Deep Fried Trouble (Eugeena Patterson Mysteries) (10 page)

It was Wednesday. The day before Mary was to be buried. Over three days and no sign of Leesa, I prayed with all my might that Detective Wilkes had found some other leads in the case. I envisioned her wanting to show up at the house with a search warrant. How would I explain the money?  Not including the letter from Mary? Circumstantial evidence, right?

It did occur to me that Leesa could have r
etrieved the ring from Mary and pawned it. That would explain the money. Would my daughter strike out at Mary in anger after learning the truth of the ring? I was a bit peeved myself that Mary kept that secret so long.

The past was what it was. I had the present to co
ntend with.

Early in the morning, I had heard Amos outside making a racket with some obnoxious tool, possibly a saw.  I meant to ask him the other day what he was doing with all that lumber in the backyard.  For the past few weeks, it appeared he was putting together a shed. I decided to walk over and see if he had a chance to get any information from Wilkes. If Amos had offered to hold my hand, I would have let him. Lord, it’s been that kind of a week. For some reason the man brought a deep comfort to me.

Before I could get two feet up the walkway to Amos’ front porch, I looked up to see someone walking towards me. “Wayne?”

The young man stopped mid-stride. “Uh, hey, Miss Eugeena. How you doing this morning?”

I wanted to ask him the same.  More so I wanted to know what happened to him. The scruffy braids were replaced with a low haircut to the scalp. Wayne even shaved off the beard he’d been sporting. “Well, you look awfully handsome this morning. You got you a girl or something?”

Wayne laughed. “Wow, Miss Eugeena, you don’t change. Always say what’s on your mind. Let’s just say I’ve had a new outlook on life.”

I cocked my eyebrow, remembering Louise’s reports of seeing Wayne with Carmen. As Wayne walked away, I called out to his back. “Your mama would be proud.”

He stopped for a minute, but didn’t turn around. I watched him cross the street, feeling a bit bad about my suspicions. Or should I? Just because a person suddenly cleaned up didn’t let them off the hook.

Amos definitely had a saw churning again. I waited until he stopped and then called to him, “Amos, when you ready to take a break, come over for some lunch.”

He broke out into a grin. “I’ll be there.”

About an hour later, I walked out to the front porch with a tray of turkey sandwiches and ice tea.  Kisha and Porgy tore around the front yard like two loose cannons. Tyric enjoyed yet another good nap in his carrier. His mouth was turned up into a smile, his little chubby cheeks appeared healthy and glowing. What I wouldn’t do to trade places with him. Before I could join Amos for lunch, the phone rang.

I barely greeted the caller before they spurted out, “Is that girl back yet?”

Lawd, Jesus!
I rolled my eyes up to the heavens. “Hello to you too, Junior.”  I must have skipped the lesson on phone etiquette with my oldest child. Come to think of it, I skipped around on a lot of lessons among the three of these young’uns.

“Mama, I’m so sorry that girl is putting you through these changes again.”

Junior didn’t have any concept of keeping his cool. “Sounds like you talked to Cedric.”

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, Mama. We’ll be up there this weekend.”

“
What?” What does this boy mean by “we”?

“Ralph, Jr. I don’t really need a house full of pe
ople right now. Since you talked to your brother, then you know about Mary’s passing.”

“Yeah, that’s another reason why we’re coming. Mama, you can’t stay in that house by yourself anymore.”

“Excuse me.” I just about had enough of this. 
Lord, I won’t complain no more.
“I am not leaving my home. I have lived here for over thirty years ...”

“Hey, did she run off with that dude?”

Dude? Junior’s mixture of Anglo-Saxon, surfer boy talk stumped me. This time it flat out caused me to pause. “What
dude
?”

“I remember seeing her a few months ago with some guy.”

“You did?”
How did these boys know more about Leesa’s social life than me?
“Well, what did he look like?”

“I know he was looking all crazy because I walked up on them. I told him I was her brother and he better be treating her right.”

I had to carefully ask my next question. “How did Leesa seem around him?”

“I don’t think she wanted us to really talk. Why? Mama, what’s g
oing on?”

“Would you by any chance remember his name?”

“Are you sure you don’t need...”

“His name, Junior. Think.” I needed to find out who this man was and if he had anything to do with my daughter’s disappearing act.

“Chris. Chris Goodman. Chris Golden. I don’t know. I just know it was Chris. Oh hold on a minute, Mother.”

Mother.
It sounded like he was talking to someone else in the background.  “Junior. Junior?”

“I’ve got to go. I have a client waiting for me.”

I stared at the phone, the dial tone blared at me. I can’t believe that boy.

I joined Amos on the porch. He’d tilted Tyric’s carrier a little closer to our chairs to keep the su
nlight from touching his sleeping body. His turkey sandwich had been demolished, not a crumb left.  “Do you want any more ice tea?”

“No, I’m good. You sit and rest a bit. I know you have to be stressed.”

He was right about that, but stressed wasn’t the word. I have never had a panic attack, but the queasiness crawling in my stomach couldn’t be good. I tapped my foot and let the rocking chair sooth me.

“I tell you that little girl and dog is having the
mselves a good time out there. Kind of reminds me of my childhood playing outside this time of day.”

I peered at him. “Where did you grow up, Amos?”

“Right here in South Carolina. Up the coast, a little further north, in Marion County.”

“Oh, I know those little towns in there.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Me? Right here in Charleston. Born and raised. Ralph and I moved to North Charleston while the boys were in elementary school. Been here in Sugar Creek ever since.”
             

“That is a long time.”

“Oh yeah. It’s funny now, but I remember the day Louise came over while I was cleaning the house. She wanted to know if I worked as I maid. I looked at her and told her I was looking for one myself.”

Amos threw his head back and laughed. “Well, you two seem like good buddies now.”

“Once you get to know people, you find people are just that…people.”

“Sounds like you got quite a bit of history here.”

I smiled.  History. Some good and some not-too-good. “It’s been a blessing to live in Sugar Creek. A lot of folks left over the years, but this has been a place for middle class families to grow and get to know each other. Things changed after the eighties as they built up more around this area.”

Kisha and Porgy climbed up on the porch, both out of breath and a bit dusty. I looked over at Amos and saw him peering down at Tyric. “Would be nice to feel that type of peace all the time, huh?”

“You right about that. Little fellow has it made in the shade so to speak.” Amos nodded in Kisha’s direction who somehow had managed to put Amos’ hat on her head. She looked up at us both and gave us a toothy, sweet grin. Would’ve made a pretty photo if I had one of those digital cameras. 

“Kisha, give Mr. Amos his hat back.”

“Ah, she ain’t hurting it.” He turned back to me. His eyes seemed bright and young despite the deep caramel wrinkles in his face. “What can I do to help?”

Earlier I had expressed my fears about this u
nknown man in Leesa’s life to Amos. I shook my head, “Maybe I’m overreacting. If she would just show up. I’ve been just about to tear my hair out.” I didn’t need to be ripping out no hair follicles. I wasn’t trying to sport the bald look like Amos.

“Well, I’m sure she has her reasons. It does sound suspicious about this boyfriend though. Maybe she needs to lay low from him for a while.”

“I can tell he’s not a nice man.” Kisha’s confession of being struck on the arm by this Chris person didn’t sit too well with me.

I still hadn’t told Amos about the money in the diaper bag, the le
tter and the ring. It started to sink in that maybe Leesa was trying to escape or run away from someone. Pondering a million scenarios, none of them good, was making it difficult to keep my composure. Water filled my eyes. I brushed my sleeve across my face as though I was wiping sweat from my brow.

I don’t know if Amos noticed my teary eyes. If he did, he was a ge
ntleman about it, by changing the subject. “By the way, I had a talk with Wayne this morning.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, I saw him. He was all cleaned up.”

“He actually told me he’s been asking other folks about what they’d seen. Apparently, he’s concerned about the recent robberies too.”

“I bet. Did you find out about anymore about his police record?”

“Just an assault and battery a few years ago.  Sounds like in a drunken stupor he got into a fight at some pool place.  He was lucky. Most folks are packin’ these days.”

“Packing?”

“You know, carrying a gun on them.”

“Oh.” It certainly was a different world.

“Anyhow, Wayne seems to be pretty clean now, but it’s still hard for him working in construction especially now the way the market is doing. You know this housing boom and all the foreclosures gave everyone a beating finance-wise.”

“I know, it’s a shame.” I’d been suspicious of Wayne, but the fact is the witness still pointed out seeing a woman at Mary’s house. “Amos, what about the witness? Any ideas?”

He shook his head. “Detective Wilkes has been pretty closed mouth. She especially wasn’t too keen to share anything. She’s the only female detective and certainly didn’t want to hear from an old pro like me.”

A car caught my attention as it pulled into the driveway across the street.  I recognized Tamara’s husband BMW.  “I hope mister over there came home to make up for missing the anniversary. That’s not the way to keep a woman happy.”

“I guess my wife would’ve said the same thing if she was here.” Amos rubbed his chin, his eyes focused on nothing in particular, except whatever memory that flowed through his mind. “It wasn’t until I got shot, lying in a hospital bed, I looked up to see her standing over me, I realized how much of my life I missed. Children all grown and my beautiful bride had become almost a stranger.”

I whipped my head around at the mention of Amos, using the word stranger.  What really struck me was Ralph and I had a similar situation, with Ralph suffering a heart attack. Did folks really need God to get their attention quite so dramatically?  I commented, “You were so devoted to her during her cancer trea
tments.”

“I owed her. When that cancer tore through her body, I would have done anything to trade places with her.”

My eyes filled with tears again. It’s something special to see how God matures a person to really see what life is all about.

Amos stood suddenly, sending the rocking chair into a frenzy of m
otion. “Eugeena, I think you should plan to call an emergency neighborhood association meeting. Can you round up folks by Friday evening?”

“That’s pretty short notice.”

“You want to find that witness? You might even have some suspects show up.”

I shot an uneasy look at Amos. “Are you sa
ying I could be inviting a murderer to my house?”

“From my experience, whoever did it, if they are from around here, they will show up to see what others are saying, you know make sure they are in the clear. Another place to keep an eye out for anything suspicious will be the funeral tomorrow.”

“That’s kind of bold to show up to the person’s funeral?”

“It is, but people do some crazy stuff in the heat of the moment. I mean think about Cain and Abel.  When God came looking, Cain was all no
nchalant, like it was no big deal that he took his brother’s life.”

There was a lot about Amos I didn’t know. Him getting all biblical on me was a bit of a su
rprise. “Okay, well I will get with Louise. I know she will let everyone know. She seems to have everybody’s contact info around here. Plus some neighbors are bound to be at the funeral tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good. Y’all have a good evening.” He s
aluted us and then bounded off the porch.

Everyone was a suspect, including my own mis
sing daughter. I picked up Tyric, who was still knocked out to the world. Good for him. Kisha ran through the living room to the kitchen with Porgy right behind her.

I placed the tray on the counter. On my shopping list on the refrigerator, right under diapers, I marked down formula. At my age, I really shouldn’t be thin
king about or considering this kind of stuff on my grocery list. Funny, when I had Junior, I had to physically wash diapers. By the time Cedric came along, I had started using disposable diapers. The diapers these days were expensive and had so many fancy smancy features.