by Nora Deloach
The sheriff turned to me. “Rick and I have talked to each person who works at Otis General. Except for Trudy, we haven’t found a link between any one of them and Nat or Hannah, much less Candi. And the truth is that I don’t think the arsenic came from the hospital.”
I took a deep breath. I was suddenly weary of what seemed like another dead end. “Okay, but do you have a list of the hospital’s employees? And can I have it?” If Gertrude wouldn’t get the list for me, I’d get it this way.
The sheriff shuffled through a stack of papers on the top of his desk. Finally, he pulled out a sheet and handed it to me. “You can have it, Simone, but I don’t see what good it’s going to do you. And, Candi—remember what I said. You be real careful till we find out what’s going on in this town.”
Mama nodded and headed for the door. As I followed her outside, I quickly examined the list Abe had given me. When we were seated in the Honda, I asked, “Where to now?”
“I want to go to Uncle Chester’s house,” Mama replied. “I need to get the map and picture I found in Hannah’s Bible away from him before they get lost. First, though, swing by the house. I’ll take Uncle Chester a bowl of the turnip greens left from yesterday’s supper.”
We drove up in the yard in time to meet the mailman. He handed me an overnight envelope with an Orlando return address on it. I thanked him, then opened it. Inside were three photographs. A note was attached. It read: “I got these pictures of Reeves Mixon from one of the men who frequents the boardinghouse. Hope they’ll help—K.” The first picture was of a man who was dark, thin, with deep-set eyes and thick lips. His nose looked like it had once been broken. If this was Reeves, he looked closer to fifty than thirty-five. The second picture was faded. It showed a woman wearing a white cotton dress and a large straw hat. Her face was pleasant but her eyes held a strange sadness. The third photo was of that same woman with a sickly looking boy about five years old. Reeves Mixon, before time and life had aged him.
“This is from Kilroy,” I said, handing the photos to Mama.
Mama smiled. “Your private detective came through for you,” she said.
I nodded, satisfied that I’d finally been able to do something to bring closure to the horrible events of the past few weeks.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Uncle Chester was sitting by his heater, his frail body wrapped in its usual mound of blankets. He wore a stocking cap pulled down to his ears.
The first thing Uncle Chester did was to eat all of Mama’s turnip greens. After that, she showed him the pictures Kilroy had sent. Uncle Chester looked down into the man’s face.
“He’s the spitting image of Stella’s Daddy, George Gordon,” Uncle Chester said after he stared at the picture for a while. “You’d think this was George’s boy instead of his grand-boy.”
I handed Uncle Chester the two old pictures. “Is this Reeves’s mother?” I asked.
Uncle Chester squinted. “Look like Stella to me,” he said, handing them back.
Mama looked toward Cousin Agatha, who sat placidly in the corner of the room, knitting. “I’ve come for the map and picture I sent by James,” Mama said, addressing her.
Cousin Agatha stood, set down her knitting, then silently left the room. When she returned she held the items in her hand. “If that photo is the Mixons’ place, that house is only a mile down the road, near the Jamisons’ wire fence. That fence separates the property—everything on the right side belongs to the Mixons,” she told us.
“Belongs to Mama now,” I said softly.
“What’s that?” Cousin Agatha asked.
“Nothing,” Mama told her. “I think me and Simone will drive down there.”
“This is the best time of year to make the trip,” Agatha said. “The road’s grown up. During the heat or rain, a car could easily get bogged down. In this weather, ground is hard, frozen.”
Mama nodded and motioned me toward the door. “I done told you to cook me some more lamb stew,” Uncle Chester snapped, seeing we were leaving. “Don’t come back here again until you do, you hear me, Candi!”
Mama chuckled. The turnip greens hadn’t satisfied his desire for the stew. “I will, Uncle Chester,” she promised.
Cousin Agatha stepped close to Mama. “I think Daddy is going to sign over the power of attorney to me,” she whispered. “That talk you gave him when he visited you in the hospital set his mind working.”
“Let me know if I can be of any help,” Mama offered.
Cousin Agatha nodded, then shut the door, leaving me and Mama to the windy, cold air.
The dirt road wound through a heavy forest for half a mile before we saw the old house. We stood in front of its sagging remains, remnants of a wood-framed house, its chimney broken, its windows long gone. All was quiet, too quiet. The area seemed to have a weird force of its own, one that seemed to push us away.
Inside, the Mixon house was as cold as a morgue. I know it sounds odd, but I swear you could feel the pain, hatred, and fear in these musty rooms the moment you stepped inside them.
Beside me in the shadows, Mama gasped. And then I saw what she’d seen.
The dead man’s arms reached toward us. There was a face, or what was left of the face, on top of the naked, bloated body. The eyes were mere sockets; the cheeks, lips, and chin had been gnawed and torn by furry predators; the mouth gaped obscenely. The throat had been sliced from side to side, like some creatures had made an incision so that they could feast upon it. My stomach filled with bile.
Tears streamed down Mama’s face. “Simone, we’ve found Reeves,” she whispered.
A fat raccoon ran past me and scampered out the door. I screamed. “Lord,” Mama prayed, “please don’t let no rats come squealing out here today.”
An hour later, Sheriff Abe, Rick Martin, and the paramedics had joined us. I’d used my car phone to call Sheriff Abe. The medic wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head grimly. “No gunshot or knife wounds,” he told the sheriff. “My guess is that he died from natural causes.”
“Will there be an autopsy?” Mama asked.
Abe pulled out a handkerchief and coughed into it. “Always an autopsy, in these kinds of things.”
“How long has he been dead?” I asked.
“Based on what we know, maybe three, four weeks.”
“Weeks?” Mama asked.
“It’s the cold, windchill’s below freezing,” Abe replied. “Keeps a body for a long time.”
“Then he was dead before Nat was killed,” Mama whispered.
“I reckon,” the sheriff agreed.
“Isn’t it strange that he’d come way out here in the cold to die?” I asked.
Mama frowned. “I don’t see any car. How did he get here?”
The ambulance crew thumped by, carrying their stretcher and body pouch. “Did he have any ID?” I asked the sheriff.
“There’s no need for ID. It’s Reeves Mixon,” Mama said. “There is enough left of him to tell that!”
The two paramedics grabbed Reeves’s arms and legs like he was a sack of flour, and put him into the body bag. When the dead man was zipped up, they carried him out.
“We found keys in his shirt pocket, that’s all. No wallet. But I’m sure the boys at the SLED laboratory can verify that it’s Reeves Mixon,” Abe said, watching them.
“Did you find anything else?” Mama asked him.
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Not a thing,” he told Mama. “You expecting something else, something I don’t know about?”
Mama shook her head. “No,” she said. But I could see Abe didn’t believe her. He knew Mama too well. So did I.
Rick Martin got out a camera and a tape measure.
Mama watched him.
“I reckon this as good a time as any to tell you,” Abe said, looking at Mama. “Hannah’s will has reached Probate. It’s going public.”
“But I thought I had another week,” Mama said.
“Seems like th
ere was a mix-up. It got put in a stack of other wills, and—”
Mama groaned. “Annie Mae Gregory, Sarah Jenkins, and Carrie Smalls will soon know about it.”
Sheriff Abe rolled his eyes heavenward. “If I was you, Candi, I’d get rid of this piece of property fast as I can!”
“He’s right!” I agreed.
Mama stared at me. She didn’t answer.
“Uncle Chester was right when he said this land is filled with blood. Why don’t you just give it away?” I said. “Maybe to the county.”
“What would the county want with land out in the middle of noplace?” Mama asked.
“For a game preserve, a bird sanctuary, a state park. Giving it away might defuse the dam- age your three friends will do to your reputation,” I said.
“Yes,” Mama said, her mind clearly thinking about what I’d just said. “You may be right.”
“Sorry about that will.” Abe followed Rick to the door. “You ladies coming?”
“I want to stay and look around some more.”
“Don’t see why, Candi, but it’s okay with me.” The sheriff shrugged. “Be getting dark … don’t stay too long.”
Mama took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. I turned to look out of the doorway, to watch the sheriff and his deputy drive away. The ambulance was bumping ahead of them down the dirt road. Mama started to walk toward the other room. Then she stopped. A thought seemed to come to her. She turned and walked back to the crumbling fireplace.
Shivering, I tucked my elbows close to my sides.
“Simone, help me in case rats come out,” Mama said, as she started moving bricks from the pile that had fallen from inside the ancient chimney.
I shuddered. “There’s nothing underneath there, Mama!”
“I saw something,” she insisted.
“Maybe it was just a piece of Reeves’s clothing.”
I was shivering and couldn’t seem to catch my breath. But Mama paid no attention to me. She was poking through the dusty old bricks and ashes. Then, suddenly, she pulled something free. “This must be the envelope Hannah wanted me to have!” she announced.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
The envelope that Hannah Mixon wanted Mama to have wasn’t heavy or thick. It was weather-beaten and grimy, but it wasn’t torn or decayed. Mama looked down at it in her hand, then up at me, a secret glint in her eyes. “Let’s go home,” she said almost like she was talking to herself. “We need to look at this in the light.”
At the house, I made hazelnut coffee. Mama sat down at the kitchen table. After she’d studied the outside of the envelope for a minute in silence, she carefully tore it open. On it was handwriting that was small and cramped.
“Do you want me to read it?” I asked.
“No,” Mama said. “I’ll do it.” Mama read aloud:
Lord, I wish my hands would stop shaking. I have to do this … before I meet my Mama, I have to do this!
The day was hot, sunny. I was prone to fever, the runs. Daddy came home smelling like dirt. He had that look that scared me. “I’m going to kick tail!” he said. Mama flinched. I crawled under the table.
Daddy rubbed his forehead. He punched Mama. The lick landed on the side of her head. Mama’s eyes grew wide. She took a half-step. She didn’t say nothing, she looked at Daddy, then at me.
Daddy’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head. He slapped her again; this lick landed on her jaw. Blood gushed from her nose and sprayed the table, the floor. Its smell made me want to puke. Mama staggered, then, like cheesecloth, she dropped to the floor.
Daddy looked down at her and smiled. Mama’s eyes were open. Blood and spit were coming from her mouth.
Daddy straddled her, his hand on her throat. Mama’s mouth opened but she didn’t say nothing. Daddy looked straight into Mama’s eyes until her body stopped twitching.
Then he stood up, got the bucket of water, and threw it in her face. Mama didn’t move.
The sheriff came. Daddy told him Mama had a fit, had fallen and hit her head. The sheriff asked me. I told him what Daddy told me to say. Mama had a fit, I said.
Daddy buried Mama. A week later, he married the widow down the road, Miss Hannah Wescot. Miss Hannah and her son moved in with us.
Daddy kept kicking my tail until I was fifteen, until I ran away. Miss Hannah told me that he died, but the pain didn’t die with him. Mama’s pain won’t die!
Mama’s eyes prey on me, haunt me, follow me. I wake up, screaming, then I’m scared to go back to sleep. Mama’s eyes are there when I’m awake too, in the reflections of the mirror, in windowpanes, in pieces of glass.… Even when I drink, I see Mama’s eyes.
Lord, I wish I could do this myself. Today is the day. The person I’m dealing with ain’t got no conscience, ain’t scared of nothing.… This will cleanse my soul. The land belonged to Mama. It should have been mine! If both Miss Hannah and Nat dies before I do, I will get Mama’s land back. Mama will forgive me. I’ve given her land to the person who promised to kill Miss Hannah and Nat for me.
When Mama’s voice faded away, I struggled to visualize Reeves Mixon the way he’d looked in the photograph that Kilroy had overnighted us. But all I could see in my mind’s eye was the face of the bloated corpse Mama and I had found. I took a shaky breath, trying to erase the sickening memory. “Sounds to me that Reeves made a deal with somebody to kill Hannah and Nat.”
“Yes, it does,” Mama murmured.
“It appears that Reeves believed that once Hannah and Nat were dead, the land would be his to will to that person as payment for their murders.”
Mama nodded.
Daddy, who had come into the house while Mama was reading, cleared his throat. “Reeves is dead. Hannah and Nat are dead, too. That land belongs to you now, Candi.”
“Yes, but the killer seems to have decided that Mama must die!” I pointed out.
“Over my dead body!” Daddy exclaimed.
“There’s something there that doesn’t jive,” I said. If Mama was murdered, surely the killer wouldn’t get the land. “Since Miss Hannah willed it to Mama, the Mixons’ land would go to us—Mama’s heirs, isn’t that right?”
“Simone, baby, you’re on target,” Daddy said, looking at Mama for a response. “So, Candi, why is the jerk trying to kill you?”
Mama shook her head. “James, I don’t know. Meanness … anger … Whoever it is has already murdered two people and has gotten nothing for his efforts. I suspect he’s pretty frustrated.”
For a moment, nobody said anything.
“Mama,” I finally said, “I hate to bring this up, but I’ve got to go back to work in two days. Sidney isn’t going to let me talk him into any more emergency vacation days.”
“I understand,” Mama said. But I thought I heard a little melancholy in her voice.
“It’s going to be hard for me to work knowing that a killer is on the loose in town and you’re at the top of his hit list.”
“Don’t worry about Candi,” Daddy told me. “She’ll be all right.”
Easier said than done, I thought. “Do you have any idea of who is at the bottom of these murders?” I asked Mama.
Mama’s face changed. Her familiar expression said a light had flickered on in her mind—Candi Covington was on to something. When she spoke, though, her tone was doubtful. “There’s a thought that keeps surfacing, but I can’t find a place for it,” she said.
“How about sharing that thought with us?” I asked, glancing toward my father. I felt better. Despite what she had just said, I knew that my Mama had at last found a thread that would lead her to the answers and maybe defuse the talk that was sure to spread about Hannah Mixon’s putting Mama in her will.
“I keep thinking,” Mama said, “that the person who bargained with Reeves to kill Hannah and Nat knew how much that property was worth before he struck the deal.”
“Trudy Paige might have stumbled onto that information,” I said.
“Abe is doing a poor job in findin
g that woman, and I’ve got a mind to tell him so!” Daddy snapped.
“Now, James,” Mama said gently. “Abe’s doing his best. And as for Trudy knowing about the Mixon land, I suppose it’s possible.” Her expression was troubled.
“It wouldn’t be hard for her to find out about it,” I pointed out. “All she’d have to do is check the county tax records the same as I did.”
“I suppose,” Mama murmured. “But Nat didn’t know about that land until after Hannah’s will was read, remember?”
“We all know that Nat was one short of a six-pack,” Daddy said.
“He didn’t know much of anything,” I agreed.
“I suppose it’s possible Trudy found out about the land, but there still has to be a link from her to Reeves, and—” Mama stopped in the middle of her sentence.
My father and I waited but Mama didn’t say any more. “Speaking of Reeves,” I said. “I guess I should page Kilroy, tell him that we’ve found Reeves.”
“Good idea,” Daddy said as he headed for the front door. “I’ll see you two later.”
Mama sighed.
Half an hour later, Kilroy returned my call. “We’ve found Reeves’s corpse,” I told him.
He sighed. “That explains why I can’t find him,” he said.
“He was dead even before somebody tried to poison Mama,” I said. “Long before I hired you.”
Kilroy sighed again. You could tell he’d really hoped Reeves Mixon was our killer. “I’ve learned one more thing,” he said. “Don’t know how much good it’ll do you, though.”
“What’s that?”
“The person who took Reeves from the hospital six months ago to take care of him …”
“Yeah?”
