Peaches And Screams (A Savannah Reid Mystery)

by McKevett, G. A.

  “Like I said, he’s a pistol.”

  She gave him a hard, penetrating look. “Yeah, but he ain’t a killer.”

  “So says you.”

  “So says me, and I know him a lot better than you.”

  “You love him, too. You remember him with mashed potatoes in his hair. That sort of thing fuzzes up a body’s powers of perception.”

  “Show me where the murder happened, Deputy Tom, and we’ll see then how sharp or fuzzy my perception is.”

  He led her down a long hallway that bisected the lower floor of the house and into a room on the left that seemed darker, more sinister than the others, even before she walked through the doorway.

  Many times before, Savannah had sensed the scene of a homicide as she approached it, the residual horror almost palpable in the walls, the furniture, the wood, the fabrics as she entered the room. Sometimes, she also experienced the accompanying sensation of an uneasy presence in the very air.

  A room with no one in it should feel empty, she had often thought as a trickle of apprehension skittered down her back like a long drop of cold sweat. And having been raised with tales galore about “haunts,” Savannah had to exercise a certain degree of self-control simply to remain at the scene and do her job.

  Like the Southern gentleman he was, Tom ushered her in before him, although she wouldn’t have minded forgoing the courtesy this once. As unseen presences went, the old judge scored pretty darned high on the old ghost Richter scale.

  Behind her, Tom flipped on a light switch. Instantly, the room appeared more inviting, bathed in the golden glow from brass sconces on the mahogany-paneled walls between bookshelves that held everything from leather-bound classics to modern paperbacks. Comfortable reading chairs with giant tufted ottomans were drawn close to the fireplace, beside floor lamps with beaded fringe shades.

  On another occasion, Savannah might have considered the room cozy, if it weren’t for the reek of murder in the air and the taped outline in the shape of a body on the oriental carpet beside the baby grand piano.

  A dark, ugly stain marked where the corpse’s head had lain. Savannah could just imagine the effect the grisly scene photographs would have on a local jury. Even if the judge hadn’t been well loved by his community, his neighbors would have a deep, emotional response to pictures of their neighbor lying on his own carpet, his head in a pool of blood.

  “So,” she said, “Colonel Mustard did it in the library with a revolver . . . or an automatic? What do you figure?”

  “The coroner found the bullet inside the skull. It was a .22 . . . rattled around inside his brain a while before it came to a stop,” Tom replied.

  Savannah grimaced. “Nice.” She walked over to the taped carpet and knelt beside the outline, studying the rug and the surrounding polished wood floor. “What time does the coroner figure he got it?”

  “A little after midnight last night.”

  “Last night?” She stood up abruptly. “This murder happened just last night, and you’ve already got my brother in jail for it? That’s pretty fast, Tom . . . even by big-city standards. I figured it was at least a couple of days ago.”

  Tom’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer her thinly veiled accusation.

  “I assume you’ve got something you consider solid,” she continued, “or you wouldn’t have—”

  “Several somethings,” he interjected. “One of them being an eyewitness.”

  “To the murder itself?”

  “To the getaway.” He shrugged. “Close enough.”

  “Not close enough for me! Not even nearly close enough for my little brother to be cooling his heels in your flea-infested jail.”

  Tom sighed. “Like I said before: You’re not exactly unbiased . . . and my cells don’t have fleas, unless the prisoners bring ’em in themselves.”

  In the interest of cooperative investigating, Savannah decided to let that one slide.

  She glanced around the room, noting the signs of forensic processing. “I see you dusted for prints,” she said, pointing to a fine layer of black residue on the tabletops, some of the wall trim, and the windowsills.

  “Yep.”

  “Get anything?”

  “Yep.”

  Savannah waited a few seconds. “You want to elaborate?”

  “Nope.”

  She sighed. “Tom, we’re not going to get very far if you give me nothing but monosyllabic answers.”

  “Look, you twisted my arm outta joint to get me to bring you here. I did; you’re here. I never said I was going to show you my cards.”

  “You know what that tells me?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. “If you’ve got to hold your cards that close, you’re not too sure of your hand, big boy.”

  He winced, just slightly, but enough for her to know that her dart had found its mark.

  “Did you lift any prints or not?” she asked again.

  “Yeah. Several of them,” he replied. “Two nice clear ones . . . your brother’s. And a pretty good one that looks like Kenny Whitley’s.”

  Savannah felt as if her heart was in a plane that had just hit an air pocket. “Where were they?”

  He nodded toward the window. “Over there, on the bottom sill. They were pointing toward the room, like they would be if somebody was climbing into the house through the window.”

  “The window was open when you all got here?”

  He hesitated and glanced away. “No. Actually, it was closed. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Were there any identifiable prints on the top of the window . . . where you’d put your hands if you were closing it?”

  “Yes. They look like the judge’s.”

  Walking around the taped shape on the carpet, she went over to the window and looked outside. On tiptoe, she could see the ground below, a flower bed planted with azaleas. The ground around the bushes was bare and muddy from previous rains. A few stakes and more yellow tape marked off the area.

  “What did you find out there?” she asked.

  “A milk crate. And tennis-shoe prints. Two different sets.”

  “Did you make plaster casts?”

  “Yep.”

  She was almost afraid to ask, “Any matches?”

  “Don’t know yet, but one set looks like the shoes we took off Macon when we brought him in. The size is about the same and so’s the tread. We’re having a lab in Atlanta look at everything, just to make sure.”

  For a moment, the hard, guarded look slid off his face, and she saw a dim light of sympathy in his eyes. “We really aren’t trying to railroad anybody, Savannah,” he said, “let alone your little brother.”

  “I never thought you were,” she replied. “I know you better than that, Tom. Mahoney on the other hand, I never did like him very much.”

  “Ah, Mahoney’s all right.”

  “Yeah? Well, I heard my mom tell a friend of hers that he paid her five dollars to vote for him, back in the late seventies.”

  Tom shrugged. “Don’t make me no nevermind how he got the office. Mahoney does a good job. This is the first murder we’ve had here in ages. Mack Goodwin’s a good prosecutor, too. If we do bring him a good case, he makes sure it goes to court and the guy gets put away. We don’t handle our criminals with kid gloves the way y’all do in California . . . bunch o’ pansy liberals.”

  Savannah thought of Dirk and laughed. “Don’t go judging us so harshly, Deputy Tom. We’ve got our share of dyed-in-the-wool rednecks in the West, too, you know.”

  Savannah left the window and strolled around the room, her eyes scanning every surface. On the wall behind the piano hung a large, gilt-edged frame. The protective front glass had been shattered; shards of glass lay on the carpet below it. Inside, she saw half a dozen small metal objects displayed on a maroon-velvet lining. Upon closer inspection she realized they were military awards, medals from the War Between the States. Confederate, of course.

  From blanks in the display, she could tell that some were missin
g.

  “Is this what my brother and Kenny Jr. were supposed to be after?” she asked.

  “Mahoney thinks so. Those things are worth a fortune if you sell ’em to the right people.”

  She sent him a doubtful sideways look. “Do you figure either Macon or Kenny have the connections to fence something like those medals? Or even the sense to realize they’re worth anything?”

  “Seems they did, huh?”

  “Have you found the medals?”

  “Not yet. But, like you said, it was just last night. So we’re doing pretty good so far.”

  As she left the frame and continued around the room, she passed a glass-enclosed gun case. Inside, an impressive array of antique and modern guns were displayed against more maroon velvet, everything from pearl-handled dueling pistols to a high-powered hunting rifle.

  “Why do you figure a couple of young guys would go after those medals when they could have broken into this gun cabinet instead?” she asked. “Those Whitley boys always had a yen for firepower.”

  “Yeah, I know. And so did your brother.” Tom pointed to a small circle on the floor near the window that had been marked with yellow chalk. “That’s where we found it.”

  “Found what?”

  “The .22 Ruger that your little brother bought from the local Sports Mart last July first. I checked the records there myself this morning.”

  He paused and took a deep breath. “Of course, we’ve sent the gun and the bullet from inside the judge’s head off to Atlanta. Despite its meandering around inside that hard skull of his, it was still in pretty decent shape.”

  Feeling her poker face sliding off into the vicinity of her chest, Savannah turned away from him and pretended to study the guns with renewed interest. She gulped, swallowing nothing but air; her mouth was completely dry of spit.

  “We won’t know for sure till they get done with their tests,” he added, stating the obvious that she had no desire to hear. “But we figure that your brother’s Ruger . . . the one layin’ over there by the window . . . with his fingerprints on the sill . . . was the murder weapon.”

  Chapter 6

  As soon as Savannah stepped out of the truck, she smelled the heavenly aroma of fried chicken coming from Gran’s house, and the savory scent nearly brought tears to her eyes. Again.

  She suddenly realized that since she had set foot on Georgia soil, less than eight hours ago, she had cried at least five times, but hadn’t eaten once.

  Quickening her step, she headed for the back door . . . the fastest way to the kitchen and the source of that amazing smell.

  Where most people might have had a backyard, maybe a lawn rimmed with flower beds, a picnic table, a swing set . . . Gran had her garden. It was a far more practical use for a patch of land than perfectly manicured grass.

  You couldn’t feed a starving hoard long on lawn clippings. And, a survivor of the Great Depression, Granny Reid was practical, if anything.

  Part of the reason why Savannah’s mouth was watering lay in the fact that, along with the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy, there would be a platter of ripe beefsteak tomatoes, fresh corn on the cob, and maybe some cucumber slices soaking in a bowl of brine and vinegar with slices of onion and a sprig of dill. All grown in neat, well-tended rows behind the little shotgun house.

  And tomorrow morning’s breakfast would feature the world’s best eggs, freshly plucked from the nests in the henhouse on the other side of the two-acre property.

  To make sure everyone got off to a carbohydrate-energy packed day, there would also be a bread basket filled with hot-from-the-oven buttermilk biscuits and a pint of homemade peach preserves on the table. And if the sugar jolt wasn’t enough to get your blood flowing, the hot coffee spiked with chicory would do the trick.

  Having once been a confirmed “morning person,” Savannah could actually remember the childhood joy of waking up to the promise of such a country feast. And she could mark the moment she had become an avowed night owl: the day she had moved to California, away from Georgia and her grandmother’s breakfasts.

  As she hopped up onto the back porch, she nearly tripped over the ancient bloodhound who lay stretched out beside the washing machine, his belly resting against the cool metal.

  She noted the differences the years had made: the washer was now an automatic, not the old-fashioned wringer that Gran had sworn by, and Colonel Beauregard’s muzzle had grown white with age. Also, he had grown, if possible, even less energetic than he had been eight years before.

  “Beau Bear,” she said, bending down to stroke the long silky ears, “been chasing any coons or squirrels lately?”

  His lazy grunt made her laugh. He didn’t even bother to open both eyes, but peered up at her from beneath one drooping lid.

  “All you ever chased was your dinner bowl,” she said, tickling the floppy jowls and bristly whiskers. “You’re as worthless as those cats I feed and house back in California, and not half as good-looking.”

  Her appetite tweaked by the sounds of conversation and the rattle of cutlery against pottery, Savannah left the old hound to his daylong nap and entered the screen door. Again, she had the impression that half the county must be crammed into a tiny room, but as in the sheriff’s office, a quick scan of the occupants identified them all as her kinsmen . . . and kinswomen . . . and kinskids.

  “Pull up a chair, Savannah,” Gran said as she carried a bowl full of green beans from the stove to the table. “Marietta, set your sister a plate, and Vidalia, mind your young’uns before they tear up house and home.”

  With the beans in one hand, Gran used the other to swoop one of Vidalia’s twins off the counter, where he teetered on one foot, trying to reach a cookie jar in the cupboard.

  “Dang it, Jack,” Butch said, leaving the table and grabbing his son by the collar, “If I have to talk to you one more time, I’m gonna slap you buck-necked and hide your clothes.”

  “I don’t like standing at the counter to eat,” Jack’s twin, Jillian, complained, poking at the mound of mashed potatoes before her. “How come we have to stand up when we eat at Gran’s house?”

  Sitting at the far end of the table, Waycross shoved half a cornbread muffin into his mouth. “ ’Cause there’s not enough room at the table,” he told her. “Don’t bellyache. Standin’ up makes you grow taller. How do you think I got this big?”

  “Why can’t we eat in the living room and watch TV, like we do at home?” Jillian continued. “We’re missing my favorite show.”

  “ ’Cause we’re not heathens. . . .” Gran patted her on the back as she passed her and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Eatin’ off our laps in front of the idiot box like a gang o’ Philistines.”

  “How come the grown-ups get to sit down?” Jack whined.

  “Because they worked hard all day,” Gran replied. “And some of us haven’t had a chance to sit down yet. When you get grown up and put in a hard day’s work, you’ll get to sit down at the table instead of standing there at the counter. Do you need more lemonade? Is that iced tea sweet enough for you?”

  Savannah glanced over at Marietta and Vidalia, wondering if either of them would offer their seat to their grandmother, or maybe, in a fit of generosity, even volunteer to help her serve.

  Then Savannah sighed, realizing that nothing had changed.

  As before, it was Alma who jumped to her feet. “Here, Gran, you sit down now and eat your supper before everything gets cold. I’ll refill the gravy boat.” She nudged Waycross as she hurried past him and said, “Get one of them fold-up patio chairs off the back porch for Savannah, and y’all schooch over to make some room for her. I swear, you’ve got the manners of wolves, the bunch o’ ya.”

  After a minute or so of rearranging furniture on worn linoleum and shuffling mismatched china around the Formica-topped table, Savannah found herself seated beside her grandmother, a rapidly filling plate in front of her.

  “Did anybody bother to say grace before y’all dive
d in here?” Gran asked.

  The table’s occupants looked at each other sheepishly, then bowed their heads.

  “Lord, have mercy on this motley crew,” Gran said, as she folded her hands and closed her eyes. “And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for each and every one of them. They are, indeed, precious in thy sight. Thank you for bringing Savannah home to us, safe and sound, and we ask you to restore Macon to us, just as quick as you can. Be with him in his hour of darkness and incarceration and bless this food. Amen.”

  For one blissful moment, there was silence. The only sounds Savannah could hear were Beauregard snoring on the back porch and the ticking of the cat clock on the wall.

  When Savannah was ten years old, she had saved her nickels and dimes for months to buy that clock for Gran on Mother’s Day. It had big green “diamond” eyes that shifted back and forth as its tail swung to and fro.

  At ten, she had considered the “cat clock,” as they called it, the height of glamor, class, and sophistication. And thirty years later, she still loved it, because the clock was Gran’s. And anything even remotely connected to her grandmother was sacred to Savannah.

  She reached over and patted the soft, work-worn hand and gave Gran a smile that was readily returned.

  Then, the three-second silence broke.

  “You pray too-o-o-o long, Gran,” Jillian said. “I almost went to sleep in my food.”

  Jack chimed in, “Daddy, if I go to sleep in my food, do I still have to eat it?”

  Butch growled, a chicken wing sticking out of the side of his mouth. “Eat it or wear it.”

  Yes, Savannah thought, there’s no place like home.

  And that just might be a good thing.

  Savannah and Alma stood at the kitchen sink, Savannah washing, Alma drying. At the table, Marietta and Vidalia were sitting, still nursing tall glasses of iced tea, discussing wedding details ad nauseum. Butch and Waycross had taken the kids—Vidalia’s four and Marietta’s two—into the empty lot next door to play a game of softball. Even Beauregard had stirred from his long summer’s nap to join the fun. He darted among the children and tall grass as enthusiastically as if he were hunting grizzlies.