“He would leave town?” I asked.
“I suppose. I actually have no idea where he went. All I know is that when he came back, my parents called his absence a business trip.”
“When you noted that your mother’s behavior changed towards your father, did you notice your mother’s behavior changing towards you as well?”
“Well, actually we grew closer during those times when my father had a business trip. She and I would go outside, even in the cold weather, and stare at the moon together. It became a type of sacred time for us.”
“Did you ever notice your behavior changing during the various lunar phases?” I said.
I could literally feel some of the eyes in the room shift to me from Mary. Half of the people gathered in that parlor at least thought that they knew where I was headed. I think some of them were taken aback. For myself, I had no idea where I was headed. Once the question popped into my head, I immediately believed it to be a good one. But then we detectives who ask a lot of questions sometimes perceive that a lousy question is a good one.
37
For no apparent reason known to me when it happened, Rosemary suggested that we all have some tea or coffee. It was an out of place comment considering that she was, like most of us, an invited guest that evening. However, Mary seemed to leap from the couch when given the opportunity to avoid answering what could likely be a self-incriminating question.
“Sugar, where are our manners? Of course we need to serve some liquid to our guests. Sugar will take your requests and will be happy to fix some drinks for each of you.”
“That’s not necessary, Mary,” Roscoe said. I think he was trying to be polite rather than keeping the conversation on point.
“Of course it is necessary. Were you raised in a barn?”
“Forgive me, Mary. You are simply too good a hostess to ignore the needs of your guests,” Roscoe said, backing down from his position.
I was impressed. The man should have been in politics. He had the manner.
Azalea busied herself preparing and serving the drinks that each ordered. Mary, the good Southern, genteel hostess, allowed the hired help to fix everything and serve it. This was one part of the South that I did not recall fondly. It was dying off, of course, but hanging on in too many sectors to please me. I wondered what Rosey was thinking as he watched the interplay of a sordid history mixing it up with contemporary life. Too many cultural norms die hard for my taste.
I stood up and followed Azalea, aka Sugar, into the kitchen.
“You need something?” she said.
“I’ll help you with the drinks.”
“I can do this. I have many, many times. It’s my job.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
I spotted the window-paned cupboard where the teacups rested comfortably in their designated saucers. I retrieved the necessary number and placed them on the center counter of the kitchen.
“Do you not trust me to do my job?” she said.
“Certainly not. I have absolute confidence that you are quite skilled at making hot tea, filling these cups and serving us.”
“Then what on earth are you doing?” She seemed genuinely confused at my presence and my actions.
“I’m helping.”
“And if I do not require your help?”
“Help is help. Has nothing to do with any requirement. I’ll carry a small tray and you carry a small try.”
“I can carry all of them on a large tray,” she countered.
“Of course you can,” I said as I placed three cups of tea on the small tray I had found while she was arguing with me.
I left the kitchen and headed back to the parlor. I stopped and waited just outside the parlor door. Moments later, Azalea caught up with me. She was carrying an identical small tray with three cups of hot tea. I gestured with my head for her to enter first. I followed. Two servants working in tandem.
We served the ones who had requested a drink and sat down in the midst of the small talk rumbling throughout the room.
Rosemary led the group on a rabbit chase with a remark about the delicious tea that Sugar had served to some of us. She completely and purposefully ignored my participation in the tea service. I had the impression that she was doing her best to deflect my previous question concerning Mary’s behavior during the moon’s cycles as well.
“I believe you asked earlier, before we had our refreshments, if I noticed my behavior changing during the moon’s phases,” Mary said moving away from Rosemary’s rabbit chase back to my question.
I was surprised that Mary brought the subject up once again. I was expecting my previous question to fall by the wayside.
“Yes, I did ask that.”
“Well, the answer is no, not at first. What I did notice was that my mother seemed to have some kind of spell over me, almost intoxicating. I don’t drink, mind you, but I would imagine what it might be like if I did. I couldn’t get enough of my mother. Except when she had those dark times, those times when I remember being afraid of her.”
“Once a month, during the full moon phase?” I said.
“That’s what I recall.”
“But you said earlier that during the full moon time that you and your mother were drawn together, close.”
“Perhaps the correct word would be that during those times when my father was on his business trip, my mother was ambivalent towards me. The lunar effect, you might call it, lasted a few days, maybe three, sometimes four days. One day she would do everything with me. The next day she would not want me around.”
“You called some of those days dark,” I said.
“Yes, I did say that. Severe, I think would be another good word to use. I knew that my mother loved me, but she became intense, absorbed in something that I never could quite figure out. She was obsessed by something or someone. I had no idea. I still have no idea what was going on inside her. It was like she was two different people. One was kind, loving, caring, and genuinely helpful. The other was dark, brooding, oftentimes mean-spirited, and dangerous.”
“What do you believe made her dangerous?”
“When I was working on that science project, I began thinking that the moon was what made her dangerous. I blamed the moon. I guess I was too young and innocent to understand all of the complexities of human behavior.”
“At the risk of some redundancy, if you please, at the least having you repeat what you have already stated, I want to be clear in my mind about what you are saying,” I said to Mary.
“Okay, dear.”
“You said that when your father took his business trips, you and your mother shared what you called a sacred time together. And yet, now you say that you were afraid of her when you suspected that the moon had some unusual affect upon her. Did you not connect the business trips with the full moon?”
“Yes, they were, as a matter of fact. Immediately after my father would leave on his trips, my mother would be kind to me. Extremely kind to me. But gradually she would change into this other person, the one that frightened me,” Mary said.
Mary talked on for some time about some of her mother’s behavior during those dark periods, as she referred to them, when she was growing up. She related that her mother would sometimes go for three or four days and not say a word to her or anyone else. Sometimes Beth Anne Johnson would stay outside on the porch staring at the full moon as if entranced. There were also times when she was angry or mean, striking out at everyone who approached her without cause. Mary told us several stories about her mother’s erratic behavior. All of this came, I believed, after little Colby had died. A good psychologist would surmise that grief was playing out in significant measure following his death, rather than anything the moon’s phases might be doing to this broken woman.
“I think my daughter and I need to call it an evening,” Rosemary said. “I’m not as young as I used to be and I really do need my beauty rest. Thank you for inviting us. Mary, I hope we can get together again soon.”
> “I hope so, too, Rosemary.”
“Well, we had better make it a quick turnaround ‘cause I ain’t getting’ no younger.”
The group laughed as Rosemary and her daughter headed towards the front door.
“I think I will go with them, Mrs. Carpenter,” Azalea said. “I’ve cleaned up the kitchen and washed the cups and saucers.”
“Thank you, Sugar. You go along with them”
We watched the three generations leave the room. No one said a word until the front door closed behind them.
“Did you mother ever abuse you during her dark times?” I asked Mary as she returned to her seat.
“I think Mary has had enough questions for one evening. In fact, I don’t see the point in dredging up this stuff after so many years. It’s water over the dam as far as I’m concerned,” Roscoe said as he stood. I think he was intending to leave.
“I see no harm in talking about this, Roscoe. In fact, this little gathering has helped me to say things I have needed to say for many years. It’s also helped me to face some things which I needed to face. I do believe I have some new clarity about the relationship with my mother, and maybe my father, too. I want to find as many answers to my past as I can. I want to know what actually happened to my little brother, if that is possible.”
“What good would that do?” Roscoe said.
“It will help me to find some peace after all of these years of being worried and preoccupied.”
“Worried? What have you been worried about?”
“I think I may have killed my brother, Colby,” Mary said.
38
Roscoe broke up our session after Mary’s open declaration. It was more conjecture than confession for those of us listening, but in the mind of Roscoe Tanner, it was enough to possibly hurt her in the long run.
“Preacher,” Roscoe pointed a finger at him as he spoke, “you keep this night’s session under wraps. Treat it as privileged communication, like between a priest and a parishioner. You got that?”
Josh Ainsley nodded, “I think I can keep a lid on everything said here tonight. Don’t worry about me, Sheriff Tanner.”
He left after saying goodnight to Mary. She hugged him while they stood at the front door talking. I couldn’t hear anything that they said to each other.
“You were hoping that this would happen, weren’t you?” Roscoe said to me.
“You mean her wondering?”
“Wondering, nothing. You were trying all along to get her to confess.”
“Nope. Not my job to elicit confessions. Seeking answers, nothing more. I ask questions. I hope my questions will trigger something that sparks a memory for her. Nothing more, nothing less. And, I certainly don’t think her last comment is anything more than a scary thought for her. I am not willing to accept her thoughts about her little brother as truth just yet.”
“I don’t believe you. You detectives are all alike. You simply want to find some scapegoat to pin a murder on.”
“Believe what you will. Try to hold on to what I told you this afternoon.”
“Oh, I remember quite well what you said this afternoon in my office. You said you would tell Mary what you found out, what you suspected, and then ask her if she wanted you to continue. And you did none of that this evening. All you did was ask her questions and prolong this whole crappy mess.”
“It is a crappy mess, Roscoe, but I want to get to the bottom of it. My memory flashes are killing me because I can’t put anything together that makes sense,” Mary said as she re-entered the room after saying goodbye to Josh.
She walked over to the couch and sat down.
“And you, Clancy Evans, you need to tell me what you have discovered as well as what you think happened. The guests are gone. It’s just the ones here who need to hear it. In fact, I suspect that I may be the last to know what you think. Apparently my cousin Roscoe already has heard this.”
“He has, but I had to talk with him. He was trying to escort me out of town. The good sheriff does not value my profession, I fear.”
“Shame on you, Roscoe. You should treat our visitors with more respect, especially those who are trying to help me,” Mary said.
“I don’t think these two are trying to help anyone but themselves,” he said.
“And how is it they are helping themselves, Roscoe Tanner?” Mary said. “They are working for free on this, spending a great deal of time checking stories, investigating slim leads. Nobody is paying them a red cent, at least not so far. I believe it is called pro bono, is it not? You need to do some checking on your own, you know, before you make accusations against people. I think you owe these two folks an apology.”
Roscoe looked a little pale from Mary’s critique. I don’t think he had any idea that anyone could be altruistic. Mary kept an eye on him while the rest of us remained silent. It wasn’t an evil eye, but it had a severity to it that demanded some intentional action. We waited to see if Roscoe would break.
“Well, apparently,” he said clearing his throat finally, “I owe you an apology, Clancy. You too, Washington. Sorry that I jumped to conclusions about your…ah...motivation. Doesn’t mean that I trust you.”
“Your quasi-apology accepted,” I said.
“Now that that’s settled,” Mary said, “tell me what you think happened to my baby brother, Clancy.”
“Mary, what I am about to say to you is nothing less than conjecture based on the information I have gathered investigating. I have talked with numerous people and have pieced together a possibility. Your comments this evening have actually helped me to believe even stronger in my speculation.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“I think your mother killed your brother, Colby. I think you saw it happen from underneath the bed where you were playing or hiding or whatever reason you were there in the room. You were even in the room when your father and mother began arguing and yelling at each other after Colby was pronounced dead officially by Dr. Cranebottom. You were also there when your parents brought Rosemary into the room and accused her of either not taking proper care of little Colby or being outright responsible for his death. I think your father could have easily yelled at her and accused her of killing Colby. I doubt if your mother said much by way of accusation against Rosemary. She may have told your father that Rosemary was innocent. I can’t be sure about that. If you cannot remember the details of that conversation between them, then it will have to remain hidden from us. Rosemary has told me nothing about this as yet since I have not shared with her the entirety of my suppositions.”
“What do you think about my mother’s behavior during the full moons?” Mary said.
“I think that the full moon each month drove your mother mad somehow and she became a different person as evidenced in the way in which she stood up to your father during that period each month as well as the ambivalent behavior she exhibited toward you. But why she would kill her son, I have no way of knowing that or even offering you some plausible explanation. I can’t imagine a toddler like Colby doing anything to her that would cause such severe anger to erupt. It is possible he became a kind of symbol to her of your father, or maybe she worried that he would turn out like your father.”
“Maybe just the stress of having a second child and the seemingly horrible relationship she had with her husband was sufficient to create that anger,” Roscoe said offering an insight that surprised me.
I turned in disbelief as he spoke. He sounded almost human and intelligent in one single sentence. It was more insight than I had heretofore given him credit for having. Perhaps I had misjudged the local law once more. Perhaps he was leaning in my direction. Doubtful.
“Mary, I think the reason that you have had difficulty remembering that event is that you have suppressed what you saw because it was simply too painful for you to keep in the forefront of your mind. This was the only way your mind could protect you and the only way you had available for you to deal with this horror.”
“So you think that my mother was transformed by the full moon cycle like a werewolf or something, and that in this altered state which I called her darkness, she killed my brother?” Mary said.
“That speculation is consistent with every piece of evidence I can find. Still, I have no proof that your mother did that. It is my conclusion based on stories and conjecture.”
“Then how do you explain my feelings of guilt over Colby’s death?”
“Not sure how to get at that, but I can surmise that such feelings could have been transferred to you either intentionally or unintentionally by your parents, one or both. Young children often feel guilt when something tragic happens even when they are not directly responsible for the event. Perhaps they have a hard time making sense of it all, you know, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Let me keep digging and see what I can find. I have a lead I would like to pursue on this.”
“Rosemary?”
“Well, I think Rosemary, considering her age, is trying to remember all she can in order to help you remember the truth. I don’t think she is hiding anything. She might know more. I simply need to ask the right questions, I suppose. Push the right button, so to speak.”
“So you want to keep at it?” Mary said. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were sick and tired and wanted to quit. You have every right.”
“I haven’t reached bottom just yet, Mary. It’s really up to you,” I said.
I looked at Roscoe. He threw up his hands as if to say he was giving up his protest.
“I agreed this afternoon that if she wants you to stay on and investigate, then you can do that. I’ll keep my word,” he said to me.
“I want you to stay,” Mary said. “I want you to help me figure out why I feel so confused and guilty. Maybe there’s a tidbit out there that could help me with these complex feelings. I need some relief to this whole mess. It’s been with me much too long. Please continue.”
Mercy Killing Page 19
