Peaches and Scream (Georgia Peach Mystery, A) (4 page)

She turned toward me with blazing eyes and threw up her hands. “Okay. So, I don’t know where he is. He didn’t come home last night. But that doesn’t mean he killed that man.”

“Yes, but it sure doesn’t look good for him,” Ray pointed out.

I nodded. “I agree. You have to admit, Hollis has a lot stacked against him.” I held up my hand and started ticking a list off my fingers. “He was the last person seen with your scarf. We know he left our table to find Wakefield and discuss something with him. And now he’s missing the morning after Wakefield is murdered.”

Ida shrugged. “There’s not really anything that suspicious about Hollis being gone. There’s been plenty of nights lately where he hasn’t come home.”

Both Ray and I did a double take. “He’s done this before?” Ray asked.

Ida nodded and began rubbing her belly again. “The drinking has become a problem. It’s not Hollis’s fault, mind you. There’s just so much stress lately at the bank. He can’t help himself.”

I narrowed my eyes at my sister.
When did she become such a doormat?

“It’s all this stuff with that timber deal,” she added.

Ray leaned forward. “The Wakefield Lumber deal?”

“Yes.” Ida lowered her chin and started fussing with her blouse. “I don’t understand all of Hollis’s business, but something went bad with the deal last week. Like I said, I don’t know what. I was so busy decorating for Mama and Daddy’s party, I’m afraid I didn’t really pay much attention to anything else.”

“Was Hollis upset or something?” I asked.

Ida’s head bobbed up and down. “I’d say. He came home one day after work and locked himself in his office with a bunch of papers and a bottle of Peach Jack. I could hear him screaming on the phone at someone. I finally had to take the girls down to the Tasty Freeze for a dip cone just so they wouldn’t hear all those ugly words.”

Ray was scribbling a few notes on a legal pad. “But you don’t know what it was about?” he asked.

“No. Like I said, I’ve been so busy I’ve hardly had time to breathe, let alone sit down and talk things over with Hollis. Then there’s all this stuff with Daddy.” As soon as she’d said it, Ida’s hand flew to her mouth. She let out a little gasp, looking like someone who’d just let the cat out of the bag.

I sat a little straighter. “What do you mean? What’s going on with Daddy?”

Ray shot Ida a look and sucked in his breath. “He’s having financial trouble. Things haven’t been going so well around here lately. We had a warm spell late winter and a lot of the trees blossomed out. Then a late frost hit.” He shrugged. “Well, you know how it goes.”

I nodded. So much of fruit farming relies on Mother Nature’s cooperation. One bad frost can wipe out an entire crop. Still, we’d weathered through many a bad growing season and come out just fine. “Sure, but Daddy always has money in reserve for the bad seasons, right?”

Ida squirmed a bit in the chair, readjusting her body and pulling her legs up to one side.

Ray continued, “It’s just that there’s been so many things going wrong lately. The price of fertilizer and pesticide has almost doubled in the last couple of years. Then we had to replace one of the trucks and redo some of the irrigation lines. So, the reserve has dwindled.”

This was all news to me. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing all this?”

Ida let out a long sigh and rubbed her temples.

Ray squinted her way before responding, “Mama and Daddy didn’t want to worry you. Besides, Hollis was bringing them in on the Wakefield deal. Daddy was leasing the rights to the timber on the back twenty. He stood to make good money off it. Things were looking up.” He paused for a second as if considering his words. “It’s just that all this financial stress has been hard on him. You should probably know that he’s been having some health issues.”

“Health issues?” I about fell out of my chair. “Like what?”

Ida cleared her throat and sighed impatiently.

“Just a little trouble with his heart,” Ray continued. “Palpitations, that’s all. Nothing real serious. Doc Harris said this trip would be good for him. A little time away from all the stress is just what he needs.”

Ah, so that’s why Ray was so adamant that we not call our parents.
He was trying to shield Daddy from any additional stress. Which made me wonder just how bad things really were. Did Ray know more than he was saying? Was he trying to protect me, too?

“Listen to you two!” Ida, who’d grown more restless by the second, blurted out. “Daddy’s stress? What about me? What about Hollis? I know it looks bad for him, but there’s just no way he killed that man. But that dim-witted Maudy Payne is out there right now, hot on Hollis’s trail, like a hound on a coon. Lawd knows what she’ll do once she catches up to him.
And what if she throws him in jail? What will I do then?” She looked toward Ray and me, her eyes filled with worry. “I’ve got the baby coming, and the girls to think of. . . .” Her voice broke away into a fresh round of hysterics.

“I’ll do everything I can to help Hollis,” Ray was quick to promise. “First, though, we need to find him. I’d like to have a chance to talk to him before Sheriff Payne gets ahold of him. Especially if he hasn’t sobered up yet. Hard telling what he’ll blab.” He leveled his gaze on Ida. “Any idea where we should start?”

She shook her head. “No, no idea. The last I saw him was when we were leaving the party. The girls were getting tired, so we decided to leave around ten. We drove separate cars, so I said good-bye to Mama and Daddy and took the girls on back to the house. I just assumed Hollis was right behind me, but he never showed up.”

“You weren’t worried about him driving? He’d been drinking quite a bit last night,” I said.

She shrugged. “He’d started laying off the liquor a couple hours earlier. The last I talked to him, he seemed pretty sober.” Her eyes suddenly widened with worry. “Why? Do you think he’s been in an accident?” She unfolded her legs and abruptly stood, faltering a bit and reaching toward the desk to catch her balance.

I sprung up to help steady her. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Like you said, there’s been a lot of nights he hasn’t come home.” I hedged a bit, unsure of how to ask the next question. Finally I decided to just come out with it. “Is it possible there’s another woman?”

“No!” Ida snapped, shaking off my hand. “Hollis isn’t like that. He’s a devoted husband and father.”

Except for the time he made a pass at me.
But I didn’t say that. I’d actually never told a soul about what happened the night before Ida’s wedding, excusing it as just another one of Hollis’s drunken blunders and afraid Ida would call
off the whole marriage. Nothing like it had ever happened again, thank goodness! I just wished I could forget about it altogether, but truth was, some things were just downright unforgettable.

“Okay, okay,” Ray said, holding up his hands. “Ida, why don’t you head home and wait for Hollis there. Nola and I will start looking around town. Maybe we can get to him before the sheriff does.”

Georgia Belle Fact #097:
A smart Georgia Belle never drinks too much; she just sips a lot.

Ray’s words stuck in my head long after Ida left. How bad was Daddy’s “little trouble with his heart”? Apparently bad enough that neither Ray nor Ida nor our parents had told me about it. Could all this business about Hollis and murder be enough to put Daddy over the edge, plunging to the other side? The seriousness of it all grabbed ahold of me and squeezed at my own heart: Daddy’s health, the farm’s financial trouble, and now Hollis. Worst of all, a teeny tiny part of me wondered whether Hollis didn’t strangle Ben Wakefield, and if he did, where would that leave my sister? A single mom raising three children on her own? I could hardly bear the thought of it. And my poor nieces. You could say what you wanted about Hollis Shackleford. You could rightly call him a greedy, drunken, skirt-chasing, no-good pig, but you could never say he wasn’t a good father. In fact, those sweet little girls worshiped the ground their daddy walked on and he treated them like little princesses. Damn that man! How could he get mixed up in all this?

“Nola?” Ray’s voice brought me back into focus. “Were you listening to me?”

I nodded. “Sure. You want to split up and look for Hollis.”

“Yeah. You hit the diner and the businesses off the square. I’ll head out toward the county line. Maybe he went to the Honky Tonk after the party. He could still be there in the lot, uh . . . recuperating.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said, but my insides went wiggly at the mere mention of the Honky Tonk Bar. I so hated the place that I hadn’t ventured back since the night before Ida’s wedding, almost eight years ago now. After the rehearsal dinner, Ida went back home to get her beauty sleep while the rest of us headed out to the Honky Tonk to check out the band. We were just planning to kick back a little, do some line dancing and maybe take a spin on Bodacious, their mechanical bull. Only, halfway through the evening, a snookered Hollis corralled me on the way back from the loo and tried to grope me. Of course, I set him straight, but to this day, I couldn’t look at the guy without thinking of a line from that old Georgia Satellites song: “Don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.”

I shook off the memory of it all and retreated to my bedroom, two steps at a time, where I grabbed my cell and some extra cash and did a quick check in the mirror. Before I’d even made it down the porch steps, the sound of Maudy’s gruff voice stopped me in my tracks.

“I said this tent isn’t going anywhere. This is a crime scene, you idiot.”

Shoot. I forgot about the tent people!
I glanced over toward the tree line. Sure enough, the people from the rental company had arrived and were caught up in a tug-of-war involving one of the peach tree poles and Sheriff Payne. It was two against one, but it looked like the sheriff was winning. Something about her broad-stanced posture and the gun on her hip gave her a certain edge.

“This tent is part of a crime scene, and if you take it down, I’ll arrest you for tampering with evidence,” Maudy
barked as a crepe paper peach fell and knocked her on the shoulder.

The tent guy threw up his hands. “If you say so, but my boss ain’t going to like this. We’ll have to charge these people extra.”

Charge us extra?
I skipped down the porch steps. “Do you really need the whole tent?” I asked the sheriff.

Maudy folded her arms across her chest and nodded. “Yup. And the tables and chairs and everything else. It all stays exactly how it is until I say so.”

My jaw dropped. “But that could cost us a fortune in rental fees.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Well, I’d advise that next time you throw a party, you make sure none of your guests are murdered.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but shut it again. It wouldn’t do to get on the sheriff’s bad side. Besides, I knew what her real problem was and it wasn’t about preserving the crime scene. No, the real problem was as plain as day. Maudy was ticked about not being invited to the party. I could see her point of view—it’s never fun to be excluded—but then again, why would Ida invite her old high school nemesis? And while no one remembered exactly what had started the tension between my sister and Maudy Payne, everyone sure as heck remembered their infamous catfight behind the football bleachers. I was sure it still stuck in Maudy’s craw that my sister bested her that day. But I didn’t have time to soothe Maudy’s rumpled feathers. I was on a mission. “Okay, then.” I shrugged and turned to the rental guys. “I’ll call when the sheriff is done with the tent. I wouldn’t think it would take more than a day or so extra,” I added, glancing Maudy’s way, before heading toward my vehicle. She met my look with an icy stare.

On the spur of the moment, I decided to take a back-road shortcut into town. Boy, was I glad Helping Hands International rented a four-wheel-drive Jeep for me to use during my time stateside; any other vehicle would have bottomed out on this road. Nonetheless, about twenty minutes of butt-busting bumps
later, my not-so-much-of-a-shortcut finally got me to Cays Mill. I worked my way around the square until I found a parking spot just down from Red’s Diner.

Walking through the door, I found the place was filled to the hilt with local farmers sipping coffee and shooting the bull. Bits and pieces of peach-farming conversation floated through the air as I made my way to the counter. Ginny spied me at once. “Hey, there, Nola. Great party last night. I had a ton of fun.” She gave a nod to the coffeepot in her hand. “Maybe too much fun,” she went on. “Can’t seem to get enough of this stuff to clear my head. I’ve already messed up a couple orders. Gave Frank there scrambled eggs instead of over easy.”

A burly man at the counter jerked his head up. “And you forgot to butter my grits.”

“Now, Frank, you didn’t say buttered when you ordered those grits,” Ginny countered.

“Aw, now, don’t give me any grief, Ginny. How many years have I been coming in here and ordering my grits buttered and you went and left it off the ticket today.” He looked at me with a wink. “She’s no good for nothin’ today.”

Ginny shook her head and laughed good-naturedly. Reaching under the counter, she snatched a mug and flipped it right side up in front of me. “Bet you need a little of this, don’t ya, sweetie?”

I waved it away. “Actually, I just stopped by to see if you’ve seen Hollis?”

“Hollis? Not since last night.” She tucked one of her reddish curls behind her ear and leaned in close, a conspiratorial gleam in her eye. “Why?”

“Uh . . .” I struggled for the right words. If I wasn’t careful, I’d start the rumor train chugging full force down the track. And by full force, I meant fast! No doubt, if you went around examining the mouths on the people around here, you’d discover racing stripes painted right down the middles of their tongues.

“Order up,” a booming voice announced as two heaping plates appeared on the ledge behind Ginny. She reached
around and grabbed the plates, then turned back to me. “Don’t go anywhere. Let me get these out and I’ll be right back.”

I shifted impatiently on the stool and glanced around the place. It was good to see Red’s Diner was still the same—a throwback to simpler times. Well, not exactly a throwback. In reality, Red’s was caught up in a mid-century time warp with speckled Formica tabletops, steel-framed chairs and vinyl-covered booths. A silver napkin dispenser and a handled basket with ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, and salt and pepper rested atop each table. Actually, looking a little closer, I decided not a thing had changed since Ginny’s folks opened the place way back when.

True to her word, Ginny hurried back to her position behind the counter. She stuck a ticket on a silver spindle and gave it a spin. “Make that bacon crisp, Sam,” she yelled through the window. “And give Nola Mae a holler, why don’t you?”

A hand shot through the window and waved. “Hey, Nola. Great party last night.”

“Hey, Sam,” I returned. Sam and Ginny had been several years ahead of me in high school, Sam being a football player and Ginny part of the cheer squad. They’d gotten married straightaway after graduation and started running the diner. I used to wonder if they’d stay together. Sometimes marrying too young led to disappointment later on, but Sam and Ginny always seemed happy together.

I slid off the stool, making my excuses. “I’ve really got to get going, Ginny. I’ll stop back by later and we can catch up, okay?”

She lurched forward and grabbed my forearm. “No, you don’t. Tell me what’s happened to Hollis first. Has he gone missing?”

I glanced around, but no one seemed to be listening. “He didn’t come home last night and Ida’s worried, that’s all,” I whispered.

“Really? I hear he does that a lot. What’s got her so worked up this time?”

Squirming in place, I shot a wishful glance at the door.
I really needed to get a move on; there was still a lot of ground to cover. “Who knows? Probably just pregnancy hormones. You must know how it is.”

“Do I ever!” she exclaimed, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “Doesn’t seem all that long ago that we were having babies. Of course, we started so early, you know.” Ginny and Sam were not that much older than Ida, but they’d jumped the gun in the baby department, so to speak. Both their kids must practically be grown now. I’d love to ask if Emily, their youngest, had been presented to society as a debutante—a wonderfully old-fashioned southern tradition that I, sadly enough, skipped during my rebellious period—but there wasn’t enough time for that whole conversation at the moment. Unfortunately, Ginny was oblivious to my need to hurry. She kept rambling on. “You know our Jake’s a sophomore now at the University of Georgia and Emily’s a high school senior and is—”

“Can I get some more coffee over here, Ginny,” someone called out.

I took the opportunity to make a break for it. “We’ll catch up some more later,” I told her. “But if you see Hollis, tell him to give me a call.”

I was just about to leave when the buttered-grits Frank touched my arm. “Try down at the barbershop. If he’s not there or at the bank, there’s only one other place to look.”

“Where’s that, sir?”

“Up at McManamy Draw out by the lake. He parks up there sometimes to sleep it off. I’ve seen him there when I’m out fishing.”

I patted the old man’s arm, thanking him for the information.

Leaving the diner, I headed toward the twisting barber’s pole around the corner. Maybe Hollis had headed in for a shave and a trim. He
was
looking a little long around the collar the night before.

“Hey, there,” I said, as the door jingled shut behind me. Earl, the bald-headed owner, had the buzzers out and was going to town on a young man. A waiting customer stood in
the corner by the watercooler with a cup in hand, his gaze fixated on a small television mounted on the wall. One of the popular morning news shows was playing.

“Hey, there, Nola,” Earl said, turning off the buzzer and reaching for a large white-bristled brush. He started whapping it against the guy’s neck, sending bits and pieces of hair flying into the air like a snowstorm.

“Have you seen Hollis this morning?” I asked.

“No, not this morning. Hey!” he called out to the guy by the watercooler. “You seen Hollis Shackleford this morning?”

“What’s that?” the guy asked, peeling his eyes from the television and spitting a mouthful of chewed sunflower shells into his cup. “Hollis Shackleford?”

I nodded.

“Can’t say I have. He’s not at the bank?”

“No. I already called there.”

“Did you check at the diner?”

I nodded again.

“How ’bout up the Draw? He sometimes goes out there to . . .” He paused, his eyes shifting to the side. “To commune with nature.”

The guys all chuckled at that. I chuckled too, but only halfheartedly. I was actually wondering why the whole town knew so much about Hollis’s habits. First Ginny and Frank at the diner, now these guys. I was beginning to think Hollis was the laughingstock of the town. My poor sister. Ida was always so prim and proper, Hollis’s ill-gained reputation was probably hard on her. And I knew better than anyone how hard it could be to escape the wrath of Cays Mill’s gossipmongers. There was a time when a few of my youthful indiscretions wreaked havoc on the Harpers’ good name. Not to mention that one horrible thing, the granddaddy of all indiscretions, which sent me packing before word got out and a plight worse than peach-eating fruit moths befell my family. Hopefully, we could find Hollis and get to the bottom of this mess before things got that far out of hand.

I let out another nonchalant chuckle and quickly thanked the gentlemen for their help. Back outside, I shielded my eyes against the late-morning sun and glanced around the square. Already heat was blazing off the walks, causing the petunias in the baskets hanging from the light poles to droop and shrivel. Even the courthouse flag was lying flat against the pole, nary a breeze in sight to make it wave. Scanning the sidewalks for a sign of Hollis, my eyes hit on the Clip & Curl, Hattie’s Boutique and Pistil Pete’s Flower Shop before wandering over a few vacant storefronts and back up the opposite side to the hardware store. Finally my gaze landed on Sugar’s Bakery—the sight of which made me pause, my mouth watering for a slice of Ezra Sugar’s famous lemon chess pie. I was standing there, momentarily distracted by my sweet tooth, when my cell rang. It was Ida.