War and Peach Read online

  “Sounds perfect. But no coffee. Tea if you have it.”

  That stumped her. “Tea? Like iced tea?”

  “No. Hot tea. Earl Grey, perhaps.”

  Ginny faltered for a second, looking over her shoulder toward the kitchen. From across the room, one of the farmers sniggered. She turned back to the table and made a few scribbles on her notepad. “Uh . . . sure. I’ll see what we have. Be right back.”

  “Did ya hear that?” she hissed in my ear on her way back to the kitchen. “Earl Grey. Now that’s class.”

  “Who is he?” I asked, keeping my voice low. I dared another peek his way and saw that he’d brought yesterday’s copy of the Cays Mill Reporter and was reading it with interest.

  “John Whitaker. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about him. He’s caused quite the stir around town.”

  “He has? Why?”

  Her eyes slid back toward the booth. “Seriously, Nola. Do you really have to ask?”

  I shrugged. “Is he new to town?”

  “Yep. He’s been staying over at the Sunny Side Up for almost a week now. Keeps to himself, I guess.” She sighed. “Mysterious and handsome.” Her eyes caught on something over my shoulder. “Speaking of handsome, here comes your guy.”

  I wheeled around on my stool, spied Cade and waved him over. And Ginny was right. Cade was handsome in his rough-hewn way, but hardly mysterious. Trusty, reliable Cade, I thought as he moved across the room, his work boots leaving a small trail of dirt. Nothing mysterious about Cade. Just a hardworking, honest guy. And that’s the way I liked him. Loved him, actually. Although I hadn’t told him that. Cade, Hattie and I had grown up as neighbors, spending every summer together and getting into all sorts of mischief. Sometime during the teen years, I developed a crush on Cade, but the feeling was never reciprocated. Then, that summer after graduation, I drifted a bit. Caught a wild hare, as my mama would say. Made more than my share of mistakes, too. Rather than ruin my family’s good name, I took a job with Helping Hands International, left town and spent the next fifteen years or so traveling the world and helping folks in need. I loved my job, too. But it lost its appeal when I was reallocated to a desk job up in Atlanta. So I returned to my roots, so to say. And in the process I’d discovered just how much I’d really missed my family, this town, the farm and surprisingly enough, Cade McKenna.

  He bent down and planted a peck on my cheek. “Hey there.” I caught a familiar whiff of fresh soap.

  “Hi. How’s it going? Heard anything?” Before bed the night before, I’d called Cade and told him everything that had happened. Although, he’d already heard most of it from the local gossip mill.

  “Nothing yet.” He took the stool next to me, lustfully eyeing my coffee before glancing around for Ginny. “Where’d she go?”

  I looked around, spying her at John Whitaker’s booth, serving up a little flirtation with his tea. She was twirling a curl with her finger and tittering like a schoolgirl. I turned back around and told Cade, “Looks like she’s busy with the new guy in town, John Whitaker. Have you met him yet?”

  “Nope. But I’ve been busy with the house, so I really haven’t been in town much.”

  “How’s it going out there?” Cade had started his own contracting company a few years back, but since the economy hadn’t been all that great, he mostly took on remodeling work. He’d even had to take a construction stint up in Macon for a while, just to pay the bills. So he’d been thrilled when he’d received a contract to build a new house just a few miles out of town.

  “Good, but . . .”

  “But what? Has something gone wrong?”

  “No. I mean, maybe.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. It’s just yesterday when I was out at the construction site, I discovered we were short a spool of copper wiring.”

  “Copper wiring?”

  “Yeah. We’re getting ready to wire the house, so I just had it delivered along with a bunch of other supplies. Afraid I didn’t check the order all that carefully. I called the supplier, but they’re insisting they sent everything. So now, I’m out some money. Can’t afford too many more mistakes like that.”

  I blew out my breath. “I’m so sorry, Cade. Maybe it’ll turn up.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  Ginny appeared, grabbed a cup from under the counter and filled it for Cade. “Mornin’, sugar. How are ya?”

  “Hey, Ginny. Hungry. Think I’ll have your special.”

  “Sure thing.” She set the coffeepot on the counter and took out her pad and scribbled down his order. Then she tore it off the pad and clipped it to the silver spindle behind her. Giving it a spin, she yelled out, “Another special, Sam.”

  A loud clanking noise sounded, and then Sam appeared at the window that separated the kitchen from the dining area. “Got it,” he said, shooting Cade and me a friendly wave. “Hey, all. Any news?”

  Cade slowly shook his head. “Not yet, buddy.”

  Sam nodded grimly and went to work on Cade’s order, while Ginny busied herself wiping down the counter around the coffeemakers. As I looked on, I caught her glance briefly through the window at Sam, who looked up, caught her gaze and shot her a lopsided grin. She quickly glanced down, then back up with her own smile, cheeks glowing happily. A warm feeling came over me. Despite Ginny’s good-natured flirting with the new guy in town, I knew she was madly in love with her husband. And love like theirs wasn’t easily found these days. Especially considering the hard times they’d been through together. They’d been high school sweethearts, Sam being a star football player and Ginny part of the cheer squad. Then, they jumped the gun, so to speak, and ended up having to get married right after graduation. Sam worked several odd jobs, but when Ginny’s parents decided to retire and move down to Florida, he and Ginny took over Red’s Diner. Now, two kids and twenty years later, they were still working together and still happily married.

  Suddenly the front door swung open again. This time several men from the Cays Mill volunteer fire crew plodded into the diner, their steel-toed boots clomping loudly on the tile floor. Even though they’d shed their heavy uniforms, their matted hair and soot-smudged faces indicated they’d come straight from searching the fire scene.

  “Sam,” Ginny said, “get me four specials right away. And make them heavy on the bacon.” Then she quickly filled a tray with glasses of ice water and coffee mugs and hustled over to their table. “Hello, boys. Breakfast is on the house this morning,” she said, filling their mugs.

  “Thanks, darlin’. It’s been a rough night.”

  “Even rougher morning,” one of the other guys threw out. The whole room seemed to suck in its breath, waiting for him to continue. “We found Clem’s body.”

  Ginny’s put down the coffeepot and shook her head. “Oh no. He got caught in the fire? How horrible.”

  The fireman shook his head. “I’m afraid Clem wasn’t simply caught in a random fire. It was arson. And whoever did it stabbed Clem with a pitchfork first and left him there to burn.”

  Chapter 3

  Southern Girl Secrets #107: If someone’s tryin’ to bring you down, it’s just ’cause they know you’re above them.

  I was a little late opening my shop that morning. After hearing the news about poor Clem, the diner turned into a fiery—excuse the pun—forum of heated accusations. Margie Price rose to the top of those allegations. Many of the folks, especially the rowdy group of persnickety peach farmers, were sure that Margie had killed Clem to protect the secret he threatened to expose. But I didn’t agree with their reasoning. After all, what secret could sweet, hardworking Margie possibly have that would be worth killing for?

  I pondered that question as I worked to restock Peachy Keen’s shelves. The influx of customers yesterday had about cleaned out my jars of preserves and chutney. Luckily I had a couple cases in reserve, tucked away in the storage closet behind the
counter. I’d need to schedule some time with Ginny to make a few more batches, though. Especially since I planned to be open during that week’s Founder’s Day Parade, which was sure to bring a lot of foot traffic into the shop.

  Every year, during the second week of November, Cays Mill celebrated Founder’s Day to commemorate our little village’s birthday and pay homage to our first settler and grist mill owner, Malcolm Cay. We’d always celebrated the day with a small parade and a street dance. This year, since Founder’s Day coincided with the mayoral election, the council had decided to ramp up the festivities with an inaugural dance following the announcement of the new mayor. The whole town was looking forward to the event, including me. I’d even picked out a new dress at Hattie’s Boutique just for the occasion. It had thrilled Hattie, our little town’s fashion expert, to see me expand my all-too-meager wardrobe, especially in the dressy category. I guess my years in the humanitarian outbacks of the world made me see clothing as just one more hard-to-acquire necessity for most people. I remained happy in jeans and T-shirts for the most part. But for Founder’s Day I’d chosen a simple red dress, because Cade said it was his favorite color. My short-cropped, dark hair helped make the red dress seem a tad bit more sporty, which I rather preferred than stand-out glamorous. And besides, I figured red could also do double duty for any sort of holiday parties coming my way in the next month or so.

  The bells over the front door jingled just as I returned to the closet for another box of preserves. I peeked out and saw my part-time helper, Carla Fini, breezing into the shop. I breathed a little sigh of relief when I noticed she’d paired her usual baggie black jeans with our newly designed, brightly colored Peachy Keen T-shirt. Not that I minded durable work clothes for daily attire—that was my preference as well. But her usual outfit choice—black on black with more black—had some of my customers wondering if they should start baking a casserole for the deceased’s family.

  “Back here,” I called out. She smiled and rounded the counter to give me a hand. That’s the thing about Carla. Despite her somewhat dark and tough outward appearance, inside she was one of the biggest-hearted people I knew. I’d witnessed the depth of her kindness and compassion last spring when a mutual friend faced a near-death situation. Despite her own problems at the time, Carla devoutly stood by her friend’s bedside until the threat of danger passed. “Grab some jars of chutney, would you, Carla?” I said as I made my way up front with the preserves. “We’re running low on about everything out here.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Carla tucked her bag under the counter and jumped in to give me a hand. “I’ve got all morning to help. Ezra doesn’t need me at the bakery until later this afternoon.”

  I’d been sharing Carla with Ezra Sugar, owner of Sugar’s Bakery and best peach scone maker in the world. “Good. We’ll work on gift baskets. Orders have already started to come in.”

  She sat a box of jars on the floor next to me and retreated back behind the counter, where she opened one of the cabinets and pulled out the shop’s laptop computer. “By the way,” she said, booting up the computer to check on our orders, “what’s going on next door? Seems to be a big crowd in the diner. Is Mrs. Wiggins running one of her breakfast specials again?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid that’s not what’s drawing the crowd this morning.” I reluctantly filled her in on the fire and Clem’s murder. “I’m surprised you didn’t know about the fire yesterday.” In a town our size, something like a fire was hard to miss.

  She shrugged. “No, I had the whole day off yesterday, so I headed up to Macon with some friends. We did some shopping and then checked out a band playing at one of the bars up there.”

  “Was your aunt okay with that?” Carla had moved here last year during her senior year of high school and was living with her aunt.

  She shrugged. “I guess so.”

  Which probably meant that Carla hadn’t told her about the bar. I sighed. I’d never known the full story, but it seemed Carla had become mixed up with the wrong crowd in Chicago and her mother was hoping to give her a fresh start by sending her to live with her aunt in Cays Mill. At first Carla hated it here, but after being offered a job at both my shop and Sugar’s Bakery, she decided to stick around for a while and try to save some money for college. Which was great, except I had an inkling she’d found another questionable group of friends to run with down here.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “that’s horrible about Tessa’s uncle. They were close.”

  “You know Tessa?”

  “Yeah. I met her at a party a while back. We’ve become friends.”

  What type of party? I wondered, but didn’t ask. “I’m sure she’s heartbroken,” I said instead. “And the shock of knowing how he died must be very difficult.”

  Carla shifted uncomfortably and refocused on the computer screen, biting her lower lip and squeezing her eyes shut briefly, apparently to avoid displaying tears. She wasn’t big on expressing her emotions—she had that too-cool teenage attitude to keep up—but I could see the death of her friend’s uncle was definitely bothering her. I decided to change the topic. “Did you find those orders yet?”

  She nodded. “Yup. It looks like we’ll need two of the Hot Jam! baskets and one Son of a Peach!” We both giggled. The names for the baskets had been Hattie’s idea. She suggested I do something to stand out in the market, so she brainstormed—with the aid of a little Peach Jack, I’m sure—a few memorable names for the baskets. Hot Jam! featured my spicier recipes, the ones with the extra punch that made you say “Hot damn!” and reach for something cold to drink. Products like peach salsa, peach pepper jelly, hot cinnamon peach preserves and one of my newest creations, peach hot sauce. Son of a Peach! was exactly what the name suggested: small samples of bigger-sized products. This basket was proving to be quite popular with folks who wanted to try a little of everything before committing to full-sized merchandise.

  “I’ll get these packaged,” Carla said, moving from the counter to a small worktable I’d set up in the corner of the shop. My shop was originally a storage room for Red’s Diner, which was right next door. When I decided to get into the peach product business, Ginny offered to rent me this space. She also made me a deal I couldn’t refuse: For a reasonable percentage of profits, I’d get full use of their industrial-sized, fully licensed kitchen after the diner closed each day, plus a couple hours daily of Ginny’s time and expertise in cooking. Since the diner was only open for breakfast and lunch, we could easily be in the kitchen and cooking by late afternoon, allowing Ginny enough time to be home for supper with her family. So far the deal had worked great for both of us. I needed the extra help and Ginny needed the extra money. Especially with both of her kids in college now.

  I’d just finished stocking my shelves and was about to join Carla at the worktable when the bells above the door announced a visitor. I looked over my shoulder, expecting a customer, but was surprised to see Mama.

  She hovered near the door with a pained, watery expression. I went directly to her and snatched up her hands. They were icy-cold. “Mama? What is it? Has something happened?”

  “It’s your father, Nola. I’m afraid he’s in trouble.”

  “In trouble? Daddy?”

  Mama’s head bobbed up and down. “The sheriff came by asking all sorts of questions about his visit with Clem yesterday. She’s got him now at the sheriff’s office. I already called Ray. He’s on his way.”

  “Ray?” My brother, Ray, worked as an attorney in nearby Perry. “But, Mama, Maudy would just want to get some facts, you know, about . . .” And I couldn’t even finish. Sheriff Payne would surely ask what they talked about, and Daddy was honest as could be, not one to skirt the truth—that he and Clem had argued. Well, no wonder Mama was upset and called my brother. We knew Maudy all too well. She was a bulldog of a sheriff who’d bite into an early conclusion and hold on forever. Especially if Harpers were involved.
“This is ridiculous. No one in their right mind would think that Daddy could have anything to do with murder! That Maudy Payne is just out to get this family.” It was true. There was absolutely no love lost between the Harpers and Sheriff Maudy Payne. It stemmed back to our high school days, when my sister, Ida Jean, beat Maudy up behind the school bleachers. I’d never really known what prompted my normally very proper sister to get into a brawl with Maudy, but she did. And she won. And Maudy had never forgiven her for it.

  Carla stopped working and stepped out from behind the table. “I can handle things here. You go help your family. I’ll lock up before I head to the bakery.”

  I quickly retrieved my bag from under the counter, thanked her and grabbed my mother by the arm. “Come on, Mama. Let’s go get to the bottom of this.”

  * * *

  Our sheriff’s office, a small satellite of the county’s main department, was located in a freestanding building on the corner of Blossom Avenue and Orchard Lane. At one time, it was housed inside the old courthouse, but sometime during the late 1960s it was decided that the office needed to expand to include several holding cells, something that wasn’t possible in the already overly crowded municipal building. So, the village planners decided to relocate the sheriff across the street in the old Texaco gas station. The place was completely overhauled with fresh paint and the addition of a small front porch deep enough to fit two chairs, which were often occupied by Maudy and Deputy Travis. The main part of the building held desks for various workers, like the office’s secretary and other part-time volunteer deputies who were brought in from time to time, depending on the need. On the south side of the building, the attached former mechanics garage had been converted into three holding cells. A committee from the Baptist Ladies’ Altar Society kept the bedding clean and brought in meals for the poor wayward souls who found themselves there. My brother-in-law, Hollis, claimed the ladies made some of the finest fried chicken he’d ever eaten.