Mama Pursues Murderous Shadows (5 page)

The town of Avondale, South Carolina, rises up like an oasis at the end of a twenty-mile drive on a two-lane highway, bordered by shallow ditches that run through a thickly planted pine tree farm. Although smaller than the town of Otis, Avondale has four motels, a Starvin Marvin, an Exxon, and a Chevron service station. It also boasts a liquor store, a McDonald’s, a Hardee’s, and a Huddle House restaurant.
Avondale flanks an interstate that takes easterners into Florida.

The Avondale Inn has a cream-colored exterior with black trim and a look that tries too hard to be colonial. There were only three cars in the parking lot. As we walked inside, we spotted a man standing in the lobby outside the manager’s office, pacing anxiously, repeatedly checking his watch. He had a pointed chin, a sharp nose, and dark, bushy eyebrows. The fat young clerk behind the counter stared at us like she knew her boss was very annoyed with us already.

“Mr. Golick?” Mama asked as we approached.

“Yes.” The man’s eyes darted toward us disapprovingly.

“Grace Covington,” Mama told him. “And my daughter, Simone.”

“I expected you five minutes ago,” the manager snapped.

“It was nice of you to agree to talk with us,” Mama continued, her voice low and pleasant.

“The sheriff told me to talk to you,” Jeff Golick said, making it clear he would have preferred not to. “I don’t understand what you have to do with Ruby killing herself. You can’t be a friend. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on the fact that Ruby didn’t have any friends,” he snarled.

“Why would you say that?” Mama asked.

“The only time that—” He stopped. “Look—Let’s go into my office.” He turned and led us into a large room in which there was a desk with an expensive
computer. Jeff Golick sat behind the desk; Mama and I sat in the two very comfortable chairs that faced him. He sighed and spread his hands wide. “I’m not surprised Ruby killed herself.”

Mama’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing.

“Ruby spent quite a few nights here, so I got to know her well. She always came for one of two reasons: Most of the time, it was because she’d had a fight with her husband and needed to get away for a night or two. If that girl had anyone to help her, she’d have gone to them when that goon started beating up on her. But she always came here,” he said impatiently.

Mama nodded. “You said there was another reason that Ruby checked into your inn.”

“She came to meet her … friend.”

“Do you know Ruby’s friend’s name?” Mama asked quietly.

Golick shook his head. “I’ve only seen the man a few times as he slipped in and out of her room. I couldn’t tell who he was.”

Mama nodded again. “Tell me something about the last time that Ruby checked into the motel. Was her friend with her that night?”

“Friday night before—” His voice broke. “The Friday night before Ruby died,” he continued gruffly, “my gut feeling was that she wasn’t checking in to meet her friend.”

“What made you think not?” Mama asked.

“Ruby’s eyes were puffy like she’d been crying. I suppose if I had given it some thought, I should have
known she’d try to hurt herself. The woman looked like she’d just thrown on her clothes without thinking, just to get away from whatever it was that was chasing her. I mean, it was a hot night and she was all bundled up in a thick black sweater and a scarf.”

“A scarf?” Mama asked as she took out a small notebook from her purse and began making notes.

“Yeah, a reddish brown scarf that struck me as being particularly ugly,” he replied.

“What did Ruby say to you?”

Jeff shifted in his chair. “Nothing, not a word, but like I told Abe, she had a good bit of money on her. When she opened her purse to pay for the room, I saw a roll big enough to choke a cow!”

Mama seemed to ponder what she’d just learned. “I was wondering why it was you that checked Ruby into the motel that night and not your front desk clerk.”

“It was Maria’s dinner hour,” Jeff said, looking surprised. “Maria is my clerk. I always take care of the check-ins between eight and nine o’clock.”

“Were there many people staying here that night?”

“It was a slow night. Just a trucker who stays here from time to time and an old couple from New York on their way to Miami.”

Mama smiled appreciatively. “I’d like to talk to the cleaning woman who found Ruby.”

Golick raised his eyebrows. “Inez isn’t here. Although she’s only been working here for three weeks, she asked for this weekend off. Something about some business she has to take care of.”

“Perhaps you can tell me where Inez lives,” Mama suggested.

Jeff took a deep breath, clearly aggravated by an interview he felt was going on too long. “Two miles past the interstate, turn left, cross the railroad, first dirt road on the right, third house on the right. Her last name is Moore.”

“Thank you, Mr. Golick,” Mama said, standing. She thought for a minute. “Did Ruby happen to make any phone calls while she was here?”

“I’ve given that list to the sheriff.”

“It would be helpful if you could check the number of times she stayed at the motel in the past six months, as well as any phone numbers she might have called during that same period,” Mama told him.

Jeff let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t see any reason for that.”

Mama looked confidently into his eyes, her smile gentle. “I was just thinking that if Abe called you and asked for such a list, it would be nice if you would have already had it made up.”

Jeff shrugged, his eyes angry, his face impatient. We thanked him and left the office.

“We’re off to find Inez’s house?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Mama said.

Inez Moore’s house was three miles away from the Avondale Inn on a dirt road that runs every bit of a mile from the paved turnoff. It was a road filled
with so many potholes that the drive felt like a roller-coaster ride. We ended up in the yard of a tiny unpainted house that had a porch that ran its length. From the outside, it appeared that there were no more than three rooms to the shack. The roof was rusty tin, the yard was dirt. There wasn’t even a patch of grass.

All around the yard were six or seven dilapidated cars surrounded by mounds of car tires. Behind the house were trees and what looked like more old, rusty cars. The smell of burning rubber was a stench in the air.

“This must be where everybody in the county abandons their automobiles,” I told Mama, looking around and wrinkling up my nose.

“It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?” Mama agreed.

“If Sarah Jenkins knew about this place, she’d stir up the County Council to put an end to the burning of those tires.”

“She’d probably tell them that the fumes aggravated her chest condition so much she felt like she wasn’t going to take her next breath.”

“Burning tires can cause respiratory problems. Come to think of it, isn’t there a county ordinance against burning?” I asked.

Mama nodded. “It’s against Otis County’s ordinances. But nothing in Otis gets enforced unless somebody complains.”

Just then a young woman of about twenty-five walked out onto the front porch.

“Jeff phoned and told me to be on the lookout
for you,” she called, her voice cold and hard. “I don’t know what I can tell you, but since you’ve gone out of your way to find me, come on up and take a seat.”

Mama glanced at me, and headed for Inez Moore’s front porch.

By the time we’d climbed the rickety wooden steps, Inez had gone back inside and brought out another chair. “I always thought that fool Ruby would go and kill herself. She was just that crazy!”

“You knew Ruby well?” Mama asked.

Inez was a short woman, less than five feet. She had large hips and legs but a small waist and bosom. Her face was shrewd, her eyes close to each other. At Mama’s question, she nodded. “Ruby and I worked at the sewing room in Bartow together.” She hesitated. “Three weeks ago I heard there was an opening at the Avondale Inn, so I was the first to ask Jeff for the job. He gave it to me and I said good-bye to sewing piece goods at that factory.”

“I see,” Mama said.

“Ruby had no need to look for another job. She coulda stayed there at the factory as long as she wanted because she was in the boss’s pocket.”

Mama’s brow crinkled. “You’re saying that Ruby’s job was secure because she was a good worker?”

“She worked but I know for a fact that her work wasn’t what kept her job secure!”

“So what did?”

Inez shrugged. “What does it matter? She went and killed herself and I’m stuck making beds.”

“What do they sew at that factory?” Mama asked.

“Sweaters, scarves, gloves. Things northerners need in the dead of winter.”

Mama looked interested. “Ruby probably had a lot of scarves?”

“We were allowed two scarves apiece from each lot,” Inez replied. “Ruby Spikes followed the rules—two scarves were all she’d take.”

“Jeff Golick tells me that Ruby had on a scarf when she checked into the motel on Friday night.”

“Don’t know about that. First time I had a look at Ruby since I left the plant was when I walked into that room and there she was, dead. She had on a nightgown. I didn’t see a scarf.”

“Tell me, how did you happen to find Ruby’s body?”

“I’ve already talked to Abe about that.”

“I know,” Mama said. “But I’d really like to hear the story myself.”

Inez threw Mama a strange look. “Why are you so interested in Ruby Spikes?”

“It may be that Ruby didn’t kill herself,” Mama explained patiently. “Somebody could have slipped into Ruby’s room and killed her.”

Inez’s shrewd eyes grew wide. “Is that what Abe told you?” she demanded.

“It’s a thought,” Mama admitted.

“Listen, I didn’t even know that Ruby Spikes was in the Inn that night. I went to clean her room the next morning like I was supposed to do,” she answered, her eyes cautious, like she was concentrating
on the details of how she found Ruby’s body. “This is the way I work: I go along my floor and knock on each door. ‘Cleaning woman here,’ I say loud enough for anyone inside to hear me. Most people say something to let me know that they’ve heard me. Then when I start working each room, they’re already getting out of my way. So when I got to the room that Ruby was staying in—Room 217—I knocked and called like I always do. The door slid open ’cause it wasn’t locked. That surprised me. I knocked again and said, ‘Cleaning woman is here!’ The door opened wider. That’s when I saw Ruby’s legs sprawled out on the floor. I ran right down to the office and got Jeff. When we went back to Room 217, we saw Ruby.” Inez paused.

“The sheriff came,” Mama prodded gently. “After he and his deputy finished their investigation, who cleaned Room 217?”

“I did,” Inez answered hotly, “but that wasn’t until over a week later and I ain’t took nothing out of it. Besides, up until that time, I wasn’t allowed in that room. No one was. Not even Jeff.”

“When you finally cleaned the room, did you see anything?” Mama asked. “You know, something of Ruby’s the sheriff might have left behind?”

“Like what?” Inez asked it defiantly.

“I suspect the sheriff took all of Ruby’s personals,” I suggested.

“Maybe,” Mama murmured. “I just wanted to make sure nothing was left accidentally in that room.”

“There wasn’t anything of Ruby’s left in that room and like I’ve already told you, I didn’t take anything out of it!” Inez said angrily.

Mama folded her hands in her lap. Then she asked, “Did you know Ruby’s boyfriend? The man she used to meet at the Inn?”

Inez frowned. “You think
he
killed Ruby?”

Mama didn’t answer.

Inez cocked her head at an angle. “Come to think of it, I saw him in Avondale sometime after midnight that night. My old man and I was coming in from taking care of some business. I blew the horn at him and he waved back at us.”

“Sooner or later, Abe is going to have to talk to him,” Mama told Inez. She took out her notebook and wrote her telephone number on it, then held the page out to Inez. “If you run into Ruby’s friend, tell him if he would talk to me, I’d appreciate it—tell him that our conversation could be considered a private matter.”

Inez took the slip from Mama’s hand.

“One more question, Inez. Did anybody at the Inn mention to you that they heard the shot that killed Ruby?”

Inez shook her head. “There were only two rooms occupied that night—a trucker who sleeps so hard he wouldn’t hear the Lord coming to get him. Then there was the older couple, but their room was clear on the other end of the motel. They told Abe they didn’t hear anything.”

“Is Charles Parker Ruby’s boyfriend?” Mama asked point-blank.

Inez Moore looked puzzled. She shook her head. “I don’t know a Charles Parker,” she told Mama.

So why did I think she was lying?

W
e were sitting in my car. It struck me as odd that the people immediately on the scene after Ruby’s demise couldn’t find any sympathy for the woman. Jeff Golick was clearly indifferent; Inez Moore was downright hostile. “Inez didn’t have a very friendly attitude, did she?” I said, sharing my thoughts with Mama.