Oven Baked Secrets (Eugeena Patterson Mysteries Book 2) (5 page)

Detective Wilkes and I stood outside Louise’s doors. Pat heard the commotion and came in to help settle Louise down. She turned toward us and said, “I gave her something to let her sleep. Poor thing needs to rest. I’m so sorry to hear about her son.”

I twisted my hands like a nervous child. “Please keep an eye on her. I will be back to check on her later.”

Pat nodded her head. “Sure. You’re like family. We will take good care of her. No worries, Mrs. Patterson.”

Well, I was worried. Detective Wilkes kept looking at me as though I had committed a crime. I turned to walk away, but that little red-haired gal stayed right by my side.

“What was Mrs. Hopkins talking about before they sedated her?”

I shook my head and kept walking. “How am I supposed to know?”

“You seemed to understand.”

I stopped and twirled around. “I was trying to comfort my friend who just lost her beloved son.”

“Who’s the woman that was here yesterday?”

Okay, that question didn’t sound good to me. I stared at the detective and then observed our surroundings. I turned to the front desk to see that Lexi watching us. I bet that no-breaking-the-rules receptionist said something to the detective. I looked on the other side of the desk and saw Ms. Saunders having words with Pat. Pat was looking rather animated. I wondered what had Pat all upset.

Really anyone could have told the detective about Jocelyn. Why did she think it was my duty to tell her? I took a deep breath. “I assume you’re referring to the young lady claiming to be Louise’s granddaughter?”

Detective Wilkes crossed her arms and looked at me. “You weren’t planning to tell me?”

“Detective, no disrespect, but I believe you found out on your own just fine. Now I hope we’re finished because I’m upset after seeing my friend in that state.” I twirled around and marched towards the front door.

The young detective kept up with my steps, which wasn’t hard to do because I wasn’t a fast walker.  “I’m sorry. I know that was very hard seeing your friend’s grief. This is very difficult. Please, I have a few more questions for you. Had you seen the woman before?”

“Never. I didn’t know who she was when I saw her.”

“Was there animosity between this woman and Mr. Hopkins?”

Now that stopped me in my tracks as my dream from last night floated to the surface. I turned to face the detective.
Really, Eugeena, a man was shot to death last night next door.
A man I had watched grow up alongside my own children. I needed to help this woman the best I could. “Jocelyn was nervous about William showing up. I’m sure she wasn’t expecting him because she was trying to meet the woman she thought was her grandmother. William is … was an intimidating fellow. He kind of just came in and
we
had to leave.”

Detective Wilkes had whipped out her notepad. “Her name is Jocelyn. Last name?”

I felt protective all of a sudden, and I wasn’t sure why. I blurted out, “Why do you need to know this? When she left she wanted to forget everything. Her mother didn’t even know she was here.”

The detective’s eyebrow furrowed. “Was William involved with this woman, Jocelyn’s mother? Perhaps there was bad blood between the deceased and the mother?”

Oh boy!
 “Well, Detective, I see you made the same assumption I did. Jocelyn is not William’s daughter. Louise hasn’t confirmed, but there appears to be another child, a child that Louise gave up many, many years ago.”

Detective Wilkes’ sleep-deprived eyes grew wide. “That changes everything about this case.  There could be all kinds of motives. We need to find this daughter.”

“Suppose the woman doesn’t want to be found? This other child doesn’t have anything to do with William. Remember I told you last night, William was showing off his house to a potential seller. There was a woman that showed up at the house last night.”

“Yes, I know and it’s my duty to pinpoint who that woman was at the house last night.”

Despite my own crazy thoughts, I was now officially worried that Detective Wilkes was barking up the wrong tree. My own daughter was a person of interest in a case a few months ago and I didn’t want another young woman to get ambushed because of a desire to connect to kin. “Jocelyn had no reason to come back. She saw her grandmother and that was all she wanted. She sounded like her mother wanted nothing to do with Louise.”

“People change their minds. I will be in touch, Mrs. Patterson. Try to stay out of trouble.”

I watched the detective walk away from me. I opened my car door and sat down inside for a minute to catch my thoughts. I couldn’t argue with Detective Wilkes. Jocelyn could have certainly changed her mind and could have confessed to her mother about her visit yesterday. I still couldn’t see what the purpose was for someone pretending to want to buy a house only to kill the seller. Knowing what I knew, William could have gotten himself involved with something shady.

I thought back to yesterday.  Jocelyn was in the room and I know she probably heard that William was selling the house to a potential buyer. Still I didn’t think that was Jocelyn’s voice I heard last night. Or was I just kidding myself. I only met the woman one time.

I drove home feeling haunted by Louise’s distraught face. I turned on one of my favorite songs,
Fixit Jesus
by The Canton Spirituals.  I wanted to help my friend, but everything that had transpired in the last two days was making my head hurt.

As I parked my car in my driveway, I heard my phone ringing from my pocketbook. I don’t know how long it had been ringing since I did have the music kind of loud. The voicemail had already picked up. While I waited to retrieve the voicemail message I looked up to see Amos outside raking the leaves in front of my yard.

That man had become my yard man, handyman, dinner companion, and in some ways, one of my dearest friends.  I’d never imagined at my age that I would have a man as a friend.

Just a friend!

I sat in the car and watched Amos raking leaves until he looked up and waved.  I waved back and held my head down.  No need to have the man catching me in the act of checking him out. I looked down at my phone and saw the voicemail indicator. I didn’t recognize the phone number. I clicked the button and listened to the message.

“Ms. Eugeena, this is Pat, when you get a chance, I really need to talk to you. I think you’re the only one who can help.”

Help?
What is going on that Pat would call me?
I wondered if I should turn around and go back to the nursing home.

Someone tapped on my driver side window, startling me. I looked up to see Amos peering down at me with the rake in his hand. I don’t know what it was with him and overalls. That seemed to be his uniform. He opened the car door and held it open for me.

“How did things go with Louise?”

I placed the phone in my bag and pulled myself out of the car.  Amos closed the car door and we walked back toward my porch. “Not too well. I knew she would be upset about William, but I have to say something else was upsetting her too.” I stopped and looked at Amos. “I think Jocelyn stirred up something in Louise. She mentioned how she lost all her babies.  You know she had a miscarriage in her first marriage, but I can’t help but feel like she was referring to another child. A third child.”

Amos leaned the rake against the side of the house and lifted his baseball cap off his bald head. “You’re not thinking of trying to find this Jocelyn. Didn’t she want to leave it all alone?”

“I have to find Jocelyn and her mother.” I added in a lower voice. “At least before Detective Wilkes does.”

Amos eyed me. “Why? What did you say to the detective?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Detective Wilkes was already there talking to the staff. She knew a young woman claiming to be Louise’s granddaughter came to visit yesterday. Except the detective thought what I thought, that maybe this was William’s child. I had to correct her.”

“So now this young lady or her mother is a possible suspect?”

“Detective Wilkes seemed interested and thought it put a different angle on the case.” I walked up the steps to my porch and then stopped when I reached the top. “You know something else and I don’t think I mentioned this to the detective, but William did seem to recognize Jocelyn.”

Amos placed his hat back on his head and grabbed the rake. “You know the police should handle this. You don’t know what you’re really getting into here.”

“But I need to warn Jocelyn.”

“You don’t really know if there is a true DNA relation here. You’re going by a resemblance in a photograph. Louise has not confirmed anything.”

“I could make sure Jocelyn’s story really checked out. Last thing I would want is to cause more grief for Louise.”

Amos pointed his finger at me. “Eugeena, you need to think carefully before you jump into this situation. If this was an adoption, there were reasons that happened over fifty years ago. There is no guarantee this will be a happy family reunion. It sounds like Jocelyn recognized that yesterday after meeting William. Don’t get any deeper into this until you get more confirmation from Louise especially with William’s death center stage now.”

Amos made perfectly good sense, but my nosiness had taken over. This was one of those secrets to which I wanted the whole story.

Tuesdays were blog days for me. With my sixtieth birthday coming up, I was quite tickled to be able to refer to myself as a blogger.  I had inherited my son Cedric’s old laptop and with some help from his girlfriend, Carmen, I’ve been able to publish at least one blog post a week. At first I wasn’t sure what to write. When I learned I had diabetes, I discovered the best way to learn how to manage my disease was to talk with others online. There was so much information I decided to share my finds on a blog at EugeenaPatterson.com. I wasn’t world famous, but I liked having something purposeful to do.

Today, I published a post that I needed for me, but hoped it would help someone. I decided to title the blog post, “Ms. Eugeena’s Guide to Breathing or Waiting to Exhale?”

I can credit Amos for my first bullet point.

Think before you jump into someone else’s mess.

Of course, my problem at this point was I had overthought whether or not to start trouble. I kind of figured when I walked into Louise’s room on Sunday and found Jocelyn leaning over the bed that trouble had found me. A murder right next door escalated the trouble factor to another degree. I was never one of those people who had an easy time letting things go. But I knew I needed to stop and breathe.

Writing calmed my nerves to a degree. I re-read my blog post again, and then I hit publish to share it with the World Wide Web. I took a peek at my Facebook and Twitter account to see if the new blog post was posted. I was really proud of myself because a few months ago, I barely checked email. Who had time to do that stuff in between grading papers?

Now I had apps on my phone and I was just Ms. Tech Savvy. I stopped patting myself on my back long enough to remember I was savvy with Google too.

I typed in Jocelyn Miller in Google to see what came up. There were a lot of women with the same name. Some trashy looking women too. Since that search didn’t work, I went over to Facebook.  I had found quite a few classmates by typing in their name. Some of them I really didn’t want to contact, but I was curious about what they had been up to all these years. It was amazing what people posted out there in public.
My goodness!

After I typed in Jocelyn’s name, I saw a few photos come up. Just as I found a photo that looked like the young woman I met Sunday, the phone rang. I ignored the phone for a minute and pulled up Jocelyn’s Facebook page. She was a really pretty girl. The phone kept ringing as I thought whether or not it would be a good idea to do a friend request. If I did, wouldn’t that make me appear like I was stalking her? Of course, that’s kind of what I was doing.

I held that thought and went to grab the phone. When I saw who was on the caller ID I was actually grateful for the interruption. I picked up the phone, “Well, Cora, you called just in time because I have myself in a bit of predicament.”

The closest person to being a sister to me was also my aunt. Cora Gibson was only two years older than me and the youngest child in the Gibson clan.  She answered me back, “You and Amos finally went out on that date yet?”

“No,” I sputtered. “What is it with everyone and this matchmaking? Leave me and Amos alone. Please don’t tell me you called me to ask me that.”

Cora laughed. “Girl, I thought you were getting with it.”

“Getting with what? Cora, you and I are not spring chickens. I’ve lived my life.”

“But you still have more years to live and there’s nothing wrong with being happy. Now what have you gotten yourself into now?”

I took the cordless phone and sank down in the living room chair to catch Cora up on what all had happened.

“Oh my! Who knew your little ole neighbor had that much drama in her life? Do you know who the father could be?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea, but Louise mentioned the name August yesterday. She didn’t give a last name, nor did she confirm, but I assumed this was someone special. Could be the father of this baby girl.”

I was really just talking out loud. I did that quite often when I talked to Cora. She knew me and would add her two cents when necessary. “The more I think about it Louise had to be in her teens when she had this baby girl. She married her first husband at age eighteen. When that marriage didn’t work out, she married her second husband at age twenty-three and had William maybe a year later.”

Louise’s story of having a child in her teens wasn’t too different from mine. My oldest son’s conception prompted the shotgun wedding between Ralph and me. I had to finish school and later went back after having Cedric. I was still a bit upset that Louise never thought to mention this to me in all the years we had known each other. But there had to be significant reasons.

“Cora, you know something else? During Louise’s time, I imagine they hid girls away for a while until a baby was born and given away for adoption.”

Cora spoke up. “They certainly did. Did Louise grow up around here, Eugeena?”

“Yes, Louise has been in Charleston all her life. In fact, I do know her ancestors owned a plantation in Charleston, so she has no problem tracking her roots. Remember I told you she always tried to downplay that part of her life.”

“That’s right. Well, you know Esther might be able to shine some light on this fellow named August. Esther knows everyone around here and people know her.”

Aunt Esther was the oldest of my father’s siblings and my godmother.  How the oldest and the youngest child were still left out of eight children was amazing since the two women were quite alike in many ways. In her eighties, Esther was still quite feisty and didn’t mind giving her baby sister, Cora, a hard time. In recent months, Cora had taken on becoming Esther’s caregiver. Being a former nurse, it seemed like a good fit, but those two ladies could get on each other’s nerves pretty good, often times with Cora calling me to keep her sanity.

“You know I do need to pay you ladies a visit. It’s been awhile. I want to ask Louise what happened all those years ago, but William’s death has put her in a bit of tailspin too. I mean someone shot the man next door to me.”

“Girl, your neighborhood has gone down a bit. What have the kids said?”

I smacked my forehead with my hand. “I haven’t told any of them. I guess I better before I have one or all of them showing up to my door, especially Junior. I think he went to school about two years behind William.”

“Oh girl, you know that oldest boy will try to move you out of that house if he could. How is everyone else doing anyway? I can’t believe Thanksgiving will be here in six weeks.”
“You are telling me. Even though I’m out of the classroom, time is still flying by. You know Junior’s wife should be having their third baby boy around Christmas. Leesa has been doing pretty good. She came by for Sunday dinner with Kisha and Tyric. Both of those munchkins are growing fast.” I sighed. “The only child of mine that I haven’t heard from or seen has been Cedric. Since him and you know who moved in together, he’s become a stranger.”

“Now Eugeena, you’re not still fussing about that boy being unmarried, although he is almost forty, right?”

“Cora, that is what doesn’t make any sense to me. All this time Cedric has never shacked up with a woman. Suddenly this girl is special. Okay, well that is wonderful, but when did marriage become so unpopular?” I held my hand to my head as if to ward off a headache.  “Don’t get me started if he gets that Carmen girl pregnant. I already feel sometimes I flat out failed as a parent with Leesa. I believe I was just tired when that girl came along.”

“Now let’s not go there, Eugeena. There’s no need to be hard on yourself. You and Ralph did the best you could do. Besides, you never know, sometimes playing house might encourage them to do the real thing. That girl is a bit younger than Cedric. I imagine she would want a ring after a while.”

Cora had a point. There was at least a ten-year difference in Cedric and Carmen’s age, which I always found pretty fascinating as well.

I turned from my thoughts to hear Cora’s laughter.

“What’s so funny,” I asked.

“You have more going on now than when you were in the classroom teaching. You sound like you’re enjoying retirement just fine.”

I walked back over to the computer and sat down. “The superintendent did ask me if I wanted to substitute teach sometime, but I honestly have plenty to keep me busy.”

Maybe a bit too much.

I peered at Jocelyn’s Facebook page and noticed she had just posted a status. I leaned in to read what she posted and sucked in a breath.

Have you ever done something unforgivable?

I gulped as I scanned the comments below her post. Like a few of those who posted comments, I wanted to know what Jocelyn had done.

Cora’s voice invaded my paranoid thoughts, “Eugeena, are you okay? What’s going on with you? Have you monitored your sugar today?”

“What? Yes, my glucose levels were normal. I will be eating in a bit. Look I have to go. I will keep you updated on what’s going on around here.”

“Alright, Eugeena. Just play it safe. You almost got yourself killed the last time you were digging around.”

“Believe me this is nothing like the last time.  I hope to see you and Aunt Esther soon. Goodbye, Cora.”  I hung up the phone thinking to myself at least I hoped to see them soon.

If Detective Wilkes caught sight of the status Jocelyn just posted, that girl would surely be moved to the top of the suspect list. Why’d did people post such things publicly? Was this a cry for help?

I didn’t know whether she would respond, but I decided to send Jocelyn a message on Facebook. 
Jocelyn, this is Eugeena Patterson. I met you on Sunday at Hillcrest Manor Nursing Home. It’s urgent you get in touch with me as soon as possible.