Preserving Peaches

by Pamela Burford

  I recalled now that Peaches did indeed have a son named Sean. A grown daughter, too, if I wasn’t mistaken. Peaches had never married their father, and I’d heard that not long before her disappearance, the two had broken up after a decades-long cohabitation.

  This was the first I was hearing about the arrest. It must have just happened. From what I knew of the son, I wasn’t surprised. By all accounts, he was bad news. I also wasn’t surprised to discover he was Cheyenne O’Rourke’s new significant other. The girl had a history of poor decision making and had, in fact, once come close to being arrested for murder herself.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do for Sean,” I said. “Doesn’t he have a lawyer?”

  “His dad got him one.” She shrugged. “But, like, you know.”

  “No, Cheyenne, I don’t know. Why don’t you enlighten me.”

  She rolled her eyes, making me wonder why I was standing there trying to make sense of her—or rather, Sean’s—predicament when I should have been nailing down a lucrative assignment.

  But I knew why. I was intrigued. And that wasn’t good. When I’m intrigued, things tend to get messy. Heck, when I breathe, things tend to get messy, so I figured I might as well hear her out. Then I could tell her I had no intention of getting involved and be on my way.

  I see you smirking. It’s very unbecoming and totally uncalled-for. Well, somewhat uncalled-for. Maybe.

  Patrick called out, “For cripes sake, Cheyenne, I need you over here.”

  I looked at the lunch line, which had doubled in the past sixty seconds. The girl’s dad had three blenders, two griddles, and the broiler going as he ladled vegetarian chili with one hand and wiped up spilled carrot juice with the other.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she screeched. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Gawd!”

  “This thing with Sean is none of my business,” I told her. “It’s his lawyer’s job to prove he didn’t—”

  “Yeah, ’cause he did such a good job defending Sean three years ago.” Another eye-roll, this one accompanied by a disgusted shake of the head.

  No way was I going to ask. I had no business asking. I needed to get out of there, stat, and hightail it to Betsy van Heel’s house. I opened my mouth to tell her sayonara. “So what happened three years ago?”

  Dang! I hate it when that happens.

  “The break-ins?” Her expression suggested I was a little slow.

  “Umm...”

  “Okay, burglaries,” she said. “Whatev.”

  I was tempted to tell her that if she kept doing that, her eyeballs would remain permanently rolled up toward the ceiling.

  “Okay, I think I’m catching on,” I said. “Sean was arrested for burglary three years ago.”

  “Duh.”

  “And his dad is hiring the same lawyer who represented him before,” I said, “only it didn’t go so well back then.”

  “The guy’s totally useless,” Cheyenne said. “Carlos Levine, that’s the idiot’s name. He didn’t, like, get him off or anything.”

  “Was Sean guilty?” I asked.

  “Yeah. So?”

  And his lawyer didn’t, like, get him off or anything. Life is so unfair.

  “You said ‘burglaries.’ Plural. What are we talking about here?” I asked. “Did he break into homes? Businesses?”

  “Homes. Like, three of them,” she said. “Well, three that they found out about. But he didn’t hurt anyone. He always made sure no one was, like, home.”

  “He did time, I assume?”

  She nodded. “A year. That was before I knew him.”

  “How old is Sean?” I asked.

  “Twenty. So back then he was, uh...” Cheyenne’s brow furrowed in deep cogitation.

  Twenty minus three. Come on, Cheyenne, I know you can do it. Finally I offered, “Seventeen?”

  “Wait,” she said. “I’m working it out.”

  “And he’s been clean since then?”

  She hesitated. “Depends what you mean by clean.”

  “Okay, you have to leave this to Mr. Levine.” I started to back away. “He knows Sean’s legal history, he’s in the best position to—”

  “No!” She sank her minty-fresh talons into my arm, halting my retreat. “You have to help him. You know about this stuff.”

  “What stuff would that be?”

  “Like, murder and stuff,” she said. “That’s why they call you the Death Dame.”

  “Diva,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m called the— Never mind. It doesn’t make me an expert on murder.”

  “Just look into it.” She dug her nails deeper into my arm, making my knees buckle. “Do some, like, investigating. Sean didn’t do it. I mean, sure, he hated his bitch mom for kicking him out of the house and everything. Oh my Gawd, he would not shut up about it. He might’ve wished she was dead, but that doesn’t mean he did it.”

  “Did he?” I asked. “Wish she was dead?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  I glanced at the clock again. Betsy van Heel had now been waiting three and a half minutes for me to knock on her door. And I still had to make my way to said door, which would take me another five to seven minutes, depending on the lunchtime traffic. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it.”

  Cheyenne’s face lit up. “You’ll prove he didn’t kill her?”

  “I’ll look into it. That’s all I can promise. Now, give me back my arm.”

  3

  Mummy Dearest

  HAPPILY, MY MEETING with Betsy van Heel went great. She didn’t seem to notice I was ten minutes late, which didn’t surprise me since she turned out to be more than a little flaky.

  Right about now you’re thinking, Really? The lady wants you to get in touch with someone who’s been in the ground for fourteen years and she strikes you as flaky?

  Betsy van Heel might be a tad wackadoodle, and I might not personally believe in the mumbo-jumbo she subscribed to, but since she’d decided I was the person who could get through to the late Harvey van Heel, I intended to do this thing right. I’d do my homework, research the heck out of it, and give it my best shot. Only then would I let Betsy fork over the promised thousand bucks.

  And just for the record, in the more than two decades I’ve been Death Diva’ing, I’ve never cheated a client. In my book, taking advantage of a client’s grief, confused state of mind, or, as in this case, nonstandard belief system was tantamount to robbery. It was a matter of conscience, part of a Death Diva code of honor I subscribe to.

  That evening I found myself driving through a torrential downpour to meet with yet another prospective client. That’s how it is with my strange business, it’s the proverbial feast or famine. This one was a woman named Evie Moretti, and she lived in an apartment building I was familiar with, called The Americana. She’d sounded young on the phone that morning, but taciturn. She wouldn’t offer much info about the job she wanted me to perform, except to say it involved the missing property of a recently deceased person.

  I suggested she might be better off reporting the suspected theft to the cops. She immediately dismissed that idea, at which point I figured it wouldn’t hurt to hear her out. Evie informed me she got home from work around six p.m. It was about half past six when I pulled into the building’s parking garage and located a vacant guest space.

  After Evie buzzed me into the building, I took the elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door of apartment 4A. The woman who opened it was indeed young, in her early twenties. She was on the tall side, about five nine, and dressed in a conservative blue skirt suit, her blonde hair pulled back into a neat chignon. She wore simple pearl stud earrings and rimless eyeglasses.

  “Ms. Delaney?” she asked

  “Please, call me Jane. It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Moretti.”

  I expected her to reciprocate by inviting me to call her Evie, or Evelyn, or what have you. Instead she continued to block the doorway and said, “Would you mind showing me some identification.” It was
not a question.

  My surprise had to be apparent. In all my years as a freelance businessperson, I’d never been asked to prove who I was. “Um... sure, just give me a sec,” I mumbled as I rummaged through my briefcase. “Here you go.” I shoved one of my business cards at her.

  She took it, examined it carefully, turned it over. And stared at me, clearly waiting for something more official. What did she think, that there was some sort of Death Diva international organization, with regional chapters, an annual conference, and holographic photo ID?

  Okay, now I was starting to get steamed. First the woman is downright secretive on the phone about what she wants me to do for her, and then she acts like I’m some sort of impostor, just pretending to be the Jane Delaney, Death Diva extraordinaire.

  I managed to keep my expression more or less neutral as I handed over my driver’s license. One of the tougher lessons my line of work has hammered home is the importance of repressing my snarky side in the interest of keeping the larder stocked with Fruity Pebbles and Vienna sausages. The sausages are for Sexy Beast, although he manages to snag his fair share of Fruity Pebbles too.

  And yes, I am, too, capable of repressing my snarky side, I just need a really good reason to make the effort. Like avoiding starvation.

  As my prospective client peered closely at my license, I noticed that her left ring finger was bare. No Mr. Moretti in the picture, then.

  At last she handed it back and stepped aside to wordlessly invite me into her apartment. What, no blood test? No waterboarding? I decided right then that if she demanded a list of references, I’d walk. I mean, I’ve done work for an impressive proportion of the Crystal Harbor citizenry, leaving the vast majority of those clients more than satisfied with my services. Clearly it was word of mouth that had brought Evie to me in the first place. You’d think that would be good enough.

  Her home was furnished traditionally, in assorted variations of beige with little in the way of decoration. I noticed right off if there were no family photographs on display.

  She invited me to sit but didn’t offer so much as a glass of water. I settled into a Queen Anne wing chair. She sat on the camelback sofa across from me. A manila folder lay on the coffee table between us.

  Evie got right down to it. “This is a rather sensitive situation, Jane.”

  “That describes almost all the assignments I handle, Ms. Moretti. Why don’t you tell me what this is about and we’ll take it from there. You said some property went missing?”

  “That’s right.” She reached for the folder. “A collection of figurines. Well, ‘figurines’ isn’t really accurate. We’re talking about a wide range of collectibles, everything from cheap kitschy stuff to pieces worth thousands.” She handed the folder to me.

  Inside was a thick stack of eight-by-ten photos. The top one was split into four sections, showing a close-up of a glass paperweight in the shape of peach, from four different angles. I chewed back a smile. Quite the coincidence considering that several hours earlier Cheyenne had coerced me into looking into the Peaches Gillespey murder. This was turning into a peachy day indeed.

  Oh, come on. You couldn’t see that one coming?

  My smile faltered when the next picture showed a lovely little carved marble peach, also from four angles. This was followed by images of a tacky snow globe labeled Atlanta, the Big Peach!, with a little plastic peach tree inside it. The glitter sitting at the bottom was pink rather than white, from which I deduced this was in fact a peach-blossom globe. Which made sense because, I mean, how much snow does Atlanta get?

  I moved on to the next sheet, containing four shots of an intricately detailed porcelain peach which appeared to be an antique. The paint was worn in places, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was at least a couple of hundred years old.

  I quickly flipped through the rest of the photos. You guessed it, more peach tchotchkes, four dozen at least, of every conceivable material and design. I looked at Evie. “Okay, I have to ask. Are you related to Gertrude ‘Peaches’ Gillespey?”

  “Peaches was my mother. I assumed you knew.”

  “Well, your name is Moretti, so...”

  “Carter Moretti is my dad,” Evie said. “He and Mom were in a common-law marriage for twenty-four years.”

  I suppose common-law marriage sounded a little more respectable than shacked up. “But they split recently, right?” I asked.

  She stiffened. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  If this woman was going to be so prickly about every darn thing, I didn’t even want to try working with her. I wagged the folder. “I assume this collection belonged to your mother?”

  She nodded, frowning.

  “And now you don’t know where these items are, but you suspect that someone in your family, or someone close to your family, made off with them during the months when your mom was missing. Hence the sensitive nature of the assignment. Am I getting warm, Ms. Moretti?” I figured if I called her Ms. Moretti enough times, eventually she’d get a little embarrassed and ask me to call her by her first name. I mean, I was close to twice her age.

  Evie sighed deeply. “It’s not that I think someone made off with them. Well, that could be what happened. The thing is, it’s my brother. Sean. I suppose you know he was arrested earlier today. They think he killed her. I’m sure everyone knows by now, considering how fast bad news spreads in this town.”

  I merely nodded, making no mention of Cheyenne and the promise I’d made her to look into the murder. I said, “You think Sean took the peach collection?”

  An angry flush suffused her face. “I think he gave them away. Or even threw them away, just to spite me. But someone could very well have simply walked off with them. It wouldn’t have been difficult.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Isn’t your mom’s home locked up?”

  “Sean’s living there now. He moved back in as soon as we realized she was really missing. At first we hoped she was just taking a vacation.”

  “Without telling anyone in the family where she was going?” I asked.

  Her expression was weary. “It wouldn’t have been the first time. And then after she and dad broke up, she started, um... well, her social life really picked up, and she became even more unpredictable.”

  “Meaning she was actively dating,” I said.

  Evie squirmed. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Was there someone special,” I asked, “or was she seeing more than one man?”

  “I really don’t see what this has to do—”

  “Ms. Moretti, if I’m going to take on this assignment, I need some background. Whatever you tell me will remain strictly between the two of us. You won’t be reading about it in the Harbor Herald, I promise.”

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Jane, you didn’t really need to know about Peaches’s sex life. Admit it, you were just curious.

  Heck yes, I was curious. But I did indeed have a legitimate reason to venture down this particular conversational path. Evie had indicated that someone close to Peaches might have swiped her collection. It was entirely possible that someone was a new, possibly untrustworthy, paramour. Before I agreed to take on this assignment, I needed to know what I was dealing with.

  Evie avoided my gaze. “Okay, well, the fact is, my mother was enjoying her freedom.”

  “Meaning she was dating different men and didn’t have one exclusive guy.” I waited until she confirmed it with a sour nod. Why was Evie so worked up about her newly single mom playing the field? Maybe the whole thing just weirded her out. She struck me as pretty uptight.

  I said, “You mentioned that your brother Sean moved back into your mom’s house after she went missing. So he used to live there with her?”

  “Yes, until she kicked him out.”

  I already knew this from Cheyenne, I just wanted to hear Evie confirm it.

  “Why did she do that?” I asked.

  “Well, she and Dad had just broken up�
��”

  “Who did the breaking up?” I asked. “Your mom or Carter?”

  “Mom did. Well, they were both unhappy, but he probably would’ve stuck it out if she’d let him. Dad’s not one for big changes or rocking the boat.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, I said, “Meaning what?”

  Evie sighed. “Meaning she’d been supporting him for twenty-four years and he’d put up with an awful lot from her during that time.”

  The same could be said for a lot of wives. I didn’t think it politic to mention it. “So your mom dumps your dad and, what, he moves out of the house? Where did he go?”

  “He moved in with his mother, my grandma Audrey,” she said.

  “Is your grandpa still alive?”

  She shook her head. “Grandma’s been a widow for years.”

  “How old is your dad?” I asked.

  “Forty-five. Same age my mom was.”

  Kind of an awkward age to move back in with your elderly mother. “Is it temporary?” I asked. “I mean, is Carter planning to get his own place?”

  “He can’t, he has no real source of income. I just wish he’d get a job, any job, and stop sponging off Grandma’s Social Security, but...” She sighed. “What can I tell you, she still spoils him.”

  “Okay, well, did your mom kick Sean out at the same time?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I didn’t blame her one bit. My brother’s hard enough to handle when there are two parents in the house. It’s a full-time job, believe me. Mom was kind of starting fresh, like I said, and the last thing she needed was a slacker druggie like Sean hanging around and getting in the way.”

  This was the most sympathetic thing I’d heard her say about her dead mother since we’d started talking. As critical as she was of Peaches, she had even less use for her younger brother. “So I’m guessing Sean moved in with your grandma at the same time your dad did.”

  Evie made a face. “Grandma Audrey lives in this little two-bedroom house. Sean was sleeping in the basement and making both their lives hell.”

  “And neither of the men had a job, is that right?” I asked.