A Peach of a Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  Sam asked, “Where’d this amygdalin stuff come from?” “Well, that’s sort of interesting,” Mike said. “It’s a chemical that’s used to make the cancer treatment drug called laetrile. It’s found in various nuts and in the pits of certain fruits. The apricot pit has the most amygdalin in it … but the peach pit comes next, right after it.”

  “Peach pits!” Carolyn said. “Good Lord, at this time of year there are peaches everywhere you look around here. How can they be poisonous?”

  “The peaches themselves aren’t. Just the pits. And even they won’t hurt you unless you eat a bunch of them, like fifty or sixty, Dr. Lee said.”

  Phyllis shook her head in confusion. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Donnie didn’t eat peach pits. Even if there were a little of this chemical in the fruit, how many peaches would a person have to eat to get sick from them?”

  “More than anybody reasonably could,” Mike assured her. “The doctor wasn’t sure how it was done, but he thinks somebody managed to extract the amygdalin from a bunch of peach pits and then somehow doped Mr. Boatwright’s water with it. Everybody knows he carries around a big bottle of water all day at the peach festival, and he’s always drinking from it.” Mike corrected himself, “He did, anyway.”

  Sam said, “This stuff doesn’t have any taste or smell to it?” “Odorless, tasteless, and colorless, the doc said,” Mike confirmed. “The cyanide that it converts to smells like bitter almonds, but the original form doesn’t have that smell.”

  “I’ve heard of laetrile, of course,” Phyllis said. “For a while there, a lot of people were using it as a cancer treatment.” Mike said, “Yeah, the government never approved it, though, and by now there’s been enough research to show that it’s really not effective. The theory was that the small amounts of cyanide created by it in the human system would attack just the cancer cells and kill them off” He shrugged. “It didn’t really work out that way, and not nearly as many people use it now. But some people with cancer still believe it works, and you can get it in Mexico.”

  “There’s no chance Boatwright was taking the drug and maybe got an accidental overdose?” Sam asked.

  “No. He didn’t have cancer, and that’s the only reason anybody would use laetrile. Besides, patients who are taking it are warned not to eat peaches or apricots or anything like that, just on the off chance they’d get too much of the stuff in their systems that way.”

  It was quiet again for a moment as they all thought about

  what Mike had told them, and then Phyllis said, “You wanted to ask us some questions?”

  “Yeah. Did any of you see anybody messing with Mr. Boatwright’s water bottle during the festival?”

  Silence reigned again as they pondered the question. Finally, Carolyn said, “I didn’t see anything like that.” “Neither did I,” Phyllis said. “But Donnie carried that water bottle around all the time and sometimes set it down while he was talking to people. I even picked it up and handed it back to him when he was about to walk off without it.” Her eyes widened suddenly as a thought occurred to her. “That means my fingerprints are on it!”

  “We’ll check on that,” Mike said, “but there are probably a lot of fingerprints on it, mostly Mr. Boatwright’s. I don’t know if any of the others will be usable.”

  “Someone must have been able to get hold of it, just for a minute or two, and dumped that chemical into it,” said Phyllis. Then they could just put it back and Donnie would never know the difference.”

  Mike nodded. “That’s what we think happened, all right. And it must have been not long before the cooking contest started, because he was drinking a lot from it then. If somebody had doped the water earlier in the day, Mr. Boatwright would have collapsed before it was time for the contest.” He looked around the room. “What about the rest of you? Did you see anything suspicious?”

  Sam said, “I never even met the fella until yesterday morning. If I saw him during the day, I didn’t really pay any attention to what he was doing or what was going on around him.”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” Mattie said. “I was sitting there at the Quiltin’ Society show.”

  “I saw Donnie several times during the day,” Eve said. “I even got him to promise me a dance later on.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t notice anything odd, and now I won’t get that dance, or any of the others I was promised. After what happened, I just don’t feel like it.” She sighed.

  After a moment, Mike asked, “Do you know of anybody who had a grudge against Mr. Boatwright? Somebody who might have wanted him dead?”

  “Donnie Boatwright was an institution in Weatherford,” Phyllis pointed out. “Everybody knew him. We certainly all did.”

  “Just because everybody knew him doesn’t mean everybody liked him,” Mike said.

  Sam grunted. “Somebody sure didn’t. Unless … Is there any way this could have been an accident, Mike?”

  “No, sir,” Mike replied with a shake of his head. “It was deliberate.”

  With a frown, Phyllis asked, “What if somebody just wanted to make him sick? Maybe whoever put that stuff in his water didn’t actually mean to kill him.”

  “I don’t understand, Mom. Why would anybody do that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I was just trying to think of some other explanation for what happened. But if Donnie had gotten sick just then, instead of dying, it would have interfered with the judging. And it certainly would have looked bad for whoever’s entry he had just sampled, which turned out to be mine…”

  As her voice trailed off, Phyllis turned her head to look at Carolyn.

  “My God!” Carolyn burst out. “Now you’re accusing me of murder?”

  “Not murder,” Phyllis said. “But if you wanted to ruin my chance to win the contest, having one of the judges get sick right after he ate my cobbler would do it.”

  Carolyn came to her feet. “This is outrageous! How dare you accuse me-“

  Eve broke in, “The first thing you said after Donnie collapsed, dear, was that Phyllis’s cobbler had, killed him. That’s an even worse accusation.”

  Phyllis shook her head, stricken by Carolyn’s expression

  and wishing now that she hadn’t brought up the subject. “I’m sorry, Carolyn. Please forgive me, and forget I said anything. I was just thinking out loud. I didn’t really mean to accuse you.”

  “Well, that’s certainly what it sounded like!”

  Mike looked at Carolyn and said carefully, “Miz Wilbarger, if something like that did happen, everybody would know that it was purely an accident.”

  “I didn’t do it, I tell you!”

  “No, she didn’t, Mike,” Phyllis declared without hesitation. “That would have required Carolyn to consider the possibility she might lose to me, and I don’t believe that thought ever entered her mind.”

  “Of course it didn’t!” Carolyn said.

  Mike held up his hands to bring the discussion back under control. “For what it’s worth, Miz Wilbarger, I don’t believe you’d do such a thing, either. But my job is to consider all the possibilities.”

  Carolyn sniffed and still looked offended, but she settled back into her chair.

  “I think we’ve hashed this out enough for now,” Mike went on. “If any of you think of anything you saw or heard, anything at all that’s the least bit suspicious, or even puzzling, please let me know.” He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “I’d better be going.”

  Phyllis got up and went with him to the door. She stepped out onto the porch with him and said quietly, “Carolyn really couldn’t have done it, you know. I don’t know what made me say that.”

  “Like you said, you were just thinking out loud, Mom.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to be all right? I know it was a mighty bad day for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Phyllis said. “But you’re right … it should have been a wonderful day, but it didn’t turn out that way at all.”

  Especia
lly for Donnie Boatwright, she thought.

  Chapter 16

  The atmosphere in the house was very strained for the next couple of days. Carolyn had been hurt by the accusations leveled at her, but so had Phyllis. They sort of tiptoed around each other, not talking much, and when they did speak, it was in carefully polite, neutral tones. Phyllis was glad Carolyn hadn’t gotten so mad that she wanted to move out. Phyllis didn’t want to lose her as a boarder-or a friend.

  Time would heal the rift; Phyllis was confident of that. But it might help, she thought, if the police caught Donnie Boatwright’s murderer. It would be easier for both her and Carolyn to put their hurt feelings behind them, once they were in the clear.

  Donnie’s funeral was held at the Methodist church. The services for Newt Bishop had been well attended, but this funeral was in a whole other category. The big sanctuary in the church was packed, and several hundred people crowded into the fellowship hall next door, to listen to the service as it was piped in on the church’s public address system. Representatives from the news media in Fort Worth and Dallas were there, too. Since Donnie’s death had officially been ruled a homicide, while Newt’s still could have been an accident, that provoked more interest, too. Donnie’s decades long career as a local politician, businessman, and celebrity made the story that much more intriguing.

  Phyllis was well aware of all that, but it still seemed like

  a circus to her, and that made her uncomfortable. A person’s final farewell shouldn’t be a mob scene.

  But she felt like she ought to attend, even though she just added to the mob. She, Carolyn, Mattie, Eve, and Sam filed in and found seats in the church early, before the auditorium completely filled up. A short time later, Carolyn’s daughter, Sandra Webster, and her husband, Jerry, came in and sat down beside Carolyn, filling up the pew. Sandra had worked for Donnie Boatwright at one time, Phyllis recalled. That was probably why she was here.

  Donnie had a younger brother and sister, Charles Boatwright and Sally Boatwright Hughes. Both were in their seventies. Donnie himself had been a bachelor his whole life. This day and age, that sometimes prompted whispered speculation about a man’s sexuality, Phyllis knew, but not among her generation. They had known perfectly well that a man could fail to marry and still not be, well, like that. Anyway, Donnie had been quite a dashing figure in his time, and had always had plenty of lady friends. Mattie had been among them in her younger days, in fact. Phyllis recalled Mattie talking about how Donnie had taken her dancing once at the Casino Ballroom over in Lake Worth.

  Phyllis bowed her head as the minister offered up a prayer to get the service underway. This was the second funeral she had attended this summer, she thought briefly, and she hoped it would be the last.

  The Methodist minister was more long-winded than the Baptist preacher who had done Newt Bishop’s funeral, and the service began to grate on Phyllis before it was over. She sat there with her face solemn and composed, however, not letting her impatience show. Finally, the minister wrapped things up, and Phyllis joined the hundreds of others in attendance in filing past the casket. Whoever had prepared the body had taken great care to get Donnie’s sweeping mustaches just right. They bristled as if Donnie were still alive. Phyllis was surprised that the sight of that affected her more

  than the music or the minister’s words, causing a pang of regret and the awareness of her own mortality to go through her. Donnie Boatwright hadn’t been her friend, but she had known him for so long that she regarded him as a fixture of sorts in Weatherford, someone who had always been there and it seemed always would be. Despite his age, he had been a vital personality. But now he was gone, his life ripped away from him, and it just seemed wrong.

  When they reached the sidewalk in front of the church, Phyllis turned to Mattie, thinking that perhaps the older woman would be upset. Mattie never cried at funerals, though-she claimed she had been to too many of them for that and her eyes were dry now. Phyllis had thought it might be different, as Mattie and Donnie were old friends, but obviously not.

  Nor was Carolyn crying, or her daughter Sandra, for that matter. Eve dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief, though. Phyllis suddenly found herself wondering if anything had ever gone on between Eve and Donnie. Their breezy, sometimes earthy personalities had certainly been similar, and the fact that Donnie was twenty years older probably wouldn’t have mattered to Eve, especially back when Eve was, say, forty and Donnie was sixty.

  Phyllis pushed those thoughts out of her head. Such things were none of her business.

  Sam put his hands in the pockets of his black slacks and watched the mourners as they continued to pour out of the church and join the crowd that spilled for more than, a block along the sidewalk. “Mr. Boatwright must’ve been one heck of a popular fella,” he said.

  “I’m surprised you never met him,” Phyllis commented. “Everyone in Parker County seemed to know him.”

  Sam shrugged. “I knew who he was because I saw his name in the paper all the time. But our paths just never crossed, I guess.”

  Sandra Webster heard him and said, “You were one of the lucky ones, then.”

  The curtness of the comment took Phyllis by surprise. She looked more closely at Sandra and saw no sign of grief at all. Sandra was in her early forties, a little heavy but still an attractive woman with reddish-blond hair that had just started to be touched with gray here and there. Not only did she not look upset about Donnie’s death, Phyllis was shocked to see what looked almost like a certain degree of satisfaction in Sandra’s eyes.

  Jerry Webster put a hand on his wife’s arm and said quietly, “Let’s go, honey.”

  Sandra nodded, gave Carolyn a quick hug, and then moved off along the sidewalk with her husband. Phyllis frowned as she watched them go. What had that unexpected comment been about? Under other circumstances, Phyllis might have asked Carolyn what Sandra meant, but given the tension between them, she didn’t think that was a good idea right now. Carolyn didn’t volunteer any explanations, either.

  None of them were going to the cemetery for the graveside service, so they, headed for Phyllis’s house. She was eager to get out of her churchgoing clothes and into a pair of blue jeans.

  When they got there, Carolyn went straight to her room and shut the door. Phyllis tried not to sigh. She still hoped that everything would work out sooner or later, but it was beginning to look like Carolyn might not ever get over being angry. If that turned out to be the case, it would be a real shame. Phyllis had already apologized for her thoughtless comments, though, so she didn’t see what else she could do.

  Murder, it seemed, changed everything, and sometimes the damage just couldn’t be repaired.

  Mike was surprised when he came into Sheriff Royce Haney’s office and found Weatherford Chief of Police Ralph Whitmire sitting there in front of the sheriff’s desk. Of course, there was no reason why the two top law enforcement officials in the county shouldn’t get together, and Mike

  happened to know that Haney and Whitmire got along well, unlike the situation in some places where there was friction between the sheriff’s office and the police department. But it was rare for them to have such a summit meeting as this appeared to be.

  “Sit down, Mike,” Sheriff Haney invited. “You know the chief?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mike said. He shook hands with Whitmire and then took the other chair in front of the sheriff’s desk.

  “Of course Deputy Newsom and I know each other,” Whitmire said. “I keep my eye out for good young officers, and Mike’s got a job waiting for him in my department any time he wants it.”

  “No offense, sir,” Mike said with a slight smile, “but I’m happy right where I am.”

  “Yeah, so stop trying to steal my deputies, Ralph,” Haney said with a smile of his own. He grew more serious as he went on. “I asked you in here to talk about Donnie Boatwright’s murder, Mike.”

  That took Mike by surprise, too. He had written up statements for his mother and h
er friends-recounting their assertions that they hadn’t seen anybody messing with Donnie’s water bottle, or anything else suspicious-taken the paperwork by the house for them to sign, and then turned them in for the sheriff to pass along to whoever from Chief Whitmire’s department was in charge of the investigation. Given the high profile of the victim, and the case, that might well be the chief himself.

  He hadn’t put anything in the statements about the wild accusations his mother and Carolyn Wilbarger had traded, because it was just crazy to think that anybody would commit murder over a cooking contest, but now he thought maybe that had been a mistake. He shouldn’t have let loyalty to his mother color his judgment.

  “I thought the Weatherford police have jurisdiction over that case, Sheriff,” he said.

  “They do. But as you know, we’re trying to help out any way we can.” Haney laced his fingers together and rested his hands on his stomach. “I’ll tell you the truth, Mike. There’s a lot of pressure to make an arrest and clear this case.”