by Anna Gerard
Peach Clobbered
A GEORGIA B&B MYSTERY
Anna Gerard
For my friends, Carol and Kathryn, who remember the original.
Acknowledgments
Few books are possible without the support of numerous wonderful folks. Thanks as always to my agent, Josh, and his assistant, Jon, for all their hard work on my behalf. And thanks to Jenny and the other editors at Crooked Lane, who care deeply about putting out a perfect book. Woofs to my own beloved Aussie pups who are now over the bridge: Matilda, who could solve any puzzle, and Oliver, who was the best boy ever. And finally, hugs and kisses for my husband, Gerry, who has always been my number-one fan.
Chapter One
If the incidents of the past few weeks are ever turned into one of those Hallmark Channel murder mysteries, I’ll suggest the producers call it Summer of the Penguins. Which would be all the more ironic because I live in the small Georgia town of Cymbeline. Here, June temperatures climb well into the nineties, with the humidity equally off the scale. Not exactly a place conducive to our little friends from Antarctica.
And yet, when I answered the door of my three-story Queen Anne home that Saturday morning following Memorial Day, one of those black-and-white flightless birds was camped out on my doorstep. Unfortunately, the penguin in question proved to be but the first of several that I’d be encountering in the space of a few days.
At half past ten in the AM, the temperature was already hot enough to drop you if you didn’t stay properly hydrated. And that didn’t count the humidity, which was thick enough to swim in. That was why I was dressed in ragged cutoff blue jeans and a faded I ♥ AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERDS T-shirt, with my brown hair rubber-banded into a messy ponytail and bangs held back with a sweaty red bandana.
After an hour spent prying errant crabgrass, chickweed, and the occasional nettle from the jade-colored St. Augustine grass that neatly blanketed my quarter-acre front lawn, I was dangerously close to “drop me” territory. I’d just gone inside to grab a tall, restorative glass of homemade lemonade when, from my kitchen, I heard a muffled pounding on my front door.
Matilda, my Australian shepherd and the reason for my doggy T-shirt, immediately scrambled to her fuzzy feet and let out a warning woof.
“It’s okay, Mattie,” I told her as, glass in hand, I headed to the front of the house again. “Probably more tourists. Don’t worry, I’ll run them off.”
I wasn’t kidding about the tourists. I had discovered within the first week of moving from my old condo in Atlanta to my new digs in Cymbeline that owning a historic home in a touristy town came with certain drawbacks. Not the least of which was random strangers knocking on one’s door demanding a peek inside. It was probably time to get those rusty front gate hinges oiled so I could actually close said gate and keep out the riffraff. Because sometimes riffraff was code for really bad people coming to rob you and murder you in your sleep. Which was why, following my divorce a year earlier, I’d taken up my mother’s habit of keeping a weapon by my bedside.
Hers was a Louisville Slugger, the hefty wooden kind that could send a kneecap flying over the left-field fence. Since my ex was a pro golfer, I’d opted for the more appropriate steel-shafted putter … lighter, and not quite so in-your-face until it actually was.
Not that I thought I was going to need my dark-alley equalizer on a bright weekend morning. Instead, I readied my rehearsed “Sorry, go away” speech, opened my paneled front door, and peered through the screen to the wraparound porch beyond. Uh-huh, definitely a penguin, though it stood close to six feet tall, a good six inches taller than me, and was big even for an emperor penguin. He would have been taller except that his head was missing. I located it a moment later tucked beneath one large flipper.
No, he had not been decapitated.
The displaced cranium was part of a costume, one of those big, goofy fleece outfits worn by theme park characters and sports team mascots. The costume-wearer’s actual head poked out from between the penguin’s oversized shoulders. Even though his black hair was plastered to his smooth forehead by a small river’s worth of sweat, he was good-looking enough to pose for one of those “hunk of the month” calendars. You know the type: faintly tanned, a hint of five o’clock shadow, long-lashed blue eyes, neatly chiseled features that were neither too sensitive nor too craggy.
Unfortunately, his scowl as he gave me the once-over was dark enough to forestall any appreciation of said hunkiness. I met his sour expression with a cool look of my own. Obviously not a nosy tourist.
“Yes?” I inquired, even as a possible explanation occurred to me. Maybe the high school cheer squad is getting a jump on candy sales for the fall semester? Though, given the penguin’s foul—or should I say, fowl?—attitude, I doubted he was selling many chocolate bars.
Then I recalled that the local football team was known as the Bards, one of the many Shakespearean references I’d seen in Cymbeline. Apparently, the town’s founder had been smitten by a staging of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline while in London a whole lot of seasons ago—as in, the 1890s—and had impulsively decided to name his new town after that play. Over the years, the locals had carried on the tradition by naming buildings and landmarks after Shakespeare’s works. Penguins didn’t factor into it. Besides, a closer look told me this guy was somewhere near my age of forty-one, meaning he was at least twenty years too old to be a high school senior.
The penguin, meanwhile, held out the flipper that wasn’t clutching his spare head and waved a pale-purple envelope in my direction. The faintest scent of lilac from the perfumed stationery wafted toward me. In clipped tones overlaid with a hint of a soft Georgia accent, he said, “I have … the … letter.”
Forget candy sales. This guy must have gone AWOL from the mental health wing of Cymbeline’s small hospital. Though where in the heck he’d found a penguin costume to wear in the sweltering Georgia heat, I couldn’t guess. As for the letter, I had no clue about that, either.
“The letter. Uh, yes. You have it. Uh, yes, you do,” I stammered, trying for a conciliatory tone. Wasn’t that how you were supposed to deal with crazy folks on the brink of snapping?
The attempt at appeasement apparently wasn’t the right tactic, however, for the man’s scowl deepened.
“The letter,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “The one I told you about in the emails I sent you, and the voice mails I left you. If you’d bothered to answer any of my messages, we could have sorted this out weeks ago. You are Nina Fleet, aren’t you?”
He’d pronounced it Nee-nah.
“Actually, it’s Nine-ah, like the number nine,” I reflexively corrected him. I always like to get that explanation out of the way immediately when I meet someone new. Not that I have anything against the Nee-nahs of the world. It’s just that I’ve listened to my name regularly being mangled since kindergarten, so I’ve gotten rather snappish about it over the years.
Then realization hit with the impact of hailstones let loose from a midsummer thunderstorm. Now it was my turn to give him the hairy eyeball.
“That was you? You’re Harry Westcott? The same guy who’s been claiming I stole this house from you?” I sputtered. “Didn’t you get that cease-and-desist from my attorney?”
I heard a growl behind me, and forty pounds of shaggy, tricolored canine pushed against the screen. Mattie had wisely deduced that I wasn’t capable of running off intruders and had come to lend moral support. I shot her a grateful look. I’d always heard that dogs rescued from animal shelters were especially eager to defend their new families. Mattie was proving that rumor true.
On the other hand, it might not hurt to call the cops, just in case.
Westcott, meanwhile, had managed to pull the letter from its envelope, sending another
wave of floral scent wafting skyward.
“Feel free to call the cops,” he said, reading my mind, “but you might want to know that the sheriff and I went to high school together. And, just so we’re on the same page, my attorney is reviewing the situation. He says I have a good case to contest the sale.”
Before I could reply to that unsettling revelation, he went on, “The proceeds of the house sale won’t be distributed until we determine if my great-aunt’s executor was authorized to sell the place. Auntie’s letter”—he waved the lavender paper at me—“very specifically stated that she was going to leave her house to me. Believe me, you’ll be saving us all a lot of time and trouble if you just agree to resell the place back to the estate at the same price you paid.”
Sell back my house?
I shook my head. I might have lived in the house for only a couple of months, but the three-story Queen Anne was already like a family member to me.
I’d first stumbled across the place during an impulsive antiquing jaunt one weekend right as winter was wrapping up. I’d needed a change of pace from the Atlanta rat race, and a Saturday spent searching for vintage whatevers had sounded like fun. I’d yet to visit Cymbeline, despite the fact that it was one of the state’s primo antiquing destinations, located as it was an hour outside Savannah. Thus, I’d decided to make a day of it there.
I never did get to do my planned antiquing. Instead, after taking a wrong turn into Cymbeline’s historic district while trying to find the town square, I’d stopped my forest-green Mini Cooper on a quiet side street for a quick replotting of my GPS. That accomplished, I had put the Mini back into gear when I glanced over at the house I’d parked in front of.
In the movie version, that would have been the moment when an angelic choir gave a bell-like aaahhhh.
The home sat on a half-acre lot and was separated from the street by a head-high wrought-iron fence. A sprawling magnolia that had to be a good century old held sway over the far side of the lawn, looking like something out of Gone With the Wind. On the opposite side of the yard was the requisite peach tree, the variety known as Belle of Georgia Peach. A partially screened in wraparound porch reminded me of summers at my grandparents’ place. And the snazzy green-and-yellow paint job on the place was straight from the pages of Historic Home Digest. Like the other tourists, I had gaped and sighed and pictured myself in a flowing white gown sitting in its porch swing. Then I’d noticed the FOR SALE sign on the gate.
Let me explain that this wasn’t just a whim, buying a place in small-town Georgia. Atlanta held too many unhappy memories, and I wanted out of there. At my age, I was too old to return to Dallas and live with good old Mom (who would have greeted me with open arms and a chorus of “Told you so!”). And since I did like Georgia’s slower pace, I’d been contemplating a move to one of its smaller touristy/historic towns.
Cymbeline fit the bill.
Shopping forgotten, I had whipped out my cell phone and called the real estate agent whose number was listed on the fence. Within five minutes, her baby-blue BMW had screeched to a halt behind the Mini. A bleached blonde pushing retirement age and sporting stiletto heels higher and white shorts shorter than I’d ever dare wear came striding toward me, manicured hand outstretched. We exchanged introductions—she was Debbie Jo MacAfee, Cymbeline’s top-selling real estate agent for ten years running, according to her business card—and then she ushered me inside the place.
You know how when something seems too good to be true, it is? Well, for once, that wasn’t the case. The inside was as spectacular as the outside, with plenty of fretwork around the doors, funky pink-and-green tile in the baths, and a formal Victorian staircase straight out of a movie. She’d explained to me that the previous owner had been an octogenarian who’d lived there her entire life; hence the time capsule look to many of the rooms. And it had gone on the market only the day before. Fearful that someone would snatch this beauty out from under me, I’d made an offer right there. The acceptance call had come before I left town that afternoon. Even better still, the sales price included whatever furnishings would be left from the upcoming estate sale.
Though my attorney (aka my cousin Kit) had read me the riot act for making such an impulsive buy, all had gone surprisingly smoothly. The required home inspection revealed the place to be in tip-top shape for its age, with no major issues beyond some minor cosmetic fixes. I’d signed the papers and moved in right after Easter, and had been living happily ever after since.
Bottom line, no way was I giving up my house. It would be like returning Mattie to the animal shelter.
“Look here, Mr. Westcott,” I said aloud, struggling for an even tone. “I don’t know what’s going on with your great-aunt’s estate, but it’s not my problem. I bought this house fair and square. If you think I’m going to give it up just because you’re in a snit about how the sale went down, then—oh, no!”
As I watched in dismay, the color abruptly drained from the man’s face. He staggered into the door frame and then slid in a black-and-white heap onto the whitewashed boards of the porch. The penguin head, meanwhile, slipped from his grasp. Like an execution scene straight out of Les Misérables, the fake fur cranium went bouncing down the front porch steps and gently rolled to a stop in the cool St. Augustine grass. As for The Letter—I’d begun to think of it with capital letters—it flew from his other hand, flitting about like a startled purple butterfly before landing safely a few feet away.
It momentarily occurred to me that the man was faking a faint, just to get me outside so he could bludgeon me with a penguin flipper. Another look at his pale, sweating face told me differently. Forgetting that, ten seconds earlier, I’d been ready to call the cops on the guy, I shoved open the screen door.
“Great,” I muttered a bit desperately as, setting down my lemonade, I knelt beside the fallen man. “Mr. Westcott, can you hear me?”
As best I could tell through the bulk of his costume, he had a heartbeat and was still breathing. His eyes were closed and he was still pale and sweating, but at least the latter symptom ruled out full-blown heatstroke—something I’d picked up from a long-ago first aid class. But it definitely looked like heat exhaustion, which wasn’t anything to play around with.
“Mattie, fetch my phone!” I called over my shoulder.
The dog immediately trotted to the library, where I kept my cell plugged in during the day. Relieved I’d had the foresight to teach her that trick along with your basic sit and stay, I gave the unconscious man a small shake.
“Mr. Westcott! Harry!” I repeated. “Can you hear me? We need to get you out of that costume and into the air-conditioning. If you can’t get up, I’m going to call 911.”
I heard a whine behind me. Mattie, with my cell phone in her mouth, waiting patiently.
“Good girl,” I told her as I reached around the screen door and retrieved it. Wiping a bit of dog drool off its case, I gave Westcott another shake.
“Last chance, Mr. Westcott. Open your eyes, or you’re getting hauled out of here in an ambulance.”
“No need,” Westcott croaked, opening his baby blues just a crack. “I’m fine. But if you could spare a small glass of water …”
I snatched up my lemonade and, supporting his head, held it to his lips. He drained half the glass in a single long gulp and then handed it back to me.
“Much better,” he muttered, eyes open all the way now and sounding somewhat restored. Then, glimpsing the phone in my hand, he flailed a bit until he had dragged himself into a sitting position.
“No ambulance. Just a little too much sun. Give me another minute.”
I shook my head. Last thing I wanted was a crazy penguin guy in my house, but common decency wouldn’t allow me to leave him out in the heat until I knew he was okay.
“Okay, we’ll hold off on the ambulance,” I told him as, setting aside the glass, I scrambled to my feet. “But I’m not about to let you wander off in your current condition. If I give you a hand, can you stand
up long enough to get through the front door and into the parlor?”
He managed a nod. Since there was no way I could lift him on my own, I did the next best thing. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I grabbed the shoulder of his black fleece costume and tugged.
While he struggled to regain his footing, I dug in my heels and leaned backward as ballast. Once he was upright again, I slid my shoulder beneath one flipper and walked him past the screen door, then used my foot to slam the main door shut after us. Medical emergency or not, I wasn’t about to pay to air-condition all of Cymbeline.
Cool air flowed over us as we stood in my main hallway that ran shotgun-style down the middle of the house. I had plans to eventually brighten up the narrow passage with a fresh coat of pale-coral paint. For now, however, I was living with decades-old dark paneling and remnants of the home’s original portrait gallery: a couple of truly creepy oils featuring grim babies dressed like small adults, several hand-tinted photos of ethereal young women, and a battered daguerreotype of a teenage Confederate soldier.
It occurred to me that, since the house had belonged to Westcott’s great-aunt, presumably these were his long-dead relatives.
Mattie trailing after us, I steered him down the hall to the parlor. There I dumped him onto one of the two antique blue velvet sofas that were original to the place.
“Take that suit off. I’m getting some ice.”
A confession: I’d never been much of a Suzy Homemaker, even when I was married. But despite lacking the foodie gene, I had fallen in love with my new kitchen. Heck, I’d even bought Julia Child’s French cookbook. Not that I’d tried any of the recipes yet, but the classic volume sure looked good propped on a wooden book stand on the counter.
The kitchen itself was a brash combination of late-nineteenth-century architecture and early-twenty-first-century technology. The counter-to-ceiling, glass-front cabinets, painted a crisp white, were original to the home, as was the whitewashed floor with its scattering of rag rugs. And the farm-style stone sink that was big enough to bathe in had been plumbed in during the nineties—the 1890s—though I’d seen that same style featured in any number of recent decorating magazines.