Mama Cracks a Mask of Innocence (4 page)

“Of course not! There was every reason for me to believe what Brenda told me. You and I both have investigated these kinds of complaints before, Candi. You know as well as I do the offending parent always resists an investigation. It’s one of the signs that makes us look further for his guilt.”

Mama looked down at the letters Clyde Hicks had written Brenda. “Does Abe know about these letters?”

Hattie shook her head. “I wanted him to get them from you instead of me since you’ll be the one I’m expecting to get answers from.”

Mama turned to Tootsie. “You had no idea that Clyde had threatened Brenda?” she asked kindly.

Tootsie shook her head. “No. And I don’t understand why Brenda didn’t confide in me. I don’t work, so I’m always at home, always there for her when she needed me.”

Mama nodded approvingly. “Tell me, who were the kids that Brenda hung out with, the kids who came over to your house?”

Tootsie struggled to pull herself together. She blew her nose, then said, “I—I don’t know exactly. I mean she had plenty of friends.”

“Who was her boyfriend?” I asked, the question slipping out of my mouth before I had a chance to hold it back. I hadn’t been out of school so very long that I didn’t remember that life in any high school wasn’t worth a grain of salt if a girl didn’t have a boyfriend. Brenda’s boyfriend would be the one with the answers to questions that Mama wanted answered.

Before Tootsie could speak, however, Hattie interjected, “Brenda didn’t have a boyfriend. She wasn’t that kind of a girl!”

I made a mental note. As soon as my mother and I had a chance to talk about Brenda Long’s murder, I’d tell her not to pay any attention to Hattie Russell’s assertion, and to start her investigation by tracking down Brenda’s boyfriend.

Mama again addressed Tootsie. “Okay, then let’s move on to the last time you saw Brenda, the last time you spoke to her.”

“I’d signed the consent slip for Brenda to go with her class on a trip to Orlando the week before. On Wednesday night when Brenda came in from work, I’d already gone to bed. Thursday morning, I heard Brenda talking on the phone in her room. By the time I got back to the kitchen, she was heading for the door—” Tootsie hesitated. “I went to her room. The bed was made up. The bus was to leave that afternoon right from school, so it
didn’t bother me not to talk to her anymore. I mean, I never thought any more about Brenda’s absence until Abe came.…”

Mama’s brow set the way it does when her sleuthing instinct was put in motion. But there was something else. It was so slight that I don’t know if Tootsie or Hattie even recognized it. To me, though, it was clear. I can only describe what I saw in Mama’s eyes as a shadow of doubt.

I
awoke the next morning, Sunday, around six o’clock to an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. I hesitated to get out of bed but the aroma of Mama’s French vanilla coffee lured me into the kitchen. My mama was doing her thing, fixing a gourmet breakfast.

Mama has a gentleness about her that when added to the aroma of her cooking usually soothes most of my discomforts. However, when there is something heavy on her mind, she has another look, a kind of a fierce glow of what I can only describe as an inner determination. When Mama has this glow, her cooking isn’t designed to soothe—it’s a vehicle to organize and arrange her own thoughts. This morning, Mama was lit up—she was rolling neat little round biscuits and putting them onto a cookie sheet.

“I hope you’re not worried about doing this job for Hattie?” I asked, thinking that the apprehension I felt might have been the result of knowing that my mother’s boss had drawn her into another murder investigation.

“Hattie Russell is my boss but she didn’t come here last night in that role.”

I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a sip. I waited for Mama to continue.

“No, Simone, I’m not intimidated by Hattie. She’s a fine woman, smart enough to separate my position at the agency from my helping her personally. No, it’s not Hattie that concerns me,” she said, puzzled. “It’s Tootsie … Did you notice how she described herself as a stay-at-home mother, always available to her daughter? Then she said that she wasn’t worried about her going out of town after not having spoken to Brenda for at least two days. There’s something strange about that kind of a relationship between a child and a parent.”

“I don’t know about a parent-and-children relationship,” I told her. “But I do know that every high school girl wants their own man. Trust me, the boyfriend is the one we need to track down; he’s the one who’s got the answers to questions!”

Mama finished the biscuits and placed them on a cookie sheet. “There’s a notebook in the desk drawer. Get it for me. It’ll help us keep track of who we talk to and what we learn.”

The notebook was placed neatly on top of a few
envelopes. I took it out, and on the very first page, I wrote the date and the name,
Brenda Long
.

Mama put on her cooking mitten, picked up the cookie sheet, opened the oven and shoved the pan of biscuits inside. “First we’ll talk to Clyde. Hattie will want me to do that before I do anything else.” She paused. “By the way, I called Abe.”

“Invited him for breakfast, did you?”

“Yes.”

“I suspected as much.”

When I opened the door for Abe Stanley, I could smell the cigarette smoke in his clothes. A three-pack-a-day smoker, I think he torturously denies himself the pleasure whenever Mama is around since he knows how uncomfortable she is with his smoking.

Abe is a man of sixty, with thin gray hair and an expressive face that tells you what’s on his mind even before his words do.

Mama’s kitchen was warm with the scent of biscuits minutes from coming out of the oven. Abe surveyed Mama’s table. He saw scrambled eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, sliced fried green tomatoes, grits, peach marmalade, coffee, sausage, and thick sliced bacon fried to perfection.

At that moment my father walked into the kitchen. “How’s it going, Abe?” he asked, pulling back a chair and sitting down.

“Things could be better, although looking at Candi’s table I can’t for the life of me remember how!”

Daddy laughed. “Candi really put it on this morning. I tell you, my woman really knows how to cook. Pull yourself up a chair and take some weight off your feet and, of course, help yourself!”

Abe grinned, sat down, leaned forward in his chair, picked up his fork and, without moving his eyes from the food, said, “Candi, James got reason to brag on your cooking. I don’t know anybody in town who can even come close to beating you for fixing a good meal!”

Mama nodded, although Abe didn’t notice because he was busy filling his plate with portions of everything that was on the table.

“I’m sorry to hear about Brenda Long’s death,” Mama said. The words slipping out her mouth as easily as butter melted on her flaky biscuits.

Abe put his fork down. “I reckoned you’re wondering why I didn’t call you and let you know about that.”

Mama nodded.

“Zack Garvey, the manager of the radio station, keeps a few beehives in a field about five miles out of town. Friday morning he checked his hives and found a shallow grave—a hand was kinda poking out of the earth. I decided to call in the State Law Enforcement people since they’ve got the people and equipment to study the site in ways that I can’t. After the grave was
cleared and it was positive that the body was Tootsie’s daughter, the detective from SLED, a fella named Lew Hunter, promptly took over the case. It seems that Hunter talked to Brenda last Wednesday when she called the narcotics division from her high school. Brenda told him that she’d just learned that a student was selling drugs on the campus. Lew is still waiting for the autopsy report but he thinks it took place Thursday night, sometime after eight o’clock because a woman who was trying to hurry to Wesmart before it closed told us that she saw Brenda getting into an expensive light-colored car at seven-fifty-five
P.M
. That was the last reported sighting of the girl.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Even with that little bit of information, Lew is sure that the girl’s death was drug related.

Mama took a deep breath. “Are you trying to tell me that Brenda was taking drugs?”

“No, no,” Abe said emphatically. “Lew thinks that whoever killed Brenda did so because she learned that the killer was dealing drugs at school.”

The look in her eyes told me she felt uncomfortable with what Abe had just told her. “Wait a minute, Abe. I wouldn’t put too much into the call Brenda made to that SLED office until we get more evidence that she was on the right track. There could be other reasons for her death,” Mama continued. “For instance, do you know Clyde Hicks?”

Abe threw Mama a steady look. “What about Clyde?”

“Hattie told me that Clyde threatened Brenda because she was instrumental in him spending time in jail for stealing from the Wesmart!” Mama walked over to the desk, picked up the envelopes Hattie had given her and then handed them to Abe.

Abe pushed back in his chair, flipped through a few of the letters, then put them back in their envelopes and set them on the table next to his plate. “Candi, I promise I’ll get Rick to bring Clyde in. We’ll talk to him.”

Mama looked satisfied. “Will you let me know what you find out from Clyde?”

“I’m sorry, Candi, but this time I can’t let you in on what’s happening with this case,” Abe answered.

Mama’s eyes grew wide.

“Lew Hunter is in charge of this one,” Abe said. “His methods ain’t exactly like ours. He doesn’t cotton to private citizens getting involved with these kinds of cases.”

“I don’t understand,” Mama told him.

“Lew says that most people who live in small towns don’t want to face the reality that drugs are becoming an intricate part of their community.”

“I don’t believe that Otis teens have a drug problem,” Mama asserted.

“That’s exactly why Lew insists on keeping things tightly under wraps until he gets the hard, physical evidence that will convince folks that there is a serious problem that needs addressing.”

Mama looked speechless.

“Candi, don’t take what I’m about to say personal,” he said, his voice resolved. “You’ve been a great help to me and I ain’t one to forget it. When Lew threw out his ideas they felt like a stick up my nose. But now that I’ve given it some thought, I’m inclined to agree that he knows exactly the way not only to find who killed Brenda Long but also get to the bottom of who’s dealing drugs in town!”

I
felt sorry for Mama. For the rest of the morning, she looked like she’d just lost her best friend. When Abe told her she wouldn’t be in on this investigation, it took her by surprise and hit her hard. Later, as if she’d given it enough thought, her expression changed. It was after we’d eaten dinner and cleaned the kitchen. The look told me that something else was going on in her head. She made a phone call, then told me to get ready to go out for the balance of the day.

Our first stop was on Elm Street. I parked the Honda under the canopy of an old oak tree. This wasn’t the first time we’d visited this place. Nothing had changed. The wood-framed, four-room house was still painted red and it was still the third of six lined side by side on the street.

We’d visited Sabrina Miley before, who is reputed to provide nighttime comfort to married men at an affordable price. I’d met Sabrina when Mama was looking into the death of another free-spirited young woman named Cricket Childs. This time, when we knocked, Sabrina opened the door and invited us right in. I took a good look at her. She didn’t look more than twenty-two and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her. She had large breasts, absolutely no stomach, and full hips. She took herself seriously, like she knew her body was an investment.

The living room was cluttered, disorganized. There was a crumpled cellophane packet on the arm of the easy chair that looked like an empty cigarette pack.

While I sat looking around, Mama said, “I appreciate you talking to us, Sabrina.”

“I ain’t got no problem talking with you, Miss Candi. It’s those old hens who can’t keep their husbands in their own beds that I ain’t got time for.”

Mama smiled but she didn’t respond to that comment. “Did you know Brenda Long?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about her,” Sabrina answered. “The talk is that Brenda got what she deserved because she was a self-righteous prick.”

“You have any idea who might have killed Brenda or why?”

Sabrina sat down on the sofa and threw her leg across its arm. “What I heard was that some friend
of Brenda was in trouble and she didn’t have the sense to help him.”

“Do you remember who told you that?”

“Not really. It was something I heard from somebody who was talking wherever I happened to be at the time.”

Now, that’s a soft-shoe around a question if I ever heard one
, I thought. Sabrina was smart; she knew how not to say anything that might come back to haunt her.

“Does the name Clyde Hicks mean anything to you?” Mama asked.

Sabrina hesitated. “I’ve heard of him, but what I heard wasn’t anything worth repeating.”