4 DEAD ... If Only

by Heather Haven

  “Okay, good. What’s her name then?”

  He shrugged again. “The sign over the front door says Barefoot Mama Biggs, but everybody calls her Mama.”

  As if on cue, a woman’s voice, loud and no nonsense, called out from behind the palm trees, her New Orleans Patois lilting the airwaves.

  “Reed! I don’t hear much playing. After what happened yesterday, I want to hear you every minute, so I know you’re all right. Now if you aren’t practicing, boy, you come in here and clean your room.”

  “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am, I’m practicing,” he called over his shoulder. Much softer, he leaned in to me. “I got to practice now or go in and make my bed. If you want to talk to Mama, go through the path and take the backstairs up to her. She’s usually in the kitchen right now.”

  He put the clarinet back in his mouth, blew a set of notes, and gestured with an elbow to a small dirt path cutting between two Fan palm trees toward the house. I left him coaxing wonderful sounds from the wind instrument and beat my way through the glossy, green fans.

  Previously untouched fronds crisscrossed one another from my chest to the top of my head, what with Reed being shorter than me. A small yellow and green bird flapped out of one frond and into the sky, as I thrashed my way through. I was sorry to have disturbed it. Once on the other side, sounds of the clarinet lessened considerably, deadened by thick fronds and trunks.

  It was easy to see how someone could get murdered on the other side of the foliage and nothing heard inside the house. Unless Barefoot Mama Biggs was somehow a part of it all. A little chilling, that thought.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Other Side of the Garden

  On this side of the line of palms, a lush and well-tended tropical garden lived. In the semi-shade of the palm fronds, blooming gardenia bushes filled the air with fragrance. Several smallish fruit trees lazed in full sun on one side of the grassy yard, burdened down by ripening fruit. Near the fence, crisp rows of herbs and vegetables grew, Farmer in the Dell style. Red, yellow, and pink Hibiscus, Birds of Paradise, climbing orange trumpet vines, and other exotic plants flowered everywhere.

  An iron bench sat under the shade of another tree, maybe mango, near a terracotta birdbath filled with water. Two birds were knocking themselves out in it, obviously having a ball. All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw pictures of this garden in Sunset Magazine. Oh, wait a minute. Sunset’s a California mag. Well, some Louisiana magazine should snap a few pictures of this garden, if they haven’t already.

  I followed a narrow brick path and looked up to see a small woman, not a lot taller than Reed, watching me from the top steps of the four-story house, a house reeking with character and generations of wear.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” I called out at the base of the staircase, trying to be New Orleans respectful. “Reed said you would be here. If I may, I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

  “Who are you and what are you doing in my backyard?” Her tone was neutral yet commanding. She was obviously not a woman to be sweet talked, and certainly one to be respected. If she was party to a murder I had my work cut out for me.

  I assessed the petite woman on the top step further before I spoke again. She had a presence having little to do with how she was dressed, impressive though it was. The colorful blue and green dashiki-like garment she wore was beautiful, as was the matching cloth wrapped around her head and tied at one side in a stylish knot. Huge, beaded hoop earrings dangled below the scarf, swinging back and forth to some secret rhythm, or maybe Reed’s distant playing. Slender fingers rested on the banister and glittered with a ring or two.

  But it was her oval, burnished face that captivated. High cheekbones and large, deep-set eyes seemed to see anything and everything there was to see. She held herself confident and erect, meeting the world head-on. All in all, she was an arresting figure. I looked down at her feet. Sure enough, she was barefoot.

  “Mrs. Biggs --”

  “It’s Miss Biggs,” she interrupted. “I have never married.”

  “I’m sorry. Miss Biggs, my name is Lee Alvarez and my sister-in-law was the young woman who was found in your backyard alongside the dead man, Bernie Gold. The police think she killed him. I know she didn’t, and I need to prove it. I’m hoping you can answer some questions that might help me find the real culprit.”

  She took her time looking me up and down without saying a word. Just when I thought she would banish me from the premises, she spoke.

  “Then you’d better come up and have some tea.”

  Turning around, she stepped onto the tiny deck off the back door, and went inside her house without saying another word. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and passed through the open door.

  “Shut the screen door behind you, Missy. Flies are bad this time of year.”

  I reached out and closed the inside screen door, while she stood across the room with her back to me at a counter next to the stove. She poured hot water from a kettle into a large, white teapot.

  “Tell me your name again.”

  “Lee Alvarez. I’m a private detective. My sister-in-law’s name is Vicki and she’s five-months pregnant. She’s married to my kid brother and I love her to pieces.”

  After all of that came out of me, I stood breathing hard from my dash up three flights of steep stairs. I looked around the large old-fashioned kitchen painted a yellowing cream color, as wide as the house itself.

  The far wall had a doorway in the corner. The rest was covered by open cabinetry revealing a mish-mash of dishes, cutlery, and pots and pans. On the three other walls, a variety of framed cross-stitched samplers hung from midway to ceiling. The samplers were old and new, some religious, some political, but mostly proverbs. ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’ was my personal favorite. Because, you know, it is.

  The worn but polished light oak floor gleamed under shafts of sunlight dappling in through tall, paned windows wearing soft cream-colored sheers. Pulled closed, the sheers moved languorously, keeping out the harsher rays of the sun but letting in cool air currents. One window sat directly behind a sparkling white sink. Another back window looked out over the yard where the palm trees rustled in the morning’s breeze. Under that window, a small vase of colorful flowers held center court on a rectangular kitchen table decked out in a bright red and white checked tablecloth.

  Completing the scene was the smell of something so delicious burbling on one of the back burners of the antiquated stove, I grew weak at the knees from hunger. I suspected any chef on the Food Network would kill for this kitchen. And they’d have to stand in line.

  “Pull down two cups and saucers from the cabinet, Missy, and two teaspoons from the third drawer on the left. Milk and sugar’s already on the table.”

  Her back still to me, she placed the lid on the teapot, picked it up, and went to the table. I chose two cups and saucers and spoons from the cornucopia before me and crossed to the table, as well, setting them down in front of two chairs.

  I stood looking at a woman who could have been in her thirties, although I suspected mid-fifties was more like it. Whatever she did to keep herself looking so young, I’d have to check into. Unless it was something like eye of newt or blood of toad. Yuk.

  Mama Biggs was lighter-skinned than her nephew, with a mocha honey glow, but she had the same aquiline nose as Reed. She also had a similar set of glorious, white teeth when she smiled, which she did now. There was something in the way she looked at me when she smiled, straight forward and earnest, which made me like her.

  She gestured for me to sit down, so I sat. She did, too, and poured steaming tea into each cup. Fragrant, heady spices surrounded me and I inhaled deeply. I never wanted a cup of tea so much in my life.

  She must have seen the appreciation on my face, because she laughed. “I make this blend myself. The secret is sun-dried Hibiscus and ginger mixed in with black China tea. Drink up.”

  “Thank you, Miss Biggs.”

  “You can
call me Mama, but don’t think nothing of it. Everyone does.”

  I nodded and her face sobered.

  “I’m letting you in my house ‘cause I don’t like nobody getting killed in my backyard. I got a boy to raise and I don’t want this hanging over our heads. If you can get to the root of it, all to the good. Now you tell me what you want and if I can, I’ll answer your questions. Don’t be lying to me, Missy. There’s never been a lie I haven’t caught up with.”

  I looked directly at her. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll tell you everything I know, starting from nine years ago.”

  “Nine years ago,” she echoed the words, her eyes suddenly far away and misty. “Bad time. Bad time. So much suffering around here, especially for the old and the little. I still pray to the good Lord for the people hurt by that time.”

  “I know people who were hurt around that time, too. Not here in New Orleans, but back where I live in California.”

  I started talking in between sips of tea and ten minutes later stopped. Mama Biggs was quiet. She seemed to be digesting this story, eyes glistening, as if unshed tears were not far behind her beautiful facade. Finally, she spoke.

  “She was hurt bad, the sister. I can feel it. And it’s something more than time can heal.”

  “The doctors say the beating probably caused irreparable brain damage.”

  “Probably? They don’t know?”

  “They claim it’s hard to predict the long-term effects of such a trauma. But she’s never recovered and they’re relatively sure she never will.”

  I waited, wanting her to ask any other questions she might have. But rather than a question, Mama Biggs made an observation.

  “And now your Vicki says she saw this man alive in New Orleans, although all the world says he’s dead. And you believe her. That’s a powerful belief.”

  I didn’t respond right away. It’s hard to put into words a gut feeling that runs deep and true.

  “For all Vicki’s outward flakiness and the wild hats she designs, I’ve found her to be a pragmatic person.”

  “Not one given to flights of fancy?” Mama Biggs smiled across the table at me, the first in a while.

  I shook my head, but didn’t reply.

  “You’re thinking this Dennis Manning, he sailed out to sea nine years ago, deliberately sank up his boat, made it back to shore, and come to New Orleans to start a new life?”

  “Yes. Maybe he had a little help.”

  “Powerful maybe.”

  “He has a wife. If I can’t find him, I’ll find her.”

  “Law says widow.”

  “I say wife.”

  We stared at one another sipping our tea. I could feel her thinking. Mama Biggs got up and went to the counter, brought down a plate, and took the lid off a bright red cookie jar in the shape of a dancing bear. She loaded up the plate with small, square cookies and came back to the table, setting the plate between us.

  “Have a cookie,” she ordered.

  I obeyed, chomping down on one with enthusiasm. I was starving. “Mmmmm. Delicious. You can sure tell they’re homemade.”

  She shook her head. “Winn-Dixie’s finest. Sometimes it don’t pay to bake them from scratch. Have another.”

  The older woman sat down, studying me. While she studied me, I mulled over the phrase ‘never assume, it just makes an ass out of u and me’ and ate the cookie I could have sworn was home baked. Was I just as off base about Mama Biggs being one of the good guys, as I was about the cookie? Time would tell. Her voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “You want to right a great wrong, little girl. When I first looked at you at the bottom of the stairs wearing your fancy pants and sassy little shoes, I said to myself, there is a shallow, spoiled woman without the sense God gave a lemon.”

  “You don’t like my pants? Gee, and they told me at Nordstrom’s polka-dot Capri pants are the latest, especially in cobalt blue.” I grinned then winked, taking another cookie from the plate.

  She burst out laughing and leaned across the table. “They’re telling you a falsehood, Missy. Get your derriere out of those pants as soon as you can.”

  She gave the French pronunciation to the word ‘derriere’, just like my mother does. I liked her, anyway. And she had one of the most musical laughs I’d ever heard. The sound of it made me laugh, too, lifting my spirits. But only for a moment. I sobered just as quickly.

  “The rest of Vicki’s family is gone and her only living relative, her sister, is in a sanitarium, probably for life. Vicki doesn’t have anybody else. She’s counting on us, on me.”

  “I know what that’s like, to be leaned on. People have been leaning on me my whole life. It can be a heavy burden but it’s something you learn to accept.” She nodded at the truth of her words, more to herself than to me. Before speaking again, Mama Biggs smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from the tablecloth.

  “Except for the sirens, I didn’t hear anything yesterday, so I can’t tell you about that. Mercifully, Reed was in school. I didn’t even know it happened in my yard until the police knocked on my door, asked me questions, and showed me the spot. Your Vicki and that man were already gone, but the police asked me if I knew what they was doing there. I told them no and they left. When I took the garbage out this morning, everything was cleared up, though, like it never been.”

  “So you don’t know who threw the crime scene tape in the trash?” She shook her head slowly. “Where were you yesterday?”

  “Downstairs in my shop with customers. Those palm trees block out nearly every sound coming from back there. My mama asked my daddy to put those palms in fifty, sixty years ago, so she didn’t have to hear him drinking and gambling back there with other men folk. But I can hear Reed if I don’t play the TV. He likes it out there, same as his granddaddy.”

  She paused and looked around her before going on.

  “My daddy was a rascal, but he built mama this top floor before he died, so he can’t have been all bad. He even put this kitchen up here, so the rest of the house wouldn’t get heated up. It’s a fine kitchen.”

  There was an understatement. Her mouth took on a grim look.

  “Reed promised me he would practice every minute and if anybody came into the yard he’d holler. If he does, I’ll be down there with my shotgun.”

  “You mentioned your shop. What kind is it?”

  “Voodoo.”

  “Excuse me?” I nearly choked on a slug of tea.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good Christian woman, myself, but my parents ran the shop for years and I inherited a good build up of clientele and vendors. This isn’t the same trash they sell over in the French Quarter to the tourists. Besides, what I sell is mostly love potions.”

  “Really? Love potions. I would have never thought there was much of a market for that sort of thing.”

  She looked me up and down. “Then you’ve been blessed, Missy. Mother Teresa once said that loneliness and feeling unwanted is the most terrible poverty. So as long as I know nothing is used for evil or bad spells, I’ll sell to you.”

  I opened my phone and searched for the picture of the bloody voodoo doll, one of several images Richard sent to me. “Do you carry something like this in your shop?”

  I showed her the picture. Her musical laugh trilled again.

  “Bless me, no. That looks like it was made by an Orangutan. That’s the type of trash they sell in the French Quarter. Look here,” she said, tapping the head of the image on the phone. “See this? It’s a nail. Real Voodoo don’t use nails. They use pins. Special pins. Where’d you get that thing?”

  “It was a gift.”

  “Strange present to give someone.”

  She looked at me questioningly, but I didn’t say anything more so she went on.

  “This man they say she killed - your Vicki - he was a bad man, and he brought lots of trouble with him, too.”

  “That would be Bernie Gold?”

  She nodded, lost in thought. I gave her time to do that.
>
  “He came down from Chicago about eighteen months ago. In the beginning, he kept himself to the motor repair shop, about three blocks away, just like his friend. Later on, though, I seen him walking around the neighborhood, looking at people and houses. He should have stayed at old Colbert’s Place. Might not be dead now.” She Frenched again on the word ‘Colbert’.

  “Colbert’s Place is a motor repair shop?” I got excited. “You mean, like in cars, trucks, and boats?”

  “Old Colbert, he repaired anything that had an engine. Lawnmowers, buzz saws, scooters, motorcycles, lots of cars, big diesel trucks, and some boats, too. They were all the same to him. Then he up and died five, six years ago.

  “His daughter sold the place right after that to some stranger; got a high price for it, I’m told. Bad things go on there now. You can feel the ugly when you pass by, so I stopped walking that part of the street. Reed doesn’t ride his bike by there, neither. At least, no more.”

  “Let’s get back to the dead man, just to be sure.” I scrolled through my pictures again until I came to the gruesome shots Richard took of the body the day before near the Adirondack chair. “Be prepared. It was taken when my brother stumbled upon his body. Is this Bernie Gold?”

  She winced but pulled herself together. “That’s him. Came to my door one day about six-months ago, and offered to buy my home. Offered me twice what its worth. Thought I was going to jump at it, like old Colbert’s daughter done, I suppose. When I asked him why, he said it was none of my business, was I going to sell to him or not?” Her lips tightened at the memory. “I said no and then he told me, I need to reconsider. I said I never would ‘cause I know what he wanted it for. You know what I mean.”

  She dragged the last part of the sentence out like she and I had a secret understanding. I hadn’t a clue.

  “Ah, no. What did he want?”

  “That other man, the one who bought Colbert’s Place, stopped Reed one day on his way home from school. That man stepped right in front of that boy riding his bike. He put his hands on the child’s handlebars to keep him from riding away. Then he asked Reed if he wanted to make some easy money for a new bike, a better bike, if he wanted to make some new friends.” She looked at me. “You see, Reed, he looks younger than he is, more innocent, but he understands the twisted ways of some people.”