Preserving Peaches Read online

  The enclosed staircase was narrow, with a curve that amplified the claustrophobic feel. The walls sported ancient, peeling paint, and the stair treads were well worn. Clearly the house’s restoration had not included the attic.

  “Answer the question.” The padre started up the stairs. “Did you?”

  I snatched at the hem of his black sweater, trying in vain to halt his progress. “You’re not going up there, are you?” I whispered. “Why are you going up there?”

  “Just giving the lady what she wants.” He’d reached the top. The light jittered around. “A private place to chat.”

  Sexy Beast didn’t like this any better than I did. He began to gripe, forming his little mouth around sounds that were clearly meant to mimic the cadence of human speech. Whenever he did that, I was always tempted to say, “Enunciate!”

  Good luck shutting up SB when he was in a complaining mood. Anyone passing in the hallway was likely to hear him. Reluctantly I followed the padre up the stairs and stepped onto the attic’s wide floorboards. The flashlight barely illuminated our immediate area, leaving both ends of the huge room cloaked in impenetrable darkness. I spied a brick chimney stack and a scarred wooden trunk. And cobwebs. Lots of thick, dust-choked cobwebs festooning the rafters.

  I scooted closer to Martin. “There must be a light switch.”

  “None that I could find.”

  My nose wrinkled. “It’s so musty.”

  “More like something crawled in here and died.”

  “Ew, you think so?” I said. “I don’t know, the smell’s not that strong.”

  “A rat maybe. Raccoon.” The padre swept his flashlight around, but the light failed to penetrate the edges of the room. Which was just as well. I had no desire to see an ex-raccoon. “Could’ve been here for weeks,” he said, “months even. Smells fade over time.”

  “That must be what’s freaking SB out,” I said. “With his high-powered schnoz, he could probably tell us the poor critter’s species, age, gender, and cause of death.”

  “Not to mention its precise location.” Martin started to wander, aiming the light at the sides of the room, revealing a dilapidated chest of drawers and a stuffed armchair furry with dust and cobwebs.

  “This must be where the maids slept.” I nodded toward a pair of rusted iron bedsteads pushed against opposite walls, sporting sunken mattresses and mismatched spreads.

  “Cozy.” His tone was arid.

  I pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. “What I want to know is, why do they keep it so warm up here? It must be over eighty degrees.”

  He shrugged. “It’s cold out.”

  I stuck close to him. “But why heat the attic when it’s not, you know, being used for anything? I mean, it’s obvious no one’s been up here for ages. SB, will you please give it a break?” His grumbling had turned to sharp whines that skewered my brain like an icepick.

  Martin tipped the flashlight under his own chin to spookily illuminate his face, which elicited a shriek of alarm from Sexy Beast and did nothing to calm my own abraded nerves. “We’re getting off-topic,” he said. “Answer the question.”

  “What question?” I asked.

  “Did you really throw away all those mementos from your marriage?”

  “Yes! You know very well that I’m over Dom. Give me that.” I grabbed the flashlight from him and aimed it straight into his face.

  “How am I supposed to know that?” he asked.

  “Because you overheard us talking about it, me and Dom.” I cut Martin off as he started to respond. “Don’t you dare deny it. I know you were lurking outside my bedroom doorway that day, eavesdropping. It was back in January, right after I took a bullet in the butt and nearly drowned.”

  Specifically what he’d overheard was me telling Dom, If breaking up with Bonnie is right for you, then that’s what you should do. But don’t assume I’ll be waiting to take her place. I’d accused my ex of hedging his bets, of trying to secure a commitment from me before breaking it off with Bonnie. Which I suppose made sense from the perspective of a man who couldn’t abide being alone. Dom Faso was Mr. Serial Monogamy, never remaining single for long.

  Martin studied me for long moments that were punctuated only by SB’s increasingly frantic whining. Finally he said, “You were in an emotionally fragile state that day, Jane. I’m sure Dom won’t hold you to your words.”

  Imagine my frustration when all I had to whack him with were a two-inch flashlight and a small dog in the throes of a minor meltdown.

  I forced nonchalance into my tone. “I admit it took me too long to get over Dom, but I did. That chapter of my life is done. Finito. It’s time to cut my losses and move on.”

  “To what?”

  “To who, I think you mean.” I kept the light aimed at his handsome mug, third degree – style, as I said, “I’m expecting a birthday call from Victor. Did you know he asked me to move in with him in Paris?”

  The padre’s gaze sharpened. He went very still. Victor Dewatre was a certifiable French hottie, the brother of a local Crystal Harbor chef who was murdered in his restaurant last fall. Victor had bunked at my place for a month during the investigation, and we’d grown quite fond of each other. Not that we’d done anything about it—anything, you know, physical—but Victor had indeed asked me to move to Paris, or at least go for an extended visit. And once I did, well, it was anyone’s guess what might happen then.

  Thank you for your guess, Captain Obvious. I was trying to be coy.

  As flattered as I was by the persistent attentions of my French hottie, I was still hoping a certain American hottie would step up to the plate.

  The hottie in question plucked the flashlight from my fingers and turned it off. I found my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I could now make out a small window set into the far wall about ten yards behind him. There was no moon that night. The faint glow through the grimy glass came from streetlights and nearby buildings.

  The padre’s voice was tight. “I think that would be a mistake.”

  “What?”

  “You know what,” he said. “Moving to Paris. That’s just... You don’t even really know the guy.”

  As diverting as it was to finally have Martin on the ropes, I found it impossible to give him my full attention. Vague shapes had begun to take form in the shadowed recesses near the window.

  “I can’t see you doing that,” he continued, “pulling up stakes and abandoning everything, your whole life here, on a whim.”

  I squinted, struggling to identify what I was looking at. Some sort of small desk if my guess was right, facing the window. With a chair in front of it.

  “So... what?” he said. “Some French guy crooks a finger and you come running?”

  I knew I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was seeing, because that was just nuts.

  “Jane?”

  “Huh?”

  The padre spread his arms. “Am I talking to myself here?”

  “Yeah. I mean no, just... give me that.” I took the flashlight from him again, turned it on, and started making my way toward the window. The beam of light didn’t reach that far. It quivered over the rafters, the scarred floor. I passed a broken teacup, a pile of disintegrating newspapers, a white enameled vessel I assumed was a chamber pot.

  “What is it?” Martin’s hand settled on my back, grounding me. Now he was the one squinting into the gloom. “What do you see?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. Nothing, probably.”

  Sexy Beast didn’t think it was nothing. He scrabbled up my shoulder, clinging to my neck and giving me an earful of his displeasure.

  “Okay, we’re leaving this nasty place,” I assured him in a quavering voice. “Jane just has to check something out first.”

  The circle of light finally reached the desk and chair.

  “Whoa,” Martin said.

  “What is that?” I whispered. He didn’t answer.

  Something sat in the chair. It had a human shape, but it wasn’
t human, it couldn’t be. We were facing the back of the thing, which wore a peach-colored dress. A scarf encircled its neck. A navy-blue jacket was draped over the chairback.

  “Some sort of, um, mannequin,” I said. It’s funny what you can convince yourself of when your brain refuses to register what all your senses are screaming at you.

  Numbly I moved around the chair to take in the silhouette, and gasped. “There’s some—some sort of—of animal on its—its face.” I raised a shaky hand to point to the front of the thing’s bald, cobweb-draped head, which was tipped forward. A pale, furry something was perched there.

  Martin commandeered the flashlight. Scanning the immediate area, he located a rusty fireplace poker, which he used to lift the furry object and fling it to the floor. We watched it land. It wasn’t an animal, we now saw, but a wig. A blonde wig with wavy, chin-length hair.

  The beam of light returned to the “mannequin.” The padre and I groaned in unison and took a giant step back.

  It was a human face, all right, the flesh now leathery, the features sunken and shriveled, as were the hands and exposed forearms. The head wasn’t bald as I’d first thought. The corpse’s dark hair was compressed under a close-fitting, beige wig cap.

  Yellow rope encircled the body’s torso, securing it to the chair. The wrists were tied to the chair arms, and the ankles to the front chair legs.

  The source of the room’s excessive heat became evident when I spied one of those portable oil-filled radiators, plugged into a nearby socket and cranked to high.

  “Come on.” Martin took my arm. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Sexy Beast seconded that suggestion with a warbling howl that was all too easy to translate. I tried to warn you, but would you listen?

  2

  That’s Why They Call You the Death Dame

  “YOU GOTTA HELP SEAN!” Cheyenne O’Rourke leaned across the counter and seized my wrist with more force than I’d have thought the lazy teenager capable of.

  “What? Ow.” I’d just stepped into Janey’s Place, the vegetarian café on Main Street owned by Dom. Actually, this was the flagship location of a health-food empire that had begun as a lowly food truck way back when we were dating.

  That’s right, he named it after me. How astute of you.

  I didn’t have much use for ninety-nine percent of the offerings at Janey’s Place—I mean, my ideal meal is Buffalo chicken pizza, orange soda, and a chocolate croissant—but this joint made a smoothie that was as yummy as any milkshake, with papaya and ginger and who knew what else. Despite my aversion to most of its menu items, Janey’s Place always smelled heavenly, like Grandma’s house if Grandma had been a master chef in a previous life. And a hippie in another.

  It was around noon on Monday and I was already running late for a meeting with a prospective client, but my empty stomach was squealing like the geriatric brakes on my Mazda, thus the decision to suck down a quick smoothie on the way.

  The potential client, Betsy van Heel, was considering hiring me to get in touch with her husband, Harvey, whom she hadn’t heard from in a long time. I hear you thinking, But, Jane, you’re the Death Diva. Isn’t that a job for a private investigator? Not when the husband in question, owner of a successful chain of liquor stores, had been marked permanently out of stock fourteen years earlier.

  I informed Betsy that although I had over two decades of experience in my admittedly bizarre chosen profession, my skill set did not include chatting up the deceased—whereupon she informed me she was willing to shell out a thousand bucks if I made a sincere effort to do so, plus a whopping twenty thou in the event I actually succeeded. She’d already spent far more than that on mediums, psychics, and assorted charlatans, and wanted to see what a “real professional” could do. Using, you know, science and stuff.

  I had no hope of earning the eye-popping bonus, but a cool grand just for giving it the old college try? Couldn’t hurt to hear the lady out, right?

  Which I’d never get a chance to do if Cheyenne didn’t relinquish her death grip on my wrist. The lunchtime rush was getting under way and hungry customers were lining up behind me.

  “Cheyenne, I just want to order a—”

  “He didn’t do it!” she shrieked. “You gotta help him.”

  That’s when I noticed that the tattoo she’d been sporting on the side of her neck for the past couple of months—an inexpert rendition of the name Brian in script—had been crossed out with a large X. A new name now adorned the other side of her neck: Sean. This tattoo was as amateurishly executed as the Brian tat. Both it and the X had that raw, scalded look that told me they were recently inked.

  From somewhere in the grumbling queue behind me I heard Beau Battle call out, “Is anyone else working here? I’ve got to get back to the gallery.”

  Cheyenne abandoned her post, emitting an ear-splitting “Daddy!” as she tottered around the counter on her mile-high platform boots and yanked me out of line. Patrick O’Rourke, the manager, emerged from the back office, looking annoyed if not particularly surprised. His daughter’s work ethic, or lack thereof, was not exactly news to him.

  I struggled in vain to reclaim my arm as she hauled me away from the food-service area into a section of the café that served as a natural-foods grocery store, deserted at the moment except for us. Here, those who were so inclined could purchase all manner of fair-trade this, locally sourced that, and gluten-free everything. Sorry. Until Janey’s Place began stocking Fruity Pebbles and Cherry Garcia, I’d continue to purchase my vittles at the huge, brightly lit Super Stop & Shop.

  “Cheyenne, whatever this is about, I can’t discuss it now. I have a meeting that’s supposed to start—” I glanced at the wall clock and muttered a naughty word “—this very instant.”

  Despite Cheyenne’s well-nourished figure, she wore her usual work uniform of an apple-green Janey’s Place tee knotted at her pillowy midriff over a pair of skintight striped leggings in shades of purple, pink, and yellow.

  “Sean didn’t do it,” she sobbed, as I finally wrenched my arm free.

  “Is he your new boyfriend?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “How did you know?”

  I gestured toward the fresh tat, which she was vigorously scratching with long fingernails painted toothpaste-green.

  “Huh?” she said. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “What happened to Brian?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  Through a valiant effort I managed not to smack my forehead. I pointed to the other side of her neck.

  Cheyenne offered a dismissive flap of her hand. “Oh, I, like, dumped that loser.”

  Hence the permanent X tattooed over his name. Cheaper and quicker than laser removal, I supposed. If it was true that she was the dumper rather than the dumpee, I could only wonder just how much of a loser a guy had to be to earn a dumping by the likes of Cheyenne O’Rourke—someone who’d willingly had his name permanently affixed to her body in a highly visible location. This, after knowing the guy for maybe a week and a half. I hoped for her sake this Sean was ink-worthy. She didn’t have that much neck space left.

  “So what’s the deal with Sean?” I’d given up hope of snagging a smoothie. My sole mission at this point was to hightail it out of there in time to salvage my meeting. “Make it quick.”

  “They arrested him!” she screamed, turning the heads of everyone waiting on line for lunch. “It’s, like, totally unfair!”

  “Keep your voice down, Cheyenne.” I steered her to the back wall, which was lined with self-serve hoppers filled with organic foods in bulk: exotic teas, dried fruits, nuts, beans, grains, granolas, and assorted so-called snack foods. I mean, quinoa-matcha protein balls? I couldn’t imagine being that hungry.

  “What was Sean arrested for?” I asked.

  “Murder!” she howled. “They think he killed his mom.”

  It took me a couple of seconds, but eventually my distracted brain caught up. Gertrude Gillespey, the deceased individual Martin and I ha
d discovered in the attic of the Crystal Harbor Historical Society two days earlier, had been the victim of foul play, according to the authorities.

  What gave it away? you ask. Hmm... Could it have been the stout ropes binding her to the chair? How about the silk scarf knotted tightly enough around her neck to cut off air flow?

  The scarf was printed with a lovely, Asian-looking watercolor image: ripe peaches hanging on a tree. Gertrude’s nickname had been “Peaches,” a lifelong moniker she’d embraced and encouraged. According to one rumor I’d heard, the last person to call her Gertrude had ended up quitting his job, selling his house, and moving to Lithuania to get away from her. You might think that’s an exaggeration, but no one who’d known Peaches doubted it for an instant. When folks were feeling polite, they called her a “character.” You probably don’t want to know what they called her most of the time.

  Peaches had managed to monetize that irascible attitude in the form of “Peaches Preaches,” the advice column she’d penned for the past decade. It was published in print and online in You Know It, a slick pop-culture monthly with a readership in the hundred-million range. Readers wrote in asking for counsel on subjects ranging from domestic squabbles to workplace problems to the ever-popular sex and romance. Peaches’s responses fell into three categories: Insulting, Outrageously Insulting, and I Can’t Believe They Let Her Print That.

  Everyone in town knew Peaches had been missing since shortly after Thanksgiving. Her family had filed a missing-person report. The police had investigated and come up empty.

  And all that time her corpse had been sitting up there in the attic of the Crystal Harbor Historical Society. It was a case of natural mummification, according to the medical examiner. Turns out that can happen in dry environments like that overheated attic. The bacteria that cause decomposition need moisture to do their necessary but admittedly icky work. Peaches’s body underwent a rapid drying process which retarded bacterial activity and turned her into the equivalent of human jerky.