A Peach of a Murder (14 page)

When Phyllis got home, she found Mike waiting for her on the front porch. He and Sam Fletcher were sitting in two of the rocking chairs, glasses of iced tea in their hands. Phyllis saw them as she drove past the house and turned into the driveway. When she got out of the Lincoln, instead of going into the kitchen, she left the garage door open and walked out into the driveway, then followed the path of round cement blocks across the grass to the front walk.

"You gentlemen look like you're taking life easy," she commented as she climbed the steps to the porch.

"That's the only way to take it," Sam replied with a smile. He lifted his glass of tea as if he were toasting her with it. "Where have you been, Mom?" Mike asked.

For a second, Phyllis wondered how he would react if she said she'd been out trying to find a killer.

She glanced at Sam. Had he called Mike and told him that his mother had decided to play detective? He couldn't have, she decided, because she hadn't confided her plans to him before she left. She had figured out already, though, that Sam was pretty shrewd, especially for a man. There was no telling what he had figured out.

Those thoughts flashed through Phyllis's mind in an instant, as she smiled and said, "Oh, just out running around. Shopping and things."

"You don't have any packages," Mike pointed out.

"You never knew that pretty little wife of yours to go shopping without buying anything?"

"Well, now that you mention it.. ." Mike said with a shrug. He took a drink of tea and went on. "I came by because I thought you'd like to hear how things are going with the Boatwright investigation."

Phyllis sat down in the rocker next to him, her purse on her lap. "Can you do that?" she asked. "I mean, can you tell me about it without getting in trouble?"

He chuckled and said, "You're already mixed up in it." Once again she felt a surge of worry. "You were there when Mr. Boatwright died, and one of your friends is the leading suspect. I'd say that gives you a right to hear about it, and if the sheriff doesn't like it, he can go jump in the lake."

Phyllis smiled. Despite being a grown man with a family of his own, there were times when Mike still seemed just like a little boy to her, and this was one of them.

Sam made a motion to get up. "I'll go on in the house, since I reckon you'll want to talk to your mom alone, Mike." "No, that's all right, Mr. Fletcher," Mike said quickly. "I know you're trustworthy, or my mother never would have let you live here in the first place."

Sam settled back in the rocker. "I appreciate that. I like to think I can keep my mouth shut when I need to:"

"Go ahead, Mike," Phyllis urged, glad that Sam was staying. It made her feel somehow like less of the burden was on her. "What have you found out?"

"Not a lot, unfortunately," Mike said with a little sigh. "Sandra Webster's alibi checks out. She and her husband didn't go to the peach festival. They were over in Fort Worth, and they've got the credit card receipts from the stores where they shopped, with the date and time on them to prove it."

"Just because one of them was there using a credit card doesn't mean the other one was," Sam said.

"It does when one of them signed the receipts in some places and the other signed at the other stores. Plus we talked to the employees at the various places and found several of them who remembered both Sandra and Jerry Webster being there on Saturday."

"Kids who work minimum-wage jobs in mall stores remembered two customers out of the hundreds who come through on a Saturday?" Phyllis asked. She wasn't trying to destroy Sandra's alibi, but that still struck her as unlikely.

"Well;' Mike said with a smile, "evidently Sandra Webster is the sort of customer who likes to complain about anything and everything. That would make her more memorable."

Phyllis supposed that was true. Anyway, she didn't believe that Sandra had killed Donnie Boatwright any more than she believed that Carolyn was a murderer. If Sandra had a legitimate alibi, that was a good thing. It meant she was in. the clear.

But it also meant that Carolyn was still the chief suspect in Donnie's murder. Phyllis supposed that the way she felt now was what people talked about when they referred to mixed emotions. She couldn't be too glad about Sandra's alibi, because it made things look even worse for Carolyn.

What she needed was for someone else to be revealed as Donnie's murderer, so that both of them would be cleared. "What else have you found out?" she asked. "Have you looked into Donnie Boatwright's background? Surely there was somebody else, besides Carolyn who had a good reason not to like him."

Maybe that little nudge would point Mike, and by extension the rest of the officers investigating the case, in the right direction, Phyllis thought.

"Mr. Boatwright's life was pretty much an open book," Mike said. "He never had any serious trouble with anybody, never got arrested, never pressed charges against anybody except Sandra Webster-and those were dropped-and he was never involved in any lawsuits. He was about as squeaky-clean as anybody you'll ever find."

No, he wasn't, Phyllis wanted to say, but then she would have had to explain how she had discovered the things she had learned. If Mike found out that she was conducting an investigation of her own, she knew good and well he would tell her to stop it, to leave those things to the proper authorities. She was afraid that if she did, though, sooner or later Carolyn was going to be arrested for murder, or at least taken in for questioning. They had no way of tying her directly to the dangerous chemical that had been put in Donnie's water, nor did they have any witnesses who had seen her tampering with the water bottle. That meant the case against her was purely circumstantial, and in the end the district attorney might decide not to go ahead with it.

But by then it would be too late. Everyone in town would know that the police thought Carolyn had killed Donnie Boatwright. That would be enough to convict her in the minds of many people. She would be humiliated, and for the rest of her life she would be known as the probable killer of one of Parker County's leading citizens.

Then there was the worst-case scenario: that Carolyn would be arrested, charged, and put on trial, and a jury would decide that there was enough evidence against her to send her to prison. Phyllis couldn't let that happen. She believed in her friend's innocence, and Carolyn couldn't wind up behind bars for something she didn't do.

"Maybe you'd better keep looking," she said grimly to Mike. "Nobody is that squeaky-clean.

Donnie must have had some enemies besides Carolyn and Sandra."

Mike shrugged. "It's not like we've given up on all the other possible angles. We have to pursue the most likely leads, though."

Phyllis wanted to snap at him, but she held her tongue. Getting angry wouldn't do any good. And she knew her son well enough to know that he would do the best job he could. But he wasn't the only one involved in the investigation, and before it was over, the whole thing might be taken out of his hands. When Ralph Whitmire thought he had enough evidence to make an arrest, he'd do it, no matter what some deputy sheriff who didn't even work for him thought about the matter.

"I guess I'd better be going," Mike said as he got to his feet. "I'm on duty, but I didn't think it would hurt anything to stop by here for a little while." He set his empty tea glass on the railing that ran along the front of the porch and leaned over to kiss Phyllis on the cheek. "So long, Mom."

"Give my love to Sarah, and hug Bobby for me," she told him.

He smiled. "I will."

Phyllis stood there, her hands on the railing, watching as he got into his car and pulled away from the house.

Behind her, Sam said, "You got a mite put out with the' boy, didn't you?"

She turned to look at him. "What makes you say that?" "You want Carolyn to be innocent, and you're afraid that Mike's leanin' toward thinking that she's guilty. I'll bet you the sheriff thinks she is, and that's got to be rubbin' off on Mike a little."

"My son is very fair and open-minded.'

"Well, of course he is," Sam said. "You wouldn't have raised him to be any other way. But he's human, too, and when his boss and everybody else he works with are convinced about something, he wouldn't be human if he didn't start to thinkin' that they might be right."

Phyllis wanted to deny it, but she knew that Sam was correct. Barring a miracle-like the real murderer stepping forward to confess-the only way to save Carolyn was to give the authorities something they couldn't ignore, something concrete that would at least point the forger of suspicion elsewhere.

And Phyllis had the sinking feeling that nobody else was going to even try to do that except her.

"Maybe something will come up," she said. She started toward the front door. "I've got to fix lunch."

Sam stopped her by asking, "Where were you this morning, really? Out asking folks questions about Donnie Boatwright?"

Phyllis stiffened, and her voice was chilly as she said, "I don't think I have to account to you for my whereabouts, Mr. Fletcher. I'm a grown woman, after all."

"Yes, ma'am, I know that, but lately I've had the feelin' that you think you need to go out and do the cops' job for them."

She couldn't stop herself from saying, "Maybe somebody needs to."

"Maybe," Sam agreed, "but there's one thing you've got to consider. . . . If you go looking for a killer, you just might find one. And if that happens ... what'll you do then?"

Phyllis stood for a long moment, not saying anything. He was right. She hadn't thought it through all the way. Chances were, Donnie Boatwright's killer wouldn't want his or her identity known. If Phyllis was on the verge of uncovering incriminating evidence, and if the murderer found out...

Well, whoever it was had already killed once.

But as frightening as that prospect might be, Phyllis knew she couldn't abandon the task she had set for herself. Somebody had to find out the truth, and if she was the only one willing to do it, then that was the way it would have to be. "Don't have an answer, do you?" Sam said. "What would you suggest?" she asked coolly.

His answer surprised her. He looked her straight in the eye and said, "Let me play detective with you."

At least Sam hadn't suggested that they play doctor, Phyllis thought later. Although in a way, that would have simplified matters. In that case she could have just slapped his face, told him to behave himself, and been done with it.

As it was, she had to seriously consider his offer to join her in her quest to find the evidence needed to clear Carolyn. Phyllis postponed the decision until after lunch. For a change, Carolyn came downstairs to eat. That was a welcome sign of life on her part, Phyllis thought. Carolyn had eaten very little since Mike's visit the day before.

When Eve and Mattie came in and took their places at the table, it was almost like old times. The only difference was that Sam was there. Phyllis didn't know-how she felt about that anymore. So far, having him in the house had worked out well. Eve and Mattie seemed to like him, even if Carolyn didn't. And Phyllis would have been lying if she had said, even to herself, that she didn't enjoy his company.

But wasn't that just like a man to come in and try to take over? She knew that he was worried about her safety, and to be honest, now that she had thought about it, she realized what she was doing held the potential for danger. Having Sam at her side while she did her poking around in Donnie Boatwright's less-than-savory history probably would make her feel safer.

Even so, she had a hard time believing that she would be in any serious danger in her own hometown. This was Weatherford, for goodness sake, not Dallas or Houston or someplace like that.

Then she reminded herself of what had happened to bonnie, and a little shiver went through her.

Weatherford had been his hometown, too, but that hadn't saved him from a clever murderer.

To get her mind off the dilemma while they ate lunch, Phyllis said to Mattie, "Summer school will be over pretty soon, won't it?"

"Another week," Mattie replied. "Kids'll get a little break before regular school starts, but not much of one."

"I suppose you'll miss tutoring them."

"I always enjoyed bein' around kids. Some of 'em are just little brats, of course, but most of them are pretty nice, even in this day and age. They really want to learn, but Lord, they've got a lot of distractions. People and things crowdin' in on 'em all the time. They're always in a hurry to experience everything." Mattie shook her head solemnly. "If you ask me, they grow up too fast these days. They don't have enough time to just be kids anymore, and that's not fair to them:'

"That reminds me," Eve said. "Phyllis, can you take Mattie to school and pick her up tomorrow? I have to be gone for the day."

Phyllis nodded. Eve had mentioned to her several days earlier that she would be busy and would need help driving Mattie. Eve was going to Dallas for a doctor's appointment and would be gone all day, Phyllis was sure. Anytime anybody had to go to Dallas, it was almost always an all-day trip.

There was nothing wrong with Eve, as far as Phyllis knew, but she went to Dallas every year for tests because of a cancer scare some years earlier. Knowing that Eve wouldn't want her personal medical history discussed at the table, Phyllis didn't say anything about the reason for the trip. She just said, "I'd be glad to."

"Thank you, dear. I don't know what any of us would do without you. You certainly seem to hold everything together around here."

Sam smiled and put in, "I haven't been living here all that long, but even I already know that's true."

"Now, Sam, there's no need for flattery," Phyllis said, but at the same time, it felt good to be appreciated.

"It's not flattery if it's true. `No brag, just fact,' like Walter Brennan used to say on that old TV

show."

Phyllis wasn't sure what TV show he was talking about unless it was The Real McCoys, and she didn't recall Walter Brennan saying anything like that when he was on that show, but it didn't really matter.

And there wasn't time to think about it anymore, because Carolyn surprised her by saying, "I know I never would have . made it though the past few days without you, Phyllis." She looked around the table. "Without all of you. You've all been good friends to me."

"Why, of course we're your friends, dear," Eve said. "We always stuck together as teachers, and nothing's really changed."

"I wouldn't go that far," Carolyn said heavily. "It seems to me like a lot has changed. People dying, and all of us getting older, and all the ugliness in the world. . ." She stopped and took a deep breath.

"Things just aren't like they used to be."

Mattie said, "They never are. Things change all the time. We may not like it, but ... that's the way it is."

A moment of silence descended on the room. Mattie was certainly right, Phyllis thought. Things had changed for all of them, and not necessarily for the better. She had lost Kenny, and Sam had lost his wife, and with every day that went by, Mattie was losing more of her memories and the things that made her uniquely Mattie. Eve probably worried that she was losing her looks and her ability to attract men. And as for Carolyn ...

The way things were going, before too much longer Carolyn might well lose her reputation and gain a new one as a killer. She could even lose her freedom.

But not if Phyllis could do anything about it. She decided, then and there, to accept Sam Fletcher's offer of help. With two of them trying to find the real killer and clear Carolyn, maybe teaming up would double their odds.

Still, if Mr. Sam Fletcher thought he could just waltz in and start telling her what to do ... well, he had another think coming, and that was all there was to it.

After lunch, when Eve and Mattie had gone back to the high school and Carolyn had retreated upstairs to lie down for a while in her room, Phyllis found herself again sitting on the front porch with Sam. They rocked for a few minutes in companionable silence. The big post oak. trees, which were all well over a hundred years old, cast enough shade over the house and the front yard so that the air wasn't too hot to be unpleasant yet. Late'in the afternoon, anybody with any sense would be inside, somewhere in the air-conditioning, but right now, sitting out n the porch wasn't bad.

"I've been thinking about what you said this morning'" Phyllis finally said. "I believe you're right, Sam. I probably shouldn't be doing what I've been doing alone."

He nodded slowly, not seeming to take any particular pleasure in the fact that she was agreeing with him. It was as if he didn't see it as vindication of his position, just as practicality on her part, and she liked that about him. He didn't have to win all the time.

"Why don't you tell me what you've come up with?" he suggested. "Get me up to speed, as they say."

For the next few minutes, that's what Phyllis did, explaining what she had learned from first Bud Winfield and then Charles Boatwright.

"Are you sure this newspaper fella is right about Donnie rookin' his brother and sister out of their inheritance?" Sam asked when she was finished.

"Well, Bud said it was a rumor, so I'm not a hundred percent certain. That's why I thought I'd go to the courthouse and see what I can find out. Wills are public documents, so there should be a copy of it on file in the county clerk's office. If Donnie was his mother's sole heir, that would prove something."

"But not that either of his siblings killed him."

"No," Phyllis admitted. "It wouldn't prove that. But it would give them a motive."

"Something to create some reasonable doubt where Carolyn is concerned:"

"I don't want to just create reasonable doubt to keep her from going to prison," Phyllis said grimly,

"but I suppose if things came down to it, I'd settle for that outcome."

"What you really want to do is find the killer."

"I don't think the police will do it. Not as long as they have their sights set on Carolyn."

"You're probably right about that." Sam rested his big hands on his knees, which looked a little knobby even through his blue jeans. "Well, let's go to the courthouse."

"I'll drive," Phyllis said as she got to her feet. "Fine with me."

That was another point in his favor: that he didn't mind a woman being behind the wheel.

As they drove off in the Lincoln, he commented, "This is a good-sized car."

"We got in the habit of buying them because Kenny had long legs. Mike did, too, as a boy, although he sort of grew into them and you can't tell it as much now. And he always had a lot of friends who we were taking to Little League baseball games and peewee football practice, so we needed the room."

"What you're sayin'," Sam said with a smile, "is that you were a soccer mom before the media knew there was such a thing. Only you drove a Lincoln instead of an SUV"

"And the kids back then didn't play soccer." She smiled, too, but didn't take her eyes off the road.

"Every new generation that comes along thinks they've invented everything, without considering what people did before."

The county clerk's office was in the sprawling, one-story subcourthouse on Santa Fe Drive, rather than the old courthouse on the square, which was used mostly now for criminal trials and county commissioners' meetings. Phyllis parked out front, and she and Sam went inside. A woman behind the counter smiled a greeting and said, "Can I help y'all?" Before Phyllis could answer, the woman added, "Say, aren't you Miz NewsomT'

"Yes, I am," Phyllis said. She had a pretty good idea what was coming next.

"I had you for history in the eighth grade. I'll bet you don't remember me, do you?"

Phyllis was already searching through the sea of fourteenyear-old faces in her mind, trying to match one of them to the thirty something-year-old face smiling at her over the counter. "Doris Moody," she said, the name popping out of some mental recess.

"That's right!" the woman said, obviously excited and pleased that Phyllis had recognized her.

"Only it's Doris Threadgill now. I married Gary Threadgill. Do you remember him?"

Phyllis did indeed, and the thought flashed through her mind that Doris Moody had been smart enough and pretty enough to do better than Gary Threadgill, who had always sat in the back of the room and talked and cut up and barely passed the class. But he had been a football player, and Phyllis supposed that had been enough for sweet, shy little Doris. And she supposed she wasn't being fair, because sometimes even the Gary Threadgills of the world grew up to become fine, upstanding adults.

None of which she said to Doris. Instead she said, "Of course I remember him. How's he doing?"

"Just fine. He's an engineer over at Lockheed. We've got three kids. You want to see their pictures?"

"Of course."

Once Doris had fetched her purse from one of the desks on the other side of the counter and shown off the photos of her children, she laughed and said, "My, I've just been rattling on, when y'all probably came in here for something important. What can I do for you? Marriage license?"

"Good Lord, no," Phyllis exclaimed before she could stop herself. She was immediately embarrassed, and so was Doris.

Sam just kept a pleasant smile on his face, though, as Doris said hastily, "I, uh, remembered that your husband passed away a few years back, Miz Newsom, and I just thought ... I mean, since you came in with this gentleman."

"Sam Fletcher," he said, coming gallantly to Doris's rescue. He reached over the counter and shook hands with her. "Pleased to meet you, Doris:' he went on with the easy familiarity that seemed to come naturally to him. "Phyllis and I are friends. We're working on some ... genealogical research."

"Oh," Doris said, clearly relieved that no one was offended. "Well, you've come to the right place.

We've got records here stretching all the way back into the eighteen hundreds."

"We don't need to go back that far," Phyllis said. She didn't know exactly when old Mrs.

Boatwright had died, and she supposed they should have come armed with that knowledge. "Maybe fifty years or so:'

"Any records in particular?"

"Last wills and testaments," Phyllis said.

Doris lifted a gate in the counter. "Well, come on back. I'll show you where those record books are."

When Phyllis saw the long rows of file cabinets, she realized what a daunting task she and Sam had set for themselves. It might take days of looking through the record books before they found the last will and testament of bonnie Boatwright's mother.

"Any particular year you want to start with?" Doris asked.

Sam took his cell phone out of his pocket and said, "Hold on a minute."

Phyllis hadn't heard the phone ring, but maybe he had it set to vibrate. But rather than answering a call, he opened the phone and appeared to make one, poking at keys on the keypad for a good five minutes instead of talking into the blasted thing. Doris looked like she was starting to get a little impatient when Sam finally closed the phone and said, "Nineteen sixty-eight. Starting with May of that year, if you need it narrowed down more."

Doris nodded and turned to the file cabinets, opening one of them and running a fingertip along the spines of the large, leather-bound books that were filed inside it. While she was doing that, Phyllis tried not to stare at Sam.

"Here you go," Doris said as she hauled out one of the books. "What you're looking for should be in this volume. It covers April, May, and June of that year, and then the volumes continue on after that if you need any more of them:' Again she ran her finger along the line of books.

"Thank you for your help," Sam said.

"Oh, it was no problem. And I'm sorry about that marriage license mix-up before."

"Don't you worry about it," Sam told her.

"Y'all can use this table right here," Doris added. She set the book on the wooden table in front of the filing cabinets. "Thank you, Doris." Phyllis said. "You've been a big help."

"Not as big a help as you were to me, Miz Newsom. I always enjoyed your class."

"That's nice to hear. You were a good student."

Doris smiled, nodded, and went back to the front counter, leaving Phyllis and Sam there with the record book. As they sat down, Phyllis opened it, but before she began looking through it, she asked quietly, "How in heaven's name did you do that?"