Mama Cracks a Mask of Innocence (5 page)

“Did you hear of anybody else who may have been hanging around Brenda? Say, a friend?”

“Try a kid named Stella Hope. Maybe she’ll know something that will help you.”

The name Stella Hope jarred the memory of Hattie’s account of how Brenda had instigated an investigation into her being raped by her stepfather. At the moment, I couldn’t understand how this girl could have also been Brenda’s best friend. “What about a boyfriend?” I asked, deciding that the more I learned about Brenda, the less I understood. “Did you hear whether or not Brenda had one?”

Sabrina shook her head. “I ain’t heard no talk about a boyfriend, but a friend let it slip that Tootsie keeps big money in her house,” she told us, pulling her leg from across the arm of the couch and
standing. “I guess when her husband died he left her pretty well off.”

When we got into the Honda after leaving Sabrina’s house, Mama asked for the notebook. I handed it to her, then sat quietly as she jotted down several notes. When she closed the book and put it back in her purse, I asked, “Where to now?”

“Clyde’s house,” she told me. “I’m going to have to talk to him myself. It seems that’s the only way I’ll find out whether or not he was near Brenda the last time she was seen alive.”

“Where did you say this Clyde Hicks lives?”

“On Stony Hill near the county line.”

The drive couldn’t have been better. The sky was endlessly blue, with little puffs of white clouds showing up now and then.

The air was warm, with a slight breeze. We drove east, beyond a trailer park and the local Forest Service office. Then we made a right onto a narrow two-lane highway. Five miles later we’d driven past thick fields of soybeans where an occasional weathered shack with a corrugated tin roof popped up.

Following Mama’s direction, I turned onto a road that was a grove of willow trees draped in shawls of moss just like green lace. We drove by a house where a couple sat on the porch. They reminded me of two people who had nothing more to do with their lives than measure time by the rocking of their
chairs. Lying on the side of the road in front of their house was an old hound dog that never bothered to lift its head as we pulled to the other side of the road to keep from running him over.

“That’s Bosie and Betsy,” Mama told me. “I don’t remember a time that I drove past their house and they weren’t sitting on their front porch. And I don’t remember a time when their old hound dog wasn’t laying in that spot.”

“I guess it’s safe to say that there is no great drama going on out here.”

“I don’t think the people who live out here know the meaning of the word ‘drama,’ ” Mama said. “Simone, slow down. You’ll need to make a sharp left at the next road.”

I slowed down and I’m glad I did. This next road was full of holes and bumps. Even though I was only doing about ten or fifteen miles per hour, I saw a quick movement off to the right and slammed on the brakes. A red fox jumped across in front of us. Then when it felt it was at a safe distance, it turned and eyed me before darting back into the brush.

It was another few minutes of bone-jarring bounces before we pulled up in front of a small white house. I turned off the ignition. The tidy little house was a traditional one-story with a full wraparound porch.

“How did you find this place?” I asked Mama.

“I’ve got several clients who live out here. A few of them are on our list to bring clothes to this week.”

“Whenever we get back to the business of distributing the clothes, let Ray Raisin come to this part of the county,” I told her. “He looks like he’s got more money than I do. I’m sure I’ll have to put on new shocks after this trip! Speaking of Ray Raisin, what do you think is between him and Agatha?”

Mama looked at me. “I was surprised at the way Agatha treated Ray yesterday, but right now, Simone, that’s not what’s on my mind.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing we’d talk about it when Mama was ready. I switched off the engine. Nothing moved; things were quiet, very quiet. “Should I blow the horn?” I asked, looking toward the front door, hoping that somebody would come out of the house onto the porch.

Mama sighed. “No,” she said, easing out of the passenger’s side of the car. “I’ll knock on the door.”

Without warning, my heart began to pound. “Mama, I’ve got a feeling that something isn’t right!”

“Simone, trust me, it’s okay,” she said, moving toward the porch.

I got out of the car, since I was not about to let Mama go near that house without me. Just then, without warning, a German shepherd flew out from around the back of the house like a demon from hell.

Terrified, Mama stopped dead in her tracks.

I screamed, jumped back in the car, and slid behind the wheel.

Clutching her purse in front of her and using it as a shield between them, Mama faced the dog’s
bared teeth and warning growl with a no-nonsense air that I knew I could never imitate.

What must have been a few minutes seemed like a good hour, with the bristling shepherd glaring at Mama with pure hate. Then, slowly, the dog moved toward her.

Mama didn’t move.

My heartbeat accelerated. Saying a silent prayer, I slammed both palms down on the car horn, honking it with all the force within me.
Somebody
, I prayed,
come out of the house and call off that dog!

Mercifully, the door opened. For a moment the dog stopped moving forward and looked toward the door. Then, like a cobra striking at its prey, he lunged at Mama, zeroing in to lock his teeth into her handbag.

A voice came from the front door. “Killer,” a male voice commanded. “Come!”

The dog looked up, released Mama’s purse, and bolted into the house.

The front door closed without us seeing who had summoned the dog.

Mama waited until she heard the lock turn before she began to swiftly move toward the car. Once she was safely inside, she took such a deep breath that, when she let it out, I shuddered; I could feel her body tremble beside mine.

Then I tasted the blood—I’d bitten my lip. “If that was Clyde Hicks who called off the dog, I wonder why he didn’t come out of the house.”

Mama lifted her head and straightened her shoulders. “We’ll wait a few minutes. If somebody doesn’t come out to greet us, I’ll try another way to talk to Clyde.”

Nobody came out of the house so we finally drove away. Hours later I still trembled, just thinking about the ferocious attack of the German shepherd on my mama.

W
e drove home in silence. As we walked into the house and I had a chance to look into Mama’s face, I knew the incident with the dog had unnerved her and she didn’t feel like talking about it. I decided to make myself a cup of peppermint tea, take a bath, and go to bed.

Mama’s manner was still quiet when I joined her in the kitchen the next morning. She and I had a light breakfast without my asking what was bugging her.

When we’d finished eating, and the kitchen was cleaned, Mama made another phone call. Only then did I ask, “What about the clothes at the community center?”

Mama looked a bit surprised, like she’d forgotten the reason I’d come to Otis in the first place. “We’ll
get back to that later,” she told me. “Tootsie is expecting us in half an hour.”

Tootsie Long’s house was brick veneer, with four large columns. Mushroom-shaped shrubbery flanked the front porch. My hand was in midair ready to knock when the door opened. A young man stared at us.

“Stone!” Mama exclaimed.

“Miss Candi!” The clearly flustered boy hurried past us and off the porch.

Tootsie, who stood in the doorway watching the boy’s quick flight, spoke. “Come in,” she told us. Her voice was high-pitched.

We walked into a well-furnished living room, one whose walls had paintings hanging on it that looked like they’d come from Artistic Impressions, a company that specialized in limited editions of some of my favorite African-American artists. There were also figurines, with exquisitely hand-painted little chocolate faces. The house smelled of freshness, like it had been recently cleaned and aired.

Two days ago, when she and Hattie had made their unexpected visit, I hadn’t paid too much attention to Tootsie. Hattie had done most of the talking. Without Hattie’s overpowering presence, I now had the opportunity to focus on the dead girl’s mother. The woman had perfect skin, as smooth as a newborn’s. Her eyes shone like diamonds; although my
first impression was that she and Hattie were about the same age, I saw now that I could have been wrong. With a sixteen-year-old daughter, she couldn’t have been twenty-five, yet it was hard to believe she was much older. Tootsie Long was one of those women who would never grow old.

After we were seated, she sank into a navy blue La-Z-Boy chair. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of what has happened. I’m right back where I started, you know. If it wasn’t for Hattie—” She shuddered and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m without anybody—truly alone!”

“What about your family?” I asked.

Tootsie’s wet eyes met mine. “My husband, Sonny Boy, and Brenda were my family,” she told us. “They were all I had and now they are both gone!”

Nobody spoke.

“I was raised in foster homes,” Tootsie continued as if it was expected of her. “I was one of those unfortunate kids nobody wanted to adopt. My caseworker told me my mother died when I was born. The state never had any contact from my father and whatever family my mother had never showed up. And now I’m alone again.”

“I’m sorry,” Mama said.

“I’ll be fine,” Tootsie said softly, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers. “Would you like to know about the first time I met Sonny Boy? That’s a family portrait over there.” She jumped up and reached for a
framed picture that had been tastefully positioned on a nearby sofa table. “This is me, of course,” she said, pointing to the woman. “And this is my Brenda and this is our Sonny Boy.”

The man was handsomely dressed in an army uniform. One of his arms was around Tootsie, the other wrapped around a beautiful little girl dressed in lace, bows, and ribbons.

“The day I met him, Sonny Boy was eating barbecue at Fat Man Restaurant,” Tootsie continued. “I remember thinking how handsome he looked in his uniform. I worked at Fat Man, you know. I made his potato salad and cooked the collard greens. The barbecue was his specialty. Nobody could make barbecue ribs like Fat Man!”

She looked off in the distance when she said, “You know Fat Man kept his sauce a secret although a man came by his place and offered him good money to buy it? Fat Man wouldn’t sell it, he swore the secret would go with him to his grave.”

“Where was this restaurant?” Mama asked.

“In Jersey, the same place that handsome Ray Raisin came from. Fat Man’s place was right around the corner from where I stayed with this old woman who kept foster children. She was mean, and she was stingy. She only gave us what we had to have to live, never gave us anything extra. So I asked Fat Man for a job. One time a man told me that he came to Fat Man for my greens and potato salad and not for Fat Man’s barbecue. I never mentioned
that to Fat Man—somehow I knew he didn’t want to hear that.”

She frowned. “I didn’t believe the man anyway, but it was nice of him to tell me so. Anyway, the money Fat Man paid me was what I used to buy clothes and things like that.

“Sonny Boy was on leave from Fort Dix and he didn’t know anybody in town. We became friends and I offered to show him around. We had so much fun: he’d make me laugh for hours on end. Sonny Boy could really make you laugh. I haven’t laughed much since he died, and now—”

“It will take time to heal from the loss of Brenda, but the Lord has a way of taking care of things—you’ll laugh again,” Mama promised.

“We got married six months later,” Tootsie continued, sniffling. “Sonny Boy was shipped overseas. He got me a room and sent me money. I waited for him. Just like I promised, I waited.

“When Sonny Boy got back to the States he was already sick. He told me he wanted to come back to Otis to live his last days. Of course I did what he wanted. It was only right since he took care of me the whole time he was overseas.