4 Return To Sender: A Cat Cozy Mystery: A Mail Carrier Cozy Mystery

by Tonya Kappes

  “And you want to do yoga?” Iris rolled her eyes and came at me, trying to push me out of the kitchen. “Go home and be with your grandbaby and your man.”

  I dug my heels in and didn’t budge.

  “Nope. I’ve got all weekend long to be hugging up on both of them. Especially Clara, who just so happens to be asleep for the night.” I laughed when Iris booty bumped me. “Stop it. Come on. Let’s go, we’re going to be late.”

  “Geez, Bernie. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re really enjoying yoga.” When she looked at me, I glared back at her, which made her laugh. “What’s in your bag?”

  “Those awful pants I’ll put on just to make Peaches happy.” I flung it over my shoulder and headed to the front of the bakery with Iris flipping the lights off behind me. “I’m not going to even bring up the murder.”

  “You don’t think we should tell her our theory since she did ask you to help?” Iris had a point. She locked the front door of the bakery, and we headed next door.

  “No. I don’t want to get her hopes up if something is off. It’s best we take our theory to Angela like I promised Angela and let her do the leg work.” I knocked on the door of Tranquility Spa and was happy to see Peaches coming toward us. “Besides, if Peaches tells anyone, then Sarah and Nick could run off.”

  “Good thinking.” Iris planted a big smile on her face, as did I, as soon as Peaches opened the door.

  “Hey ladies. You two are lifesavers. I needed this tonight.” Peaches looked like she was the Zen queen I’d always known her to be.

  She looked calmer and a little less tense than she had a few hours earlier.

  “And we need to get you sleeping.” She let go of the door after I grabbed the handle and ushered Iris in. “If you two want to grab a mat and meet me in the room, we will get started. I don’t want my mom to realize I’ve left because she will have a heart attack.”

  “I’ll get changed real quick.” I held up the bag I’d brought from home with my too tight yoga pants along with the new shirt China had made me and headed toward the bathroom where there were a couple stalls that doubled as changing rooms.

  Peaches had really thought of everything when she’d redone the old building.

  Iris and Peaches were waiting for me and chitchatting about what Iris could do to help with some sort of pain she was having. It was one of those aches that we brushed off, saying it just came with age. Instead of trying to hear Peaches’s reply to Iris, I tried to get in the zone as I grabbed a mat, but my head was back at my house with Clara and Mac… my world.

  “Let’s get started, ladies.” Peaches was sitting cross-legged on her aqua mat. “We are going to start on all fours. Be sure to take in some deep breaths as we start with cat cow pose.” Peaches’s body was so flexible as she curled her spine up and then let her back arch as she dropped her belly. “Drop the belly and open the chest.” A big exhale came from her.

  Iris and I both followed her lead.

  “Chin to chest and breath out. Claw through the fingertips as you draw your chin to chest.” She continued the movement for a few more breaths. “Finish off that breath as we meet together in tabletop.”

  The cat cow felt so good to me. I didn’t want to stop doing that. A big yawn came out of nowhere.

  “I see you’re yawning. Let it out. That means your body is relaxing.” Peaches’s voice was so soft and soothing. “Bump your hips to the right and gaze past your left shoulder. Come back to center and draw little circles with your tailbone forward, backward, and reverse.”

  Peaches continued with these easy and simple poses that made me wonder why I’d not embraced yoga in the last few classes because this was wonderful. Maybe it was the other students in class, but I now understood why Peaches would tell the class not to focus on anyone in the room but to focus on our practice. She’d tell us to listen to our bodies, not try to do what our neighbor’s body was doing.

  Before I knew it, the time passed, and she already had us lying in corpse pose on our mats.

  “Nice and easy breaths. Close your eyes. Take a beautiful inhale through your nose, and this time, as you exhale, allow the weight of your body to relax completely and fully.”

  And that was the last thing I remembered until I woke myself up snoring. I sat up straight so Iris and Peaches didn’t have to nudge me and tried to pretend I hadn’t fallen asleep.

  “Iris? Peaches?” I twisted around on the mat to see where they’d gone. They weren’t in the room at all, so I got up figuring they were in the front of Tranquility Wellness while they let me take a snoozer.

  The lights were off, and the place was empty. It was crazy. There was a note taped to the front door with my name written on it.

  We just had to let you sleep. You were sleeping so well that I knew you needed it. Iris called Mac to let him know you’d fallen asleep during yoga, and he said to let you sleep. If you wake up before I get here in the morning, just let yourself out the back door of the building. You can turn the lock on your way out. It’s located in the storage room that is right across from meditation room 3. Hugs and happy sleeping. Peaches.

  Half out of it, I took the note off the door and headed back toward the rooms she referred to as the meditation rooms. There was a thud above me, and I tilted my head to see if it was thunder. There’d not been a call for rain, though we could definitely use some if the crops this fall were going to be any good. When I heard the thump again, it sounded like mice.

  I sure would hate to see Peaches have a mouse problem on top of the bank issues. A long sad sigh escaped me, but my body felt so good and relaxed I couldn’t wait to get home and crawl into bed. I was going to take advantage of being on suspension and snuggle all day with Clara.

  I found the door across from meditation room three and opened it, and there I found the door to the outside. I’d thought Peaches would’ve boarded up the back door like everyone else, but she actually had made it one of the fire exits. She was so smart.

  The thump turned into a louder ticking sound before something much louder fell above me. There was a muffled talking sound.

  “Peaches? Iris?” I called out and noticed a small step of stairs off to the left of the door.

  There were so many times I’d walked by this building as a child and as an adult on my mail route wondering what on earth was behind the little window in the two-story building.

  I clumped up the steps since I could hear someone mumbling, figuring on Iris and Peaches being up there.

  “Thanks for not waking me up… again,” I said after my foot landed on the top step. “Peaches!” I gasped and dropped the yoga bag with my regular clothes in it when I saw she was strapped to a chair on her side. “What in the world is going on?” I questioned and tried to remove the gag around her mouth.

  Her eyes looked at me with fear in them before I realized we weren’t alone.

  “Now you. I knew you were going to be a problem.” China Gordon was standing at the top of the steps and rolled her eyes.

  Chapter 18

  It took a minute for my sleeping eyes to adjust and notice that it was in fact China. She looked so much like Peaches that I’d have thought it was Peaches if I’d not seen her all tied up.

  “The cameras. The pills. The bourbon bottle.” It was like my mouth had a mind of its own, which it often did, but not when a gun was pointed directly at me. “You probably didn’t know Simon wasn’t a bourbon drinker.”

  “And here I thought you only knew how to count so you could deliver little letters to mailboxes.” China tried to put me down, but I stayed laser focused on the gun and her.

  “Looks like I have nothing to lose before you kill me and Peaches, so why don’t I take a stab at just exactly how you pulled this off?”

  “I’m listening.” She appeared to be interested in what I had to say. Almost entertained.

  “Can I ask a question? I need to tie up one loose end. The package.”

  “You’ve even said yourself that I look
like Peaches. So I took the package for Peaches to the post office after you didn’t do your job to pick it up.” She didn’t say anything else, which explained seeing her on the grainy camera footage since she looked like Peaches. “I’d love to hear your theory.”

  “I’d love to give it to you, but first, I need to know why you killed Simon.” I tried so hard to take some deep breaths to calm myself, but the yoga pants were too dang tight for me to even get any comfort.

  “That shirt you’re wearing.” She took a step closer and reached out with her free hand to flick the sleeve. “I’ve been trying for weeks to get Peaches to meet with me about the yoga clothing line. But she’s been so upset about Simon and Sarah Hodges that I knew the only way she’d return to normal was to get rid of him.”

  Peaches moaned out, still lying on her side on the ground, attached to the chair. Tears streamed down her face.

  I remembered the few times this week I’d seen China try to get Peaches to listen to her.

  “You knew Peaches was a recovering alcoholic, so you were more than happy to have those shots of bourbon. And when I saw you at the doctor’s office trying to refill her prescription, it was because you wanted to get her bottle filled up, and I bet she didn’t even know you went to the doctor on her behalf.” My words brought a smile to China’s face and more grunts from Peaches to confirm I was right.

  “Shut up!” she yelled at Peaches. “Peaches fed me lies about how I could start a clothing line and she’d help me. All these years she’s been a drunk, and she’s the one who comes out on top. Smelling like a rose. Be a drunk and open a successful yoga studio while I bust my rump learning web development and working for yoga companies.”

  “You are a web designer?” I questioned, thinking she was some sort of yoga clothing salesperson.

  “Duh. How do you think I deleted all the footage of me breaking in to the post office to get that darn package back? And the letter. The letter you had for Simon that I overheard in the doctor’s office that day. Yeah. I wanted the letter, so when I got the package, it looked like he broke in to get the letter. It was too good though.” She smiled. “I opened the package he sent to Peaches. There was a letter inside telling her all about how I’d come to him about some business idea I had, which I did. I wanted to open up my own studio and have my own clothing line, so I went to him for advice on how to start a business because my dear friend Peaches never shared with me anymore.”

  China shifted her gaze to Peaches. The moonlight shined through the small window, casting enough of a shadow on her that I could see the pure hatred on her face.

  “I went to see him after I took the package to the post office. I told him she wouldn’t open it, but if he helped me with my business, I could get her to open it. Maybe come back to him and sober.” She snorted. “That’s when he said he sent the package because he thought she’d open it since she hadn’t taken any of his phone calls. Then he proceeded to tell me what was in the package and how it was a letter against me.” There was so much passion in China’s voice, I could hear how she believed she was in the right by killing Simon. “That’s when I knew I had to break in to the post office and get the package back so I could make it look like she did it.”

  When she nodded to Peaches, I looked away for a second toward her. Her eyes were barely open.

  “You went to see him, and somehow, you took Peaches’s pills and crushed them up, knowing he would drink that sports drink.” All of the evidence was becoming so clear. “You made it look like he was drinking, and you knew how to break in to his computer and write that note.”

  “With him gone, I would be able to get Peaches back on track and get my clothing line off the ground like she promised me.” Her words made me so angry.

  I continued to try to get some composure and some sort of deep breath, but my circulation was cut off by the darn pants, and deep inside me frustration began to boil.

  There was nothing angrier than a middle-aged woman who was going through menopause wearing a snug pair of yoga pants.

  It was like I had one good breath in me as I took off toward China with my head down as fast and hard as I could. I swung my bag with my cell phone in there, hoping to hit her in the head with it.

  She grabbed the bag and took a stumble backward. I bent down and covered my head once my bag left my grip, fearing she was going to hit me with it. Shards of glass fell around me, and when I looked up, China was no longer in the room, and the window was shattered.

  Slowly, I got up and carefully walked over to the window, barely leaning over enough to see China was lying on Main Street in a position that didn’t look like she survived the fall.

  “Peaches!” I hurried to her side and noticed she was passed out. One of her Tranquility Wellness bottles was lying on the floor next to her. I picked it up and lifted it into the moonlight. “Oh my gosh, sediment.” I noticed it looked exactly like the bottle that Simon had drank out of. “She drugged you.”

  I left her there and hurried back downstairs since my cell phone was in the bag that’d gone out the window with China. I fumbled through the dark shop and found myself at the counter where the phone was located, but the flashing lights outside told me someone had already called the sheriff.

  I ran to the door, unlocked it, and ran out.

  “Peaches is upstairs. I think she’s been overdosed like Simon!” I tried to say the words as clear as I could so Angela only had to get the EMTs, who just pulled up, to get up there and get her.

  I stood back while she ordered who to get what. They headed inside, and she kneeled down to feel for a pulse on China.

  “She’s dead.” Angela Hafley’s words sent chills up my spine.

  Chapter 19

  The smell of a baby was the most amazing scent. There was nothing that compared. Everything was perfect on Clara, down to her cupid bow lips and button nose.

  “I’m sorry I’m not helping, but I don’t get nearly enough time with her.” I looked around the old farmhouse kitchen while Iris and Julia worked to get Sunday supper on the table.

  “You’re gonna have to give up that baby and give her great-granny a dose.” My mom put her hands out for me to hand Clara over. “Give ’er to me.” She got grabby hands.

  “Mom.” I twisted around so she couldn’t get her.

  “You need to give her to me so you can tell us the details of what on earth happened after they took Peaches to the hospital.” Mom stood up over me.

  Reluctantly, I handed her over and knew this would be the only time to tell the girls about what’d happened because I didn’t get my cell phone back from the sheriff’s department until after they took China Gordon to the morgue.

  Mac was so relieved to know I was okay but made me promise not to keep things from him. We talked all through the night about being honest and respectful, even when we didn’t see eye to eye. We also agreed that if Angela Hafley had asked me to be a special consultant on any more cases, I’d be up front with him about my involvement. It was going to be a hard thing to do since I’d been so independent for so long, but Mac was important to me, and I was going to really try to honor our agreement.

  “I can’t believe China did it.” Iris put her smoky sausage casserole dish in the middle of the table. “After I thought about seeing her at Tranquility Spa over the past few weeks during yoga, I can now see it. There were so many signs.”

  “So many signs.” I picked the edge of a really crispy piece of casserole off the top and popped it into my mouth. I loved burnt pieces of casserole so much. “Even with the drinking. Every time after class when the bourbon bottle was out, it was always China pouring the drinks, and she made sure Peaches was getting drunk.”

  “Her mom said if it weren’t for you, Peaches would’ve never agreed to go to rehab straight from the hospital after they pumped her stomach to get all those pills China forced her to drink out.” Mom kept kissing Clara on the head, no doubt trying to wake the sleeping baby.

  “I’m sure she’s going to
get back on track this time.” I opened the utensil drawer and got out the silverware to put next to each place setting. Iris got out all the glasses and started to fill them with ice.

  “I heard from Harriette that Nick and Sarah had started dating. Nick and Sarah were going to go over to talk to Simon about them, and they saw he was sleeping in the office. They had no idea he was already dead, so they left. They pretty much chickened out, but they have alibis before and after the time of death which ruled them out.” Iris put a glass next to each plate and then poured the freshly brewed sweet tea. “She also said Nick signed a contract with Simon’s mom to continue the motorcycle part patent. They are going to give Simon’s earnings to the Motorcycle Safety Fund. It was near and dear to Simon’s heart.”

  “What Nick did wasn’t illegal. It was immoral.” Julia walked past my mom with the salad. She put it on the table and then ran her hand over Clara’s head. “She’s the best baby.”

  “She is!” Grady and the other two men bolted through the back door.

  “Shhhhh,” all the women said in unison to get them to be quiet because of the sleeping baby.

  “How are you?” Mac walked over to where I was standing and whispered into my ear as he put his arms around me.

  “I’m actually perfect and exactly where I want to be.” I turned my head far enough to kiss him on the lips. “I love you, Mac Tabor.”

  Want to continue your vacation in Sugar Creek Gap?

  The next book in the series, FIRST CLASS KILLER is available for preorder!

  RECIPES

  Smoky Sausage and Grits Summer Casserole

  Southern Strawberry Shortcake