Mama Stalks the Past

by Nora Deloach

“You can’t make me believe it doesn’t bother you that they suspect you of poisoning Miss Hannah and Nat,” I said.

  “Not really, but it’s because I’ve got the upper hand,” Mama confessed.

  “Mama—”

  “Simone,” Mama interrupted, “I’ve convinced Calvin Stokes, Judge Thompson, and Abe to keep Hannah’s will a secret for three more weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “Because after you told me about what they were saying about me, I know that those three will spread so many lies about me all over the county, I won’t be able to hold my head up.”

  “Who cares what they say? It’s the person who tried to kill you that you should be worried about.”

  “I can find that person better if people don’t know about the will,” Mama insisted. “I won’t have to spin my wheels defending myself.”

  I nodded. But the truth was that I wasn’t as sure about Mama’s rationale as she was.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  The next morning things seemed a little more hopeful. For one thing, Mama, who’d had a good night’s sleep, seemed almost her old self again.

  Dr. DeFoe visited her early, around five. While he examined her, I took the opportunity to look for Gertrude. She had mentioned the day before that she would be on duty early this morning. I wanted to check to see how she was coming with the list of hospital workers I’d asked for. I still wasn’t convinced that somebody who worked at the hospital wasn’t behind Mama’s poisoning. That list would be the first step in finding out who that person might be.

  But Gertrude was hedging. She hadn’t done anything toward getting me the list. I made her promise to work on getting it.

  When I got back to Mama’s room, Dr. DeFoe had gone on to his next patient. Mama was sitting up. Sheriff Abe stood next to her bed.

  “Meant to come more oftener,” he was saying when I entered the room. “This whole mess has got me jumping like a grasshopper.”

  Mama nodded.

  “I was in Columbia yesterday meeting with the State Law Enforcement people about Hannah’s and Nat’s deaths. DeFoe called to tell me that you were finally conscious, that you were going to pull through.”

  Mama seemed satisfied with the sheriff’s explanation of his neglect. “Did you get anything important from SLED?” she asked her old friend and sleuthing partner.

  “DeFoe told me that he had sent the stuff he pumped from your stomach to the lab by a courier. Since I was there, I went to the lab directly. I pressured them a bit to get them to analyze it so quickly. Usually takes longer. Speaking of longer, good thing you came back to the hospital that night,” Abe said. “DeFoe said you might not have made it if you hadn’t.”

  “I would have never returned if I hadn’t gotten that phone call,” Mama said.

  “Who called you?” the sheriff asked.

  “I don’t know who I talked to, but she said she was calling for Trudy Paige. If Trudy hadn’t told that person that I was waiting for her at the Country Café, well—”

  Abe scowled. Abe is a thin man with soft gray hair at his temples, deep lines in his face, and a mouth that turns down to show a bottom row of teeth. “I’ll put Rick to hunting down Trudy Paige.” Rick was Abe’s deputy.

  “I’ve got information on Trudy.” I decided that this was something I wanted to be a part of. “She used to work right in this hospital. That is, until she quit right after Nat died.”

  “Trudy told me she hadn’t quit,” Mama said. “Told me that she still works here.”

  Abe shook his head. “I’ll get to talking with the people here at the hospital. It shouldn’t be too hard to track her.”

  “What about Reeves Mixon?” I asked.

  Abe looked confused. “Reeves who?”

  “Never mind about Reeves,” Mama said. “We need to find Trudy.”

  “Yeah,” Abe said, easing toward the door. “That girl set you up, all right.”

  “Wherever you find Trudy, let me know,” Mama told him.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I put my hands on her,” Sheriff Abe assured her, and I knew he would keep his promise. He looked at Mama again, as if to assure himself that she was okay, then, with a nod, he left.

  “Now that we’ve got Abe searching for Trudy,” Mama told me, the moment the sheriff was out of hearing range, “we’ve got to find Reeves Mixon.”

  “You do think Reeves has something to do with this whole thing?”

  “I think he might have wanted his land back,” she replied. “We’ve known all along that Hannah inherited that land from Leroy, but we didn’t know about Stella Gordon or her son Reeves. It’s something we must look into.”

  One thing still puzzled me. “Why didn’t you want me to tell Abe about Reeves?” I asked.

  “Abe will have his hands full finding Trudy. Besides, there ain’t no law against Reeves leaving home twenty years ago, is there?”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll call Sidney later this morning. Ask him for some more time off to stay with you.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Mama said. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Do you honestly think that I could do anything in Atlanta knowing that you’re here at the mercy of a killer?”

  “Dr. DeFoe thinks I can go home tomorrow. I’ll need to rest. I don’t imagine anybody will come into my own house to harm me,” she retorted.

  “How about you going to Atlanta with me? You can rest at my apartment.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mama said. “My home is where I want to be.”

  “Daddy, Will, and Rodney will feel better knowing that you’re away from Otis for a while,” I pointed out craftily. I knew Mama wouldn’t want Daddy and my brothers any more worried than they had been.

  “I’ll think about it,” Mama said absently, like what she was thinking about was something other than staying in my apartment in Atlanta.

  On Tuesday morning, we took Mama home from the hospital. Will went back to Florida, and Rodney flew back to New York. Cliff and I were finally headed back for Atlanta.

  “I’ll run a paper trail on Reeves Mixon when I get back to Atlanta,” I promised Mama.

  “Abe needs to find Trudy. I’m going to make that woman tell me why she lied to me if it’s the last thing I do,” she said, her voice determined. A chill ran through me. The last time Mama talked to Trudy Paige, it had almost killed her.

  “And Simone,” Mama said, looking at me soulfully. “We’ve only got three weeks, three weeks before the will is released to Probate.”

  “I know,” I said, softly, suspecting that the release of the knowledge about the will was more threatening to my mother than the person who had tried to kill her. The idea that people here in Otis were gossiping about her was very hurtful to her.

  I traced Reeves Mixon from the moment he left Cypress Creek when he was fifteen, twenty years earlier, to his first job, caddying at a golf club in Daytona. Once I got his Social Security number, the rest was easy. I checked for a driver’s license, credit reports, tax and bank records. I had a lot of experience doing this kind of research, working for Sidney’s law firm.

  Six months after Reeves left Daytona, he’d moved to Orlando. A year after that, he showed up in Miami. There he stayed for five years. The next time he worked, it was in Orlando at one of the same golf clubs he’d worked at before.

  Reeves hadn’t married. At least I couldn’t find a marriage license. And he owned no real estate. I searched not only the tax records of every county he’d lived in since he left Otis, but also all the surrounding counties. And he didn’t own a car either: I checked motor vehicle records—no car tags, nothing.

  The one thing I did discover was that Reeves Mixon had a serious drinking problem. Hospital records came from all over Florida. He had been hospitalized many times for alcohol poisoning. Reeves was no social drinker; the man drank a lot of liquor and he drank it fast.

  The last record came from Orlando Regional Medical Center. Reeves had been diagnosed
as having cirrhosis of the liver; he’d stayed a few weeks and was released. His prognosis was poor. The report was dated in May, six months earlier. And there the paper trail ended.

  Everything I’d learned of Reeves made me see him as a sad person. He was a loner, with no family. He wandered from place to place. He drank too much. He’d been in and out of hospitals and had finally ended up with a disease that would soon kill him. If it hadn’t already.

  I wondered whether a man with this kind of unstable history would be able to murder with such cold precision. But then I remembered that Reeves’s father had killed his mother; it might be in the blood, I thought. And he certainly had a motive. He had been denied his mother’s inheritance, the only thing Stella Mixon had been able to pass on to her only son, those two hundred and fifty precious acres.

  For the first time in years, my brothers and I talked almost daily. They called me every day. Sometimes we did conference calls, all of us on the phone at the same time. Will and Rodney wanted to find the person who tried to poison Mama just as much as I did. I shared with them what I had on Reeves. “Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, hospital records are my expertise,” I told them. “I’ve done everything I know and I still don’t have Reeves Mixon.”

  “I don’t understand what you think he’s got to do with poisoning Mama,” Will said.

  “I don’t know if he tried to poison Mama or not,” I said. “But I know we need to talk to him.”

  “I can go along with talking to him. What do we do to find him?” Rodney demanded.

  “I think we should get a leg man, a private detective who could talk to people, locate him,” I said.

  “Then we’ll get one,” Rodney said. Rodney, as I said, is my practical brother.

  “We’ll split the cost,” Will interjected. “A third each, okay?” Will is my thrifty brother.

  I sighed. “Okay,” I agreed, thinking how my share would blow my budget out of the window again. But then, Mama’s life was worth more than anything I’d allowed to disrupt my cash flow in the past.

  “Sidney’s best detective is named Kilroy Seymour,” I told my brothers.

  “Get the best,” Rodney said.

  “He’s expensive,” I warned.

  “You get what you pay for,” Rodney said.

  Will grumbled, but he finally agreed.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” I promised before hanging up.

  Sidney had met Kilroy when the detective had appeared as a witness in one of Sidney’s cases. “I like that Kilroy Seymour,” Sidney told me after the trial. “He’s got a talent.” What Sidney meant, I soon learned, was that Kilroy had a unique ability to look like either a businessman or a bum. Dressed in a suit, Kilroy could get in places that were inaccessible to most African-American men. However, when he dressed down, Kilroy could be any bum on skid row, a wino, a derelict, a man down on his luck. Kilroy had one shortcoming, however: When called to look like the average Joe Blow, he couldn’t pull it off; he simply looked stupid.

  Kilroy Seymour was a man in his early forties with a quickly receding hairline, a close-clipped beard, and a mustache. Although he wasn’t heavyset, he did look like he was accustomed to a life of substance.

  Kilroy was definitely our man, so I called him. He agreed to fly down to Florida right away to look for Reeves.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  It was Saturday morning, four days since I’d left Mama. I slept badly.

  I rolled over and glanced at the radio clock. Six A.M. At seven, I was dressed, and was grabbing my shoulder bag, my jacket, and my car keys. I congratulated myself that I’d had the sense to get the Honda gassed up; I didn’t want to stop until I’d reached Otis.

  I was pleased to see how well Mama looked. Her golden-brown complexion was glowing, her eyes sharp.

  After hugs and kisses, our conversation focused on my efforts to locate Reeves Mixon. “If Reeves is the killer, how do you think he’s tied in with Trudy Paige?” I asked Mama.

  She shook her head. “That’s what’s got me puzzled.”

  “They could be in this thing together. They could be lovers,” I suggested.

  “Where would Trudy have met Reeves?” Mama asked.

  I rubbed my forehead. “You know, I’ve grown to expect murder in Atlanta, but the town of Otis is so peaceful. Most people who live here have known each other all their lives. It just doesn’t seem possible that a killer could be one of you.”

  “Simone, the one thing I’ve learned from traveling with your father is that evil is everywhere.” Mama said it gently but firmly.

  For a moment I didn’t say anything. Then something crossed my mind. “What about Cousin Gertrude?” I asked Mama.

  “What about her?”

  “She promised to get me a list of hospital employees.”

  Mama shook her head. “Gertrude has been by to see me twice, but she never mentioned a list.”

  I was annoyed. “Then I’ll have to remind her,” I snapped, thinking that there was no sense in closing the book on the possibility that somebody who worked at Otis General Hospital could be the killer in Otis, South Carolina.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  On Monday morning, I called Sidney and asked for a few more days off. Reluctantly, he agreed. The reason for my action was an announcement Mama made the previous morning.

  “Time is running out,” she had said. “In two weeks, the whole county is going to know about Hannah’s will, and—”

  “The knowledge of the will isn’t as important as finding your would-be killer,” I interrupted.

  “Simone, I know the two are related,” Mama said.

  I wasn’t convinced. “What do you plan to do?” I asked.

  “Trudy Paige is the key to who is behind the killings,” Mama said. “I’m going to find Trudy!”

  “Sheriff Abe is looking for Trudy,” I said.

  “I know that,” Mama said.

  “You don’t need to be out tramping all over the place. After all, you may still not be strong.”

  “I’m as strong as I ever was,” Mama said.

  “Mama—”

  “Simone, I’m not sitting in this house like a prisoner, expecting Abe or that detective friend of yours to find whoever is out there poisoning people.”

  “What can you do?” I asked.

  “I can find Trudy Paige, find out who put her up to luring me to that café, and—”

  “Okay,” I conceded. It was clear that I couldn’t talk her into staying safely locked up in the house until Kilroy or Abe came through. But every time I thought of Mama’s last encounter with Trudy Paige, I felt a tightness in my chest, and it was hard for me to breathe. If Mama insisted on meeting up with Trudy again, I would be with her. “I’ll call Sidney and ask for a few more days off.”

  Mama laughed. “Simone, you think I can’t take care of myself.”

  “I think that woman is devious and—”

  Mama’s eyes twinkled; she was pleased. “I need you, Simone,” she said, her voice sounding as if she realized that my concern for her life was genuine.

  On Monday morning, my father went off to work. After breakfast, Mama and I visited the sheriff’s office. Abe was sitting with his feet propped on top of his desk. “Glad to see you, Candi,” he said when we came in. “Morning, Simone.”

  “It’s good to be back out and around,” Mama told him. “Are things the same as it was when we last talked? Have you come close to finding Trudy yet?”

  Abe frowned. “You’d think that woman has fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve got an APB out for her, but nobody has reported seeing her since the Friday night you saw her.”

  “She’s been missing since the night I got poisoned?” Mama asked.

  “That’s right,” Abe said.

  “I suppose you’ve talked to Trudy’s people?”

  Abe nodded. “I’ve talked to Trudy’s people from all over this county. Even talked to a few in other states—the last anybody
owns up to seeing that girl was the night you talked to her, Candi.”

  “At what time on that Friday night was she seen?” I asked.

  “Around ten o’clock,” Sheriff Abe answered. “That brother of hers, Clyde Paige, told my deputy that he drove by Trudy’s house to borrow twenty dollars. Clyde said Trudy declared she ain’t had no money, so he left.” Abe paused. “One thing for sure, if Trudy told Clyde that she was broke, she was lying.”

  Mama’s eyes lit up with interest. “Lying?” she said.

  The sheriff dragged his feet from the top of his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out a zippered red wallet and handed it to Mama. She opened it. “This is the woman I talked to in the parking lot—this is Trudy Paige.” She pointed to the picture on the driver’s license inside.

  “That’s Trudy all right,” Abe said.

  “Where did you get her wallet?” I asked him.

  “Rick found it on her front step,” the sheriff answered.

  Mama flipped through the rest of the wallet’s contents. Inside, there were five twenty-dollar bills, a Social Security card, and a piece of paper with a little black bird drawn on it.

  “One thing for sure,” the sheriff continued. “Trudy did quit her job at the hospital on the very day that Nat died, just like you said.”

  “Another puzzle,” Mama murmured. She was staring down at the little bird drawn on the piece of paper again.

  “Now, don’t worry, Candi. We’re going to keep looking for Trudy. And I’ve got my deputy Rick keeping an eye on you. You may not see him all the time, but he’s looking over your shoulders, you can count on that.”

  “Thank you, but you don’t have to—”

  “I promised James we won’t let nothing happen to you again.” Abe said it like he would brook no argument.

  “The only way we’re going to protect Mama is to find the person responsible for the poisoning,” I told the sheriff.

  “You be careful what you eat,” Abe told Mama. “Watch everything and everybody around you, you hear?”

  Mama nodded, but she was still looking at the drawing.