious days of freedom was to go to Lenox Mall. Sidney pays me a very good salary but whenever I’m depressed or harried, I spend money like the government, more than I earn. What served as a deterrent to me now was the slip from NationsBank on my desk. It was a twenty-six-dollar overdraft charge, which meant that e
ven though I’d had trouble seeing Cliff and my parents during the past two months, I hadn’t failed to find the time to spend a lot of money. Mama was right, it would be wiser for me to come home to Otis than to go to Lenox Mall—at least not until my next payday.

  When I arrived in Otis and walked into Mama’s kitchen, I knew instantly that I’d made the right decision. Mama had done her thing.… The enticing scent of sweet potatoes, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs, vanilla, and sugar blended enticingly with the hard, cold afternoon air. I would be easing a blade through a newly-baked pie in less than thirty minutes.

  No sooner than I’d hugged Mama and taken off my coat, there were short anxious rings on the doorbell. Mama, who was filling the coffeepot with filtered water, looked at me. I could tell from her expression she knew I wasn’t in the mood for company. The next ring was a long sharp siren. Some moron was leaning on the bell. I bolted into the foyer and snatched open the door. Nat Mixon and a woman stormed past me and headed into Mama’s kitchen. When I caught up with them, Nat was squared off in front of Mama, his raisin-colored finger pointing in her astonished face. “You’re a wicked woman, Miss Candi! A wicked woman who took advantage of my Mama!”

  Nat stood six feet tall with broad shoulders. His wide nose was pierced; a tiny ruby sat on his nostril like a semiprecious booger. His short hair sprouted like uncut grass. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a tan sweater jacket that had holes in each elbow. He had a thin scar, the result of a fight in which he took a nasty cut from a switchblade; it ran from his left cheek to the base of his neck. His smell was a mixture of old sweat and cheap cologne.

  The woman with him wore what looked like a dark brown wool dashiki over a pair of slacks. Her hair was finger-sized shoulder-length cornrow braids. She stood behind Nat rubbing her arm, her eyes glued to Mama’s face.

  Mama lost her look of surprise. “Don’t you talk to me like that, Nat Mixon,” she snapped. “And take your dirty finger out of my face!”

  Nat’s hands waved. He breathed heavily and a muscle twitched beneath the scar on his cheek. “Sugarcoated words ain’t for the likes of you, Miss Candi! You ain’t no good. And I’m gonna tell the whole town what kind of woman you really are!”

  “Nat Mixon,” Mama retorted, “I know you’re troubled, your mother dying and all, but there’s no call for you to spread lies about me!”

  Nat glared. “You ain’t gonna get away with what you’ve done!”

  Mama looked as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, especially in the sanctuary of her own kitchen. “Boy, what are you talking about?”

  “You’re nothing but a good-for-nothing thief!”

  I feared Mama was going to burst. “Get out of my house!” she hollered.

  Tears welled up in Nat’s marble eyes. His fist clenched. This time when he spoke, his voice trembled. “You’re gonna pay, Miss Candi, sure as you were born to die, you’re gonna pay for taking what my Mama had!” A curtain was being dragged from the window of Nat’s eyes, giving a glimpse into the depths of his bitter disappointment. Nat had been his mother’s only child; his father had been killed. Hannah Mixon had raised her son to be self-indulgent. Now, thirty and unmarried, he was irresponsible and known for stumbling in and out of fights, most of which he lost, and now he was losing his fight with Mama.

  Mama’s voice tempered. “I never spoke a word to your mother!” she told Nat, more gently.

  Veins throbbed at Nat’s temples. His nostrils flared. There was a crazed look on his face, one that made me decide I’d better do something fast. I took a gulp of air and cleared my throat. “Nat,” I said, pulling out a can of roach spray from the kitchen cabinet, “you’d better get out of here!” I positioned the can toward his eyes. If he tried to hit Mama, I’d spray them … a trick I’d learned in a rape defense class in Atlanta.

  Nat’s finger was shaking in Mama’s face again. If he feared the roach spray, nothing in his threat revealed it. “My Mama wasn’t smart enough to make a will without somebody like you showing her how to do it! You’re gonna be sorry for what you did!”

  My finger rested on the spray button. If he came one step closer …

  But Mama was unafraid, unshaken. “Get out of my house this minute, Nat Mixon!” she said.

  “You talked Mama into giving you everything—”

  Mama’s eyes blazed. “You’re accusing me of something that I don’t know anything about!”

  “Give me back what’s mine!”

  At that moment, Daddy walked into the room and I began breathing lighter. “What’s going on in here?” he asked, looking at Nat. “You’re talking so loud they can hear you clear across town!”

  Veins were popping through Nat’s neck like ridges. “You ain’t right, Miss Candi!” he declared hotly.

  “Soon as I can make some sense of what Hannah’s done, I’ll give back whatever you think belongs to you!” Mama shot back.

  “You’ve got everybody in this town fooled, thinking you’re so much!”

  Daddy, who had swiftly assessed the situation, now planted himself firmly between Nat and Mama. Mama glanced at Daddy but kept talking to Nat. “I don’t want anything that Hannah left!”

  “I’m gonna kill you!” Nat yelled.

  That was too much for my father. He moved closer to Nat and his hands balled into fists. “Don’t you threaten Candi!” he roared at Nat.

  Mama looked puzzled now. I think she couldn’t believe what was happening. My hand tightened on the roach spray.

  Nat took one step backward. His eyes sent a terrible message: I knew he could shoot Mama and watch her kick without feeling any remorse. “All I’ve got to say is that you’d better sleep with one eye open!” he snarled.

  Daddy’s body tensed to take a swing at Nat. I swallowed the lump in my throat. We were seconds from Daddy and Nat throwing down in a fistfight and we all knew it. Fortunately, Nat seemed bewildered by this sudden turn of events. I suspected something in his past experience warned him against hooking up with my father. Anyway, he took a loud ragged breath, then turned to face the woman who’d come in with him. She seemed to understand and shook her head. Without another word or threat, Nat turned and followed her into the foyer and out the front door.

  After they’d gone, Mama sighed. “Nat’s been drinking since Hannah died,” she told Daddy and me.

  I put the roach spray back into the cabinet, examined my hands to make sure that none of the poison had gotten on them. Not satisfied, I went to the sink to wash them. Wiping my hands dry, I glanced out the window. Afternoon shadows had begun to settle. I studied the house next door, a house that for the past five years had been occupied by the recently deceased Hannah Mixon and her son Nat. Lights burned in the living room; every other room was dark.

  “He smelled like a distillery,” I said, wondering about Nat’s female companion. What part did she play in his outburst?

  Daddy, who had followed Nat and the woman to the front door and set the security alarm, scowled. “If he keeps plucking my nerves, I’ll beat that boy’s behind until it’s sober!”

  I turned from the window. “Mama, you’d better tell the sheriff about Nat’s threat. Just in case he tries something.”

  “Candi doesn’t need Abe,” Daddy snapped. “Nat ain’t crazy enough to try to hurt her!”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Nat Mixon and I weren’t friends, but I’d had several chats with him on previous visits home. He was impulsive, especially when he was drinking—I didn’t trust him or his judgment in the least. “What will was he talking about?” I asked.

  Mama answered me. “I got a phone call from the lawyer Calvin Stokes this afternoon. Stokes told me that Hannah made a will and—”

  “I didn’t know that Miss Hannah was smart enough to make a will,” I interrupted.

  Mama shook her head at my comment. “Other than Nat, I am the only person Hannah named in her will!”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “Nat thinks you talked his mother into leaving you everythi
ng she owned?”

  Mama looked annoyed and her tone cut my laugh short. “The whole thing is stupid—I mean, I didn’t even know Hannah Mixon. Why would she put me in her will?”

  “The way Nat’s carrying on, maybe she left you something valuable,” I said.

  Mama wasn’t impressed. “Why would Hannah Mixon leave me anything at all?” she argued, then walked over to the oven and pulled out a pair of sweet potato pies.

  Daddy walked out of the room, I suspected to the hall bathroom.

  The aroma of Bavarian chocolate coffee quickly mingled with the mouth-watering smell of the pies. After she put them on the counter to cool, Mama poured herself a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “Hannah lived like a hermit! I never once was invited into her home.”

  I joined Mama at the coffeepot. “I can’t believe you, the Good Samaritan of Otis, never visited your next-door neighbor.”

  “Once I tried to take her a bowl of my homemade soup. That woman looked out of her window right into my face and didn’t answer her door!”

  I decided not to wait for the pies to cool. I love hot sweet potato pie. “You’re exaggerating!”

  “I am not!”

  I opened my hands in submission. Mama clearly wasn’t in the mood for playful disagreement. “Then the good Miss Hannah was touched in the head. Nobody sane refuses your soup, Mama.”

  “I tried to be friendly,” Mama insisted. “I really did!”

  “You might have misunderstood—”

  “SIMONE,” Mama said hotly, “HANNAH MIXON HATED ME!”

  Daddy walked back into the kitchen and I cut a generous piece of the pie for each of us. He set a cup of coffee down on the table and pulled out a chair. “Candi, I wouldn’t take that too personal if I was you. Talk is that there weren’t many people Hannah liked. And fewer that liked her!”

  Mama shook her head, troubled. “I hope Calvin Stokes can shed light on what Hannah had on her mind. I couldn’t stand the thought of people thinking I’d taken advantage of an old woman!”