Mama Stalks the Past (12 page)

Mama took a deep breath, then let it out. “I need to know if Nat said anything.” She sounded absolutely determined to make Pauline reveal something that would help her in her investigation.

Pauline shut her dark eyes for a moment. Then opened them and snapped her fingers. “Yeah,” she said in a tone that signaled she had
decided to say what was on her mind whether Mama liked it or not. “Nat did tell me something before he blacked out. When he fell to the floor, I was the nearest person to him. I got down on my knees, you know, trying to see what I could do.”

“Of course,” Mama said, encouraging her.

A mocking smirk flickered at the corners of Pauline’s wide mouth.

“Did Nat say something to you?” Mama repeated. I had never seen Mama more intent.

“Yeah,” the girl replied. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody about it ’cause I didn’t know how much truth there was to it.”

“Go on,” Mama insisted.

Knowing how badly Mama wanted to clear up Miss Hannah’s death and the attempts on Nat’s life before anybody learned about the contents of Miss Hannah’s will, I can only imagine what she felt when Pauline said, “Nat whispered that you’d talked his Mama into giving you his two hundred and fifty acres. He said you were trying to kill him to keep from giving that land back to him!”

I
t was two weeks before I would get back to Otis, although Mama and I talked nightly on the phone.

Several things happened during that time: Nat Mixon died forty-eight hours after he’d been poisoned. The doctors were surprised, Mama reported. At one point it looked like Nat was going to pull through. But he never came out of the coma.

Fortunately, it would appear that Pauline Singleton hadn’t repeated Nat’s dying words to anyone but Mama and me. As soon as she had a chance, Mama talked to Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls, but they didn’t once mention the Mixon land. Mama was sure
that their neglect could only mean that they didn’t know about it. Still, she felt time was running out. It was only a matter of weeks before Hannah’s will would become public knowledge through the Probate Court.

Mama attended Nat’s funeral. She told me she got a chance to see both of Nat’s girlfriends, too. She visited Portia Evans at her home on Palmetto Street later that week. Portia told Mama that the night Nat was poisoned she’d been in Savannah. The man who was in the house with her when Mama visited confirmed Portia’s story; they’d been together, he insisted.

Mama visited Trudy Paige’s apartment twice but could never find her at home. She did speak to Trudy on the telephone, however, and got her to agree to meet at the Country Café on Ray Street. Trudy never showed. Mama asked me to run a paper check on Trudy. I contacted the Motor Vehicle Bureau and pulled her driver’s license. From there I got her Social Security number and then her credit report. Trudy’s last place of employment was listed as Otis General Hospital. She was a nurses’ aide, something that was interesting since Nat had died at Otis General Hospital.

Mama called Daddy’s cousin, Gertrude, who was a nurse at Otis General. Gertrude told Mama that Trudy had worked at the hospital
but, after Nat died, she’d quit her job there. Gertrude said Trudy had told her she was leaving the area, moving up North to live with her sister.

Next, Mama called on Sheriff Abe to locate Trudy. He promised to do whatever he could. But Abe made it clear he had no legal cause to look for the girl; nothing gave him reason to suspect that she had broken the law.

The envelope that Miss Hannah had mentioned to Calvin Stokes when she’d made up her will still hadn’t surfaced. The missing Bible showed up, however—back in Nat’s house. The map and photograph were still inside it, Mama told me. I suggested to her that it was Nat who had been hiding in the shadows the night Mama, Daddy, and I visited his house. Later, he’d seen us hurry away to the hospital to check on Uncle Chester. Mama admitted that neither she nor my father could remember whether or not they had set the security alarm that night. We agreed that Nat had simply slipped into our house and had taken back what was rightfully his.

Mama told me that she had asked Daddy to take the map and picture over to Uncle Chester. She wanted to know whether or not Uncle Chester, one of the oldest residents of the county, could identify the house in the photograph. It was a long shot, but …

It was nearly six o’clock Friday evening when I grabbed my coat and my shoulder bag. I walked two blocks to the side street where I’d parked my car. The air was cold and fresh; winter was certainly here. I drove over to Peachtree and Fourteenth Street in Buckhead to the Italian restaurant where I was to meet Cliff for dinner. When I walked in, he stood immediately and kissed me, his lips icy cold from his drink. “You like this restaurant?” he asked.

I put my handbag on the floor and eased onto the seat across from him. “I like
you
,” I told him.

Cliff held his hand up for the waiter, who moved over to the table and poured me a glass of Chardonnay, then put a Caesar salad in front of me. The little restaurant was more authentic than elegant, with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, voices calling from the kitchen, the scent of garlic filling the air and stimulating the appetite. We were the only customers; at a nearby table three waiters sat eating their dinner before the rush.

Cliff held up his wineglass and I held up mine, tapping my glass against his with a
ting
. “To us,” he said.

“Forever,” I said.

When Cliff smiled, I felt a pleasurable stirring.
He ordered for both of us: veal cooked in white wine, and linguini in a marinara sauce with clams and mussels. When it came, I leaned close to my plate and inhaled. The rich aroma was worth the wait.

By now, the restaurant had filled with people. Dishes rattled, the voices of other diners filled the air. I sipped from my glass, smiled, and ate everything on my plate, then I sighed happily. I’d completely forgotten the two murders in Otis.

When we left the restaurant, the wind gusts carried cold and moisture from the mountains. Cliff took my hand and led me to his car in the parking lot. “What about my Honda?” I asked.

“We’ll pick it up in the morning,” he said.

“It’s going to snow tonight,” I whispered.

“Let it,” Cliff said. “You and I don’t have any place to go!”

When we got to my apartment, Cliff swept me up in his arms and carried me through the front door and straight to the couch.

Despite the coldness of the night, the wine had warmed me. Cliff’s breath tickled my ear and I started laughing. His arms tightened around me, pulling me closer; I felt locked in a tight cocoon, safe and protected. Murder seemed very far away.

Through the fabric of my dress, I felt his large
hands on my back, warm, strong, pressing me into him. I caught a hint of his scent, and when he kissed me, I tasted wine.

The phone rang. I jumped in Cliff’s arms. Instinctively, I opened my eyes and reached for the receiver.

Cliff’s embrace didn’t loosen. “Don’t answer it,” he murmured.

“It could be an emergency,” I protested.

“So what?” he said carelessly.

Again I reached for the receiver, but when Cliff touched my hand, I stopped. Three more rings and the answering machine picked up. My father’s frightened voice filled the room.

“Simone, for God’s sake, if you’re there, pick up the phone!”

I squirmed away from Cliff, ignoring his scowl, and snatched up the receiver. “Calm down, Daddy. What’s the matter?” As I listened, my stomach began hurting, a pain that moved from the top to the bottom like somebody had a knife in my gut. “Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can,” I said, then gently put the phone back onto its receiver. My hands were icy cold and trembling.

Cliff gave me a direct look, his brown eyes soft, gentle. “What’s wrong? Simone, what’s happened?”

“Mama has been poisoned,” I whispered, unable to believe my own words.

Cliff’s eyebrow arched, his mouth opened.

“She’s in Otis General Hospital fighting for her life,” I told him.

T
his drive to Otis was eerie. Like some kind of twisted nightmare. At times I had the feeling Cliff’s car was standing still, with the lights zooming by as we stayed motionless in the road. We hit Interstate 20, heading east toward Augusta. The wind hissed across the highway. I shivered and hunched my shoulders, trying to work things through my mind.

We must have passed twenty ten-wheelers, but the big trucks stayed to the right and none followed us when we pulled off onto 125, the highway that took us through the Savannah River Plant. I watched the sky. The clouds whipped overhead like black ships. The full
moon slid between them, disappearing, then peeking out again. I shivered.

“Why would anybody want to kill Mama?” I asked Cliff.

“We’ll find out,” he said.

“I keep seeing it in my mind,” I said. “Mama doubling over in pain.”

He was silent as I spoke, watching me. “Miss Candi is a strong woman. She’ll be all right.”

Neither of us talked after that. A wintry gust nudged the little car, and I wondered what my father would do if Mama died. The thought made me shudder. I was scared. I folded my arms against my chest and stared out the window.

We finally reached Boldercrest. I glanced at my watch. One
A.M
. Why poison Mama? This whole business had turned crazy. It had to be that Mixon land, that cursed soil that someone thought more of than life or death. Why hadn’t she gotten rid of it, I thought in despair. “Whatever Calvin had to do to influence Judge Thompson, he’d do it,” I said, not realizing I’d spoken aloud.

“What?” Cliff asked, confused.

My thoughts were moving like a freight train. “No amount of dirt is worth my Mama’s life.”

Cliff touched my arm. “You’re right,” he said.

When Cliff and I finally reached the hospital,
he dropped me off at the front entrance. I ran inside to find my father. He was in the intensive care unit, standing in the hall like a lost child.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. The smell of antiseptic stung my nostrils. As I walked toward him, I thought that he looked older, wearier; my heart twisted at the thought that for once he was having to take care of Mama. “Is she going to be okay?” I asked, hugging him.

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. I wondered if he’d been crying.

It’s difficult for me to say exactly the way I felt now, having to face the possibility of Mama dying. I remembered how she and I talked earlier, remembered how she told me that there was no way to prepare for death. My world had never felt so vulnerable. So scary.

A doctor came over to speak to us. He said his name was DeFoe. He led us to some chairs near a window and asked us to sit down. “We’ve done all that we can do,” he told us. Cliff, who had joined us, took my hand. He held it tight.

“Is she going to be all right?” Daddy asked.

“You’re her husband?” the doctor asked.

Daddy nodded.

The doctor was a dumpy-looking man, soft and pale and too heavy, going bald, short of breath. He looked out of tired brown eyes,
showing no reaction at all to our pain. “It appears that your wife has been poisoned,” he said.

Daddy nodded.

“The sheriff will want to talk with you.”

Daddy took a deep breath. “I’ll talk to Abe later,” he told the doctor. “Right now I want to know about Candi. Will she be okay?”

Dr. DeFoe didn’t answer his question. “From her symptoms, we suspect she ingested poison, some form of arsenic, but we won’t be certain until after we get lab results. We’ve pumped her stomach. We’re sending her stomach contents to the state lab in Columbia. They’ll tell us exactly what the poison was.”

Daddy’s hand trembled; beads of sweat were on his forehead. “Will Candi be okay?” he repeated.

“She’s in a coma. We’ll know more tomorrow,” the doctor said wearily, then got up and plodded away, his shoulders hunched against the unending misery of his chosen profession.

Daddy watched the doctor go out of sight. “That’s what I hate about hospitals, doctors. They don’t know nothing and they don’t tell you anything.”

Cliff put his arm around my shoulders and together we followed my father down a corridor. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies walked past. No one seemed to notice us.