2 On the Nickel (6 page)

Chapter 5

When the door to the outer office of Sampson Accounting
finally opened on Thursday, I startled and tipped over the mug of pens on my
desk. Annoyed at my clumsiness, I brushed the mess off my ledger and tucked
today’s newspaper under my arm. “There you are. I was getting worried about
you.” Madonna followed me to the connecting doorway.

Mama didn’t have her usual glow.
Her lipstick was crooked, and her moss-green jacket was one button off from top
to bottom. Her triple-stranded pearls tangled on her pale neck. Even her helmet of white hair seemed flatter than usual.

“Some days it takes longer to
pull body and soul together,” Mama said. “But I’m here now. Is there an
accounting emergency?”

Judging by her haphazard grooming
and tardiness, the news of Erica’s death had hit her hard, not that she’d admit
it. I could make sure she didn’t see our paper, but that wouldn’t stop others
from telling her about the article.

“Business is slow, the same as yesterday and the day before,” I said. “I was concerned about you. The news yesterday
shocked and upset me. I thought you might want to take the day off.”

Mama squared her notepads and
fiddled with her pens. “I can work.”

“But you don’t have to. I can
manage on my own for a few days.”

“No way. I skip work and the next
thing you know I’ll be shipped off to an old folk’s home. There’s no law that
says you have to retire at sixty-five. I’m still rocking along on all eight
cylinders.”

“That you are, but one of your
acquaintances died yesterday. Even if you didn’t like her, it’s okay to take time to process your feelings.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Cut that out, Cleo. I hate it
when you do that thing with your eyebrows.”

My hands crept up to my face.
Nothing seemed amiss. But Mama’s fleeting smile gave her away. She’d almost
deflected the conversation from herself to me. Almost.

Though I hated to deliver bad
news, Mama needed to know what was in this paper. She needed to know before one
of her friends called to discuss it. Showing her the paper was the right thing
to do. So why did I feel so lousy?

“Take a look at today’s paper.” I
unfolded it on her desk. She paled at the screaming headline, jumped up, and
fixed a cup of coffee. Was she running from the news or the truth?

“You have to face this, Mama,” I
said.

“Maybe I don’t want to. Whose
side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours, Mama. If you don’t want
to see it, I can read it aloud.”

Mama sniffled. “Suit yourself.”

Determined to see this through, I
picked up the paper and read the top story aloud to her. “Prominent Civic
Leader and Beloved Philanthropist Dead. A vehicular incident behind Trinity
Episcopal Church resulted in the death of a fifty-eight-year-old Hogan’s Glen
woman. Erica Crandall Hodges was pronounced dead at the scene by the county
coroner, according to an official spokesperson. Detective Britt Radcliffe is
investigating the incident and had no comment at press time.

“Mayor Darnell Reynolds is
saddened by our loss. ‘I will personally monitor the investigation,’ Reynolds
said. ‘Erica Hodges was a well-respected member of our community and she will be
sorely missed. Erica’s unexpected demise leaves a large hole in many of our
charitable organizations. Her death will be thoroughly investigated and
appropriate measures will be taken to see that justice is served.’

“Erica Crandall Hodges was a
direct descendant of Hogan’s Glen founder Lucian Crandall. Ms. Hodges was the
driving force behind the Crandall Reading Room in the Hogan’s Glen Public
Library. Anyone who has information about the incident is encouraged to step
forward.”

Mama circled around me with her steaming coffee. The pungent aroma of strong coffee mixed with her heavy-handed
floral perfume to form a cloying yet familiar vapor.

“So?” she asked.

Couldn’t she see that a
kindergartener could connect the obvious dots from Erica to Mama? Couldn’t she
see how serious this was? “Britt will ask you questions about Erica’s death.
What will you tell him?”

Mama set her cup down so fast
that black coffee slopped over the rim onto a stack of yellow sticky notes. Her
shoulders sagged. “I’ll tell him the same thing I told you. Erica Hodges got
what she deserved.”

I died a little inside. Please
God, let her have an alibi. Let there be a reasonable explanation for the
damage to her car. “That kind of attitude will get you arrested.”

“When it comes to Erica Hodges,
all I have is attitude. That woman rode on my coattails for nearly forty years.
She was a miserable excuse for a human being, and the only reason people
tolerated her at all was because of her revered ancestors.”

I circled Mama’s desk, Madonna at
my heels. I’d gotten nowhere with the kid-glove approach. Time to get serious. I didn’t want so much as a desk coming between us. “Be that as it may, Erica
Hodges had family and friends who cared about her. Britt knows you two
quarreled recently. You have to be prepared for his questions. What were you
doing when she was killed?”

Mama mopped up the spilled coffee
with a handful of paper towels. “Seeing as how I don’t know what time she was killed, I can’t answer your question.”

Can’t or wouldn’t? She couldn’t
dissuade me that easily. “I was there for your fight with Erica on Monday. The
whole room heard you two go at it.” I cleared my throat. “And there’s the
little matter of your car.”

“What about my car?” Mama barred
her arms across her formidable chest. The pale green fabric of her suit coat
strained at the shoulder seams.

I returned Mama’s unblinking
stare. “Your bumper and headlight are smashed.”

Color flooded Mama’s face. “You’re
making that up. Don’t tease me like that.” The triple-stranded pearls at Mama’s
neckline dug into her neck as she swallowed thickly.

I waved her toward the door. “Go
look if you don’t believe me.”

Mama swept past me so fast I got caught in her draft. Madonna and I shadowed her to the driveway. Mama stood
with her hands on her hips in the dappled sunlight and studied the damage.
Anger then fear flashed across her face.

Her changeable expression
reminded me of shock and awe, the military term for a powerful weapons
demonstration. Only, Mama looked as if she’d been at the detonation end of the
missiles.

“This isn’t right,” she
whispered.

Her shoulders trembled, and her
hand clutched at her breast. The color drained from her face. A fresh wave of
alarm shot through me as I realized how stressed she was. “Let’s get you inside
out of this bright sun, Mama.” And closer to your heart medication.

I steered her to the rocker in
the living room, Madonna padding silently beside us, her belly waddling as she
walked. I brought Mama a glass of water and her pills, then sat across from her
and waited. Her color slowly returned to normal as she sat motionless in the
rocking chair.

Madonna thrust her head in my
lap, and I stroked her broad head. Poor Madonna. Her world had been turned
upside down twice, once with her owner’s death and then again with her pregnancy.
Her life would never return to its old familiar routine. Events were sweeping
her along in a new direction, one she’d never before envisioned.

I understood completely. I’d
finally found a new normal, and now this. I wasn’t mentally prepared to deal
with Mama killing anyone. Taking a life went against everything she’d ever
taught me. I couldn’t reconcile her damaged car with what was in my heart. But
she could. Or at least, I hoped she could.

I brushed a clump of dog hair off
my fingers onto the Oriental carpet. Time for some answers. “How did that
happen?” I asked, nodding toward the driveway.

Mama’s knuckles gleamed on the padded handles of her rocker. “I have no idea.”

Her lips pursed so tight that
deep lines ran from her mouth clear back to her ears. I blinked in astonishment at how old and tired she looked. Mama never wrinkled her face like that. She made a point
of living a wrinkle-free existence. This was really bad.

“You don’t remember hitting anything?” I asked.

“I didn’t hit anything.”

“You hit something.”

“My car hit something.”

“Did you loan your car to anyone
recently?”

“No.”

“Did you notice it was unlocked
or parked in a different place?”

“No.” Mama regarded me with unblinking brown eyes. “Why are you giving me the third degree over this?”

“Because I can’t get a straight
answer out of you.”

Mama sipped her water. “Erica got
me good this time. Even in death she one-upped me.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Are
you smoking crack? Do you think she staged her own death? It’s not possible.”

“Erica hated me.”

“I know that, and everyone in
this town knows it, too. Let’s start over. Where were you Tuesday night?”

“Out.”

We were back to that, were we? I
stared at Mama, and she stared right back. “Out where?”

Mama’s head drooped, and her chin
quivered. Whatever she was hiding, it greatly troubled her. Did she run over
Erica? The question flashed in my head like a possessed computer cursor.

Another thought occurred to me. Mama had been forgetful and disoriented before Erica died. Was her medication to blame? Could her recent behavior be a side effect of the pills she was taking?

Nah. I picked up her
prescriptions from the pharmacy. Her pills and dosage hadn’t changed in the
last six months. What else would make her behavior change?

An undiagnosed medical condition could explain her odd behavior. What if she was blacking out? That would
explain why she didn’t know what happened to her car.

If I was right, Mama needed a
doctor’s attention. I could fix that. I stood abruptly. Madonna whimpered at
being dislodged off my leg. “I’m going to get you in to see Doctor Cannon this
afternoon.”

“I’m not sick.” Mama shook her
head in defiance. “I don’t need a doctor. I won’t keep the appointment.”

I sank back down on the sofa and
recalculated. Just because she wouldn’t go see her favorite doctor didn’t mean she was healthy. “Don’t shut me out, Mama. I want to help.”

Nothing. No response. What was
she afraid of? I approached the problem from a different direction. “I’m not
going to stick you in a nursing home.”

Anger flashed across her face
with the intensity of a summer thunderstorm. “Damn right you’re not. This is my
home.”

“Why can’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Mama seemed fascinated by the
whirls in the carpet.

Frustration had me shoving my fists into the sofa cushions. The damage to her car and her unexplained absence
were big problems. It irked me that she didn’t understand. “Mama, did anyone
see you when you were ‘out’ Tuesday evening?”

She shot me another tight-lipped
stare.

My heart sank. Daddy used to say
that if it looked like a duck and quacked like a duck, it was probably a duck.
Using that logic, Mama might be guilty. My back teeth ground together.

A good daughter wouldn’t let her
Mama go to jail.

Although I didn’t wish ill health
on Mama, a medical problem would be a convenient excuse. An illness would
provide her with extenuating circumstances and possibly absolve her from any
wrongdoing.

Like inadvertently running over
Erica Hodges.

How could I work this medical angle?

I’d need a doctor.

I didn’t need Mama’s permission
to talk to Doctor Cannon. Once he heard about her cagey behavior and possible
blackout, he’d demand Mama come in for an evaluation. If he changed Mama’s medicine, it might be all the ammunition a good lawyer would need to get her off a murder conviction.

“Are we done here?” she asked.

Mama’s voice sounded suspiciously
fine. My wishful thinking about a medical defense faded. Mama was nobody’s
fool. She was one sharp cookie, and she’d played on my sympathy.

She’d probably counted on me overreacting and dragging her in for a battery of medical tests. At her age, they were bound
to find something wrong if they looked long enough. I had to be strong here. I
needed tough love to deal with a slippery Mama.

“No, we aren’t done.” I sprang to
my feet and paced the room. Madonna followed my progress with sad eyes. But I
couldn’t worry about the dog right now. I had to keep Mama out of jail. “Who
ran over Erica Hodges?” I asked.

Mama studied the carpet. “I don’t
know.”

“Don’t know or won’t tell?” My
shoe banged into the back of the sofa and startled the dog. Madonna scurried
behind Mama’s chair.

“You’re scaring the dog, and
frankly, you’re scaring me too. Are you going to kick me next?” Mama asked.

Her defensive reaction verified
her mental fitness. I leaned on the sofa. My tense fingers dug into padding
along the sofa back. “Of course not. Have I ever been violent with you or the
girls? These questions are for your own good. Can’t you see that?”

“No.”

I covered my eyes with my hand.
Mama was stonewalling me and the only reason that made any sense was that she
was guilty. I didn’t want that to be true. God, I didn’t want that to be true.
But I didn’t have any other answers. The chilling realization turned my stomach
and I knew an awful sense of loss.

This situation was beyond my
control. The only way I could help her was to delay the inevitable. That wasn’t
lying. Not really. “Until we get a handle on things, leave your car parked in
the driveway. We don’t want to advertise your accident.”

“The car had an accident,” Mama
asserted. “I didn’t.”

“Right. The car. It drove itself
into someone.”

We glared at each other again
like steely-eyed gunfighters.

Why wouldn’t she tell me what happened?

“Hey, anybody home?” Jonette called from the kitchen.