Peaches and Scream (Georgia Peach Mystery, A)

by Susan Furlong

  Ray nodded and reached for the coffeepot, topping off his mug. “That’s right. The report confirmed what Hollis had started to suspect: Wakefield Lumber is in big trouble financially.”

  “Didn’t Hollis check into all that before putting up the bank’s money?” I refilled my own mug and leaned against the counter, mulling over this new information. “I mean, certainly he didn’t just loan money without collateral.”

  “Apparently Wakefield falsified his collateral claims. Something they wouldn’t normally question until Hollis got suspicious. The proof was in the audit report Hollis got from the investigation firm.”

  “How big of a loan are we talking about?” I asked.

  “A little over a million.”

  I blew out a stream of air. “You’re kidding?”

  “Afraid not. And a million bucks looks like a whole lot of motive for Hollis. Plus, he’d sunk not only most of the bank’s assets into this investment, but some of his own personal money too, hoping to share in the profits.” Ray drained his mug and piled it on top of the other dishes in the sink. “I believe Hollis when he says he didn’t kill Ben Wakefield, but things look bad for him. The sheriff has enough evidence to make the charge stick. He’ll be arraigned on Wednesday or Thursday, but I’m not sure Ida will even be able to put up bond money. And I’m not in any financial position to help them out.”

  “Me, either. But he can’t just sit in jail!”

  “Why the heck not? It’s probably the best place for him right now. He needs to stay sober and out of trouble.”

  Ray had a point, but I couldn’t stand to think about Ida going at it alone while Hollis sat in jail. She needed her husband and those little girls needed their daddy. “Yeah, but what about Ida and the kids? And his position at the bank? It’s his livelihood.”

  Ray raised his shoulders and stretched his arms out, palms up. “I’m doing all I can, Nola,” he snapped.

  I blinked slowly a couple times. I really hadn’t stopped to think how stressful this was for Ray. He was stuck in an impossible position. Representing his sister’s husband, for probably no pay and against impossible odds. Plus, if he failed to get Hollis out of this mess . . . well, he’d have to carry the guilt with him for the rest of his life.

  Crossing the room, I offered him a quick hug. “Ida and Hollis are so lucky to have you on their side, Ray. We all are.”

  He pulled back and ran his hands through his hair, before shoving them into the pockets of his jeans. “If you say so. But if I can’t save him, Ida will never forgive me.”

  I mirrored his frown. He was right. And there was really nothing I could say to make the severity of the situation any better. Poor Ray. He had a huge burden to carry.

  “Anyway,” he continued with a sigh, “I’m heading back to Perry now. I’ve got to get some things lined up at my office, so I can get back here and help Hollis.” He grabbed his cell off the counter and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans. “What will you be doing today?”

  “There’s a long list of things to keep me busy: a broken door out in the barn, painting the equipment shed. . . .” I waved off the rest. “Mostly just light maintenance stuff.”

  “What about the irrigation lines that run along the south ridge?”

  I squinted. “The irrigation lines?”

  “Daddy didn’t mention that? The lines haven’t been working for almost a month now. The pump could be bad and most of the line needs to be replaced. With this heat we’re having, it better get done soon.”

  “Why hasn’t it been fixed?”

  Ray shook his head. “Money, probably. I don’t know for sure. Everyone around here has been tight-lipped lately. I’m just assuming it has to do with money, or the lack of it. I’ve offered to take a look at the books, but . . .” He shrugged off the rest.

  Ray hadn’t said the words, but I knew what he was thinking. Daddy and Ray didn’t quite see eye to eye when it came to business. Which was the main reason Ray went to law school instead of taking on the farm.

  “And there’s another problem, too,” he continued. “The tractor is broken. It’s been sitting out in the west orchard for a couple weeks now.”

  “The tractor, too?” Unbelievable. We needed it to keep weeds down in the orchard, or they’d rob the trees of valuable water and nutrients. “You know, I talked with both Mama and Daddy before they left. They didn’t mention any of these things.”

  Ray nodded. “Like I said, no one’s talking about it. Almost as if they just ignore it, it’ll go away.” He homed his gaze in on me. “But you and I both know that’s not how things really work.”

  Yes, I knew perhaps better than anyone that problems didn’t just go away—I’d learned that early on the hard way. I’d then chosen a career where I’d been trained to face problems straight on, find solutions and, in the process, save lives. I’d been doing that very type of thing for the past fifteen years. Things like finding sources of clean drinking water, reuniting families separated by tsunamis and earthquakes . . . You name it, I’d done it. I’d always been proud of my work, but now I was feeling a little ashamed. Ashamed that I’d been busy saving families in faraway lands, while right here at home, my own family had been suffering.

  I said good-bye to Ray and turned back to the sink to rinse my own cup. I stood there, sighing over the mess of dishes that’d accumulated over the last couple of days while my mind reeled with worry. Perhaps a little mundane housework would help calm me.

  Glancing around the kitchen, I spotted Mama’s old Czar radio on top of the fridge. Perfect! I brought it down and set it on the counter, tuned in to Gladys Knight and her Pips crooning “Midnight Train to Georgia” and started scrubbing, rinsing and stacking dishes. The mistress of soul’s soothing lyrics eased the monotony of washing dishes and helped me regroup some of the thoughts running wild in my mind. Foremost in those thoughts was Hollis’s situation. I’d have to stop by later and check on Ida. Maybe I’d ask her if she wanted to come out to the house and stay. That way, I could help her with the girls while she waited for Hollis to be released. If, of course, he was released. I cringed at the thought, but I had no idea what I could do to help. On the other hand, the family’s financial problem was something I might be able to help solve.

  As I placed the last dish in the drying rack, I decided it was time to see the problems plaguing the farm for myself. I grabbed my hat off the hook by the back door, laced up my field boots and headed out to survey the orchards.

  Outside, I stopped short. The leftover party mess hit me like a slap upside the head. After sitting for two nights and being exposed to the morning dew, everything left over from the party had a soggy, dirty look. I silently cursed Maudy Payne. Crime scene, my foot! She was possibly the bitterest woman I’d ever known. All this because Ida snubbed her? And was she going to allow an old grievance to interfere with her current-day investigation? Knowing Maudy, probably. Well, she and this droopy, dirty mess of a tent were starting to get on my very last nerve.

  I wheeled around, turning my back on it all, and headed for the south orchards, my pace strong and determined. Trekking along the tree line, I eyed the tall grass growing between the rows. We’d always maintained weed-free strips directly under the trees, usually about ten feet wide, because wild vegetation will compete with the tree for water and zap the soil of nutrients. Between the rows, however, we kept an equally wide strip of turf, which cut down on erosion and provided an area for our machines and picking crews. Judging by the current height of the grass, it looked as if things hadn’t been mowed for weeks.

  As I cut through, the overgrown blades tickled my legs while the brushy weeds underneath shed their sticky cockleburs along the edges of my boots. I pushed on, though, fighting the overgrowth until I eventually arrived at my favorite spot in the orchard—the royal palace. I giggled, recalling my childhood fascination with this spot of the orchard. Looking back, it wa
s easy to see how peach names like Ruby Prince, Majestic, Fire Prince and even Summer Lady inspired my youthful mind to imagine a full court of royals, dressed in their finest peach-colored attire, coming out at night for a starlit ball. I fingered the curled leaves one of the mature Fire Prince trees. This normally beautiful, robust tree yielded the most gorgeous red-blushed peaches perfectly ripe for the plucking in mid-August, this year’s crop already picked and shipped away. If the tree continued to be deprived of water, however, it may never produce again.

  I sighed and continued on until I finally spied the top of the irrigation pump. I veered toward it, weaving through more tall grass and ducking under branches of wilting leaves until I came to it. The old diesel-powered pump backed up to a holding pond where it drew water to disperse through hose lines running along the base of each row of trees. Well, usually that was how it worked. A few pushes of the starter button yielded nothing more than a dry whining noise as the engine ground down, refusing to start. The gauge on the tank said full, so I knew gas wasn’t the problem. I walked around the pump, wiggling lines and thumping it here and there, hoping for an easy fix, but nothing I did seemed to make the darn thing work again. I swiped my damp hair off my face and mumbled a few bad words. I had no idea what to try next. But maybe . . . I looked up and squinted across the pond. I knew someone who might know what to do—Joe Puckett. And his place was only a stone’s throw away.

  I followed a well-worn footpath until I spotted the low slope of the cabin’s roof nestled along the edge of the woods that formed a border between Harper land and the neighbor’s farm. No one knew the real reason, but the story was that back in the early 1900s, my great-granddaddy sold a couple acres of our land to the original Puckett for pennies on the dollar. The Pucketts had owned the land ever since, living a peaceful, almost hermit-like life tucked away in the obscurity of the tall pines. I hadn’t been to his place since I was a teen and, quite honestly, if it weren’t for the pump, I probably wouldn’t venture there alone—the place always gave me the willies.

  A little ways farther, I finally broke through the woods to the clearing where the cabin stood. Joe had let the place go since last time I’d seen it. All that remained was a skeletal portion of what was once a multiroom cabin. Now only one room was still intact, while the rest of the slatted-board structure leaned precariously to one side. The only thing keeping the whole cabin from falling over was an overgrowth of vines that engulfed the dilapidated building like a supportive hand.

  “Joe! Joe Puckett!” I called out. The only response was the babbling of the nearby creek and the low call of forest birds echoing through the trees. “Joe?” I tried again, moving closer to the structure.

  The outside of the cabin was littered with everything from splintered barrels and rusty buckets, to an old metal bedframe wrapped tight in creeping Jenny weed. Looking at the state of the place, I started to think I’d made a mistake coming here. If Joe had let his own place go into such bad repair, there was probably nothing he could do for me.

  I was about to turn away when I heard the metallic chung, chung of a shotgun pump. Instinctively, my hands shot into the air.

  “Lookin’ for somethin’?” came a gravelly voice from behind me.

  I slowly turned and faced Joe straight on. To my relief, he immediately lowered the gun, a flicker of recognition showing in his sky-blue eyes. “Aren’t you one of the Harper girls?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, slowly lowering my hands.

  A toothy grin spread across his face. Joe had wrinkles on top of wrinkles and I could see that his skin was stretched thinly over his wiry arms, every inch covered by brown spots. What I remembered as a full head of hair had dwindled down over the years to a few patches of white tufts that encircled his head, making him look like an unruly version of Friar Tuck.

  “You’ve grown up some,” he observed.

  “Yes, sir,” I said again. My parents had taught me to always “ma’am” and “sir” my elders. Failure to do so would result in a quick swat on the rump. I’d been swatted enough in my youth that such terms of respect now came naturally.

  He dipped the shotgun toward an old bench by the front door. “Won’t you sit a spell?”

  I nodded and crossed to the bench, careful of where I sat. Most of the bench was either splintered or splattered with who knew what. Joe, not quite as cautious, plopped down on the far end and leaned the shotgun up against the doorjamb. Just as soon as he settled, he jumped back up again. “Where are my manners? Let me get you some refreshment.”

  I held up my hand to protest, but he was already halfway inside the cabin. Kicking at the boards below my feet, I thought back to the first time I’d met Joe Puckett. I was a young teen, helping the hands during harvest, when I caught sight of him carrying off a bucket of our peaches. Caught up in being a Harper and all, I ran right over to him, accused him of being a thief and demanded he give back the peaches.

  Was I ever surprised when I got back to the house that evening and caught heck from my father. Daddy apparently knew all about Joe and his family taking fruit from the trees along the back acreage. I thought he was crazy for allowing such a thing; I even told him so, but he corrected me, saying that men like Joe Puckett—men who lived from the land and followed the old ways—were a part of the South that should be honored and cherished. “A dying breed,” he’d said. “Besides, we’ve got plenty of peaches to spare.” To this day, my face still turned red when I thought about my father dragging me up to the Pucketts’ cabin with a basket of peaches and making me apologize for being so disrespectful.

  Of course, what Daddy didn’t tell me at the time was that he and Joe had long ago worked out a deal, a trade of sorts. Many years later I learned the real reason Daddy tolerated Joe’s “pilfering”: Joe distilled some of the finest moonshine in all of Georgia. My father must have been partial to the stuff, because over the years the Pucketts had been helping themselves not only to peaches, but to half the vegetables in Mama’s garden. I can’t think of how many evenings I’d looked out my window to see Joe’s son, Tucker, out in our vegetable patch, his pockets stuffed full.

  “Here,” Joe said, coming out with a couple jars of clear liquid in hand. “Some of my finest.”

  I thanked him and took a cautious sip. So nasty! It felt like I was swallowing fire, but I tried not to let on. I’d been offered many unpalatable cultural treats during my travels. Things like crispy fried tarantula—a rare and prized delicacy in Cambodian refugee camps—and chewy ant larvae, generously offered from a food-poor South American mother with several children to feed. All heartfelt gifts offered with the same kind, giving spirit in which Joe offered me his specialty. So, I bravely drank on, and offered my praise. “That’s good stuff,” I choked out, swiping at the perspiration forming on my upper lip. I managed another enthusiastic sip before getting down to business. “I came by to ask you if you know anything about engines.”

  He swiped at his brow with his big paw of a hand and shrugged. “A bit, I reckon. I worked on Jeeps and such in Nam.”

  “There seems to be something wrong with the engine on our irrigation pump. I wonder if you’d have a look at it. I’d be willing to pay you for your time, of course.”

  He nodded, but remained silent, taking occasional sips from his jar and staring out at the woods.

  I continued, “But if I can’t get it running, we’re likely to lose some of the trees. They’re already showing signs of stress. I’ll also be needing someone to help me place new drip lines. Some of ours are in bad shape.”

  “Where’s your daddy?”

  “He and Mama are on a trip. They left me in charge while they’re gone.”

  He shifted his weight and heaved a sigh. “Your daddy and I never dealt much in cash. We usually bartered. Maybe that’s been a mistake.”

  I cocked my head to study him. He was still staring off, his eyes darting from tree to tree, but the rest o
f his body seemed calm and relaxed. I knew what was next. He was going to want me to pay him in cash. Problem was I didn’t have hardly any to offer. “I have to be honest, sir. I don’t really have any cash to offer. Our family is going through tough financial times.”

  He stood up, kicking at a few pebbles with the worn toe of his boot, and hitching his thumbs in his suspenders. “Aren’t we all?”

  I also stood, trying to make eye contact, although his eyes continued to look everywhere but at me. I recognized the signs from remote villagers uncomfortable with strangers; Joe just wasn’t used to holding conversation with folks. “Is there any way you’d be willing to barter with me?”

  He shrugged. “If you don’t have no cash, then I guess I’ll have to.”

  I nodded. “What do you need, then?”

  His eyes roamed up to the roof of his cabin. I followed his gaze, noticing the airy patchwork of shake shingles.

  “A roof?” I asked, my heart sinking when he nodded. He extended his hand toward me, and before thinking, I grasped his callused hand and shook. The second his keen eyes met mine, I felt instant regret. A roof! It was a small roof, being that his cabin was only a little bigger than the average supply shed, but still, I had no idea how I was going to own up to my end of this bargain.

  “Our tractor is also broken,” I said as an afterthought, hoping to at least sweeten my end of the hasty bargain. What have I done? I knew Daddy had left some cash for miscellaneous expenses, but certainly not enough to cover roofing supplies. Or a roofer, for that matter.

  He spat off to the side and bobbed his head up and down. “You payin’ for all the parts?”

  “Yes, sir,” I quickly replied.

  “I’ll take a look at it, then.”

  Just like that, the deal was sealed.

  Chapter 6

  Georgia Belle Fact #072: No one should have to grieve on an empty stomach. So, when someone dies, the first thing we do is start cookin’ for their loved ones.