“And you believe Alistair hired Mitch Taylor to be his bully, right?” Michelle asked. Momma Peach walked over to the couch, sat down, and listened to her baby talk.
“That's the way of it,” Evan replied. “Mitch Taylor showed up in Greenglow on a hot wind one day.”
Michelle chewed on her lower lip. “Did Mitch Taylor ever admit he was working for anyone?”
“He didn't have to,” Evan answered. “The eyes and the mind know the truth well before the snake strikes.”
Michelle took a drink of water. “Evan,” she said, “the note we found in your store said you had until morning to leave. Alistair said you had until tonight. Any reason why there is a discrepancy?” Momma Peach smiled. Her baby was thinking good thoughts.
Evan shrugged his shoulders. “More of a chance to die in the night out on the open land than in the day, I guess.”
“What note?” Grace asked. “I wasn't aware of any note.”
Michelle reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out the note that was found in Evan's store. “Here.”
Grace took the note and read it. “Doesn't make no sense,” she whispered. “Alistair destroyed your dune buggy and then warned you to leave. Why would he leave a note first?”
“And a scorpion,” Momma Peach pointed out.
Michelle nodded. “And the scorpion...a scorpion that these unseen people you've been talking about leave as a warning to people.”
“What are you saying?” Evan asked.
“I'm not entirely sure yet,” Michelle confessed, looked back outside, and studied the raw land. “Maybe Mitch Taylor or Alistair Berman didn't kill Patty, maybe they did. We have no proof. You said yourself, Evan, that there is no way anyone could have gotten through town without you hearing, right?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“And we did find a scorpion in the front seat of Patrick's truck,” Michelle continued. “Mitch Taylor was killed by a snake.” Michelle studied a boulder standing in the distance. The boulder blazed in the hot sun. “Maybe,” she said, “the person who owned the canyon and the land around it is behind this?” she suggested. “Maybe that person is killing off all the bad guys...or whoever he...or she...thinks is the bad guys.”
“And maybe,” Momma Peach added, “whoever this person is...well, maybe this person is protecting those unseen folks you're talking about?”
Grace looked at Momma Peach with curious eyes as her mind began to connect the dots. “Alistair was too afraid to kill Evan, is that it?”
Momma Peach nodded. “Maybe Mr. Snake believed that Mr. Evan is somehow connected to some people who are mighty scary? I can't say for sure. But when night comes and that snake comes back, maybe we'll find out.” She looked at Michelle. “I think we've been barking up the wrong tree. It's time to change trails and start tracking down a new scent.”
Michelle nodded. “I agree, Momma Peach,” she said and pointed toward Patrick's truck. “The scorpion in that truck knows who put it there and now it's up to us to find out who.”
Grace and Evan looked at each other. Who were these strange Americans standing in Patty's living room?
Night fell. Tensions rose. Momma Peach had to go to the bathroom. “Oh, please let there be toilet paper,” she begged as she ran into a small, cramped bathroom off the back of the kitchen, a tiny room that was as bland as a flat pie, holding only a candle for light. A single half-used roll of single-ply toilet paper sat on a gray sink. “You'll do,” Momma Peach cried out, plopped down on the toilet, and began moaning. “Oh, why did I eat those cans of beans!”
Michelle heard Momma Peach crying out in the bathroom. “Uh...she'll be a minute,” she told Grace and Evan.
Evan eased over to the living room window, walking through weak candle light, and carefully peered out at the night. “Alistair will see the candle light through the curtains,” he worried.
“That's the plan,” Michelle explained.
Grace looked at Evan. “Evan, if only you wouldn't have made that promise to your wife,” she complained, holding a half-eaten can of beans.
Michelle made a curious face. “What promise?”
Evan swung away from the window. “None of your business,” he snapped in a hard voice. “Grace, teach your mouth to be careful,” he warned.
Grace put the can of beans down on the kitchen counter. “Evan, why do you always get so upset?” she asked. “Everyone in this territory knows why you—”
“That's my business,” Evan snapped again. He glanced over at Michelle with a stern eye. “Some secrets are meant to remain that way.”
Michelle shrugged her shoulders. “Fine by me,” she said, walked over to the living room window, and peeked out at the dark landscape. “I—” she began to say but was interrupted by loud sounds coming from the bathroom.
“I...will be a minute!” Momma Peach sang out in a pained voice.
Grace joined Michelle at the living room window. “Could be that when Alistair returns and finds the town empty, he won't think to check the houses?”
“Could be Alistair won't return at all,” Michelle pointed out. “Patrick and Mitch are dead. If our theory is right, Alistair will be next on the list and then Heath Marshall. If Alistair does show up our only chance of capturing him alive is to lure him into our trap.”
“Alistair isn't going to fall for this trap,” Evan complained. “The man isn't stupid.”
“Look,” Michelle told Evan, becoming annoyed, “we don't have direct answers, okay? We're going off a lot of assumptions that we hope are correct.” Michelle turned away from the window and faced Evan. “I know this land means a lot to you because of your wife, Evan. I can understand and appreciate that. I can also understand and appreciate that you're a decent fellow that doesn't want anyone to get hurt.” Michelle put her hands on her hips. “Right now, we're trapped between a rock and a hard place and—” she lost her fire, feeling defeated.
Michelle turned her attention back to the window and let her debate with Evan depart with the wind. There was no sense in arguing with Evan. The man was obviously spooked about the idea of being watched by some unseen people and there was no use in trying to argue with logic.
Evan shoved his hands down into the pockets of his pants. “If Alistair does come back,” he said, “he won't fall for our trap. Our best choice is to put out these candles and hide in the dark. Sooner or later he'll come and check this house—”
“We want Alistair to know we're here,” Michelle told Evan. “We have to lure him in.” Michelle shook her head. “Evan, I know our plan is flimsy, but it's possible Alistair knows something.”
“Why? Because he was allowing me to escape?” Evan asked in an irritated voice. “You Americans don't understand the way of things out here—”
“I understand that crime is crime no matter where you live in the world,” Michelle snapped. She wasn't in the mood to argue with Evan. “Murder is murder no matter if a person is killed in Los Angeles, Moscow, London or Sydney.”
“We should have left before the sun dropped,” Evan told Michelle. “I could have walked us out of here.”
“I don't think so,” Michelle countered. “Evan, no offense, when Alistair Berman ordered you to leave through the open land you became very frightened. You're still frightened. I don't think you're thinking clear enough to navigate the land, with or without these unseen people.”
Grace studied Evan's shadowy face. She hated to agree with Michelle, but it did appear that Evan's mind was in a far and distant place—a place that wouldn't allow him to walk through the open land and come out alive. It was clear that Evan was thinking about the unseen people and how Greenglow was going to be affected. If the unseen people took back control of the land, that would mean Evan would be forced to leave Greenglow and break a deep promise he had made to his wife. “I agree with Michelle, Evan.”
Evan glared at Grace. “I have the deed to the land. I won't lose Greenglow...not to Alistair...or anyone else,” he snapped an
d then walked into the kitchen and sat down at the flimsy kitchen table.
Michelle shook her head at Grace. “What can we do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Grace told Michelle. “We're trapped. We just have to wait.”
“We should have left before the sun dropped,” Evan complained again from the kitchen.
“Evan,” Grace said, keeping her voice calm, “maybe you're right. Maybe we should have walked out of Greenglow. But two people are dead, and we can't ignore that fact. We have to solve this crime. We have to look at this scene from a logical point of view and not become distracted by our fears.” Grace glanced around the shadowy living room. “I admit that I'm very spooked right now. I don’t know why but I do believe the unseen people are out in the dark...but I don't believe they want to hurt us—”
“Oh, mercy,” Momma Peach cried from behind the bathroom door.
Michelle blushed. “She's—”
“Going to be a minute?” Grace finished for Michelle.
Michelle nodded. “Yeah,” she said and then decided to sit down on the couch and rest her sore legs. “From a law enforcement point of view,” she spoke, “this case isn't impossible to solve. We understand who the major actors are in the case and we understand that a counter-group could be acting against the first group using lethal force.”
“You make it seem nice and clean,” Evan said. He bowed his head and forced his irritation to leave. “You don't understand the land,” he told Michelle again. “No amount of logic can subdue the land.”
“I'm not after the land,” Michelle told Evan. “I'm after a killer.”
Evan raised his head. “I don't agree that Mitch Taylor or Alistair Berman didn't kill Patty.”
“Why would they?” Michelle asked. “I've been thinking about that, Evan, and asking myself why would Mitch Taylor or Alistair Berman gun down Patrick? And why kill the man in his own home where his body could easily be located?”
“Michelle is right,” Grace told Evan, joining Michelle's side as she thought more about the situation. “Heath Marshall would have ordered Mitch or Alistair to hide Patty's body...bury his body or dispose of it somewhere, maybe in the ravine. It doesn't make any sense that Patty's body was left in his own home for you to find.”
Evan had to admit that Grace was right in her thinking. He just didn't want to admit that people he had never seen had attacked his town and killed Patty. His mind turned to Mitch Taylor's truck. He thought about the small explosion that had wrecked the engine. He wasn’t entirely sure it was from the petrol leak; he was beginning to think perhaps a small explosive device had been there, too. Then he focused on Alistair Berman shooting up his dune buggy. Mitch's truck had been sabotaged by an expert hand—the dune buggy had been shot up by an angry hand. “I thought the person who left me the note was the one shooting up my dune buggy,” he whispered. “Maybe I was...wrong.”
“What?” Michelle asked.
Evan raised his head. “I...don't want to agree that someone other than Mitch or Alistair killed Patty,” he told Michelle. “But my gut is telling me that you may be right.” Evan explained about Mitch's truck. “Whoever set that possible explosive knew what he was doing. I keep wondering why Heath Marshall or Alistair Berman would do such a thing? If Heath or Alistair wanted Mitch dead, why ruin his truck? Why even let him drive back to Greenglow? Mitch drove back to Greenglow for help...he didn't have enough time to get back to the town Heath Marshall lives in.”
“But the snake wasn't in his truck when he left Greenglow the first time, otherwise he would have died long before he got to us,” Michelle pointed out. “Mitch stopped somewhere on the road. Where? Why? To see who? Who knows?”
“Who knows?” Evan echoed Michelle's words. “All we do know is that the man is dead.”
Michelle heard the toilet flush. A couple of minutes later Momma Peach wandered out of the bathroom. “Those beans nearly killed me,” She moaned and rubbed her belly.
“I think it was the Tabasco sauce you put on the beans, Momma Peach,” Michelle pointed out. “You know your stomach can't tolerate Tabasco sauce.”
“I can't resist some good Tabasco sauce,” She told Michelle and plopped down on the couch beside her. “But maybe I overdid it a little. I can be silly that way, at times,” she confessed. “Tonight was not the night to be silly.”
Grace glanced at poor Momma Peach. “No sign of Alistair, Momma Peach.”
Momma Peach nodded and continued to rub her belly. “I believe that snake won't show up.”
“How can you be so sure?” Evan asked.
“Because,” Momma Peach answered Evan in a serious voice. “I’m a smart woman—a black woman—who has been thinking a lot about sweet Patrick...rest his soul.” Momma Peach shook her head.
“What does being a black woman have to do with any of this?” Evan asked. Then his mind made the connection. “The Aboriginal people.”
Michelle looked at Momma Peach with shock in her eyes. “What does he mean?” she asked.
Grace hurried over to the couch. “Of course,” she said in an excited voice. “That makes perfect sense.”
“It might make perfect sense if I’m right about my thinking,” Momma Peach warned. “I’m still trying to make sense of this mess. I also wish I were back home in Georgia baking up a storm in my own kitchen, but I’ll settle for being right in this here outback cabin.”
Michelle looked up at Grace's face. She watched weak candle light flicker across Grace's face with shadowy fingers. “You're talking about the Aboriginal people who live here, right?” Grace nodded. “Why would they have anything to do with this? I mean, the Aboriginal Australians are not a secret people. Surely they can’t be this invisible people you’re talking about.”
“Maybe they’re not the exact people we're aware of, but they could be related,” Grace told Michelle. “Right, Momma Peach?”
“Right,” Momma Peach nodded. She steadied her stomach and then steadied her troubled mind. “I think maybe Patrick called me out to this land to be some type of mediator.”
“Mediator?” Evan asked.
“Why not?” Momma Peach asked back. “Seems to me that poor Patrick got himself in a whole big mess with a person who didn't like people stealing his...or her...land. And right now, I’m leaning more toward a she than a he.”
“Why a woman?” Grace asked.
“Why would Patrick call a woman way out here to talk to a man?” Momma Peach explained. “I’m no genius but my brain knows a little something about cultures from the old days. In the old days, men didn't like meeting with strange women, and rightly so. Men had their doings and women had their doings, just the way it was. Patrick didn’t call for help to talk to a fella. Patrick called me to talk to a...a...sheila...did I get that right?”
“You got it right,” Grace nodded with a fond smile.
“Momma Peach, are you implying there's some form of...a lost tribe out here?” Michelle asked. “Like the lost Amazonian warrior tribe of women in the Greek myths?”
Momma Peach pointed at Evan's wife. “Evan, maybe you can answer that?”
“What are you talking about?” Evan demanded.
“Was it you and your sweet wife both that were drawn to this land or just your sweet wife?”
“We...I...” Evan began to speak but stopped. He looked through the shadowy darkness into Momma Peach's wise face. “My wife was drawn to this land...I wasn't,” he finally confessed. “I came here because I loved...love...my wife. I remain here for the same reason, Momma Peach.”
“And I know that's why your life has been spared so far,” Momma Peach told Evan in a soft, loving voice. “But you've been warned to leave. Why? I think it’s because you might end up being a hazard to the person doing all the killing. Or,” she added, “the person doing the killing might want you out of the way just for a short while. The note we found didn't say you couldn't come back. You were just told to scooter-poot out of town...and not through the open land, either.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Momma Peach promised Evan. “Your mind was thrown into an earthquake the same as ours was and—” A hard object struck the front door and caused Momma Peach to nearly wet herself. She jumped to her feet and grabbed Michelle's hand. “Baby?”
Michelle yanked out her gun. “Grace, you open the front door and I'll cover you.”
Grace pulled her gun out and jumped into action. She eased over to the front door with her gun at the ready. “All set,” she told Michelle.
Michelle nodded, dropped down onto one knee, aimed her gun at the front door, and said: “Open it.”
Grace drew in a deep breath and yanked the door open. The body of Alistair Berman tumbled inside. Michelle nearly shot the falling body but movement out in the darkness caught her eye. She spotted two shadows glide away on swift legs, as silent as the wings of an owl. The shadows, Michelle saw, belonged to women. “Momma Peach was right,” she whispered as the two shadows vanished into the dark, scorched, rugged land—two beautiful women obeying the orders of a killer.
6
Momma Peach turned on the living room light. There was no sense in waiting in candle light anymore. Alistair Berman had arrived...dead. “Well, well,” Momma Peach grunted to herself, “looks like we just received ourselves an ugly welcome letter.”
Evan hurried over to Alistair, bent down, and checked the man. He quickly located a set of fang marks on Alistair’s neck. “Looks like a snake got to him,” he said in a shaky voice.
Grace bent down and examined the fang marks. “Desert death adder,” she said in a sick voice. “Looks like Mitch wasn't killed by Alistair or Heath.”
Michelle kept her eyes locked on the dark land. “I saw two shadows,” she said in a quick voice. “The way they were running...it had to be women.”
Not Peachy, Mate Page 8