What a Peachy Night (EBOOK)

Chapter 1: Strange Peach

"Rain, rain, go away," Momma Peach said as she looked out onto a rainy street filled with wet buildings and wet cars. "Sunshine come out, bright and light this gloomy day."

"I love rainy mornings," Michelle told her. She jumped up to sit on the front counter of the bakery and took a sip of coffee. "The rain is always soothing to me."

"Sometimes a warm blue sky is more soothing to the cash register," Momma Peach told her as her eyes wandered up and down the street. "Not much business is going to be done in weather like this," she sighed and closed the front door to the bakery. "I guess I will spend the day baking my famous peach bread. What else do I have to do on a day like today?"

Michelle studied her face with a smile. "You're still sad because Timmy is in school, aren't you?"

Momma Peach strolled around the front room and straightened the displays of pies, bread, cookies, and cakes. "Little Timothy didn't seem too happy about going to school this morning. And let me tell you, hot pancakes and eggs always put a smile on his sweet face. But not this morning, no sir and no, ma'am. That child was upset about something, but he wouldn't let a single word leave his mouth."

She sipped her coffee. "Well, we've only been home a week. Give him time."

She walked to the front display window and studied the rain. "Winter rain," she sighed. "Well, at least we got some warm sun on that nice island." She stared out at the wet landscape with her brow creased as if the memory brought her no joy at all.

Michelle jumped down from the counter and walked over to Momma Peach. "Momma Peach?" she asked in a worried voice.

"Yes, Michelle?" she asked back without taking her eyes from the rain.

"What's really bothering you?" she asked in a concerned voice. "You've been acting strange ever since we got home."

Momma Peach stood silent for a couple of minutes as her eyes wandered around outside. She felt safe standing inside of her bakery but outside in the rain, something dark could very well be roaming around, waiting for her. "Baby," she finally spoke and looked Michelle in her eyes, "ever since I got home, I've been feeling that something ain't right. And let me tell you, I trust that feeling. I ain't no dummy. I know when the wind is dark, yes sir and yes, ma'am. Maybe I ain't a fancy detective that handles cases with style and design, maybe I'm a little messy around the edges sometimes, but I ain't a dummy."

Michelle studied Momma Peach's eyes. "Momma Peach, you're a very brilliant woman and an amazing detective. Very creative, very intuitive. I would never consider you a dummy."

"I know that," she said and looked down at her usual blue dress. "I guess I mean that I color outside of the lines sometimes, but that's the way life is. And boy oh boy, did that last case ever wear me down but good. But I always fight through to the end, and I don't throw down my box of crayons until the picture is finished." Momma Peach raised her eyes. "What I'm trying to say is that I go by my heart and gut to figure out things, people, situations, and right now my heart and gut are telling me that something dark is out in that rain. I believe my little Timmy feels it, too. That's why he was upset at breakfast this morning."

She wasn't sure what to say. She looked outside and noticed the rain slowing to a halt. The forecast called for a thick fog that would linger over the winter landscape like a dark claw for three days. She thought perhaps the weather might turn for the better after all. "Rain is letting up. Would you like to walk down to the diner and get a slice of pie?"

Momma Peach rolled her eyes. "Oh, I ain't up to fussing with Mrs. Edwards this early in the morning, no sir and no, ma'am. That old woman is probably sitting on her stool right now watching innocent folk eat her awful cooking." Momma Peach shook her head. Her heart wasn't in the right place to joke around about Mrs. Edwards, much as she hated to admit it. She turned away from the display window and walked away.

Michelle shoved her hands down into the pockets of her leather jacket and followed her into her kitchen. The kitchen smelled of delicious spices and hot coffee. Of course, when she saw Old Joe sitting on Momma Peach's baking table, she knew the air would be transformed by the scent of war. "Get your lousy rear end off my table!" she yelled and smacked his legs with her right hand. "My customers don't need the taste of your backside in their bread and pies!"

Old Joe let out a yelp and jumped down. "Okay, Momma Peach, okay. Don't get so fired up. I was only taking a rest."

She studied the brown pinstripe suit he was wearing. The man still resembled a street hustler and pool shark, no matter how much she tried to reform him. She rolled her eyes. "Old Joe, why don't you dress in something nice for a change?"

He huffed and tugged on his suit. "These threads are my style, Momma Peach," he said in a proud voice.

"Those threads, you crumpled-up poker card, makes you look like a ten-cent felon who has not been shopping since he got out of the big house after a couple decades," she fussed. She walked over to the kitchen counter, grabbed a brown coffee mug, and poured herself a cup of coffee. "Why are you in my kitchen anyway? You should be home sleeping."

"You did get in really early this morning, Joe," she agreed. "You look exhausted."

"Oh, don't worry about Old Joe, ladies," he smiled. "I had a great trip and I'm just winding down some. Besides, I wanted a fresh cup of java before bed. The java they serve at the airport tastes like dirt."

Michelle watched Momma Peach roll her eyes. "I can imagine what kind of trip you had back there in St. Louis. Why, I bet you hustled a few pool games and picked a few pockets, didn't you?"

Old Joe sighed. "Momma Peach, I'm a changed man. Why are you riding my back so hard, huh?"

"Because you probably hustled pool and picked pockets, you back-alley skunk."

He rubbed his face. "I didn't pick no pockets," he finally said.

She shook her head. "How many pool games did you hustle?"

"Only, four," Old Joe confessed. "But a man has to eat, Momma Peach. Not my fault folks are such lousy pool players these days. It hardly counts as a hustle if I win on talent, Momma Peach."

"Me and Mr. Sam lined your pockets with traveling money, you old fraud," she said with weariness. She wasn't in the mood for him. Her heart and mind were worried. "Oh, go on home and get some sleep. I will fuss at you later."

Old Joe gazed deeper into Momma Peach's eyes. "Hey, now, something is bothering you, isn't it? Why, sure. Look at your eyes, why, you're as worried as a cat stuck in an alley full of hungry dogs."

She took a sip of her coffee and glanced around her kitchen. "Old Joe, you ain't seen no, stranger around, have you?" she asked.

"Stranger?" he asked. "Momma Peach, my cab pulled into this here bakery hardly an hour ago. I ain't had no time to see a stranger." Old Joe looked at her. "Do you know what this is about?"

Michelle bit down on her lip and shook her head no. "Momma Peach, talk to me," she pleaded. "You're my only family. When you're worried, I'm worried."

"I know that," Momma Peach told Michelle in a loving voice. She set down her coffee, walked to the back door, opened it, and studied the back alley. The alley was wet and empty and dark under the low gray clouds of winter. "Just like the heart of man is always dark," she whispered and closed the back door and locked it tight. She turned to Michelle and tried to chase away her feeling with words. "Mr. Sam and Rosa drove out to Texas to see Millie. Maybe I'm just a little lonely, is all. Mandy is away with her folks visiting a sick relative. Timmy is in school. Able took his momma to Atlanta. I just got you and Old Joe right here with me," Momma Peach stopped talking.

He rubbed his chin with a worried hand. "Momma Peach, you're one awfully worried woman."

"I am worried," she confessed. "But over what? I can't say. How can a person worry about a shadow she can't see?" she walked back to the kitchen counter and picked up her coffee. "I have a cold spot growing in my belly," she said in a serious voice. "There's something out in this here rain. I just know it."

"Rain is letting up," Old Joe pointed out. "Cab driver told me there's a heavy fog advisory out for this area. He said the fog is supposed to be real thick, too."

"Oh dear," Momma Peach sighed. "I would rather have rain than fog. At least you can see through the rain."

Michelle walked over to her and gently gripped her left shoulder. "Momma Peach, talk to me. Please," she pleaded. "What are you worried about? Did someone threaten you? If they did, you know I'll smash their face,"

"No, no one has threatened me, yet," she told her.

"Yet?" she pressed.

Momma Peach dropped her eyes. "I know there's a dark shadow lurking out there somewhere.I feel it in my bones. But there ain't nothing to hide from that I can see. Not yet. But my heart and gut never lead her astray."

"What is it you feel, exactly?" Michelle asked.

"I don't know," she said. "It's like waiting for a light bulb to pop and darkness to fall, you just never know when that light bulb is going to quit on you." Momma looked deeply into her worried eyes. "I have made a whole lot of enemies through the years and I'm sure I ain't done adding folks to my list, either. I can't stand around all day investigating every person I've helped send to the slammer, no sir and no, ma'am. But my guess is that one of those folks might be lurking about somewhere."

"Make me a list, Momma Peach, of every person you believe might have a grudge against you and we'll drive down to the station together and run the names," Michelle ordered in a quick voice.

"Hey, hey," he jumped into the conversation, "that sounds like a mighty fine idea to me. Sure wouldn't hurt to know if someone you sent up the river is now paddlin' back down the river to settle an old score with you, Momma Peach."

She bit down on her lip and studied the offer. "I guess I don't see no harm in running a few names," she said in a careful voice. "Okay, I'll make you a list."

"Good," she said. She ran into the front room, grabbed a pencil and a pad of paper sitting next to the phone, and made her way back to the kitchen. "Okay," she said and handed it over to Momma Peach, "get to work."

Momma Peach clutched the pencil in one hand and began to pace around her kitchen, slowly tapping the pad of paper against the side of her leg while Old Joe and Michelle watched. "Well, there was that crazy man I helped Detective Street catch, way before you came here," she told her and jotted down a name. "Willy Gravel," she explained. "Willy Gravel killed a local lawyer who helped his wife divorce him. The crazy rat was very clever in the way he killed that poor lawyer, too. But I did myself some thinking and managed to catch Willy, who at the time was a lawyer himself."

"My, my," he said like he had tasted a bad piece of burned food, "folks sure do some rotten things."

"Sure do," she agreed. "Willy Gravel swore to get even with me. I believe the crazy rat meant his words, too."

"I'll run him," Michelle promised.

Momma Peach continued to pace. "Then there's Verna Wilson, a young girl who killed her boyfriend."

"I'll run her," she promised.

"Don't run Verna Wilson, run her mother," she explained. "Rhonda Wilson was the person who threatened to kill me after I proved she pushed her daughter to kill an innocent young man."

"Goodness," Old Joe said and shook his head.

Momma Peach wrote down the names of Rhonda and Verna Wilson and continued. She walked her thoughts back through time. "Way back in the day when I was green behind the ears, I helped Detective Street catch a man named Dylan Malone. Dylan Malone was a drifter who stopped in our town. He began targeting cops."

"I read about him," Michelle told Momma Peach. "His name is well-known around the station. He killed three cops." Michelle folded her arms. "You helped track him down, Momma Peach. Dylan Malone is the one who made you, in a sense, famous."

"Not famous," she corrected Michelle. "I was sure green behind the ears, and my brain wasn't experienced in thinking people's motives out. I just happened to figure out that Dylan Malone was the killer after seeing him watching a cop car right outside my bakery." Momma Peach pointed to the front room. "I saw the monster standing right in front of my display window watching Officer Dalton getting into his patrol car. It gave me a funny feeling in my gut. So what did I do? I followed the monster and found him hiding in an empty rental home four blocks away from the police station, surveilling the route all the patrolmen took in and out of the parking lot."

"Don't matter one lousy penny how you caught the rat," he pointed out. "The point is, Momma Peach, you caught a real bad killer and saved a whole bunch of people from being killed."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Dylan Malone set me down a hard path, Old Joe. After I helped capture him, well, I became known for my deeds. In a way, that kind of notoriety gets you chained to a life of crime-fighting, unofficially, of course. I love working with you, though." She winked at her.

Michelle kept her arms folded. "Did Dylan Malone say something to you after he was caught?" she asked.

"Not a word," Momma Peach said as a cold chill walked down her spine. "That monster just gave me a look. In fact, that look still turns up in my nightmares to this very day." she stopped pacing. "The monster received a sentence of life in prison. There's no way he escaped without us hearing about it. And I know for a fact he wasn't let out on parole. No, Dylan Malone must still be behind bars, but maybe you better check, just to be on the safe side."

She nodded her head. "I'll run every name you write down, Momma Peach," she said. Outside, the light turned hazy as a thin fog began to form. "In the meantime, you're not leaving my eyesight. Whether it's a gut feeling or just the gloomy weather, I'd rather you were safe than sorry. Get your raincoat on, okay? I'll pull the car around."

She watched Michelle hurry away. She looked at him. "Old Joe, maybe you better come to the station with us, okay? If there is a dark shadow lurking around, well, I don't need to say no more. We'll stop off and get Timmy, too."

He stared at Momma Peach. He had never seen the lovely woman look so worried before.