A Peach of a Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  Mike finished the thought for her. “Unless he planned on doing something he didn’t want anybody to know about.” Like killing his father. Mike didn’t have to say that part of it. Phyllis knew that was what he meant.

  “You seem to have accepted the idea that it was Darryl I saw out there that day,” she said.

  “It’s still just a theory, but it’s sure worth checking out. I’ll talk it over with the sheriff. Somebody needs to go and have a talk with Danyl, I guess.” Mike took another swallow of the tea. “Do you know of any reason why he’d be upset with his dad?”

  “Upset enough to…hurt him, you mean?”

  “Just upset in general,” Mike said. “Upset enough to yell and wave his arms around.”

  “I don’t know the family that well. I don’t have any idea what goes on between them.”

  Mike nodded. “I guess that’s something else we’ll have to ask Darryl about.”

  Phyllis felt a sudden surge of concern. “I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. First Darryl loses his wife and is left with that little boy to raise, and now his father’s gone, too, and he’s suspected of having something to do with it! That poor man.”

  Mike reached across the table and took hold of her hand. “No, Mom, you did the right thing,” he said. “If it turns out that Darryl did have something to do with his father’s death, you don’t need to feel sorry for him. You wouldn’t want him to get away with it.”

  “No,” Phyllis said. “I wouldn’t.”

  Before they could say anything else, the doorbell rang in the living room. Eve, Mattie, and Carolyn were in there, and Eve called out, “I’ll get it.” A moment later, Phyllis heard her say, “Why, Sam! There you are. We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you!”

  Sam Fletcher’s deep voice tumbled in reply, “Got delayed a little. Nothing to worry about, though.”

  Mike inclined his head toward the living room and asked, “Who’s that?”

  “The new boarder,” Phyllis said.

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “A man?”

  “Oh, now, don’t you start in on me, too,” Phyllis said as she got to her feet. “Next thing you know, you’ll be fussing just like Carolyn.”

  She walked down the hall to the living room and heard Mike following her. As she came into the room, she saw Sam heading toward the stairs with a cardboard box in his hands. Eve was beside him, obviously intent on keeping him company while he moved in. Mattie sat on the sofa, squinting at some needlework and pretty well ignoring the goings on, while Carolyn was in an armchair, frowning.

  Sam stopped when he saw Phyllis and Mike. With a friendly nod, he said, “Hello, Miz Newsom.”

  “It’s Phyllis, remember?” she told him.

  There was a twinkle in Sam’s eyes as he looked at Mike, said, “Somebody call the law on me?” and then glanced at Carolyn.

  “I’m Mike Newsom,” Mike said as he stepped forward. “My son,” Phyllis added.

  Sam set the box on the floor and extended his hand. “Sam Fletcher. Glad to meet you, Mike. If you grew up in this house, you know what a nice place it is, so I don’t have to tell you how pleased I am to be sharing it with your mother and these other fine ladies.”

  Mike shook hands friendly enough, but he looked at Sam with slightly narrowed eyes. “Don’t I know you from somewhere, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “From high school, maybe? Poolville never played Weather ford, but we came to some preseason tournaments down here.”

  Some of the suspicion left Mike’s face as he nodded.

  “Yeah, I remember you now. You coached basketball at Poolville. You guys always had a good team. I remember being glad we weren’t in the same classification.” He paused. “So you’re going to be living here?”

  Eve took Sam’s arm. “He certainly is, and it’s going to be really nice to have a man around the house.”

  “Well, I’ll try to help out as much as I can,” Sam said, and once again Phyllis admired the smooth way in which he disengaged his arm from Eve’s grip.

  She stepped forward and said, “Sam, you haven’t met Mattie yet.”

  “That’s right, I haven’t.” He joined Phyllis in walking across the room toward the sofa.

  “Mattie, here’s Mr. Fletcher,” Phyllis said. “You wanted to meet him.”

  Mattie looked up from her needlework with a puzzled expression on her lined face. “I did?”

  “Of course,” Phyllis said quickly. “He’s our new boarder. He’s going to be living here.”

  “Really? Nobody told me about that.” Mattie looked up at Sam. “You’re a tall one, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I surely am.” He smiled gently at her and reached down to take her hand. “And it’s an honor to meet you, ma’am. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Mattie laughed. “Half of it’s probably not true.”

  “Do I get to pick which half?” Sam asked her, still smiling.

  “Just you mind your manners, boy, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I intend to behave.”

  From the bottom of the stairs, Eve said with a laugh, “Not too well, I hope!” That drew a disapproving snort from Carolyn.

  Sam didn’t pay any attention to them. He said to Mattie, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I’ve got to carry a few things upstairs.”

  “Sure thing. Nice to meet you, Mr. Fletcher.”

  Mike leaned over and gave Phyllis a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got to run, Mom. See you later.” He lifted a hand in farewell to Sam. “See you around, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “So long, Mike,” Sam responded. He went to the foot of the stairs and picked up the cardboard box again.

  “What do you have in there, dear?” Eve asked. “It doesn’t seem to be very heavy.”

  If he minded her nosiness, he didn’t show any sign of it, Phyllis noted. “Oh, just some pictures.” He glanced at Phyllis. “Don’t worry, I won’t put any nails in the wall to hang. them on. They’ll sit on the dresser and that chest of drawers.” “That’ll be fine,” she said with a nod.

  Sam went on upstairs; followed by Eve. Phyllis looked back over her shoulder at Mattie, who seemed to have no memory of saying something earlier in the day about wanting to meet Sam. She had certainly been aware that the new boarder was supposed to move in today, but obviously it had slipped her mind entirely. As far as Phyllis was concerned, that was just one more thing to worry about, along with Newt Bishop’s death and the fact that the man’s own son might be to blame for it somehow.

  Things had been a lot simpler back in the old days, when all she’d had to worry about was taking care of a husband, a son, and five classes of unruly eighth graders every day.

  Chapter 7

  Later in the afternoon, Phyllis went upstairs and down the hall toward Sam’s room. The door stood open, but she knocked lightly anyway.

  He looked around from where he was straightening a framed picture on the nightstand next to the bed. “Come on in’” he said. “It’s your house.”

  “Yes, but I respect my boarders’ privacy.” “Good policy,” Sam said with a nod.

  “I wanted to tell you, though,” Phyllis went on, “that you don’t have to ring the bell when you come in. This is your house, too, as long as you’re living here.”

  “Mighty nice of you to feel that way. It may take me a little while to get comfortable with that, so you’ll bear with me?” “Of course.” Phyllis looked at the photograph on the nightstand, which was of an attractive redheaded woman in her thirties. “Your daughter?”

  “My wife;’ Sam said as he half-turned toward the picture. “Oh!” She should have known that the photo would be of his wife, Phyllis scolded herself. Naturally a widower would want to keep his late wife’s picture close by, so that he could look at it whenever he wanted to. “She was very pretty.”

  Sam picked up the photo and ran a finger along the side of the polished wooden frame. “Yes, she sure was,” he said with a touch of wistfulness
in his voice. “Her name was Victoria-Vicky, I called her-and I thought she was the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth, right up until the day she couldn’t fight that damned disease anymore.” Phyllis felt a tightness in her chest and a catch in her throat at the depth of the emotion in Sam’s voice. It was simply stated and there was nothing dramatic about it, but she knew how real and true it was. She knew because she had felt the same way about Kenny.

  “I didn’t mean to stir up memories …” she began softly. “No, that’s all right;’ Sam said with a shake of his head. Carefully, he replaced the framed photograph on the nightstand.. “It’s been a while.”

  “Not all that long, from what I understand. I don’t mean to be forward, but I can tell you that eventually it does get better. The hurt fades some.”

  “But it never goes away completely,” he said. She shook her head. “No. It never does.”

  He laughed quietly, but there was no humor in the sound. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, why people go through all the foolishness of falling in love and getting married and raising families?”

  “Not at all,” Phyllis said without hesitation. “Me good times are worth the pain. At least I’ve always thought so.” “That’s a good way to think,” he said with a nod, but she couldn’t tell if he agreed with her or not.

  She changed the subject by saying, “What happened to Eve? I thought she’d still be up here buzzing around you like a moth around a light bulb.”

  Sam chuckled, and this time he sounded genuinely amused. “I guess she got a little tired of me just saying `Yep’ and `Nope’ like Gary Cooper. I didn’t figure she really needed any encouragement, though.”

  Out of a sense of loyalty to her old friend, Phyllis said, “She just tries to be friendly. You don’t like her?”

  “I like her just fine. I think she’s a fine lady like the rest of you. I guess I’m just not much on flirting. Never did much of it.”

  That was your wife’s loss, Phyllis thought, but she kept the comment to herself. Instead, she said, “I should probably explain about Mattie.… She knew you were moving in today, it just slipped her mind.”

  Sam nodded. “I wondered if it was something like that.” For some reason probably because he was easy to talk to-Phyllis blurted out, “I’m getting more and more worried about her lately. She forgets things a lot, and sometimes she seems to think that … well, she doesn’t know what year it is. She thinks it’s a long time ago.”

  “That happens,” Sam said. “Have you talked to Miz Harris’s doctor about it?.”

  “Oh, he knows about it. I take Mattie to the doctor for her checkups, and he told me there’s really nothing he can do.” “Just be her friend as best you can, for as long as you can.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yeah, I went through that with my dad some years ago. It’s a hard road. Folks just have to get through it somehow.” “And we will;” Phyllis said. “I just thought you should know, in case Mattie seems a little … off to you sometimes.” “I understand.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well, I’d better go down and get my rocking chair out of the pickup and bring it in.”

  “You have a rocking chair?”

  “Yeah, but I keep it oiled up so it doesn’t squeak. It won’t keep you awake nights. I like to sit in it and read.”

  “I’m sure it won’t bother me,” Phyllis told him. “I love rocking chairs.”

  “Thought as much when I saw the ones on the porch;” Sam said with a grin. “Nothing like sitting out on the porch on a nice evening.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” As they left the room, she asked, “Do you need any help?”

  “Nope, but I appreciate the offer.”

  “There you go, imitating Gary Cooper again.”

  “Aw, shucks-“

  She lifted a finger to stop him. “If you call me ma’am, you’ll have to move out.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised, his smile widening into a grin again.

  Before leaving for the funeral, Phyllis had put a roast on to cook, knowing that it would take most of the afternoon. She used her mother’s recipe and cooked it in Coke, which gave the meat a wonderful, distinctive flavor. “Co’ Cola,” her daddy had always called it, back when she was a little girl, when he wasn’t calling it soda pop. Phyllis had never been one for drinking alcohol, but she truly loved a cold Coke, preferably over crushed ice.

  She checked on the roast and found that it was ready to add the cola. She took the cover off and poured most of a twelve-ounce bottle over the roast. She set the timer for thirty minutes, covered the roast again, and put it back in, the oven. For a moment, with the cooking contest on her mind, she wondered what a roast cooked in peach soda would taste like. That wouldn’t really qualify, of course, since it didn’t make use of fresh peaches, but it was still an intriguing idea. She would just have to try it sometime, she decided.

  In the meantime, she put some potatoes on to boil. A roast had to have mashed potatoes with it, and she wouldn’t use the ones that came out of a box.

  Mattie came into the kitchen as Phyllis was opening the oven to baste the roast. “Smells good,” she said. “You spend too much time cooking for us, Phyllis. Spend too much time doing for us, all around.”

  “I like helping people. So do you, Mattie, or you wouldn’t be volunteering all the time.”

  “I’ve got to stay busy,” Mattie said. “Staying busy is good for the mind and body.”

  Phyllis knew that to be true. Unfortunately, in Mattie’s case no amount of staying busy was going to save her mind from its long, slow descent.

  Mattie went on. “That Mr. Fletcher seems like a nice fella.”

  “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Phyllis was glad to see that for right now, at least, Mattie’s thinking and memory were clear.

  “Tall, though. He’ll have to be careful going through the doors in this house. Liable to bump his head on ‘em.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be careful.” Seeing that her friend’s mind was sharp at the moment, Phyllis took a chance and said, “Mattie, what can you tell me ;.about Newt and Darryl Bishop?”

  Mattie gave a little ladylike snort. “What’s to tell? Newt was always surly as an of possum. He didn’t give me any trouble, mind you. I reckon he knew I wouldn’t stand for that. But he was mighty hard on his wife and on that boy. Especially the boy.” Mattie shook her head regretfully. “You see kids come to school, and sometimes you just know their folks don’t treat ‘em right.”

  “Yes’” Phyllis said, thinking of some of her own students. “It’s a terrible feeling. You never know what to do.” “That’s how it was with Darryl. He’d come into the classroom and be limpin’ a little, and with most kids you’d think they just hurt themselves playing. With Darryl, though, it was because his daddy’d taken a strap to him.- And Newt’s wife, Velma, was a mousy little thing, not the sort to stand up to him, even to protect her child. He didn’t beat on her like he did on Darryl, but I’ll bet he found plenty o’ ways to make her life pretty hard.” Mattie sighed. “Of course, times were different then. If a kid misbehaved, his daddy could blister him without havin’ to worry about gettin’ the law down on him. Problem is, I’m not sure Darryl ever misbehaved enough to deserve all the blisterings he got.”

  “It seems to me that a child would never forget being mistreated like that.”

  “Of course they don’t forget! Why, many’s the time Darryl looked like he wanted to take a strap and get some of his own back from Newt, and he was just a little boy. I worried some about what he’d be like when he grew up. He turned out all right, though, at least as far as I know. Took care of his mama as best he could before she died, and then took care of his wife when she got sick. And he thinks the sun rises and sets on Justin. I don’t figure he’s ever raised a hand to the boy. That’s been good to see, because lots of times when a kid’s mistreated, he doesn’t treat his own kids very good when he grows up.”

  Mattie was right about that, too, Phyllis knew.
Child abuse was a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. The fact that Darryl Bishop had been able to break that cycle was admirable.

  But she couldn’t help but wonder if he had broken it completely. She wondered if all the old hurts-physical, mental, and emotional-had lingered in Darryl all these years. Had he forgiven his father, or was the old resentment he felt toward Newt still there?

  Had he hated Newt enough so that something might have set him off and led to …

  Phyllis pushed the thought away, but she knew she couldn’t banish it completely. What she had just learned from Mattie put a different face on the events of the past few days. She hated to think about it, but maybe there was a good reason to suspect Darryl Bishop of having had something to do with his father’s bizarre death.