My nerves were fraught when I woke up the next morning. I dreamed Cedric called off the wedding and didn’t sleep as peacefully as I hoped. I threw off the covers and lifted my body to a sitting position. The sunlight was peeking strongly through the blind. On the other side of my bedroom, my roommate, a very round Corgi, raised his eyes to look at me but didn’t move from his doggy bed. Porgy knew once my feet hit the floor it was time to get some nibbles.
Ralph had never let the children own a pet. Two years ago, after the untimely death of an old friend and neighbor, Mary Fleming, I inherited Porgy. Or rather, he chose me as his new owner. I was still saddened by Mary’s death, especially since I was the one who found her. I also happened to be the one to discover her killer too. Retirement had been quite an adventure for me, but lately it had become quiet. The hair on my arm prickled as though something was telling me the quietness would soon change.
Today was Wednesday, my day to work the afterschool program at Missionary Baptist Church. I still had plenty of time to myself before heading out to open the church in the afternoon. I was tempted to call Cedric’s house where he and Carmen shared a home. Shacking as they would say in my day. I have to admit I was happy about the engagement making their sharing a home more official.
It was probably best to wait and let the couple work it out. I thought of two people I could talk to about what was ailing me. My aunt Cora, who was more like a sister since we were only two years apart. She was the last child birthed by my grandparents right around the time my dad had me. Lately, she was caught up taking care of her oldest sister, Aunt Esther. How the oldest and the youngest child were still left out of eight children was amazing since the two women were quite alike in many ways. I knew this early in the morning wouldn’t be a good time to call.
The next person on my list was my next-door neighbor. He probably was the better choice, mainly because I rather liked his company. Amos Jones and I have solved other mysteries together, and I was starting to think this man from Carmen’s past was indeed a mysterious one.
Why did he show up out of the blue, now? Carmen mentioned she saw him last week at the hospital. I wondered if it had anything to do with Carmen’s upcoming wedding. The past had a way of rearing its head when a person was trying to move towards the future.
I grabbed the phone and asked Amos if he would join me for breakfast. He never declined any of my meal invitations, and this morning was no different. I must say I never expected I would prepare meals for another man after losing Ralph almost five years ago. But over the years, Amos and I had become friends. Some folks like Carmen, Leesa and Cora claimed he may as well be my boyfriend. I was far too old for that nonsense, plus I liked the word companion better.
Amos was a retired detective and also a widow. His wife succumbed to breast cancer not too long after Ralph’s heart attack carried him away. Unlike me, where my children all still lived in South Carolina, Amos’s children lived around the country and rarely kept in touch with him. It was a conversation I tried to approach with him, but I often hit a wall. I knew he was hurt by the distance between his daughters and grandchildren. My family had accepted him, and he seemed to enjoy hanging around us.
By the time Amos arrived, I had taken a quick shower, dressed in a short sleeve blue maxi dress and placed turkey bacon in the oven. I wore an apron over my dress to keep it clean since it would serve me all day. I wouldn’t have tried this style of dress if not for my daughter, Leesa. She turned me onto it. The dress reached my ankles but didn’t feel like I was wearing a sheet. It moved with me as I walked keeping me comfortable and cool for yet another muggy September day in the South.
Amos grinned as I opened the door, probably excited from the smells wafting from the kitchen. Of course, I’d also noticed how his eyes swept over me and the way his brown eyes, gazed back at me like I was the most important person in the world. Once he stepped inside, he must have sensed my nervous mood because he raised an eyebrow. “Uh oh, let me guess, there’s trouble brewing in your brain.”
I swatted at him. “Not anything bad that would require police intervention.” I had stumbled into two crime scenes in the past two years. I was a retired social studies teacher, but somehow, I’d found myself solving murders. That wasn’t what I had in mind all those years ago when I thought about what I would do after I retired from the classroom.
As Amos followed me towards the kitchen, something about yesterday flashed into my mind. Darius was following us yesterday. Was he a danger to Carmen? Before Amos could sit at the table, I gasped and grabbed his arm. “I may have spoken too soon about police intervention.”
Amos shook his head. “Let me sit down for this. A sixth sense warned me that you didn’t just call me over for breakfast for no reason.”
I shrunk back. “I have fixed meals for you plenty of times.”
“Not since you started this wedding planning business with Carmen.”
I turned my eyes towards the ceiling, thinking that couldn’t be true. I went over to the stove to stir the grits. “Well, I’m not trying to avoid you. Cedric and Carmen sprang this October twenty-second date on us during the fourth of July picnic. End of August, when I asked them how the wedding planning was going, both said neither of them could find the time outside of their patients. Women have babies all the time and they need their doctors. When I heard they were considering going to the justice of the peace, I just couldn’t handle that.”
I huffed. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting on another wedding in this family? Junior has been married twelve years now. My two youngest children don’t seem to care about marriage. I was starting to think maybe Ralph and I had been a bad influence.”
Amos frowned. “People spend an enormous amount of money on weddings and seem to forget the importance of the marriage part. I should know. I spent $10,000 on my oldest daughter’s wedding. Then she and the guy divorced barely three years later. It’s good that young people take their time.”
I raised my eyebrow. Amos rarely shared information about his daughters. Seemed like they would have been more grateful to him. Growing up with a dad who was often missing and tied up in police cases, Amos felt the girls just didn’t know him.
It was a shame. Sometimes people didn’t know how to let go of grudges.
I grabbed four eggs out of the refrigerator and proceeded to crack them in a bowl. I added a little bit of ground pepper and then whisked the eggs. The entire time I scrambled the eggs in my favorite cast iron skillet, my mind kept going back to yesterday. “Amos, what can the police do about a stalker?”
Amos raised his bushy eyebrow at me. “You have one?”
“No, not me!” I sighed. “I guess I better start from the beginning. Yesterday, this guy shows up at the bakery where Carmen and I were taste-testing wedding cake. Oh, the cake is going to be so good, by the way. Anyway, Carmen was acting awfully funny the whole time, then this guy shows up. Carmen took one look at him, and the next thing I knew we were practically running for the car like our lives were in danger.”
I stopped my tirade long enough to turn the top and bottom stove off. I wasn’t about to burn the food while telling Amos what happened.
I turned around to face him. “Come to find out, that man was her ex-husband. Anyway, from the way Carmen told it, he was not a good guy at all. He sounded abusive. Thankfully, I calmed her down and we had lunch. But here’s the thing, that gave me the creeps. I could’ve sworn when we left the restaurant that I saw the man again. He had to be following us!”
Amos’s eyes were wide. “First of all, you kind of confused me with Carmen’s ex-husband, the abuse, etc. Did you know she was married before?”
I thought it best to save the food and placed on my oven mitts, pulling the pan of bacon out of the oven before my storytelling skills kicked in again. I slowly removed the mitts and turned to face Amos. “No. I had no idea. She hadn’t told Cedric either, and that has me worried. I don’t know how my son is going to react, and I haven’t heard anything yet. I hope he sees that she got mixed up with a man when she was way too young.”
I was in overdrive. My thoughts and mouth were moving, but that wasn’t stopping me from getting breakfast ready. All of this worrying had me hungry.
I took down some plates and placed the hot food on the table. “This man, Darius something. No wait, I think Carmen said Darius Randall. I don’t understand why he showed up now.” I sat and threw up my hands. “I don’t know whether I should be more worried about this guy sneaking around or whether there is going to be a wedding at all?”
I looked at the table. “Oh, I didn’t get us any utensils to eat with. Do you want some coffee?”
Amos held up his hands. “Let me get it, Eugeena. I think you need to calm your nerves.”
I watched as Amos walked right over to the kitchen drawer that held the forks and then to the top kitchen cabinet. He took down two large white mugs. It occurred to me that Amos knew his way around my kitchen quite well. I can’t say it bothered me, it was actually a bit of a comfort.
Ralph would have never offered.
Amos brought two steaming cups of coffee back to the table. We served ourselves and then ate in peace. At least until my cell phone rang.
My heart started beating fast. I looked over at Amos who stared at me as though to ask, Are you going to answer that?
I looked at the phone and saw Carmen’s pretty face smiling back at me. I really liked the iPhone and other tech toys my children pitched in to give me, but sometimes it felt like I was in a twilight zone to see how these toys worked. I picked up on the second ring. “Hello. Carmen?”
“Eugeena, I can’t get Cedric on the phone.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Did you talk to him last night?”
“I did. He was really upset. I don’t know what to think. He left the house and didn’t come back this morning. I need your help.”
“Have you checked the hospital?”
Carmen wailed. “I’ve called everywhere. I’m so sorry to call you, but… I don’t know what to do. I need to know where he is.”
My mind tried to understand Carmen’s anguish. It occurred to me there was something more going on than trying to find Cedric. “Carmen, where are you?”
I could hardly hear her breathing on the other end.
“Carmen, are you there? Please tell me where you are. I’ll do my best to find Cedric.”
“Ms. Eugeena, the cops are here now. Please, find Cedric for me.”
I shot up from my chair, practically knocking it to the floor. “What? Wait a minute! What do you mean the cops are there now? Where are you? Carmen, talk to me.”
“He’s dead. Darius is dead. At least he can’t bother me anymore.”
The line went dead, and my mouth fell open. Amos stood from his chair, staring at me. “Eugeena? What did Carmen say?”
“Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to think. That guy is dead. Carmen said the cops just showed up. We’ve got to find Cedric. Right now!”
But where was Carmen?