Excerpt: ‘Mama Does Time’ ... for murder

Deborah Sharp's debut mystery, “Mama Does Time,” is set around Mama, a true Southern woman. One night, while settling in to look for ex-beaus on COPS, Mace gets a frantic call from her mother, and she's in trouble: Mama found a body in the trunk of her car and the police think she's the killer. An excerpt.

Chapter one
Mama just wanted to look pretty for high-stakes bingo night at the Seminole casino.

But her beautician left the peroxide on too long, and she’s been shedding like an Angora sweater ever since. Now, it turns out a patchy dye job is the least of my mother’s worries.

It all started with a phone call. I was just about to plop down with my left-over fried chicken in front of the TV, wanting to see if I could spot any of my ex-boyfriends on Cops, when the damned thing rang.

“Mace, honey, you’ve got to come down here and help me. I’m in a lot of trouble.’’

Mama’s voice was shaking. She sounded scared, like the time the raccoon came crashing from the attic through the bathroom ceiling while my little sister, Marty, was in a bubble bath.

“Slow down, Mama,’’ I told her. “Now, take a deep breath.’’

My mother is excitable. I’m used to such calls. Maybe she needed me to solve a romantic crisis, or come pluck a snake out of the engine of her vintage turquoise convertible. I work outdoors in Himmarshee, Florida, in the wild regions north of Lake Okeechobee. I’m accustomed to snakes.

“Start at the beginning and tell me what’s wrong,’’ I said.

I heard a shuddery sigh, and then silence. She cleared her throat. Finally she spoke.

“They’ve got me down here at the police station, Mace. They think I’ve killed a man.’’

If the kitchen counter hadn’t been there for me to grab a hold of, I’d have fallen out flat on the checkerboard pattern of my linoleum floor. I leaned my back against the wall and slid down slowly until my butt hit the baseboard. There I sat, clutching the receiver and searching for the proper response when your mother announces she’s got one foot behind bars for murder.

“Just sit tight and don’t say another word. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’’

I knew my advice would go untaken. The only time Mama’s mouth is shut is when she’s chewing on something.

“There was a man’s body in my trunk, Mace.’’

A strangled sob came through the phone. Then the story started pouring out.

“There was an accident,’’ she said, running the words together. “Everything started at the Dairy Queen. Or maybe at bingo. I’d ordered me a butterscotch dip. Then, two police cars came. I couldn’t even get a second cone. A pretty young girl hit me. The man had a diamond pinky ring.’’ She stopped for a breath. “You’d better call your sisters, Mace.’’

Deborah Sharp / Mark Gerber

The ability to make sense deserts Mama under stress. That doesn’t mean she stops trying. I needed to get to her before she conversated herself right into a correctional facility.

“Not another word. Do not say another word to anyone, you hear? You can fill me in when I get there. And Mama? Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’’

Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. But I hoped I sounded like I did. My two sisters and I spend a lot of time reassuring our mother that things will turn out fine. The amazing thing is, they usually do. But getting Mama from Point A to Point A-OK requires delicate maneuvering, truckloads of patience, and a fair amount of prayer.

I wasn’t sure this time if all those things together would be enough.

Chapter two:
I grabbed my keys from inside the toothy grin of a stuffed alligator head I keep on my coffee table. It’s a trapping souvenir from a ten-foot nuisance gator my cousin and I wrestled from a swimming pool. The pool’s owner, a newcomer, thought he wanted country living until the country came to call.

Within minutes, I was on my way to town to rescue Mama. I live twenty miles out, in a cottage made of native cypress cut from local swamps. But downtown Himmarshee itself isn’t much more than a bug speck on the windshield of a cattle-hauling truck. It seems like every week developers plant a new subdivision sign on former pastureland. But so far, the big cattle trucks still rumble along these narrow old highways north of Lake Okeechobee.

I opened the Jeep’s windows in addition to cranking the AC. We’re fifty miles from the nearest ocean breeze. Even at night, the summer heat in middle Florida is like a prelude to hell.

As I sped south, a full moon spilled light on fields dotted with palmetto scrub. Cows herded together under Sabal palms, dark shadows in the distance. The Monday night traffic was light. I was at the police department in no time at all.

Inside, I rounded a corner into the lobby and spotted my mother — Rosalee Deveraux, sixty-two years old last Fourth of July. She was clad in an orange-sherbet-colored pantsuit and matching pumps, perched on a desk like she owned the place. Someone must have just said something funny, because Mama’s head was reared back in a laugh.

The sound was reassuring. Strange, under the circumstances, but reassuring.

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