A Peach of a Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  Instead of answering, the woman said, “Is this about the real estate business?”

  “Well, sort of,” Mike answered, “but mostly it’s about Newt Bishop’s death.”

  The woman’s lips thinned. She looked like she wanted to say that Landers wasn’t there, but Mike could see the man for himself through a window into a private office to the left of the woman’s desk. She picked up a phone on her desk, pushed a button, waited a second, and then said, “Mr. Landers, there’s a deputy here to see you.” Through the window, Mike had seen Landers answer the phone. The silliness of this charade made him want to smile. The man was right there.

  The woman hung up the phone. “You can go on in.” “Thanks!” Mike said. It never hurt to be polite. His mother had taught him that.

  Alfred Landers stood up behind his desk and reached across it to offer his hand. He was a tall, thick-bodied man with dark hair and old-fashioned black-framed glasses. “Deputy” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “My name is Newsom.” Mike said as he shook hands with the realtor. “I’m investigating the death of Newt Bishop.”

  “I heard about it,” Landers said as he waved Mike into the chair in front of the desk. “Terrible accident, wasn’t it?” “Well, we haven’t determined for sure yet if it was really an accident,” Mike said as he sat down, “and I’m not sure how terrible it is for you since you can’t have felt very friendly toward Bishop these days, what with that lawsuit and all.”

  Landers frowned as he sank slowly into his chair. “That car. While Darryl Bishop still had to be regarded as the strongest suspect, Alfred Landers couldn’t be ruled out. That was going to take some more investigation. And there was still the possibility that someone else, someone whose identity hadn’t been uncovered yet, had had a reason to want Newt Bishop dead.

  Not to mention, accidents sometimes did happen…. Not in this case, though, Mike told himself. Maybe it wasn’t official yet, but he was more convinced than ever that Newt Bishop’s death was murder.

  Chapter 10

  Life went on, despite the tragedies that were part and parcel of it, and the peach festival was fast approaching. Phyllis hadn’t forgotten about Newt Bishop’s death, of course, and she had been very interested when Mike told her about the real estate man, Alfred Landers, and the trouble between Landers and Newt. It seemed that at least two people might have had a reason for hating Newt. That didn’t mean either of them was a murderer, of course, but still, you had to consider it.

  That was Mike’s job, though. Phyllis’s was to get the recipe for that ginger peach cobbler exactly right….

  She was in the kitchen several days later when Sam Fletcher strolled in, apparently aimlessly. He stood there with his hands in the hip pockets of his jeans and took a deep breath. “Whatever that is you’ve got cookin’, it smells mighty good;’ he said.

  Phyllis leaned over to look past him down the hallway toward the living room. When she didn’t see anyone lurking there-like Carolyn-she said quietly, “It’s peach cobbler.”

  “I knew it had to be something with peaches in it.” Sam took another sniff and then frowned in thought. `And something else, maybe……

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I was a schoolteacher for a lot of years. Had to keep many a secret.”

  “Some of the worst gossips I’ve ever known have been teachers,” Phyllis said. “I’m serious.”

  Sam nodded, a solemn expression on his face. “Then sure. Whatever you tell me, it stays between us, Phyllis.” She decided she believed him. “It has candied ginger in it, too,” she said. “The cobbler, I mean.”

  “Ginger, huh?” Sam rubbed his jaw; the faint rasp of beard stubble against his fingertips was a sound that Phyllis hadn’t heard in a long time. Not since Kenny’s passing, in fact. It struck a chord in her, and she felt an odd fluttering sensation in her chest. You just never knew what you would miss, or what would touch something inside and bring back memories.

  He went on, “That sounds like it might be good.”

  “I hope so. I’m counting on it, in fact. It’s going to be my recipe for the cooking contest at the peach festival.”

  Sam smiled. “Well, if I can help out by being a guinea pig sometime, I’d be glad to-“

  “Good,” Phyllis said quickly. “Sit down.” Sam looked surprised. “Now, you mean?”

  “Yes, sit down there at the table. I’ll get you a bowl. I just took it out of the oven a little while ago to cool, and it should be all right to eat by now.”

  His broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. He sat down at the table as Phyllis had told him, while she got a couple of bowls from the cabinet and spoons from a drawer. She had draped a clean dish towel over the quart-sized dish she’d used to bake the cobbler, just in case Carolyn was to come in. When she removed the dish towel, the delicious aroma grew even stronger.

  “I don’t know where the other ladies are,” Sam said, “but that smells so good it’s liable to lure folks in off the street.” “Mattie’s at the high school, and Eve’s gone to pick her up.” Phyllis said as she scooped cobbler into the bowls. “Mattie volunteers there as a tutor for the kids who have to go to summer school. And Carolyn’s upstairs somewhere. She won’t come down.”

  “You seem mighty sure of that. Is it because of me? I’ve tried to be nice to her, but she doesn’t seem to warm up to people very fast.”

  Phyllis brought the bowls over to the table. “It’s not because of you at all, Sam,” she assured him. “Carolyn knows that I’m down here working on my recipe and don’t want her skulking around.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  Phyllis pushed the bowl toward him. “Eat;’ she said. Sam dug in, putting a spoonful of cobbler in his mouth and chewing slowly and deliberately, obviously taking his time so that he could fully appreciate the flavor. Phyllis watched him anxiously, forgetting to eat any of the cobbler she had put in her own bowl.

  Sam swallowed, and Phyllis said, “Well?”

  “A fella can’t judge something like this from just one bite,” he said. “Let me try another.” He dipped his spoon in the cobbler again.

  He’s doing this on purpose, Phyllis thought. He’s teasing me by making me wait.

  In an effort to distract herself, she finally thought to take a bite herself. The cobbler was good, she decided. The crust was flaky on top but had plenty of body, the amount of sugar she’d put on it was just right, and the filling below was cooked to the proper consistency. A cobbler shouldn’t be too runny or too thick and sticky.

  Sam swallowed his second bite and said, “You got any vanilla ice cream?”

  “No ice cream,” Phyllis broke in. “Just the cobbler.” “Well, in that case … one more bite… “

  She tried not to grit her teeth.

  When he had finished the third bite, he said, “The ginger’s not real strong, but it gives it a little whang.” “Whang,” Phyllis said. “Is that good or bad?”

  “Oh, whang is good,” Sam said, nodding. “You want a little whang in your food every now and then. Otherwise, everything’s all …” He searched for a word. “Whangless.”

  Phyllis took a deep breath. She didn’t know the man well enough to dump a bowl of peach cobbler on his head, but right now she was sure thinking about it. “Is it good?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate.

  Sam had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, but he nodded and said seriously, “Yes, Phyllis, it’s good. It’s really good.

  She sat back and blew out a breath of relief. “I’m glad.” “Going after the blue ribbon, are you? And I’d guess that somebody else usually wins it? Somebody in this very house, maybe?”

  “I don’t like to be petty about things,” Phyllis said, “but I would dearly love to win this year.”

  Sam pointed with his spoon at the rest of the cobbler in his bowl. “I’d say you got a mighty good shot. You mind if I finish this?”

  “Oh, no, go right ahead
,” Phyllis said quickly. “And if you really want some ice cream, I have some in the freezer.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t want anything to interfere with the flavor of this cobbler.”

  They sat there for a few minutes in companionable silence, finishing off the cobbler in their bowls. When they were done, Phyllis asked, “Was there anything about it that you didn’t like? Anything you can think of that would make it better?”

  Sam shook his-head. “Can’t think of a thing. Far as I can tell, it was just about perfect.”

  “Just about? But not actually perfect?”

  He started to look a little uncomfortable. “What I know about cooking you could put in the tip of your little finger, Phyllis. I never did much of it when I was married, and since Vicky passed away, I’ve eaten a lot of sandwiches and TV dinners. I can open up a can of something, dump it in a pan, and put it on the stove. That’s about the extent of my culinary knowledge.”

  She felt a little bad about possibly stirring up bad memories for him again, so she tried to keep the moment light by saying, “At least you know the word culinary. That’s more than some men.”

  He summoned up a smile. “I suppose so. Seriously, though, if I were you, I wouldn’t change a thing in that cobbler. I think you’ve hit on a winner.”

  “I hope so.” She paused. “Are you going to the peach festival?”

  “Well, since I live in Weatherford now, I guess I will. Isn’t there a city ordinance or something saying that you’ve got to go if you live here?”

  She laughed. “No, but there might as well be. There’s always a big crowd. Have you ever been?”

  “Nope. This’ll be a new one on me.” “You’ll enjoy it. There’s a lot to see and do.”

  She might have told him more about it she was certainly enjoying sitting and talking to him-but at that moment she heard the front door open, followed by the sound of voices. Eve and Mattie had gotten back from the high school. Phyllis stood up quickly and draped the dish towel over the rest of the cobbler. Sam raised his eyebrows a little at her secretiveness.

  He didn’t understand, of course. Mattie would never betray her secrets deliberately, but with her mind the way it was, she might let something slip while Carolyn was around. And Eve was something of a wild card, liable to act on a whim. She was friends with both Phyllis and Carolyn, and had been for a long time. Phyllis would never dream of trying to play on that friendship in an attempt to discover Carolyn’s plans, and she didn’t think that Carolyn would do something like that, either … but it never hurt to be careful. Eve called, “Phyllis, dear, where are you?” and Phyllis.

  knew right away from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” she called back, not specifying that by “we” she meant her and Sam, not her and Carolyn. Eve led Mattie into the room. Mattie’s eyes were red rimmed, as if she had been crying, but she seemed fairly composed now. Sam shot to his feet instantly and held his chair out, saying, “Why don’t you sit down right here, Miz Harris? You look like you need to take a load off your feet.” Mattie sat down without saying anything. Phyllis turned to Eye and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Eve looked a little distraught herself. “There was some bad news at the school,” she said. “One of the students committed suicide.”

  Air hissed between Phyllis’s teeth in a sharply indrawn breath. “Oh, that’s terrible!” she said. “Who was it?”

  “A boy named Billy Moser. He would have been a senior when school started again.”

  Phyllis cast her mind back, trying to remember if she had had a student by that name in any of her classes. After a moment, she shook her head. “I don’t recall him.”

  “He didn’t go to junior high here,” Mattie said in a dull voice. “His family moved here when he was a freshman.” “I never taught him, either,” Eve said. “But I just hate it when something like that happens, when a young person’s life gets cut so short before they’ve even had a chance to … to actually live!”

  Phyllis and Sam and Eve all sat down at the table, too, Eve next to Mattie and Phyllis and Sam on the opposite side. Sam opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated as if he didn’t want to intrude on the thoughts of the others. After all, they were old friends, and he was the newcomer to this group. Sensing that, Phyllis said, “What is it, Sam?”

  “I was just thinking about how, as teachers, we get to see too blasted much of things like that, what Eve said about these kids who never have a chance. They get killed in car wrecks, or they get some damn disease that ought to leave youngsters alone … or they get so hopeless they throw away the chances they do have.”

  All three of the women nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. It was a rare school year when something tragic didn’t happen.

  “And if it’s so hard on us, when we’re just their teachers, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be their parents,” Phyllis said quietly.

  “Billy was a pretty good boy,” Mattie said. “I’ve been tutorin’ him in English. He failed a couple of classes last year, and he won’t graduate this year unless he makes ‘em up.” She sighed. “Wouldn’t have graduated, I ought to say.”

  “Is that why…” Sam began. “Because of his grades, I mean.”

  Mattie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Seemed to me like he was going to pass his summer school courses. But you don’t ever know what’s goin’ on in these kids’ heads.”

  Phyllis heard Carolyn’s footsteps on the stairs, and then a moment later she came into the kitchen. Under the circumstances, Phyllis didn’t even worry about Carolyn maybe sneaking a glance at what was under that dish towel.

  “What are you all sitting around for?” Carolyn asked with a frown.

  “We’ve heard some bad news, dear,” Eve said. “Nothing directly related to any of us, but still…” She told Carolyn about Billy Moser’s suicide.

  “That’s just awful,” Carolyn said as she took the empty chair at the end of the table. “Does anyone know why he did it?”

  Mattie shook her head. “We were just talkin’ about that.” “How did he … I mean … “

  Leave it to Carolyn to ask an insensitive question like that, Phyllis thought, then instantly scolded herself for being judgmental.

  “He hung himself,” Mattie said. “From a tree in his own backyard.”

  They sat there in silence then, and somehow, peach festivals and cooking contests seemed awfully small and unimportant.

  Chapter 11

  For several weeks beforehand, large banners stretched above the four main roads leading to Weatherford’s courthouse square, proclaiming the impending arrival of the peach festival. The local paper was full of stories and announcements about it, and the radio stations played promos for it at regular intervals. Signs were posted in the town’s businesses and on the marquee in front of the high school. It was pretty much impossible to even pass through Weatherford during June and the first half of July without being aware of the peach festival.

  It loomed pretty large in Phyllis’s mind, too, on the Friday evening before it was scheduled to begin, early the next morning.

  Carolyn was gone to her daughter Sandra’s house, where she would spend the night and cook whatever she was preparing for the contest. That was her habit. Phyllis supposed that she and Carolyn could have shared the same kitchen-after all, it was sort of late for any skullduggery; the weeks of experimentation and preparation were done, and each of them had settled on her recipe-but if that was the way Carolyn wanted to do things, it was fine with Phyllis. It certainly simplified matters.

  Sam wandered into the kitchen while Phyllis was standing there gazing raptly at the ingredients spread out on the counter. He watched her for a moment and then said, “You think if you stare at it hard enough, that cobbler’ll make itself?”

  “Hush,” she said, having grown comfortable enough in his presence to talk to him like that. “I’m just going over everything to make sure I don’t need to run t
o the grocery store one last time.”

  “Oh. That makes sense. Got everything you need?” She nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Well, if anything comes up, I’m pretty good at makin’ last-minute shopping runs … if somebody gives me a list, that is.”

  Phyllis smiled. “I believe I’ve got it covered. But I appreciate the offer.”

  “Eve and Miz Harris sort of drafted me to help out with those quilts that Miz Harris made. She’s supposed to have ‘em on display at one of the booths, and I got volunteered to carry them down there and help set ‘em up.”

  “I imagine that was Eve’s doing,” Phyllis said. “She was going to help Mattie herself, but she’s a firm believer in not doing anything that she can charm some man into doing for her.” ,