Mama Stalks the Past (17 page)

“This is from Kilroy,” I said, handing the photos to Mama.

Mama smiled. “Your private detective came through for you,” she said.

I nodded, satisfied that I’d finally been able to do something to bring closure to the horrible events of the past few weeks.

U
ncle Chester was sitting by his heater, his frail body wrapped in its usual mound of blankets. He wore a stocking cap pulled down to his ears.

The first thing Uncle Chester did was to eat all of Mama’s turnip greens. After that, she showed him the pictures Kilroy had sent. Uncle Chester looked down into the man’s face.

“He’s the spitting image of Stella’s Daddy, George Gordon,” Uncle Chester said after he stared at the picture for a while. “You’d think this was George’s boy instead of his grand-boy.”

I handed Uncle Chester the two old pictures. “Is this Reeves’s mother?” I asked.

Uncle Chester squinted. “Look like Stella to me,” he said, handing them back.

Mama looked toward Cousin Agatha, who sat placidly in the corner of the room, knitting. “I’ve come for the map and picture I sent by James,” Mama said, addressing her.

Cousin Agatha stood, set down her knitting, then silently left the room. When she returned she held the items in her hand. “If that photo is the Mixons’ place, that house is only a mile down the road, near the Jamisons’ wire fence. That fence separates the property—everything on the right side belongs to the Mixons,” she told us.

“Belongs to Mama now,” I said softly.

“What’s that?” Cousin Agatha asked.

“Nothing,” Mama told her. “I think me and Simone will drive down there.”

“This is the best time of year to make the trip,” Agatha said. “The road’s grown up. During the heat or rain, a car could easily get bogged down. In this weather, ground is hard, frozen.”

Mama nodded and motioned me toward the door. “I done told you to cook me some more lamb stew,” Uncle Chester snapped, seeing we were leaving. “Don’t come back here again until you do, you hear me, Candi!”

Mama chuckled. The turnip greens hadn’t sat
isfied his desire for the stew. “I will, Uncle Chester,” she promised.

Cousin Agatha stepped close to Mama. “I think Daddy is going to sign over the power of attorney to me,” she whispered. “That talk you gave him when he visited you in the hospital set his mind working.”

“Let me know if I can be of any help,” Mama offered.

Cousin Agatha nodded, then shut the door, leaving me and Mama to the windy, cold air.

The dirt road wound through a heavy forest for half a mile before we saw the old house. We stood in front of its sagging remains, remnants of a wood-framed house, its chimney broken, its windows long gone. All was quiet, too quiet. The area seemed to have a weird force of its own, one that seemed to push us away.

Inside, the Mixon house was as cold as a morgue. I know it sounds odd, but I swear you could feel the pain, hatred, and fear in these musty rooms the moment you stepped inside them.

Beside me in the shadows, Mama gasped. And then I saw what she’d seen.

The dead man’s arms reached toward us. There was a face, or what was left of the face, on
top of the naked, bloated body. The eyes were mere sockets; the cheeks, lips, and chin had been gnawed and torn by furry predators; the mouth gaped obscenely. The throat had been sliced from side to side, like some creatures had made an incision so that they could feast upon it. My stomach filled with bile.

Tears streamed down Mama’s face. “Simone, we’ve found Reeves,” she whispered.

A fat raccoon ran past me and scampered out the door. I screamed. “Lord,” Mama prayed, “please don’t let no rats come squealing out here today.”

An hour later, Sheriff Abe, Rick Martin, and the paramedics had joined us. I’d used my car phone to call Sheriff Abe. The medic wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head grimly. “No gunshot or knife wounds,” he told the sheriff. “My guess is that he died from natural causes.”

“Will there be an autopsy?” Mama asked.

Abe pulled out a handkerchief and coughed into it. “Always an autopsy, in these kinds of things.”

“How long has he been dead?” I asked.

“Based on what we know, maybe three, four weeks.”

“Weeks?” Mama asked.

“It’s the cold, windchill’s below freezing,” Abe replied. “Keeps a body for a long time.”

“Then he was dead
before
Nat was killed,” Mama whispered.

“I reckon,” the sheriff agreed.

“Isn’t it strange that he’d come way out here in the cold to die?” I asked.

Mama frowned. “I don’t see any car. How did he get here?”

The ambulance crew thumped by, carrying their stretcher and body pouch. “Did he have any ID?” I asked the sheriff.

“There’s no need for ID. It’s Reeves Mixon,” Mama said. “There is enough left of him to tell that!”

The two paramedics grabbed Reeves’s arms and legs like he was a sack of flour, and put him into the body bag. When the dead man was zipped up, they carried him out.

“We found keys in his shirt pocket, that’s all. No wallet. But I’m sure the boys at the SLED laboratory can verify that it’s Reeves Mixon,” Abe said, watching them.

“Did you find anything else?” Mama asked him.

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Not a thing,” he told Mama. “You expecting something else, something I don’t know about?”

Mama shook her head. “No,” she said. But I could see Abe didn’t believe her. He knew Mama too well. So did I.

Rick Martin got out a camera and a tape measure.

Mama watched him.

“I reckon this as good a time as any to tell you,” Abe said, looking at Mama. “Hannah’s will has reached Probate. It’s going public.”

“But I thought I had another week,” Mama said.

“Seems like there was a mix-up. It got put in a stack of other wills, and—”

Mama groaned. “Annie Mae Gregory, Sarah Jenkins, and Carrie Smalls will soon know about it.”

Sheriff Abe rolled his eyes heavenward. “If I was you, Candi, I’d get rid of this piece of property fast as I can!”

“He’s right!” I agreed.

Mama stared at me. She didn’t answer.

“Uncle Chester was right when he said this land is filled with blood. Why don’t you just give it away?” I said. “Maybe to the county.”

“What would the county want with land out in the middle of noplace?” Mama asked.

“For a game preserve, a bird sanctuary, a state park. Giving it away might defuse the dam-
age your three friends will do to your reputation,” I said.

“Yes,” Mama said, her mind clearly thinking about what I’d just said. “You may be right.”

“Sorry about that will.” Abe followed Rick to the door. “You ladies coming?”

“I want to stay and look around some more.”

“Don’t see why, Candi, but it’s okay with me.” The sheriff shrugged. “Be getting dark … don’t stay too long.”

Mama took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. I turned to look out of the doorway, to watch the sheriff and his deputy drive away. The ambulance was bumping ahead of them down the dirt road. Mama started to walk toward the other room. Then she stopped. A thought seemed to come to her. She turned and walked back to the crumbling fireplace.

Shivering, I tucked my elbows close to my sides.

“Simone, help me in case rats come out,” Mama said, as she started moving bricks from the pile that had fallen from inside the ancient chimney.

I shuddered. “There’s nothing underneath there, Mama!”

“I saw something,” she insisted.

“Maybe it was just a piece of Reeves’s clothing.”

I was shivering and couldn’t seem to catch my breath. But Mama paid no attention to me. She was poking through the dusty old bricks and ashes. Then, suddenly, she pulled something free. “This must be the envelope Hannah wanted me to have!” she announced.

T
he envelope that Hannah Mixon wanted Mama to have wasn’t heavy or thick. It was weather-beaten and grimy, but it wasn’t torn or decayed. Mama looked down at it in her hand, then up at me, a secret glint in her eyes. “Let’s go home,” she said almost like she was talking to herself. “We need to look at this in the light.”

At the house, I made hazelnut coffee. Mama sat down at the kitchen table. After she’d studied the outside of the envelope for a minute in silence, she carefully tore it open. On it was handwriting that was small and cramped.

“Do you want me to read it?” I asked.

“No,” Mama said. “I’ll do it.” Mama read aloud:

When Mama’s voice faded away, I struggled to visualize Reeves Mixon the way he’d looked in the photograph that Kilroy had overnighted us. But all I could see in my mind’s eye was the face of the bloated corpse Mama and I had found. I took a shaky breath, trying to erase the sickening memory. “Sounds to me that Reeves made a deal with somebody to kill Hannah and Nat.”

“Yes, it does,” Mama murmured.

“It appears that Reeves believed that once Hannah and Nat were dead, the land would be his to will to that person as payment for their murders.”

Mama nodded.

Daddy, who had come into the house while Mama was reading, cleared his throat. “Reeves is dead. Hannah and Nat are dead, too. That land belongs to you now, Candi.”

“Yes, but the killer seems to have decided that Mama must die!” I pointed out.

“Over my dead body!” Daddy exclaimed.

“There’s something there that doesn’t jive,” I said. If Mama was murdered, surely the killer wouldn’t get the land. “Since Miss Hannah
willed it to Mama, the Mixons’ land would go to us—Mama’s heirs, isn’t that right?”

“Simone, baby, you’re on target,” Daddy said, looking at Mama for a response. “So, Candi, why is the jerk trying to kill you?”

Mama shook her head. “James, I don’t know. Meanness … anger … Whoever it is has already murdered two people and has gotten nothing for his efforts. I suspect he’s pretty frustrated.”