by Nora Deloach
Mama shook her head. “James, you don’t understand. It’s prudent to take care of the land before Uncle Chester dies. That way, there won’t be a nasty fight among the cousins, the heirs. If Uncle Chester would only give Agatha the power of attorney, she can go ahead and set up the Covington Land Company and incorporate it. Agatha has already started the process; Calvin Stokes has drawn up the papers. The corporation would be set up for one hundred years. That way the land will stay in the family.”
Daddy sneezed again. But he didn’t say a word.
“Agatha has been satisfied with getting the timber cut and paying the taxes,” Mama continued, “but she knows that she ain’t going to be able to take care of the land forever.”
“I never thought of that,” I said.
“James, you and your cousins are the second generation. Agatha knows that none of the Covington children of the third generation is going to take responsibility for that land. Agatha is afraid that when she dies, the Covington property will get sold, or worse, lost for taxes.”
“I wouldn’t want the responsibility of handling the Covington property, of seeing that it stays in the family,” I said.
Daddy scowled. “I agree with Agatha that our parents worked hard for that land. They did without a lot of things to buy it and to keep it. It’ll be a shame to lose it from neglect.”
Mama nodded. “Agatha is doing the right thing,” she said firmly. “And somehow we’ve got to make Uncle Chester understand that!”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Cliff and I talked around ten-thirty that night. He was still tied up in New York. The Zwigs were going at it tooth and nail. Needless to say, I was depressed. The thought of going back to work again in Atlanta without so much as looking into his face was sickening. And the next morning the black cloud still seemed to hang over my head. I called Sidney and begged for the balance of the week off. He quickly agreed.
Mama seemed a little preoccupied. She hadn’t gotten any closer to finding either Miss Hannah’s Bible or the mysterious envelope.
Around ten A.M., I set off to find the source of Miss Hannah’s large property holding. I headed for the Otis County Courthouse, a large, very ugly brick building built in 1878 that sits at the head of Main Street.
It took me an hour to find the source of Hannah Mixon’s large property holdings. That’s because when I couldn’t find a record of Miss Hannah’s purchase in the Clerk of Court Deed Books, I went to Probate Court on the assumption that Miss Hannah could have inherited the land from one of her husbands. Sure enough, I found Leroy Mixon’s will stating that the property would belong to Hannah Mixon and, upon her death, it would pass on to her son, Nat.
“Not anymore,” I murmured, reading the fine print in the will. “Upon her death, it passed on to my Mama, Candi Covington.”
Before going back to our house, I stopped into the drugstore to pick up a few candy bars. I was looking though the selection, trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to buy as many as I wanted to, when I saw Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls drive up outside in the large blue Buick owned and solely driven by Carrie Smalls.
I started to slip toward the back of the store, because I didn’t want another encounter without Mama’s presence. Fortunately, the three women didn’t see me. They were too busy talking. They stopped in front of the pharmacy, their backs to me.
“Well, if you ask me,” Annie Mae Gregory was saying, “Candi knows more than she’s letting on.” Her large body seemed to tremble with excitement.
“Hannah hated Candi, I know that for a fact,” Sarah Jenkins said.
The sound of these women talking about Mama twisted something inside me.
Carrie Smalls interjected. “It’s mighty suspicious that Candi was the one to take Nat to the hospital.”
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Annie Mae continued. “Candi might not have been doing that boy any favor dragging him to the hospital if she was the one that tried to kill him.”
“Candi tries to make people think she ain’t changed since she’s come back home to live, but I don’t buy it,” Carrie Smalls said.
I was shocked, to say the least. My first impulse was to give the women a piece of my mind, to set them straight about talking about Mama. Then it occurred to me that Mama would want to know what they were saying, so I controlled my inclination and eased around on the other side of the aisle so that I could better hear then talk without them knowing I was listening.
Annie Mae Gregory spoke. “You can’t travel all over the world and mingle with different people and come back home the same way as you left.”
“I dare say, Candi could have learned how to hide poison in Hannah’s food when she was overseas,” Sarah Jenkins said.
Annie Mae Gregory’s huge body stiffened. “If Candi had something to do with Hannah’s dying and somebody hitting poor Nat, she had a reason.”
“Talk is that Hannah didn’t like her neighbors,” Sarah contributed.
“What is it she didn’t like about Candi?” Carrie asked.
“Don’t know exactly,” Sarah Jenkins said, “but Hannah told my first cousin’s wife that Candi tried to bring her something to eat once. Hannah said she knew better than to eat anything from Candi Covington’s house.”
“Hannah might have known something about Candi that we don’t,” Carrie Smalls said.
“If you ask me, Hannah suspected Candi of trying to poison her then,” Annie Mae Gregory said.
That was enough. My appetite for candy was gone. I fought an impulse to slap each of the women and instead, eased toward the front door. Once in my Honda, I headed home.
I called Mama at the welfare office and told her that I’d overheard the women’s conversation.
“Simone,” Mama said, annoyed more than surprised, “do you know what those women will do to my reputation if they ever find out Hannah put me in her will?”
“Mama, in a few weeks everybody in Otis will know about that will. It will be public knowledge, recorded in the Probate just like all other wills.”
For a second, Mama didn’t say anything. “We’ve got to find Hannah’s killer before that happens,” she finally said. “Before those women make it impossible for me to hold up my head in this town!”
On Saturday morning, Daddy and a few of his buddies left town for a hunting trip to North Carolina. I knew that would mean that Mama would be free to sleuth uninterruptedly for a few days, something I suspected she dearly wanted to do. She told me she had decided that the first thing she would do was to ask around about the unknown woman who had come with Nat the morning he’d come to our house accusing Mama of stealing his land.
I didn’t talk to Cliff again until late Saturday afternoon. He had finally gotten the Affair Zwig settled. I was elated. He was flying into Hartsfield in Atlanta on Sunday; he expected to arrive there around noon.
I glanced at my watch, eased my foot on the gas and drove away from my parents’ home. It was early Sunday morning, just before seven. There was no rain, but a few snow flurries did fall as I drove through the Savannah River Plant into Augusta. My heart pounded and my flesh tingled. I was going to have a few hours with Cliff, a few precious hours. Nothing was going to take that away from us, I thought. Little did I know that I’d be driving back to Otis at two-forty that same afternoon—that’s exactly what Cliff and I had to do.
This is what went down. Around eleven-thirty, I pulled into my parking space in the apartment complex where I lived on South Hairston Parkway. Atlanta was damp, the clouds gray and very low. My apartment was dark and unwelcoming, just like the weather. I turned on lights, hoping to create the illusion that things were warm and bright. I set up a pot of fresh coffee and flipped the switch, and soon the aroma of hazelnut filled the small apartment. I sank into a chair. Thinking of what Cliff and I would do once his plane landed and he could get to my apartment, I sipped my coffee. Then I noticed the blinking answering machine. My heart sank. If those Zwigs had started a
gain …
I pressed the button for messages and was greeted with my mother’s anxious voice. “Simone!… Mama! I don’t know if you’ve gotten home yet. No sooner than you had driven away, I got a call from Abe. Nat has been poisoned!”
I slumped down in the chair and dialed Mama’s number. “What happened?”
“Somebody poisoned the boy at the Melody Bar. That’s where the ambulance picked him up.”
“Where?” I repeated.
“The Melody Bar, near Monica!” Mama said.
I felt like a child who was being forced into something that didn’t feel good. “Are you sure? Maybe he’s not really—”
“Simone!” she snapped, in the special tone she uses when she knows I need to be pushed forward.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “When did it happen?”
Mama’s voice calmed slightly. “Last night,” she answered, “or early this morning. I’m not sure!”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, and cringed inwardly.
As I expected, Mama didn’t hesitate. She loved investigating murders, and now she almost had another one to poke around into. “I need you to come home right away,” she told me. “Today.”
“Now? I just got home!”
“I want to go to that Melody Bar and talk to some of the people who were there; I can’t go into a bar alone!”
Disbelief swept through me. “No,” I said stubbornly. “I can’t come today. You’ll have to get Daddy to go with you. I can’t come. No!”
“James has gone hunting, you know that.”
I shook my head. “Then go by yourself,” I said stubbornly.
“Simone, I don’t feel comfortable going in there atone. It’s not a nice place.”
“Ask somebody else!”
“There is nobody else!”
“Then you’ll just have to wait until next weekend, Mama!”
“Ask Cliff to drive you.”
“Mama!” I yelled. “Cliff and I haven’t seen each other in weeks. We need these few hours!”
“Simone, Hannah is dead, Nat may be dying, and—”
“Okay,” I agreed, because experience had taught me this was an argument I couldn’t win. “I’ll talk to Cliff and call you back!” So much for a few precious hours with Cliff. I slammed the receiver down so hard I dropped the phone. After I’d rescued it, I sat on the couch, thumping a pillow with my fist. It’s one of the ways I maturely deal with the unfairness of life.
Two hours and forty minutes later, I was looking back toward Atlanta as Cliff pulled my car onto the tree-lined I-20 and I headed east once more. He was in the driver’s seat, wearing a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of brown suede Reebok walking shoes. When he glanced over at me and smiled, I knew why my heart ached to be alone with him.
“Tell me again,” he asked, “why does Miss Candi insist that you come back to Otis today?”
“Remember I told you that Miss Hannah Mixon, our next-door neighbor’s mother, died two weeks ago? Well, she was poisoned. Now her son Nat has been poisoned, too. Mama wants to go to the Melody Bar to talk to some of the people who were there when it happened.”
Cliff adjusted the rearview mirror, then pulled smoothly into the inside lane. His speed picked up as we swiftly passed several cars on the right.
“The Melody Bar is a juke joint where Nat and his buddies hang out,” I explained.
A car cut sharply in front of us. Cliff braked and swore under his breath. After the traffic had eased a little, he asked, “Why does your mother want to go to the bar today?”
“She thinks she might learn something.”
“I know Miss Candi likes solving murders, but …” He shook his head.
“It’s more to it than her solving the murders,” I said.
Cliff’s eyebrow rose.
“Miss Hannah willed land to Mama. And Mama thinks the land has something to do with the whole mess.”
Mama was in the foyer waiting for us. “I hated to call you back,” she said, after hugging me and greeting Cliff warmly.
“Forget it,” I said. After all, if finding out what might have happened to Nat was important to Mama, I guess it was important to me, too. “Did you find out anything more?”
“There’s a lot of conflicting stories. But what I gathered so far is that the bar was very crowded last night and Nat was doing his usual drinking. Abe told me that the report is that Nat suddenly grabbed his throat, then fell to the floor. They got him to the hospital but he’s hanging on by a thread!”
“What kind of poison was it?” I asked.
“The doctor isn’t sure yet,” Mama replied.
“Do you think the poisoner was somebody at the bar? One of Nat’s friends?” I asked.
“Abe got a list of everybody who was there, and he’s going to question each and every one.” She reached for her jacket. “Right now, I want to go to the Melody Bar.”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Cliff said cheerfully. He grinned at me.
“Yeah,” Mama said. “The sooner we get this over, the quicker you two can get back to Atlanta!”
The Melody Bar is open seven nights a week. It’s just as busy on Sunday night as any one of the others. The one big room was very dark, the smell of cigarette smoke mingled pungently with beer and Johnnie Red. Bursts of laughter punctuated the loud chatter; the jukebox pounded one continuous rap beat.
Cliff and I followed Mama through the smoky darkness toward a middle-aged man whose potbellied stomach hung over his old jeans. He wore a T-shirt that had once been white, and a pair of dirty running shoes. He was slouching in his chair, an empty beer glass and a full beer pitcher on the table. When he saw Mama, he bolted upright. “Miss Candi!” he exclaimed. “What you doing here?”
Mama motioned to him. “Relax, Buford,” she said.
The man Mama had called Buford slouched down in his chair again. “I’m just having a little drink,” he muttered as he poured beer from the pitcher.
Mama shook her head sadly as Cliff pulled a chair out for her. Buford tipped his glass and let the beer slide down his throat before speaking again. “This ain’t no place for you, Miss Candi,” he said.
“I agree that this isn’t my usual hangout,” Mama said pleasantly, “but I’m here trying to find out what happened to Nat Mixon.”
Buford took a gulp of beer. “Nat got real sick last night. They took him to the hospital.”
“Nat’s maybe dying,” I said.
Buford put his glass on the table. He squinted at me. “Something he ate?”
“The doctor says it’s something he drank,” Mama said.
Buford’s eyes refused to meet Mama’s. “We’ve all got to go sometime,” he said.
“Somebody put something in Nat’s drink last night,” Mama told him.
“I don’t know nothing about that. The place was full, just like now,” Buford said.
Mama nodded. Somewhere behind us, a woman shrieked with laughter. “Was there anybody particular around Nat?” Mama asked Buford.
“Everybody. Nat had money last night, he was buying drinks for whoever walked into the door.” Buford shrugged.
“Did he have an argument with anybody?” Cliff asked.
When Buford didn’t answer, I placed my foot on top of Cliff’s and applied a little pressure. This was my way of telling him that Buford wouldn’t talk to him because he thought Cliff was a stranger. Cliff immediately understood. He sat back and surveyed the noisy room.
“Did he have an argument with anybody?” This time, Mama asked. Buford looked at Mama, then worked his tongue along his teeth, sucking, as if he were trying to clean them. “Nobody was bothering Nat, if that what you mean.”
“Was there anything unusual?” Mama persisted. “Anything at all?”
Buford frowned. He slouched further into his chair. “Nothing that I saw,” he said grimly.
Mama sighed, shook her head, and stood up. Cliff and I did, too.
“Do you remember,” Mama a
sked as if it were an afterthought, “whether Nat mentioned that he smelled something funny, something that he had smelled before?”
Buford looked around, then chuckled sourly. “I don’t know what he could have smelled funny in here!” he replied.
We followed Mama to the bar. There, she waved to a thick-lipped woman with stooped shoulders. The woman was light-skinned, but on one side of her face there was a liver spot the size of a half-dollar. Mama sat on a stool at the end of the bar until the woman walked over. Mama introduced her as Lulu, the owner of the Melody Bar.
“Death comes in threes,” Lulu replied in a grim tone when Mama broached the subject of Nat’s poisoning. “If Nat doesn’t make it, somebody else will die before it stops!”
“Did Nat mention smelling something funny before he died?” Mama asked, not deterred by this expression of impending doom.
Lulu inhaled through her nose and waved Mama’s question aside. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my place,” she muttered.
I was a little exasperated. “I don’t know about that.”
Lulu looked at me. Her eyes were eerily vacant. “This your girl?” she asked Mama.
“This is my Simone,” Mama replied. “And her good friend, Cliff.”
Lulu stuck a Camel in the corner of her mouth. “Nat ain’t mentioned nobody smelling funny to me!”
Mama frowned. “Was there anybody here other than the usual?”
“No.” Lulu took a book of matches from her pocket and twirled it in her hand. “Nobody here but people who always be here.” She struck a match and lit her cigarette.
“Could anybody have gotten to Nat’s drink?” Mama asked. In the background, somebody dropped a glass and cursed when it shattered.
The record on the jukebox changed, although it didn’t sound much different from the one that had been on. Lulu inhaled a lungful of blue smoke. She hesitated, as if she was thinking. “I don’t know,” she said finally, exhaling. “I’ve done told Abe all this. When the music is right and spirits are high, nobody pays any attention to nobody at the Melody!”
