Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows Part 10

"I don't know," she admitted. "I feel like I'm on a mountain looking down at shadows."

I got up and followed her to the window, leaning against the wall so that I could see her face. I hated to see Mama like this, like she was bottled up and couldn't figure out how to become unplugged. Her frustration always touched something deep inside of me. Mama was the coach who made our team a winner; I hated to see her disheartened, especially since I didn't have her skill of making lemonade out of lemons.

Just then my father rushed inside the house, his eyes shining with excitement. Cliff was right behind him.

"Candi, baby," my father said, almost out of breath. "I think we've come up with the dude that's been climbing in women's windows and jumping them in their beds!"

A funny feeling rushed through me.

"James," Mama said, "you're not kidding me, now are you?"

Daddy looked Mama straight in the eye. "Baby, would I do something like that?" he exclaimed. "We think we know who he is. We're not sure, but we thinka""

"What makes you think you've spotted the right fella?"

"For one thing, this guy has fresh scratches all over his face and neck. I can tell that a woman had hold of him for a good while," Daddy said. "And he's talking crazy, boasting that he scored last night with a woman that he had to make give him what he wanted! And Coal now remembers that he's seen this guy wearing a shirt that looked exactly like that piece of cloth you showed us that Ruby had torn from the man who attacked her!"

"This is wonderful," Mama told him. "We've got to get ahold of Abe before we lose this man," she said, walking to the phone and dialing Abe's number. A moment later she hung up with a sigh. "His answering machine is on; he's not in the office," she told us.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

Mama turned to my father. "Do you know the name of this man?"

"Around the pool hall he's called Honey Man. I don't know his given name."

"My Lord." Mama's eyes shone now, her frustration blasted away. "We have to get in touch with Abe!"

"Listen, Candi," Daddy said. "I left Coal at the pool hall to keep an eye on the guy. This is what we're going to do. I'm going back to the hall, just in case Coal needs me. This Honey Man is big. He weighs every bit of two hundred fifty pounds or more. And he's all muscle. I'm surprised that Ruby was able to fight him off as long as she dida"truth is, I'm surprised that any woman would be able to fight him at all."

"What do we do?" Mama asked.

"You and Simone go to Abe's office and wait for him."

"I want in on this," Cliff now said.

"You stay here," Daddy told him. "If Abe calls, tell him to get to his office as soon as possible. Tell him that Candi and Simone are waiting there for him."

"Why don't I just call 911?" I suggested.

"If this Honey Man isn't the fella who is climbing into women's bedroom windows, you'd be hard pressed to explain an emergency call," Daddy told me.

Mama nodded resignedly. "James is right," she told me. "Let's do as he says and go to Abe's office to wait."

Abe's office was locked, so Mama and I sat waiting in the car for him. An hour pa.s.sed before Abe arrived. There was sweat on his face and his shirt was wet and dirty. When he saw us waiting, he ushered us inside his office, closed the door, went behind his desk, sat down, and started fussing. "That darned old man Thrasher who lives next door to Vincent Kelley should have been locked up in the state hospital years ago," he grumbled.

"Mr. Thrasher isn't crazy," Mama told Abe. "The poor old soul is suffering from Alzheimer's disease."

I was impatient to get on with what we'd been waiting to tell Abe. "This isn't the time to talk about Mr. Thrasher," I said.

Abe ignored me. "I don't care what he's got," he said, annoyed. He pulled out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. Then, as if he remembered that he didn't smoke in front of Mama, he s.n.a.t.c.hed it from between his lips and threw it down on his desk. "Thrasher wanders off at least three times a week. His wife, Ca.s.sie, expects me and Rick to drop everything and go searching for him. There's a whole lot more to my job than tracking down an absentminded man!"

"Listen," Mama said firmly, giving Abe her most steely-eyed look. "James and Coal think they've identified the man who's been attacking the women in town."

Abe's mouth dropped in amazement. "Who is he and where is he?" he asked.

"His name is Honey Man. He's playing pool at Joe's Pool Hall right this minute. James and his buddy Coal are keeping an eye on him."

Abe stepped into the corridor outside of his office and shouted, "Rick! Come in here! It seems that James may have spotted the rapist."

"James told us that Honey Man is biga"if he decides to put up a fight, you'll have a tough one on your hands," Mama warned Abe.

And Mama was right.

Mama and I waited in Abe's office for more than an hour, staring out of the window into the streets of Otis.

We were just about to leave Abe's office when my father arrived.

"I came to tell you to drive your mother home," he told me. "Candi baby, things aren't coming together the way I'd hoped they would."

"What's happened?" Mama asked, instantly concerned. "Did Abe arrest Honey Man? Has anybody gotten hurt?"

"No, no, baby. Nothing like that has happened." Daddy touched Mama's arm. "Do as I say and drive home. I'll meet you there. We'll talk then."

When we got into the house and Mama had made a fresh pot of coffee, Daddy told us this story: The moment Honey Man saw Abe and Rick Martin approaching him, he pulled out a knife. There was a scuffle. Honey Man's eyes were wild, like those of a madman. Other men in the pool hall scattered. Honey Man broke loose from Abe and Rick and used the confusion to push through the crowd and make it through the back door. In a few seconds he was across the street. Abe and Rick followed, but Honey Man was fast. By the time Abe and Rick decided to go back to the pool hall and get their car, Honey Man was no place to be found.

In the middle of the next week, Mama called me in Atlanta to give me the news. Honey Man had been captured. This was Mama's account: Abe and Rick drove around town, telling people that Honey Man was the alleged rapist. But no one knew where he had gone; Honey Man had simply vanished from Otis on Sat.u.r.day. Then, on Wednesday, Abe and Rick got a tip. Loggers had spotted Honey Man near an old cabin in the woods five miles behind Herman Spikes's place. They surrounded the place and Honey Man was finally captured.

"Are you coming home this weekend?" Mama asked now.

"Yes," I said, remembering that Yasmine had asked me to get her two or three of my parents' wedding pictures. She'd wanted to surprise them by having one of the photos blown up and become part of a special table centerpiece.

"What time Sat.u.r.day can I expect you?"

"Early."

"Nine o'clock."

"Not that early!" I protested. "It's a three-hour drive!" I took a deep breath. There was no point in resisting her. Mama always got her way. "Okay, pretty lady. I'll be in Otis at nine-thirty Sat.u.r.day morning," I said, feeling a slight victory because I'd pushed the time back a half hour.

"Tell Cliff I'll have breakfast on the table at nine o'clock," Mama replied, her voice soft but resolute. Then she hung up the telephone.

CHAPTER.

SEVENTEEN.

Sat.u.r.day evening. The sun hung low in the sky, and the air was heavy with humidity. Silence hung over us like a long, dark cloud.

Mama seemed thoughtful as we drove the twenty miles through the pine tree farm to Avondale.

It had been hard for me to convince Cliff that Mama and I would be safe driving to Avondale alone. If he had, like he'd insisted, taken the drive with us, Mama might have suspected that I'd told him about the attempts on our lives. As it was, she knew about my concerned phone call to Abea"he'd called both me and Mama to report that he'd talked to Leman Moody and that everything would be okay. Mama may not have minded me letting Abe know about our close calls, but she wouldn't have been happy if Cliff or my father started looking after us like guardian angels.

Anyway, I started to put a Sade CD into the car's player, but then I glanced at Mama and decided against it. She looked as if something serious was going on inside her head. I knew not to interfere whenever Mama looked so reflective. It would have been useless anyway.

The truth was, I was sulking. I wasn't happy that Mama seemed so interested in the problems of Otis and so disinterested in her own party. I really wanted to pull out all the stops so that it would be an anniversary both she and my father would always remember. Yet she didn't seem to care much about it one way or the other.

When we arrived at the Avondale Inn, Mama motioned me to park. "I don't want to get out," she told me, glancing down at her watch. "I just want to sit here and try to figure out what really happened to poor Ruby."

I pulled the car onto the gra.s.s under a spreading live oak and turned off the ignition. I rolled down the window. Crickets sang; the salty smell of french fried potatoes filled the air. Directly across the street was the McDonald's where we'd had our first meeting with Leman Moody.

I tried to visualize Ruby Spikes, upset, unwanted, alone. And with a wad of money in her purse. So much money, I thought. So little happiness.

We sat until I began fidgetinga"I was rapidly getting bored. Mama must have noticed, because she said, "All right, Simone, let's drive back to Otis."

At that moment, Leman Moody, Inez Moore, and a man that I a.s.sumed was Inez's boyfriend stepped out of the McDonald's across the street. At first they seemed preoccupied with their conversation, but then Leman spotted us. As he spoke to them, he pointed to us.

"I think," I told Mama, uneasy that I was in the same vicinity as Leman Moody, "that we'll make the trip home faster than we made it to Avondale!" The twenty-mile return trip to Otis took us only fifteen minutes.

"I've got news," was the announcement that Abe hit us with when we got home. He'd been there waiting. "It's official a Ruby Spikes did not commit suicide. The medical examiner hasn't done Betty Jo's autopsy yet, but his report on Ruby shows that she had minute hemorrhages in her eyelids and throat. She was dead before she was shot. Somebody suffocated her, then shot her to make it look like she killed herself. There wasn't any gunpowder on her hands. And the paper that I told you we found in her hand was a piece of a twenty-dollar bill. It looks like somebody killed her for the money that we can't account for," Abe said so fast, he almost didn't take a breath. He was really excited.

Mama started to say something, but Abe held up his hand. "There's more. Rick came up with the idea that the dates and phone numbers that you suggested Jeff Golick pull together for me might put me onto Charles Parker. And he was right. No sooner did I have that list in my hands than I realized that I was onto something. You'll see, Candi, Ruby stayed at the Avondale Inn eight times during the past six months. About three months ago she started making calls to a Savannah number."

Mama's eyes were glued to the list of neatly typed names and numbers that Abe had handed her.

"That number there in Savannah is for a real estate office," Abe said. "The Charles Parker Real Estate Office."

"Ruby was buying property?" I asked.

"I talked to Parker over the phone," Abe said as Mama handed him back the typed list. "He told me he didn't even know that Ruby was dead. He claims the last time he talked with Ruby was four weeks ago."

"Ruby had so many secrets," Mama murmured.

"Parker is coming to my office tomorrow morning around ten," Abe said. His blue eyes blazed with the excitement of finding Charles Parker. "He promised to bring information that will prove his relationship with Ruby was strictly a business one. Still, I ain't taking no chances. I called my buddy, Savannah's chief of police, Adams. He's doing a rundown on Parker for me. He's also having one of his men keep an eye on him for me. If Parker doesn't show up tomorrow morning at ten o'clock here in Otis like he promised, Adams will have him picked up for questioning."

"I'd like to meet Charles Parker," Mama said.

The smell of honey-baked ham told me that Mama had already gotten Sunday dinner well on its way when, at eight-thirty the next morning, I shuffled out of my bedroom into the kitchen.

"Breakfast is light," she said, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n. Then she motioned me toward toast, bacon, juice, and peaches. "I'll poach you an egg whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready," I said, pouring a cup of hazelnut coffee. A few minutes later my father and Cliff joined us.

Mama served the poached eggs, then looked around her kitchen. Satisfied that everything was in order, she finally joined us at the table.

"Would you believe," I said, my fork in the air, "that this Parker is a real estate broker? Ruby must have been buying property. She couldn't be selling it: she didn't own any."

"Simone and I are going to be at Abe's office when he talks to this Charles Parker," Mama told my father. "But I'll finish preparing dinner before we leave."

"Miss Candi, may I ask what's for supper?" Cliff asked, his glance lingering on the pots on Mama's stove.

"I've baked a ham."

"I smell it," he said.

"I've made okra and tomatoes and field peas and rice. I've got potatoes boiling to make salad, and"a"Mama pointed to a counter on the other side of her stovea""I've got a pan of bread rising for homemade yeast rolls."

"You kneaded bread this morning?" I asked, wondering what time she had gotten out of bed to have all that cooking done.

"No, Simone. I keep dough in the freezer. It's easy to pull it out. It will have risen nicely by the time we get back home from Abe's office."

Cliff's eyes danced excitedly. "I'll watch that bread every second that you're gone," he teased. But it was a statement that I suspected had more truth in it than jest.

Charles Parker was tall, thin. He had a yellow complexion, the color of summer squash. His salt-and-pepper hair was tastefully trimmed. His hands were slender, his fingers manicured. He wore a tailored pin-striped navy blue suit, a perfectly ironed white shirt, and a bright red tie. A gold-plated tie pin shone on it. His shoes gleamed. He smiled graciously. He reminded me of an undertaker.

Abe introduced us, then told Parker that we were close friends of Ruby's. For a second, Parker looked doubtful, but then the lines in his face smoothed. He accepted Abe's offer of a seat. "Ruby first called me about three months ago," he told us. "She'd seen a piece of property I'd advertised in the Savannah Sunday paper. We made arrangements. She came to my office." He opened a manila envelope and pulled out a signed contract. I had a momentary vision of Ruby Spikes contemplating the purchase of a house without her husband's knowledge, and wondered just how angry that might have made Herman Spikes.

"Ruby was a good businesswoman," Mama commented.

Charles Parker's manner, which up to now had been detached and coolly professional, softened. "I admired her financial sense," he agreed. "I, of course, guided her. She paid thirty-four thousand dollars toward the purchase of a house. Because of the need of repairs, she struck a good bargain.

"The property was on a one-acre tract in Bartow," Parker continued, showing us a color photograph of a small brick house. "The old woman that owned this house died about six months ago. Her children live up north. They wanted to sell the place quickly, so even though they wanted seventy-five thousand for it, when Ruby offered sixty thousand, they accepted."

Abe was still looking through the papers Parker had handed to him. "Why this check for five thousand dollars?" he asked.

"Ruby asked me to see to the repairs," Parker replied. "That's not usually a part of my duties, but she insisted she had no other resource. The check she gave me paid for new plumbing and wiring."

Abe seemed satisfied that Charles Parker's story was legitimate. "Do you have an idea who might have wanted to kill Ruby?" he asked.

Charles Parker looked Abe in the eyes without blinking. "I do not," he said. "My only dealings with Ruby Spikes were pure business."

"Ruby Spikes's death is an official murder investigation," Abe told Parker.

Charles Parker's face clouded briefly. "I understand," was his soft reply. I could see that he was shaken by Abe's news.

"I'll be getting back with you," Abe continued.

"I'll make myself available," Parker answered as he stood to leave. "Those papers," he continued, "are copies. They're yours to keep. I have the originals in safekeeping."

Charles Parker turned to Mama, looked down at her with genuine interest, and then bowed stiffly. "I'm sorry about Ruby Spikes's untimely death," he said stoically as if he was giving Mama his condolences. Then his voice changed. I swear it even sounded a bit sad. "It was a nice little house. Ruby seemed truly happy with her purchase."

Mama didn't say anything but I could tell from the way she looked at Charles Parker that she believed his a.s.sessment.