Inside, Daddy lit the lamp, pulled back the curtain, sat on the edge of the bed and took a look. First thing he did was use his hand to close her eyes. He touched her skin.
“She feels a little warm.”
“She was real warm when I found her,” I said.
He held the lamp close to her face. “Someone’s had their hands around her throat. And that there pillow on the floor. I’d figure that ended up over her face. She was murdered, Harry.”
He turned to look at me when he said that, and his face in the light of the lantern looked as if it were made of wax.
I guess something in my face showed him something he didn’t want to see.
“I don’t know much of anything anymore, son,” he said, “but I do know that.”
Part Five
20
Only our memories allow that some people ever existed. That they mattered, or mattered too much. No one speaks of Old Maggie anymore. I can’t say I know anyone who remembers her but me. Remembers her cooking, which if I think about hard enough, I can taste; remembers her stories, strange and wonderful, and told without doubt.
Then perhaps that is conceit. She has family somewhere. They might be alive. Old as, or older than me.
They could remember.
But they can’t remember my memories.
Maggie.
Gone now.
Murdered.
And the seasons change as if nothing ever happened.
We went back and got the car at Cecil’s, him and Daddy not saying much, then with Daddy driving slow and me riding Sally, we went home.
All the way home I thought about poor Miss Maggie, and that the last time I had seen her she had been upset. I got all my crying out on that ride to the house so I wouldn’t be crying in front of the family when I got home.
At the house Daddy sat at the table drinking coffee, Mama sitting beside him, and he tried to figure on Miss Maggie’s murder.
I told him about the car I had seen with the broken taillight, the same that had sent us the message about Mose. I also told him how when Grandma and I had last seen Miss Maggie, I had mentioned Red Woodrow and she had gotten upset. Grandma told him we had heard rumors Red was really Miss Maggie’s son.
Daddy seemed amazed at this.
“Me and him was once like brothers,” Daddy said. “I think I’d have known such a thing.”
“Well,” Mama said. “It was that old woman who raised him, so it’s possible.”
Daddy nodded. “But, since she did, why would he kill her?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Grandma said. “Accordin’ what Harry here told me, he didn’t care for coloreds. He seen himself as white, and he seen himself as superior, then one day maybe Miss Maggie told him. For whatever reason, she just told him. He couldn’t stand the idea, and he killed her.”
“If she told him,” Daddy said, “and say he realized Mose was his Daddy, and he had Klan connections, and it was him tried to warn us about Mose, then why would he turn around and kill Miss Maggie?”
“I got that one too,” Grandma said.
“I figured you had an opinion on it,” Daddy said.
“Say he did find out, and from his Klan connections he heard that someone had told Mose was bein’ held as a suspect, and say he then knew what they were gonna do to the old man. Say just the day before he was all for it, then he found out the old man was his Daddy. He sent you the note, tryin’ to stop it. But he didn’t, and say Miss Maggie then said somethin’ to him about that, about how he let his Daddy die by not steppin’ in and just stoppin’ it on his own, or helpin’ you. So, in a rage, he killed her too.”
“That sounds possible,” Daddy said.
“Thing to do, hon,” Mama said, “is go see Red. See if he’s got that busted taillight.”
Daddy nodded. Tom crawled up in his lap and put her arms around his neck. He patted her softly on the back.
Next day Daddy went looking for Red, but it turned out he was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t been doing his job, and no one had seen him in a week. His car was missing.
Couple days later a fella huntin’ over in the next county found it parked down in the woods on a little trail. It wasn’t really a trail big enough for the car, but it looked to have been driven down it fast and wild. It was scratched on all sides from brush and limbs. It had a missing taillight.
It wasn’t concrete, but it seemed Red had murdered Miss Maggie, and he had been the one to warn us about Mose. Grandma’s theory seemed to make sense.
There was still another mystery.
Miss Maggie was buried at the back of her property in a cedar chest that was donated by Mr. Groon. It was simple but lots of folks showed up, both black and white. Miss Maggie was well liked.
A paper was found in her house that had been written out for her and her name was signed on it, scrawled out in poor letters. She wanted her mule and hogs to be given to folks could use them, and she wanted friends to come and pick the house clean. That was done right away, even before an owner for the mule and hogs could be found. Also in this will of hers was the plan to sell her property and give the money to Red Woodrow.
The property was sold all right, but Red Woodrow never did come and collect it.
Mystery was, day after Miss Maggie was buried, the body was dug up. Wasn’t nothing but a hole left in her yard, and to the best of my knowledge, to this day no one knows what became of it or why it was taken.
After the business with Miss Maggie, it got around town that maybe Mose hadn’t been the killer of all them women, and it had been Red, and in a final rage he had killed Miss Maggie.
’Course, ones sayin’ this didn’t know she was his mother or that Mose was his father, or that it looked as if he had given Daddy a warning note about the lynching. All this Daddy kept to himself.
What Daddy let be known was I had seen the car at Miss Maggie’s, and thinking something suspicious I had gone and got him and he had investigated. Where he fudged a bit was he didn’t let on I had discovered the body. He was afraid it might point to me somehow.
The supposed reasons Red killed Maggie were as many as the ants on the ground. A popular one was that Red, who had some reputation as being a bit crooked, had stolen the money she had buried at her house.
This led to speculation as to why money from her property had been left to him in her will. Some said he made her write it that way, but that didn’t explain the mule, the hogs, and her household items.
Years later, when the story got around that Red was Miss Maggie’s son, the particulars changed some. It was said by some Red come back and got the body and buried it private like. There were other rumors that a colored voodoo man came and dug it up to use the body parts, and it was even said by some that Miss Maggie’s wilted, dried hand had been turned into a hand of glory. There were those over the years claimed to see it, just like they’d know one dried black hand from another.
At the barbershop one day, while me and Tom was there with Cecil, I remember Mr. Evans speculating as Cecil clipped at the hair above his ears. Mr. Evans was one for speculating. Like Grandma, he read murder mysteries and saw himself as quite a detective, though the only detecting he’d ever done was trying to puzzle out a story in one of the magazines at the barbershop.
He was a short, fat, bald man with a habit of pursing his lips when he was making a point, or setting up a mystery.
“Say Miss Maggie had her money buried, or hid out, and Red found out about it.”
“How?” Cecil asked.
“Some nigger knew somethin’ and told him. You know, somethin’ about Miss Maggie, and he got it figured, and maybe Red picked him up for somethin’. You know, a crime of some kind.”
“Picked who up?”
“Some nigger. Ain’t you listenin’. No nigger in particular. Just a hypothetical nigger. And this here nigger, to lighten his load with the law-”
“What’d he do?” Cecil asked.
“He didn’t do nothin’. He’s hypothetical. Anyway, this fella, he knew about the money and told Red where it was supposed to be, and Red went to get it, and it wasn’t there. So he tried to make Miss Maggie tell him, and he accidentally killed her.”