Mama Cracks a Mask of Innocence (15 page)

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a neatnik. But
there has to be a measure of order in a one-bedroom apartment just to get around in it. You can’t imagine the chaos that Naomi brought to my little place on Monday evening when she loaded it with three full-sized suitcases. The woman must have packed every piece of clothing she owned. When she opened each one and pulled out clothes, she threw them into every corner of the place.

My apartment was assassinated by the time Naomi headed for my refrigerator. Miss Thang opened the refrigerator door and decided that I needed groceries. She insisted that we go to the Kroger’s she’d seen on our way into the complex.

The groceries cost me ninety-eight dollars. Two heads of lettuce, tomatoes, five different salad dressings, juices, lemons, olives, pickles, bananas, apples, Cokes, a three-tier chocolate layer cake, and twelve Hershey bars were just a few things that filled my shopping cart.

Oh, yeah! Did I mention the wine? She insisted on buying four bottles of a $7.99 chardonnay that she swore was as good as any she’d ever had.

Then my darling Naomi told me she wanted to go dancing. I had to work the next morning, work that had piled up after a week of so-called community service in Otis. She accepted that, but I was stuck with listening to the television all night.

Tuesday morning I was late for work. Naomi took a shower that lasted at least an hour. An hour before I
could get into
my
bathroom. She tried on five or six outfits, got my opinion on each, only to disregard it.

Breakfast was juice, lettuce, tomato, and toast. She swore it’s the best way to start the day.

When I dropped Naomi off at the Hilton downtown I fantasized that I wouldn’t pick her up after I got off from work. Instead, I’d let her wander around the city for the remainder of her visit, then let her figure out how to get back to Kansas City on her own. After I was sure she was out of Atlanta, I’d pack up her things and UPS them to her.

The idea was pleasing but I knew I’d never be able to pull it off. Reality brought depression again, so I called Mama to cry on her shoulder, only to learn that things were almost as bad for her. Hattie Russell was challenging, criticizing, and complaining that she wasn’t doing her job correctly at the agency. Why was I not surprised? My original apprehension had been justified. Hattie’s grief for Brenda had spilled over into her professional role. Mama was feeling the fallout at work from her boss. And she’d continue to feel the heat until Brenda’s killer was locked up.

Despite my mother’s problem, she listened to me and comforted me by promising to cook something special when Naomi left Atlanta to return to Kansas City.

After I hung up with Mama, I tried to think of someplace to take Naomi after work that would wear her out so that I could get a good night’s sleep.
I took her to the Underground. It’s a popular tourist spot, with shops and places to eat.

Although Naomi had eaten fifty dollars’ worth of food at the restaurant in the Underground, when we got back to the apartment, she raided the refrigerator, turned on the television, grabbed herself a handful of Hershey bars, and burrowed in for the night.

Wednesday morning my guest announced she needed a man. “Any man,” she told me. “I’m desperate. There ain’t no way I can go back to Kansas City and tell my friends I didn’t have a good time with an Atlanta brother!”

Now, I wasn’t about to put Miss Thang onto Cliff. Not that I felt threatened by her. It was just that I was in love with the guy, and my conscience wouldn’t let me put something like Naomi Flowers on any man I had the least amount of respect for. I tried to come up with somebody who owed me, big-time.

So I called Yasmine, my best girlfriend. She and I put our heads together. She finally came up with a co-worker’s name. Deshan, according to Yasmine, had just been dumped by his lady because of his infamous playing around. It took less than an hour for Yasmine to hook things up for Naomi with Deshan.

Deshan picked Naomi up from my apartment at eight. He brought her back at four the next morning.

Thursday morning, three hours after she got home, the girl was back in the shower. Then she packed. She had a 9:30 A.M. flight out of Hartsfield. No sooner had I waved her good-bye as she
boarded her plane than I rushed to the telephone and called Shirley, the office manager.

“I’m sick,” I told her, trying to sound even more exhausted than I felt. “Migraine headache.”

“I didn’t know you suffered with migraines,” Shirley replied suspiciously.

“It’s blinding,” I lied. “I can hardly see.”

“What’s all that background noise?”

“Television,” I said, having forgotten that my being at the noisy airport might make her wonder how sick I could be. “I’ll call you if I feel better.” I hastily hung up the phone and headed for my apartment, where I took a hot shower, rubbed my feet with Vaseline, put on pajamas and a pair of socks, and fell into my bed.

Thursday evening Mama called to say that as she was jotting things in her notebook she remembered Hattie mentioning that she’d seen Victor with Tootsie after Stella told us he’d left town. Mama made it a point to check further and she discovered that the man we’d seen leave Tootsie’s house with her was Victor Powell.

“Let me know what else you find out,” I told my mother. “I won’t be coming back to Otis for a few more weeks, but I’d like to know how things are progressing.”

That was the plan, that is, until I got another call from Mama around five o’clock the next evening.

There was a deep sadness in her voice. “This afternoon old man Elliott left a basket of tomatoes on the front porch. When I took the tomatoes out to wash them, I found a small plastic bag with the word ‘viper’ written on it at the bottom of the basket.

“I tried to call Elliott to ask him about the bag, but he didn’t answer his phone. After supper, I drove to his house.”

Mama paused. “As I pulled up in his driveway, I spotted Clyde Hicks pulling away on a motorcycle. I tried to get him to stop, but he ignored me. Simone, I found Elliott’s body in his vegetable garden. He’d been strangled, and his tongue was slit in two.”

C
liff and I left Atlanta before six o’clock the next morning.

When we walked in the door, my heart sank. Mama’s expression was tinged with uncertainty. A thin line formed around her mouth. I searched my memory, then just put my arms around her trying to remember the last time I’d seen her like this.

“Simone, I’ve made a big mistake,” Mama told me like she was apologizing. “I mean, I found those plastic bags, hard evidence that it was drugs that tied Brenda, Kitty, and Elliott’s deaths together. Because of Lew Hunter’s attitude, I refused to see it. That’s why I kept looking at pieces of information and wasn’t able to put them into any pattern. I let my personal feelings taint my perspective. Yesterday, after I’d called you, I got into my car and began
to drive around town to take a closer look at Otis’s teenagers. For a while all I could see were healthy, ordinary kids. Then I began to see that a few of our young people did look somewhat haggard, bony, almost like they were wasting away. I ran into one of my co-worker’s daughters, Mary Jo Palmer. Mary was always a pretty girl, one who was particular about her appearance. Something about her had changed, she was noticeably thin, I could see all the veins in her arms and legs. Her clothes hung on her like she was a lamppost, her nails had been bitten off. I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t seem interested in anything I had to say. Her pupils were dilated and the few words I got her to say were slurred. The facts were staring me in the face. Lew Hunter was right, I was being naive.”

“Are you saying that you no longer think Clyde had anything to do with the murders?” I asked.

“Clyde had a thing for Brenda and he must have known Kitty Sharp, but, other than being near each victim before they died, I don’t know of anything that ties him to the drugs.”

“Don’t let it all overwhelm you, you’ve figured out things like this before.”

“There’s a lot of information to digest and I’ve been up most of the night trying to put it all in context with somebody selling drugs on the high school campus. I’ve written down every word I can remember they’ve said. So far, my efforts have proven useless. I just can’t come up with anything except—”

“What?”

“These things didn’t start to happen until Ray Raisin moved back to Otis, which makes me wonder whether or not he’s Otis’s enterprising drug dealer. Agatha knows something about Ray, something that suggests that the man isn’t as squeaky clean as he appears. What Agatha knows may be the missing piece that will bring everything else we’ve learned into perspective.”

“I tried to get her to tell me about him, but she refused,” I reminded Mama.

“Perhaps after I tell Agatha about Otis’s drug problem and what it’s doing to our young people, she’ll share her secret with us!”

Mama told me that she had an appointment with Lew and Abe at one o’clock and she wanted to visit Agatha before she talked to them. I spoke with Cliff, told him of our plans. He and my father had already decided to team up with Coal and a few other of my father’s cronies for a day of playing cards and drinking beer. Satisfied that they’d be at it until the wee hours of the morning, I gave him a kiss and waved good-bye as Mama and I drove away.

Twenty-five minutes later, we were seated in Agatha’s front room and my mother had asked about Ray Raisin.

“Agatha, this is not a matter of gossip—this is a matter of life and death.”

Agatha took a deep breath. “Everybody thinks that Ray Raisin is a fine, successful man. There’s no use digging up something about him that has been put to rest all these years.”

“Under different circumstances, I’d agree with you,” Mama told her. “But a young girl is dead along with two other people, and drugs have infiltrated our high school. And it all happened since Ray Raisin moved back home to Otis. It’s possible that he has more to do with what’s going on than meets the eye. If you know something that can help, I need to know it. The reason I came to you is that it’s clear that you’re not prejudiced by his appearance. You don’t see Ray as a prince in shining armor the way that Carrie, Sarah, and Annie Mae do.”

“That’s ’cause Carrie, Sarah, and Annie Mae don’t know Ray the way I do,” Agatha said.

“Tell us,” Mama urged.

Agatha glanced at Mama, then looked down at her lap. She began to move her hands over her apron, as if she was trying to smooth invisible wrinkles out of it. “Ray and I went to school together. Back then, there were only eight of us in the classroom. Four girls, four boys. Only eight children who didn’t have to work in the cotton fields, eight children whose parents made enough to feed them, to pay a teacher and send them to school.

“Our teacher, Hazel Putnam, got a letter from the Methodist church headquarters in Columbia. The church had collected enough money to send
one child to high school, maybe on to college. It was Miss Putnam’s charge to pick which one of us would be given the opportunity.”

“Hazel Putnam selected Ray Raisin and you’ve never forgiven him?” I asked.

“No,” Agatha said firmly. “Miss Putnam picked
me!
I was head and shoulders smarter than Ray and he knew it!”

“But—”

“I was picked to go to high school and to college,” Agatha continued, “but Ray was so determined to get that chance that he paid one of the other boys to tell the teacher that I was womanish, that he had overheard me offering to do things with Ray that wasn’t proper!”

“So the teacher decided to send Ray instead of you,” I said.

Agatha nodded. “Things were different in my day. Morals didn’t exist in shades of gray like they do today. Candi, you know people looked at morals as either right or wrong. The church had made it clear that chastity was a high priority in selecting the student. Ray, who put on the appearance of being holier-than-thou, wasn’t the smartest but he presented himself as the more righteous. He got the chance I wanted—no, the chance I
deserved
. He stole my education, and the talk that he set out against me hung around my neck for years.”