Rest in Peach (7 page)

“Left,” Hattie interjected. “At this cotillion dinner, we always serve from the left, remove from the right.”

“Oh. The left. Sorry. Anyway, the debs and their marshals are supposed to practice receiving food and acting cordially to the waitstaff.” I shrugged my shoulders and added with a giggle, “It sounds a little silly, I know, but—”

“Silly?” Debra cocked an unamused brow. “There’s nothing silly about good manners.”

“No, of course not,” I backtracked. “I was just talking about the role play part.”

Only Debra ignored the intent of my comment. Apparently she’d been waiting for a spot to sneak in a snide remark and didn’t want to lose her opportunity. “No, the only thing silly here tonight is the fact that Ginny Wiggins isn’t behind bars. I mean, you read the paper, right?” Next to her, the other gals nodded in snarky unison.

I bristled, ready to fight, but Hattie came to the rescue. Sucking in her breath and plastering on a smile, she stepped forward, looping her arm into Debra’s. “Let’s not bring up such unpleasantness now. Remember, it’s all about our girls tonight, right? Come with me, Debra. We’ll act as the water pourers.” She headed off with Debra toward the counter, where she handed her a pitcher and motioned toward the tables with a sweet smile. I had to admit, Hattie
was
good at finessing people. Not me so much. Because as I turned my focus back to the other two ladies, I noticed they’d started whispering between themselves. I could feel my cool slipping away as I stood there listening in on their conversation, watching their eyes gleam as they took delight in my friend’s troubles. “Heard Nash stood her up this evening,” one of them was saying. “Can you blame him? I certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with a girl whose mother. . . .”

“Excuse me, ladies,” I interrupted. Clearing my throat, I
tried my best to inject some sweetness, although I’m afraid I didn’t have as much of a knack as Hattie for diplomacy. “Guess it looks like we’ll be acting as waitresses this evening.” I indicated toward the trays stacked on the bar and smiled craftily. “Bet you two never imagined you’d be waiting tables at Red’s Diner, huh?”

•   •   •

Despite everything, the rest of the evening went off without a hitch. The kids learned their table etiquette, or at least most did, and the lionesses kept in their claws and adequately played their roles as servers. After the place cleared out, Hattie and I stayed behind to help Ginny put things back in order.

Hattie looked around. “Did Emily go home already?”

“Yes,” Ginny replied, loading plates into an industrial-sized dishwasher. “She’s got a Civil War paper she’s trying to finish up. It’s a huge part of her final grade in U.S. History. Not that she’s going to be able to focus, with all that’s going on right now.” She looked toward Hattie. “Any luck with Debra?”

Hattie’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, and wait ’til y’all hear where she was.”

“Where?” Ginny and I asked in unison. Hattie had our undivided attention.

“The Honky Tonk. That’s where. From six to eleven, she said.”

Ginny whistled. “Whew. Five hours. That’s some sort of drinking binge.” A little smile formed along the edges of her mouth. “I never knew she had a problem.”

“She doesn’t have a problem, Ginny,” Hattie admonished. “She was working there.”

“Working there?” Ginny and I echoed.

I was shocked. “Debra Bearden works at the Honky
Tonk?” Although, what would I know? I avoided the place at all costs. An aversion I’d developed after enduring many a bad experience at the riotous roadhouse, from an unwanted sexual advance to witnessing several injurious brawls and even a few perilous adventures on the back of Bodacious, the place’s back-busting mechanical bull. Not to mention it was one of the places where I’d tried to track down leads to help keep Hollis’s backside out of the legal fryer last year only to end up—yet again—sidetracked.

“Yeah, that seems weird. I can’t imagine her enjoying that job.” Ginny abandoned the dishes and went to the fridge, pulling out a couple cans of Coke and passing them to us. We bellied up to the stainless steel counter where she smoothed out her list again. Popping the top on her can, she flipped the paper over. With a pen she retrieved from one of the kitchen drawers, she began drawing a chart with columns. “Good work, Hattie. Now here’s what we’ve got.” She proceeded to label each column: one each for suspects, motives and alibis. When she was done, the paper looked a little like one of those checklists that come with the game Clue.
If only life was really that easy
, I thought.

Sipping at my Coke, I watched as she checked Debra off the list first. “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “You can’t just take her word for it. Maybe she was at work all night and maybe she wasn’t. And do we really know the time of death? We’re assuming six thirty, because of the broken watch, but do we know that for sure? Has anyone heard what Doc Harris said? And, what if Mrs. Busby was lying about the phone call she received canceling the appointment? Maybe she made the whole thing up about the call. Because, really, why would Vivien be there at all if she’d really canceled?”

Hattie let out a noise that sounded something like the air letting out of a tire. “You really think Mrs. Busby, sweet ol’
Mrs. Busby, lied about the call and went to the store, waiting for Vivien to arrive, so she could plunge a pair of scissors through her neck? Are you out of your mind?”

Obviously I was. Of the three of us, I certainly knew darn well just how dangerous it could be to get involved in police business. Yet there I was, arguing over facts that were really best left to the authorities to investigate. Facts that could be misleading, confusing and end up with one of us—like me last year—in danger of losing our life. “I’m just saying, we need to verify a few things before we can start marking people off your list.” And an acutely incomplete list at that. Ginny refused to take into account that the Cays Mill gossip mill, running at full speed, spread news faster than greased lightning. Half the people in town probably knew about that argument five minutes after it occurred, and any one of them could easily be suspects. I could think of a couple of others right off the bat: Betty Lou Nix, the jilted organ player. Or Vivien’s own husband. The cops always put the spouse at the top of their suspect list, didn’t they? Plus, it was certainly feasible that Vivien would have told her husband about the argument. Of course, Debra and Maggie may have told their spouses about the argument, too. Could one of their husbands have a motive? Certainly not Reverend Jones, but what did I, or any of us, really know about . . . I stopped pondering suspects and eyed Ginny as she began placing an initial next to each suspect on her list. “What are you doing?” I asked, seeing an
N
by Maggie Jones’s name.

“Handing out assignments. What do you think?” She pointed the pen my way. “You’re on Maggie Jones. Spend the next couple days finding out everything you can about her possible motive and her alibi. Hattie, you’ve got Mrs. Busby, since you work with her anyway, and I’ll take Debra; Nola’s right—her alibi might not hold water. So I may need one of
you to go to the Honky Tonk with me so I can check around with some of the regulars or maybe talk with her boss. Or you know what?” Her eyes lit up like a bulb. “Laney Burns would be a good one to check with. I hear she’s out there practically every night. She’d know for sure if Debra was there the whole evening.” She glanced at our nails. “Either one of you in need of a manicure?”

All eyes settled on my hands. I quickly placed them on my lap, but Ginny and Hattie kept staring at me, their pointed gazes making me squirm. “Okay. Fine. I’ll stop by the salon tomorrow.”

“Good.” Ginny paused for a second, chewing on the end of the pen. “Perhaps I’ll take a casserole over to the Crenshaws. Offer my condolences and see—”

“You’ll do no such thing!” I blurted. “You can’t go over there. Your name’s all over the newspaper as a possible suspect.”

“She’s got a point, Ginny,” Hattie agreed. “That’d be downright tacky.”

Ginny’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right. What was I thinking?”

Hattie reached over to pat Ginny’s shoulder. “You were just being your sweet self, that’s all. Of course you’d make a casserole. That’s what we always do ’round here. Tell you what. You make one of your casseroles, and Nola and I will pop it by their house. It’s the decent thing to do, after all. Make sure you tell us what’s in it, though, just in case he asks. If all goes well, maybe we’ll even get a chance to ask a few discreet questions, you know . . . like if Vivien had any enemies, that sort of thing. By the way, I haven’t heard anything about the funeral.”

Ginny piped up. “It’s tomorrow. A private ceremony. Just family. But the visitation is at the funeral home tomorrow
morning. Emily told me that Nate is sending Tara up to Atlanta soon afterward. He’s going to have her stay with his sister for a while. She’s got kids Tara’s age, and he thinks it would be good for her. I don’t know this for sure, but maybe he’s a little afraid for her safety. Lawd knows I would be after what happened to Vivien.”

We all nodded. “But what about the rest of the school year?”

Ginny shrugged. “Guess they’ve worked something out with the school.” She tapped the paper with the pen. “So we’ve all got our assignments, right? Let’s get right on it and maybe we can find out something before the Mother-Daughter Tea this weekend.”

“The Mother-Daughter Tea?”

Hattie chuckled. “Yes, Nola. It’s always been the tradition to have a Mother-Daughter Tea the weekend before the Peach Cotillion. But this year, it’s extra special because the Wheelers are hosting a garden party. Lots of little local specialties to taste and—”

I gasped. “Oh, Ginny. I forgot. I’m supposed to talk to you about the menu for the cotillion dinner. Mama suggested to the committee that I add a few of my peach specialties to your menu. . . .” And so we carried on for another hour or so, discussing menus and teas and all things cotillion.

Debutante Rule #021:
A debutante understands discreetness. What goes on behind closed doors stays behind closed doors . . . so always make sure you double-check the locks.

“Got a busy day today, darlin’?” Daddy asked, helping me lift my daily load of peaches into the truck Thursday morning.

Busy wasn’t the half of it. Working on the shop floors, making peach recipes and all the while trying to fit in a manicure appointment with Laney Burns . . . oh, and I almost forgot my newly assigned job to find out more about Maggie Jones. I grumbled under my breath. How was I ever going to get this all done?

“Honey?” Daddy’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Everything okay? You seem a thousand miles away.”

I shook off my worries. “Everything’s fine, Daddy. How are things coming along with the harvesting?” Looking around, I saw several workers picking peaches and placing them into soft-sided baskets attached to the front of their bodies.

“Going just fine,” Daddy was saying. “I think we’re going to be blessed with a good harvest this year.”

I smiled. “Well, we sure could use it.” I continued chatting
with him as he made his way to a flatbed trailer and emptied his basket into a large bin. Once all the bins were filled, we’d use the tractor to pull the trailer up to the barn, where we’d load the bins into a hauling truck bound for the local packing plant. From there, they’d be washed, sorted, packed and shipped throughout the country.

“Hey, missy!”

I glanced up to see Joe Puckett shuffling toward me, wearing his usual faded overalls and wide-brimmed straw hat. A few of the workers paused and greeted him as he passed by. I wasn’t surprised to see the fellows were well acquainted with Joe. After all, picking peaches was thirsty work, and Joe stilled the best moonshine in all the county.

“Joe!” I hurried over to meet him halfway. “How are you feeling?” I glanced down at his arm. He still hadn’t regained full motion of it since he was accidently wounded from shotgun blast last summer. “Still doing those exercises the doctor recommended?”

He slowly curled his bicep, attempting to clench his fist a few times. “Yup. Every day. Gittin’ better, too.” He looked over at my truck. “Mind if I hitch a ride with you into town?”

“Sure thing. Hop in.”

He got himself settled into the truck, while I helped Daddy finish loading a few more crates into the back. Once we were out on the main road and riding smoothly along, I struck up a conversation. “So, do you have some business in town today?”

He patted a well-worn knapsack he’d brought with him. “Yup. Got to get these books back to the library.”

I smiled to myself. Because of the injury, Joe had been out of commission this last year. Since he wasn’t the type to be idle and he was unable to read to fill the hours, he’d quickly become depressed. Worried about his well-being, I
began visiting him from time to time. I always brought a book to read to him. I’d started with
Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen, a book I thought would appeal to Joe’s strong connection to nature. After that, I introduced him to some of the classics like
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and
The Red Badge of Courage
. Then, about midway through
My Side of the Mountain
, he started complaining that I wasn’t reading fast enough. I told him he ought to learn to read for himself. And he did. With a lot of help, of course. We spent hours working on getting the basic phonics down, but once Joe caught on, there was no stopping him. “So, what are you reading these days?”

“Just finished up
The Call of the Wild
. Ms. Purvis suggested it.”

“Henrietta Purvis? Is she still working at the library?” It had been a while since I’d been to the Cays Mill Library.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Joe snapped.

I did a double take. “I was just thinking she’s been there for a long time, that’s all. Thought she would have retired by now.”

“You’re thinkin’ she’s gettin’ old, that’s what. If you’re askin’ me, Ms. Purvis could do that job for another twenty years or so.” I opened my mouth to defend myself, but he kept going. “The problem with you youngin’s is you don’t understand that us old folk still have a lot to give. Y’all think anyone over seventy has one foot in the grave. Well, it simply ain’t true.”

He punctuated his little rant with a grunt and a firm nod of his head. I shut my mouth and focused on the road. No need to get him any more riled up. Although, I couldn’t figure out what I’d said wrong in the first place.

We rode for a while in silence until Joe broke in with, “Heard there was another murder in town.” He shuffled a foot, and neither of us commented on the best-forgotten traumas
of last summer’s crimes. Then he rubbed at the whiskers on his face. “I feel right sorry for the woman. She might have been as mean as a spring bear, but she didn’t deserve to die like she did.”

“You knew Vivien Crenshaw?” I’d just turned onto Cresthaven and was pulling in front of the library.

“Yup. Mrs. Crenshaw was here most afternoons. Workin’ on some sort of important project, I reckon.” Joe hopped out, obviously eager to be on his way. “Don’t worry none, missy,” he said, turning back. “I’ll get a ride back home from someone.” He gave me a quick wave as he shut the truck door and headed for the entrance with a little extra bounce in his step.

Looking over my shoulder, I started to put the truck into reverse when someone tapped on the window. It was Maggie Jones, dressed in her usual just-below-the-knee skirt and plain crew neck shirt, which she’d accentuated today with a loosely knit hand-crocheted vest and dangling cross earrings.

Motioning for her to wait a second, I put the truck in park and hopped out onto the pavement. “Hello, Mrs. Jones.” She was carrying a pile of books, and as the truck door swung open, she stepped back a bit, the books slipping. As I reached to save them from falling, I noticed a bodice-ripping romance slide out from among the collection of crafting and how-to-garden books. Two pink circles formed on her thin cheeks as she maneuvered to hide it back in the pile.

“Nola Mae, I know you’re busy, but I just wanted to say how glad we all are that you’ve been coming to church regularly. Been praying for you to come back into the fold. And I know your mama feels so much peace now that your soul’s back on track.”

Oh my . . . but a little piety does hide a whole lot of sin
, I thought. “Thank you, Mrs. Jones.”

“Maggie, please.”

I nodded. “Isn’t it horrible about Vivien Crenshaw?”

“Yes, it is. So terrible.” She glanced at her watch. “That reminds me, I should be going. The visitation is scheduled for later this morning, and—”

“At least the sheriff has some good leads on the killer.”

Maggie’s eyes popped. “Oh, has Ginny been arrested?”

“Ginny? No! The sheriff’s been interrogating all sorts of folks who might have had motive to kill Vivien. She’s been asking everyone in town about their whereabouts the evening of the murder. I thought you knew. Well, maybe asking everyone
but
you.” I chuckled as if the very idea of the sheriff questioning the minister’s wife for any reason—let alone murder—was preposterous.

She chuckled right along with me. “Well, I was at the church the entire evening working on coordinating details for the bazaar, with some parishioners, so if she did inquire, I could verify their whereabouts for her.” She hesitated for a minute and then asked, “Why is Maudy still questioning suspects? I thought . . . I mean, the article in the newspaper made it seem like the case was solved.”

“Oh, don’t go believing everything you read in the
Cays Mill Reporter
. You recall last year, I’m sure.” Maggie gave a little nod at that. Everyone had believed they knew the killer of a local businessman based on the innuendos and strategic wording of our very own ace reporter Frances Simms. That is, right up to the edition when the real killer was discovered and Frances took all the credit for it. I went on, “Did Vivien have any enemies that you knew of? I mean, you probably knew her well, with her being the new organist at church and all.”

She slowly shook her head and shuffled her Mary Janes against the pavement. “True. Vivien has been playing the organ for a few weeks, but now that she’s . . . well, thank goodness Betty Lou has offered to come back and play.” I noticed
Maggie’s grip tighten around her books. “Vivien was also volunteering her time to help the church get ready for next month’s bazaar. Been coming in here and there to process donations and such. As a matter of fact, she stumbled across a real treasure a while back.”

“A treasure?”

“Yes, she did!” Her head bobbed excitedly, a lock of mousy brown hair slipping from her tightly woven bun and her gaze snapping up to it briefly. I could tell she was itching to fix it, but didn’t dare loosen her death grip on the books. “A field desk from the Civil War. Definitely from our side. It was quite the find. And the timing was perfect. My Belle’s been working hard on her Civil War report for school. Finding this desk was just like bringing a little bit of history alive for her.”

This conversations wasn’t going at all like I’d hoped, but I was intrigued now. “How’d Vivien find something like that in the first place?”

“Well, we’re not quite sure. It was just dropped off with some other donations. There’s been so many showing up, it’s hard to keep track of who’s dropping off what. Anyway, it didn’t look like anything but an old piece of junk to me. I probably would have slapped a price of a few dollars on the thing and called it good.”

“Me, too. Wonder how Vivien knew what it was?”

Maggie paused, her brow furrowing. “That’s a good question. Didn’t ask. Guess I was just so excited with the prospect of finding such a valuable piece of history. But I do know she called Professor Scott. You know him, don’t you? Just lives out that way.” She nodded off in some random direction. “He used to teach history up at Mercer University, retired now. Anyway, Vivien said he came right over and authenticated it.
Said that’s exactly what it was, a Civil War field desk. It should bring a pretty penny at the sale. A real boon, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, searching my brain for a way to steer the conversation back to something pertinent to Ginny’s case. I didn’t have my heart in interrogating her—or anyone, for that matter—but if I went back to Ginny empty-handed, I’d hear no end of it. I cleared my throat and tried getting things back on track. “I wanted to tell you that Belle did so well in the etiquette class last night. Isn’t this cotillion going to be a grand affair? Why, it’s as big an event as, say, the Peach Queen Pageant.” I paused and squinted for effect. “Oh yes, I seem to remember Belle was in the pageant last year. She’s such a natural beauty, I’m surprised she didn’t win.”

Maggie suddenly stood straighter, her gaze slipping away from me for a beat or two before she met my eyes again, this time with a bitter expression. “She
should
have won,” she spat. “If it weren’t for that . . .” Her voice trailed off as she caught herself.

“That what?” I prodded.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Nola. I really must remember myself. After all, pride goeth before destruction.”

And murder, perhaps?

She continued in a demure voice, “Just that it seemed suspicious to me, and most people, that Belle’s dress for the talent competition suddenly had a tear in it. It happened at the last minute, and there wasn’t anything we could do but drop out. That’s why she didn’t win.”

“That’s too bad.” I shuffled around a bit before asking, “So are you saying that you think it was done on purpose?”

Her lips pressed into a tight line. “I really couldn’t say for sure. But we were careful with her costume, and it was just
fine during the dress rehearsal. Sure seemed like sabotage to me. Couldn’t prove it, of course. And with Belle out of the competition, it left just Tara and Sophie in the final round.”

“Tara is . . . or was Vivien’s daughter, right? And Sophie? Her mom’s Debra? Debra Bearden?”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

I let out a little whistle and shook my head. “What a terrible thing for someone to do—if it’s true, that is. I mean, all the time and money that must go into getting ready for a pageant.”

Maggie’s eyes suddenly turned as dark as two pits of tar. “Like I said, no one could prove anything at the time. But if someone really did do such a horrible thing . . . why, it’d be unforgiveable.”

I raised a brow.
Unforgiveable
. Strange word choice for a preacher’s wife.