Mama Stalks the Past Read Online Free PDF

firmly.
    “Now that I think of it, I don’t know if I like the idea of going into the house where that old woman was poisoned,” I said.
    “The house is harmless, Simone. It’s her killer you need to fear.”
    “Everybody is so neighborly in town. Somebody must have really hated Hannah Mixon to bump her off like that,” I pointed out.
    “There was always talk about the spiteful things Hannah did to people,” Mama murmured.
    “Like what?” I, like Mama, had never spoken to Hannah Mixon in the five years she’d lived next to my parents. But I well remember her pinched, narrow face and unripe-apple sour scowl.
    “Well, she called the police on the children in the neighborhood. Mr. Brown swears she tried to poison his two German shepherds, and peoplecaught her dumping trash in their yards. I know for a fact that Mr. Jeffers swore that if one more thing happened between him and Hannah Mixon, he was going to make it miserable for her to continue living around here.” Mama shook her head.
    “She sounds like she was a crab, but that’s no reason for somebody to poison her.”
    “I’m not trying to justify her murder, Simone. I’m trying to say that her killer might have had a motive. One thing for sure, whoever killed Hannah had no emotion while doing it. Putting that arsenic in her food wasn’t a crime of passion, it was cold and very cruel. Abe said that there were no signs of a struggle, so it could have been somebody Hannah perceived as a friend.”
    “Did she have any friends?”
    “I don’t think she had many visitors. Be honest, Simone, I knew very little about my neighbor,” Mama said.
    “You knew she stirred up the neighborhood.”
    “Yes, but there must have been more to Hannah Mixon. I suppose the best thing to do is to contact my sources—”
    “Miss Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls,” I interrupted gleefully.
    “I’ve got the feeling that Sarah, Annie Mae, and Carrie knew a great deal about Hannah Mixon,” Mama said. “You know, Simone, somethingkeeps surfacing in my mind. There is an old saying that if you want to know a person, examine his behavior. Hannah was mean to everybody else, but she did love Nat. It just doesn’t make sense that she didn’t leave him that property.”
    I walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the water pitcher.
    “Do you realize its market value? If there’s timber to be cut from that land, it could make a person very rich!” Mama continued.
    “True.” I poured a glass of water. “But what harm could Hannah have thought would come to Nat by owning it?”
    Mama walked over to the window and straightened the curtain. “The selling price for prime farm and timberland around here is probably thousands of dollars.”
    “The words ‘thousands of dollars’ would blow Nat’s mind.”
    “That boy owes everybody in town,” Mama agreed. “I feel sorry for him. Hannah did Nat an injustice by never making him finish school or teaching him how to work. Now that she’s gone, he doesn’t know how to do anything for himself.”
    “He knows how to spend money,” I retorted. “I bet that whatever money he’ll get from the insurance will be gone in six months.”
    “Sooner,” Mama murmured, turning to look back out the window. Then her body stiffened and she said urgently, “Come here!”
    I joined her at the window. From across the street, a man walked casually, stepping toward the front door of the white-and-green Mixon house. But the man didn’t ring the bell. Instead, he waited. Then, after a minute, he reached out, twisted the knob. The door opened. The man stood motionless. Then, without going inside, he closed the door, turned, and walked quickly away from the house, down Smalls Lane.
    I touched Mama’s arm. “Who was that?”
    “Moody Hamilton,” Mama answered.
    “Who?”
    “Moody’s people are from around Pleasant Hill, near Darien. He was raised by his grandmother, who died last fall.”
    “Is he like Nat?” I