A Peach of a Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  “You’d go to the police about this? It’s all long forgotten!”

  “Maybe it shouldn’t be,” Phyllis said. “Maybe it’s just what they need to know. They’re concentrating on someone else, and I’m convinced that person is innocent.”

  “That’s just your opinion. Just like it’s my opinion that Charles and Sally are innocent.”

  “If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t mind if the police look into this. If you’re right, they won’t find anything pointing to Charles or Sally as the murderer.”

  “But it’s still a terrible thing to do;’ Kinnison protested, “setting the cops on them like that.”

  “You’re right,” Phyllis agreed, “but it would be even more terrible if an innocent person was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.”

  Kinnison’s bushy white eyebrows lifted. “You sound mighty convinced that whoever the cops regard as the most likely suspect is innocent.”

  “I’d stake my life on it,” Phyllis said.

  Chapter 24

  “Let’s sum up what we know,” Sam said as Phyllis drove back toward the house. “Donnie Boatwright got control of his mother’s estate well before she died, and when she did pass away, the will she had made just a week earlier left Donnie everything. This made his brother Charles so mad that Charles went to the office of the lawyer who drew up the will and threatened to go to Fist City with him.”

  “That’s it, all right,” Phyllis said.

  “Pretty impressive that you found out all of that in only one day of detective work.”

  Phyllis sort of thought so, too, but she didn’t want to say so because it would have been bragging. Although… what was it Walter Brennan had said, according to Sam?

  No brag, just fact.

  “What now?” Sam went on.

  “Well, I think this should be brought to the attention of the police. We’ve got copies of the will, and the fact that Charles threatened Mr. Kinnison.”

  “Which Kinnison will probably deny if the cops question him about it. He seemed just as sure that Charles is innocent as you are about Carolyn.”

  “I don’t know. He’s an officer of the court, after all. Surely he wouldn’t tell the police a bald-faced lie.” “Sometimes legal ethics is a, what do you call it, oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp.”

  “If Eve was here she’d tell you it’s an oxymoron.”

  Sam grinned. “Well, I’ve got half of it down, anyway.” He grew more serious as he went on, “I wouldn’t put it past Kinnison to lie to the cops, at least about this. What worries me even more is that he might call Charles Boatwright and tell him that Nancy Drew is on his trail.”

  “Please! Nancy Drew was a mere slip of a girl.”

  “I mean it, Phyllis. If Boatwright is a killer, and if he knows you’re trying to get the police interested in him … well, there’s no telling what he might do.”

  “‘That’s why you talked me into taking on an able-bodied assistant. You’re the hired muscle, Sam … although I can only pay you in things like meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”

  “Fine by me. I just hope I don’t have to wind up earnin’ my wages. I’m a lot better at freeloadin’.”

  Despite their banter, she could tell that he was actually worried, and to be honest, deep down she was, too. She had gotten caught up in her desire to prove Carolyn’s innocence, to the point that she had forgotten it might have been smart to play her cards a little closer to the vest.

  But what she was doing was out in the open now, so things would just have to take their course, no matter what that might be.

  She found out what that course was when they got home and walked into the living room to find Eve on the phone. She looked a little flustered, which was a warning sign in itself because Eve never got flustered, and as she turned and saw Phyllis and Sam, she said, “Here she is now, Mr. Boatwright. Hold on just a minute.” Eve put her hand over the phone and told Phyllis, “It’s Charles Boatwright, and he sounds awfully upset about something.”

  Phyllis exchanged a worried glance with Sam and then sighed in resignation. She held out her hand for the phone. “I might as well talk to him and get it over with.”

  “I can tell him you can’t talk right now,” Eve offered. “No, that would just postpone the unpleasantness.”

  “Well, all right, dear.” Eve handed over the phone. Phyllis took it. “This is Phyllis Newsom.”

  “Mrs. Newsom, this is Charles Boatwright.” he said unnecessarily. “I just got off the phone with William Kinnison, and I’m very upset about what he told me. I thought when we talked this morning that we got along quite well.”

  “We did. It was a nice conversation, Mr. Boatwright.” “Conversation!” Charles practically yelped. “From what I understand now, it was more of an interrogation!”

  “Not at all. I wasn’t there on any official basis-” “Which makes it even worse,” Charles cut in. “You’re not a police officer, Mrs. Newsom. You’re just a prying old busybody with a morbid curiosity!”

  Phyllis stiffened angrily. If Charles had been here, instead of on the phone, she would have been tempted to slap his face for a comment like that.

  “You seem to think that I murdered my brother,” Charles’ went on. “Would it do any good if I told you that I had nothing to do with Donnie’s death? Would you stop this insane meddling of yours?”

  “Mere’s nothing insane about trying to find out the truth.”

  “You’re not after the truth. You’re just trying to smear my good name!”

  Sam had been watching her end of the conversation with a worried expression on his face, and he had to be able to hear Charles’s loud, angry voice, even though he probably couldn’t make out the words. He held out a hand and mouthed, Want me to talk to him?

  Phyllis shook her head and said into the phone, “If you’re innocent, Mr. Boatwright, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “You know better than that,” he said coldly. “Plenty of innocent people have had their lives and reputations ruined by coming under suspicion for a crime like this.”

  He was right, of course. That was exactly why Phyllis wanted so badly to save Carolyn from that very thing. “Well, do your worst,” Charles went on. “I’ve retained Kinnison as my lawyer, so he’ll be with me if the police come to question me. And he’ll be filing a slander suit on my behalf if you start spreading any vicious rumors, too, you old bitch!”

  Phyllis gasped at the virulence in his voice. Instinctively, she lowered the phone and pushed the off button. She wasn’t going to be talked to like that by anybody.

  Sam took a quick step toward her. “What is it? What did he say?”

  Phyllis took a deep breath and tried to bring her emotions under control again. “He’s hired Mr. Kinnison as his lawyer,” she said. “I guess the secretary was wrong about him not taking on any new clients.”

  “That was a smart move on his part. Now Kinnison can claim lawyer-client privilege, and they can both keep their mouths shut about, what happened after Mrs. Boatwright died.”

  “Mrs. Boatwright” Eve repeated. “Dear, what in heaven’s name is going on here? What have you been doing to get people so worked up?”

  Phyllis hadn’t really thought about the fact that Eve had been in the room while she was talking to Charles. Now she had no choice but to say, “I’m looking into Donnie Boatwright’s murder.”

  “Looking into? You mean like investigating? Like a detective?” Eve stared at her. “Dear, why in the world would you want to do that?”

  “Yes, Phyllis,” Carolyn said from the bottom of the stairs, “why would you want to do that?”

  Phyllis turned her head sharply to look toward the stairs. She hadn’t known that Carolyn was there, and had no idea how much she had overheard.

  “I was just asking some questions.” she began.

  “Trying to prove that I’m innocent?”

  “Innocent of what?” Eve asked. She looked around sternly. “Something’s going on he
re that I don’t know anything about, and I have to tell you, I don’t like it!”

  Carolyn walked toward them and said wearily, “The police think I killed Donnie Boatwright.”

  “What? Why, that’s ridiculous!”

  “I know,” Phyllis said. “That’s why I’m not going to let this go any farther.”

  “No one appointed you my protector, Phyllis.” Carolyn said. “I don’t want you getting into any trouble on my account.”

  “I’m not going to get into any trouble.”

  Eve said, “From the sound of that phone call from Charles Boatwright, you already are.”

  Phyllis waved a hand, dismissing the idea of being worried about Charles Boatwright.

  “What about Charles?” Carolyn asked.

  Phyllis hesitated but then decided that so much of the story had already been spilled, it didn’t make any sense to worry about keeping the rest of it a secret. She let it pour out of her, telling Carolyn and Eve how she’d spent her day and filling them in on the things she and Sam had learned.

  “Let me get this straight,” Carolyn said when Phyllis finished. She nodded toward Sam and went on, “He knew about this and has been helping you?”

  “Just part of the day.”

  Stiffly, Carolyn said to Sam, “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. But what I said to Phyllis goes for you, too. I don’t want my problems getting anyone else into trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble, Carolyn.” he told her, his voice gentle. “We want to see justice done, and we know you didn’t kill Donnie. “

  “Then who did?” Eve asked. “His own brother?”

  “We have no proof of that,” Phyllis said. “None at all. But the police have based their investigation of Carolyn purely on motive and opportunity, and I want them to see that Charles had just as much opportunity and a motive that was just as strong, if not stronger!”

  “Well, what you say makes sense, dear,” Eve admitted. “Are you going to tell the police about it?”

  Phyllis thought briefly about the phone call from Charles. It had had the opposite effect from what he wanted. She was more determined than ever now to share her discoveries with the authorities-especially since they were things the police could have learned themselves, if they had just bothered to look!

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to tell Mike, anyway. He can take the information to the sheriff, and then Royce Haney can tell Chief Whitmire about it. I’m sure they’ll take it better coming from Mike than they will from me. I just hope it does some good.”

  “So do 1,” Carolyn said, “but I’m not going to count on it. Things have gone too far. It’s like there’s a runaway train bearing down on me, and there’s not a thing I can do to stop it or get out of the way.”

  For Carolyn’s sake, Phyllis hoped that her friend was wrong about that.

  “You did what?” Mike said as he stared at his mother.

  “I talked to Bud Winfield and Charles Boatwright, then Sam and I looked up old Mrs. Boatwright’s will at the county clerk’s office, and then we went to see Mr. Kinnison. Honestly, Mike, I already told you all this once.” Her voice held the tolerant but slightly impatient tone that most parents took when they explained something to their children yet again.

  Mike figured he sounded like that sometimes, too, when he talked to Bobby. But that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m just having a hard time believing that you could go out and start acting like Nancy Drew.” His mother made an exasperated sound. “Nancy Drew again,” she said. “For goodness sake, do I look like a teenage girl?”

  “You remind me more of Miss Marple, dear,” Eve put in. “Or that Jessica Fletcher from TV” She looked at Sam. “I never thought of that! You have the same last name.”

  Sam held up his hands and said, “No relation.”

  “Well, I should hope not. She’s a fictional character, dear.”

  Mike wondered fleetingly how he’d managed to fall down a rabbit hole in the middle of Weatherford. “Look, Mom,” he said, “you can’t just go around and start investigating a murder. It’s not right.”

  “Did you know about old Mrs. Boatwright’s will, and the fact that Charles Boatwright threatened Mr. Kinnison because of it?” “No, and I still don’t know that, except as hearsay.”

  Sam held out some sheets of paper. “Here’s a copy of the will. You can look it up yourself in the county clerk’s office if you want. You’ll probably want a certified copy when you show it to the sheriff.”

  “I haven’t said I’m showing anything to the sheriff.” Mike looked around at the faces of the people gathered in his mother’s living room. They were all here except Mrs. Hams, who was upstairs napping. When he had walked in here, having come by on his way home from work in response to his mother’s phone call, he had been able to tell right away that they were worked up about something. But not in his wildest dreams would he have ever expected the things he had heard.

  And yet … and yet the theory they were pushing made sense, no matter how they had gotten the information it was based on. Carolyn Wilbarger had a motive-something bad Donnie Boatwright had done in the past to her daughter. But Charles Boatwright had a motive based on the past that was just as strong, maybe even stronger because Donnie’s alleged underhandedness had affected Charles directly. For that matter, Charles’s sister, Sally, had to come in for her share of suspicion, too, since she shared the same motive as her brother. And then there was Sally’s husband, who could have acted on her behalf… .

  Charles was the one who had threatened violence against Kinnison, though. The problem with that was that it had occurred nearly forty years earlier, as had Charles and Sally being cut out of their mother’s will. Carolyn’s anger toward Donnie was a lot fresher, only a few years old. A jury probably wouldn’t be willing to believe that Charles and/or Sally had waited decades to settle the score.

  Mike mulled all that over in a matter of a few silent seconds. Finally, his mother demanded, “Well? What are you going to do?”

  With a sigh, Mike said, “It makes sense to question Charles and Sally again. Any time there’s a homicide, the first person you look at is the spouse, and if the victim’s not married, then you see if anybody in his family has any reason to want him dead. It’s just standard procedure.”

  “Which wasn’t followed in this case,” Phyllis pointed out.

  “That’s because the sheriff and Chief Whitmire thought they had a better suspect.” Mike couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Mrs. Wilbarger.

  “You admit it, then. A full investigation hasn’t been carried out.”

  “Let me talk to the sheriff,” Mike said, not admitting anything for the record-and when a fella was talking to his mother, he was always talking on the record. “Chances are, Charles Boatwright and Mr. Kinnison are both going to deny that there was ever any trouble between them, and if we can’t shake their story, we’re stuck with nothing but the will. And even though it might have been a lousy thing to do, there was absolutely nothing illegal about Mrs. Boatwright leaving everything to Donnie.”

  Sam said, “Even though he had her power of attorney and

  could’ve used, what do you call it, undue influence to get her to cut out the other two?”

  “That’s pure speculation,” Mike pointed out. “We don’t know exactly what went on back then, and with the two people who were involved both dead, we can’t ever be sure that we know the whole truth.”

  His mother looked crestfallen. “Are you saying that I didn’t do any good?”

  “If we can’t prove there was trouble between Charles and Kinnison over the will, which would indicate that by extension Charles was also upset with Donnie about it, then we’re left with just a possible motive, and nothing to indicate that it was ever acted on.”

  “Just like in Carolyn’s case,” Phyllis pointed out.

  Mike shrugged. “Just like that … but it’s Mrs. Wilbarger ‘ who’s going to be pulled in for questioning any day
now.” Carolyn sighed and looked at the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Mike said. “I’m just telling you how it is. It doesn’t do any good to sugarcoat things.”

  “No, of course not,” his mother said. “All right, Mike. Take a copy of the will, and do what you can with it. And thank you for listening to us.”

  “No problem.” He got to his feet. “But, Mom, I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave this to us from here on out. I swear, I’ll do everything I can to get to the bottom of it.”

  “I know you will.” Phyllis stood up, too, and gave him a hug. So did Eve, and Sam clapped a hand on his shoulder. Carolyn stayed in her chair, looking discouraged. Mike had never seen her that way before. She had always been so loud and hearty and sure of herself. To be honest, he thought, she had always been a little bit pushy. All that self-confidence was gone now, and as he looked at the defeated woman in the chair, Mike realized that he didn’t believe she was guilty, either.