A Dash of Peach

by Wendy Meadows

  Momma Peach relaxed as Michelle drove down a scenic country road that wound past fields and farms. The back roads were pretty, quiet, and controlled by a safe speed limit. The interstate, oh heavens give her strength, was filled with race car drivers escaping one deadly accident after another only because they stayed in between two painted lines. “This is as pretty as a picture. I don't like the interstate,” she told Michelle, looking out at a wide view of picturesque green fields dotted with bales of hay. “And those big trucks scare me.”

  “Teenagers scare me worse,” Michelle replied with a snort of laughter.

  Momma Peach chuckled to herself. “You got that right. Should be a law against giving a sixteen-year-old child a license to drive. Most teenagers today can't even get out of bed without being slapped across the head a few good times. No way am I going to get on a busy interstate with big trucks and pimple-faced teenagers. And don't get me started on the old folk...oh, give me strength.”

  Momma Peach rolled down her window and took in a deep breath of the fresh bales of hay sitting in the beautiful green field. The hay smelled like summer. Momma Peach delighted in the smell. She looked up in adoration at the way the sun in the blue sky above seemed to shine down and tickle the hay with loving fingers. “Sometimes I forget to do that,” Michelle commented to Momma Peach, watching her for a moment.

  “You mean, to enjoy God's creation?” Momma Peach asked.

  “Yes. Sometimes...I get so used to seeing the ugly side of life that I forget that there's still art out there to admire.”

  “God is the greatest artist of all,” Momma Peach smiled and patted Michelle's knee. “See those bales of hay?”

  Michelle slowed down the Oldsmobile and looked into the field. “Yes.”

  “God's hay,” Momma Peach smiled from ear to ear. “The grass, the sky, the trees, the birds, the hay, you and me, all God's. Nothing on this earth is man's. No sir,” Momma Peach said. “The houses we live in come from material already put on this earth by God Himself. Man might think he's smart because he can put a picture on a television screen, but where did that television screen come from, huh? I see God in all things because God created all things through Jesus.”

  “You should have been a preacher.”

  “The Lord has other uses for me,” Momma Peach told Michelle and patted her knee again. “Sometimes, if we forget to look at God's beauty we can become like Betty, that poor soul. I sure have my work cut out for me.”

  “Are you sure you want that woman staying with you, Momma Peach?” Michelle asked worriedly.

  Momma Peach nodded. “Unless I help that poor soul she'll end up drinking herself to death in the bars.”

  “Seems like that's all she wants anyway.”

  “No,” Momma Peach said and looked out at a two-story farm house. She spotted two kids standing in the driveway throwing a football while a lazy old dog watched. Behind the farmhouse stood a large red barn filled with more bales of hay. “That poor soul needs someone to show her love. If we desert her she'll desert herself. I know you understand that.”

  “I do, Momma Peach,” Michelle said in a wistful voice, thinking of how Momma Peach had been there for her through her own struggles. “But honestly, is it our fault Betty is the way she is? She could have left her husband, gone to night school, got her GED, attended college. I know people who came from worse than she ever had that ended up with a master's degree. I believe in showing people compassion...and I don't mind showing Betty compassion...but it really ticks me off to see people like her hiding behind a wall of dumb excuses.”

  “Some folk just never believe they'll ever be good enough,” Momma Peach told Michelle. “Some folk just think all they'll ever be is trash. And this old world doesn't help to change their opinion. Betty is a broken woman, mostly because she believes the worst about herself instead of daring to find the good that is hiding in her heart.”

  Michelle looked at Momma Peach. “What are your plans, Momma Peach? Are you going to push Betty to go back to school? Allow her to work in your bakery? What?”

  “None of the above,” Momma Peach replied. “I'm going to let her breathe and figure out her own path.”

  “Just be careful she doesn't play you like a fiddle. Betty's kind can be slippery.”

  “I know that,” Momma Peach said in a careful voice that told Michelle that she had seen more characters in her life, bad and good, than she would ever know.

  Michelle was silent for a few minutes, thinking. “I'm really trusting you, Momma Peach. If Betty isn't at the bus station in Dawnville I'm in a world of trouble.”

  “She'll be there.”

  “I pray you're right,” Michelle told Momma Peach. “I spotted a man sitting in a red BMW sitting across the street from the bus station.”

  “Floyd Garland.” Momma Peach looked like she had accidentally bit into a sour pickle when she was expecting a sweet one.

  “Yes,” Michelle said.

  Momma Peach bit down on her lip. “I don't like bullies.”

  “Neither do I,” Michelle stated. “Momma Peach?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Graystone was killed for his money,” Michelle said. “That I'm sure of. But why was he here in our town? What was he doing? The killer obviously knew he was in town, too.”

  “Maybe not until the very end,” Momma Peach pointed out.

  “What do you mean?”

  Momma Peach reached down into her pocketbook and pulled out a mint. “Mr. Graystone was married to a wealthy woman. This woman, according to Felicia Garland, was half blind and shouldn't have been allowed to drive.” Momma Peach placed the mint into her mouth. “Mr. Graystone, rest his soul, let his wife drive. Now, whether he allowed her to do that on purpose or not, I don’t know. But what I do know is that Mr. Graystone was worth a lot of the green stuff that poisons this world and his daughter was very bitter at him.”

  “But...?” Michelle said, reading the hesitation in Momma Peach's voice.

  “I don’t believe Felicia Garland wanted her father dead, but I do believe she knows why her father was in town.”

  “All arrows point at Floyd Garland.”

  “Yes, they do,” Momma Peach agreed. “We're going to dig around Floyd Garland until we find what he doesn’t want us to find. We need to see what skeletons we find in his closets.”

  “This is a very messy case,” Michelle said, shaking her head. “Floyd Garland is a wealthy man. Unless we have concrete evidence to convict him with, Momma Peach, the army of lawyers he'll hire on his behalf will chew us up and spit us out.”

  “I know,” Momma Peach replied in a calm voice. “That's why I am going to let Betty draw the snake into the house.” Momma Peach grew quiet and focused on her thoughts. “Michelle?”

  “Yes?”

  “What if,” Momma Peach asked in a low, thoughtful voice, “Mr. Graystone and Felicia Garland were both out to kill Floyd Garland? Now, before you answer, what I said is just a thought that I can't back up with any evidence.”

  Michelle looked over at Momma Peach. “What if?”

  “But what if Floyd Garland interrupted that plan and killed Mr. Graystone, rest his soul, because he wanted the poor man's money? We have some dangerous paths to explore, don't we?”

  “We sure do,” Michelle agreed as they drove into the city limits of Dawnville. She passed a Krispy Creme, a few fast food restaurants, and a grocery store, then stopped at a red light. Dawnville was a small town. “Not much in this town,” Michelle told Momma Peach, craning her neck to look around from the intersection.

  “Some good folk live here,” Momma Peach said and looked at a long white brick building sitting off to the side of a chain diner. “I used to come here as a small child, when the only thing here was a gas station and that old building over there.”

  Michelle followed the direction of Momma Peach’s gaze. “Why did you come here?”

  “Used to be a drive-in right there,” Momma Peach smiled as her eyes filled with war
m memories. “Oh, I would come here and watch the worst horror movies ever made by man, but it was fun. I'd sit under the stars, drink soda, eat popcorn, laugh and talk with old friends...those were the days. Simpler times.”

  The red light turned green. Michelle eased the Oldsmobile forward through the intersection and started to look around for the bus station. “I'm surprised this town has a bus station.”

  “Lot of kids leave these small towns as soon as they turn eighteen,” Momma Peach said in a sad voice. “Small towns like this might not look like much, but they give the bus lines good business. Some of them go off to college, or the Army. I worry about the kids who follow their dreams to California and think they’ll become movie stars but end up broken instead. Bus line doesn't care about that part, though.”

  “Business is business,” Michelle said. “You can't blame a taxi cab driver for taking a drunk to a bar.”

  “No, you can't,” Momma Peach sighed and pointed to her right. “There,” she said. Michelle spotted a small white wooden building with a Greyhound sign outside. She hit her blinker and turned into the parking lot.

  “We're about twenty minutes behind the bus. Betty should be here.” Michelle’s brow furrowed with worry.

  Momma Peach nodded. “Yes, she should,” she said and searched the parking lot carefully for Betty. All she saw was a run-down red truck parked to one side of the building. Michelle parked beside the red truck. “Let's look inside. Maybe the bus is late?”

  Michelle nodded her head. She got out of the Oldsmobile and walked into the humble lobby that smelled of cheap disinfectant and moldy carpeting. Three men who reeked of cigarette smoke stood near a line of five metal chairs talking together; each man was wearing a leather bikers jacket with a black widow stitched on the back. The men looked over at Momma Peach and then at Michelle. “Hey, good looking,” one man with a rough, scarred face and yellowed teeth catcalled, “why don't you come over here and sit on Papa's lap.”

  Momma Peach prepared her pocketbook for the attack. She charged up to the man with fire and brimstone in her eyes and Michelle knew the men had no idea what was coming. “I don't like the way you're talking,” she said and walloped the man across his face. “Have some respect.”

  The man stepped back and laughed as if it were nothing. “Cool it, momma,” he said and nodded his head at his two friends, “we're not interested in you. We want that pretty chick over there.”

  “It's okay, Momma Peach,” Michelle said in a cool voice that told Momma Peach to stand back. And that's exactly what she did as Michelle walked up to the three men. “You jerks want a fight?”

  “Check her out,” the man snickered to his friends, “the little chick wants to fight the big bad wolf.” The two other men laughed back and slowly began circling Michelle like hungry buzzards. Michelle took off her tailored leather jacket and tossed it to Momma Peach. Her badge was in her back pocket and she didn’t wear a gun holster, so they still had no idea what they were in for. “Oh, what are you gonna do?” the man mocked Michelle as he stopped smiling. “Are you gonna teach Papa Bear a big bad lesson?” The man nodded his head at his two friends. “Teach her a lesson. I'll take the leftovers.”

  The two men grinned and moved toward Michelle. Michelle dropped down into a defensive position, swung her leg around, and kicked one of the men square in the face. The man went flying backward. The second man charged at Michelle. Michelle spun and slid into a perfect split as she flung both of her fists out at the same time, punching the man in the gut and knocking the breath out of him. Before the man could recover, Michelle flung herself up in a back flip, landed on her feet, brought her right leg around in a perfect roundhouse kick. Her attacker went flying sideways and landed heavily on the floor.

  “Oh, you're gonna pay, big time,” the man with the yellowed teeth promised Michelle. He reached into the right pocket of his jacket and pulled out a switchblade. “Time to bleed.”

  Momma Peach spotted the first man beginning to get up. She ran over to him and began beating him with her pocketbook. “Stay down, you dirty dog,” she growled at him. The man threw his hands up over his head and hunkered down, not daring to get up.

  “So what are you waiting for?” Michelle asked her attacker with a cold smile.

  The man hissed and stabbed the switchblade toward Michelle with lightning-fast hands. But Michelle was quicker. As he moved forward, she brought her right foot up, kicked the man’s hand so that he almost dropped the knife, and followed through with a roundhouse punch to the nose. Meanwhile Momma Peach kept one eye on her baby girl’s progress while she continued to beat the first man down, adding in blows for the second man who began trying to get up as well. “Stay down!” she hissed.

  The man with the knife felt his nose and grimaced in pain and fury. “Die,” he snarled at Michelle and then charged toward her. Michelle narrowed her eyes and waited for the perfect moment. All Momma Peach saw was Michelle’s attacker's knife go flying as she landed a flurry of punches on his face followed by three vicious roundhouse kicks and one last front kick to the chest. “That's it, baby!” she yelled and watched as Michelle's attacker landed flat on his face. His two friends, seeing this, finally scrambled away from Momma Peach’s blows and ran out of the lobby. Michelle walked over to the man lying unconscious on the floor and slapped handcuffs on him. “Time to go to prison for assaulting and intending to murder a cop with a deadly weapon,” Michelle said, barely breathing heavily as she waited for him to wake up so she could read him his rights.

  Momma Peach walked over to Michelle, smiling from ear to ear, and patted her on the shoulder. “That's my baby,” she said proudly.

  A skittish woman in her late fifties eased out of a side door beside the ticket counter. “I...I called the cops,” she said. “You better leave.”

  “I'm a cop,” Michelle said to the woman and presented her badge.

  The woman approached Michelle and examined her badge. “Oh, you must be that detective from the next town that everyone talks about...the martial arts expert.”

  “I guess,” Michelle said and put her badge away, suppressing a smile. She didn’t like to brag but it was nice to have a little notoriety for the amount of training she had put in toward her martial arts and fighting skills. “More importantly, has the bus arrived yet?”

  Momma Peach prepared for the worst. She just knew her big old heart was going to cause Michelle trouble. “We want the truth,” she told the woman.

  “Not yet,” the woman said. “There was an accident on the interstate.”

  Michelle glanced at Momma Peach. Momma Peach sighed in relief and smiled. “Thank you,” she said to the woman. “By the way, let your hair down out of that ugly bun you have it in. You'll look so much prettier that way.”

  The woman looked surprised, but she smiled and lifted her right hand to touch her long black hair that was wrapped into a tight bun. “Thanks,” she told Momma Peach. “I guess I always thought, why bother if Prince Charming doesn’t exactly hang out at the bus station? But you’re right. I’ve always loved my hair down.” She walked back to the ticket counter, letting her hair down as she went.

  Michelle looked down at the unconscious man lying at her feet. “Momma Peach?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for your help,” Michelle said and looked at Momma Peach with worry in her eyes. “Those two men could have hurt you.”

  “Michelle,” Momma Peach said and wrapped her arm lovingly around Michelle's shoulders, “you know not one grown man has ever stood up to my pocketbook when I have the wrath on me. They got what was coming to them. All that matters is that I was there to stand by my baby.”

  Michelle leaned her head on Momma Peach's shoulder and closed her eyes. Five minutes later, two cops ran into the lobby with their guns drawn, a lot of tedious explanations to make.

  After twenty minutes, the bus pulled into the parking lot. And then Momma Peach walked back to Michelle's Oldsmobile empty-handed. Betty, she was told b
y the bus driver, had insisted she be let off on the detour exit the bus was forced to take. “Me and my silly old heart,” Momma Peach said, walking to the Oldsmobile. “Now what am I going to do?”

  Chapter Four

  Momma Peach wearily set her pocketbook down on the counter in the kitchen at the back of her bakery. Mandy walked up behind Momma Peach and began massaging her shoulders. “You look like you're tired to the bone.”

  “Oh, I feel like I’ve been run through the ringer,” Momma Peach said and leaned her neck back. “A little to the left...yes, that's the spot.”

  “The store is swept up, the cash drawer is counted down, and the bank deposit is in the safe,” Mandy told Momma Peach. “The bakery did really good today. We sold out of your peach bread and peach pie.”

  “Oh, I will bake more up tonight,” Momma Peach promised. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”

  “I have to study some, and then soak in a hot bath, and afterward listen to my mother lecture me about being single,” Mandy sighed. “It's not like I want to be single, Momma Peach. Boys at the community college, well, they're interested in pretty girls who go around in those jogging shorts that don’t cover half their butts.”

  Momma Peach turned around and put her hands on Mandy's slender shoulders. “Those types of boys you don't need anyway,” she told Mandy in a stern tone. “God will send you the right man when the time is right, so don't go chasing after boys.”

  “I just get lonely sometimes,” Mandy confessed. “My mother seems to think I'm considering a career as a nun, even though I'm Baptist. I don't understand why she can't accept that being single at twenty is not that big of a deal. I mean, I dated in high school...some. I went to the prom, even though it was with the nerdiest kid in school. I...” Mandy stopped and dropped her head down onto Momma Peach's soft shoulder. “I'm a nerd,” she moaned miserably.