Mama Cracks a Mask of Innocence (2 page)

He felt like he was choking. He had too much to lose, too much was at stake. He needed to talk things over with his partner.

He drove to the woman’s house and parked. The shades were drawn and the gate into the fenced yard was closed. So was the door to the adjacent
garage. He raised the latch, walked through the gate, and then knocked on the door.

The door opened and warm air pushed into his face. The woman’s teeth flashed white in a sensuous smile; she was an experienced woman to whom he’d willingly surrendered his innocence.

“This is a surprise,” she said softly.

He pushed past her and went inside. “We’ve got to talk!”

“It would have been nice if you’d called first.”

“Brenda has figured out what’s going on,” he muttered.

The woman shook her head, frowning. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I talked with her a few minutes ago. She wants me to tell everything!”

The woman cocked her head slightly at the helplessness in his voice. “I’m not surprised,” she replied, her voice low, concerned.

“The fool wants me to go with her to Abe,” he told her, getting angrier as he did so. “I could have blown her away right there in front of all those kids!”

She reached for him and drew him into her arms. “You’re so young,” she murmured gently. “This is a lot for you to handle. I suppose the right thing to do is as Brenda suggests, let everything we’ve worked so hard to build go down the drain.”

He pushed her away. “There is no way I’m going to let Brenda cause me to lose you!” As he looked at
her, sensations bolted through his body. Before they teamed up, he’d been awkward with girls. But this was no girl, this was a woman, a woman who had taught him how to be a man, how to make big money.

“We did have such plans.…” she said hopefully.

“I’m going to meet Brenda tonight,” he told her.

The woman kissed him on his neck. “I’m sure whatever you decide to do, it’ll be for us, for our future.”

He pulled her back into his arms, his heart beating passionately. “I may be young, but I’m wise in the way of making things happen. Brenda won’t mess up our future,” he promised her.

By the time he’d decided how he was going to handle the situation, it was dusk and he’d smoked a joint and drank a few beers. He’d driven into the woods and found a spot. It was behind a large pine which stood, like a twin, next to an oak and in front of a field bright with wildflowers.

At seven-thirty, he drove past the stores and shops of Chapel Street. Miss Candi Covington, a woman with prying eyes and a keen perception, stepped out of the florist shop. Their eyes met. For a moment he felt like his intentions stood out like a sore thumb. Then he remembered he wasn’t driving
his Jaguar, he was still driving Bo Pete’s car. Miss Candi had seen him drive his mama’s old man’s car many times before, there was no reason she’d think he was up to something special just because he was driving it tonight.

Chapel Street was empty on his second trip. He took a deep breath to steady himself, parked and waited for Brenda. A few minutes later, she moved from the shadows and hurried toward his car. He started the motor as she slipped inside. “We have to talk first, decide just how to tell everything,” he told her as he drove to the spot he’d carefully prepared.

For the next few minutes, neither of them spoke. Brenda seemed preoccupied. A few times he noticed she shook her head as if she didn’t understand her own thoughts. Finally, she looked at him like she remembered what they were supposed to be doing together that night. “Are you going to the authorities with me and tell them where you’re getting the stuff?” she asked absently.

His body stiffened. A strange whisper of excitement and warning hissed through his nerves. He studied her face. “Do you realize what you want me to do?”

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to stand up and do the right thing!” she snapped, the pitch of her voice raising sharply. “Right is right and
you’re
going to do what’s right!”

Suddenly he felt a welling up in his chest, a knot that almost threatened to burst through his flesh. “There is no way I’m going to let you squeal on me!”

She looked as if she suddenly understood what he was planning. Brenda pulled the latch on the car door and flung herself out onto the ground. He was out of the car and on top of her quicker than she could scramble up to run. He slapped her a couple of times.

She sank her teeth into his arm.

Rage, like the winds of a hurricane, blazed up in him. He picked up a rock and slammed it into her face. Then his hands went around her throat.

As she struggled he felt her fingernails dig into his hands.

He had a surge of strength, one that gripped his hands tightly around her throat, one that kept him squeezing until her body went limp. When he was sure she was dead, he let out a breath, slashed her tongue, then buried her in a shallow grave among the wildflowers.

When it was all done, a sense of relief swept through him—he knew that everything would be all right once he got rid of the teacher who had squealed to Brenda, who had told her what he was doing to make his and his partner’s life good!

I
’d been drafted.

The Otis County Department of Social Services annual clothing drive was over. Mama is a case manager in the county’s office. This year, she’d volunteered as the drive’s chairperson, then immediately enlisted me to help sort, separate, and transport donated items.

My name is Simone and I live in Atlanta, a full three hours’ drive from Otis, South Carolina. Before I could report to my mother’s home for duty, I had to convince my boss in Atlanta that I needed time off.

Sidney Jacoby is a prominent defense lawyer. He’d just instituted a policy of allowing up to five working days for his employees to do volunteer work. I decided to tell him that since I considered
Otis my home, it was right that I spend five days working on a community project in Otis instead of Atlanta.

At first, Sidney didn’t buy it. He made it clear that his definition of community didn’t extend two hundred miles from Atlanta. My boss is a handsome, well-dressed man in his mid-fifties. Most of the time he’s calm, self-possessed, a man who not only pays me a good salary but supports the way I do my job. Needless to say, I like him. But I wasn’t about to take his no as his final answer. I’d learned from working with Sidney over five years that he’s inclined to change his mind if he’s approached the right way at the right time. So, when I left his office I had one thought: How was I going to convince him that my community was Otis, South Carolina, where my family lives?

Then it occurred to me that it was a few days before Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar. Sidney is not Orthodox, but he does seem more benevolent around religious holidays. I made up my mind to try to get the week off by emphasizing that my service would not only be to my community but, in the spirit of the celebration of the upcoming holiday, it would be an opportunity for me to give service to my family and my friends.

When I eased back into his office and closed the door, he looked up and flashed me a brief smile that told me he’d been wondering how long it would take before I came back.

“I don’t know if I mentioned that my work in Otis would be more than a community service …,” I began, trying to sound as noble as I could. “It would be an opportunity to give to my community, yes, but also, it will give me an opportunity to give to my friends and family. I wasn’t born in that small town, but it produced my parents. I have many aunts, uncles, cousins who—”

He threw up his hands. “Take the week, Simone,” he told me. “And give your mama my regards.”

What I couldn’t have realized, as I jumped for joy at my boss’s concession, was that the time I was about to spend in Otis would hold far more sinister happenings than distributing clothes to needy citizens.

I
’ve told you a little about me, now let me tell you something about my mother. After thirty years, my father, Captain James Covington, retired from the air force. He built a house in Otis, South Carolina, the small town where he and my mother were born. Upon their return, Mama, who is fifty-three, and who is nicknamed Candi because of her beautiful, golden complexion, became the confidante of the county’s sheriff, Abe Stanley. What started as a sleuthing game between the two of us, Mama and me, as we traveled in our military family, turned into a full-fledged occupation for Mama once she teamed up with Abe. Mind you, she does this sleuthing while working as a social worker at the county’s department of welfare and cooking the best food in the South.

Before I reported to Otis Saturday morning, I
called my boyfriend, Cliff Roberts. Cliff is a divorce lawyer who is working hard to become a partner in his firm. Oddly, and for the first time, he seemed unhappy that I was leaving town. He usually encourages me to spend time with Mama, whom he both likes and admires. This time, he promised to come to Otis Saturday to spend the following weekend with me and my parents.

Mama had also recruited my father’s cousins, Agatha and Gertrude, to help sort clothes. A little after noon, on the first day of my visit, the four of us stood in the Otis Community Center, ready to work.

Elliott Woods, a liver-lipped man with a speech impediment and a grin pasted on his face, peeked his head into the center. “M-Miss Candi, you want a b-bunch of fresh greens today? I j-just picked a mess from the garden.”

“Yes,” Mama told Elliott, smiling. “Drop two of your fullest bunches by the house later.”

“Sure will,” Elliott told her. “N-Nobody else wants a mess of these mustard greens?”

Gertrude and Agatha shook their heads.

“Y-You’re missing a good eating,” Elliott stuttered, turning and heading out the door.

No sooner had Elliott gone than Gertrude turned to Agatha and asked, “I suppose you’ve heard that Ray Raisin is back in town?”

Agatha didn’t answer. She was sorting through a pile of infant clothes. I wondered who Gertrude was talking about.

“I can’t help but think that Ray is up to something special coming back home after all these years,” Gertrude continued indignantly.

Agatha, who is a thin woman with pecan brown skin and a self-effacing manner, raised one eyebrow slightly but made no comment.

“Talk is Ray’s wife died and he’s come home to find another one. Can’t believe that, though. He’s been away from these parts so long, most of his own people are dead and few people remember that he ever lived here.”

“Sounds like you’ve been talking to Sarah, Annie Mae, and Carrie,” Agatha said under her breath.

Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls are Otis’s historians—I say that because those three women know more about the goings-on in town than I think is healthy. They’ve been useful to Mama, at times feeding her background on people that Mama had lost contact with while traveling all over the world with my father.

“Yes, I talked to Sarah, Annie Mae, and Carrie,” Gertrude told Agatha. “They want to believe that Ray is looking for a wife and one of them will be his choice, but I doubt he’d want any one of
them
. One thing I found interesting that Sarah let slip is that Ray Raisin asked about you, Agatha. Seems he wanted to know if she’d ever heard you say anything unkind about him, anything that might indicate that he’d not be welcomed at your house?”

But before Agatha could answer Gertrude, a woman
with fiery red hair and a milk-white complexion stuck her head in the door. “Is this where donated clothes are supposed to be dropped?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mama replied. “Come on in, Pepper.”

The woman eased inside the door. She was in her late forties, with a thin face, beautiful skin, and hair that hung to her shoulders. A muscular boy inched in behind her, carrying bulging Hefty bags in each hand. He was short and stocky, with dark brown skin and soulful eyes that lit up his face. “Where do you want me to put these?” he asked Mama.

“Over here,” Mama instructed.

“All of this stuff is in good shape,” the woman told her.