It was a good thing I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. It would’ve ended up on Mary’s patio floor, which I’m sure the crime scene investigators wouldn’t have appreciated. I scooped up poor Porgy as fast as I could, and took off running like a mad woman back down the hill. I know I scared poor Amos. He’d looked up and almost collided with the boxwoods shrubbery bordering my property. Amos cut off the lawn mower and rushed toward me.
I grabbed his arm. “It’s Mary. I think she’s dead.”
Amos whipped out his cell phone and punched in some numbers.
I plunked the dog and myself down on my front porch steps. For the next thirty minutes, official looking vehicles ascended the hill. It wasn’t long before my neighbors ventured out of their homes, probably disturbed by all the sirens.
I, on the other hand, was disturbed for another reason. I would never have the chance to make up for lost time with Mary. I felt so many times the Lord drawing me to be the bigger person4, after all, I did make the biggest fuss. Now all was lost.
Porgy sat by my side, panting his little heart out. His black eyes looked so sad; I could barely stand to look at him. I placed my hands over my eyes to block out my surroundings, wishing I could curl up in a ball.
All of a sudden Porgy started barking. I moved my hands from my face to find a person staring at me from across the street.
Wayne Goodman.
I watched that boy grow up. Really, I couldn’t call him a boy, more like a man who never quite grew up. Trouble followed Wayne like a cat set on a mouse’s trail. In and out of prison, so I heard, I knew he was in his late thirties, around the age of my youngest son. Other than occupying his deceased mother’s home, he didn’t seem to be up to much of anything with his life.
A few months before, we had a string of burglaries. In my opinion, the crimes really started when Wayne showed back up. I could be a little on the judgmental side, but that boy seemed a bit too old to be wearing his pants slung down round his hips. What happened to wearing belts? And someone please give me some clippers so I can have at that head of hair. Half braided, half afro. Make up your mind, mister.
“Eugeena. Eugeena.”
I took my eyes off Wayne to catch Louise Hopkins shuffling down the sidewalk from her house, which was on the other side of mine. If I had to say seventy-year old Louise was my oldest friend in the world. Her once blond hair had turned completely white. She was the spunkiest white woman I’d ever met.
We didn’t too much like each other at first. Funny, how God worked through an armor of fears and stereotypes to form a friendship.
I stood. “Louise, you better slow down. We don’t need you breaking your hip.”
“Oh please. Don’t nothing hold me back. What about you? I heard you found Mary.”
How did she hear so fast? I wasn’t trying to figure it out either. Louise had probably lived in Sugar Creek the longest, back during a time when the neighborhood wasn’t quite as diverse. One time she even told me her great great-granddaddy owned a plantation right here in Charleston. That turned out to be one interesting conversation.
Anyhow, there was nothing Louise didn’t know. She’d outlived two husbands and two children. The one child she had left, William, was traipsing off somewhere in the Louisiana bayou or was it the Florida Everglades. I couldn’t keep up with Louise’s stories of her son’s adventures. I rarely saw the man and often wondered if ole Louise wasn’t telling some fibs every now and then.
“Well, what happened?” Louise leaned on my porch railing trying to catch her breath.
Porgy yipped and yapped.
“Shush, little dog. It’ll be okay.”
“You got Mary’s dog there. That little mutt must really like you. I’m a cat person myself. Always will be.”
Porgy growled. Smart little thing. He even knew when someone insulted him.
I picked up the dog and he nestled under my arm. “I had to do something. He would’ve been in the way of…”
“The cops. Eugeena, there were so many cars heading towards Mary’s house. You know I had a bad feeling. We talked about this the other night, remember?”
“Yeah.” I wish Louise hadn’t reminded me. Louise started the neighborhood watch program years ago and was still in shock she had asked me to head it up. I didn’t know anything about running a watch. Sticking my nose out the window from time to time to make note of suspicious characters seemed to be the only thing I knew to do.
By now, several neighbors were swarming in from every direction like ants at a church picnic, coming to invade my front yard. As the official president of the Sugar Creek Neighborhood Watch, people needed me to keep them informed. I hope no one thought I was going to invite them in for coffee and donuts. I was in no mood to be hospitable.
I discovered my former friend’s dead body and I might not ever be the same. Sweet Jesus, help me.