I replaced the photo on the coffee table. “Well, but she wore a wig. At least, um, some of the time.” At least, um, while morphing into a human Slim Jim in an overheated attic.
Audrey looked startled. “Peaches? Never.”
“You never saw her with blonde hair?”
“Blonde? I can’t even imagine it,” Audrey said. “I can always tell when someone’s wearing a hairpiece, believe you me, and with Peaches, it was always her natural hair. What made you think she wore a wig?”
“Hey there.” It was Carter Moretti, descending the stairs. He wore a teasing smile. “Sounds like I’m missing an exciting conversation.”
“Hi, Carter. I’m Jane Delaney.” I stood and we shook.
“You’re the one that found Peaches.” He took a seat in the recliner, tilting it back and elevating his sock-clad feet. His youthful good looks had not survived the onslaught of middle age. The tall body under the sweatpants and flannel shirt had the soft look of an ex-athlete who’s forgotten what the inside of a gym looks like. There were bags under his eyes, and his graying hair needed a trim.
“I did, yes,” I said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He gave a sad shake of the head. “I had no idea... We thought she was on vacation somewhere. At least that’s what we hoped, at first.”
Audrey said, “Jane was asking if Peaches ever wore wigs. I never saw her in one. Did you?”
He scrubbed a hand over his bristly jaw. “She did wear a wig once in a while. A blonde one. Just for fun, you know?”
“Well, that’s news to me.” She rose. “I just made coffee. I’ll get you a cup.”
“Did you remember my soda when you went shopping?” he asked.
She nodded. “I bought four six-packs this morning, so that should hold you awhile. I’m sorry we ran out. I should’ve noticed we were running low. Would you prefer soda to coffee?”
“That’d be great. Just bring me the bottle.” He offered a warm smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
Carter might be just as dependent on Audrey as his son was, and just as willing to let her run herself ragged for him, but at least he expressed appreciation. I supposed that counted for something, although the urge to shake some sense into both of them was overpowering.
After Audrey left the room, Carter asked, “So what brings you here, Jane?”
“It’s about your wife’s— I mean Peaches’s collection of peach knickknacks.”
“My daughter told me they’re missing.” He frowned. “Sean should be more careful about who he lets into that house.”
“Evie hired me to try and track them down. I’m a kind of investigator. I specialize in...” I paused. How to forestall a long and potentially confusing conversation?
“Stuff that’s missing,” he said, as if it were obvious.
Sure. That worked. “So anyway, I’ve been checking in with everyone who might have any information about the collection.”
“Well, that was nice of Evie. I guess she knows I can’t afford your services.”
“When you say it was nice of her to hire me, that’s because...?” I suspected I knew where this was going, and I was right.
“Because that collection belongs to me,” he said. “Peaches told me that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted me to have it.”
In case you haven’t been keeping count, that makes four individuals who were promised—or claimed they were promised—Peaches’s peaches. How many more so-called owners were going to materialize before I eventually located those darn things? Because I would locate them. It was personal now. Even if I weren’t being paid, I wouldn’t rest until I’d found them.
But I still really wanted to get paid.
“So you think one of your son’s friends stole the collection?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Sometimes it’s worth thinking outside the box,” I said. “For instance, can you recall anyone who really admired the collection? Like, more than normal?”
“Everyone liked those things. Or said they did. A few of the pieces, yeah, they’re kind of nice. Others...” He gave an eloquent shrug.
I offered an impish smile. “What, you’re no fan of peach-tree snow globes?”
“Oh no, that one rocks. Takes snow globes to a whole new level. A few of the others, though, like that little Japanese thing? Eh. I can take it or leave it.”
“Okay,” I said, “but you do know that that little Japanese netsuke is worth a heck of a lot more than the snow globe, right?”
“Sure.” Another shrug. “People like that old stuff, and they’ll shell out big bucks for it. Doesn’t make it better.”
No way was I going to tell Carter about the competing claims on his beloved snow globe and the other pieces. I was pretty sure that in the absence of a written bequest, the peach collection, like the rest of Peaches’s estate, would be shared equally by her children. Since Carter and Peaches were never legally married, he had no right of inheritance.
Which made me wonder if he might be the one who bashed in that china cabinet and made off with the peaches. I mean, would you be able to resist snatching a bunch of tchotchkes worth somewhere in excess of thirty grand when the alternative was to walk away from a twenty-four-year common-law marriage emptyhanded? Hard to argue with the arithmetic.
I reminded myself that the cops had thoroughly searched this house a few days earlier. If they’d stumbled across something as distinctive as a bunch of knickknacks shaped like peaches, while investigating the murder of someone named Peaches, don’t you think Howie and Cookie would have learned about it? Yet the detectives hadn’t known of the collection’s existence before I mentioned it the previous evening at the pub.
“Obviously I wish you luck in your search,” he said. “Anything I can do to help, just ask.”
“If anything occurs to you, or if you remember something and don’t even know whether it’s relevant, I’d appreciate your getting in touch with me.” I handed him one of my business cards.
He looked at it. His brow knitted. “Death Diva? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a... well, it’s a nickname. That’s not important. Just call me if you think of anything.” I really needed to get some new cards made up, with a more neutral business name for occasions such as this.
Audrey bustled back in with a plate of cookies and some paper napkins, which she placed on the coffee table, and a bottle of Grampy Deke’s Original Black Cherry Soda—Now with MORE high-fructose corn syrup!—which she handed to her son.
“Nectar of the gods. Thanks, Mom.” Carter took a long swig, and sighed. “We ran out of this stuff a few days ago and I went into withdrawal,” he joked.
Audrey resumed her seat. “Carter, don’t let me forget I have a lasagna in the oven for Sean. I don’t want it to burn.”
So that was the source of the divine aroma. He produced his cell phone and tapped the screen. “How long?”
“I should check it in another fifteen minutes.”
He did a little more tapping, setting an alarm, I assumed. “You’re too good to that boy, Mom.”
What about the overgrown boy lazing around in the recliner? She wasn’t too good to him?
I took a slow, deep breath. Focus, Jane.
Audrey turned to face me. “Did you know that Peaches’s mother used to be president of the Historical Society?”
“Really?” I said. “When was this?” I reached for a cookie. And yes, they were Thin Mints. Can I read people or what?
“Oh, around thirty-five years ago,” she said. “Peaches was a child then, of course. But Linda—that was her mother’s name—Linda took her responsibilities very seriously. She spent every afternoon in that old building. I suppose some of the appeal was social. She’d meet her friends for lunch and then they’d spend a few hours on their volunteer activities. Nice not to have to work for a living. That was mean. I shouldn’t have said that. Linda died fairly young, poor woman. When Peaches was still a teen.”
“Jane doesn’t want to hear about all this, Mom,” Carter said. “It’s boring.”
“Not to me,” I said. “So Peaches would’ve been in elementary school when her mom was president of the Historical Society.”
“Yes,” Audrey said. “She told me she was eight when Linda started having her go directly there after school instead of letting herself into an empty house. She’d sit in her mother’s office and do homework or play with some toys she kept there. But her favorite thing was exploring that old attic.”
Her words struck me like an electric jolt. My reaction wasn’t lost on Audrey, who said, “I know. Isn’t it just awful that the place that brought her such joy as a youngster ended up being...” She shivered.
Her tomb.
Carter said, “She showed me that attic when we first started dating. It was kind of special to her. You know, like her own secret hideaway when she was a kid.”
“And her mother didn’t mind her going up there?” I asked.
“She didn’t know,” he said. “The Historical Society is in this big old house, with lots of rooms, a basement—”
“I know, I’ve been there.” Too many times to count, including five days earlier for my surprise party.
“Peaches would tell her mom she was walking around the grounds or having a snack in the kitchen or hanging out in the little library they have there. Stuff like that.”
“What did she do up there?” I asked.
“Just kinda poked around, like kids do,” he said. “It’s full of all his old stuff from, I don’t know, Civil War times. Earlier even. I think she found her first peach knickknack up there.”
“Really? Which one? I’ve seen pictures of them.”
“It’s this little porcelain thing,” he said. “Some of the paint’s worn off. Don’t know what she saw in it, except her nickname’s always been Peaches, from when she was a baby, so...”
“I remember that figurine,” I said. “It looked like a real antique. I’m guessing it might fetch a nice price from a collector.”
“Like I said, these folks with lots of money love that old stuff.”
“Do you know how she got the nickname?” I asked.
Audrey spoke up. “Linda told me her mother used to admire baby Gertrude’s ‘peaches and cream’ complexion. She started calling her ‘Peaches’ and it stuck.”
I had a hard time picturing irascible Peaches Gillespey as an adorable, rosy-cheeked infant. “So, Carter, what did you think of that attic when she took you up there?”
“To be honest, I didn’t see what was so special about it,” he said. “Just a dusty old place full of dusty old things. But she was real excited to show it to me, and I was really into her, so I didn’t mind.”
“What did you do up there?” I asked.
Carter’s gaze flicked to his mom, just for an instant, but long enough to make me regret having asked. He colored slightly as he said, “Nothing really. Just looked around and left.”
Yeesh. Doing it in that spooky, cobwebby old attic? I can’t imagine it was any less spooky or cobwebby a quarter century earlier when this romantic tryst took place. A testament to young love, I supposed. Not to mention young hormones. I hoped for their sake it hadn’t been winter. Or summer, for that matter. The place must be an oven in August.
“Do you mind if I ask you two a very personal question?” I said. “Feel free to tell me it’s none of my business.”
“I have a pretty thick skin,” Carter said, “after all the questions the cops asked. Shoot.”
“Do you think they arrested the right person?” I figured it sounded better than Did your son kill his mother?
And yeah, I know what I said about stopping my investigation into Sean’s guilt or innocence. Are you always so literal?
Audrey stiffened. “They certainly did not arrest the right person. Sean had nothing to do with it.”
“I wish we could know that for sure,” Carter said.
Angry color suffused her face. She stabbed a finger at her chest. “Well, I know it for sure. My grandson is not a murderer. And I don’t want to hear again how he’s not really my grandson.”
Carter’s gaze flashed on me. “Save this for later, Mom. We don’t need to—”
“I don’t care what any stupid DNA test says. You are the only father that child has ever known. You raised him, for heaven’s sake. And I’m his only grandmother. So don’t you dare tell me he’s not our blood.”
Whoa. Good time to keep my mouth shut and blend into the woodwork.
Carter sat straight up, to the clanking accompaniment of the recliner’s internal workings. “Those DNA tests weren’t my idea, but I can’t say I’m sorry I finally found out.”
“Well, you should be sorry.” Her eyes glistened. “If you’d never found out, then you and Peaches wouldn’t have split up.”
“Is that what this is about?” he demanded. “Are you sick of having me under your roof? Eating your food? Driving your car? I couldn’t have stayed in that house after Peaches died, anyway. It belongs to the kids, not me. You know that.”
“They would’ve let you live there.”
Fat chance, I thought. That house was bound to go on the market as soon as Evie could get it into salable condition.
“Live there with Sean?” he said. “Are you kidding me? You know what that kid’s like. Peaches had some control over him ’cause she held the purse strings. It’s been years since he listened to me.”
“I just want things back the way they were.” Audrey grabbed a paper napkin and dabbed her eyes. “What was Evie thinking, making you all take those tests?”
“She didn’t make anyone do anything,” he said. “It was a present for the family. She thought it would be fun for us to run our DNA.”
“Well, all she did was open can of worms, and now you don’t love your own children anymore.”
“Don’t say that.” Carter looked away. I noticed he did not deny her accusation.
Audrey closed her eyes for a long moment, as if struggling to regain control, then shot me a mortified look. “I’m so sorry, Jane. You shouldn’t have had to hear all that.”
“No apology necessary.” I placed my hand on hers and gave it a little squeeze. “In my line of work I often witness altercations of a personal nature. You have my word that nothing I see or hear will leave these four walls.” Which was true unless I learned information about a crime, in which case all bets were off.
“Are you a psychologist, dear?” she asked.
Carter answered for me. “Jane finds stuff that’s gone missing. Evie hired her to look for Peaches’s knickknacks. You know, the ones shaped like peaches? Some lowlife made off with them.”
“Oh, I know.” Audrey shook her head in disgust. “You should see what they did to that fine old china cabinet.”
“When heirlooms end up lost or stolen,” I said, “it inevitably leads to finger-pointing and accusations. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to break up outright brawls.” This had the added benefit of not being a lie.
“So family squabbles are nothing new to you,” she said. “I suppose that makes me feel a little less embarrassed.”
“No need to feel embarrassed,” I assured her. No need to stop sharing juicy details either. I had to keep them talking.
I said, “I take it Evie surprised the family with a gift of genealogy tests from one of those DNA companies.”
“Last fall.” Audrey looked at her son for confirmation. “October, was it?”
“We spat in those little tubes back in September,” he said, “and sent them in. Me, Sean, and Evie. It took a few weeks.”
“Peaches refused to participate,” she told me, with a meaningful look.
“She didn’t want any of us to do it,” he said. “The whole thing was stupid, she said, a waste of money. She was really mad about it. I didn’t figure out why till the results came back at the end of October.”
“I’m guessing they showed you aren’t Sean’s biologica
l father,” I said.
He nodded miserably. “Evie’s either. Those kids were fathered by two different guys.”
Sean’s last argument with his mother, the one Zak had witnessed, had occurred a few weeks after Sean found out he wasn’t related to Carter. Not only had he threatened Peaches’s life, he’d called her “you miserable old slut.” The vile insult now took on new meaning. As did Evie’s judgmental attitude about her mother’s love life.
Audrey’s features were pinched, her expression harder than I’d ever seen it. “Peaches herself probably didn’t know who got her pregnant either time. But she knew it wasn’t Carter. I’d bet my life on it.”
Her son did not disagree. “For twenty-four years she lets me think I’m the only one. She lets me raise those kids as my own. I did everything. Took them to school, the doctor, all their activities. Dried their tears. Read them bedtime stories.”
“But don’t you see?” Audrey said. “That’s what makes you their father, not some, some invisible bits of DNA. Peaches did a terrible thing, deceiving you that way, deceiving all of us. And I have no doubt she’s answering for it at this very moment. But your children are innocent. And they are your children, Carter.”
“It’s not so easy to—”
The alarm on his phone trilled. He shut it off, and Audrey got up and headed into the kitchen to check on Sean’s lasagna.
“That must have been some scene in your house,” I said, “when those DNA tests came back.”
“I’ll never forget it. It was the day before Halloween. Sean and me got emails with a link to the results. They tell you where your ancestors came from, you know? Says I’m mainly Italian and German, no surprise.”
“And Sean?” I asked.
“No Italian or German in him,” he said. “Like, zero. Which I knew had to be a mistake, right? I mean, they did say he’s part Irish and English, which is from his mom, but then there’s this big old chunk of Russian, and get this, three percent Native American. I mean, Russian? Native American? So I knew this had to be wrong.”
“Did you ask Peaches about it?”
“Sure. She gets all hot under the collar, says they mixed up his spit with someone else’s. Says I told you not to bother with this nonsense.”
Preserving Peaches Page 13