Preserving Peaches

by Pamela Burford

  “Cousin Sylvie has some nerve,” Betsy fumed, “trying to make amends at this late date. I haven’t forgotten the green-bean-casserole incident, Sylvie! So you can just zip it!”

  The pendulum did not, however, spell out Sylvie. We watched, stunned, as it spelled out Sylvester.

  Martin squinted at the framed photo. “Stallone? Isn’t he still alive?”

  “No, it’s Sylvester!” Betsy grabbed the dog collar and jingled the tags. “Our Sylvester.”

  I looked at my companions. “We summoned a beagle?” I’d read about deceased pets channeling their doggy thoughts through a human medium. The problem is, I didn’t believe in that stuff. No, really.

  “Harvey used to sneak Sylvester those awful pork rinds,” she said, “even though it gave him such bad gas. The dog, not Harvey. Well, him, too. Anyway, that silly dog just loved those things.”

  I asked, “When did Sylvester, um...”

  “Cross the Rainbow Bridge?” she said. “Fifteen years ago. A year before Harvey passed.”

  I said, “Sylvester, are you with your daddy Harvey now?”

  YES.

  “My time will come,” Betsy told her dead pooch. “Take good care of Daddy until I get there.”

  My eyes were starting to mist. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and said, “Are you a good boy, Sylvester?”

  MAYBE.

  “There’s no maybe about it.” Betsy was shedding real tears now, and I had to fight to keep from joining her. “You’re the best boy, Sylvester. Daddy and I love you so much, and we know you love us.”

  I said, “Prince Windex, um, Vindex, do you have anything you’d like to ask Sylvester?”

  It might have been a trick of the candlelight, but I could swear the padre was a little choked up, too. He cleared his throat. “No, I’m good.”

  I said, “Sylvester, if you happen to come across three little poodles named Annie Hall, Dr. Strangelove, and Jaws, would you tell them hi from Janey?”

  YES.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” I said. “Your mommy has been trying to talk to your daddy ever since he crossed over into the spirit world, but she’s going to stop now. She still loves him very much, but it’s time for her to move on with her life. We know your daddy would agree with that decision. Will you give him that message for her?”

  YES.

  11

  No More Dates of Any Kind

  DON’T WORRY, I refused to accept Betsy’s twenty grand, even though she went so far as to shove the check into my purse when she thought I wasn’t looking. As I tore it in half, I gently explained that summoning Sylvester wasn’t part of our deal. I’d done my best to communicate with her late husband, as promised, but in the end, my best hadn’t been enough.

  Martin and I walked away with the smaller, fair fee and a host of unanswered questions. For her part, Betsy believed she’d gotten the bargain of a lifetime, and maybe she had. Or maybe the three of us had experienced a type of group hysteria that, once begun, fed on itself until we were convinced we’d had a conversation with a dead dog.

  You’ll be happy to learn I no longer suspected the padre of going back on his word. He was as flabbergasted by Sylvester’s spectral visitation as I was. In the end we agreed to chalk it up to that group-hysteria thing. Just don’t question me too closely about it.

  The next day at noon I was at the Historical Society again, this time to attend an actual planning meeting for the town’s upcoming annual poker tournament, as opposed to the fake meeting Sophie had concocted to lure me to my birthday party just over a week ago.

  The brunch meeting had concluded a few minutes earlier, but Sophie and I were in no hurry to abandon the nineteenth-century elegance that was the Historical Society’s drawing room. We lingered, kicking off our shoes and curling up on either end of an antique mahogany sofa upholstered in silver-gray and taupe striped silk jacquard.

  We sipped the dregs from a pitcher of mimosas and nibbled the last of a platter of pastries, made by guess who. Well, Nina Wallace was the president of the Historical Society, after all, until she formally took up her duties as mayor in a few weeks. Thankfully, she and the other committee members had departed after the meeting, leaving me and my best bud to catch up in private.

  “Without question, Nina is the devil incarnate,” Sophie said, admiring the treat she was about to stuff into her piehole, “but there’s no denying she makes a mean blondie.”

  “You think she’s aware the Town Council is investigating election irregularities?” I asked.

  “Oh, she’s aware, all right. The accusations are totally baseless, don’t you know. Just her enemies—yeah, that’s what she called them, her enemies—trying to make trouble for her. She’ll be vindicated in the end blah blah blah.”

  “Whereas in reality...” I prompted.

  “In reality,” she said, “they’ve found evidence of vote buying and ballot tampering. For starters.”

  “For real? I thought we were dealing with run-of-the-mill dirty tricks. Nasty but legal. Her usual MO.”

  “What can I say?” Sophie drained her glass and poured us both another. “Nina’s aiming for the big leagues. Next stop, national politics.”

  “Heaven forbid,” I said. “Okay, I can definitely see Nina buying votes. But how was she able to tamper with ballots?”

  “By sending her flying monkeys into the local senior center and nursing home to distribute absentee ballots, help voters fill them out, and then turn them in for counting. Would you believe it, not a single one of those votes went to me. Seems all those old folks want Nina to be their next mayor. Even my aunt Millie and my cousin Irving.”

  I clucked my tongue. “What’s the world coming to when you can’t count on the support of your own family?”

  “Can you stand another intriguing tidbit?” she asked. “One that has nothing to do with the election?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Sophie.” I split the last blondie in half and shared it with her. “You know me. When have I ever been interested in intriguing tidbits?”

  “It’s about Peaches,” she said, and smiled at my sudden alertness. “Well, you know I always have my feelers out.”

  “What have you learned from your vast network of spies and correspondents?” I asked.

  “Don’t get too excited,” she said. “It’s not much. Only that a glass soda bottle was found at the scene.”

  “In the attic?” I said. “I never saw a bottle. Of course, I was so rattled by the sight of Peaches’s mummified corpse, I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. Plus it was dark up there.”

  “It had fallen off the desk and rolled into a corner,” she said, “so I’m not surprised you didn’t notice it.”

  “How do they know it wasn’t lying there for years?” I asked.

  “Whatever brand it was, apparently the bottle had been redesigned not too long ago,” Sophie said. “This was the new design, and the lab people could tell the dried residue inside was only a few months old.”

  “What was the brand?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Couldn’t find that out. Or the flavor.”

  “So either Peaches or her killer brought a bottle of soda up there with them,” I said. “Maybe it got knocked off the desk during a struggle.”

  “Do you know whether Peaches drank soda?” she asked.

  “No idea. Sean does, though. I saw him drinking Coke out of a glass bottle.”

  “Hmm.” Sophie frowned. “One more thing linking him to his mother’s murder, if it was a bottle of Coke they found.”

  “Well, but most people don’t stick to just one kind of soda.”

  “No,” she said, “but they usually have a preference. What about Evie? You met her, right?”

  “She didn’t drink anything when I was with her,” I said, “but she bought some kind of soda at the beach yesterday. Her dad’s definitely a soda drinker. Black cherry.”

  “And her grandma?” Sophie said. “Audrey? I’m thinking of people who a
lso had access to the kind of rope Peaches was tied with.”

  “Again, I can’t say. I didn’t see her drink anything. For what it’s worth, she’s far from Peaches’s biggest fan.” I’d already told Sophie, not just about my excursion to Long Beach the day before, but about the whole DNA mess and how Peaches had deceived Carter and her kids about their paternity. She’d promised to keep it to herself.

  “What about the neighbor? That Zak fellow.” Obviously she was running through her mental list of suspects.

  “I think I can state with confidence that Zak Pryce doesn’t drink soda,” I said. “He’s all about healthy eating. There’s someone else, though. Remember the guy I asked Howie about? Burke Fletcher?”

  “The one who blamed Peaches for wrecking his marriage?”

  “Yep,” I said. “He drinks ginger ale.”

  “Which you know because...?”

  I hated it when Sophie looked at me that way. “Because I might have, you know, met him,” I said.

  “Are you trying to get yourself murdered, Jane? What’s your plan? To visit every suspect in turn until one of them says, Hey, you know what? Yeah, I did it. Here.” She presented her wrists for handcuffing. “Take me in.”

  “I didn’t go to his house, Sophie. Jeez, give me some credit. It was a date. We met at a restaurant.”

  “A date? Oh, that’s okay, then,” she said, dryly.

  I told her how I’d connected with him via the dog lovers’ dating site and gave her a brief rundown of our conversation, including Burke’s insistence that semiliterate Peaches Gillespey had been incapable of writing her “Peaches Preaches” advice column.

  “Who does he think wrote it, then?” she asked.

  “He has no idea,” I said, “but I do. Zak is a writer, and he lives right across the street from Peaches. Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Is he a real writer,” Sophie asked, “or some unappreciated genius who’s convinced he’s the next Hemingway?”

  “Both, actually. He’s been working on a novel for a million years, but his day job is copywriter for KrunchWorks. Meaning he actually gets paid to string words together. So he has to have some talent.”

  “I don’t know.” She was shaking her head. “It’s kind of flimsy.”

  “No question,” I said, “but it gets a little less flimsy when you consider that the first ‘Peaches Preaches’ column was published eleven years ago, in November—a mere two months after Zak’s wife, Stacey, died.”

  “That still gets a big ‘so what’ from me.”

  “Let’s say Burke is correct and that Peaches couldn’t write to save her life.” I winced. “You know what I mean. Don’t you think it’s interesting that her first column appeared shortly after Peaches and Carter provided Zak with an alibi for his wife’s supposedly accidental death?”

  “Okay, when you put it like that, it’s... yeah, it’s interesting,” she conceded, then sat up straight. “Do not go doing anything about it.”

  “You sound like Howie.”

  “That’s because we’re both kind of fond of you and don’t want you to end up like Peaches,” she said. “Stay away from Zak. And Burke, too. No more doggy dates. No more dates of any kind. Lock yourself in your house and don’t let anyone in.”

  “Martin doesn’t need a key,” I pointed out. “He comes and goes as he pleases.”

  She waved that off. “Oh, he’s okay.”

  “Not everyone in this town would agree with you,” I said.

  “I’m still the damn mayor of this burg, and I say he’s okay.” She set her empty glass on the coffee table. “Listen, before I go, there’s another fun tidbit you might be interested in. It’s about Evie. Now, don’t go spreading this around or Sten will never talk to me again.”

  “Ooh, this is going to be good,” I said.

  “Well, you know Sten’s been trying to track down her grandfather’s will. Peaches’s dad.”

  “Right,” I said. “It wasn’t with any of her mom’s papers.”

  “He found the lawyer who drafted it,” she said. “Good news, the guy held on to the original. And get this. Turns out Evie’s grandfather left that big house on Rayburn to her, not to her mom.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you telling me Peaches lied about inheriting her dad’s house four years ago? It was supposed to go to Evie all along?”

  “That about sums it up,” she said. “Don’t know why you’re so surprised. It’s not like it’s the worst lie she ever told her family.”

  That would be the Big Fib about Evie’s and Sean’s biological fathers.

  “So then, what did he leave to Peaches?” I asked.

  Sophie made the universal zero sign with her thumb and forefinger. “Quote, ‘To my daughter, Gertrude Violet Gillespey, I leave nothing, for reasons well known to her.’”

  12

  A Good First Impression

  I WAS STILL thinking about Evie a couple of hours later as Sexy Beast and I took a leisurely stroll around our neighborhood on this mild Sunday afternoon. I was proud of SB. His social skills were improving. He actually managed to have civilized butt-sniffing interactions with two other canines during our walk. For some reason, though, he still barked like a maniac at Buttercup, the scary-looking pit bull who lived around the corner. For her part, Buttercup always responded with a slightly wounded expression, as if to say, Hey, man, can’t we all just sniff butts and get along?

  I owed Evie a report on my progress in locating her mom’s peach collection. Which is to say, I owed her the disappointing news that so far, I’d come up empty. It wasn’t for lack of effort. Besides poring over all the online retail and auction sites, I’d visited countless pawnshops, antiques stores, flea markets, estate sales, auctions houses, and tag sales. I’d spoken with a bunch of appraisers who dealt in collectibles, as well as Peaches’s friends, neighbors, and relatives.

  I was beginning to worry that the entire collection had been trashed, though I couldn’t imagine what would motivate someone to do such a thing—aside from justifiable hatred of Peaches, so yeah, maybe. A more likely scenario was that Peaches’s peaches had been transported somewhere far, far away where I had no hope of locating or retrieving them.

  I had to admit it might just be time to call it quits, though I hated the idea of giving up. I meant what I said before. At this point it was personal. I needed to know what had happened to those darn things.

  Of course, I supposed I could try to locate them using my newfound psychic abilities. Don’t worry, I wasn’t that far gone yet. After that séance, just the thought of playing a round of Scrabble made me break into a cold sweat.

  Back at the house, I sucked down a bottle of orange soda while Sexy Beast lapped up some water and settled down in his bucket bed for a well-earned snooze. I checked the time—almost three p.m.—and searched the contacts in my phone for Evie’s number, intending to update her. My finger hovered over the green Send button.

  One thing I’ve always demanded from my clients is honesty. In return, they know they can count on my discretion. I’m like a lawyer or doctor that way. I can’t do a proper job for a client who’s being evasive or dancing around uncomfortable subjects. Or, let’s face it, outright lying as Evie had done. The more I thought about it, the more indignant I became.

  I tucked the phone into my purse and grabbed my car keys. The drive from my place to the Americana apartment building took fourteen minutes. I parked in the same guest spot my Mazda had occupied six days earlier when we had our initial meeting. The difference was, back then she’d been expecting me. I rode the elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door of 4A.

  After a few moments I heard a barely audible scuff on the other side. I leaned over and stared directly into the peephole. Yeah, it’s me. Surprise! Seconds ticked by as I sensed her internal debate.

  The door rattled under my fist. Bang! Bang! Bang! “I know you’re in there, Evie. Open up.” Nothing. I turned to look down the vacant hallway. “Sorry abo
ut the ruckus, ma’am,” I said, to no one. “I’m Evie Moretti’s parole officer. She missed a couple of appointments, so she might be going back to prison—”

  The door swung open. Evie wore a lavender chenille bathrobe and a look of alarm as she leaned into the hallway to see which of her nosy neighbors I was telling scurrilous lies to. I pushed my way into her apartment while she was still figuring it out. Good grief, that was embarrassingly easy.

  Her straight, blonde hair was unbrushed, her makeup half done. A can of hairspray and an electric curling wand protruded from a pocket of her robe. “What are you doing here, Jane? Why didn’t you call first?”

  And give you time to invent more lies? “I was in the neighborhood. Figured it was a good time to get caught up, Evie.” To hell with Ms. Moretti, I was irked. I made myself comfortable on her sofa, adjusting the throw pillows for good lumbar support, then said, “Mind if I sit?”

  “I just, I don’t have time for this right now. I’m on my way out.”

  “Hot date?” I asked.

  She colored slightly. Either she did indeed have a hot date or the whole idea of men and women and dating and sex made her uncomfortable. Judging by her attitude regarding her mom’s social life, I thought I knew which of those options we were dealing with.

  That wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t her shrink, I was the damn Death Diva and I was there for some answers.

  “It’s none of your business what my plans are.” Evie stalked to her apartment door and opened it. “Now, I happen to be busy, so please leave and give me proper notice when you would like to schedule a meeting.” She seemed even more uptight than usual, and that’s saying something.

  I leaned back and crossed my legs, settling in. I offered a negligent wave. “You go ahead and finish getting ready. Meanwhile we can chat.”

  Her eyes widened in outrage, and I sensed her trying to decide how much trouble it was worth to throw me out. At last she said, “Suit yourself, but make it quick. I only have a few minutes.”