Rest in Peach (19 page)

“Love will make you do crazy things, no doubt about it,” Mrs. Busby chimed in from behind the folding screen where she was working at her alteration table.

“That’s right,” I agreed with a nod. “Besides, this is all just some weird misunderstanding.”

“I don’t think so, Nola.” Hattie reached under the counter and pulled up a bakery box. I leaned forward and watched her flip it open.

“What’s that?”

“Cookies,” she replied, snatching one up and taking a quick bite.

I reached over and helped myself to a shortbread cookie dipped in chocolate. The combination of buttery shortbread and deep, rich chocolate was like a party in my mouth. “You’re eating cookies? I hardly ever see you eat sweets,” I mumbled, my mouth still half full.

“She’s a stress eater,” Mrs. Busby offered from behind the screen.

Hattie nodded and grabbed one more cookie before replacing the lid and sliding her stash back under the counter. “Anyway, like I was saying. This isn’t some sort of misunderstanding. Half the town knows he’s having a fling.”

“What do you mean, half the town knows? Like who?”

She shrugged. “Like everyone.” I could see her hand itching to grab up the box of cookies again, but she refrained, drumming her nails against the counter instead. “Just this morning, Candace from the bank came into the shop to tell me she was sorry to hear of my relationship trouble. Of course, she said she had a feeling about Pete. Saw him giving roses to some woman the other day right out in front of the Mercantile.”

I threw up my hands. “He’s a florist, for crying out loud!”

“That’s what I told her,” Mrs. Busby said. I couldn’t really see her behind the screen, but I imagined her head was bobbing up and down as she spoke. At least there was another voice of reason in the room.

Hattie waved away our comments and continued, “Then Doris from the Clip and Curl came by. She was telling me that one of her clients spotted Pete driving around Perry last week.” She lifted her chin and looked over my shoulder. “Hey, Carla. Would you mind getting those shelves along the backside? The dust is horrible back there.” She turned her attention back to me and continued, “Her client didn’t get a real clear view, but she said it looked like a woman was in the car with him.”

I shook my head, wishing I could tell her the real story and put her mind at ease, but I’d promised not to give away the secret. I was just trying to figure out another approach when the bells above the door jingled. It was Frances Simms.

“Hello, Nola. I’ve been looking for you.” She nodded toward the other ladies. “Mrs. Busby. Hattie.” Then she turned back to me. “I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions about what happened at the church the other day.”

I stiffened. I’d taken time to read the article the night before and knew it didn’t mention anything about a suicide or the real reason Maggie was in the hospital—attempted murder. “You already had an article about it in yesterday’s paper. There’s nothing else I can tell you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I think there’s a lot more to the story.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Busby walk around the edge of the folding screen and root herself nearby, hands on her hips and dark eyes flashing. I sucked in my breath, wondering what Frances had heard. So far it seemed
the town’s busybodies hadn’t caught wind of the fact that someone tried to kill Maggie. Maybe they were too busy with gossiping about Hattie and Pete to worry too much about Maggie.

“I have my sources, after all,” Frances continued. “Every good newspaper reporter does.” She glanced around the room for affirmation. From whom, I wasn’t sure. Did she think we were going to assure her that she was a good reporter? Not a chance.

Frances’s beady eyes gleamed as she continued, “I tried to be discreet in yesterday’s article, not mentioning anything about Maggie trying to kill herself.” All around me I heard little exclamations of surprise. Hattie gasped, Mrs. Busby furrowed her brows and let out a long
hmmmm
sound and somewhere behind me I heard a muffled whimper. That one bothered me the most. From what I had gathered, Maggie had befriended Carla in the library, and I assumed Carla didn’t have many friends. I hated the fact that she was hearing this.

“Oh yes,” Frances went on, obviously enjoying the drama she was creating. “I knew about the sleeping pills found at the scene. As did you, Nola Mae, being you’re the one who found her.” Her tone was accusatory. Like I was supposed to rush right over to the newspaper office and report my finding to her. “But I have too many scruples to disclose something like a suicide attempt in my column. For the family’s sake.”

No one said anything. As for me, I kept my mouth shut, afraid of what I might say once I got started.

“But my source says it wasn’t suicide after all,” Frances continued. “But attempted
murder
.”

A sudden crashing sound averted our focus. Carla had knocked over a display of necklaces. “I’m sorry, Ms. McKenna,” she said, scrambling to pick them up off the floor.

I crossed the room to give her a hand. From over my
shoulder, Frances continued asking questions as I worked to pick up the jewelry. “Was anyone else at the church when you found Maggie?” And, “Did you notice signs of a struggle?” She’d whipped out a notebook and pen as if she actually thought I was going to answer her questions. Carla seemed to become more agitated with every question. Her fingers trembled as she tried to untangle two necklaces that had become knotted together. “Or, did you notice any unusual marks on her body? Scratches? Torn clothing?”

With that, Carla dropped the chain and clenched her fists together. Her face flushed red, and I noticed tears forming along the edges of her eyes. I clamped a hand over one of her fists. “Just calm down. I’ll take care of this.”

I stood and wheeled around. “Look here, Frances. These questions are out of line. If you really want to know the answers, I suggest you go talk to Maudy Payne.”

Frances’s head sunk back into her neck, reminding me of a scared turtle. “I did. But she wouldn’t comment.”

“Well, neither will I!”

Hattie spoke up. “I think it’s best you leave, Frances. Your questions are upsetting and inappropriate considering there’s a child in the room.”

Frances’s gaze fell on Carla. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Mrs. Busby said, stepping forward and pointing toward the door. The room fell silent as Frances considered her options. Finally, she folded her notebook, tucked it back into her bag and sauntered out.

“Well, I’ll be!” Mrs. Busby said, as soon as the door shut. “The nerve of that woman.”

While Hattie and Mrs. Busby started chewing over Frances’s annoying attributions, I put my hand on Carla’s arm and gave her a little tug. “Hattie,” I interrupted. “If you don’t mind, I think Carla and I might head down the road for some ice
cream. I think she could use a break.” I glanced at my watch on the way out the door. I was due to meet with Cade in an hour. He’d called earlier in the day and talked me into taking the evening off from working with Ginny and heading over to a small town just over the county line to some new restaurant that had recently opened. Cade had heard they had the best chicken fried steak around.

“I don’t really like ice cream,” Carla announced as soon as we were outside. She turned on her heel and started walking in the opposite direction. “I’m gonna head home. I’m not feeling so great.”

“I noticed that,” I said, skipping to keep up with her. “Seems you got that way as soon as you heard someone tried to kill Maggie.”

Her tennis shoe snagged a crack in the walk, and she started to stumble forward. “You okay?” I asked, my arm shooting out to help steady her. But she batted it away and kept walking.

I did a little hop and a jog to maneuver in front of her. “My truck’s parked right across the square. Let me give you a ride home.” She started to go around me, so I shuffle-stepped to block her way. “I insist. We need to talk anyway.”

“About what?”

“The purse that was stashed behind the diner. Vivien Crenshaw’s
purse.”

Debutante Rule #089:
Learn how to cook right. After all, a good Southern meal can make a person forget bout anything.

I’d only driven about three blocks when Carla cracked. It started with a shaky admission: “I know something about Mrs. Jones.” My gaze darted across the seat to where she sat, slumped over, tapping her cell phone nervously against her leg. “And I think maybe it had something to do with someone trying to kill her,” she added, with a little sob.

Giving the wheel a sudden crank, I whipped into the nearby grade school parking lot and threw the truck out of gear. My quick maneuvering sent the empty peach crates in the back crashing against the side of the truck bed, but I didn’t care. Carla wasn’t the crying type. Something big was going on, and I sensed she needed help. “What is it, Carla? What’s happened?”

“I’m going to be in big trouble.” I noticed her bottom lip trembling as she spoke. “I did something wrong.”

“Tell me.”

She raked her hand through her hair, revealing the silver
studs that pierced the sinewy part of her earlobe. “I was at the library when Tara and her friends came in. They were acting all giggly and talking about cotillion stuff, like they always do. I was sick of hearing about all that, so I packed up my stuff and left. Mrs. Jones was there that afternoon, too. She left before me.”

“And then what happened?”

She shot me a sideways glance, her dark eyes angry and untrusting.

“I’m on your side, Carla. Whether you think so or not.” I softened my tone and pressed on. “Why is it you think you’re in trouble?”

For a second, she seem to detach from the conversation, her eyes staring out across the school’s playground with an almost wistful look. I tried to imagine this girl as a young child swinging carelessly on a school playground, laughing as she pumped her legs to propel herself higher and higher into the air. Idly, I wondered what had happened to make her stop reaching for the sky.

“I was taking out the trash at the diner, the day after it happened,” she finally said, her voice just a little over a whisper. “And there was a purse in the bin. Just lying there, right on top. A nice purse.” She stumbled a bit over her words and began picking at a bracelet tied around her wrist. The edges of the bracelet were frayed and dirty. Looking closer, I could see it was made from braided shoelaces. From her friends back home in Chicago? “There was money in it,” she continued. “About two hundred bucks.”

“It was Vivien’s purse.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t know that until later, though. Anyway, someone was coming down the alley, so I pocketed the money and shoved the purse between the crates stacked
by the back door. I meant to go back and throw it away again, but I didn’t get the chance.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with Maggie.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “There was something else inside the purse. A little bag. I thought it was a makeup bag and . . .” She let out a long sigh. “I liked it.”

“So you took it, too?”

She nodded. “But later I found out it wasn’t makeup inside the bag. It was some other stuff. Weird stuff. But one of the things I knew Mrs. Jones wouldn’t want anyone else to see.”

“Something that proved she was wrote books about . . . Scotsmen?”

Carla blinked a few times. “Yeah, that’s right. You know about that?” I nodded, and she continued, “It was some pieces of paper from one of her notebooks. She would handwrite her stories and then type them out on the library’s computer.”

That made sense. Especially if she was trying to keep her Sindy St. Claire alter ego a secret from her husband.

“Somehow Mrs. Crenshaw must have gotten ahold of it. I figured Mrs. Jones would want it, so I took it to her that day. Then she ended up . . .” She swallowed and let out her breath. “There were a couple of other things, too. One of them was a picture of Sophie’s mom.”

My antenna went up. “Debra Bearden? What type of picture? Was she naked?” A slew of possibilities ran through my mind, and a compromising picture fit into every one of them. Maybe Debra quit her job at the Honky Tonk because she had another, more profitable, side business. One that didn’t involve so much time on her feet.
That
would certainly be fodder for blackmail.

Carla screwed up her face and looked at me like I had a third eye. “Naked? No! Yuck. She wasn’t really doing anything.
Just standing there holding a dress. I think she was getting ready to work on it, because she had a pair of scissors in her hand. I didn’t think anything of it but showed it to Mrs. Jones, in case it was hers, too.”

“Scissors?” My mind flashed back to Vivien’s rigid body sprawled on the floor of Hattie’s Boutique, a pair of scissors skewered through her throat and a blood-soaked debutante gown wrapped around her cold, lifeless hand. I rubbed my suddenly sweaty palms on the side of my jeans as I pondered this new information. A dress? Logically, I knew it wasn’t the debutante gown from the crime scene. The timing wasn’t right for that. But what dress? Then I remembered what Maggie had said about last year’s Peach Queen Pageant. That Belle had to drop out because of a problem with her dress. That must have been it! Vivien caught Debra in the act of sabotaging Belle’s dress and snapped a picture, probably with her cell phone, and was using it to blackmail Debra. “What did Maggie say when you showed her the picture?”

“Not much. At first her eyes got real wide, then I thought she was going to get angry, but all she did was just stare at it for a minute, shaking her head. Then she took it and said she’d make sure Mrs. Bearden got it back. She asked me not to tell anyone else about it. Or about the notebook pages.” She quickly glanced away. “But . . .”

I reached over and touched her shoulder. “You’ve done the right thing by telling me,” I assured her. “You said there were a couple of other things. What else?” I prompted.

“A photocopy of some old letter. The writing on it was pretty fancy.”

An old letter?
A love letter, perhaps. Evidence of a scandalous affair. But with whom?
“Do you remember anything it said?”

She sighed. “No. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Mrs. Jones seemed surprised when she read it, though. But she didn’t say what it was about, just that she’d make sure it got back to the right person.”

“Huh. Well, we’ll need to tell the sheriff all this, too.”

She stiffened and drew away. “The cops? No way!” Her voice became shrill. “You can’t tell them. I stole that money. They’ll put me in juvie. I’ve been in trouble before. Back in Chicago. I’ve got a record.”

“Carla, this is a murder case. You know something that could help the sheriff find Maggie’s would-be killer. And probably Vivien’s killer, too. You
have
to tell the sheriff what you know. What if someone else gets killed? Think how you’d feel then. And Maggie’s your friend. Don’t you want whoever did this to her to be brought to justice?”

She reached over and jerked on the door handle, getting ready to bolt. I snatched her by the shirtsleeve. “Hold on! Okay,” I said, pulling her back into the seat. “Let me think about this. Maybe there’s a way we can tell the sheriff without her knowing who you are. My brother’s an attorney. I’ll talk to him and see if there’s some way around this.”

“Promise me you won’t tell her it was me,” she pleaded.

This making promises bit was getting more than a little cumbersome. There were several reasons why I shouldn’t make that promise and should instead go immediately to the sheriff and relay everything Carla had just told me. I had an obligation to tell the sheriff, didn’t I? But as I looked into Carla’s scared face, I felt another type of obligation. I had a feeling trust didn’t come easy for a girl like Carla, yet she had confided in me. How could I betray her trust? I sighed and said, “I’ll do everything I can to keep your name out of it. I promise.”

•   •   •

After dropping Carla by her aunt’s house, I headed back to the farm to change and get ready for my dinner with Cade. I rushed a little on the back roads, knowing I was running late and thinking he was probably already at the house waiting for me.

I was right. Halfway down our lane, I spotted his pickup parked in front of the house. And next to it, Hawk’s motorcycle.

My stomach churned as I eyed the bike’s black diamond finish and polished chrome, which gave off an ethereal sheen, sort of like a black mamba basking in the late-evening sun—alluring but dangerous. It suddenly hit me that these two vehicles really epitomized their owners’ personalities. Cade’s truck was sturdy, dependable and built for hard work, while Dane’s bike was a lot like him: buffed, polished to a tee and made for fast pleasure.
Did I really just think that?
Well, not
my
fast pleasure, that’s for sure. The one time I’d got caught up in all that had changed the entire course of my life. With a quick shake of my head, I put my runaway thoughts in check and parked my own truck: a bit dented, not always that dependable and in need of a thorough clean-out. I shook my head again.

As I started for the house, a bit of anxiety kicked up inside me at the idea of both guys being here at once. First they were sitting by each other at church, now at my own house. But I didn’t have long to contemplate the situation, because as I reached the top step, the front screen door popped open and Roscoe skyrocketed onto the porch. He scurried toward me, ears flopping and short little legs propelling him pell-mell across the wood planking. As he made his way, he paused and greeted me with a quick sniff before bounding
down the steps and lifting his leg on Mama’s petunia bed. One whole patch had turned brown since Roscoe came to visit, but Mama, who was so enchanted with the little fellow, didn’t seem to mind a bit.

My eyes drifted from Roscoe back to the porch where Hawk was now standing, arms crossed over his strong chest and blue eyes flashing. Seeing him in my own territory always gave me the flutters. “Hello, Nola,” he said, my name rolling off his tongue like liquid velvet. How did he manage to make it sound that way? Or any woman’s name, for that matter?

“Hi, Dane.”

“Hawk.”

“Hawk,” I corrected myself and nodded toward Roscoe’s favorite spot. “You’re going to owe my mama some new flowers.” A weird look crossed his face as he looked at the brown spot. “I’m kidding. They’re just annuals anyway. Are you here to visit Roscoe?”

He shoved his hands in his jean pockets and nodded. “Yup. Just brought by some extra food for him.”

“Great. Thanks,” I said, glad he’d left the food and was on his way.

“He might be staying a little longer than I thought,” he added, catching me right before my hand reached the screen door. I turned back. “Oh? The job’s working out, then?”

His gaze roamed out over the orchards. “It’s okay. Keeps me in the area, I guess.”

There was only one reason a guy like him would want to stay in this area. I wasn’t sure how she did it, but Laney had managed to get him wrapped right around her red-lacquered fingers. Good for her. In my opinion, they were well suited for each other. “Well, good for you,” I said, turning and reaching for the door again.

“Can’t say I really care for my boss’s wife, though,” he went on, his voice tight.

I sighed, let my hand drop and turned back toward him.

He continued, “She’s always sending me on stupid errands. And she’s demanding. Throws a hissy fit when things don’t go her way.” He shook his head. “Don’t know how the congressman does it. I could never be married to a woman like that. It’d drive me crazy.”

“Still cleaning out the attic for the cotillion?” I asked, remembering he’d told me about clearing out the plantation’s third-floor ballroom and hauling a lot of donations down to the church.

“Oh yeah. That and tons of other crap.” He let out a long sigh. “Today, I drove over to Perry to pick up her dry cleaning and a bunch of tablecloths from some rental place, then by some retired Professor Scott’s house to deliver something, and then over to the Pack-n-Carry for—”

“Professor Scott?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But I’ve heard the name somewhere. What did you deliver to him?”

He shrugged. “Just a manila envelope. It was sealed. Why?” He stepped closer, eyeing me curiously. “What is it? You’ve got a strange look on your face.”

“It’s the name. Professor Scott. I’ve heard it recently, but I can’t place it.” I shook my head and chuckled. “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

He looked down his nose and smirked. “Can’t say it ever happens to me.”

I was going to laugh, but I wasn’t sure he was kidding. Not that it mattered, because Roscoe suddenly appeared at my feet, whimpering and favoring one of his paws. Surprised, both Hawk and I bent forward and reached out at the same
time, clunking heads. “Ouch!” I cried, straightening up and clutching my head.

“Sorry about that, darlin’,” Hawk said, reaching out to steady me. “You okay?”

Right at that moment, the screen door screeched open and Cade walked out.

I brushed away Hawk’s hands and bent back over to get Roscoe. Carrying him to one of the cane rockers, I sat down and examined his paw. He whined and tried to pull it back, even snapped at me, but I was able to see the source of the problem—a tiny rock wedged between the padding on his paw.