Rest in Peach (9 page)

Hawk grinned. “She loves the little fellow. I could tell.”

“Hmm. Well, thanks for letting me know.” I still couldn’t believe he’d impose like that without asking first. Typical Hawk. I turned back toward the truck. Unlatching the tailgate, I grabbed one of the peach crates and let out a yelp. “Ouch!” I cried, looking down at the sliver in my palm. I’d forgotten all about that splinter, until now.

“Hurt yourself?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Hawk still hovering nearby. “It’s nothing. Just a little splinter.” But before I could react, he stepped forward and grabbed my hand. I tried to pull back, but he held firm. “It’s okay, Hawk. Really.”

He gripped my hand tighter and pulled it close to his face. “Would ya hold still, darlin’? I bet I can fix this.”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. This whole thing was stupid: me standing there on the curb with Hawk removing a splinter from my hand. What was it with men like him? Always reacting to every situation with macho fervor, playing the part of man who rescues the damsel in distress.

“Got it,” he announced triumphantly, dropping my hand and wiping his own on the back of his jeans. “Better?”

I nodded slowly, backing up a step or two and examining my now splinter-free hand. “Hey, thanks. That does feel better.”

“Glad I could be of service,” he replied with a wink, his attention suddenly wandering over my shoulder. “I’d offer
to help with those crates, darlin’, but it looks like your boyfriend’s here.” He nodded toward the walk. There was Cade, leaning up against the entrance to my shop, his arms folded across his chest and an irritated look on his face.

I swallowed hard and shot him a little wave.

He didn’t reciprocate. Instead, he turned his back and walked away.

•   •   •

A few hours later, Cade finally showed up to help me finish sanding the rest of the pine floors, a job that required a lot of loud machinery and not much opportunity for conversation. A good thing, too. That distant politeness of his had suddenly changed to dark broodiness. He hardly said more than two words to me while we worked. By the time I wandered into the kitchen at Red’s Diner later that day, my emotions were spent. All I wanted to do was test out a few recipes and head home for a hot bath and early bedtime.

Ginny had something else in mind, though. She greeted me just inside the diner’s door, Hattie next to her. “Glad you’re finally here. I called Hattie earlier and asked her to help us with our recipes tonight. That way we can discuss the case, too.”

I begrudgingly followed my friends back to the kitchen, wishing we could skip the detective talk and just get on with our work. We were supposed to be testing recipes for appetizers. Since the cotillion committee had decided they wanted a peachy twist on the menu, we’d brainstormed a list of simple ideas to add just the right amount of peach to Ginny’s already selected menu. Tonight we’d planned to make crostini topped with peach salsa and melted Brie. Since I already had been making peach salsa for the shop, it seemed to be an easy solution. Plus, if the appetizer was
a hit, maybe it would pique interest in some of my other products.

Ginny started by washing the peaches in the back sink, while I gathered the peppers and other spices from a large pantry. Hattie washed her hands and began cutting stems out of several tomatoes. As we worked together, my mood started to improve. With three pairs of hands to help with washing, peeling and dicing, the work was moving along quickly. It wasn’t until we had all the ingredients in the industrial-sized food processor that Ginny pulled out her list again. “Okay, girls.” She pointed her pen our way. “What do y’all have for me?”

Hattie blanched. “Uh . . . actually, I haven’t had a chance to find out much. I’ve been so busy at the shop and all.”

Ginny raised her palms upward and shook her head. “Didn’t you talk to Mrs. Busby?”

“A little. But she didn’t really have anything new to say. And when I asked her if she remembered anything else about finding the body, she got all worked up. This whole thing has been such a shock to her. She’s so upset, she can hardly get her work done. Just this morning, she had to rip out and redo the hems on two debutante gowns because she’d sewn them unevenly. That’s not a bit like Mrs. Busby. I say we mark her off the list. It’s obvious to me she’s not capable of murder. Besides”—she pointed at the blank spot under the motive column—“she doesn’t have any motive.”

“That we know of, anyway,” Ginny amended. “No, we’ll leave her up for a little longer. Just until we’re sure.”

Hattie started muttering something, but thankfully Ginny looked down at her list at that moment and I quickly hit the button on the processor, drowning Hattie’s words with the loud hum of the pulsating machine. As soon as the ingredients were combined, I flipped the switch again and said, “I may
have something.” I dumped the combined ingredients into a large stainless bowl and thumbed over my shoulder toward the pantry. “Hey, Hattie, would you get some French bread and cut it into slices?”

“Make them somewhat thin,” Ginny added, pen still hovering over her list. “So? What’d you find out?” she prodded, her eyes sparkling with hope.

“Well, I talked to Maggie Jones today and was able to steer the conversation to last year’s Peach Queen Pageant. I think we were right about the pageant, Ginny. Maggie seemed to think a little sabotage was used to narrow the field of competition. But there’s no concrete proof, just her feeling.”
A bitter, vengeful feeling
, I thought, remembering the way Maggie described the incident as “unforgivable.” “And she did seem upset about the whole thing.” I went on to tell them about the tear in Belle’s dress and how she had to drop out, leaving only Tara Crenshaw and Sophie Bearden in the final round. “Doesn’t that seem suspicious?” I glanced between the two.

Hattie nodded, arranging thin slices of baguette onto a large baking sheet. “So, you’re thinking that Vivien sabotaged the dress to eliminate Belle from the competition?”

I nodded. “Maybe she saw Belle as her daughter’s biggest rival for the crown.”

Hattie shrugged. “That makes sense, I guess. But even if Vivien did sabotage the dress that belonged to Maggie’s daughter, I don’t really think Maggie would exact revenge by killing her. I mean, who kills someone over something as petty as the Peach Queen Pageant?”

“Pageant mothers, that’s who,” Ginny stated. “You underestimate just how competitive those things are.” She pointed at the chart. “So, I’m marking the Peach Queen Pageant down as a motive in Maggie Jones’s column. Especially if she still seems bitter about the whole thing. Maybe she’s been building
up steam all this time and she just snapped.” She slid her pen across the paper and peered at me. “Did you find out where she was at the time of the murder?”

“Maggie claims she was at the church most of the evening, getting ready for their upcoming bazaar.” I crossed to the fridge and pulled out a block of Brie. I’d suggested this cheese for the appetizer because I knew the buttery, creamy texture with just a hint of salty snap would pair well with the heat in my salsa. I hoped that, along with perfectly crisped French bread, it would prove to be a tiny bite of peachy heaven.

“Alone?”

I carefully ran a sharp knife around the edge of the rind, peeling it away from the cheese. “Don’t know for sure. I didn’t quite know how to ask that. . . . Oh, she did mention other parishioners being there.” I shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t know who.”

Ginny let out an exasperated sigh, tossed the pen aside and began rubbing her temples.

“But I did get a chance to talk to Laney,” I quickly added, trying to inject some hope into the situation. “Asked her about Debra Bearden, and she told me that she remembered seeing Debra working the Honky Tonk last Saturday night. Couldn’t swear she was there the whole time, but she remembers seeing her there during happy hour and then later that evening when the band started playing. That would have been around eight.”

“Happy hour runs from about five thirty to seven,” Hattie explained, doling spoonfuls of salsa onto each piece of bread. “So there’s no way Debra could have made it to my shop and back to the Honky Tonk during that time.”

“Right.” Ginny picked up her pen again.

“There’s something else, though,” I continued. “According to Laney, Debra marched into the bar last night and quit. She’d apparently had enough and didn’t need the job anymore.
Laney thinks Debra was an odd fit for bartending in the first place. Guess she hated the work.”

“Weird. Then why work there at all?” Hattie asked.

Ginny moved to place an
X
by Debra’s name. “Doesn’t really matter,” she said. “She has an alibi, so I’m marking her off the list. That leaves Mrs. Busby and Maggie Jones.” She glanced up with a smile, the first I’d seen on her face in a while. “We’re narrowing it down, girls.”

My heart sank. Ginny was so anxious to get to the bottom of things she was overlooking—or perhaps denying—the obvious fact that news travels so fast in this town that practically anyone, at this point, could be a viable suspect. I also wouldn’t have marked Debra off the list so soon. Something about Debra quitting her job so abruptly seemed strange to me. Still, Ginny seemed to feel better with the progress we’d made on the case, even if that left only the minister’s wife and the shaken, elderly Mrs. Busby as prime suspects. Why bring all that up and dash her hopes? Instead, I busied myself placing thin pieces of cheese on top of each mound of salsa. I could hardly wait to taste them. “If this recipe works,” I started telling the girls, “I’m going to print up some recipe cards as an example of one of the ways to use my salsa. I think customers would like that, don’t you?”

“They sure would,” Ginny agreed. “And speaking of recipes, I made one of my best chicken casserole recipes today. You remember, don’t ya, Nola? I made it for you when you were having all that trouble last summer. The one with white wine in the sauce?”

How could I forget? It was delicious: creamy white wine sauce with robust chunks of chicken and a tender medley of vegetables all topped off with a flaky, buttery crust. My mouth watered just thinking about it.

She continued, “It’ll be just the thing to help soothe
Vivien’s poor widower, don’t you think? Thought you two could take it over there tonight. Just say y’all made it. Nate won’t know the difference.”

“Tonight?” both Hattie and I chimed in unison.

“Sure. Why not? While you’re there, see what you can find out. Maybe he knows something about his wife that will help us get to the bottom of all this. Unless”—she shot us a pointed look—“you two have something better to do tonight than making sure your best friend doesn’t spend the rest of her life in prison?”

Well, when she put it that way . . .

Debutante rule #067:
A debutante is like a tea bag. Ya never know how strong she is until she’s sittin’ in hot water.

“This must be it,” Hattie said, pulling in front of a two-story brick colonial later Thursday evening. She glanced at the address Ginny jotted down for us and back at house number on the mailbox. “Yup. This is the place,” she affirmed. “It’s already after eight. Do you think it’s too late to stop by?”

“Maybe. But, I’m not going back to tell Ginny we didn’t get this delivered. Are you?” I gripped the casserole and climbed out of the compact car. On the way up the walk, I paused for a second to take in the expanse of the lawn with its precisely cut grass, punctuated by two live oaks and exquisitely designed flower borders. As we ascended the steps to the front door, I stole a glance at the sun, which was just starting to dip low on the horizon. I always loved this time of the evening, when the sun was setting. More than anything, I wanted to be home at the farm, sitting on the front porch, watching the changing sky with a slice of Mama’s peach pie and Roscoe playing at my feet. Actually, I wished to be just
about anywhere rather than on a mission for Ginny, ferreting information from a newly bereaved widower.

Hattie must have felt the same way. “I just hate this,” I heard her mumble under her breath as she reached out to knock on the door. But before her knuckles connected, it swung open, revealing a startled Maggie Jones. Nate Crenshaw was right behind her. I noticed a slight twitch along his strong jawline as his dark eyes settled on us.

“Oh, Hattie!” Maggie exclaimed. Then peering over Hattie’s shoulder at me she added, “And Nola. How nice to see you girls.” Only the wide-eyed look on her face along with the pink flush of her skin indicated otherwise. Furtively, she glanced back at Nate and said, “Thanks for looking, Nate. I’ll check back again with you tomorrow to see if it’s turned up.” Then she anxiously pressed past us and continued down the walk, her long hair falling across her face as she kept her gaze lowered.

I stared after her. In all the years I’d known Maggie Jones, I’d never seen her wear her hair anyway except in a severe bun. Not that I didn’t like her look; I did. I’d never been one for long hair myself, preferring short, blunt cuts. But it certainly softened Maggie’s appearance.

Hattie must have noticed Maggie’s change of appearance, too; she was staring after her with a squint-eyed look. Then, clearing her throat, she took the casserole dish from my hands and held it out to Nate. “We just wanted to bring this by. You have our deepest sympathies,” she said, her voice sounding a little flat.

“That’s kind of you. Thank you,” Nate said, taking the dish and setting it on a small table just inside the door. “Several ladies have brought things by this afternoon. I’m touched by everyone’s outpouring of concern.” He looked down at the dish on the table, then back up at Hattie and me,
swiping a hand over his closely cut salt-and-pepper hair. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite recognize . . . Were y’all friends of Vivien’s?”

Hattie nodded and tugged me forward. “This is Nola Mae Harper. And I’m Hattie McKenna. I’ve known Vivien for a long time. She was one of my first customers.”

“Customers?”

“I own Hattie’s Boutique.”

“Oh, that’s where . . .” His features clouded over as his gaze fell to his shoes. He shuffled a bit, absently running the toe of his black loafer over the threshold. I cringed at the thought that Hattie’s store was the scene of his wife’s murder and here we were intruding on him like this. I glanced at Hattie to see her reaction. But Hattie had cocked her head and was giving Nate a squint-eyed look as well.

“Everyone is sick over Vivien’s death,” I quickly said, nudging Hattie. What was up with her?

Nate’s head snapped up. “Apparently not everyone,” he shot back, the sudden vehement tone of his voice surprising me. “That woman who owns the diner, for one. The paper made it sound like she killed Vivien over some stupid dress. If that’s true, then I hope she rots in jail.”

Hattie shifted and replied bitingly, “I don’t think the sheriff has made an arrest yet. I’m sure she has other suspects in mind.”

“But we hope, for your sake, that everything is resolved soon,” I added, trying to smooth over Hattie’s statement. “So you and Tara can feel some closure, I mean. It’s just that I can’t imagine Vivien having any enemies. She seemed like such a wonderful person.”

Nate shook his head. “Enemies? No, of course not. Everyone loved Vivien. She spent so much of her time helping others.”

“Yes, she did,” I agreed. “All the time she volunteered at
the school, not to mention her work at the church.” I looked to Hattie for help, but she was glaring at Nate with tightly clamped lips, so I rambled on, reaching for anything to keep the conversation going. “I know the ladies at the church appreciated her help with the bazaar.”

“The bazaar,” Nate reiterated with a furrow of his brow. “That’s right. She’d been talking about the bazaar recently. She was excited about her work there. Afraid I don’t even know what exactly she was doing. She was always going on about her committees and causes. I’m sorry to admit, I often tuned her out.” His lowered his gaze, his shoulders noticeably drooping. “I’ve had so much stress with the business and everything, I’m afraid I’ve been a little self-absorbed. I regret that now.”

My thoughts wandered briefly to Cade. I’d been neglecting him, tuning out his affection too often over the past year. What if something happened . . . ? I swallowed back a despairing pang of guilt, trying to refocus my thoughts. “She’d been helping sort donation items for the bazaar,” I offered, hoping to give a little insight that might be comforting. “Actually, I heard she was instrumental in discovering a valuable Civil War relic. All the church ladies were so pleased. They seem to think it would bring a lot of money for the church.”

Nate’s face seemed to sink even further. I blinked a few times, replaying my last statement in my mind, wondering if I’d said something to make him feel worse. Finally, he let out a jagged breath and admitted, “I didn’t even know Vivien cared about such things. I should have listened to her more. Now she’s gone, and it’s too late.”

Since Hattie obviously wasn’t going to say anything and I had no idea how to respond to Nate’s anguish without making him feel even worse, the conversation died, and an
uncomfortable silence enveloped the porch. I shuffled about, muttering a few more condolences, and said good night.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked, turning to Hattie as soon as the door shut.

“Oh, come on!” Hattie snorted as she wheeled and started back down the steps. “He’s a good actor, that’s for sure.”

I did a double take. What had her so agitated?

“Seriously, Nola?” she said after noting what must have been a confused look on my face. “Didn’t you think it was weird that Maggie Jones was here?” She blew out her breath and raised a brow. “Well, it’s obvious to me. I mean, the way she was all dolled up and everything.”

“All dolled up?” I asked as we climbed into the car. “She just had her hair down, that’s all.”

“And rouge!”

Well, maybe, though I’d thought she was just blushing. . . . “Wait! What are you implying, anyway?”

“That they’re having an affair!” Hattie’s face twisted into an angry scowl as she jammed the keys into the ignition and flipped the air on high.

The cold blast hit me directly in the face as I reached to adjust my vent. “What’s wrong with you, Hattie?” I asked, wondering why so much anger. And why was she so ready to assume Nate and Maggie were having an affair? “I think you may be jumping to conclusions.”

Hattie turned to me, tears threatening the corners of her angry eyes. “I swear, all men are dogs. Isn’t there a single decent man left in the world?” She started fiddling with the air again, her hands trembling as she adjusted the knob.

Reaching over, I placed my hand over hers and squeezed. “Tell me what’s going on, Hattie. It’s you and Pete, isn’t it?”

She stiffened at my words, then nodded, pulling her hand
back for a quick swipe at her face before rooting in her bag for a hankie. “He’s been . . .” Her breath caught as she buried her face in her hands. “Cheattttting on me,” she wailed.

“Cheating?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t seem like Pete.” The Pete I knew, or at least had come to know over the past several months, adored my beautiful friend. More than adored, actually. He practically worshiped her—something I’d admittedly been envious of from time to time. That and the fact that dating the flower shop owner afforded her certain perks like a constant stream of fresh-cut flowers and even long-stemmed roses on a regular basis. I swiveled in my seat to face her head-on, pausing for a second while she finished blowing her nose. “This is crazy, Hattie,” I said, hoping to talk some sense into her. “Why do you think he’s cheating? Is it just some rumor going around? Because you know how this town loves its gossip.”

“No,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “I have proof.” She took a long cleansing breath and started explaining the whole ordeal. Apparently, the day the debutante dress shipment came in, after the whole fiasco between Ginny and Vivien had receded and the shop cleared out, she’d left Mrs. Busby in charge to lock up while she made a mad dash down the street to see Pete. “I was just so upset. It’d been a horrible day.”

“I understand,” I said. “The mixed-up dress order, then Ginny exploding like that. I bet you were emotionally drained.”

“Exactly. I just needed to see him,” she replied with a drawn-out sigh, before going on to explain that while at Pete’s she stumbled upon a mysterious note, written in a distinctly feminine scroll. “I didn’t mean to be nosy, I really didn’t. It’s just that it was there. Right out in the open.”

“What did it say?”

“Something like . . .” Her voice caught as she struggled to maintain composure. “Like . . . ‘Meet me at the usual
spot tonight after work.’” She shook her head. “I can’t remember exactly. But I knew what it meant.”

That was it?
“That could be anything, Hattie.”

“Oh yeah? Like what? I mean, who has a ‘usual spot’ with someone other than his girlfriend?”

I searched my brain for a plausible explanation. The fact that I couldn’t come up with one quickly enough really agitated her. “See what I mean,” she lamented. I bucked up, preparing for another onslaught of tears, but instead her expression tightened and she began angrily wringing her handkerchief. “Just ticks me off that I didn’t know what he was up to all this time. I mean, how stupid am I? But don’t go telling anyone about this, you understand?”

I nodded.

“Especially not Ginny. She’s got too much to worry about right now with all this murder stuff going on. And knowing Ginny, she’d take it personally. Especially since she was the one that introduced us in the first place.”

“She was? I didn’t know that.”

Hattie quickly swiped the hankie under her eye and nodded. “Yeah. It was so sweet of her.” She let out a long sigh. “You know what she did?” I shrugged, and she continued with a melancholy voice, “She mixed up our to-go orders on purpose one afternoon, then called me and asked if I wouldn’t mind running down to the flower shop to make a quick switch. Of course, it was love at first sight. Well, lust, at least.” Another long sigh, this one punctuated with a little sob as her shoulders drooped with the memory. “I’m telling ya, Nola, he was the sexiest man I’d ever seen.”

“Well, not to worry,” I interjected, before she got herself all worked up again. “I won’t mention anything to Ginny.”

The Crenshaws’ porch light suddenly switched off, and the front curtain parted slightly. Hattie, still caught up in her walk
down memory lane, didn’t seem to notice, but I imagined Nate was peering through a window and wondering what in the world we were doing still parked in front of his house. “Let’s go someplace and talk about this,” I suggested.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t know. I could sure use a drink, but I’m not in the mood for the Honky Tonk.”

Boy, could I relate. I was never in the mood for the Honky Tonk. “How about coming out to the house. Daddy’s always got plenty of Peach Jack around.”

She tossed the handkerchief aside with a firm nod and gripped the steering wheel. “Sounds perfect. Let’s go.”

•   •   •

I stood on the porch Friday morning, coffee mug in hand and Roscoe wallowing at my feet, as I watched the sun break over the top of the orchard. The air was heavy, tiny droplets of dew clinging to the grass like little silver beads that would soon dissipate with the first of the sun’s hot rays. Lifting my coffee mug, I inhaled its rich, nutty aroma along with the clean freshness of morning and the unmistakable sweetness of ripening peaches before taking a desperate drink, hoping the caffeine would assuage the pounding between my ears. Too much Peach Jack the night before had left me feeling like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe. I still wasn’t sure how one glass turned into several, but the longer Hattie and I talked, the more we drank, until we’d nearly finished off the bottle.

The screen door screeched open, and Mama shuffled out, her yellow flowered robe cinched at the waist and sleep lines running down the side of her face. She was carrying her own mug of coffee. “Mornin’, hon.” Roscoe left my side and trotted to her.