Rest in Peach (16 page)

“Yup. As a matter of fact, after he was good and full of mashed potatoes, he happened to mention a couple more things. It turns out that Doc Harris did determine that the death occurred around six thirty that night. And that the phone call Mrs. Busby received that night of the murder, the one canceling the appointment, was made from a nonregistered cell phone. Not from any of the Crenshaws’ normal phones.”

“Aw. Well, that answers that question. No wonder Vivien showed up—someone else canceled the appointment.” I speared a piece of pie and raised my fork in mock salute. “Good work, Ginny.”

“Ms. Wiggins,” Carla interrupted. “I’ve got all the tables cleaned. Do you mind if I head on out? I’ve got to get to the library to research my Civil War project.”

“Oh sure, honey. You go on ahead. See you Thursday.”

I stared after Carla, my mind working overtime. “Does the sheriff have any idea how that purse got behind the diner?”

“I don’t think she has a clue.”

“But she doesn’t seem to think the purse implicates you in any way, does she?”

“No. Like I said before, thanks to that brother of yours, I’m pretty much in the clear. You should have seen him on Saturday, Nola. He was like a knight in shining armor. Waltzed right into Maudy Payne’s office and plopped down a signed statement that cleared my name.”

“A signed statement? From whom?”

“A witness who backs up my alibi.” There we were, back to the alibi. I opened my mouth to ask more, but she hastily continued, “Anyway, I’m all in the clear. No worries with Maudy Payne.” Her shoulders slumped a little. “Just with everyone else in town. I swear, Nola, these women around here are ruthless. What they don’t know, they just make up. I’m worried sick every day, wondering how all this is affecting Emily.”

I reached over and touched her arm. “I know. I’m sorry. Hopefully the real killer will be found soon. Have you talked to Emily today? How’d it go at school for her?”

Ginny shook her head and pulled the suspect list out of her pocket. “Not yet. She’s at a friend’s house working on a school project. That’s why Carla was here. I usually have her fill in on the days Emily can’t make it.” She snatched the pen from behind her ear started making a few notes. “Sure wish I could make more sense out of all this.” Seeing how defeated she looked, I tried to steer things away from the case. “So, how is Carla working out for you?”

“Oh, great. She’s a good worker. But Emily says she doesn’t fit in at school. Too bad. I wish they’d give her a chance. I know she seems as tough as a two-dollar steak, but under that bad-girl exterior, she’s really a cool kid.” She paused and pointed at my empty plate. “She helped me make that pie, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Turns out she loves to mess around in the kitchen.” She started clearing our plates. “Speaking of which, I’d better get back there and help Sam with the dishes or he’s gonna
pitch a fit.” She turned back as she headed for the kitchen. “See y’all later?” she asked, referring to our nightly cooking session.

“You bet. Be back in a couple hours.” In the meantime, I knew just where I was heading: to the library to talk to one really cool kid about a couple things, including a designer
handbag.

Debutante Rule #003:
A smart debutante knows not to go countin’ her friends until she knows which friends she can count on.

I left the diner, worked my way down Branch Street, turned at the corner and headed north past the Clip & Curl Salon. The library was located across from the high school, so I planned to cut through the church parking lot and take the alley behind it as a shortcut. But as I neared the church, the back door flew open, and Debbie Bearden came running out looking like she’d seen a ghost. She ran across the lot to her car, holding her hand over her mouth like she was ill.

What in the world?
I thought, watching her speed away. Then I noticed the church door was still standing half open and there didn’t seem to be any cars in the lot. I glanced next door to the parsonage, but there weren’t any cars parked there, either. Although, maybe the preacher was out and about in their only car. Wondering if I should lock it or if maybe Maggie was still around, I walked into the entryway. From where I stood, I could go either upstairs to the main floor where the sanctuary was or down to the basement
where I knew the church ladies had been busy sorting items for the sale. I could hear the faint sound of music coming from downstairs. Maggie was probably down there still working. “Maggie!” I yelled, heading down the steps. “Are you down here, Maggie?” No one answered, but maybe she couldn’t hear me over the music.

I stopped short just inside the door of the basement, astonished by the piles of stuff crowding the room. I could see why Reverend Jones called for more volunteers. Almost every inch of the place was packed with junk. Heading toward the sound of the music, I began weaving my way through tables piled high with clothing, boxes of books and children’s toys. That’s when I saw Maggie on the floor.

“Maggie!” I cried, running over and kneeling down next to her. She was wearing a work apron, the pockets stuffed with scraps of paper, pens and sheets of self-adhesive price tags. A dozen or more paperback books were scattered on the floor around her.

“Maggie!” I said again, giving her a little shake, but there was no response.
What was going on?
I glanced to the table above, piled high with boxes of used books. Did a box of books fall on her? I tried to rouse her again, this time noticing a couple of reddish pills on the floor under her face. “No, no, no!” I cried, patting her cheeks. “Wake up, Maggie. Wake up!” Her skin was deathly pale and her breath so shallow, I was afraid I was too late.

I jumped up, quickly located the radio and turned off the music. Whipping out my cell, I dialed 911. My hands shook so badly, it took me three tries to get the number right. As soon as the operator answered, I blurted, “I need an ambulance at the Baptist church right away. It’s the preacher’s wife. It looks like she’s swallowed a bunch of pills!”

•   •   •

Upon hearing the sirens, I ran upstairs to meet the ambulance, recognizing one of the EMTs from Ida’s premature labor with Hollis Jr. at the house last summer. “Where’s the patient?” he asked, bag in hand. Two other guys popped open the back of the ambulance and extracted a stretcher.

I led the way to Maggie, praying that help had arrived in time. As they began frantically working on her, I heard another set of heavy boots thundering down the stairs. This time it was Maudy Payne. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

I told her about finding Maggie unconscious on the floor and the pills I discovered by her face. I decided not to mention seeing Debra running out the back of the church. She’d probably found Maggie and assumed she was already gone. I rubbed down the goose bumps prickling my skin. Who could blame her for panicking?

I stood by, silently watching as a paramedic frantically worked, checking her vitals, repositioning her airway and administering an oxygen mask with something that looked like a bulb attached. While one of the EMTs started squeezing the bulb, the other picked up and examined one of the red pills while he relayed information over a walkie-talkie mounted on his shoulder. I could hear bits and phrases of his conversation mentioning things like possible overdose and a faint pulse. After he finished his call, he quickly whispered something to Maudy before motioning to the others. They hoisted Maggie onto a stretcher and rushed like crazy for the stairs. As they did, a book slipped out of the pocket of Maggie’s work apron and fell to the floor. Maudy picked it up and gave it a quick glance, her face flushing red as her eyes caught a glimpse of the scantily dressed Scotsman on the front cover.
She quickly tossed it aside with the other spilled books and moved in to get a closer look at the remaining pills on the floor. “The paramedic thinks these are sleeping pills,” she commented. “It’s probably a good thing you came along when you did.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why did you come by, anyway?”

I made a point of glancing around the room, as if I was interested in the preparations for the bazaar, and said, “I was cutting through the alley and heard some music coming from down here. I just thought I’d stop by and check out how the bazaar was coming along.”
Close enough
, I thought.

Maudy’s gaze also took in the disarray of the rummage items. She shook her head and whispered to herself, “Why would she do something like this? And why down here?”

My heart sank as I thought about their daughter, Belle, and how she’d take the news that her mother tried something like this. Or, heaven help her, if she died. Then a horrible thought occurred to me. I clamped my hand over my mouth and shook my head. Had I driven Maggie to this? All that talk at Saturday’s tea about Vivien’s purse being found and how I thought whatever was in it would lead to the killer? Was it too much for Maggie? Or was she really Vivien’s killer and her guilty conscience drove her over the edge?

“Are you going to be sick?” Maudy asked, taking a step backward.

I lowered my hand and swallowed hard. “No, I’m okay. But someone needs to tell her family right away.”

“I’ll take care of it.” She took out a plastic baggie and used a ballpoint pen to scoop in the leftover pills. “I’d love to know where she got these pills. You didn’t see a prescription bottle on the floor somewhere?”

I shook my head and looked around the area, thinking maybe it had rolled under something. Once again, my gaze
landed on the book with the kilted hunk, then traveled down to the author’s name—Sindy St. Claire.
Huh, what a strange way to spell Cindy.
Curious, I picked it up and opened to a random page, reading the first sentence that stood out to me:
I found myself pinned against the stone, the Highlander’s dark eyes penetrating mine as his hand deftly moved under . . . “
Oh my!” I exclaimed out loud, snapping the book shut.

Maudy turned back and chuckled. “Pretty raunchy stuff, huh? Not really something I would have expected to find at a church sale.”

“Me, either,” I said. My mind flashed back to what my mother had said about catching Maggie looking at a half-naked Scotsman on the computer at the library. Then it occurred to me:
Sindy
, a clever play on words; probably a pseudonym. Certainly this was sinful stuff. At least in the eyes of a churchgoer like Maggie. Hmm . . . I gripped the book a little tighter. “Sure would be embarrassing for someone to find it here during the sale. Mind if I take it with me?”

Maudy raised a brow. “Sure, if that’s your type of thing, Nola. Go ahead.”

Clearly, she’d misunderstood. I briefly considered telling her my thoughts about the book, and its author, but I’d promised myself not to jump to conclusions, and this idea was certainly highly speculative. Instead, I tucked the book away in my purse thinking it was best to wait until I had some concrete proof.

We turned off the lights and locked up the church. Back out in the alley, Maudy asked a few more questions before taking off to find Maggie’s family to let them know what happened. As soon as she sped away, I got on my cell phone and called Mama. Since she was close to Reverend Jones and his wife, I figured she’d want to know. And I needed to hear her voice. Finding Maggie that way had shaken me to the core.

“What?”
Mama’s voice shrieked over the phone. The news sent her into an immediate tizzy, and she was shocked, to say the least, about the sleeping pills. “I don’t believe for a minute that Maggie Jones would take her own life,” she said, but instead of dwelling on the details, she jumped into action. “I’ll get ahold of the Ladies’ Society and start a prayer chain right away. And then I should go to the hospital to wait with the family. Oh, this is just awful. Just awful,” she lamented.

“I feel like I should head to the hospital, too,” I said, quickly making my way back down the street toward where my car was parked in front of my shop. Not that I knew Maggie that well, but after finding her that way, after my confronting her, upsetting her the other day, I . . . well, I just wanted to be there. We agreed to meet there as soon as possible.

As I slipped my phone back into my bag, my hand brushed up against the romance novel that had fallen out of Maggie’s apron. Could my theory possibly be correct? Was Maggie leading a double life: preacher’s wife by day, erotic romance writer by night? Reading such books might be embarrassing but not enough to result in the kind of anxious call I’d overheard her make through the bathroom door the day of the tea. But
writing
such a book . . . well, that might be a different story altogether. Everyone knew she wrote the church’s programs and its promotional materials—but was I making too much of a jump in my thinking? I shook my head. This was hard to believe and even harder to prove. But there was one person who might know—our town’s librarian, Henrietta Purvis. I made a mental note to pay her a visit soon.

•   •   •

A little while later, I made my way through the County Medical Center’s double sliding doors and into the emergency room waiting area. Mama was already there, huddled
off to one side with Reverend Jones, Belle and her brother, Nash. Mama had her arm around Belle and was whispering something in her ear. I went to them.

Reverend Jones stood as I approached. “I’m so sorry about Maggie,” I told him.

“They’re still working on her, but the doctors think she’ll be all right. Thank God you came along when you did. I’d hate to think what would have happened if . . .” His words trailed off as he plopped back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. Nash moved closer and tried to comfort his father. After a few seconds, Reverend Jones collected himself and looked up at me, his brows wrinkled with confusion. “I just don’t understand this. I just saw her a few hours ago and she was fine.”

I slid into one of the plastic molded chairs near them. “She didn’t seem depressed or upset?”

“No, nothing like that. Maybe a bit frazzled. She’d been awfully busy with the church bazaar and Belle’s cotillion coming up this weekend.”

With the mention of the cotillion, Belle let out a little sob. “Is it something I did?”

“No, sweetie. It’s nothing you did,” Mama immediately assured her.

“Absolutely not,” her father reiterated, reaching over to rub his daughter’s shoulder. Nash remained silent, his eyes like two empty holes, his face pale. I’d first met Nash last summer at the Peach Harvest Festival. I’d known him to be a sensible young man, but there was no sense to this situation, and he, like the others, appeared at a loss to understand this tragedy.

Looking at her family, I couldn’t imagine Maggie would ever do something to hurt them. Still, if she was depressed or overwrought with guilt or afraid that her secret was about to
be discovered, maybe . . . “Had Maggie been acting strangely at all? Maybe distracted or going out more than usual?”

The preacher shook his head. “Going out? No, not at all. Other than the couple nights she spends researching her project, she hardly goes out.”

“Her project?”

“Yes, she’s working on a self-help book for women.”

My eyes popped. So she
was
a writer. More proof that Sindy St. Claire and Maggie Jones were one and the same. But a self-help book? Was that what Reverend Jones really believed his wife was writing? Or, did he already know about Sindy St. Claire and was just covering for his wife?

“Isn’t that just like Maggie?” Mama spoke up. “Always doing what she can to help others.”

Not knowing what to add to that, I simply nodded and tightened my grip on my purse. For a while, we all sat engrossed in our own thoughts as the whir of emergency room activity continued around us. Twice the automatic front doors slid open, the first time for a man with his hand wrapped in a bloody dish towel. He was immediately admitted and taken away by wheelchair. The second time, a young mother came in carrying a bundled child. She moved around the reception counter to a small desk where a nurse was waiting to enter her information into a computer.

I offered to go look for coffee, but no one was interested. So I sat back and let my eyes wander to the show playing on a small television mounted in the corner of the room. A few minutes later I turned again to the sound of the front doors sliding open. This time it was Maudy Payne. She glanced our way briefly before leaning in to say something to the front desk nurse. Then she quickly disappeared through emergency room doors. Finally, after another ten minutes or so, both the
sheriff and a man in scrubs emerged and approached our group.