Mrs. Edwards lowered her cane. “Your fussing gives me gas, Momma Peach,” she said from her habitual spot on a stool behind the cash register, wearing her usual khaki dress with her usual dip of snuff in her mouth. “One of these days I'm going to whack some sense into that thick head of yours.”
“You just try it and I'll wrap that cane of yours around your hard head,” Momma Peach promised and slammed a twenty-dollar bill down onto a wooden counter covered with photos of loyal customers, coupons, menus, receipts and a plastic tip jar. “I must be insane to keep coming in here.”
“You come here, you stubborn mule, because you know I cook the best food in town,” Mrs. Edwards told Momma Peach and pointed her cane at the dining room filled with hungry customers sitting at round, wooden tables throughout the diner that was decorated with framed photos from old yearbooks from the town high school. The floor was an ancient green and white linoleum that was cracked in places, but the customers didn't seem to care. They all loved Mrs. Edwards and loved her food. “How many people are in your bakery right now?”
“I sold out of my famous peach bread yesterday,” Momma Peach said proudly.
Mrs. Edwards chuckled to herself. Her false teeth nearly fell out of her mouth. “Your peach bread would make a mule stand up and hee-haw.”
“Why you...” Momma Peach mumbled under her breath. “Listen, old lady, I make the best peach pie and peach bread east of the Mississippi. Folks come from all around to buy my bread—”
“Desperate folks,” Mrs. Edwards interrupted Momma Peach. “The world is full of them. Now, look at my diner and you'll see some decent folk with clear minds that know where to find good food.”
“Give me strength,” Momma Peach prayed. She reached down and opened a white to-go box and snatched out a biscuit. To her disappointment, the biscuit wasn't as dry as she had made it out to be. She savored the bite for a moment. But still, she was at war. “These biscuits ain't fit for a hungry hound dog. And look at that chicken breast...burned to a crisp.”
“Cooked well done,” Mrs. Edwards corrected Momma Peach. “Raw meat can kill a person. I have my customers’ health to think about. Better to be a little extra crispy than to be a whole lot dead.”
“Give it up, Momma Peach,” Wilma Lynn said.
Momma Peach looked to her left and saw a middle-aged woman with short red hair wiping her hands on a brown apron tied around her waist. “Never,” she said with a scowl.
Wilma rolled her eyes. “You and Momma Edwards have been at war for years now and not one time have you ever won a single battle,” she told Momma Peach and handed Mrs. Edwards a meal ticket. “Table four had three lunch specials and three sweet teas, Mrs. Edwards.”
Mrs. Edwards set the meal ticket down. “Thank you, honey,” she told Wilma. “Go see if Maye needs any help in the kitchen.”
Wilma smiled and walked away. “Wonderful girl.”
“She comes from good people,” Momma Peach agreed. “Now listen, I ain't got time to argue over these rocks,” she said and tossed the biscuit back down into the to-go box, “just ring me up and let me get out of here.”
Mrs. Edwards stared at Momma Peach. “Rumor is there has been a murder in town,” she said in an undertone and picked up Momma Peach's twenty-dollar bill. “You involved with a case again, Momma Peach?”
“I can't talk,” Momma Peach replied in a similarly quiet voice. Sure, she and Mrs. Edwards fought over food, but at the end of the day they were still very close friends. “I will say this: we have a black widow in town.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Edwards said with one eyebrow raised as she handed back the change to Momma Peach. “I rang you up half price, as usual,” she winked at Momma Peach.
“I knew you would,” Momma Peach winked back with a broad smile. “I'll sneak you over some bread later.”
“Extra sweet, just the way I like it.”
“You got it,” Momma Peach promised and picked up two to-go boxes. “Momma Edwards?”
“Yes?”
“What's the best way to catch a spider?” Momma Peach asked.
“You can't catch a spider, honey. All you can do is stomp them to death,” Mrs. Edwards answered in a serious voice. “You be careful now, and carry you a heavy brick.”
“I’ll be careful,” Momma Peach said and walked outside into the bright daylight. The sunlight caressed her face with gentle, loving fingers. Momma Peach raised her face toward the sun, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath. “I am grateful for the life You give me,” she prayed with a thankful heart. “Thank you, Lord...oh thank you.”
Momma Peach kept her eyes closed and let the sunlight wash all of her concerns and worries out of her mind. She focused on the love of God and let peace enter her heart. “Momma Peach?”
Momma Peach opened her eyes. She saw Mandy standing before her with a tall, stringy college kid with messy brown hair. The kid was wearing a thick pair of glasses and an orange polo shirt that was so bright it made him practically glow in the sunlight. “Hey,” Momma Peach said, looking at Mandy with inquisitive eyes. She looked at the college kid and gave him a welcoming smile.
“Momma Peach, this is Ralph. He was with the group I told you about earlier.”
Ralph smiled awkwardly. “It's nice to meet you.” He ducked his head a little bit, as if he wasn’t quite used to being so tall.
“Likewise,” Momma Peach smiled up at Ralph. “I'm assuming you want to take my Mandy on a picnic?”
Ralph looked down at his white sneakers, shifted from one nervous foot to the next, and then said: “I wanted to ask Mandy to come on the picnic earlier, but I knew she couldn't leave work.”
“Well, she can now,” Momma Peach beamed. She handed Mandy the two to-go boxes in her hand. “Go have fun.”
“But what about you?” Mandy asked in concern. “I thought you were coming on the picnic, Momma Peach?”
“I think that I might be a third wheel,” Momma Peach said and winked at Mandy. “There will be other picnics.”
Mandy blushed as if she understood Momma Peach’s wink. “I'll be back in a few hours. I locked the bakery up and counted down my cash drawers and prepared my deposit and—”
“I hear you,” Momma Peach promised Mandy, “and I’m sure grateful. I don't like to close down my bakery before the sun sets but today I have to make an exception. Now go, have fun. And you…” Momma Peach turned to Ralph. She reached out and straightened the collar on his orange shirt, “bring my baby back safe or I will hunt you down like a rabid dog, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ralph promised and hurried away with Mandy. Mandy looked over her shoulder and waved at Momma Peach. Momma Peach waved back and then looked around. She spotted a pay phone.
“I need to call myself a cab,” Momma Peach said and walked over to the phone, inserted a quarter, and called the Bakersville Cab Company. It sounded quite grand, but it really just consisted of three cabs owned by old Mr. John Barley. Twenty minutes later Mr. Barley rolled up to Momma Peach driving a run-down 1978 green Cadillac Eldorado. “You ready?”
“Oh, give strength,” Momma Peach begged and walked over to the old man who was smoking a thick cigar. “Mr. Barley, don't you ever comb your hair?” she said sternly.
Old Mr. Barley shook his head no. “Ain't got enough hair to comb.”
Momma Peach studied the blue and red Hawaiian shirt Mr. Barley was wearing over a pair of brown polyester pants. She sighed. “Doesn't Mrs. Barley mind that you're wearing a shirt with cigar burns?”
Mr. Barley shook his head no again. “Mrs. Barley is off seeing that sister of hers in Mississippi. She's been gone for two weeks. I'm down to my last clean shirt, too.”
“I will just have to come over and do a load of laundry.”
Mr. Barley shook his head no for the third time. “Mrs. Barley thinks more of that sister of hers than me. Leave the laundry for her doing. That'll teach her to run off and leave me alone. Ain't nothing wrong with that sister of hers anyways...darn woman is a h
ypochondriac who thinks she needs a team of doctors surrounding her every time she farts the wrong way.”
Momma Peach cackled. Old Mr. Barley was still feisty at the age of seventy-seven. “Okay,” she said as she walked around to the passenger’s side of the car and climbed in, “I will treat you to lunch after I finish with my business.”
“Where to?” he asked. Momma Peach announced her destination as she buckled up. His overgrown eyebrows shot up when he heard where she was going. “I want a steak dinner for driving you out to that snake pit,” he said.
“I will cook you some homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet peas, biscuits and okra and you'll be grateful, you old coot.”
Mr. Barley got the Cadillac moving. “Better than canned beans. Darn beans been giving me awful gas.” And right on cue, old Mr. Barley let out a loud fart.
“Oh, give me strength!” Momma Peach yelled and quickly rolled down the passenger side window and stuck her head out. A few people walking down the sidewalk just then spotted Momma Peach begging for fresh air and shrugged their shoulders.
Mr. Barley shrugged his shoulders. “Better out than in, Momma Peach,” he said with a half-smile around his cigar. Momma Peach kept her head out of the window as the Cadillac drove through the pine trees and the blooming magnolias. In the distance, a pretty brown finch hopped onto the sidewalk, snatched up a breadcrumb, and flew away.
Betty Walker's cousin was not pleased to see Momma Peach walk into the grimy front lobby where he sat idly flipping through a newspaper. Momma Peach wasn't happy about walking into a lobby that resembled the rotted inside of a green bean that had been left sitting in the sun. Mark Thompson was seated on the ragged, stained brown couch by the front desk, smoking a cigarette as he read the daily newspaper. “What do you want?” he asked and slowly lowered the newspaper.
Momma Peach tightened the grip she had on her pocketbook. She was prepared to tangle with this filthy specimen for the second time, if need be. “I want some answers and you’re going to give them to me, if you know what’s good for you.”
Mark looked up at Momma Peach and then did a double-take as he glanced at her pocketbook. His mind was far too sober to even entertain the thought of tangling with Momma Peach. Given the bruises he still had left over from last time, the woman would surely beat him into an early grave. Besides, he was waiting for the local health inspector to drop by and didn't want Momma Peach to mess up the one unstained shirt he had found in the back of his closet. But he wasn’t going to get cornered into talking to her, either. “I don’t have time for this. Get out of here before I call the cops.”
Momma Peach leaned against the lobby door and shook her head. “I know you were paid off,” she told Mark in a stern tone, “but not by the same man who paid Betty Walker to leave town. No sir. The man who paid you off is a black widow, Mr. Thompson.”
“Get out of here, lady, before I throw you out!” Mark hissed at Momma Peach.
Momma Peach began swinging her pocketbook in the air. “Let's rumble, boy!”
Mark threw down the newspaper in his hand, jumped to his feet, and like the coward he was, ran to the front counter and dove over it, breaking the cigarette in his mouth as he did. “You're crazy, lady! I'm calling the cops.”
“And when you do I'll be more than happy to tell them that Bob Connor paid you to kill Mr. Graystone, rest his poor soul,” Momma Peach said. She stopped swinging her pocketbook and narrowed her eyes. “Isn't that right?”
“I didn't kill nobody,” Mark insisted and threw down the broken cigarette in his hand. “Listen, lady, you have it all wrong. I never met this Mr. Graystone in my life before he showed up one day and rented a room. I thought maybe he was a drug dealer...or seeing someone on the side...who knows? It wasn't any of my business. He paid me cash for the room and that was good enough for me.”
“That's not good enough for me,” Momma Peach said with fire in her voice. “Mr. Graystone was found dead in his room, poisoned. Someone murdered that poor man and that someone was you.” Momma Peach stepped forward and cast out a cleverly baited fish hook. “And if you didn't kill Mr. Graystone, surely those sleazy eyes of yours saw who did!”
Mark nodded. He swam out to the hook as quickly as he could and swallowed it. “Sure, yeah, I know...something.”
“Why didn't you tell Detective Chan?”
Mark ran his hands through his hair. Momma Peach was backing him into a corner. He had to think. “Listen, lady, I have to watch out for number one, you know? I don't own the Ritz, here. I deal with some pretty tough people who will break my legs if I even look at them the wrong way.”
“I'm gonna break your skull if you don't give me the answers I'm looking for. Tell me about Bob Connor and I’ll see to it that Detective Chan knows you did your best. Or I can tell her that you wanted this to go the hard way...” Momma Peach warned Mark.
Mark threw his hands out in front of him. “Okay, okay...just cool down some, will you?” he begged.
“You have ten seconds to start talking or I'm coming over that counter after you.”
Mark stepped backward and bumped up against a water stained wooden desk that needed to be thrown in the trash – a far cry from the desk sitting in Bob Connor's office. “Okay...okay...you want to know about Bob Connor, right?”
“Right.”
Mark struggled to steady his nerves. “I don't know much about the guy. One day he showed up, shoved a bunch of money in my hand, and told me to call him when I saw Mr. Graystone come back to his room.”
“When was this?”
Mark swallowed. “The night...the night Mr. Graystone was killed.”
“You slimy rat,” Momma Peach growled.
“I know, I know,” Mark declared in a guilty voice, “but I thought, you know, it was a drug deal or something. I didn't want to get messed up in whatever it was. So, when Bob Connor shoved one thousand dollars in my hand, I just took the money and did what he told me.”
“Don't play the victim with me.”
“I'm not,” Mark pleaded and pointed around the lobby Momma Peach was standing in. “I'm not rich, lady. I've...dipped my hands in a few bad deals over the years...and got on the wrong side of some very bad dudes. I learned to do what I'm told, keep my mouth shut, and talk to no one.”
Momma Peach studied Mark's scared face. The slimeball was actually telling the truth. “So you believed Bob Connor was a drug dealer?”
“Yeah...and whatever was going down between him and Mr. Graystone was none of my business,” Mark insisted.
“What time did Bob Connor visit you?”
Mark ran his hands through his hair again. “About an hour before Mr. Graystone came back to his room...about nine thirty, I guess...could have been closer to ten. I don't know, I was pretty drunk at the time.”
“What was Bob Connor driving?”
“I didn't see.”
“Was anyone with him?” Momma Peach asked.
“No, he was alone.”
Momma Peach nodded. “Did you see Bob Connor return to this rat heap after you called him?”
“Lady, I passed out about ten minutes after I called Bob Connor,” Mark confessed. “I didn't see a thing. Betty woke me the following morning, scared out of her mind, crying hysterically. She found Mr. Graystone dead in his room.” Mark shook his head. “I thought she was drunk and overreacting, you know...until I walked down to the room and saw the body myself. The guy was dead. He had been dead for a few hours, too. His body was...cold.” Mark shuddered at the memory.
Momma Peach bit down on her lower lip. “Tell me about Betty Walker. What happened to her after you saw Mr. Graystone? Did she leave the motel? Hang around? What?”
“Betty hung around until the police showed up and then I lost track of her,” Mark explained. “I told her to take the day off and I haven't seen her since. My guess is she split town. Betty never liked dealing with the cops. Can't say I blame her.”
“Did you see anyone come by after the police left?
”
Mark looked down at his sweaty hands. He grew silent. Momma Peach nodded. “Talk to me. Have an ounce of dignity.”
Mark shook his head. “I saw Bob Connor ride through the parking lot...and later I saw this pretty girl ride through. I swear that's all I know.”
“What was Bob Connor driving? Don't lie to me.”
Mark sighed miserably. “A gray Mercedes Benz. The cute girl was driving a flashy BMW.”
“Mr. Connor didn't stop to chat?”
Mark looked at Momma Peach nervously. “Well, he...stuffed another thousand dollars in my hand and told me to keep my mouth shut or die. But hey, lady, I'm not stupid. I ain’t going to the can for murder, especially not for a lousy two grand. No way.”
Momma Peach grew silent. When she did speak, her tone was calm and steady. “You and I didn't speak, is that clear? I didn't come by the rat heap today. I didn't talk to you and you didn't talk to me. But,” Momma Peach patted her pocketbook, “this tape recorder I have hidden in my pocketbook will make the police mighty happy if you decide to tell anyone I stopped by for a visit.”
Mark's eyes grew wide. “You taped us talking?”
“I ain't stupid,” Momma Peach informed Mark as she walked away. “If you try and leave town the police will hunt you down. I want you to sit tight. I am going to need you to testify in court.”
“In court?” Mark yelled. “No way.”
“Either testify in court or go to prison.”
Mark stared across the lobby at Momma Peach. “Okay, okay...I'll testify in court, lady.”
Momma Peach opened the lobby door. “Sit tight and don't leave this dump until I call you, is that clear?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“I mean it. If you leave, the police will track you down, not to mention Bob Connor,” Momma Peach warned.
“I get it, okay,” Mark begged. “Now take a hike. The health inspector will be here any minute.”
“Take a hike?” Momma Peach asked in a warning tone and patted her pocketbook. “I’m going to have to teach you some manners.”
Old Mr. Barley heard a man hollering inside but didn't pay it any mind. A few minutes later he saw Momma Peach walk out of the front lobby, straighten her hair, and then make her way back to the car. “Everything okay?” he asked Momma Peach.
A Dash of Peach Page 10