The Perils of Peaches (Scents of Murder Book 3) (24 page)

“Okay, Momma. I’ll just keep Hannah with me until you get there.”

She raised the window and we continued on her way. Now that was sweet of Momma, to bring her friend Maisey to the health fair. The tent came into view and a small crowd had already gathered.

I entered the tent and stopped. Dr. Bradley had definitely planned every detail of this event, and all the rest of us had to do was carry it out.

Dr. Bradley had designed a logical progression of booths, and we’d taken the liberty to tweak it a little. Barkha was to run a booth about prenatal care, and Dr. Gupta was answering questions about diabetes, heart disease, and cholesterol. As I watched him diligently setting out materials in the booth, I was still a little flabbergasted. I would have never pictured him tarnishing his polished demeanor enough to threaten Dr. Bradley. Those skillful hands that now arranged pamphlets, then tugged at his tie, had once grabbed Dr. Bradley in anger. I shivered. No, threatening a man, grabbing him forcefully didn’t make a man guilty of murder. Had Jerry questioned Dr. Gupta yet? I was dying to know.

I pulled my focus from Dr. Gupta and pointed it at another booth. One of the nurses from the local hospital was on hand to draw blood for simple health labs. Another nurse stood beside a small enclosure where she would perform DEXA scans for osteoporosis.

My booth was on the kids’ side of the tent for hand washing, next to a healthy snacks booth sponsored by Oat Grass. The kids would learn to make healthy fruit and vegetable salads and sample what the café called “meat alternatives.” The idea of tofu made me want to gag, but I appreciated their efforts.

I should have brought Hannah’s pop-up playpen, but then I’d have to drag it with me to the tent. Franklin had let me bring some business cards to place on the table for fairgoers to pick up along with their hand-washing tips postcards. Still, I wasn’t about to share my news about the sale to Purely Skin Care until it was official.

Here came my first “customer,” a little blonde doll of about five, who dragged her mother to the table. “Lookie, Mommy. A glitter bowl!”

I knew the glitter would snag kids from across the tent. “That’s right. Glitter. And you get to put your hands in the bowl.”

The little girl put her stubby little fingers into the glitter and wiggled them. “Oh, it’s sticking to my fingers.”

“That’s right. Just like dirt does.” I shifted Hannah to my hip and showed the little girl the small outdoor sink. “This is where you get to practice being a good hand washer. Now, what kind of soap do you want?”

“I want the pink! I want the pink!”

I squirted some of the liquid hand soap onto her hands. “Now I’ll turn on the water, and you rub your hands under the water really good.”

“Why the glitter?” asked the child’s mother.

“The glitter represents bacteria. You know how kids are always touching anything and everything, and it all sticks to them.” At my words, Hannah grabbed my necklace and tried sticking one end in her mouth. “Just like this. So if they see the glitter on their hands, they’ll see how important it is to wash really well to get everything off.”

“Excuse me, do you want me to hold her?” a voice said at my elbow. It was one of the cooks from Oat Grass. Her booth only had one child making a salad at the moment.

“No thanks, I’ve got her. My momma’s meeting me here . . .” I scanned the crowd. Here came Momma and Maisey, who plowed a path through the crowd with her scooter. Did people need a permit to drive those things? “There she is now.”

“Hi, girls!” Momma waved. “I’m ready to spoil. C’mon, little Hannah.”

“Here you go.” I made the handoff, and smiled at Maisey. “You must be the lady who Momma drives to class with.”

“Yes, yes, I am.” She puffed through her round, rosy cheeks. “She’s a big help to me. I just can’t get around like I used to, and I’m mighty grateful for everything she’s done for me. Hey, Pearl, where do we go get our free blood tests done?”

“Over on the other side,” Momma said. “I’m going to pass on that, but I will get that bone scan. I’ve never had one of those done before.”

“And I can hold that cute little angel while you do.”

“Well, Andi, I’ll let you get back to your table. Looks like it’s getting busy.” Momma waved and so did Hannah. The three of them headed off into the crowd. I glanced at my table. Four kids, three boys and one girl, had glitter-covered hands. One of boys had just upended a bowl of glitter onto the table. Their mother stood nearby, oblivious, talking with a friend.

“Oh dear!” Ben and I had contemplated having more than one child eventually. How did parents keep track of them all? I could barely juggle Hannah, and she hadn’t even started walking yet. “What else do we do? This is boring,” said the oldest boy in the stair-stepped, tow-headed family.

“You get to wash your hands,” I answered.

“Oh look. They’ve got food over there!” one of them hollered.

The three boys stampeded off, their mother hollering after them, but the little girl who looked about six remained behind at the table. “I like glitter. And this is princess glitter.” She smiled at me, and her quietness made me wonder if her brothers stampeded over her much of the time.

“There you are.” Her harried mother approached. “I lost track of you for a second there. Stay with your brothers. Sorry, miss.”

“No problem.”

I watched her trot along with her mother. She definitely got my sympathy vote. Her rambunctious trio had already pillaged and plundered the Oat Grass booth and moved on.

“Whew.” The waitress from Oat Grass leaned against her table and looked in my direction. “I didn’t see them coming . . . or going. That’s great birth control right there, let me tell ya.”

“They’re definitely a handful. Or armful?”

“No, hon. That was a drag-out-your-little-red-wagon-and-tote-’em-down-the-street-full.”

I laughed. “Do you have any kids?”

“Two little girls, four and six. And they’re pretty quiet. I thank God every day for that.”

“I was just thinking about what it would be like, having my own little menagerie. My Hannah isn’t walking yet, and I can’t imagine chasing more than one.”

“My momma always said it’s different when you have your own. And it is, believe me.” She studied my face a little more closely. “Aren’t you the one who has that Mother’s day out thing at your store?”

“That’s me. We call it Mommy’s Morning, since it’s not an all-day play group, and moms stay in the store while their kids play.”

Another family strolled by, and the Oat Grass booth worker helped them make healthy flatbread wraps. She returned to me when they walked off, munching their food.

“That’s fun. I love helping people eat better.” She smiled over at them. “But about your play group. I’ve got to say that’s been a real lifesaver for Gloria. I kept tellin’ that girl she needed to get out of the house besides working at Oat Grass.”

“I know. I just wanted to help fill a need, even if it’s one morning a week. Ladies can feel spoiled, and yet know their kids are close by if needed.”

“I was really worried about her after her surgery. She wasn’t the same,” said the waitress. “We finally had to do an intervention of sorts and show up at her house, help her do some laundry and get out of bed. It was like she healed up on the outside, but not the inside.”

Now another set of fairgoers came to my booth, so I stepped up to the glitter table, and gave the parents the hand-washing handout. This time a set of twin girls learned all about staying healthy by washing hands correctly.

Once they headed off, I scanned the crowded tent. Barkha had a small group of ladies, pregnant and otherwise, learning about prenatal care. Then I saw Jerry across the tent. He wore his uniform. So this wasn’t a social occasion for him.

Jerry passed through the crowd and headed for Barkha. He scanned the banner over her booth, then froze. I tried not to laugh at his expression. Prenatal care booth. Not exactly an item of interest for Greenburg’s police chief.

“We’re back,” said Momma. She and Maisey and Hannah had materialized out of the throng of people. “Hannah needs to wash her hands.”

“Well, come on, then.” They stopped at the edge of the table. Momma messed up Hannah’s little stubby fingers with glitter, which of course Hannah tried to eat.

“Your little girl is an absolute cutie.” Maisey pressed her own hands onto the glitter. “Gloria said she had the prettiest hair. Y’all might want to think about putting her in one of those children’s beauty pageants.”

I shuddered at the thought. A stage mom I was not. But then I had a thought: “Do you mean Gloria Treen?”

“That’s right.” Maisey eyed the assortment of soaps, and heaved her large body out of the scooter toward the sink. “She’s my niece. Wonderful girl. And she talks about how much she enjoys bringing Jenna to that playgroup you have in your store every week. I don’t have any babies, but maybe I could come sometime. I just love your soaps.”

“Um, thanks.” I smiled at Maisey.

“Aunt Maisey, hi.” Gloria joined her aunt by the sink, with Jenna on her hip. “Hi there, Andi. Is this your momma?”

“Sure is. Momma, this is Gloria, Maisey’s niece.”

Momma played with one of Jenna’s hands. “We met, after the last diabetic class, didn’t we?”

“That’s right.” Gloria flicked a glance toward Barkha’s booth, then licked her lips. “If you’d called me, Aunt Maisey, I would have brought you today.”

“No worries, hon.” Maisey turned off the water and dried her hands on a paper towel. Her fuchsia floral muumuu had water spots on it. “You’ve already done so much for me. And riding with Pearl here makes it feel like one of those girls’ day out kind of things.”

Momma and Maisey giggled like a couple of young girls, and the whole scene seemed surreal to me. I shook my head. I’d never heard Momma make such a sound. Hannah was reaching for me, so I took her back.

“Oh. Um. I was cleaning out Jenna’s diaper bag, and I found one of your medicine bottles in the side pocket.” Gloria held up an orange plastic bottle with a white label on it. “Jenna must have gotten it somehow when she was roaming your apartment.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Maisey fanned her puffy face with one of my hand-washing pamphlets. “Pearl and I about turned my apartment upside down looking for it.”

Momma asked, “Didn’t you have another bottle that went missing? What about the bottle you lost a few weeks ago? Before I started going to class. Did you ever find that one?”

Maisey shrugged, then peered at the bottle. “No, this wasn’t the one.” She squinted at the label. “But no matter. My sugars are pretty good now with the insulin. Plus the injections are cheaper than those pills.”

“Well, y’all, I’m going to head out. Good seein’ you, Aunt Maisey.” Gloria gave me a half-wave before walking away from the table. “I’ll be back at Mommy’s Morning come Wednesday, Andi.”

“See you then,” I called out to her.

“Has your booth been busy?” Momma asked. “Looks like a cyclone blew through here, so I probably shouldn’t have even asked.”

“People have come around in spurts and stampedes, actually. But I think everyone’s had fun.” I hugged my little Hannah bug, grateful again for her health. Her wheezes had disappeared after our return from Atlanta and now her teething had resumed in earnest.

“I know I’ve had a ball.” Maisey shuffled back to her scooter and patted a plastic bag in the basket. “All these free samples. Even got a sample packet of prenatal vitamins.”

“Now Maisey, you know you’re not going to have children again,” Momma said.

“Of course not. But everybody needs vitamins.” Maisey looked like she could use some ice water. “Where to now? I don’t think we stopped at that food booth.”

“I don’t think we did.” Momma reached for Hannah. “Ready to go with Nana?”

They moved over to the Oat Grass table and I glimpsed Hannah’s lower lip wrinkle into a pucker. I tried not to look at her but instead focused on a pair of young mothers with toddlers approaching the table.

“Hi, ready to get your hands glittery and wash them?” I pointed to the glitter, then glanced at my watch. Almost lunchtime, and my stomach growled. I might get a wrap (minus tofu) from the Oat Grass booth.

Only two hours left to go. Dr. Bradley had planned the day out like clockwork, and we stuck to his schedule. Clockwork. He lived by it, and ironically had died because his efficiency had made him stay and dictate late that night. The only time he ever deviated from his routine was when something was amiss.

I’d already talked to Eunice about his patient schedule on the day before he died. We’d already figured out one deviation from his routine: Dr. Bradley had started eating my peach baby food. Why? Because his blood sugar was going up and down. To our knowledge, he didn’t have diabetes or any major medical problems. But if he wasn’t diabetic, something had to be making his blood sugar up and down. What if someone had been slipping him insulin, somehow? And I’d found that vial behind the medical building.

Jerry approached the booth. “You doin’ all right today?”

“Yes, I am.” I tried not to glance over toward where Dr. Gupta had his booth. His smile lit his face as he talked to a family with young children. “Did you get a chance to question Dr. Gupta yet?”