Chapter Fifteen

“Is this Rose Mae Waters?” Brian swiveled side to side in his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk pad.

“Why, yes it is. Who’s speaking?” a firm but aged voice answered.

“I’m calling about Lydia Mae Waters.”

The silence on the other end of the line was thick enough to cut.

Brian cleared his throat. “Are you her mother?”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Brian Russell, ma’am. I’m a private investigator. Lydia’s name has come up in a search I’m doing for a client.”

“Lydia’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. When did she die?” Brian moved quickly, snatching up a pen to take down the info. No surprise, he’d expected she was dead.

“Years ago.” She exhaled, sounding incredibly tired.

“Do you remember when?” Could a mother ever forget the date her child died? Brian didn’t think so.

“Back in eighty-six. She was only nineteen.” Now, a palatable sadness overcame the woman’s weariness. Nineteen, that would explain the lack of records.

“I’d like to meet with you. I have something to discuss with you, and I’d prefer not to do it over the phone.”

More silence. A sigh. “All right.” There was no mistaking her reluctance, but she’d still agreed.

“Is tomorrow fine with you, Mrs. Waters? Around ten a.m.?” He wanted to do it right now, but sometimes it was better to give folks a chance to get used to the idea of chatting. Sometimes, that backfired, and they grew reticent about speaking.

“That’s fine. You’ve got my phone number, do you have my address?” The lady was sharp enough, it seemed.

“Yes. You’re inside the 610 Loop, near Ella Boulevard, right?”

“That’s right. See you at ten.” She hung up.

Brian sat back. He’d wait until after his visit to inform Sammi of his progress. No need to get his hopes up, then dash them if this didn’t pan out.

 

* * * *

 

Brian located the small Craftsman cottage with little difficulty. It was tidy, with a well-kept front garden. Large oaks and a magnolia towered behind the house.

Brian opened the cast iron gate, walked up the sidewalk, and climbed the front steps. On the small porch, three cats, their bellies up, backs twisted, eyes closed, lounged in the late morning sun. Well, she was a cat person. Weren’t most old women?

The lace curtains at the windows confirmed that this was an old lady’s house. He wondered if the furniture would have those lace antimacassars draped over their backs and arms or if everything would smell like mothballs.

He rang the doorbell and waited.

The door opened and a small woman with Sammi’s deep brown eyes stared up at him.

“You must be Mr. Russell.”

Brian held out his opened PI license case to her. “Yes, ma’am. May I come in?”

She glanced at it, sighed and stepped back. “Might as well.”

He entered the cozy room. No doilies on the overstuffed furniture, but they were covered in a quiet, flowered chintz and the air was sweet with the smell of gingerbread.

She motioned to the couch and sat in a chair. On the low coffee table, a plate of cookies waited. “Can I offer you some iced tea?”

“That would be very nice, yes.” Brian sat on the end of the couch, sinking into the cushions. His knees bumped the coffee table. Seemed she didn’t have too many tall visitors.

The room was clean and neat. On the walls were a few scattered pictures. None of people, they were all generic landscapes and still lifes. He glanced around the room for family photos but didn’t find any.

“So, what do you want to know about Lydia?” She carried a tray with two glasses of iced tea, a bowl of sugar, and two spoons and placed it on the small table between them.

“Mrs. Waters, did you know Lydia had a child before she died?” He watched her face for her reaction.

As she lifted a glass to him, she froze. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Lydia had a child?”

He took the glass from her before she dropped it. “Yes, ma’am. A son. His name is—”

“I don’t want to know his name,” she cut him off, shaking her head.

Brian sat back and watched her. He’d have to go carefully. He’d given her an obvious shock, and from his experience, there was no telling what some people would do or say when that happened.

“All right. Can you give me some information about Lydia?”

“Why? This kid hire you to find me?” Her eyes narrowed.

“He hired me to find his family, yes.”

“What’s he want? Money?” She glanced around the modest home. “I don’t have any.”

“No, ma’am. He just wants to learn about his family. Lydia gave him up when he was two years old.”

Her head jerked up, but she remained quiet as she added a spoon of sugar to her tea and stirred it slowly.

“Mrs. Waters, Sammi was given up for adoption. That never happened, and he spent most of his life moving from one foster home to another.”

Without looking at Brian, she said, “What’s wrong with him?”

He blinked. “Probably the same thing that was wrong with your daughter, Mrs. Waters.” It was a chance, but he took it.

Mrs. Waters slumped back in her chair and ran her hand over her face. When she brought her gaze up to meet his, she appeared much older than the mid-sixties he’d placed her. He waited for her to speak.

“Lydia was a difficult child. She tested us, me and Walter, my husband.”

Brian nodded, encouraging her to continue. He decided not to pull out his BlackBerry to take notes, thinking it would hamper her in getting the story out.

“She was a lovely child, really. Small, petite like me, but with Walter’s blue eyes. A real beauty. But troubled.” She glanced at Brian and gave a quick smile.

“She heard voices?”

Her eyebrows rose, then she nodded. “Yes. From the time she could first talk, she told me about the voices. Imaginary friends, I thought at first. But it was more.” She bit her lip and halted.

“She could hear your thoughts.”

She gasped and her hand clutched at her throat. “How did you know?”

“Like mother, like son.” He shrugged.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he’s getting some help.”

Brian ignored that and pushed on. “Tell me what happened.”

“She ran away from home when she was fifteen.” Her face crumpled and her eyes welled with tears. “And we let her go. Never reported it. Walter didn’t want her back.”

“She scared him,” Brian added.

“Yes.” Tears spilled. “Imagine being afraid of your own child. He thought she was evil, as if the devil himself had taken our beautiful little girl and made a monster of her.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

“They didn’t get along?”

“To put it mildly. Lord, the fights. The screaming and yelling. It made my heart hurt. I tried to get her to stop talking about it, shoving it in Walter’s face, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“So she ran away.”

She wiped away more tears. “I suppose I should have done more, but by that time we were just so relieved she was gone. That sounds horrible, I know. But…” She shrugged.

“How did you know about her death?”

“The police. They found her body. She had her driver’s license in her purse.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

She took a long sip of her tea then wiped her thin lips on a paper napkin.

“Suicide. She drove her car onto the 610 Loop, parked, got out, and jumped over the side. Hit the concrete road below.” She’d repeated it as if reading from a newspaper, or the police report. “We had her buried in a cemetery on I-45, far from us. I had to fight Walter for that.”

“He didn’t want to claim her even after she’d died?”

She stared out of the window. “He was a hard man.”

Sammi’s life had been part of a larger tragedy going back in time to his mother. Even she had been a stranger, unwelcome in her own home.

“This young man. Sammi?”

“Yes. Samuel James Waters,” he repeated the name on the birth certificate.

“Samuel. He hears voices, too?”

“Yes, but he’s handled it well. Realized that he has a gift, not a curse. He’s not a monster. He’s…” Brian searched for a way to describe his best friend’s lover. “He’s decent, hardworking, caring, sensitive and determined.”

She shook her head. “He wants to meet me?”

“He wanted only to know about his family. I told him that it was up to you whether or not he could contact you.”

She grimaced as if she didn’t believe him.

Brian leaned forward, hands grasped together. “It’s the truth. I won’t force you into it, and I won’t give him any information about you, if you don’t want me to.”

She stood, signaling their meeting was over.

“I need to pray on this. I’ll call you with my decision, Mr. Russell. In the meantime, please don’t tell him any information about me.”

Brian stood and placed his tea on the tray. “I’m going to give him the info about his mother. He has a right to that.”

She gave him a small nod then walked him to the door.

Brian turned and extended his hand. “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Waters.”

“Of course.” She took his hand, clasped it briefly.

“Again, I’m sorry for your loss,” he added.

She gave him a curt nod and shut the door.

He’d just have to wait for her call. Until then, he was going to look up Lydia Mae’s death certificate.

He sat in his SUV outside Sammi’s grandmother’s house and considered his choices. He could hunt through the newspapers for a report of Lydia’s death, could go down to City Hall and repeat his earlier search, or he could go to the cemetery and check through their records.

He pulled out his BlackBerry and did a search on cemeteries on I-45. Lucky for him, there was only one. A day in a graveyard beat the hell out of an hour in City Hall. He started the engine and pulled away.

Forty minutes later, he turned into the cemetery and drove down the black asphalt road to the large funeral home that held center stage. The grounds were well kept, with low rolling hillocks dotted with stone markers in neat rows. In the near distance, an open grave waited, a large green canopy beside it, and chairs set up underneath.

There were quite a few cars in the parking lot. He found a space in the rear, parked and made his way to the front of the building. Brian opened the door and stepped into quiet darkness, his feet sinking into thick carpet. Somewhere, muffled organ music played. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The place was as cold as a meat locker.

At the office, he spoke in quiet tones to a young woman in a two-piece suit, her blonde hair drawn back into a tight bun.

“I want to locate someone buried here in the eighties.”

She motioned him to take the chair in front of her desk. “If you tell me the name of the deceased, I’ll try to locate the grave for you.” She spoke slowly and sympathetically, the way one does to people who are bereaved over the loss of a loved one.

“Lydia Mae Waters. Died, nineteen eighty-six.”

“Let me see what I can find.” She swung over to her computer and typed. Her nails were short, unpolished and neat. No overworked sigh, no rapid typing. Her movements were slower, as if her typing showed the same respect for the dead as her lowered voice.

It must be hell to spend your whole day whispering. At the end of her day, did she get in her car, crank up the stereo and sing to it at the top of her lungs?

“Here we go. Lydia Mae Waters. Section thirty-four, row fifteen, marker three.” She handed him a map of the cemetery. “If you follow the main road to the back, turn at the first left and go straight. You’ll see the section markers.”

He stood, brochure in hand. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. And my condolences.” She gave him a sad smile, probably the same one she gave everyone who came in here.

He imagined her going home, changing into something other than the plain black suit she wore, and going out to a bar, where she could dance and laugh the night away. He hoped her life was more exciting than this.

He got back in the SUV and followed her instructions. Minutes later, he parked, got out and counted off the rows, then counted the markers.

 

Lydia Mae Waters

Born August 23, 1969

Died November 2, 1986

 

That was all. No “Beloved Child of…” No “Rest in Everlasting Peace”.

Brian’s eyes teared and his throat constricted. He hoped that when his time came, there would be more on his marker than his birth and death dates. That someone would care enough about him to remark on his passing that he would be missed and was once loved.

He lowered his head, said a brief prayer for Lydia and left.