by Nora Deloach
THE CRITICS LOVE MAMA!
“Grace, aka Mama, Covington.… [is] a fabulous cook and a canny sleuth.”
—Booknews from The Poisoned Pen
“A woman’s voice—specifically Mama’s—is clearly heard and answered in the mystery novels of Nora DeLoach.”
—American Visions magazine
“Mama is an adorable detective, who readers will love for her southern grace, kindness, and charity. Nora DeLoach captures the essence of small town life … just like a Jessica Fletcher story.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Grace Covington [has been] dubbed the African-American Miss Marple.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“Southern honesty and grit.”
—Chicago Tribune
“African American Nora DeLoach has staked out the cozy southern territory with her series about ‘Mama.’ ”
—Feminist Bookstore News
“[An] amusing yet solid series that revolves around a close-knit African-American family … Mama and Simone are a winsome pair of sleuths, affectionate in their relationship and respectful of each other’s intelligence … as usual, DeLoach complements her novels with mouth-watering scenes of Mama’s cooking.”
—Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale
Also by Nora DeLoach
MAMA ROCKS THE EMPTY CRADLE
MAMA STALKS THE PAST
MAMA PURSUES MURDEROUS SHADOWS
A Bantam Book / June 2000
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 by Nora DeLoach.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79494-9
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019.
v3.1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the many readers who contacted me to share their delight in becoming acquainted with Mama. I am pleased so many people enjoy visiting Mama (Candi), Simone, James, Cliff, and their family and friends in Otis, South Carolina. My sincere desire is that Mama will continue to provide her fans with years of delightful and intriguing mysteries.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Ruby Spikes bolted straight up and opened her eyes. Sweat rolled off her body like it was near a furnace—her ivory nightgown stuck to her skin like glue. Her heart pounded, her lungs felt about to burst.
She was in bed at the Avondale Inn. She tried to gain control but the memory of the excruciating nightmare gripped her remorselessly. The dream had been so real: Everything was bright! Things were going to work out. Toward what she somehow knew was the east, a dark cloud hovered. Then, suddenly the light vanished. Rain, lightning, and thunder cracked all around her. A small house, no bigger than the box that her refrigerator had been delivered in, stood in the darkness in front of her. Its door opened and she rushed inside.
She felt safe.
Then she saw the water on the floor. The little house was flooding. Desperate, she tried to open the door. It was locked.
Glad that she had awakened, she stared around the room. It was decorated in blue and white with a bordered wallpaper of a textured red. The tangled bedspread was patterned in red, white, and blue checks.
To the right was a closet. Across from the closet was a dressing area with a mirrored vanity and sink. Next to it, a door led to a toilet, a shower, towels. Instead of hanging up her clothes, she’d thrown her outfit on the upholstered blue chair next to the door.
On one nightstand was a telephone, a clock radio, and the remote control for the television; on the other, the neatly stacked and counted two thousand dollars she’d withdrawn from the bank.
She glanced at the clock. Midnight. Tears welled up in her eyes; aloneness carved another notch in her soul. Her life was a void, an emptiness that made her ask herself, What is so wrong with me that nobody can love me?
She looked at the money again. She was so tired. This would be the last time, she thought. It would take what little strength she had left, but if she could pull it off, she’d be free.
Ruby slipped out of bed and walked to the sink. She’d already taken all the pills she could safely take. For a moment she looked at herself in the mirror and wondered if she could really get away from the people of Otis and Avondale who had used and abused her.
The knock was so faint she thought at first that she’d imagined it. Silently, she eased toward the door.
“Ruby, let me in,” a voice whispered.
The hopelessness she’d felt in her dream swept over her.
“Let me in,” the voice pleaded again.
A warning inside of her head screamed not to open the door. She was so tired, so weak—she just couldn’t fight any more. Ignoring the warning, she heaved a weary sigh and slipped the dead bolt from the door.
OTIS COUNTY GUARDIAN
July 24, 199-
OTIS SHOOTING DEATH
The Otis Sheriff Department responded yesterday to a death at the Avondale Inn in Avondale, South Carolina. Coroner Robert Gordon said Ruby Jane Spikes, 26, of Otis, died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. She was found by the maid at the Avondale Inn at around 9:00 Saturday morning. Spikes had checked into the room at 8:00 the previous night, according to Jeff Golick, the motel manager.
Officials do not suspect foul play. Spikes’s body has been sent to the Charleston Medical Center for a routine autopsy.
Ruby Spikes was the wife of Herman Spikes of Otis.
CHAPTER
ONE
I was on a mission.
It was dark, rainy; a dreary dawn. I felt like it was only three A.M. and I owed my body another four hours’ sleep. But the clock on the dashboard read six-thirty. I made a left, heading south onto Highway 20 off Wesley Chapel. I was driving to Otis, South Carolina, to visit my parents.
My mama, whose name is Grace but who is called Candi because of her golden-brown complexion, had firmly declined the suggestion of my brothers and me to throw her and my father a wedding anniversary party. It was their thirty-fifth, their jade anniversary, and my mission on this last Saturday in July was to change her mind!
“James and I don’t need a party to celebrate our togetherness,” Mama had informed me firmly when I told her of our plans in a recent telephone conversation. “We do that every day.”
“Mama,” I’d replied, trying not to sound exasperated by her reluctance, “you and Daddy celebrate every day, but your
children want to celebrate the thirty-fifth year of your marriage with both of you!”
Mama’s voice brightened. “Then come home and I’ll cook.”
“We don’t want you to cook!”
I’d said the wrong thing.… There was a dead silence.
“Mama,” I explained hastily, “I’m not saying that we don’t want you to cook for us. You and I know that most people who’ve tasted your cooking would crawl on their hands and knees to get just a morsel of—”
“Simone, you’re exaggerating,” Mama interrupted.
“Mama, we want to do something special for you and Daddy on your anniversary,” I persisted. My mother isn’t the only stubborn one in the family. “You’re always doing things for us.”
“Like what?”
“Like cooking,” I said, hoping to convey that we knew that she was doing something very special whenever she cooked for her family.
“I don’t like parties,” Mama snapped.
I decided to ignore her tone. “I’ll get Yasmine to help. My girlfriend is not only one of the best beauticians in Atlanta, but she also throws fabulous parties after hair and fashion shows. And, honest, Mama, Yasmine’s got a real flare for—”
“Simone, I said no,” Mama cut in.
“Will and Rodney want to come home to throw this party for you, Mama,” I continued, knowing that using her sons as bait was one way to at least get her attention. That’s not to say that Mama thinks more of her two boys than she does of me; I’ve never once felt that way. It’s just that my brothers don’t go back to Otis as much as Mama would like, and a visit from all three of her children at the same time is something that really turns her on.
“No.” Mama’s tone told me that she knew exactly what I was trying to do—I guess I’d used that technique too many times before.
“Okay,” I said, deciding to switch gears. No matter her objections, I wasn’t about to give in to her on this. You see, I work in the law office of Sidney Jacoby, a prominent Atlanta defense attorney. I’m a paralegal in the Research Department. My job requires me to grab onto a tiny bit of information that Sidney has unearthed and pursue it further. Usually, I’m like a pit bull, not letting go until I come up with something that Sidney can use. I guess what I’m saying is, I know how to be persistent. Most of the time, though, I don’t try this routine with Mama—that’s because most of the time I know that no matter how much time I put in trying to get her to change her mind, Mama’s wishes always prevail.
On the subject of this anniversary party, however, I was as determined as my mother can be when she makes her mind up. I’d already told Cliff, my boyfriend, a divorce lawyer who is on a partnership track in his law firm, that we were going to give Mama and Daddy the best anniversary party Otis had ever seen. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I now said to Mama in a more compromising tone.
“No deals, Simone,” Mama said. Her tone didn’t change.
I took a breath. “Mama, let me at least tell you what I had in mind.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re an open-minded woman,” I said as sweet as I could.
Whether Mama fell for it or not, she said, “Go ahead.”
I smiled, thinking I’d inched a little closer to convincing her. “If you let us have a party for you and Daddy,” I wheedled, “I’ll let you—”
Mama pounced. “You’ll let me!”
“I mean”—I hastily changed my wording—“you can make all the arrangements. That way, the party will be just the way you like it.”
“Simone, I don’t—”
“Let me finish,” I urged, taking advantage of the fact that her tone had become softer.
A sigh. “Go ahead.”
“You’ll pick the person who will do the cooking and someone to do the baking. I know you won’t find anybody who’s as good of a cook as you are, but at least you’ll know that the food is acceptable.”
Silence.
“Think about it,” I added quickly, praying her silence suggested that I’d pried open a tiny possibility. “I’ll come home on Saturday. We’ll talk about it then, okay?”
“If you insist.” She still sounded unconvinced. “But—”
“The party will be wonderful, exactly the way you want it to be,” I promised. “There will be no surprises.”
“What time can I expect you to come in on Saturday morning?”
“Around ten-thirty.”
“That’s late for breakfast.”
“Save mine,” I said.
“James is going to North Carolina on an all-day fishing trip,” she said.
“Then it’ll be a good day for us to spend together,” I told her. “Just the two of us. Mama, I love you,” I added.
“Love you too,” Mama replied before she hung up, her voice sunnier now that she knew that I was coming home again.
My father retired as a captain from the United States Air Force after thirty years of service. During that time, he and my mother parented two boys—Will and Rodney—and me—Simone. My brothers and I were fortunate in that we lived in five different countries while growing up.
When Daddy decided to retire, Mama and I shared the thought that it wasn’t right for them to move back to Otis, Daddy and Mama’s hometown. After all, Otis barely has five thousand people living in it. And those people are far from being cosmopolitan—most of them have never lived any other place. A few of them have never been two hundred miles northwest to Atlanta.
Otis used to be a town of soybeans, watermelons, and cotton fields. Large tracts of land in the surrounding county are owned by families like ours who, at Reconstruction, when the government gave each freed slave forty acres and a mule, got their first taste of land ownership. About ten years ago, a company started buying the land when older members of those families died out, moved away, or didn’t pay their taxes. That company now owns 2,500 acres. They tree-farm the land, and they, along with other farmers who decided to stop farming and plant trees, keep loggers and the Otis Sawmill busy most all year around.
My parents live in a brick ranch house on a one-acre lot on Smalls Lane. Their front yard has two sprawling magnolia trees. My father was wise enough not to allow the old trees to be cut down when he had the house built. Last year they remodeled the back of the house so that their kitchen and family room, with floor-to-ceiling windows, open into a backyard garden. One large oak sits in the center of the yard. Roses, azaleas, and annuals border a chain-link fence. Daddy’s dog, Midnight, has access to the backyard through a gate that’s never locked.
Smalls Lane is a cul-de-sac; my parents’ house shares the street with four other homes. It was there I was headed.
“Sarah Jenkins has been admitted to Otis General.”
That’s how Mama greeted me when I walked into her home ready to do more battle with her about her anniversary party.
Sarah Jenkins, along with Annie Mae Gregory and Carrie Smalls, are the town’s gossips. I call them Otis’s historians because these three women know everything about everybody. Mama, however, refers to them as her “sources.” That’s because Sarah, Annie Mae, and Carrie have told her things that have helped her solve various cases in town. Let me explain—Mama was bitten by the sleuthing bug when I was a little girl. When one of her neighbors told her something that didn’t sit just right with her, she couldn’t rest until she tracked down the tale and found the truth. Since that time, Mama has to find the truth; she sees it as her contribution to her community.
Sarah Jenkins is a tiny, frail-looking woman with a wrinkled, pecan-colored complexion. She spends as much time in the doctor’s office as he does. So I wasn’t surprised to hear that she was in the hospital.
“Sarah’s just having a reaction to some of the many medications the doctor is giving her,” I told Mama as I sat down in front of three fat golden-brown slices of French toast. On the table was a jug of maple syrup, diced cantaloupe, apple juice, and an Ethiopian blend of coffee that Mama gets me to send her from the Caribou
Coffee Shop on Peach-tree Street in Atlanta’s Buckhead district.
Mama looked doubtful. “Gertrude didn’t say what’s ailing Sarah,” she replied, shaking her head.
Gertrude Covington is Daddy’s first cousin; she works at the hospital as a nurse’s aide, a job Gertrude loves because she gets to know who goes in and out of the hospital.
“Listen, lady,” I told Mama, wagging my fork in the air, “you and I need to talk about your party, remember? After all, that’s the reason I came all the way home this weekend. Finding out which one of Sarah’s many complaints sent her running to the hospital is just not our priority this visit, okay?”
Mama’s look stayed stubborn. “I was thinking,” she said, “of Barbara Fleming.”
I waited.
“Barbara is a fairly good baker—she’d be the perfect person to do the baking,” Mama continued.
“You mean you’re going to let us throw you and Daddy the party!” I exclaimed, astonished.
“Are you going to let me get away with not having it?” Mama asked.
I got up, scooted around the table, and hugged her. “Not this time, pretty lady, and you’re going to love what I have in mind—”
Mama pulled back, surprised. “I thought I would be the one to make the decisions on how this party will be handled,” she said.
“Uh, yes—”
“Go back and finish your breakfast,” she said.
I obeyed.
“Now,” she continued, “I’ve decided that the party will be held here in Otis at the Community Center.”
I nodded; my mouth was too full of French toast for me to speak.
“I’ll make up the guest list, plan the menu, and—”
“I know,” I said, now that I’d swallowed. “You’ll hire the caterer!”
Mama’s eyebrows raised. “You’ve got a problem with that?”
