Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows (17 page)

Inez muttered something to her companion, who turned and sent me an equally evil stare. Then the man seemed to decide against hamburgers. He pulled out from the drive-thru onto the highway. The look Inez sent me reminded me of how angry she was, how there was no way she’d feel pain, remorse, or regret for anything she’d ever done to poor Ruby Spikes.

Mama eased inside the car. “Things are all set up. I called Abe and got the phone number of Kip Barker, the manager of the garment factory where Ruby worked. Mr. Barker’s given us permission to visit him at his home.”

Mama was as quiet on this trip as she’d been on the drive to Avondale. For the first time since we’d last visited Sarah, I thought about the anniversary party. I was wise enough to realize that this wasn’t the time to discuss it. Folks, I have to tell you I had another reason to be glad she’d reached this point in solving Ruby’s murder: By the time we’d be ready to celebrate, the killer would be locked up and we’d finally have Mama’s undivided attention!

Kip Barker lived in the same town as Leman Moody. His house was off of a dirt road that wove through a grove of willow trees draped in shawls of moss. The house was a one-story pale green stucco. The lot was large and nicely landscaped. A red Ford was parked in the concrete driveway and an old Nissan sat on the grass on the side of the yard.

On the porch, we knocked, and waited for an answer. The man who answered the door was in his mid-sixties, with a mix of gray-and-white hair and a thick, white mustache. His complexion was the color of caramel candy. He was wearing cutoffs, a white T-shirt, and a pair of loafers. He greeted us like he really didn’t mind our intruding on his Sunday afternoon.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Mama began, “it’s just
that this matter of Ruby’s death has taken on an urgency.”

“I can’t imagine what could be so urgent on the Lord’s Day, but I wasn’t doing anything that I couldn’t give you a few minutes.”

Mama pulled out the sketch she’d gotten from Jeff Golick. “I need to know whether or not Ruby had recently worked on a scarf like this one.”

The manager’s eyes rested on the drawing with interest.

Mama went on. “The scarf I’m interested in would have been reddish-brown, cinnamon colored. And the line running horizontally through it would have been slate blue.”

Kip Barker was silent.

“It was a wool blend, perhaps with a little rayon,” Mama added, as if trying to prime his memory.

Recognition flashed in the manager’s eyes. “It’s the last lot we shipped for the winter season.”

“Did Ruby work on that order?”

He hesitated. “I reckon.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Now that I think of it, Ruby asked permission to take two scarves home with her.”

“Did you give her the scarves?”

“Not right then, I didn’t. I told her to wait. She probably took them on the Friday after the shipping department sent the order.”

Mama gave the plant manager a warm smile. “Thank you so very much,” she told him, as she
shook his hand gratefully. “I do hope you enjoy the remainder of your Sunday afternoon.”

“Don’t plan to do nothing,” Mr. Barker responded as we walked out off his porch.

I glanced at Mama as I turned the key into the Honda’s ignition. The euphoric look on her face had intensified. “Where to now?”

“Betty Jo’s house.”

The front door of the house Betty Jo had occupied before she moved in with Herman Spikes was unlocked, the wooden screen door unhooked. I’ve already told you that Betty Jo’s house was junky. Well, this time it was downright filthy. The bedroom had clothes thrown all over it; the bed was unmade, no big surprise there. The bathroom smelled of urine and mildew. And the kitchen had dirty dishes and garbage everywhere.

The first thing Mama wanted to see was where I’d picked up the rag in which I’d wrapped Sparkle. I showed her the corner of an old chair. As she examined the spot, she picked up pieces of fibers and tucked them into her wallet. When she’d finished, she asked me to help her search the whole place.

“What are we looking for?”

“Money.”

I must have made a startled noise, because Mama said, “We’re looking for the balance of the two thousand dollars that was in Ruby’s motel room when she was killed.”

“What makes you think it’s here?”

“Portia Bolton told us that Betty Jo gave each of
her sons a twenty-dollar bill, bills that looked like they’d just come off the printing press. If my thinking is correct, Betty Jo got those twenties from this house. I’m hoping that the person who put that money here hasn’t yet had the presence of mind to move any more of the money.”

We spent the next forty-five minutes searching every nook and cranny in the house. I was pawing through a jumble of old dresses, socks, pants, and skirts when I found a few pieces of torn paper. I started to push them aside when a name caught my eye.
Leman Moody
. It was written on a scrap that had been torn from a bigger piece of paper.

“Mama, look at this!”

I handed my mother what I’d discovered. She looked at it closely, then began going carefully through the pile of things I’d been examining. Finally, she unearthed a whole collection of torn scraps, all of the same kind of paper Moody’s name had been scrawled on.

“Simone, help me try to put this back together,” she urged.

We played jig-saw puzzle with the pieces of paper until we had put enough of it together. We’d found one of Leman Moody’s gambling IOUs—one that had been paid by Ruby Spikes only a week before she was killed. The look on Mama’s face told me she understood how the receipt fit into the big picture. She placed the note in her purse.

It was almost four-thirty when we’d gone through everything in the little house. We didn’t find money.
As a matter of fact, we didn’t even find loose change. Mama’s face had clouded. Disappointed, she suggested we go home. But as we started to leave, her face brightened again.

“We didn’t look outside of the house,” she said.

I followed her as we slowly walked around the front of the house, looking for a place where a person could hide a sum of money.

Nothing.

We started toward the back when Mama spotted an old Mercury at the edge of the yard. “It might be in that,” she said. “Get a stick so that we can test the grass around it. We don’t want our search to end up with a snake bite.”

I used the handle of a discarded mop to jab through the thick grass. After a few minutes, it seemed that there was nothing creepy or crawly in the vicinity.

Then, Mama, who’d already walked around to the passenger’s side, opened the door. I pulled on the latch to the door on the driver’s side and peered inside. The seats were covered with cat hair.

The floor in the back netted us one of Charles Parker’s business cards. Mama glanced at the card with curiosity, then added it to the collection she was storing in her purse.

I was beginning to doubt that we’d find any money. The signals I was picking up from Mama’s body language told me she might have been thinking the same thing. She checked the glove compartment, which was crammed with old, stained documents.

I’d laid the mop across the front seat. After she’d closed the glove compartment, Mama reached for the old mop handle and used it to fish underneath the seat of the car.

Folks, it was then that Mama hit pay dirt. The lady pulled out a brand-new, shiny metal box, the kind people around Otis used to keep their important papers and their money in.

“This is it! This is what I’m looking for!”

“
Now
will you share what you’ve discovered with me?”

Mama shook her head. “Not until I’ve figured a way to bring a murderous shadow into the light.”

F
or an hour after we got back to our house, Mama didn’t say anything more. Instead, she rushed into the kitchen and began to pull out her baking utensils with such fury that I understood her silence.

She was planning and she didn’t want to be disturbed. Whenever she puts such energy in her baking, oblivious to anything or everybody else, I know that she’s using her cooking skills to think—it’s an efficient way that works for her.

I made a pot of chocolate almond coffee, deciding that it would go well with whatever comfort food she was throwing together. Then I joined my father and Cliff in the backyard to wait for the results of both her baking and her thinking.

When the tantalizing smell of bread pudding wafted out to us, I knew we’d be in for a treat. Mama makes bread pudding to die for.

Then she summoned us into the kitchen. But before we could be seated, we heard the doorbell.

“I’ll get it,” Mama said as she hastily moved toward the front door.

When she returned, Abe and his deputy, Rick Martin, were with her. “I called Abe and Rick,” she told us. “It’s important that they agree to work with us on this.”

Then she told the five of us how she’d figured out who had killed Ruby and how she planned to get him to show his hand.

My father jumped up from his chair like a grasshopper. “Candi, your behind will be grass and that man will be a lawn mower!”

From the look on Mama’s face, she didn’t find my father’s analogy amusing. “James,” she shot back, “I’m not going to get hurt and you’ve got to believe that!”

Daddy shook his head. “But why do you want to be the cheese in the rat trap?”

“It’s the only way to get the killer to show his hand.”

“There is no way I’m gonna let this happen!” my father shouted as he began pacing the floor. “My wife is not going to sit in a chair and let a maniac take a shot at her!”

“He’s not going to shoot me,” Mama insisted. “Abe and Rick will have him handcuffed before he—”

“Shoots you the second time,” my father interrupted. “Candi, baby, please be reasonable. You are not the cavalry … this is not your war!”

“It’s the only way to get the man who killed Ruby to show his hand,” she insisted.

“Abe,” Daddy said, “tell my wife that she shouldn’t do this!”

Abe’s forehead wrinkled and he cleared his throat. “I’ve already come to the conclusion that even if I tried to get Candi to change her mind, she wouldn’t listen to me.”

My father shook his head and turned toward me and Cliff. “Cliff! Simone!” he pleaded, his voice and eyes begging for our help in changing Mama’s mind.

Cliff didn’t move—apparently he’d become dumbfounded by what my mother had just proposed.

“Daddy,” I said, seeing that my boyfriend wasn’t going to be any use to us at the moment, “what do you think about me being the bait in Mama’s plan?”

“No you won’t,” Mama said before my father had a chance to say anything. “This is not a matter to be pulling straws over. I’m confident that if everybody does what they are supposed to do, I won’t get hurt.”

“Let Abe or Rick sit in the chair,” my father urged. “It’s their job to trap killers. You’ve done enough already!”

“Ruby’s killer will be expecting to see a woman’s shadow,” Mama said. “If Abe or Rick sit as bait, he’ll become suspicious.”

My father’s right hand pounded the kitchen table with such force that everything on it shifted. “I ain’t gonna let you do it! There’s no need to talk about it anymore.”

“James,” Mama said in her usual warm, confident
tone, “you know that I’m not a woman to take unnecessary chances. That’s why I want you close to me. With you close by my side, I know everything will work out
fine.”

Daddy’s face didn’t lose its obstinacy as he walked over to the window and gazed out of it in silence.

I took a deep breath. I couldn’t help but wonder how my father would react if he knew that this would be the third time Mama had sat like cheese to this particular rat. As it was, I’d hardly ever seen him this upset. Still, I realized that despite my father’s pleading, Mama hadn’t changed her mind. I decided to intercede. “Daddy,” I said, joining him at the window, “Mama’s plan will work if we see to it that the rat is caught before he snatches her.”

My father turned to face me. “Simone honey, your old man has looked more than one killer in the eyes. I ain’t never been accused of losing my cool under fire, but I ain’t so sure that I can just sit there quietly while a murderer takes a shot at your mother.”

Mama walked over and put her arms around my father. “James, I promise—nothing is going to happen to me.”

Daddy stepped back and threw up his hands in disgust. “Okay, okay! So now, after thirty-five years of what I considered a decent marriage, you’re telling me that you, my wife—the mother of my children—is Superwoman!”

The silence became thick; for what seemed like an eternity nobody said anything more.

Finally my father looked into Mama’s eyes. His
shoulders slumped, his voice lowered. “Candi baby, I don’t want you to do this, but if you insist on doing it anyway, tell me—what do you want me to do?”

Mama kissed my father on the cheek. “This is my plan,” she started, seconds before the timer went off that signaled that the bread pudding was ready to be taken out of the oven.

It took several hours to get Mama’s plan operational. Mama called Susy Mets and got her to agree to participate in the ruse. It was about ten o’clock when people had been moved, the phone call to the killer had been made, and we pulled up in front of the small house. The moon rose, only a sliver less full than it had been the night before. A dog barked from the woods on the right, and a second dog picked up the cry.