Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows Part 6

"Really?" Mama said, trying to look surprised.

"And the back fender on the car is dented, like it might have been the spot that took the blow," he added, shaking his head.

"Things happened fast," Mama said. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"

"No," Daddy answered. "You know, baby, both Abe and I think there's more to what happened than a freak accident. Do either you or Simone remember being hit from the rear?"

"Maybe the person who called Abe to report our car in the ditch b.u.mped us accidentally?" I suggested. "Maybe, because of the darkness, he saw us too late anda""

"If it happened that way, I guess whoever called Abe did the right thing. Although he should've stayed around to make sure you and your mama were okay."

"If he was alone in the car, he had no other choice but to get to a phone and report the accident. Everybody knows that the chances of another car driving on that road that time of night are nil," I said.

My father seemed to relax. "Abe said that the caller didn't give a name."

"Whoever made that call saved our lives," I told him, hoping this interpretation would satisfy his concern about the skid mark and dented back fender.

"I guess so," my father said reluctantly. But it was clear from his tone that he wasn't sure that my story was really what had happened to me and Mama as we drove back from Avondale the night before.

CHAPTER.

ELEVEN.

I stayed in Otis until Monday morning, when my father helped me arrange for the Honda's repair and a two-week rental of a Ford Escort. I arrived in Atlanta late Monday afternoon. The balance of the week was hectic, but Friday morning was a demon.

First thing that happened was that I got a ticket. The residential area off Piedmont onto Morningside is always targeted for speeders. I'd seen at least a dozen people get tickets there, but for some reason their sad experience escaped me this morning. I was driving fifty in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone when I got nipped right after I came over the small hill that's down from Morningside Elementary School. That meant a $125 fine.

Once I finally got to the office and tried to make a pot of coffee, the darn machine wouldn't turn on. Shirley, Sidney's a.s.sistant, called the company that services it. They told her it would be three days before they could get us another machine to replace it. So I had to make coffee the hard way, the way it was done in the Stone Age: put a cup of water in the microwave, boil it, and then use instant coffee. While my water was being nuked in the microwave, I discovered I had a run in my pantyhose an inch and a half wide that ran straight up my right leg. I groaned.

The only thing to do, I was thinking once I'd gotten back in my office with my cup of instant coffee, was to go down the street to buy another pair of stockings. That thought hadn't cleared my mind when my boss walked into my office. "Simone," Sidney snapped in an unusual tone, "this brief has so many typos in it, I refuse to read it!"

"Two of our typists are out with the flu," I reminded him. "And the temp we hired just can't cut ita"she's not familiar with legal terms."

Sidney wasn't satisfied. He threw the papers on my desk. "Get this corrected!" he roared, thrusting his face a little too close to mine. I noticed that there were tiny white flakes of dandruff on his shoulders. "I want it back on my desk today!" Then he stomped out.

For a moment, I didn't know what to do. Finally, I decided to do the corrections myself. It would be the best way to make sure that they were done right, the way that Sidney always wanted it.

Then my computer went down. I went into the secretaries' office: the whole system had crashed. "Now that we can't live without them," I told Shirley, "the machines have started to exercise their control over us."

"Maybe they're like all the rest of us overworked laborers," Shirley grumbled. "They stop when they've been pushed too far."

Uh-oh, I thought, Sidney must have taken an angry swipe at her this morning, too.

"I'll call the repairman," Shirley told me. "I'll make sure he understands that we need him ASAP."

It wasn't ten minutes later that I was at the copier and that sucker jammed. I pulled paper from every nook and cranny I could see, but to no avail. The message light kept flashing "Jammed." Reluctantly, I had to go back to Shirley.

When I told her what had happened, she demanded, "What do you want me to do?"

"Call another repairman," I suggested, bracing myself for another fit of temper.

"I'll call in a minute." Her tone told me that I'd been dismissed from her presence. I shrugged and headed back to my office. I drank two more cups of instant coffee, and cursed the run in my stocking at least a dozen times until I decided to leave the office early and stop by Lenox Mall before lunch. Just as I made that decision, the phone rang. It was Cliff. Cliff has eyes that remind me of Richard Roundtree's, deep, dark, and sensuous. Today, however, his voice didn't sound s.e.xy. It sounded exasperated. "I have to break our lunch date," he told me.

"What's the matter now?" I asked, no doubt sounding more than a little impatient.

"It's Daniel Abrams. That man won't give me a break."

Daniel Abrams was Cliff's client. He was an accountant, a man who got his kicks knowing where every penny of his money was twenty-four hours a day. Daniel Abrams's divorce was now final. Cliff's law firm had given him an itemized bill for the services rendered. Now Abrams wanted proof that x amount of dollars had indeed been spent on postage, telephone calls, copying, etc., and it would take Cliff all afternoon to satisfy this man so that the firm could finally get paid for hours and hours of work.

"Will he keep you through dinner?" I asked.

"Heck no," Cliff said. "And he'll be told that I'm leaving town tomorrow and I won't be back until Monday noon."

"That means we'll have an uninterrupted weekend."

"Sounds good to me," Cliff said enthusiastically and hung up. I decided to walk across the street and get lunch, which turned out to be a tuna-fish sandwich that didn't taste like tuna and a diet c.o.ke that had more ice in it than c.o.ke. Maybe that was the diet part.

Around three o'clock, I called Mama. "How are things going?" I asked.

"Okay."

"Cliff wants to get out of town for the weekend."

"Great. Bring him home. I'll make a meal especially for him. What time can I expect you two?"

"We'll be there by nine o'clock in the morning."

Going to Otis suited me fine. It would give me another opportunity to work on party plans with Mama. Her cooking would be the thing to ease the anxieties Cliff was having over his penny-pinching client. And I'd get to hear firsthand what was going on in Mama's private investigation into the murder of Ruby Spikes.

CHAPTER.

TWELVE.

Cliff's favorite dish is Mama's skillet-roasted lemon chicken with potatoes.

Mama was just sliding this dish from the oven as Cliff and I walked into her kitchen. She'd also fixed fresh string beans, glazed carrots, sliced tomatoes, a tossed salad, and a sweet-potato pie that threatens waistlines. We all sat right down to eat.

"Candi, I've done what you asked," Daddy said thirty minutes later as he dished himself a second helping of chicken and potatoes. "Neither Coal nor I could come up with the fella who wore a shirt like that piece of material you showed me last week. The more we thought about it, the more we drew a blank."

Mama looked disappointed. "I appreciate your efforts, James," she said as the telephone rang. She excused herself from the table.

"What shirt?" I asked my father.

"Ruby Spikes tore a piece off the shirt of the man who tried to rape her. Candi got it from Abe. She wanted to know whether or not Coal or I had ever seen it on any one of the fellas who hang out at Joe's Pool Hall."

Mama came back into the room. Her face looked like it does when she's trying to figure something out but can't quite seem to put her finger on it. "Betty Jo Mets is dead," she told us in a stunned voice. "She called me just last night, said she was confused about something and needed to talk with me. I suspected she wanted to know something about the care of her boys, because she asked me to meet her at Portia Bolton's house this afternoon."

"Who is Portia Bolton?" I asked.

"Portia is the foster mother I placed Betty Jo's two little boys with. She is a fine woman. She never had any children of her own, but she's the kind of woman whose care children thrive under."

I pushed back my chair. Mama motioned me to sit back down. "Finish eating," she said to me. "I told Abe we'd be at his office in a half an hour."

"Did Betty Jo have some kind of an ailment that could account for her dying so suddenly?" my father asked.

"If she did, I didn't know about it," Mama said.

"What happened to her?" I asked, not liking the look on Mama's face.

She shook her head sadly. "Abe told me that the paramedics called him. They'd gotten a call from Herman two hours ago. Herman told them that Betty Jo hadn't responded to his efforts to wake hera"I can't believe she's dead, she sounded so alive last night when I spoke with her!"

We arrived at Abe's office around two o'clock.

"Tell me exactly what happened," Mama said as soon as we entered.

Abe didn't hesitate. "This is Herman's story," he said, toying with an unlit cigarette. "He and Betty Jo went to bed around nine last night. Betty Jo slept through the night as usuala"Herman swears he heard her breathing. Anyway, when he got up this morning, Betty Jo was still asleep. He left the house and returned around ten A.M. He did some ch.o.r.es in the backyard before he went into the house. He was surprised to find that Betty Jo hadn't gotten out of bed. He tried to wake her. That's when he realized that she'd stopped breathing. He called 911. The paramedics came. They told him that Betty Jo was dead and that she'd been dead for hours, so instead of taking her to the hospital they called the medical examiner."

"When did you arrive at Herman's house?" Mama asked Abe.

"I got there before the body was moved to the morgue. Betty Jo was in the bed, looking like she was in a deep sleep. There was an empty gla.s.s on the side of her bed. I had it sent to the lab but it looks to me that she died in her sleep. Maybe a blood vessel burst in her head."

"An aneurysm," I volunteered.

"I suppose you've ordered an autopsy?" Mama asked him.

Abe nodded. "I sure have. I called Charleston Medical Center yesterday. It will be a while before I get Ruby's autopsy report because the work is backed up but the doctor is back on the job."

"Betty Jo called me last night," Mama told Abe. "She asked me to meet her today at Portia Bolton's house."

Abe's eyebrow rose.

"Nothing Betty Jo said to me gave me the impression that she'd be dead today," Mama told him.

"Time and life catch up with everybody," Abe reminded her.

"Yes," Mama answered softly. "I'm just surprised that they caught up with Betty Jo so soon."

From the look on Portia Bolton's face, it was clear that she already knew that Betty Jo was dead. "News travels fast," she said, greeting us on her porch and motioning us inside. "The noonday news reported that Herman had found her body."

The living room we now stood in held an easy chair and a couch, both covered tidily with pale blue sheets. A small table stood next to the couch, pictures of two boys neatly arranged on it. Newly hung white curtains were at the windows. The smell of Clorox was heavy in the air.

Portia offered us a seat. "The way Betty Jo lived, nothing would surprise me about her. Still, I didn't think she'd die so young!"

"Did she call you last night?" Mama asked.

"No," Portia replied, looking concerned. "Was she suppose to have called me?"

"Last night she called and asked me to meet her here today," Mama said. "I thought she might have called you and told you she'd be coming."

"No," Portia said, shaking her head.

"When was the last time she visited her boys?"

"The day before yesterday. Herman brought her here and then drove off. An hour later he picked her up again. Lord knows how I'm going to tell those boys that she won't be coming to see them again, especially since she told them that she was going to bring them their big old tomcat from her place," Portia said sadly.

Mama leaned over and patted her hand. "I'll arrange for a psychologist to talk with them," she said.

Portia nodded, grateful. "Mack is eight and little Curtis is only six. It was hard enough for me to help them understand why they couldn't live with their own mama. Now to explain to them that one day she was alive and happy and the next day she's dead a Candi, I don't know how those two sweet boys are going to take it!"

"We'll help them understand," Mama promised. "We'll do whatever it takes to help them through this. Let me ask you something, Portia. Did you have a chance to talk to Betty Jo when she visited two days ago?"

Portia nodded. "Like I told you, Betty Jo was happy, grinning from ear to ear. She liked living with Herman. She boasted that she wore Ruby's clothes, strutted her rings and watches. Betty Jo couldn't talk enough about the good time she was having."

Mama sat up straight.

"Betty Jo even gave each of her boys a twenty-dollar billa"those bills looked like they'd just come off the printing press," Portia continued. "Fact is, I almost had a stroke when Betty Jo opened up her pocketbook and pulled that brand new money out. Look like the Treasury had just printed it. As soon as she left, I had to take Curtis and Mack to the new Wesmart to buy a toy. That money nearly burned a hole in their pockets." She smiled. "I couldn't bear to spend such clean, pretty money, so I gave them two old twenties that I had been saving for a living room set. I put their new bills up for safekeeping. In six months, when I've saved enough money for a set, I'll have to use it. Right now, though, having new money will bring good fortune to my house."

"It's a tragedy that Betty Jo died so young," Mama commented. "She couldn't be more than twenty-five."

"Fact is," Portia said, "I don't remember hearing that she had a condition that might have caused her sudden death. But then, death can come sudden to most anybody, can't it?"

Mama murmured her agreement.

"I wonder a" Portia said, her face clouding.

"What?" Mama asked.

"Betty Jo promised the boys that she'd bring their cat, Sparkle, here for them to take care of. It seems that now that she was living with Herman she wasn't able to go back to her own house every day to feed the cat."

"There's no reason that those boys can't have their cat," Mama agreed.

"I'll go pick it up first thing in the morning," Portia said, smiling. "It'll be a comfort to Mack and Curtis."