Mama Stalks the Past

by Nora Deloach

  Nat glanced at Mama, nodded, then slammed out the door. Calvin cupped his chin in his hand. He sighed. “Now that he’s gone, Grace, I have to say that Hannah was not herself when she made this will.”

  “What do you mean?” Mama asked.

  Calvin frowned. “Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised when Abe told me she had been murdered.”

  We stared at him in astonished silence. What on earth could he mean? From everything we’d heard and seen, Hannah Mixon had been a sour, unfriendly woman, but who would have wanted to kill her? Things like that just don’t happen in Otis.

  “There was something else,” Calvin continued. “Hannah told me that she wanted you to look in the house for an envelope, Grace.”

  “An envelope?” Daddy asked. “What’s in it?”

  “Hannah wouldn’t say,” Calvin replied.

  “Why didn’t she just give it to you or to Abe?” Daddy asked.

  “When Hannah came to my office that day and told me what was on her mind about the will, I tried to talk her out of it. But my reluctance just seemed to make her more determined. Maybe she didn’t trust me with whatever’s in that envelope. Or Abe, either. But whatever it is, it seemed very important to her that you look for it, Grace.” He shook his head and sighed again.

  “The whole thing is so secretive, just like something crabby old Hannah would concoct,” Daddy said.

  “Hannah had an edginess about her,” Calvin agreed. Because Sidney has more than one crazy client, I knew Calvin’s words hid a lot more than they betrayed.

  “I don’t know why we’ve got to get mixed up with this mess,” Daddy objected. “Let Abe find who killed her. You just figure out a way for Candi to give Nat back his land so well be out of this thing.”

  Calvin sighed. “As I said, I’ll talk to Judge Thompson about breaking the will, but frankly I can’t promise you much of anything. The judge doesn’t like making exceptions. Says once he starts there will be no end to how far he’ll have to go to satisfy hungry relatives.”

  Mama spoke as if she were totally unaware of the conversation that had just taken place between my father and the lawyer. “There is one person in this town who’s a killer. And it seems that spiteful Hannah has put me to work finding him!” she murmured.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Mama is a case manager at the Otis County Department of Social Services. She worked toward a degree through the University of New York External Degree program, which allowed her to take her required courses at whatever accredited college she could attend as my father was transferred from Air Force base to Air Force base across the country. Seven years and as many universities later, she obtained her bachelor’s degree with a major in sociology.

  Although Mama loves helping people, I know that her real passion is digging up bits and pieces until she’s solved a mystery, and there’s nobody better at doing that. Long ago, I don’t remember when, Mama decided that if we could get at the truth of a problem, we would have made a contribution to humankind. Most of the time I agree with Mama. This time, however, finding the truth about Hannah Mixon’s murder almost cost Mama her life.

  It was eleven o’clock when we left Calvin’s office. We drove to the West End, filled my tank with gas, then stopped at Echerd’s, where Mama picked up a couple of get-well cards and chatted with the girl at the cash register.

  When we got back to the house, Daddy went straight into his room, Mama headed for her kitchen, and I curled up in my bedroom to call Cliff in New York. “How are things going?” I asked him. My voice sounded as dark as my mood.

  “Not good,” he answered. His voice had an edge to it, a tone I notice whenever he’s under pressure.

  I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Mrs. Zwig wants to throw out everything we’ve pulled together, start from scratch.”

  “Because of the baby?” I asked, meaning the baby Mr. Zwig had fathered with his just-out-of-high-school secretary.

  Cliff cleared his throat. “That’s what she says.”

  I began playing with the fringes on the handmade crocheted bedspread I had gotten Mama from Nassau when Cliff had talked me into making a wonderful impromptu trip several months earlier. “You sound doubtful.”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, his speech slow and deliberate. “I’ve got mixed feelings about a woman who talks about a child like it’s a piece of property.”

  I sat up in the bed. “What’s your next move?”

  “I’m talking to Mr. Zwig this afternoon,” he said.

  “So, we won’t get to spend any time together? Our whole five days go down the drain?”

  “I’ll let you know how things are shaping up, Simone. I’d like to be back in Atlanta tomorrow. Maybe we can spend Wednesday together. What do you think?”

  “Don’t ask me what’s going on in my mind,” I said. “Ask me how bad I want to see you!”

  Half an hour later, I put the phone back on its receiver and joined Mama in the kitchen. Although the succulent aroma of stew and baked bread was delightful, food wouldn’t take care of my need to be with Cliff.

  Mama’s kitchen is shaped like an L, the working space on the long side, the stove, oven, and grill on the short. Mama was standing over her pot, dipping a wooden spoon inside and drawing up a taste. I couldn’t help but think how much magic seems to go into her cooking. I wondered why the gift hadn’t been passed on to me.

  “Where’s Daddy?” I asked. Mama looked up, then walked over to the sink and turned on the hot water.

  “He changed clothes, grabbed a sandwich, then left, as he said, to take care of business,” she answered, dunking the long wooden spoon under the faucet.

  “You nor I can keep up with our men today.”

  Mama laughed softly. “You know where Cliff is. And I know where James is heading.”

  “What good is it to know where they are when they’re not here!”

  Mama turned to face me. “When do you expect Cliff back in Atlanta?”

  “He’s going to try to come home tomorrow.”

  Mama’s eyebrow raised. “Oh,” she said.

  “I’m going back to Atlanta first thing tomorrow morning.” At least Cliff and I might have one day together, I thought, trying to shake my bad mood. “Is that stew ready?”

  Mama smiled. “Get bowls while I get the bread from the oven.”

  We were almost five minutes into eating when I noticed Mama’s attention had drifted away from the story I was telling her about how the police had caught the minister’s son hiding out in his basement. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I was hoping that big-mouthed Nat keeps his promise. I’d hate to think of what Sarah Jenkins, Carrie Smalls, and Annie Mae Gregory will do with the news about Hannah’s land.”

  I held my fork in midair and grinned. Despite Mama’s using these three women whenever she needed information about other people in the area, she never liked that they knew everything about everybody. “You’re not begrudging your sources, are you?” I teased.

  “When those three get to talking, they don’t care whether what they say is a lie or the truth!”

  “You listen to them,” I pointed out.

  “Simone, I take what they say with a grain of salt, you know that!” Her tone was unexpectedly sharp.

  “You talked with those ladies lately?” I asked.

  “I ran into them at Winn Dixie on Friday afternoon before you got here,” she said.

  “What news did they bear?” I knew Mama would have made good use of her encounter with Otis’s best source of local information. Sarah Jenkins, Carrie Smalls, and Annie Mae Gregory knew everything about everyone in Otis. Or pretended to.

  “Annie Mae Gregory did mention that Hannah had been married four times.”

  I shoved my spoon into the stew. It was rich and dark, bubbling with meat and carrots, and new potatoes. “You know, you may not have to spend too much time on Miss Hannah, Nat, or that land,”
I told her. “Once you find the envelope Miss Hannah told Calvin Stokes about, things will straighten out, don’t you think?”

  “The solution to Hannah’s murder won’t be as simple as finding an envelope.”

  I sipped the wonderful broth. My mind drifted to Cliff and how much I wanted to be with him. Life was the pits, I thought.

  Mama looked as if she understood my feelings, as if she knew exactly what was on my mind. She broke a piece of bread in two, then said, “I’ll give Nat a day or two to calm down before I ask him to let me go through his mother’s things.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “He’s so uptight.”

  I shook my head. “I know enough about Nat to know that he’s not only impulsive but greedy. A few days will be too late.”

  Mama leaned back in her chair and smoothed her napkin on her lap. “You’re right—he’s probably combing through Hannah’s belongings right now, looking for whatever he can turn into cash. And if he finds the envelope he won’t understand what is inside.”

  “He could throw it away,” I warned.

  Mama fidgeted in her seat. An odd look crossed her features. “To be honest, I would rather look for the envelope when he’s not at home,” she admitted.

  “I’ll go along with that,” I said, eyeing the succulent piece of meat positioned on my fork. Nobody made stew that tasted like Mama’s.

  “Maybe later tonight … around eight,” Mama suggested. “Nat usually leaves about that time and doesn’t come back until the next morning.”

  I froze, remembering Nat’s vengeful attitude and the stab of anxiety I’d felt when he came into our house angry. “On second thought,” I said, “it might be a good idea to have Daddy close by when you go over to Miss Hannah’s.”

  Mama’s laugh was rich. “Nat is scared of James, isn’t he?”

  “Like a dog of a dogcatcher.”

  Mama nodded. “If we’ll have to wait until James is here to go with us, we’ll have to look for that envelope later than eight o’clock.”

  “The business my father has to take care of will take him more than a few hours, won’t it?”

  Mama spoke softly but quick. “James is hanging with his drinking buddies again,” she admitted. Worry tinged her voice.

  I wiped my mouth with the napkin, and felt a little guilty that all I had been worrying about was my troubles with Cliff. “I suspected that,” I admitted.

  “I’ve got to come up with some way to break the cycle,” Mama said softly.

  The expression on her face tugged at my heart. I patted her hand. “You know, psychologists call a person like you a codependent,” I told her gently.

  “James is my husband!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that. And I know that you can handle it.”

  “Yeah,” Mama murmured, as if talking to herself. “But I wonder if there will ever be a time when James will be able to handle it himself!”

  I was silent. My father’s drinking wasn’t a source of contention between him and Mama. Mama didn’t argue, she didn’t fuss. For a long time, whenever my father came home drunk, she did her best to make him comfortable. But after his drinking almost landed him in jail for murder, it became clear she had decided that it was her responsibility to keep him sober. She never admitted it, but I knew it was a burden, one she insisted on bearing alone.

  “By the way,” I said, after a few moments of silence during which we cleaned our plates, “how will we get inside Miss Hannah’s house if Nat isn’t home?”

  Mama smiled; her eyes and face sparkled. She was once again herself, eager to push ahead. “Now, that’s a good question.”

  “I ain’t up for spending time in jail for breaking into his house.”

  “We won’t break in,” Mama said firmly.

  “Now that I think of it, I don’t know if I like the idea of going into the house where that old woman was poisoned,” I said.

  “The house is harmless, Simone. It’s her killer you need to fear.”

  “Everybody is so neighborly in town. Somebody must have really hated Hannah Mixon to bump her off like that,” I pointed out.

  “There was always talk about the spiteful things Hannah did to people,” Mama murmured.

  “Like what?” I, like Mama, had never spoken to Hannah Mixon in the five years she’d lived next to my parents. But I well remember her pinched, narrow face and unripe-apple sour scowl.

  “Well, she called the police on the children in the neighborhood. Mr. Brown swears she tried to poison his two German shepherds, and people caught her dumping trash in their yards. I know for a fact that Mr. Jeffers swore that if one more thing happened between him and Hannah Mixon, he was going to make it miserable for her to continue living around here.” Mama shook her head.

  “She sounds like she was a crab, but that’s no reason for somebody to poison her.”

  “I’m not trying to justify her murder, Simone. I’m trying to say that her killer might have had a motive. One thing for sure, whoever killed Hannah had no emotion while doing it. Putting that arsenic in her food wasn’t a crime of passion, it was cold and very cruel. Abe said that there were no signs of a struggle, so it could have been somebody Hannah perceived as a friend.”

  “Did she have any friends?”

  “I don’t think she had many visitors. Be honest, Simone, I knew very little about my neighbor,” Mama said.

  “You knew she stirred up the neighborhood.”

  “Yes, but there must have been more to Hannah Mixon. I suppose the best thing to do is to contact my sources—”

  “Miss Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls,” I interrupted gleefully.

  “I’ve got the feeling that Sarah, Annie Mae, and Carrie knew a great deal about Hannah Mixon,” Mama said. “You know, Simone, something keeps surfacing in my mind. There is an old saying that if you want to know a person, examine his behavior. Hannah was mean to everybody else, but she did love Nat. It just doesn’t make sense that she didn’t leave him that property.”

  I walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the water pitcher.

  “Do you realize its market value? If there’s timber to be cut from that land, it could make a person very rich!” Mama continued.

  “True.” I poured a glass of water. “But what harm could Hannah have thought would come to Nat by owning it?”

  Mama walked over to the window and straightened the curtain. “The selling price for prime farm and timberland around here is probably thousands of dollars.”

  “The words ‘thousands of dollars’ would blow Nat’s mind.”

  “That boy owes everybody in town,” Mama agreed. “I feel sorry for him. Hannah did Nat an injustice by never making him finish school or teaching him how to work. Now that she’s gone, he doesn’t know how to do anything for himself.”

  “He knows how to spend money,” I retorted. “I bet that whatever money he’ll get from the insurance will be gone in six months.”

  “Sooner,” Mama murmured, turning to look back out the window. Then her body stiffened and she said urgently, “Come here!”

  I joined her at the window. From across the street, a man walked casually, stepping toward the front door of the white-and-green Mixon house. But the man didn’t ring the bell. Instead, he waited. Then, after a minute, he reached out, twisted the knob. The door opened. The man stood motionless. Then, without going inside, he closed the door, turned, and walked quickly away from the house, down Smalls Lane.

  I touched Mama’s arm. “Who was that?”

  “Moody Hamilton,” Mama answered.

  “Who?”

  “Moody’s people are from around Pleasant Hill, near Darien. He was raised by his grandmother, who died last fall.”

  “Is he like Nat?” I asked.

  Mama shook her head, knowing instantly what I meant. “Moody is not known for trouble. As a matter of fact, people say he’s got a soft heart, kind and gentle.”

  “What’s he doing at Nat’s hou
se?”

  “Looking for Nat, I guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I bet Nat owes him money and he’s wanting to collect, poor feller.”

  Mama frowned. Her golden-brown complexion took on a darker hue. “I’m not worried about Moody,” she told me. “It’s Nat that concerns me.… It’s not smart for him to leave his front door open like that!”

  “I kind of thought that Moody was going inside.”

  “I don’t know why he didn’t. Nat’s home.” Mama pointed. “See, he’s in the kitchen near the stove.” She shook her head, then picked up the phone and dialed. “Nat,” she said, once it was answered. “This is Miss Candi.… Listen, I just saw Moody Hamilton at your door.… Well, it’s a good idea to keep your front door locked. He started to walk right in.… You’re right, I’m not your mother.”

  Mama replaced the receiver.

  I burst out laughing. “I know you didn’t expect thanks for that call, did you?”

  Mama smiled. But the expression in her eyes remained thoughtful. “At least we know we won’t have a problem getting into his house tonight.”

  For the next half hour, as Mama and I cleaned the kitchen, I found myself looking toward the Mixon house time and time again. When the telephone rang, I answered because I was nearest to it. “Okay,” I said, putting my hand over the receiver and turning to Mama, who had just put the last cup into the dishwasher. “It’s Daddy’s cousin Agatha,” I told her.

  Mama took a deep breath, then reached for the receiver. “Agatha, how are you?… Uncle Chester? No, James isn’t at home. Now? Okay, Simone and I will be right over.”

  “What’s that all about?” I asked, when she’d hung up.

  “Uncle Chester is having a hissy fit,” Mama said. She looked annoyed.

  “Why?”

  “Josiah Covington, your great-grandfather, owned over a thousand acres of land. When he died, his will left that land jointly to his twelve children. These twelve children could either farm the land, cut the timber and share the money from it, or even build a house on it, but they couldn’t sell it, according to Josiah’s will. Your daddy’s father, Samuel Covington, was the first of those twelve children to die. And Uncle Chester is the last of those twelve children living. Your father, Agatha, Gertrude, and Fred Covington are the next generation of over one hundred heirs of those twelve children who are now scattered all over the country. Cousin Agatha is worried.”