The Peach Keeper: A Novel

by Sarah Addison Allen

  “I heard you leave last night,” Sophia said.

  “Yes,” Paxton said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Do you want to tell me where you’ve been?” Sophia asked. “Were you with that Sebastian person? I couldn’t believe it when he just dropped by last night. I … I don’t know how to act around him.” She tugged at the lapels of her robe.

  “No, Mama. I wasn’t with Sebastian last night.”

  “Well, I don’t want you coming in at these hours, especially when there’s so much going on right now with the Madam. Where is your head? Honestly, Paxton, what’s gotten into you?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  Paxton and her mother had had a good relationship throughout Paxton’s childhood, mainly because Paxton felt there had been no other choice. Her mother had been fanatical about planning special bonding times. When Paxton was a teenager, her friends had even envied her relationship with her mother. Everyone knew that neither Paxton nor Sophia scheduled anything on Sunday afternoons, because that was popcorn-and-pedicures time, when mother and daughter sat in the family room and watched sappy movies and tried out beauty products. And Paxton could remember her mother carrying dresses she’d ordered into her bedroom, almost invisible behind tiers of taffeta, as they’d planned for formal dances. She’d loved helping Paxton pick out what to wear. And her mother had exquisite taste. Paxton could still remember dresses her mother wore more than twenty-five years ago. Imprinted in her memory were shiny blue ones, sparkly white ones, wispy rose-colored ones. She remembered watching her mother and father dance at charity functions and parties. From a very young age, she knew she wanted that for herself, not the dresses—though she’d thought for a while that was all it took—but the dream of dancing with the man you love, having him hold you like he never wanted to let you go.

  It was only this past year that things with her mother had gotten tense, and she was beginning to understand why. She and her mother had never had an adult relationship. And getting to one was like trying to walk in thick mud, one excruciating step at a time.

  Paxton inched her way toward the French doors. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to change and leave again. Colin called me this morning. I’m going to meet him at the police station to see what we can do about getting the scene cleared at the Madam for the tree planting.”

  That made Sophia smile. “Colin and his trees.”

  It made Paxton smile, too. Colin had always had a thing about trees. He’d spent half his childhood in the hickory grove on the estate, just lying there and staring up at the branches, as if the history of the world could be found there.

  Sophia’s smile suddenly faded. “Just because he stayed out all night when he first got back doesn’t mean you get to do it, too.”

  It was a double standard Paxton was used to by now. Sophia had focused all her efforts on shaping Paxton into who she wanted her to be, but she had only a peripheral effect on Colin, whom everyone had assumed was being molded by their father in some mysterious man way on the golf course. But Colin had broken away from whatever ephemeral expectations their father had, and by then it was too late for Sophia to rope him back in.

  Sophia stood, then sighed. She looked around the kitchen in a drowsy, languid kind of way. “I’m going to lie down until breakfast. Nola, wake me if I fall asleep.”

  Nola and Paxton watched Sophia leave, like something out of an old movie. “Will you be staying for breakfast?” Nola asked when Sophia had made her exit.

  Paxton swallowed. “No. I don’t think I could handle food right now.”

  Nola smiled as Paxton walked out. “It’s about time,” she said.

  For reasons she didn’t understand, and her grandmother probably would have said were signs, Osgoods were crawling out of the woodwork and into Willa’s perfectly normal life, upsetting the balance.

  But thankfully, Willa figured she wasn’t going to see much of either Colin or Paxton anymore, what with the brouhaha going on up at the Madam.

  Over the weekend, a news crew from Asheville had come to do a story on the skeleton found at the Blue Ridge Madam, then reported that the unconfirmed cause of death could possibly have been homicide, because someone had noticed trauma to the skull. The news crew had also been given the name Tucker Devlin from an unnamed source, someone who had obviously seen the scrapbook and the high school diploma, and they had found a man by the same name who had a record in Asheville for swindling several people out of their money in January 1936. He’d been a traveling salesman.

  A traveling salesman? A possible murder? That had tongues wagging, and Willa was as curious as the next person, in a distant kind of way. What went on at the Madam didn’t have anything to do with her, and probably never would. The ghosts up there were none of her business.

  Or so she thought until the police came to see her on Sunday.

  “Did you see that man?” Rachel called from the coffee bar after their last customer left on Sunday afternoon. Willa had just cashed out the store register and looked up to see Rachel writing in her coffee notebook. “He’d been hiking for a week, and he’s finally going home today. You know what he ordered? An iced mocha latte. That’s a drink for people who are ready for comfort. I’m telling you, it’s a science.” She finished writing and waved her coffee notebook at Willa.

  Today Rachel’s super-short hair was in spikes and she was wearing one of the waterproof tops the store sold, along with a tiny plaid skirt. The whole ensemble was so off-kilter, so Rachel, that it made Willa smile.

  “What?” Rachel asked, when she saw Willa staring at her.

  Willa shook her head, thinking how glad she was that Rachel had walked into her store a year and a half ago. “Nothing.”

  “Quick, tell me what kind of coffee you want right now.”

  “I don’t want any coffee right now,” Willa said.

  “But if you did, what would it be?”

  “I don’t know. Something frozen and sweet. Chocolate and caramel.”

  “Ha!” Rachel said. “That means you were just thinking of something that makes you happy.”

  “Well, you’ve got me there. I was.”

  The bell over the door rang, and they both turned to see who it was.

  But no one was there.

  “That’s the second time that’s happened,” Rachel said, frowning. “When are you going to fix that bell? That freaks me out.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t believe in ghosts,” Willa teased as she zipped the deposit bag and went to the storeroom to put it in the safe.

  The bell rang again while she was in the storeroom.

  “Willa?” Rachel called.

  Willa walked out, saying, “Okay, I promise I’ll fix it.”

  “Someone’s here to see you.”

  She felt a little catch in her chest, because for some reason she thought it would be Colin coming to see her again. She didn’t have much time to process why exactly that would make her happy, especially since she had convinced herself that he was nothing but trouble, because when she turned to the man standing at the door, she saw that it wasn’t Colin. It was Woody Olsen, a detective from the Walls of Water Police Department.

  Willa’s father had taught Woody in high school, and Woody had always respected him. Woody had been the one who had called Willa in Nashville and told her about her father being hit and killed on the interstate. She’d been so young and directionless and full of grief at the time that Woody had helped her arrange everything, and had even given the eulogy at the funeral. She sent him a fruit basket every Christmas instead of ever saying thank you in person. She just couldn’t bear it. Even now, she still stiffened upon sight of him, because she would forever associate him with being the bearer of bad news. It wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t help it. Her mind instantly went to what could have happened, what bad news he was bringing now.

  “Hi, Willa,” Woody said. His eyes were big and perpetually watery, which made it hard to tell if there was really anything wr
ong. “I need to ask you a few questions about your grandmother. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “My grandmother?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I promise.” He smiled and gestured slowly to the café, as if the slower his movements, the calmer she would be. “Let’s have a seat,” he said.

  Confused, Willa walked over to the café and sat. Woody took the chair opposite her. He was a skinny man but had a large belly. His tie sat on his stomach like a pet. “What’s this all about, Woody?” she asked.

  “Your grandmother isn’t able communicate anymore, so as her only living relative, our questions have to come to you. That’s all.”

  “But why do you have questions about her?”

  Woody took a notepad from his interior jacket pocket. “When did your grandmother’s family move out of the Blue Ridge Madam?”

  “Nineteen thirty-six. I don’t know the exact date.” She shook her head. “Why?”

  “Did she ever mention anything about anyone being buried at the Madam?”

  This was about the skeleton. Her shoulders dropped with some relief. “Oh. That. No. She never talked about her time at the Madam. Sorry.”

  Woody looked at the pages of his notepad, not meeting her eyes. “I understand she was pregnant when her family lost the house.”

  Willa hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Did she ever say who the father was?”

  “No. She was a teenager and unmarried, which was obviously scandalous at the time. She didn’t like talking about it.”

  “Did your father know?”

  “He might have. He always said it was private. I didn’t ask a lot of questions back then. I should have.” She bent her head, trying to meet Woody’s eyes. “This is ridiculous, Woody. The man buried up there isn’t the father of Georgie’s child. There’s no connection.”

  He finally looked up. “Colin Osgood told me you had a look at the things buried with the skeleton.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I mean, this was before we knew there was a skeleton buried there. He asked me to look through the things to see if I recognized anything.”

  “So you looked at the scrapbook.”

  She stared at him blankly. “Yes.”

  “You didn’t recognize anything?”

  “No. Did you?”

  Woody put the notepad back in his jacket. “Thanks for your time, Willa. That’s all.”

  He got up to leave, and a terrible thought suddenly occurred to Willa. “Woody.”

  He turned as he got to the door.

  “You don’t think my grandmother had anything to do with that skeleton being buried up there, do you?”

  He hesitated. “Whatever happened, it happened a long time ago. I doubt we’ll ever know the whole story.”

  “That didn’t answer my question.”

  “If anything else comes up, I’ll let you know. Don’t worry. It probably won’t.” He opened the door, then offered her a small smile. “Thanks for the fruit baskets. I always enjoy them.”

  Willa turned to Rachel, who had heard the whole thing.

  “I need to …” Willa said as she stood. She couldn’t seem to finish the sentence. She didn’t know exactly what she needed to do.

  Rachel nodded. “Go,” she said.

  Willa went directly to the nursing home, something she rarely did this late in the day, because her grandmother had a tendency to get restless at sundown. But her protective instincts took her there.

  Georgie had already had her dinner and had been sedated, so Willa sat by her bed and tried to get her mind around what was going on. Willa knew that there was nothing in the items found in the grave that tied her grandmother to this Tucker Devlin person. She had no idea why Woody thought there was.

  She remembered that the newspaper found in the suitcase was dated August 1936. She wished she knew when exactly her grandmother moved out. If it was before then, there would be nothing to worry about.

  The whole thing was preposterous, of course. Her grandmother had always been a decent person, a beautiful bird of a woman who had known a lot of hardship, but who had an incredible work ethic and made a life for her and her beloved son. She would never hurt anyone.

  Willa stood and kissed her grandmother’s forehead, wishing there was some magical way to snap her fingers, like a hypnotist, and bring her grandmother back from whatever faraway place she had floated off to.

  She went to the nurses’ station and asked them to contact her if anyone came to see her grandmother. She didn’t mention the police specifically, but it was who she was thinking of.

  As she was talking to the nurse, she saw someone round the corner beyond the station. It was Paxton Osgood, obviously there to visit her own grandmother. She looked considerably better than the last time Willa had seen her. That is to say, she was back to looking perfect.

  If Willa called out hello, she was fairly certain Paxton would act as if Friday night had never happened. And if she was going to pretend that Friday night never happened, then they had no connection, no reason to exchange pleasantries in the first place. So Willa was just going to turn around and leave.

  But that’s when something suddenly occurred to her.

  Agatha. Of course.

  Willa had never had much contact with Agatha Osgood, but she’d spent enough time at the nursing home to have heard how loud and stubborn, and sometimes outright mean, she could be. But Agatha and Georgie had been good friends as girls. Once Georgie had given birth to her son, Agatha had even helped raise him for the first few years of his life while Georgie worked for the Osgood family. They’d actually all lived together at Hickory Cottage until Ham was six years old. That’s when Agatha got married. Willa’s father once said his mother didn’t feel right living there after that. The two women soon grew apart, not for any specific reason, it seemed. But Willa’s father had once said that Georgie hadn’t thought of herself as one of their group anymore.

  Willa followed Paxton down the far-right hallway and watched her disappear into a room. When Willa reached the room, she looked inside with surprise. Agatha’s quarters were like a fine Southern lady’s parlor. There were beautiful oil portraits on the wall, a matching suite of furniture, even a small refrigerator. It looked like, at any moment, a maid in a white uniform was going to enter and serve strawberry tea and petits fours.

  Paxton was standing with her back to Willa. Willa cleared her throat and said from the doorway, “Paxton?”

  Paxton turned and, after a moment of surprise, actually looked relieved. “Look, Nana,” Paxton said. “You have company. Isn’t that nice?”

  Agatha was sitting on a love seat in front of her window, her body in a permanent stoop that reminded Willa of a seashell. But her movements were surprisingly quick, her head swinging around in the direction of Willa’s voice in the doorway. “Who is it? Who is there?” she asked.

  “It’s Willa Jackson, Mrs. Osgood,” Willa said.

  Agatha immediately tried to stand. “What is it? Is something wrong with Georgie?”

  “No, ma’am,” Willa rushed to say. “She’s asleep right now.”

  Agatha sat back in her seat. “Then what do you want?” she demanded.

  Both Agatha and Paxton were staring at her. Willa was struck by how much alike those stares were. Paxton certainly favored her grandmother. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about my grandmother. I could come back later if this is a bad time.”

  “Of course it’s not a bad time,” Paxton said, waving for Willa to enter. “Wouldn’t that be nice, Nana? To talk about the old days?”

  “Stop being stupid, Paxton. It doesn’t become you,” Agatha said, then turned to Willa. “What do you want to know?”

  Willa walked in a few steps. “I … It’s hard to say. You were friends.”

  “We are friends,” Agatha snapped. “She’s still here. I’m still here. And as long as we are, we’ll always be friends.”

  “You knew her the year her family moved out of the Madam?” Willa asked.

/>   “Yes, of course I did. She moved in with me after that.”

  “Do you remember anyone dying at the Madam that year? And then being buried under the peach tree? The police were asking me questions about Grandmother Georgie this afternoon. They were insinuating she might have had something to do with it. That she had something to do with him, the man buried there. But that’s preposterous. You knew her then. She would never have done anything like that.” She caught Paxton’s frantic hand motion a little too late. Uh-oh. This was obviously something they were trying to keep from Agatha.

  The change in Agatha was remarkable. She actually gave a physical start and her eyes grew wide, looking like large brown marbles pressed into hard dirt. “What? What is this about? Paxton?”

  “It’s okay, Nana,” Paxton said, walking over to her and patting her arm, which Agatha jerked away. “We took down the old tree at the Madam, and there was a skeleton buried there. Nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine now. In fact, we’re bringing in a nice big tree to replace it.”

  “The moment you told me that you’d bought the Madam, I knew this was coming. You found him,” Agatha said. “You found Tucker Devlin.”

  Willa and Paxton exchanged glances. The mood in the room turned tense. A cool breeze floated eerily by, smelling of peaches.

  “How did you know his name?” Paxton asked carefully.

  “Anyone who met him would never forget his name.”

  Despite the fact that she knew Paxton was upset with her for bringing this up, Willa found herself taking another step forward. “You knew him?”

  “He called himself a traveling salesman. He was really a con man. But even that didn’t do him justice. He was … magic.” Agatha whispered that last word, as if it had power. Without realizing it, Paxton and Willa moved in closer to each other, an action both would be hard-pressed to explain. “I’ll never forget the day we first saw him. Georgie and I were sitting in the grass up at the Madam, making crowns out of clover flowers. The wind was high that day, and I remember our dresses were flapping around our legs. I kept losing my sight when my hair crossed my eyes, so Georgie laughed and made me turn so she could braid my hair, and that’s when we saw him walking up the hill with his dusty suitcase. We had heard of him, of course. He’d been in town for a while selling ladies’ cosmetics, and the older ladies kept him to themselves. But he was on to bigger and better things that day. He reached the door of the Madam and paused, then turned to us. When he saw what Georgie was doing, saw me holding my dress so it wouldn’t fly up, he smiled—smiled like God looking down on His children. He whistled a few strange notes, and the wind stopped. Just like that.” Agatha paused. “The man could whistle and make the wind stop.”