Mama Stalks the Past Read online

  I sat at the table next to Daddy, took a bite of my pie, and sipped from my coffee. The rich taste slid over my tongue. “Just get Calvin to give Nat whatever his mother left to you,” I told Mama.

  Her head tilted. “That can’t be much. That old house, a few pieces of furniture!”

  Daddy scowled like he was remembering his encounter with Nat. “Whatever it is Hannah left you, Candi, sign it right over to that fool Nat before I have to jack him up!”

  Mama folded her arms across her breasts. “Calvin wants to see us first thing Monday morning, James. You can be sure that I’ll give Nat back whatever Hannah left me. And that will be the end of all this nonsense from him!”

  Daddy’s scowl deepened.

  “You look like you just sucked a lemon,” I told him.

  He fiddled with the handle of his coffee mug. “I was just wondering who that woman with Nat was.”

  “I was going to ask you or Mama the same thing.”

  “Candi?” Daddy asked, looking toward Mama.

  Mama shook her head. “My guess is she’s some kin to Nat.”

  Daddy shrugged. “Hannah was a strange bird. Talk is that Abe ordered an autopsy on her body.”

  Mama’s eyebrow rose. Abe Stanley was the Otis County sheriff. “You think Abe suspects something suspicious about Hannah’s death?” she asked. Her tone reminded me of the relationship she had developed with the sheriff shortly after she and my father had settled in town.

  The day was hot, she had said, the heat desert-like. Patches of gnats darted along the highway. Mama had just driven onto the Coos-whatchie River bridge, where trees hang on both sides and form a thick green cascade. She was noticing how the sunlight streamed through their branches, casting dancing shadows, when she heard a bang followed by the sound of flapping—her front tire had blown. She pulled her car to the shoulder just as Sheriff Abe and his deputy, Rick Martin, drove by. They stopped and the sheriff made Rick change Mama’s tire. Grateful, Mama baked them a sweet potato pie that afternoon and delivered it to the sheriff’s office. They loved it. Mama baked another. Soon her pies and their delivery became a weekly ritual. During her visits, the sheriff happened to mention a couple of unsolved petty crimes. After a few suggestions from Mama, the good sheriff figured out who was behind them. Sheriff Abe learned to respect Mama’s opinion, which she has always called her sleuthing intuition. Now, whenever something comes up that the sheriff can’t figure out, he asks Mama’s opinion. She loves it.

  If Daddy was remembering Mama’s little hobby of crime solving, he didn’t show it. Instead, he rolled his shoulders like they were stiff, maybe aching. “You can’t believe everything you hear at Joe’s barbershop,” he said, as if an afterthought. “Hannah probably died of a heart attack like Dr. Clark said she did.”

  The phone rang. Mama crossed the room and answered it. Daddy put the last bite of pie in his mouth and stood to put on his jacket. Mama held up her hand, gesturing to him not to leave. After a moment, she hung the phone on its receiver, then wiped her forehead.

  I pushed my empty coffee cup away.

  Mama’s eyes were wide, clear, the blacks and whites pure, separate. My heart skipped. I knew that look—Mama’s sleuthing intuition had been stirred. “That was Abe,” she told us, her voice low. “He just got the results of Hannah’s autopsy—she didn’t die of a heart attack. Somebody pumped her full of poison!”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  I moved my head and cracked an eye. Darkness blanketed the room. I sat up, yawned, and looked at the clock. Two A.M. I heard the noise, the same one that had just shaken me from my deep sleep. I was not in Atlanta. I was in Otis.

  The aroma of hazelnut coffee tingled my nostrils. I slipped out of bed. Mama sat at her kitchen table, her hand cupped around a mug.

  I touched her shoulder. “Can’t sleep?” I asked.

  Mama looked up. “No.”

  I yawned again, stretched, then made a bee-line to the cabinet where she kept her dishes and got a mug. “Any more pie?” I asked hopefully.

  Mama pointed to a Tupperware cake plate on the ceramic-tiled counter. Then she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes the way she always does when she’s trying to figure out something. Her brow was furrowed.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked her.

  “Hannah Mixon!”

  “You may be a rich woman,” I teased. “Hannah might have left you a fortune!”

  Mama stroked the side of her cheek with her fingertips, then raised one eyebrow in a slant that was clearly a signal that she was not in a joking mood. “Why would that woman leave me anything?”

  “You were neighbors,” I pointed out.

  “I told you, I didn’t even know that woman!”

  I didn’t say anything, I headed for the coffee and pie. When I’d gotten my treats and was sitting at the table next to Mama, I reached over and touched her arm. “Mama, Miss Hannah must have thought a lot of you to leave you in her will,” I said, trying to sound sanctimonious instead of funny.

  “Hannah Mixon wasn’t that kind of a woman!”

  “Okay, then she was crazy, but who cares, she remembered you in her will!”

  Mama spoke as if she was thinking out loud. “I don’t like it,” she mused. “Something in the milk ain’t clean.”

  “Two can play the cliché game,” I retorted cheerfully. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Hannah Mixon ain’t never given anybody except Nat anything,” Mama said sourly.

  “She might have had a change of heart.”

  “She was pure selfishness.”

  “That’s a bit strong, don’t you think?”

  “Simone, trust me, Hannah Mixon had something up her sleeve.” She dropped her glasses back on the bridge of her nose and fiddled with them until they were comfortable. “The thing that bothers me is that people might believe I influenced her—you know, talked her into giving me her things!”

  Mama’s tone made me realize that I’d misjudged her feelings about Daddy’s decision to move back to Otis. I remembered the day eight years earlier when I had stumbled in on their conversation. My father had been stationed at Beal Air Force Base in California. He was saying, “Our boys Will and Rodney are doing okay, and Simone is almost finished high school. Thirty years is enough to give Uncle Sam’s Air Force, Candi. I’ve decided to retire.”

  “Fine,” Mama had told him. “But we’ve got to think of Simone.”

  “What about Simone?” Daddy asked.

  “I was hoping we could settle where Simone plans to go to college.”

  “No,” Daddy said. “I want to go home.”

  “Simone has already been accepted at Emory in Atlanta,” Mama continued. “It’s only a four-hour drive from Atlanta to Otis. You can visit home as often as you want.”

  “Otis is where we belong, Candi,” Daddy insisted.

  “We’ve lived in cities for so long … I don’t know if I can adjust to going back to Otis, James. There’s no more than five thousand people living within the town’s limit.”

  “Five thousand good people,” Daddy had pointed out.

  Mama hadn’t replied.

  “Candi,” Daddy argued, “I know you’re worried about being away from Simone, but trust me on this one, she’ll be all right. Like you said, we’ve lived in a lot of places, most of them crowded cities. Now that I’m ready to settle, I want to go home.”

  Still, Mama didn’t say anything.

  “You said yourself, Otis is real close to Atlanta. Go with me on this one, Baby, we ain’t going to get too far from Simone.” He paused. “I promise you, I ain’t going to let nothing happen to our little girl.”

  I remembered thinking that since Mama wasn’t going to be happy in Otis, Daddy wasn’t doing the right thing to take her there. Now, however, the concern in her voice about the town’s reaction to Hannah Mixon’s murder and the legacy she’d left Mama made me change my mind. Mama loved being in Otis, back home.

  �
��Don’t pay any attention to Nat,” I told her now. “He’s just bitter and selfish. You’ve done so much for the people in this town since you’ve returned. Everybody knows you’re not the kind of a woman who would rob a crazy old woman.”

  “Whining Nat will make it sound like I befriended his mother just so that I could talk her into giving me her money. Certain people in this town like to hear that kind of stuff, especially since I—”

  “Mama,” I cut in sternly. “You’re the one who’s overreacting, don’t you think?”

  “Simone, it’s important what my neighbors think about me!”

  I touched her hand. “Come on, pretty lady,” I coaxed, noticing without envy how her smooth skin and soft features made her look more like my sister than my mother. “This is the first time something like this has happened.”

  “What about those two old women who accused me of stealing their food stamps?”

  “If my memory serves me right, those two women accused everybody of stealing from them.”

  Mama gave me a long, searching look. “I’ve always wondered whether a few people still believe …” she faltered.

  “Uncle Ben’s trial made it clear that Aunt Agnes was behind those stolen food stamps,” I said firmly. “Anyway, you must not have been the only person who didn’t like Miss Hannah, ’cause somebody killed her.”

  Mama sighed and shook her head sadly. “I suppose what really concerns me is that Abe didn’t call me about the poison until after he got the autopsy report.”

  “So?”

  “That’s not like Abe. Maybe …”

  “Daddy said that Hannah attracted enemies.”

  “You think Abe knew about Hannah’s will?”

  “Mama, Abe Stanley is your friend!”

  Mama sipped her coffee, but she didn’t say anything. I decided to change the subject. “You didn’t ask me about Sidney,” I said.

  “What is your boss up to now?” she demanded.

  “He’s got a new client, one we’ve been spending most of our time with over the past months.”

  “So?”

  “This case has a hint of dirt to it, like an ink spot on a white blouse.”

  “Go on,” Mama said. I could see she was still thinking about who might have murdered Hannah Mixon.

  “Our client is the son of an Atlanta minister.”

  “What’s so unique about that?”

  “He’s been charged with killing a young Korean prostitute.”

  Mama’s fingers drummed on the table. “And?”

  “Sidney believes he’s been set up.”

  “Why would anybody do that?” she asked.

  “When we find the answer, we’ll find the real killer,” I said.

  Mama looked funny, like the wheels in her head were spinning but whatever they were on to, it had nothing to do with Sidney or his client.

  At ten o’clock Monday morning, my parents, Nat, and I were sitting in Calvin Stokes’s law office, an office that’s located over Casey Drug Store on Lee Street.

  Calvin is a tall white man with a bearded face and blond hair over one of his eyes. His forehead is broad and unlined, his eyebrows light commas over his deep-set, very blue eyes. The only wrinkles on his face are barely noticeable crow’s-feet.

  Calvin is Otis County’s rags-to-riches son. His father was a small-time soybean farmer; young Calvin dreamed of becoming a lawyer. He graduated from Otis High School, then joined the Army. After he was discharged, he went to the University of South Carolina, then on to law school. Eight years later he came back home to stay, home to practice law.

  Calvin’s firm consists of himself. The bulk of the day-to-day work is taken care of by a legal secretary, Louise Barker. There is also a receptionist named Norma Jenkins, a graduate of Salkehatchie in Clairmont.

  Everybody in Otis used Calvin for legal matters: Hannah Mixon had come to him to make her will.

  Calvin’s office is large, with plenty of windows, lots of clean white space, and a dark green carpet in an expensive wool. Framed watercolors decorate the walls.

  Now Calvin appraised his desk, then moved the marble pen holder a half inch to the left. “Nat,” he began, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to this thing before now. I’ve been out of town for the past three weeks. I didn’t hear about your poor mother’s death until early Friday morning.”

  Nat scowled.

  Calvin looked from Nat to Mama. “I called you both as soon as I could,” he continued.

  “When did Hannah make this will?” Mama asked him.

  “Two months ago,” Calvin replied.

  “What made her do it?” I asked.

  Calvin shook his head. “I asked Hannah the same thing. She, well, she …”

  Nat fidgeted in his chair. He wouldn’t look at Mama. “I ain’t stupid. You and Miss Candi is thieving me together. You talked Mama into leaving everything to Miss Candi, didn’t you?”

  Calvin looked at him. When he spoke, his words were somber. “Hannah didn’t leave everything to Grace,” he said.

  Nat’s eyebrows went up and he sat forward in his chair, the surprise on his face shining.

  “Let me read the will and you’ll see what your Mama had in mind.”

  Calvin began:

  “I, Hannah Mixon, being of sound mind, leave my house, my furniture, my insurance policies, and whatever cash I have to my son, Nat Mixon.”

  Pleased, Nat grinned.

  “I leave two hundred and fifty acres to Candi Covington, my next-door neighbor. Candi Covington cannot sell or will this land to any other person for five years from the date of my death. That’s it,” Calvin finished.

  There was absolute silence in the law office. Then Nat roared: “She left Miss Candi the best part!”

  Calvin gave us a helpless look as he brushed his pale hair from his eye. He turned his palms up.

  “M-my Mama wasn’t crazy,” Nat stuttered. “All of you are in this together, trying to steal my land!”

  “Nat, please—” Mama began.

  Nat wailed, “You’re a thief and I’m going to tell the whole town what you are!”

  That was too much for Mama. “Shut up and let me finish talking!” she snapped. “I’ve never had one conversation with your mother. How could I have talked her into anything?”

  But Nat wasn’t convinced. He started shaking his finger at Mama again. “You think I’m stupid!”

  Mama’s eyes widened. “Don’t you point that—”

  “You’re not going to get away with this!” Nat yelled, jumping out of his chair and towering over Mama.

  Daddy’d had enough, “NAT,” he shouted, “SIT DOWN!”

  Nat, who had swollen up like a bullfrog, looked into Daddy’s glaring eyes. Then he sat down.

  Calvin took a deep breath, glad that things seemed temporarily under control. He moved the marble pen holder another half inch to the left. “There it is,” he said. “Oh, yeah, Abe called me Friday afternoon and—”

  Mama shook her head, signaling Calvin not to mention what the sheriff had told him. I realized that her question to me on Friday night had been answered. Abe Stanley did know about the will and its strange provision before he had called Mama two days ago to tell her that Miss Hannah had been poisoned.

  Daddy scratched his head. “This is crazy,” he muttered.

  “Nothing about this whole thing makes sense!” Mama said softly.

  Nat was breathing heavily. He shot a look at Mama, one that made her reach over and touch his arm. “I don’t know why your mother did what she did,” she told him firmly, in the tone of voice you use when you talk to a bad-tempered child.

  “Ain’t nothing but you talked her into doing something against me,” Nat insisted.

  “I never spoke once to your mother.”

  “Yeah, right!” Nat said sourly.

  “I’ll prove that I don’t want your land. I’ll sign it over to you right now!” Mama turned to Calvin.

  But Calvin shook his head. “Can’t do that, Grace
. Not for five years.”

  Nat growled deep in his throat.

  There was a look of determination in Mama’s eyes that I knew very well. “There must be a way to get around that stipulation,” she said.

  “I’ll check into it,” Calvin told her, “but Judge Thompson doesn’t like breaking wills.”

  Nat’s mouth formed a grudging line. “I’ve got obligations,” he said bitterly.

  “Use the insurance money you’ve got,” Daddy snapped. “Sell the house if you have to.”

  “Nat,” Mama said, sounding a little embarrassed. “Please, don’t tell people that Hannah left me that land!”

  Nat’s eyes moved around the room. His breathing rasped. He shifted in his seat.

  “If you tell anybody … one soul that Hannah left me those two hundred and fifty acres I won’t give it back to you,” Mama said, probably reading his mind. It wasn’t hard to see that Nat Mixon intended to make trouble.

  Nat’s eyes narrowed. There was an ugly light in them.

  “I’m not kidding,” Mama continued. “If I hear a whisper from one person in this town that Hannah left me that land I’ll call Calvin and tell him to stop trying to break the will … I mean it!”

  Nat pouted.

  “Boy, if you keep this thing quiet,” Daddy said, “you’ll get your land soon as Calvin talks the judge into breaking Hannah’s five-year stipulation. I’ll see to it personally.”

  Mama looked at Calvin.

  “I’ll start working on it today,” Calvin promised, and I knew he would.

  Nat stared at Mama, as if he’d never seen her before. Then he muttered reluctantly, “Okay, I won’t tell nobody.”

  So, why didn’t I believe him?

  Daddy leaned back. “Then we understand each other, don’t we?”

  Nat got to his feet, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand, as though wiping away sweat. Today he had replaced his shabby clothes with a somewhat threadbare suit, but the ruby still gleamed in his nostril. “If that’s all you got to tell me, can I go now?” he asked us all, nastily.

  Calvin spoke. “You can do whatever you want with everything else Hannah left.”