Mama Stalks the Past (11 page)

“Everybody. Nat had money last night, he was buying drinks for whoever walked into the door.” Buford shrugged.

“Did he have an argument with anybody?” Cliff asked.

When Buford didn’t answer, I placed my foot on top of Cliff’s and applied a little pressure. This was my way of telling him that Buford wouldn’t talk to him because he thought Cliff was a stranger. Cliff immediately understood. He sat back and surveyed the noisy room.

“Did he have an argument with anybody?” This time, Mama asked. Buford looked at Mama, then worked his tongue along his teeth, sucking, as if he were trying to clean them. “Nobody was bothering Nat, if that what you mean.”

“Was there
anything
unusual?” Mama persisted. “Anything at all?”

Buford frowned. He slouched further into his chair. “Nothing that I saw,” he said grimly.

Mama sighed, shook her head, and stood up. Cliff and I did, too.

“Do you remember,” Mama asked as if it were an afterthought, “whether Nat mentioned
that he smelled something funny, something that he had smelled before?”

Buford looked around, then chuckled sourly. “I don’t know what he could have smelled funny in
here
!” he replied.

We followed Mama to the bar. There, she waved to a thick-lipped woman with stooped shoulders. The woman was light-skinned, but on one side of her face there was a liver spot the size of a half-dollar. Mama sat on a stool at the end of the bar until the woman walked over. Mama introduced her as Lulu, the owner of the Melody Bar.

“Death comes in threes,” Lulu replied in a grim tone when Mama broached the subject of Nat’s poisoning. “If Nat doesn’t make it, somebody else will die before it stops!”

“Did Nat mention smelling something funny before he died?” Mama asked, not deterred by this expression of impending doom.

Lulu inhaled through her nose and waved Mama’s question aside. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my place,” she muttered.

I was a little exasperated. “I don’t know about that.”

Lulu looked at me. Her eyes were eerily vacant. “This your girl?” she asked Mama.

“This is my Simone,” Mama replied. “And her good friend, Cliff.”

Lulu stuck a Camel in the corner of her mouth. “Nat ain’t mentioned nobody smelling funny to me!”

Mama frowned. “Was there anybody here other than the usual?”

“No.” Lulu took a book of matches from her pocket and twirled it in her hand. “Nobody here but people who always be here.” She struck a match and lit her cigarette.

“Could anybody have gotten to Nat’s drink?” Mama asked. In the background, somebody dropped a glass and cursed when it shattered.

The record on the jukebox changed, although it didn’t sound much different from the one that had been on. Lulu inhaled a lungful of blue smoke. She hesitated, as if she was thinking. “I don’t know,” she said finally, exhaling. “I’ve done told Abe all this. When the music is right and spirits are high, nobody pays any attention to nobody at the Melody!”

Mama took a deep breath as though she was trying to analyze what Lulu had just said. “Anybody you think I ought to talk to? Anybody who was particularly close to Nat?”

Lulu grinned. “You mean was he sleeping with any gal?”

Mama stared across the bar at her, saying nothing until Lulu blew another puff of smoke
and answered. “Nat bedded down with lots of girls. But two come to mind,” she finally said.

“What’s their names?” Mama asked.

Lulu glanced at me. “I don’t remember seeing neither one of them was here last night.”

“Their names?” Mama repeated firmly.

“I ain’t for getting people in trouble who don’t need no trouble, you know what I mean,” Lulu said.

Mama nodded.

Lulu stared down at the bar counter, smeared a little spill of beer with her fingertip. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “This is between me and you. Nobody else got to know who Nat slept with off and on.”

“I won’t mention them to Abe,” Mama promised.

Lulu nodded. You could see she believed Mama. People always do. “Nat mainly slept with Trudy Paige. From time to time he’s slept with Portia Evans,” she said.

Mama’s eyebrow arched. “What do you know about these girls?” she asked.

Lulu’s nostrils flared. “They do what they’re big enough to do. Ain’t no law against that!”

“Okay,” Mama said. “I’ll talk to them—”

Lulu looked anxious. “You won’t get them in trouble?”

“No,” Mama replied.

“ ’Cuz, Candi, I can’t swear either of those girls were here last night when Nat got sick.”

Mama nodded thoughtfully. But I could tell she knew that Lulu lied.

W
e were back outside gratefully filling our nostrils and lungs with cold fresh air.

Cliff had parked the Honda beside a large pine that was centered in a looped circular turn-about. I stood near the passenger’s side waiting for my eyes to adjust after the gloomy, smoky darkness of the bar. I watched shadows, people going in and out of the club, in and out of the parking lot. My eyes were following one particular shadow when something on Mama’s face caught my attention. “You okay?” I asked her, worried.

“I’ve made a big mistake,” she murmured, so softly I wasn’t sure I heard her.

The wind picked up; trees swayed. “What?”

“I should have known that whoever killed Hannah would try to kill Nat again. Especially after somebody hit him so brutally over his head.”

I slipped my arm around her and hugged her. “The sheriff was supposed to be looking into that, not you,” I reminded her. Cliff nodded, agreeing with me.

“It was what I was supposed to do!” she whispered back. I felt her body shiver. There was hurt in her dark eyes. I wanted to say something, something that would make a difference. But Mama was staring straight ahead, spooked by some worry or guilt I couldn’t ease for her. Neither of us spoke. This was not my Mama, I thought. Not the self-styled detective who enjoys digging until she comes up with the truth. I suspected she was worried that the town’s three gossiping women would learn of Miss Hannah’s will before she could discover who had killed Miss Hannah and who had attacked Nat and then poisoned him. It was clear that my Mama wasn’t relishing the search for the truth one bit.

The wind made a rushing sound through the dying leaves above us. “You can solve a murder, Mama, but there’s no way you could have stopped what happened to Nat,” I told her.

Mama’s expression stayed serious, somber. She was trying to figure out something. “There
must be …” she started, then shook her head. “That envelope …”

“What about the envelope?” I asked.

“I haven’t found it!” Mama said. Her tone showed how frustrated she was.

Cliff cleared his throat. “You think the envelope will explain why somebody poisoned Nat?” he asked.

Mama made a gesture with her hand, like she was flicking away a fly. “Yes, I think that envelope may explain everything,” she said softly. “We’ve got to go back into that house.”

I stiffened. “Mama, you are not going to look for that envelope alone. Wait until Daddy comes home!”

Mama was about to reply when she seemed to notice something. She called out, “Moody, is that you?”

A tall, thin, hawk-faced man emerged from the trees. He silently stalked toward us. He reminded me of a human scarecrow.

Moody froze. He spread his hands, doing his best to look innocent, and failing. “Uh, what you doing out here, Miss Candi?” he said.

“Trying to get a fix on what happened to Nat last night,” she told him, taking a few steps in his direction.

“What happened to Nat?” Moody demanded,
stepping back like Mama had just threatened his life.

Mama seemed to understand his skittishness: She didn’t move any closer. “He’s been poisoned right here at the bar.”

Moody made a sound, but no words came from his thin lips. He just stood, his hands in his pockets, looking like my father does when he’s trying to act cool.

“Can we talk?” Mama asked, gently.

Moody looked away, then pulled his collar up and the brim of his hat down. “ ‘Bout what?” he asked suspiciously.

“About Nat. About who would want to kill him,” Mama replied.

Moody shook his head. He began shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. “I ain’t got nothing to say about Nat’s being poisoned,” he mumbled.

“Did you talk to him last night? Maybe have a drink with him?” Mama asked.

Moody fumbled in his coat pocket like he was looking for something. “Naw,” he said, after a long pause. “I ain’t seen or talked to Nat for a couple of days.”

“But you were here at the club last night when he got sick, weren’t you?”

Again, Moody was slow to speak. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer
Mama. He wiped his nose with his hand. Then he turned and walked toward the door of the bar. His thin body moved like fluid, like smoke. “I ain’t got to answer no questions from you,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“That’s not like Moody,” Mama said, to Cliff and me. “Not like him at all! His grandma raised him better than that.”

Moody stopped. He turned back to face us. “I ain’t had nothing to do with what happened to Nat!” he insisted. But his voice was a bit shaky now. Then he scurried inside the bar.

Mama watched after him with concern. “Something is wrong with that boy,” she told us. “I’ll have to get James to check him out.”

“I don’t think he liked Nat,” I said.

“Moody is a good boy,” Mama said.

“Good people become killers,” I pointed out. “Isn’t he the same man we saw outside Nat’s front door the other night, the one who decided
not
to go inside?”

Mama’s face lit up. “Simone, you’re right. That’s exactly who we saw!”

“Mama, I would be real interested to hear Moody’s explanation of what he was doing at Nat’s house that night, but not right now. I’ve been ignoring my bladder too long; I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

“Can you wait until we get back to the house?” Cliff asked.

“No, it can’t wait,” I said curtly. When in distress, I’m always extremely honest.

Mama pointed. “I saw a sign in the back, near the phone.”

“Come with me. I don’t like walking through that place alone.”

Mama smiled, then she nodded.

Cliff checked his watch; car keys jingled in his hand. “Hurry up, it’s getting late, Simone. I’ll warm up the car.”

Mama and I pushed our way to the rear of the bar into a small musty hall lined with boxes and broken furniture. Bathrooms and a telephone were at its end. My bladder was so full it felt like it was going to burst. I hit the door to the ladies’ room with my shoulder like a quarterback. I slipped into a narrow stall, snapped the latch, then danced through pulling down jeans, tights, and panties.

When I flushed the toilet, piled back on my clothes, and reopened the stall door, I found Mama talking to a young woman in her mid-twenties.

“Simone,” Mama said. “This is Pauline Singleton. Pauline’s mother and I work together.”

The young woman turned to me. She was large-framed with a chubby face, a mouth full of
gold teeth, and enough weave in her head to stuff a good-sized pillow. All of her clothes were bright purple. I said hello and smiled at her.

“Were you here in the club last night?” Mama asked Pauline.

Pauline began to brush her voluminous hair. “Yeah, me and about fifty other people. Why?”

“Did you see Nat Mixon?”

Pauline nodded.

“How was he?” Mama asked.

“He was doing good, setting everybody up, buying everybody liquor.”

“Did you see anybody near him?” Mama persisted.

Pauline, who was now fishing in her purse, hesitated, staring down at her lipstick, which was a bright orange color. Then she shrugged. “Everybody was near him. I told you, he was
buying
!”

“Did you hear or see anything funny?” Mama asked. I knew her well enough to know how impatient she was becoming.

Pauline dropped her lipstick back into her purse, brushed her hair back behind her ears. She was silent, as if trying to think of something to say, then she shook her head.

“Did you
smell
something funny?”

Pauline pulled out a small change purse and headed for the door. She made an impatient gesture
with her hand. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Got to call to check on my kids!” Mama followed. I could see that she was hot on the trail of some clue, searching for something.

When I finished washing my hands, I joined them. They stood next to the pay telephone in the crowded hall. Pauline had the phone off the hook but she was looking Mama straight in her eyes. “Did Nat say anything to you?” Mama was saying.

Pauline dropped the phone in its cradle. Mama’s face tightened but Pauline gazed placidly back. “You got a quarter?” she asked Mama.

Mama pulled out her wallet. “No,” she said. “Simone?”

I fished in my pockets, then glanced back at Mama. “No,” I said.

Pauline wrinkled her nose, inhaled through it and announced, “I’ve got to get change.” She walked past us in the direction of the bar. I hadn’t realized till then how powerful her perfume was. I sneezed.

Mama began massaging her temples. Her eyes were glued to Pauline’s swaying hips.

“Why are you pushing her so hard?” I asked.

Mama pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from her pocketbook, looked at the phone dial, then scribbled down the telephone number. She sighed. “That girl is hiding something!”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I
know
,” Mama snapped.

“She looks like she’s got it together to me.”

“Pauline is loose, free-spirited. She’s holding herself tight ’cause she doesn’t want to tell me something!”

When Pauline returned, I tried taking a closer look, trying to be Mama, to sense what the girl must be hiding. But, unlike Mama, I must have been too obvious, because Pauline glared open-eyed directly back at me. “You see something that’s bothering you?” she asked.

“I’m cool,” I said, stepping back. Mama gave her head a little shake at me.

Pauline dialed a number and spoke. After a few sentences, she put the phone back on its hook and turned to Mama. “I’ve told you everything I know,” she said, sullenly. “Nat was buying the liquid, everybody was drinking it until somebody slipped him a mickey. That’s all I know. Nothing else!”